A Fatal Punch: Why I Met the Parents of the Man I Killed (Jacob Dunne)

39:39And that's when it was confirmed that I was being arrested on suspicion of murder. And that's when I died. But in those days when the rumour mill started kind of bubbling away, and people were saying, actually, someone's actually died here. There's some, you know, people have been raided. Raf has been raided, your mate. You must have had something close to rising panic. Oh, my gosh. What was that like? absolute dread horror surprise shock oh awful awful awful feeling and you just disbelief just like no no no no like no not me like this fucking much crazier mates that you know walking around with knives and stabbing people and I'm like and I'm the one I'm just the average guy in the in the meadows I'm not I didn't try to act like I was the baddest man I wasn't trying to be the leader of the gang I was just the guy on the fringes who had nowhere else to go who was just fitting in where he is in his community and with his peers but that's that's the that's the cautionary tale is you don't have to be the maddest man you can get caught up in anything if you if you whether you're on the peripheries or not you know you can get caught up in one moment of madness and all of a sudden you're being sucked into the criminal justice system but also you must have thought so much could that one punch have killed him yeah I didn't even realise it could there was one incident in Nottingham a few years before mine you know bless the family where the same thing happened he fell over hit his head on a tram track tram lines and died and I remember going oh that would never happen to me and it did did you think when you'd hit him that it was a particularly brutal hit

41:47no I'd rather not think about it in too much detail okay because I would have thought that in those days of rising panic and dread part of you would be thinking I couldn't have I was just a punch yeah that was definitely like that's what was the surprise and the panic was like no like how could this happen to me what are the chances of all the punches that get thrown around the country every week that my punch was the one Was part of your calculation for handing yourself in that you thought obviously it's all going to be on CCTV you know you couldn't pretend it wasn't you Yeah I was in the middle of the town centre Raf had been raided some of your mates Friends had been raided Witnesses They already had some information to know who we were or that it was to even arrest me.

42:36So what was your calculation in handing yourself in? Did you think that by doing it, you could say? It was just because I had no other options.

42:48And I had nowhere to go. I had nowhere to go on the run. I had no resources, no money. May as well just go and face the music. And I knew my friend was in there on suspicion of murder. They thought it was him. Raph. another another okay yeah and i went and handed myself in all his family was outside the the police cells and like we're like like basically saying like respect to you jacob because you could have let us on if you wanted to like try and take the rap for this but i went and handed myself in and i didn't admit to it as soon as i walked in you know i took my solicitor's advice and you know you go no comment you wait to hear what evidence they've got and make you make you move from there how soon after that did the police say we're arresting you jacob done on suspicion of murder instantly as soon as i went in this they were like we're arresting you on the suspicion of murder i was like what murder like how's what you i haven't murdered anybody and then it was just like tell us what happened and i was just i was just out of it i was just numb to the world no idea what's going on all i I couldn't notice I'm just sitting there saying no comment.

44:01And, like, eventually I just stopped saying no comment. And they're just, like, back in the cell, back out, back in the interview room, back in the cell. They're just, like, trying to break me mentally. And I was just, like, what the hell is going on? Like, how am I going to – in my head, I'm like, how am I going to tell my mum that – because she's done the absolute best for me. Do you know what I mean? And, like, I've just let her down. or how am I going to, like, my life is, I didn't have any aspirations, but I definitely wasn't, this wasn't the plan. And that was like the first time where I was like actually realising that there was like some level of standard of like expectations for my life.

44:43They weren't very high, but I was like, fuck. Did you tell your mum everything? I told my mum, yeah, but she didn't believe me. she thought I was covering up for my mates. She's like, oh, it can't be you, you know, like... Not my Jacob. Not my Jacob. Did you tell your brother? No, I didn't tell my brother. Tried to keep him out of it. How old? He's quite a lot younger than you. Seven years younger, yeah. So he would have been... Twelve, right. Yeah. Just going into secondary school. One of the central scenes in the James Graham production punch is the courtroom. and there's quite a lot, which I presume you had a hand in, made of the fact that James Hodgkinson's mum doesn't go over and talk to your mum, which she later regrets.

45:34But also you don't make eye contact from the witness stand with Joan and David. And one of the reasons for that is because I didn't know who they were. I was in a courtroom full of people. I know that within this courtroom full of people, journalists, whoever else is in there, every Tom, Dick and Harry from the you know that's just been nosy that wants to come in within this room there are the family of the person responsible for killing so I'm just like so I'm just like I don't know who that is so I don't want to catch anybody's eye so I'm just like looking down at the floor and just like blank to the world Did you at this point know that it was manslaughter rather than murder?

46:17this point the charge had been dropped in manslaughter and i pled guilty but that's the thing about restorative justice and victims because in cases where people plead guilty none of the facts come out so they had no if there was a trial a lengthy trial they would have been cross-examining me you know what happened on the night leading up to the events cctv would have been shown in the courtroom i mean all this stuff you would have had doctors in and you know everyone would have been like and at the time they were grateful that i went guilty to save them the trial and to be able to have the funeral and do everything that they needed to do, to like at that time what they needed.

46:54But then what happened is as I was in prison, those questions that didn't come out in a trial started ruminating. Yeah, they have so many questions. And there's so many victims out there that have these questions that only the offender can answer. Only the perpetrator can answer those questions. It doesn't matter how good the justice system is. It doesn't matter how long you lock someone away up for. It doesn't get rid of the questions. it doesn't remove why did he pick my house why did they choose to rob me why how did they get into the how did they burgle me or you know why you know what happened that's the biggest question like what happened or why me yeah you know i mean those questions it doesn't matter how good the justice system is it's never going to be able to answer it it's never going to be able to help them well those are questions that started to come out in a completely extraordinary exchange of letters which you then sort of embarked on.

