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Wrongful imprisonment: A Dialogue
with Sir Terry Waite KCMG CBE and Dr Adrian Grounds
Terry Waite was the Assistant for Anglican Communion Affairs for the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, in the 1980s. As an envoy for the Church of England, he travelled to Lebanon to try to secure the release of four hostages, including the journalist John McCarthy. He was a successful hostage negotiator but when visiting Lebanon was himself kidnapped and held captive, for much of that time in solitary confinement, from 1987 to 1991. After his release he wrote Taken on Trust (1994), a memoir about his experiences. He became involved in humanitarian causes and charitable work, including supporting long-term and wrongly convicted prisoners. Dr Adrian Grounds is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute of Criminology. He is a forensic psychiatrist with research interests in the needs of mentally disordered prisoners, provision of secure psychiatric services, and the psychological consequences of wrongful imprisonment. He has carried out psychiatric assessments with 64 individuals who were wrongly convicted and imprisoned. In this conversation, our two deeply experienced guest speakers will inquire together about the effects of wrongful imprisonment, drawing on their personal and professional encounters.