Darkness is Closing In (Guest blog by Paul John Denham)

I met Paul's mother, Molly, at a Koestler Trust exhibition of prisoners' art in 2009. I was admiring one of Paul's portraits when Molly told me about her son's sad story as conveyed in this guest blog. Englishman Paul is suffering life without parole for a crime he never committed. His transfer to the UK prison system was denied, and he is going blind.

I have named this painting ’Darkness is Closing in’, because I suffer from a genetic eye condition that leads to blindness, and this painting expresses sombre elements which have lead to my incarceration.

It is a self-portrait in which I wear a splint, I have beard stubble, and a blind man’s stick hangs from my right wrist. I stand in a pit whilst above me a silencer welding hoodlum and a Klansman shower me with disrespect.

I was arrested in 1997 and convicted in 1998 of two crimes that I did not commit. Both of the crimes occurred at night. Yet my trial lawyer failed to introduce into the trial that I am night blind. During one crime the victim described his attacker as clean shaven, wearing black gloves, and a red hooded sweatshirt. But my trial lawyer never introduced information that I had a fractured hand, I had beard stubble, and I didn’t own a red hooded sweatshirt.

Furthermore, before he died the victim made a statement that I was not his attacker. Yet, the judge did not allow the jury to hear this. Neither did he allow evidence about seven attacks on the victim’s home when it had been set on fire and painted ’Klu Klux Klan House’  The suspects to these were described as African Americans. I am white.

I told my trial judge that I had eye problems and he ignored this and passed sentence. Upon arrival in prison in 1998 I informed staff I suffered from blindness. They gave me a pair of glasses and told me to go away. I continued to complain and in 2012 I was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa. This is a condition that I was born with.

It starts with night blindness in adolescence and leads to total blindness. Today my vision is compared to looking through drinking straws.  Although I do not see the blind areas as blackness, they may as well be.  Because I am serving life without parole and no matter how hard I push on the walls around me. I can’t stop the darkness closing in.

Paul John Denham  Salinas Valley State Prison

Shaun Attwood