47:42Before that, you were in prison. What was prison like?

47:54Horrible. Horrible. At the time, it felt like... There was moments in there where it just felt fun. And being in an alternative provision, but like you don't go home at the end of the day. Like a school, for the listeners that don't know, an alternative provision is a place where people go, an alternative school for those that aren't in mainstream or get excluded. And so sometimes it felt like just being in school and it was just a bit of a big joke. But at the same time, it was horrible. You know, you see people like, yeah, I've seen people dying there, I've seen people self-harming and trying to kill themselves.

48:40you know, all sorts of, you know, all the most vulnerable people. Like I remember this one young man and he, he was so used to being homeless. He couldn't sleep on his mattress on his bed. Cause he's just used to sleeping on a hard floor. It's like, I can't sleep on a mattress. He took his mattress off his bed and slept on the metal bed. And I was like, what are you doing? Like sleeping on your bed? I can't. I'm so like, I'm just used to sleeping on hard surfaces. Huge amount of drugs in there. Like now, you look at independent monitoring boards and inspections, ranges between 40 % to 60%, any prison across the country, if you look at an inspection report, between 40 % and 60%, no matter what prison you pick, are on drugs, have drugs in their system.

49:32How is that possible? We've had the chief inspector. Sometimes people go, I went in there, I'd never smoked. I came out smoking tobacco do you know what I mean like I'd never even I wasn't a smoker I just smoked a bit of weed here and there and sold it but that came out full chain smoker obviously they've banned tobacco in prisons now it's all vaping but back then but the problem is now people are going into prison and picking up drug addictions of course this is insane and turning into career criminals turning into career criminals I think it's sort of like this weird statistic I had the other day 80 % of all crime is re-offending it is that yeah yeah 80 % of all kinds of reoffending.

50:09Why are prisons so ineffective at reducing reoffending? In other words, why is it based on your experience at this prison that people who go in are more likely to commit crimes and do things that are detrimental to communities and to society than they were before they went in? Because they don't get their needs met. So a lot of people would say, you know what, Jacob, your punch ended up with the death of someone. Criminals who are violent should be locked up. Yes, they've got needs, but what about the needs of their victims? We've been too soft on crime for too long in this country. If, you know, I've got children, I want violent people who throw punches to be kept away from them for as long as possible.

50:57I'd say, well, you know, you can't live in an authoritarian, you don't want to live in a democratic, liberal society with freedoms and you know you don't want to want to you know you can't we can't adopt the policy of just locking people up forever everybody's got to get out so do you want people coming out because every like 90 or whatever it is of people will come out of prison do you want them to kill more people do you want them to create more victims do you want them to contribute to society or be a burden on society that's the that's the vital question do you want people in prison to contribute to society or be a burden on society and the longer you have someone in prison over 50 grand a year to the taxpayer over 20 billion we pay for justice so it like it's it's insane it's also the daily impact of re-offending the daily impact of re-offending the re-victimization of people the families that are broken down the kids without fathers because they're in prison the revolving door of intergenerational trauma because that's the real thing because we look at adults offending behaviour and go oh my gosh that's totally you know send them to prison but behind every single one of those adults is like a traumatised child but I'm not someone that makes excuses for people either like a third of the prison population have been in care but only 1 % of the general population are in care.

52:32At the heart of it, we're going back to the radical idea, is the quality of the relationships. The quality of the relationships that people have in their lives defines the quality of their lives and the quality of their choices. So if we want to reduce harm, we need to look at society through the lens of relationships and that means taking a public health approach, that means trying to improve relationships wherever they are and that means in the prison itself because the prison people like prisons shouldn't be people say you should having your liberty taken away from you is the punishment but when you're there it should be about okay like how can like we make sure there's some good relationships happening in this place you know but if you're picking up drug addictions and you know like being exposed to violence all the time and you have no healthy relationships going on in there, no one that's going to rub off on you in a good way, then it's just the same old loop.

53:36It's worth saying, what you're saying is, by the way, totally backed up by all science. So we know from behavioral economics and social psychology and all the psychology that you studied that relationships and the ability to form good, meaningful, reciprocal relationships is the single biggest thing that sort of leads people towards fulfilling lives and happiness and meaning and purpose and all of that sort of stuff. That's got very big implications for young people in smartphones, by the way, because every time you're on a smartphone, you're not connecting with another human being, not properly anyway.

54:06But it was while you were in prison that James's parents, David and Joan, took the decision to establish contact with you. And you've obviously had the chance to speak to them about that in later life. but the impulse for them, because they had all these unanswered questions, they wanted to connect with you and they wanted to reach out to you. Yeah, I think, well, you know, they realised that me being in prison didn't actually make them feel any better and they knew I was going to get out. And what actually mattered to them was that I was aware of the impact and the harm that I caused and whether or not I could answer their questions as to what happened on the night so they could try and make sense of and make try and find some sort of meaning or make some sense of what happened and express the harm and to make sure that like i you know hopefully didn't be one of those people we've been talking about which most people are which is the re-offending and you know not learning my from my mistakes and wasting you know having two lives being lost essentially at what point did you decide that you wanted to pursue an education um so i came out of prison and then and then it was from when when i heard from david and jerry because they weren't allowed to contact me in prison and then they made contact with me through my probation officer when i got out of custody and after some exchanges for a mediator i answered all their questions and then they asked me a follow-up question which was jacob What are you going to do with your life?

