Nick Dawson pays tribute to his misplaced twin Simon on the pond the place he was attacked (Image: Nick Dawson)
One of them was a lone twin after his brother was brutally murdered, the opposite was a convicted killer, however that they had one factor in widespread once they sat nose to nose for the primary time… they had been each serving a life sentence.In August 1998, pc programmer Simon Dawson had been on an evening out with associates in Birkenhead when he left a nightclub alone.
Walking to a close-by park in Bromborough, Simon, 30, was attacked by two youngsters, robbed, kicked, crushed mindless and thrown into a close-by pond, the place he drowned.
Craig Roberts, 16, and Carl Harrison,19, pleaded not responsible to the killing however the verdicts had been unanimous. Harrison was sentenced to life, and Roberts a minimal of 10 years.
About 16 years after Simon’s demise, Nick and his household had been invited to the probation listening to of Roberts, and afterwards Nick was invited to participate in a restorative justice assembly with him, described by the Restorative Justice Council as “enabling everyone affected by a particular incident to play a part in repairing the harm and finding a positive way forward”.
While Simon’s offended and heartbroken dad and mom couldn’t entertain the thought of any reconciliation, similar twin brother Nick, who lives in Weybridge, Surrey, with spouse Jules (they’ve two grown-up kids Edward and Keira), determined with a lot trepidation, to present it a strive.
It was to be the start of a complete new chapter for Nick, processing his twin’s homicide but additionally changing into a campaigner and advocate for restorative justice. He has gone on to present talks in prisons, work for the restorative justice charity Why Me, and write a guide referred to as Face to Face: Finding Justice for my Murdered Twin Brother, about his private expertise.
Speaking throughout Restorative Justice Week, working till Saturday, Nick, 57, says: “I actually attended the parole hearing of Carl in July and he was released after 27 years in August.
“Craig has been out on licence for a few years now and I am at peace with that. Restorative justice has helped me cope and I have been able to desensitise some of the pain and hurt.
“My mother though remains extremely fragile. I showed her the book I have written about Simon and she burst into tears.”
Twins Simon and Nick Dawson as younger boys (Image: Philip Coburn/Daily Mirror)
Nick says studying about his killer’s background by the restorative justice assembly went some option to making sense of that terrible night time. The guide particulars how Craig was abused for the reason that age of six and ended up in care.
By his early teenagers, he was a profession prison and had solely simply been launched from a Young Offenders Institute the morning earlier than he murdered Simon.
Nick writes that Craig informed him at their assembly: “I was an evil person when I killed your brother and I can’t take that away.”
Nick provides: “Craig had, by any measure, suffered a horrendous childhood. In some ways, he was raised to be a violent person. ‘I was just so angry,’ he told me. ‘It wasn’t Simon I was kicking, it could have been anybody. I was taking my anger out on him. I was damaged, taking my anger out on society’.”
Speaking in the present day, Nick says: “It made me see that Simon was just incredibly unlucky and that there was a billion to one chance of him being there at that time, in that place, on that night. It doesn’t excuse what they did, but for me, hearing about Craig’s background, went some way to explaining it all. Craig revealed his own thoughts about the meeting and how he’d experienced his own anxiety about coming face to face with me.”
In the tip, the pair spoke for three-and-a-half hours, a gathering Nick describes as “incredibly powerful and transformative”.
He explains: “Craig knew that a big part of his own process was to tell me the absolute truth of what had happened that night. I knew that getting those answers would release more of my anger and move me closer to acceptance. Through restorative justice we had served each other. And that was the whole point.”
Understandably, Nick hasn’t all the time felt as philosophical as he does in the present day. In the guide he writes: “For many years, the only reason I wanted to be near Craig was to kill him.”
But he says one of many causes he agreed to the restorative justice assembly was as a result of he was determined to know the precise particulars of the night time Simon was killed and to completely perceive, nonetheless horrific, precisely what had occurred.
He continues: “Together, we unpacked the horrific events that led to Simon’s death.”
