Is prison punishment?

I used to think that when a person commits a crime, the justice system provides a punishment. But that’s not how it is.

My punishment began the day the witness statements were read out to me, a full 18 months before I was sentenced in court. This was the moment I realized that I had harmed people, and the moment that my own view of myself was destroyed.

I had earned the suffering that followed, through my own foolish and selfish actions. It is right that I have felt pain, and I should never wish that I could have escaped it.

Through one and a half years of police investigations, legal proceedings, arrests, court appearances and postponements, I tried to shield my family from the shame that I had brought on myself. But as the media published story after story, the shadow engulfed them too. Without a doubt, this has been the greatest punishment of all. In addition to this, I lost my career, and though I have never harmed a child, I will never be able to have a family of my own.

Every morning for 548 days, my punishment began at dawn. As I awoke, drifting from sleep to the commotion of consciousness, the first thing I felt was my heart-beat, accelerating. Second by second, it gathered pace, as the reality of my new existence flooded back to me: sadness, deep and dark; and stress, gripping my guts, twisting and shaking me from the insides.

Every morning, for 548 days, this was my punishment.

Then I was sentenced in court. I was taken to prison. And on that day, finally, I was free.

Here in my cell, with each sunrise, I still think of those that I have wronged. But then I sit up… stand up… make a cup of tea… and continue with the work of redemption.