Wrongfully convicted suffer: expert
Paranoia: Psychiatrist testifies Ivan Henry has improved since his release, but damage to his psyche will require longterm support
His arrest in 1982 and subsequent wrongful imprisonment led Ivan Henry to believe hidden machines were shaking his prison cell, causing it to move “as if on rails.”
Sheets of toilet paper left on his bunk carried secret messages; so did the matches and cigarettes carefully placed in what he considered coded arrangement.
Henry thought the authorities and fellow inmates at the old Oakalla prison were trying to drive him crazy as part of a conspiracy he couldn’t comprehend. The letters “BASK” burned into the roof of his cell seemed an obvious taunt — “basket case!”
Dr. Adrian Grounds, one the world’s leading experts on the wrongfully convicted, said Henry was suffering from paranoid delusions.
On Tuesday, he told Henry’s B.C. Supreme Court trial for compensation that the 69-yearold continues to display similar psychiatric symptoms as alleged IRA bombers and others released after being victimized by a legal system.
The damage to Henry’s psyche could be attributed to, and would not have occurred but for his arrest for a series of Vancouver sex assaults, his wrongful conviction and the 27 years of imprisonment that followed, Grounds said.
“He’s done pretty well (since his release in 2010),” he added. “There has been some improvement over six years, but (psychiatric issues) persist. They’ve not gone away.”
Grounds contested the suggestion, from a lawyer for the prosecutors denying liability in the case, that Henry had made “a remarkable recovery.”
“That would overstate my view,” Grounds said. “I think he has shown some improvement in his symptoms.”
Grounds spent three days interviewing Henry in March and says he remains profoundly disturbed — he shows signs of having post- traumatic stress disorder and displays paranoid thinking that is “modestly disabling.”
Henry still has symptoms of distress that are “not trivial,” he said.
Before he retired in 2010, Grounds taught forensic psychiatry at Cambridge University while also working clinically, particularly with prisoners in Northern Ireland.
He has been a l eading researcher on the psychological effects of wrongful convictions and did a landmark study of 59 cases that included the infamous Birmingham Six, alleged IRA bombers freed in 1991.
The difficulties such men and their families confront were found to be similar to those facing returning war veterans or those who have suffered a catastrophic life-and-death experience, Grounds said.
In the U.K., a handful of scandalous wrongful convictions led to the creation of a legislative scheme for compensation and Grounds has provided extensive evidence in those proceedings.
With more than 60 publications to his credit, he also provided evidence on the general effects of wrongful conviction to the inquiry into the Manitoba case of Thomas Sophonow, who received $2.5 million in 2003 for his four years in prison in connection with a 1981 murder.
“I’ve seen more of these people than anyone else,” Grounds opined.
These men have incredible difficulty re-adjusting, the specialist said. They are embarrassed, bitter at their treatment, anxious about their notoriety, and burdened with the feeling that everyone looks on them with the attitude that “there is no smoke without fire.”
One of the problems, he explained, was that family outside and the imprisoned inside mislead each other over the years — each re-assuring the other they are fine, shoring up the other’s spirits, and refusing to communicate their actual needs.
When they are reunited, they discover they don’t know each other.
From the time of his first conviction at 16 to his indefinite incarceration at 35, Grounds said Henry had been free for roughly only one day in two as an adult.
His upbringing could best be described as deprived and unstable — Henry was victimized and his offending undoubtedly began before his first conviction.
During his adult years, he racked up multiple convictions before being jailed in 1977 for a five-year stretch for attempted rape.
Grounds said Henry downplayed his psychiatric problems, believing his lack of mental fitness detracted from the legitimacy of his wrongful conviction claim.
Yet his account of his jail time before sentencing and afterwards has a “very bizarre quality” and was likely the beginning of a psychotic episode.
“He thought the floor was vibrating and some machinery under his cell was causing this,” Grounds said. “He described thinking the cell was moving as if on rails.”
Henry insisted such experiences were real.
“He is very sensitive to the suggestion being made in this case about him having any mental illness,” Grounds said.
“He wouldn’t like the conclusions I draw…. (He is) a proud man …(who) wants to present himself as strong and positive.”
Since his release, Grounds said, Henry has exhibited the same symptoms as someone with PTSD — vivid nightmares, very high levels of anxiety, hypervigilance.
He will need long-term support to deal with his loss of reputation, the stigmatization and disgrace, along with his paranoid views about the “malevolence of the authorities,” Grounds concluded.
The trial continues.