55:45By letter. By, through a mediator. It wasn't even a letter. And just that act alone literally led to me sat here before you and a play in the West End. Just the person I harmed the most, judging, well, not even judging me the least, but at that moment, they were just curious about what I was going to do. and having the people who I'd caused such tragic harm to even take an interest in me made me want to take an interest in myself.

56:29I really hope you're enjoying this conversation with the remarkable Jacob Dunn. If you are, please do subscribe to this podcast on BBC Sounds. I know I always ask, but it's the most effective way of making sure that you don't miss future episodes, which I know you're very keen on. So if you do subscribe, make sure you've got push notifications turned on, and that way you will get an alert whenever we publish a new episode and you will never miss out. Thank you so much. And now back to Jacob Dunn. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed.

57:10But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

57:41What was it like getting out of prison?

57:45Well, it was New Year's Eve. I don't know why they let me out on New Year's Eve. right he likes to party he's like 2012 to new year's eve um and yeah and i went out with my friends um it felt a bit weird and then i had no fixed address and i was like sofa surfing i had no idea i had no plan like resettlement i could go into a resettlement team in prison going like i've got nowhere to live when i get out like what's the plan and i was just like you know, we have a line in the play, you know, there's a word of caution, Jacob, um, there's a, there's a long queue to wait for housing and there's no housing.

58:27It's just not changed. Right. So that, I bet that always, when I watched the play, that got a big laugh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny, but it's really also, also painfully not funny. At what point in this crazy story did, um, did you get the news about your mum? Um, so, I I start taking part In restorative Just as I come out I'm homeless Um Just Why are you homeless Can't you live with your mum Well I didn't want to move back In with my mum And bro Because I knew As a vulnerable young person I would get higher priority On the housing If I declared myself homeless If I went into my Live with my mum I'd be at the Back of a 10 year waiting list For housing For a flat and I didn't want to be in there with my mum because I knew she was deteriorating as an alcoholic and I wanted my own independence as an adult.

59:22I'd just been in prison, held my own in there. I don't want to be back in, you know, moving back in with my mum. She'd moved into this house, this rented accommodation place with my brother. My brother wasn't going to school, but social services didn't flag it. School didn't report it. So he was just like a care from home looking after her. I was like 15. I was like 15 years old. Not even that, 14 years old. And then I came out of prison to this. And I was just like, what the hell is going on? And I was like, trying to sort my own life out. Going around there, trying to help her. I was like, I took her to the GP.

59:56And I said to the GP, like, please help my mum. Like, she's dying. And she's like, if your mum didn't accept, she's got a problem. Then she can't get the help. And my mum would be like, oh, I'm only having, you know, two glasses a day or whatever. I'm like you're on two bottles you're on two bottles yeah and she's just so deep into the to the all addiction is an attempt it's pain management to really to manage the pain that they're feeling emotionally and she had a lot a lot of pain to manage she had a lot of pain to manage yeah what happened at the end and then in the end she turned yellow she had jaundice which was like a sign of liver failure so I rang that ambulance i was like please like come and get and then ambulance came took her to the hospital and then she was in hospital and i kept like i was up there like every day and social services got involved and like we're gonna put this care plan in place for when your mom comes home and um she's gonna get the support now all this all the relevant people came to like got involved the doctors are telling me she's gonna be fine some drips you know we're gonna like stabilize her so all the rest of my family stopped coming I would just be the one I got a car by this point passed my driving lesson and I was going and and I just started my GCSEs again and so like trying to sort myself out and you know try and support her and then I I was going up there every day and just like letting the family know she's alright you know and then all of a sudden I got a phone call from the doctor it's like on a Friday she'd been in the hospital a week and they're like Jacob you need to come in she's not going to make it past the weekend I'm like what?

1:01:43you just told me you told me she was going to be fine like everyone thinks she's going to come in home and we're all going to get the help that we need was she developing infections? and then she'd like just liver just completely failed shut down body stopped working the rest of her vital organs started failing did you get to see her before she died? yeah I was there with her the last the last 24 hours. Why did you not want that scene to be in a play? Because I'd have thought that must be one of the moments where you decide that you want to make something of your life. Well, do you know, because I was already in a relationship with David and Joan.

1:02:30I hadn't met them. I was in communication with them and they were telling me about their son and the harm I caused. But as a 21-year-old, I'd never experienced grief. And then I've got my mum in my arms, you know what I mean, that dies. And that was the first time I'd like felt a similar pain. And it made me have more empathy for David and Jen. That was the first time I experienced how it's not like losing a child, but this is as close as I'm probably going to be able to realistically put myself in their shoes in terms of what it feels like. And I was like, fuck. So it gave me more empathy towards them as well.

1:03:15Was your brother with you? My brother was there, yeah. Because he, looking after him, you sort of became a parent in that moment in a weird sort of way. I became his guardian, yeah. There's a big age gap or whatever, but sorting him out because he's only, what, 15 at this time is a big deal. so you've got a hell of a lot going on you've got this relationship with David and Joan I'm starting to study my GCSEs again and where did the impulse to study your GCSEs come from? It came from Joan and David asking me what are you going to do with your life and like I literally had no other option as someone coming out of prison with no GCSEs no work experience no CB like it was just like you've got to you've got to get GCSEs before you can even go on another course you just need your maths and English so I was like I'll do that I'll go back to college and I'm so grateful that I've studied I picked three GCSEs I did English maths and psychology and psychology is like and me that was such an important subject for me to study at that time because we were talking earlier about young people and why they end up being so pessimistic and what we're talking about is like social learning and conditioning of people and how they form the views that they have and the limiting values and the beliefs that they have and I was looking at the world and going like my mum has just died I'm a carer for my little brother and that's another thing but having responsibilities because when you go to prison it strips you of all your responsibilities and we want people in prison to be responsible and and but we strip them of all their responsibilities and it's like well actually we want them to come out we want them to pay bills we want them to pay taxes we want them to have a job we want them to have responsibilities and be able to meet those responsibilities so I was given a responsibility of caring for my little brother which was like I can't go back to prison my little brother goes into care what's he gonna do you know what I mean so that was like something that was that's a deterrent giving people responsibilities giving people something to lose not stripping everything off them so they've got nothing to lose what results do you get in your GCSEs?

