Illustrating Proof magazine for The Justice Gap

The Justice Gap is an online magazine campaigning about the difference between law and justice. The latest issue of its printed magazine, Proof, focuses on crime and punishment.

Here are my contributions. For Hardeep Matharu's feature on the lethal spice epidemic in prisons, I co-opted my House Model: 'Hold this stick of chalk and try not to look double-jointed.'








The body combines elements of that spice-induced dead-puppet flop with a bound figure from my NSFW blog:

One section of the magazine covers miscarriages of justice. Without access to Paddy Hill of the Birmingham Six I drew him from photos (then and now) - something I generally recoil from, but that's over-fastidious because artists copied photographs and daguerreotypes as soon as they were invented.

Editor Jon Robins's feature about the wrongful convictions of Sam Hallam and Victor Nealon is illustrated with my drawings from their combined, ultimately unsuccessful Supreme Court appeals about compensation in 2018. Sam Hallam served seven years in prison. Victor Nealon served 17 years.

Heather Williams QC on behalf of Hallam...

...and Dinah Rose QC on behalf of Nealon

Patrick Maguire (left, and see below) outside court before Hallam/Nealon appeals

A preview of the next issue of Proof, featuring justice in a time of austerity, highlights the case of a father with complex legal needs, separated from his wife and stuck in a 'legal aid advice desert' in Suffolk.

Nothing comes out of nowhere: at the back of my mind was a black and white family snap of a paddling moment which became my first attempt at a lithograph decades later:

Other illustrations include drawings by Patrick Maguire of the Maguire Seven, who was wrongfully imprisoned at the age of 14. There are also pictures selected by the Koestler Trust which encourages prisoners, secure patients and detainees to engage with art. Among the photographs are several by Andrew Aitchison who documents life behind bars. Art director: Andrew Stocks