The irony of "justice"

"And how did these actions damage you Miss Barker?" asks the prosecution

"I tried to kill myself," I reply.

An hour later

"Are you being over-dramatic with regards to how these actions damaged you Miss Barker?" asks the defence

"I tried to kill myself, so I wouldn't say so. I think wanting to die, having the police attend your property, going to hospital and duly being sent to Birch Hill Mental Hospital, no. Not over-dramatic I'd say," I reply.


This response was laughed at yesterday, with a smirk like a Cheshire cat, across a court room.

For the first time since this all began I spoke to the person who tried to ruin my life, I couldn't control myself.
This person was laughing at me. At my sadness. At my desperation.

"It's still just a game to you isn't it? I said standing in the witness box, gripping it so hard my knuckles had turned white.

The person smiled, a grin, a nod and the word "yep,"

The magistrates looked disgusted, I felt sick, but was aware the hole this person had dug themselves was getting deeper by the second.
Such blatant disregard for what they had done. No remorse. Just pleasure. Absolute pleasure at the suffering, the chaos.

I couldn't get past the fact that back in 2013 when I stood in the Magistrates myself, I shook with fear, suited and booted and pleading guilty, I was so consumed with guilt, I could barely bring myself to speak.
Isn't that the point? To feel remorse?
For every mistake I have made, then and now, I live in purgatory, of guilt and wonderment of how to right the wrong. It doesn't matter how, where, when, who, what, all wrongs have to be righted.
How could you live with yourself if not?

I think I took the defence by surprise, their primary tactic was to highlight "I had form"
I had a criminal conviction for fraud, and therefore, it was likely I wasn't telling the truth.

It's no secret, the truth and I are not the best of friends, but yesterday, I stood in a court of law and said in front of Magistrates and lawyers and the poisonous creature who possessed my life for a short time.

"You are absolutely right. I am a convicted and admitted liar,"

Well where do you go with that?

Can you use the fact I'm a liar against me when I've just said its a true fact.
That part of my nature is lies. It's woven into my history and will stay with me for the rest of my life.
It's a shameful fact, I know.
It's a curse that contaminates the best parts of me.

I took control.
I am a good person.
I believe it. Whole heartedly, and it has taken me a long long time to get here and to see that, and even with mistakes that I continue to deal with, I know in my heart, I don't hurt people on purpose, and if by chance of Fran freak accidents and chaos, I fix it. I have to. I apologise. I admit. I move on. I make it better.
There is no shame in telling the truth about the worst parts of you.

The fact of the matter is, this was weaponized, by this beast of a human.
Knowing the weakest parts of me and my life, used, abused and magnified.

I was tortured. On a daily basis. Relentlessly, from all angles.
I was made to feel like a monster, when I never was.
I was made to feel like nothing.
Like I didn't deserve any good thing in my life.
And that it would be taken from me.

And that person did a dam good job - but here's the thing - everything I have and everything I love, it's still here.

My business - it is me, I am it, so I don't have the extravagant retail outlet empire I delusionally thought I was building. GOOD. That is not what the business is or ever was.
It is PEOPLE. Good people. Positive change. Hard work. Decency. It is incredible bread that inspires hope.
I thought I could change the world by offering the world and his dog a job, that I was helping people by giving them chances, I wasn't.
I am at my best when I teach, when I share, when I care, when I give, when I bake.
So now I'm back at the beginning with a business model that was never broken, just misguided.
I am The Barker Baker, and you can never ever take that from me.
People trusted me to be better, to do good, and I will do it until the day I die.
But that day is not now. Not anymore.

My love, my Sarah.
My heart breaks.
Such pain.
Such a casualty.
She was so hurt in all this.
Hounded. Humiliated. Hurt.
And what does she do through it all? Protects me.
Loves me.
Holds me together.
She's the one who ends up holding my hand in the hospital.
She's the one who makes sure I've taken my medication and I haven't taken ALL of it.
She's the one who picks me up off the kitchen floor.
And then?
She gets up and goes to work and is amazing, passionate, driven and strong.
Her mothers daughter. No doubt about that.