1:05:27I got an A star in psychology I got an A star in English and I got a C in maths rubbish at maths man what happened there? you loser what's the matter? where's your mental arithmetic? simultaneous equations not your thing? no no no that is rubbish just enough to like work out like profits and you know if I buy a hundred pound of this stuff. Okay, so math's not your strong point. But you've got two A stars. Absolutely amazing. There's a lesson there, by the way, for everyone listening in who cares about education about how it is a weird thing that most human societies do, which is that they cram education into this very particular bit of your life.

1:06:10And we don't think... Very particular way of delivering it. Other things going on. And actually, as everyone who studies this subject ends up concluding, you should make education a lifelong thing. So you've got your GCSE, all owing and the fact you're here all owing to this one question which is joan and david saying to you through a mediator what do you want to do with your life now what are you going to do with your life which is obviously it's a very poignant moment obviously in the in the play as well um and meanwhile your communication with them which is part of the restorative justice idea and process is escalating and one day someone suggests a face-to-face meeting so originally they just wanted their questions answered and I answered their questions got their needs met and that can be that can be restorative justice in a nutshell it can be didn't even have to be face-to-face it can just be asking the questions that you need answered and then you that's it done but David and Joan then wanted to find out more about me is it always like the victim's family to sort of get to that level in it's just always led by the needs of everyone involved and what they want and if it's safe to do so then you'll proceed based on the needs of everyone the practitioners are just neutral people who mediated solely mediators whose sole intention it is is to make sure fundamentally that the victims get their needs met and they have their voice heard and they find neutral grounds i think it was in norfolk or something yeah it was in neutral ground so so we we were communicating and they said keep us updated with how you're getting on jacob because it's important to us that you don't slip off and you know end up like everybody else and and true lives aren't lost.

1:07:48So I had that as my motivator. I was like, I can't let David and Joan down. I can't let my brother down, who I'm now caring for. I can't let my mum down. My last words to her were, I'm going to make you proud. And then my goal from the restorative justice process was one day I want to be able to look in the mirror and say I'm proud of myself. That was my goal. So I got all these kind of like responsibilities, expectations, people, like huge people in my life that I'm like making promises to right and there's one on a deathbed one whose son I've killed you know my brother who's living with me so I'm like right so I finished my GCSEs and I'm like wow oh my gosh all this time I thought I was I was thick that's the word that people gave me right I was not academic and now all of a sudden I've just dispelled this myth that people had conditioned me to believe you started getting some self-belief i started going wow like what else is what else is not true do you know i mean like who's been telling me all this so i'm like ceilings are getting smashed right and i'm just like having these like epiphanies and like like like looking at everything around me like wow like there's so much to learn like history and books and knowledge and i'm like what the hell like this is crazy right It's just like being reborn, right?

1:09:12I'm just like loving life and learning. I've got the book for learning and how amazing learning is and the passion for learning and acquiring knowledge. Because you went on beyond GCSEs. Yeah, I went on to do an access course and then I got a place at university to study criminology. How did that go? That went good. I got a first-class honours in criminology. Thank God for that after your maths GCSE. I know, I know. I had to do research methods, right? there was some mass involved in that right so and then jacob dan has got a first class honors which you achieve uh while doing a sort of what part was it a part-time course you also work in a full-time course my attendance was 20 over four years i had a child as well in that time and i got a first class on this because i was working i was working in youth centers i was doing doing the school work i was working with joan at this point because this is whilst i'm at uni but when I got when I applied for university David and Joan were like we want to meet you like because you've said like the proof's in the pudding like you're not just like talking the talk you're walking the walk so they said and I said to them I don't want to say sorry to you I want to prove to you through my actions that I'm going to change my life I'm going to try and do the best that I can to make sure that your your needs are met that that this you can be confident that I'm not going to repeat anything like this again and then they were like yeah let's meet let's have a conversation face to face once I got a place at university and then we met face to face and then I went on to then you know get the first class honours and write a book and On that drive I mean to this neutral terrain mediator and it's obviously an absolute central pillar of the idea of restorative justice the potential for this face to face meeting meeting yeah what are your kind of emotions on that drive i mean well the strange thing is is like i was going driving to meet people that i'd like been in dialogue with on and off for two and a half years that had changed my world view and triggered a chain reaction of choices in me that had got me from likely to re-offend traumatized 19 20 year old just got out of prison with no hope prospects most people probably just written me off to being a dad you know educated you know i'm not going to blow my own trumpet but you know just like a normal civilian, right, who was responsible and, you know, cared about other people and was compassionate and wanted to put good back in the world.

1:12:07And I never met them. I'd never met them. I was driving to meet these people who had completely changed my life and I'd never even met them. And that was just a strange feeling of going there and going, I can't believe how much respect I've got for these people, how much of an impact these people have had in my life just by asking me questions. But did you go in there with a specific plan to say sorry? And did you go in there thinking at all, because it's quite an important scene in the play, about whether or not you're going to shake David's hand in particular? The thing about restorative justice is it's the practitioner's job to make sure beyond reasonable doubt that there's no surprises.