Nick, proper, along with his brother Simon celebrating their thirtieth birthday not lengthy earlier than Simon’s demise (Image: Philip Coburn/Daily Mirror)
While it was extremely tough to listen to these particulars, Nick stated he realised that solutions to tough questions are to not be feared
“They can actually offer freedom from the torture of the constant wondering, the creation of potentially inaccurate narratives in your head,” he says. He obtained the chance to clarify to Craig how his actions on that night time had left his sufferer’s household additionally serving a life sentence.
“I revealed the long-lasting and catastrophic effects of the murder,” he says. “He talked about his own life and how, on release, he hoped, in some small way, to try to make amends.
“The meeting was incredibly hard. There were times when I believed myself to be incredibly disloyal. I felt Simon looking down from above, wondering how I could possibly talk to his murderer. But at the same time, I knew Craig was no longer the evil monster I remembered from court 16 years previously.”
However, as Nick admits, “forgiveness is a line I have yet fully to cross”. He says that whereas he won’t ever have the ability to completely forgive his brother’s killers, he has no want to see them rot in jail ceaselessly. At his ultimate parole listening to, he informed Carl – who had been launched and recalled to jail twice earlier than – that he simply needs him to remain out of hassle. Unlike Craig, Carl didn’t take part within the restorative justice system.
A Cambridge University evaluate discovered the speed of re-conviction amongst offenders collaborating in restorative justice is diminished by as a lot as 28%. “That figure may sound disappointing but what I want to see is more uptake of restorative justice from prisoners and victims, because it can and does work,” says Nick.
He acknowledges it isn’t appropriate for all victims and says it wouldn’t have been applicable within the early years after Simon’s homicide. It additionally stays unthinkable as an choice for different members of his household. Upon listening to of Simon’s demise Nick’s mom Joan threw herself into his wardrobe to wrap herself in his garments. Her anguish continues in the present day.
Nick Dawson says restorative justice has helped him cope along with his twin’s homicide (Image: Nick Dawson)
Nick’s father David, who died in 2023, needed to establish Simon’s physique. Nick believes he by no means recovered from his anger and trauma. His older brother Richard and spouse Sam have additionally been deeply traumatised. Then there are Simon’s many associates, a few of whom have suffered psychological breakdowns.
Nick writes: “My family have all suffered intensely, not only through the pain of loss but through breakdown and mental illness. The murder of a loved one is so very, very hard to bear. For me, as Simon’s identical twin, it has been especially hard so far, and painful in many unique ways. I’ll never forget seeing him in the mortuary on that pouring wet day in early September 1998 – he was lying there, black, blue, massive black eyes, cuts all over him, freezing cold and hard as a board.”
These days Nick, 57, who took early retirement from his job at British Petroleum to give attention to his charity work, is busy campaigning. He needs his guide to look in prisons in order many prisoners as potential learn it and perceive the influence of their crimes. “I think of Simon’s death every single day but I consider myself lucky to have gone through restorative justice,” he says.
“The murder of a loved one leaves you buried in an avalanche of hurt. Being able to meet the person responsible, and see that they have gone on a journey, confronting who they were and reshaping into someone with emotional depth and genuine remorse, is a way of letting a little more light back into your life.
“A murder is a bereavement that is so very hard to move on from.”
Nick acknowledges different homicide victims’ households “are tortured by hatred and anger forever”. But he hopes he can provide an alternate path to this for some. “I have been that person overtaken by rage, I wanted to kill Simon’s murderers,” he says.
“Now I want Face to Face to be whatever it needs to be to whoever reads it – a guidebook through grief, a message of positivity, a road to acceptance. If that can happen, it will add to my belief that Simon did not die in vain.”
He provides: “Simon is dead. But he lives on in me. And now he lives on in this book. Face to face again. At last.”
Face to Face: Finding Justice for My Murdered Twin Brother by Nick Dawson (Icon books, £16.99) is out now; Restorative Justice Week is a world consciousness marketing campaign working within the third week of November yearly. For extra particulars, go to rj4all.org
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2135104/i-met-man-who-murdered-my-brother-nick-dawson