Sarah stood in court yesterday, alone and had to relive the horrors.
The messages, the statuses, the videos, all of it.
She came out, she hugged me and she took me for lunch.

I sit and write this, and shes a work, plodding on as per usual and she will come home and ask HOW I AM.

In a video she recorded, a person banging on our front door can be heard saying to her, to my Sarah,
"You're worthless, do you know that? You're nothing,"

At the time, I was in the kitchen cutting vegetables and making dinner, the banging, screaming, shouting commenced, the windows, the door, the letterbox.
I had a big ass knife in my hand.
Sarah told me to stay in the kitchen and not to listen.
And then I heard it.
"You're worthless,"
You don't say things like that about the most precious thing in my life when I have a big knife in my hand.
The rage. The anger.
My god.
I can't even.

But she recorded, she waited, she didn't engage, they tired and left.

It was played in a court room yesterday and she had to hear it again.
And I'm sure they laughed, I don't know, I wasn't allowed to be there when Sarah gave her evidence.

This person, was our friend. Was someone I trusted. Implicitly. Who I relied upon. I helped. I thought I did.
And if I didn't.
Sarah bloody did.
She was a good friend, dinners, drinks, hugs, listening to problems, support, always.

It was Sarah who tried to show me, to tell me, to protect myself. To fire this person.
I didn't listen. I was scared, because I knew the poison within. I had seen it, and I was terrified it would turn on me.
So I didn't fire them. I plodded along with no clue how it would end.

Like this apparently.
In a court room.
Which in itself is hilarious.
Throughout the entire process this person broadcast to anyone who would listen.
Fran is a liar.
There are no police.
There is no solicitor.
Fran is a liar.

She a fraudster.
Shes a groomer - don't get me started on that one!

Fran is a liar.

I'm getting Fran arrested.
Fran is a liar.


Solicitor - check.
Police - check.
Court case - check.

So who is the liar?

So easy to white wash me with that label. Even easier for it to believed given my circumstances.

Fran stood in court yesterday and told the truth, and guess what the outcome was?
BIG FUCKING GUILTY.

You come to my house and you torment me.
You seek out my friends one by one on social media and try to turn them against me with bare faced lies.
You seek out my business partners and supports and scare them shitless with your dramatic portrayal of the monster boss.
You call me a liar, a groomer and a fraud.
You hurt innocent people along the way.
You shit on the memory of my dead grandmother because you know no boundaries of disgrace.
You laughed about the worst parts of my life, of rape, of prostitution. You shared it. You humiliated me.
You laughed at my (and might I add - fully verified, documented by a full psychiatric 27 page report) mental health issues and then tried to use your own, of which we now know are just not true.
It's sick.
It's all so sick.


You made my life so unbearable, I wanted to die.
You made me so unhappy, and feel so worthless. I didn't want to be here anymore.
You scared me with your psychotic behaviour, I couldn't leave my house.
I crawled on my living room floor, into my kitchen, for fear of moving the curtains.
I lived, in my bedroom, where it was safe.
I felt disgust. I worried people would believe you.

I gave you every good thing you will ever know, and you took it, used it, abused it, discarded it and then used it against me.

You.
You are the monster.
You are the liar.
You are the fraudster.
You.
Well, you are nothing to me now.

A horrible moment in time, and the biggest regret of my life.
You made me doubt who I AM.
You made me hate MYSELF.

Not anymore.

I will move past this, with strength, and love, and hope.
I will be better, I will work harder, I will do whats right, because that is what we do.

As I said in court yesterday "It's easy to answer questions when you are telling the truth,"

Love wins.

Ban the box

So, last night, a job I quite fancied called me, brilliant conversation, really productive, with a date for this Friday set to go through the motions and to have a proper chat about what they could do for me and I could do for them. It was a great opportunity, 25k, company car, real growth prospects. 