1:12:56So everything is talked about. And we try to get that across into play. That's why we have that. Meticulously planned. Meticulously planned. You've got, you know, who's going to talk first? What are we going to talk about? Who's, you know, who's going to be in the room? How would you feel if someone responded this way? So you know all the questions, you know what everyone's going to say. And you've been prepped to have fought through every type of response that someone could do. Because they look at you but you can't in the play. By the way, I'm not suggesting this is easy but you can't look at them for a very long time and then there's a giveaway.

1:13:33There's a funny comic moment where something happens which kind of, as it were, literally sort of breaks the ice but in the real meeting do you remember if you were hesitant to make eye contact? Yeah, I was hesitant to make eye contact. The same as in the courtroom I was hesitant to make eye contact with most people up until I started believing in myself and started realising that I was worthy of my own love that I was more you know that I could maybe be proud of myself that I could maybe be confident and have self belief There's a pretty clear distinction or divide really as well between David and Joan in one sense.

1:14:22If people listen back as they definitely should to the Radio 4 series, they'll know David features very prominently in it. And he says that he has the utmost respect for you and how you turned your life around. He thinks you're an immensely admirable person. Actually, he's basically an inspirational person. And just talking to you as I have done today, it's not hard to see why he says that. but he also says that he can't and won't forgive you yeah joan takes a different view she regrets not talking to your late mum um who she saw in the courtroom because she had the compassion and the grace to realize that it must be an extraordinarily tough for her and she does forgive you does it give you a sort of sadness now I mean in a you know in a 15 year cycle of events that you must have thought about endlessly but does it give you a certain sadness that David is unable to forgive you no because I respect his decision and and if Joan turned around tomorrow and said she doesn't want to forgive me that would be fine as well because I don't want my choice is to be dependent on somebody else's forgiveness.

1:15:40I think that we can all, and there's a danger with forgiveness, that people, because I've been in prisons, and I've seen forgiveness get talked about, or like people know that I've been forgiven by one of the parents, and they'll go, oh, I need forgiveness in order to move forward, in order to change. and they're like no you don't like don't give away your agency to somebody else like you are in control of your choices and you can't defer that to anybody else even no matter how nice it would be at the end of the day you're responsible for your own choices and you know you've got to sleep in the bed you make it's an interesting question of whether Joan whose forgiveness is no doubt sincere but is that forgiveness something she says for your benefit or for hers you know i think the clues in the word but it's the opposite way around i guess so it's forgiving right but it's like who are you who are you forgiving it to and a lot of the time people resent forgiveness because they think it is forgiving to somebody else like if i was to forgive you for it's an act of generosity yeah it's an act of generosity to to bestow on the other person when actually it's you're giving yourself a gift when you're forgiving someone else because like joan says the thing that she's gained the most from restorative justice is that she no longer has the she's no longer stuck in anger and resentment and bitterness and me living rent free in her head.

1:17:27Do you know what I mean? That's this mugshot young man. Like she's been able to move on. She's been able to move forward. And the freedom that comes with that. And that in moral terms, never. And that's what forgiveness might look like is no longer having that person who's harmed you, causing you discomfort. And that in moral terms is perhaps the strongest case, I guess you would say, for restorative justice. Never mind the reoffending rates and all the rest of it. for people that have been in enormous pain, you know, in enormous grief, it's something that can make them genuinely feel, it doesn't cure it, but it can make them feel a little bit better.

1:18:05I've got two questions which lean a little bit on your first class degree, which is to say your knowledge of psychology, which goes way, way, way beyond mine. The first is, is there something, dare I say it, a little bit, this is too easy to say because it's too broad a term, but Freudian in the fact that Joan lost a son but through you gained one is there something kind of profound about the fact that in the midst of that unbearable pain and sadness and sorrow which she will never get over it's not that you in any way replace James you're not a substitute whatever but there was a kind of loving hole in her life and she bestowed because of her generosity and grace some of that love on you I think it's simpler than that and I think it's that everybody everybody needs meaning and purpose in their life and if you can find meaning and purpose in the darkest of times then that's the antidote to trying to move forward it's always pragmatic it's always pragmatic yeah and it would like like I say we've turned a mess into a message and that is healing if you can find meaning in the chaos if you can find meaning in the madness you can find a way forward whether it's religious like there's a lot of people in prison that turn to Islam or turn to Christianity because it gives them meaning gives them a purpose, a way of getting through the days without you know, not questioning their faith or legitimacy of the reason why they've turned to religion because it probably is very legitimate I don't want to question someone's faith, but whatever works for you in terms of giving you some meaning and purpose and belonging and a community and a family to be around ticks all the boxes and will help people heal and will bridge the divides and resolve trauma.

1:20:05I'm smiling because I've written down in my notes, faith. And the second question I was going to ask you, which is partly leaning on your psychological study, is forgiveness, obviously it's not a uniquely Christian idea, but it's central to the Christian teaching. And I just wonder whether or not either you or Joan are religious, not necessarily saying you're Christian, but are religious, and whether or not that's kind of a part of the story. Whether it's played a part, yeah. I'm not like happy to say this but we're not and I think that sometimes gives more weight to the story because there isn't a religious explanation for why forgiveness has been found we've just arrived there as two that's so interesting general people that have just got there but I do believe that faith is a very very important thing for human society and existence Religion seems to answer enduring human needs in a way that secular thought seems to struggle with.

