by Mary W Maxwell, LLB
Greetings, Your Majesty.
This letter concerns a man who has been in prison for 23 years for supposedly massacring 35 people at Port Arthur, Tasmania on April 28, 1996. Anyone who has looked at the facts knows that he is innocent, as he was truly incapable of the crime.
I understand that Australia’s Governor-General can issue a pardon, and that must mean that the queen, too, can issue the pardon. It was once said – before your lifetime – that the monarch has “a Court of Equity in her bosom.” That makes sense to me. There is no reason why mercy can’t override other factors, especially in a case where justice is not being reached via normal channels – for whatever reason.
It is lovely to hear these words, from the 1953 coronation service, with the Archbishop of Canterbury officiating. After delivering the Sceptre with the Cross into the Queen’s right hand, he says:
“Receive the Royal Sceptre, the ensign of kingly power and justice.”
And then he delivers the Rod with the Dove into the Queen’s left hand, and says: “Receive the Rod of equity and mercy. Be so merciful that you be not too remiss, so execute justice that you forget not mercy.”
It appears at 2.20 minutes in this tape:
A Short Bio of the Prisoner
Martin Bryant was born in May 1967 in Tasmania to Maurice, a British immigrant, and Carleen, a textile worker. They later had a daughter Lindy. Martin, with a reportedly low IQ, attended school, did self-employment jobs on farms, under his Dad’s tutelage, and had a girlfriend, named Petra.
He inherited a lot of money from a lady in the Tattersall family, Helen Harvey. Martin is said to have been a disturbed child and was a patient of the Tavistock psychiatrist, Eric Dax. He made many trips abroad on his own. When he was 25, his father died by drowning, allegedly of suicide. We have a report on Martin, of unidentified origin, which says that at age 21 he was tortured in hospitals in South Australia. That would go along with the Dr Dax connection.
Your Majesty, I am mentioning those personal things to illuminate the need for mercy. Not that a murderer should receive soft treatment, but Bryant did not do the massacre. Someone else did. In fact, it was a complicated operation involving six crime scenes. Many people think it was a set-up to lead to gun control and it certainly was quickly followed by gun-control legislation.
Elsewhere I have argued legally for Bryant’s innocence, but here I want to outline his suffering. The media demonized him to the nth degree, and even when he was 50 years old, bald, obese, and not looking happy, the media continued to ridicule him. This, of course, makes it hard for the public to see him as a respectable person.
Not that anyone “sees” him. He is sequestered in the medical part of the hospital. The mother visits him every few weeks, according to her autobiography. She is nearing 80. A friend of mine, Cherri Bonney, made a trip from Western Australia to visit him and was turned away on the highly implausible ground that he “does not want visitors.”
I recently visited a prisoner at a huge “maximum security” prison in the United States. I am not easily overwhelmed but even as I drove toward the building – more than a city-block long – I was simply shocked by its size and its drabness. To think that thousands of men were inside, many for drug “crimes,” unexpectedly shook me up.
Most of the women in the queue ahead of me were wives of prisoners. Some had made a trip of 7 or more hours, some with little kids in tow. What burdens they must carry, even though they did not break any law.
At least, though, in their case, the prisoner has a woman to look forward to seeing periodically, and especially when he finally gets out. As for Martin Bryant, he has no wife or girlfriend. For him to rejoin his mum means it will have to happen soon while she is still able to care for him.
We don’t know what’s “on his mind.” Bryant used to enjoy surfing. He used to like rabbit stew. He used to take pleasure in shooting at decoys of animals (not the real thing — and certainly not at people!). The public has only seen one photo of him in recent years. He is playing basketball or something, all by himself, within a caged-in area of Risdon Prison. There is reason to worry that Martin may die before we have a chance to bring justice. Then the whole Australian nation will feel rightly guilty.
As regards the appropriateness of a pardon issuing from Buckingham Palace, please know that a “committee of three” wrote to the Governor of Tasmania, Her Excellency Professor Kate Warner, but no reply was received. We also learned from the late Vanessa Goodwin that she, attorney general of the state, could write a “prerogative of mercy” to send the case back to the court.
I doubt if that road would succeed, and it would certainly be much more cumbersome than a pardon. The original judge, His Honour Justice William Cox, was lieutenant governor of the state at the same time he was Chief Justice (an arrangement I had never heard of before). After he retired from both posts, I wrote to him that I wished “the sadness and badness [of the Bryant affair] could be lifted.” He replied that he felt the same way.
Your Majesty, it is fun, in this day and age of bureaucracy, to realize that one person, your good self, can perform the magic pardon without seeking anyone’s help or permission. To write out the three words “I pardon Bryant” is all it would take. Very likely the British people and the Australian people would faint with joy at your generosity. It would indeed cause others to imitate you. The consequences could shock the world.
Please listen to what your ancestors’ bard had to say on the subject:
“The quality of mercy is not strain’d.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the heart of kings;
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.”
Australia asks you to show your earthly power like God’s. Maybe this is why they reminded you at the Coronation.
Thank you for listening.
Yours most respectfully,
Mary Maxwell, citizen of South Australia
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