William Middleton tells me his tragic experiences
I am William Middleton. In 2008 I was accused of murdering my baby daughter and attempted murder of my son and step daughter.
After the fire, I returned home from hospital to my broken family in Shetland. One Saturday morning I was taken to the police station and arrested. They thought I started the fire. It was as if someone reached in and took the life out of me.
That was when I started to find out how rotten and corrupt the whole justice system can be. Everything that they did was designed to break me. They took me into a cell where they made me strip completely naked. I still do not understand why. It was degrading and humiliating. When they questioned me later I thought that all I had to do was tell the truth and everything would be alright.
They were aggressive and relentless, whenever I thought it was over, they would start all over again. They said, 'if you could think of anything else that could help us then we can maybe get through this quicker.'
Then I would be taken back to the very first question: 'Why did you kill Annalise?' 'This is Scotland,' they told me, 'We don't have to provide a solicitor for six hours.'
The officers interrogated me for all of six hours before putting me in a cell. My son's statement confirmed everything that I had been saying despite the fact that he was only three at the time. The prosecution told my legal team that if they wanted to use it, they would have to call him in court.
My niece (2) was staying over that night with two friends. They asked if I could get them some drink. I was not keen on the idea, but I agreed to get them two small bottles of WKD to share. Everybody was having a good time, just group of girls having girly chats. One of them said that she did not think that boys found her attractive so we all kept reassuring her and I made a silly comment that 'I would be'. I just meant to give her some confidence but my wife got upset about it and left the house to calm down. My niece (2) went after her. Before going to bed I texted my wife saying 'please just come back, I love you'.
The next thing I knew I woke up with the fire alarm going off. I could hear the children screaming. I could see smoke coming through the gap in the door from the hallway. I opened the door and could feel the heat and saw thick dark smoke. I went to the bottom of the stairs, looked up and could just make out Christina and James standing there. I shouted, 'you've got to get out!' Christina came down but James was scared stiff. I went up, grabbed him and got him outside. I said, 'I'm going back in to get Annalise'. Going back inside, I closed the door to keep James out. By now the smoke was much worse but I had to go up the stairs again. I think I made it to the top, but I could not breathe. My eyes were stinging and I was choking... I knew I was not going to make it. The last thing I remember is trying to pick myself up after falling down the stairs. Then I woke up in the hospital.
At one point the social workers told my wife that if she continued to support me they would put James and Christina on the Child Protection List. All designed to turn my own wife against me, and make her believe that I had done it.
They later offered to drop the charges and replace them all with one charge of Culpable homicide (1) with a recommended six year sentence. I refused.
It is easy to accuse somebody of anything, but it is very difficult to prove innocence.
I was eventually acquitted, and after I was released from court I set up a website called “Wrongly Accused Person” to try to help people who were going through the same as I did. There has never been a day that I felt I have done enough.
As long as I believe that somebody is innocent, I won't give up because I know how it is to be in that cell knowing that you haven't done it.
1) A killing of a person with either or both of intention or absence of intention.
2) Due to protection of vulnerable people her name cannot be shown
All this is Billy's side to the story that he had publicly said on the United Against Injustice public conference, After the conference I decided to ask him to repeat it for me agan so that i could film it he agreed, I have transcribed what he said to me and put it into an article above I have also made a video version of it in other post IN HERE.