1:21:06Can I ask you, there's going to be a lot of people listening to this who've got different connections to the justice system. One thing just for victims, it might be some people listening to this who've heard the Jacob Dunn story, they've seen Punch, maybe you don't know them personally, but maybe they lost someone who's a victim of One Punch or in similar circumstances, and they're thinking about restorative justice. what would be your direct message to them about why engaging in a dialogue and possibly even a face-to-face meeting with the person uh that they are most unforgiving of or most angry towards uh is a constructive thing to do i think i think in the play to reference the play again because it's kind of how we try to explain this is um the character of joan she says i want to be the best version of myself and I don't think James would recognize the person that I'm becoming because I'm stuck and we're stuck she's having a dialogue with David the two parents they're divorced and not together and they're having this conversation and David like he did in real life he had nightmares and he couldn't sleep and he was getting more angry and Joan was feeling more stuck and becoming a woman that she didn't recognize anymore and there was no way like hating me wasn't helping them and the only and and there was these questions and this and that i could only answer that seemed to be the only way forward to try and help them move on and i would imagine that there are many many people out there that feel stuck that don't feel like they're just a system has given them a voice or really listening to their needs and what's keeping them up at night years or days, months after whatever's happened, sadly happened to them.

1:22:56And me as someone who knows the impact, like I've had to sit there opposite David and Joan, be told about their son, see the pain in their eyes. You know what I mean? Like that's why I'm so passionate about fighting for victims' rights because I know the pain that victims are going through and I want them to be heard. I want them to have every opportunity, even if restorative justice isn't for them. I want them all to know that it is an option for them and that it can help them potentially. And so that's what I would like them to think about is it could help you become unstuck. It could help you get questions answered that, you know, otherwise won't be answered.

1:23:39And you might be able to help you move forward and become a version of yourself that you might have lost or that you, a new version of yourself that you could be and be able to move forward in a positive way. And I think if anybody objects to victims being able to have that opportunity, then I don't really know what kind of justice system they're wanting. Well, and I think you've made a very clear case to people in politics or in justice, the civil service or the judicial system about the potential benefits as well in terms of reducing re-offending and so on. I wonder if you could just convey your message to the future Jacob Duns.

1:24:16You know, one of the things that we're living through is this idea of a crisis of masculinity, toxic masculinity, young people losing their purpose and all that. And I want to talk about the people living in the meadows today, really. My overwhelming feeling of kind of affection and compassion for people, boys and girls, whatever, who don't have the best start in life and just need someone, maybe it could be that one role model with that one meeting, that one inspirational person. It could be that one program where they think, I could be that person. What would you say to those kids in the meadows now?

1:24:51What do you want them to know about what you've learned? Not only the danger of one terrible, terrible punch. One action, how quickly everything can change. But also that there's a life outside of there. There's a life outside the bubble, outside the postcode. That's just waiting to be explored. but what we're talking about is the intensity of postcodes and actually it's one of the things i feel very very strongly and i try and bring to the rest of my career is that we don't really talk about the fact that most people in britain most kids live in those sort of circumstances yeah most in those bubbles yeah intense tough small territorial often dangerous bubbles yeah and they're getting more dangerous and more separate from the rest of society the sort society you hear about on the news they're drifting off the bubbles are drifting off as they do when they're in the wind and eventually the pop right and it's and it's when it pops it goes pop and it's pretty bad we need to pop those bubbles and give let them see that there's actually there is a life there's a life out there there is adventures and experience and connections connections and that's why we're trying to do with the play so i don't know if you realize that the show's not for profit all the funds are going to go back into making it accessible when we do a national tour we've got subsidised school matinees £10 tickets for children from the most deprived areas in London that have been coming we've got I saw a huge number of kids I saw a huge number of kids when I came that is in the Apollo Theatre it's at the Apollo Theatre yeah listen what do you want to do with your life?

1:26:25you're asking me that same question I was asked I've done this before you know you're asking me the question Joan asked me 50 well of 11, 12 years ago, that changed everything.

1:26:40I just want to help people get beyond bubbles. I want to help people become unstuck. I want to create more constructive conversations in society, move people beyond binary debates and divisive conversations, beyond the soundbites into a longer-form conversation, to build a community of common grounders, as I'd like to call them. That's the name of your foundation, charity? The charity that Dave and Joan have helped us form and are now senior advisors to, which seeks to bridge the divide. We're not a political, we're not politically affiliated. We want to give everybody a voice. And we're on the journey now to perform a national listening exercise because I think we have a listening crisis.

1:27:37That's what I would say that we have in our country. We have a listening crisis. Young people don't feel heard. Red wall seats don't feel heard. People are defected into reform. Not that there's anything wrong with reform. You know, like, everything that we're seeing is all an issue with listening. And that's why the Common Ground Justice Project, we've started our first campaign to be listening to victims of crime. And we want to give all victims of crime the right to be heard. And then we're on a campaign to find the common ground and move beyond the soundbite, polarised debate on crime and actually figure out what the public really wants from justice.

1:28:21So we're polling, we're doing national listening exercise, because the reason the justice system hasn't moved on and we haven't reformed in any way that brings justice to victims or reduces re-offending or solves the prison population crisis is because we don't listen to the public and we don't know what the public want. And so we're indecisive and we don't really make any bold choices. so one of the biggest lessons I've taken from your life lessons um maybe I just heard it like this because I agree with it is about the power of connections and the power of relationships and that's what we've got to get right at an early stage what's your kind of overarching feeling now or emotion when you think back to that night is it regret is it shame is it is it thinking about the counterfactual um it's it's um i'm sure it's a mix it's a mix yeah like sometimes i feel proud of like what we've been able to achieve to like bring this issue to like a global stage and because there's been times like i've been sharing the story for a long time i've had faith in this story for a long time like even the punch radio series was commissioned like five years ago and i was sharing my story before that in like school assembly halls and people go, Jacob, when are you going to shut up?

