I am so lonely.. I've given away thousands to homeless people; ROBERT

AFTER being locked up for 25 years for a murder he didn't commit, he emerged from jail to a hero's welcome from supporters.

But one year on, Robert Brown is lonely, depressed and broke - even though he has been paid pounds 100,000 in compensation.

After so long behind bars the Scot had no idea how to manage his money.

And as he tells the Sunday Mirror today, he was so disorientated by his freedom he wandered the streets and gave the cash away to homeless people.

Now the 46-year-old is so skint he can't afford to pay his rent - and by vicious irony he could end up back in court for missed council tax payments.

"I didn't know the value of money inside," he explaine, "so when I came out and was given this money, I started giving loads of it away.

"I just dished out pounds 40 to homeless people in London, and I did the same in Glasgow. Maybe it would have been better if I'd taken them for a meal instead.

"Suddenly I went from having pounds 100,000 to having pounds 8,000. But now I'm skint. Life is hard, but it's harder when you have no money."

Robert was just 19 when he was jailed for life in 1977 for the murder of 51-year-old Manchester housewife Annie Walsh.

Then, 25 years later, when an Appeal Court ruled his conviction was unsafe, he walked free with just pounds 46 and a rail ticket to Glasgow.

A few weeks after his release he received an interim payment of pounds 100,000 compensation for being wrongfully imprisoned.

It was like giving a child a bag of sweets - and expecting him not to eat them all at once. He frittered the cash away on his hand-outs to down-and-outs, legal fees and travelling the country with miscarriage of justice campaigners.

At his council flat in Drumchapel, Glasgow, he said: "I'd like to go and live in a hot climate and enjoy a bit of life but that takes money. There's none left, so now I'm put in front of an employment evaluator and he tallies up the amount of money I should have had from 1977 to 2003.

"But what they're doing is they've put me in the lowest-paid wage packet possible - they've put me down as a manual labourer.

"Before I went to prison I worked on the oil rigs, in a shoe shop, in a pub, in a warehouse. I always had jobs.

"But how long will it take for them to figure this out and what am I meant to live off in the meantime?"

Robert is a changed man, and arguably a broken one too.

Gone is the bespectacled skinhead who emerged from an appeal court a free man on November 13, 2002.

Gone is the fighter who sought retribution and said he would stop at nothing to get it.

Now he's ditched his glasses and grown a thick head of brown hair in a bid to disassociate himself from the convict Robert.

And, after 26 years of fighting the system and those who labelled him a callous killer, he has had enough. "I really feel on the verge of a breakdown," he said. "I'm trying to suppress too much anger and pain.

"There are so many emotions swimming around inside me. I'm not sleeping, it's bordering on insomnia.

"I'd like to get my life into some focus. I might as well be on the yellow brick road at the moment."

Robert has had many highs and lows over the last 14 months and has tried to cram 25 years of lost living into every day of his freedom. But it's at a price.

He's lost a stone and a half in weight and has contemplated taking his own life.

"I can't describe the anger and pain I'm having to live with on a daily basis.

"I found it difficult when I got released to actually ask for help, and when I found there was nobody there to help me, it was hard.

"I'm sitting here today and you would think tht after 25 years of incarceration I would be overjoyed to be free. But my life is empty."

Robert's desire to keep fighting all but disappeared in November when his mum Margaret lost her own fight with cancer. She died just a year after seeing him walk free.

"My mum's cancer kicked in and once I lost my her I had a realisation that I had lost everything and everyone who was dear to me," said Robert, fighting back tears.

"There was no-one I could turn to to be loved, cared for, given help. So that was difficult. Everywhere I looked everyone else had families.

"That's not me trying to look for a sympathetic response, it's just facts.

"After her death everything started to go downhill. My mother was the only person who had been there for me from beginning to end.

"People say to me 'at least you had a year with her', but my response to that is that the system sent me out here to watch her die.

"She had three bouts of cancer and I believe the stress related to my conviction must have led to some of those illnesses. It's sad that my mother had to suffer that because of a corrupt system."

It's equally sad that, since his release, Robert has had difficulty forming relationships.

His one and only relationship since being freed was with a criminologist called Carol he met inside.

"We knew each other from prison," he said. "I only wanted a friendship because I didn't want to put any pressure on myself sexually and emotionally.

"Carol was a highly intelligent girl who looked like Amanda Holden. But I didn't want to be chained to anyone, I just wanted my freedom.

"I had been locked up for 25 years and I felt she was putting pressure on me by telling me she loved me."

Ever since he was released, Robert has campaigned energetically for an independent inquiry into the miscarriage of justice he suffered.

He has demanded the arrest of former Detective Chief Inspector Jack Butler, of Greater Manchester Police, who was the man behind his conviction.

Robert has also demanded the publication of the Topping report which detailed how Platt Lane police station, where Robert had been charged, was riddled with corruption during the 1970s.

Since Robert's release West Yorkshire Police have investigated Greater Manchester over their handling of the case, and the investigation into Annie Walsh's murder has also been reopened.

But now Robert finds himself up against brick walls at every turn.

He said: "I got the murder reinvestigation into Annie Walsh's murder reopened after six weeks.

"I felt the re-investigation was an act. It was just public relations.

"The investigation led by the West Yorkshire Police into the conduct of the Greater Manchester Police was shambolic.No-one will now answer any questions, it's just dead.

"I'd like to see Jack Butler being charged with perjury, perverting the course of justice, and brutality - and convicted of these charges. I'd then take a civil suit out against him.

"I feel as if I've been mentally and emotionally raped and I can't get answers from anyone now. They're quite happy to let it die down.

"For 25 years they buried me in bricks and bars and now they're just burying me in bureaucracy.

"Annie Walsh's family told me that they'd wished me the worst possible journey inside and I told them that they'd got their wish.

"When I met them it was very emotional. They'd spent so long hating me but now they couldn't be more vocal in their support for me.

"They have been right behind me and have also asked for an independent inquiry. But this is what we won't be given."

The world was a different place when Robert was jailed. It was the Queen's Silver Jubilee.

His time inside, which was partly spent alongside Reggie Kray and road- rage killer Kenneth Noye, has unsurprisingly left him scarred and unprepared for coping with life on his own.

He said: "I don't have any knowledge of housing benefits, income support, no real insight into technology, and I don't like sitting in large groups of people or going into pubs."

Robert does his best to look forward to the future with confidence - but he finds it quite difficult to move on.

Try as he might, he just can't shrug off all those wasted years - and who could blame him?

"Some days I'm up some days I'm down," he says. "Some days I can come out, some days I'll stay in the house and some days I feel trapped.

"I can't let my hair down and relax because I simply don't know who I can - or can't - trust.

"The system tried to break me and tried to condition me to accept guilt, and because I wouldn't, it actually made me the man I am. I feel that I don't belong out here."

And that's the life sentence he's been left with - quite apart from the years of life wasted behind bars.

Freed but not free. No longer a prisoner, but still imprisoned by the demons and anger that will never go away.

gsmith@mirror.co.uk

Copyright 2004 MGN LTD
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