The Barker Baker is still a huge part of my life, and for as long as people want to hear me speak and want me to teach, that is who I will be, but in a time that requires stability and security, self employment is too fluctuating for the commitments I have and the life that I'm building.

Needless to say, I was pretty gutted when I got this text today.

This is the second time in just a few weeks I've been cut down from a job that I thought would be a dead cert, I've got the right qualifications - impressive on paper, with a job history to die for, with references to boot; so to be point blank rejected due to my criminal conviction has left me feeling pretty gutted.

I have often written about how there are two pieces of paper that define me, one being an impressive CV - which incidentally, has grown more impressive POST conviction, and the other being my criminal conviction for 2013. For a first time offence might I add. 

I can see why people are passionate about the "ban the box" disclosure policy, it's debilitating, it's stress inducing, and ultimately, its humiliating.  

My conviction is not the worlds best kept secret, I decided the best way to control my mistakes would be to admit them, of course I took that to another level when creating The Barker Baker, a business built entirely on the premise of being an offender, knowing I was someone serving a suspended sentence and limited in terms of job prospects with compulsory probation and drug rehabilitation commitments. I knew no-one would be willing to take someone so fresh out of a court room on. With the beautiful twist of fate, it was probation that sparked my passion and opened the door to a solution - self employment. I could control my own fate, and I did, for a good few years, but then business became more about me than my message, which meant it needed a break. I needed a break. I needed space from the machine I had created. 

To re-evaluate why it wasn't what it should have been.

In this time of rethinking and rehabilitating, I decided a new journey was needed, a new direction, a challenge. 

So, a dusting off of the old CV, an updated LinkedIn, some online courses to get to grips with things I needed and wanted to brush up on - and off I went. The problem being - I had no idea what I wanted to do.

I promised myself after my conviction I wouldn't live a life of mediocre again, I wouldn't do something without passion and purpose. 

I want to write, so perhaps something journalistic, copywriting, PR, media - my only experience being this blog, and the interactions I've had with the media through articles, radio, tv. 

A little over reaching I think. Dare to dream.

Social care, charities, community groups, I am passionate about people, about helping people be the best they can be - a huge part of the business and a huge part of who I am. So it was logical to apply for jobs helping others.

Politics - mad about politics, local, national, with a focus on criminal justice and how to change the system for the better. Same problem, after graduating, I worked in London, I was an academic, I was good at it. Once I set my mind to something, I do it and I do it well. No, I do it brilliantly. Once I want to learn and achieve something, I do it better than most. If there is one thing I excel at, it is being the best at what I set my mind to.

So when I got the call last night for the marketing job I wanted, it was spot on, food, marketing, people, engagement, travel. They were excited, I was excited. Then BOOM. Conviction. Not interested. Best of luck.

I find it fascinating. In the life I have had after my conviction, I have achieved more than most could dare to dream. Why then, is that my stumbling block? Surely from an employers perspective, someone who has triumphed over adversity, someone has created something of purpose through drive, hard work, self motivation, those are good qualities? Employ-ability qualities?

I used the worst parts of myself to spring board the best parts of me.

I work hard. Really hard.

I give anything I do, my full.

I dedicate myself entirely to a cause or a purpose and always strive for the best outcome.

I am fiercely independent but somehow an avid team player.

My qualifications are great.

My job history is great - eclectic, but great.

My references are impeccable.

So what the hell is going on?

When my conviction becomes spent, employers won't be able to black ball me, by law. So why should they be allowed to now? I have paid my dues, I have done as I should have.

The irony is, when my conviction becomes spent, it doesn't really. Put my name into google, my life history comes up, this blog is an example of that. Thats my point.

I am strangely proud of my conviction - it is a battle scar of my mistakes, of my history, of my bad choices. It is the benchmark I live up to every day. The measure of decency, kindness and honour.

It is what defined me - for the better, not for the worse.

So why don't other people see it that way?