1:29:39Like, stop, you know, I'm like, well, if it doesn't apply to you, you know, then don't listen, right? But there's going to be a young person out here or there's going to be a parent or there's going to be, you know, someone who's in prison listening or, you know, whatever it is like, um, and I've had faith in it, but, um, so sometimes I feel proud and sometimes I just feel really really desperately sad that I'll never be able to truly change anything that happened and and that's the juxtaposition of life isn't it really is it's it's it's amazingly beautiful and tragic all at once both things can be true at the same time let me end by just asking a couple of questions about relationships.

1:30:28How's your bro getting on? Oh, I'm so proud of my little bro. He's thriving. He's doing really well. He's doing really well. And, you know, in some metrics, he's doing better than me. And I love that. So we have this healthy competition now. Brotherly love of, you know, pushing each other to do better. But, you know, the most important thing to me is just that we have a good relationship and he's well. Well, he's not been on Britain's Hottest Podcast, so you've got that on him. How do you think about the great silent or invisible relationship in all this story, which is your relationship with James Hodgkinson?

1:31:13He's a lifelong partner to you. Yeah, we're now forever, as are me and David and Joan.

1:31:23if anything this has all taught me that we're all connected whether we like it or not we can all sit there and you know have our social media accounts and you know try and wear the best brands and have the nicest car and live an individualistic life but so we're all connected and we'll all forever be connected with people that we experience life with and so I just want to make sure that the people that I come across and have experiences with I try my best to have a positive influence on them or a positive impact on them You've come a long way since July 2011 man You've come a long way It's truly a real privilege as well as a place to chat to you Jacob Dunn, thank you so much for coming in and joining us on Radical Thank you for having me.

1:32:23Okay, so one of the things that you've got to do when you conduct interviews, especially if you work for BBC News, is remain impartial and remain objective, whilst also feeling what you inevitably feel when you meet someone like Jacob Dunn, talking about what happened to him and what he has done over the course of his life. And that's a bit of a challenge for me in this particular circumstance, And I want to be honest about that because I have always felt for decades now that the plight of young people, whether boys or girls, growing up in really tough areas is one of the most important and one of the most neglected aspects of our society.

1:32:57So I really, I really, really care about it. And maybe you got a sense of that from the questions that I asked. I also want to say that the thing about someone like Jacob Dunn is you finish talking to him and you feel a bunch of very conflicting emotions. A bit like he feels when he thinks about that one punch in July 2011. I've never met or I think interviewed someone who has killed someone before. I don't think I've ever met or interviewed someone who's been found guilty of manslaughter. I've certainly never met or interviewed someone who threw one punch whilst drunk, high on drugs, ran away and found out a month later that that one punch led to the death of a young man.

1:33:39That is just an extraordinary experience for me and I feel very, very lucky to have it. You know, on the one hand, I feel that he probably has committed, this guy who's been sat here for the last however long it was, the worst moral crime, never mind legal one, of anyone that I've ever met. I think Jacob Dunn has done more harm to a family, to an individual than anyone I've ever met, possibly ever will meet. And yet, after talking to him about his experience, about his personal journey, about his upbringing and about his radical ideas, particularly this idea of restorative justice, it's very hard not to come to some very different moral assessments, too.

1:34:19The first is he is in some ways someone who, like millions of young kids, it's not so much he never stood a chance, but it was kind of inevitable that he was going to be exposed to real dangers. That's not in any way to excuse what he did. What he did was completely, deeply immoral and will shape the rest of his life, obviously. But if you think about his upbringing, broken home, extreme poverty, alcoholic mother, very low aspirations, that is a hell of a difficult upbringing for someone. And yet he still had this profound moral code, which he lived by. Second thing to say is that I believe him.

1:34:57You know, I just, my judgment, talking to him for as long as we did, I believe him when he says that he didn't mean to kill James Hodgkinson. I think, you know, a court of law found that they believed him as well, which is why he was found to be guilty of manslaughter rather than murder. But I believe him when he says that, you know, in a mad blur, trying to defend a friend of his who had his fists up he did something which obviously he will always regret and always reflect on but that he didn't mean to punch James Hodgkinson so hard that he killed him so I believe him on that but then the third thing is even though he did more harm to any one individual and any one family than anyone I've ever met I think Jacob Dunn has improved himself and come from a deeper a low to reach a higher high than anyone I've ever met.

1:35:49The fact that he should come out of prison, tend to his alcoholic jaundiced dying mother, establish a relationship with the parents of the man that he killed, decide to look after his brother, basically teach himself a bunch of GCSEs and then get a first class degree and then campaign for restorative justice in the way that he has done. It's just the most extraordinary story. And I think the thing you realise about life is you get on a bit and you talk to people like Jacob Dunn for a living is that life is complicated you know it's not either or it's it's both and you know he is both the man guilty of killing someone and an extraordinarily eloquent and articulate campaigner for reforms to the justice system and I happen to know that some of the reforms he's advocating some of the radical ideas that he has espoused some people would say aren't that radical actually because the evidence favors them certainly that's what campaigners would say are going through parliament in the coming weeks and months and so i think that quite aside from the enormous success of this play written by james graham which is here in the uk but also uh on broadway jacob can't go to broadway because he's got criminal records he can't go to the us but quite aside from the success of that play i think jacob dunn is a person behind an idea uh which we're going to hear a lot more about not just on this podcast but on the news agenda more broadly and I have to say yes I hope this doesn't sound wrong it doesn't feel that wrong maybe it's tonally not quite right but it's true to say that I found that interview absolutely an exhilarating experience for me also somewhat exhausting one because we reached some pretty serious places of emotion but I also feel genuinely privileged to learn from someone who has himself learned so much from life

1:37:35Let's have a listen to some of the messages that you've been sending in on WhatsApp. The number, of course, is 0330 123 9480 at 0330 123 9480 or on email radical at BBC.co.uk. Thank you so much for all of your messages. Here is one from Matt. I'm a retired military officer and I really enjoyed particularly the recent episodes with Guy Vince and Catherine Verbal Singh and their opposing views about unity and diversity. In particular, it led me to a thesis. My thesis is that both points of diversity and unity being strengths can be true at the same time. The military is a diverse organisation with an incredibly diverse array of partners.

1:38:28Our armed forces are united by a common sense of purpose and our allies share that sense of purpose and that unity provides the framework that allows us to take advantage of our diversity and turn it into a strength, thus meaning both combined become a strength together. I'd be really interested as an episode idea to hear you getting some of your guests with opposing views together to perhaps respectfully debate, discuss those differences and look for areas of common ground. Because at the moment, we're hearing fascinating opposing arguments. But I suspect the reality probably lies in between those two points.

1:39:05Matt, how fantastic to hear from you. What a brilliantly persuasive case you make for modelling civil disagreement and debate on this podcast. Thank Thank you so much for listening to those episodes. And also, thank you so much for engaging so thoughtfully with the arguments. I mean, that's just, I have to say, I just, I find it so cool and so humbling that people are listening to these podcasts and really listening, really thinking hard about the arguments that are being made. I just want to say, Matt, on that point about diversity being strength or otherwise, obviously, it depends to some extent on the kinds of diversity you're talking about.

1:39:41And actually, I somewhat left that conversation with Gaia Vince, who came a week after Catherine Bilbalsing, thinking just as you do, Matt, that perhaps they were kind of overstating their differences. Sometimes, very conscious in the modern media environment, we can simplify people's positions. And actually, I think both Catherine Bilbalsing and Gaia Vince would agree on some of these issues. But where they disagree, it would be great to have them in the same room. And one of the things I really want, not only to get you guys to encounter ideas you disagree with, but to model civil disagreement.

1:40:12I just think it's so important that we know how to disagree well. So, Matt, thank you very much. That is noted as an idea. Thank you. And let's hear another voice note. This one's from Kate. I enjoyed listening to Gaia Vince and found her arguments persuasive. However, before we start celebrating the fact that the UK is taking more and more of its power from solar and wind, perhaps we should pause and consider the carbon footprint of creating solar panels and wind turbines. The massive amounts of steel required and the rare earth minerals needed for batteries are all extractive. We cannot continue to smugly export our responsibilities for the climate crisis.

1:40:57if we really want to think radically how about using our sewage as an energy source brilliant voice note kate thank you so much i've got a few thoughts on a couple of those points so first of all on sewage i don't know the science of um and the the facts of how much sewage we currently use in this country and whether or not we put it to good use i've got to say i'm instinctively uh keen on the idea if i may say i'm just because of um my dear dad's heritage where growing up in rural South India about 70 years ago, and in fact, even when I visited as a kid 30 years ago, they used cow dung as fuel.

1:41:35And there's something about using sewage, whether it comes from humans or elsewhere, as fuel, which I just think kind of is a sort of very smart way of recycling things and also getting sewage to productive use as opposed to polluting our rivers. But I must admit on that specific point, I don't know enough about what we're doing. In fact, I'll go away and look into this and maybe suggest it as an idea to some of our future guests. On the point about the extractive tendencies of building solar panels and wind turbines, obviously climate impacts take different forms. So you might extract a huge amount of rare earth minerals, and you might end up mining in countries that are poor to do that, to build batteries or technologies which reduce your carbon footprint.

1:42:19And there's a trade-off there, isn't there? sort of extractive industry from a poor country, which hopefully has consented to that extraction, versus the reduction in a carbon footprint elsewhere. And I'm very keen when we talk about the climate to be honest about those sorts of trade-offs because those trade-offs are involved in every single climate decision. Kate, thank you so much. One of the other things I talked to Guy Vince about was whether we're living through really a political moment when environmental concerns are no longer seen as a priority, Whether the whole net zero agenda, whether it's here or in Donald Trump's America or indeed continental France, where there have been protests over, for instance, some of Emmanuel Macron's ideas in that sphere.

1:42:59Whether that whole agenda, the green agenda, was going down the kind of list of priorities for the public. And funnily enough, Nick's guest on political thinking this week is someone who's given that a lot of thought because it's Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary. And she is spearheading the Conservative Party's rejection of what she calls the religion, quote unquote, religion of net zero policies. You'll find Nick's latest episode of Political Thinking on BBC Sounds from Friday morning. Should be a good one.

1:43:35And that is it for this episode. To make sure that you don't miss future conversations, please subscribe to Radical with Amol Rajan on BBC Sounds. And you can also watch episodes as an increasing number of you are doing. On the iPlayer, just search for Radical with Amol Rajan, hit play, lean back and enjoy a fantastic podcast, but on screen. It's almost like we used to call that. Oh, yeah. Television.

1:44:07If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.