My mum was...
the best way to describe it is hysterical.
She just kept crying about
the pain that
the other person's
mum would be feeling.
And I found that really difficult to
even try and think about.
I was out with my friends on a night out.
It was one of my friends' 18th birthdays.
And we were just out all day drinking.
Just another weekend out, really.
And then, as the night wears on
and you get a bit more drunk, I got separated
from my friends
because as the clubs closed
on that night, I got some calls from my friends
who I got separated with who were
in another bar causing trouble, which I didn't know.
And they would ring me up and say,
"Oh, Jacob it's kicking off.
You need to come and back us up."
So me being what, an 18, 19-year-old, I was back then,
I only cared about my friends.
And so I went running down to the scene
and didn't ask my friend
"What's going on?
Why are you lot gettin' into an altercation for?
Why are you lot causing drama?"
Or try and deescalate the situation
and to tell 'em to keep movin' on.
I sadly took it upon myself to
get involved
and I threw a punch at the guy
that my mate was arguing with.
And he fell on the floor.
[MARYANA] What were you doing in the days after that?
The days after that...
My friends came round the next day, knocked on the door.
I answered out the window.
And their response was,
"Yes, Jacob, you punched man,
knocked him out, one punch."
Like trying to like, praise me for what I did.
And I guess at the time, I felt like a little bit of a,
a little bit of a pride getting
that acknowledgement from my friends.
And then a couple more weeks passed
and I ended up, my mum had saved up some money
to actually take us on holiday.
And we went to Tenerife.
And it was like on a,
it was kinda like one of these water parks
and was on these boats.
Some some whales and stuff.
And it was like the first time, 'cause from when I went
to secondary school at like 13
and I'd almost like, become ashamed of my mum.
Now I was like a young teenager
trying to impress all my mates.
And I reconnected with her because I didn't have
that kind of, those people ringing me
or places to go, stuff to do.
And I just remember
feeling really guilty
for the way that I had treated her up until that point.
Because she was the only one that actually believed
that I had any ability in terms of like, intelligence
or like, a capacity to kind of learn
or just achieve anything in life.
And so I came back from that holiday.
Like, I got a new kind of perspective.
Then a couple days later after we'd come back
from that holiday, the police started raiding me
and all my friends' house.
And this was a month after that punch.
And then that's when it started to become a reality
that someone had actually passed away
'cause of my actions a month earlier.
[MARYANA] Do you remember when and where did you first hear that
James, the guy who you hit, died?
When I handed myself in at the police station,
the police had called my mum's landline number.
And they said, "Don't worry, nothing to worry about.
Just following up on an investigation.
Can you come and hand yourself in at the police station?"
I'd known some of friends were being arrested at the time,
but wasn't 100% sure what for or anything.
And so then yeah, when I went and handed myself
in at to the police station,
that's when they first told me that they were arresting me,
at the time, they were arresting me on suspicion of murder.
[MARYANA] How did it make you feel?
A mixture of every unpleasant emotion
combined.
Shock,
disbelief,
self-pity.
And I guess at that time, I also felt unfortunate.
I felt like I was...
why has this happened to me?
Out of everybody that goes around throwing punches
why did mine have to have the impact that it did?
Yeah, everything just kind of flashed
through my eyes, really, and I didn't,
in the end, I just became numb
and just blanked it all out.
My mum was...
the best way to describe it is hysterical.
She just kept crying about
the pain that
the other person's
mum would be feeling.
And I found that really difficult to
even try and think about.
Because up until then, I didn't really know how
to talk about emotions.
I didn't know how to talk about feelings.
I didn't even know how to ask for help.
I just always used kind of
running away from my problems
as the way of resolving them
or pretending they're not there.
[MARYANA] How much did you know about the guy
who passed away?
I think I
just knew the very basics,
like he was 28 and
I think he was training to be a paramedic.
I think that was all I really knew at that time.
[MARYANA] What was the court hearing like?
The court hearing was,
it was packed.
I didn't know who was in there.
It was like, random people from off the street who'd managed
to get in there, who were just being nosy.
There was some of my family in there,
people who I didn't know, journalists.
And then obviously, I was told that the family
of the person who'd passed away was also in the room.
So I think what I did was I put my head down
and looked at the floor for the entire process.
'Cause I pled guilty early,
so there's like, no trial or anything.
I didn't try and... what looks a buss case,
you know, try and get away with it.
And yes, and then all of a sudden,
I was looking down at the floor,
and the prison guard next to me pulled me down.
I didn't even know how long I got.
I didn't even know that it was all over
and I was going to prison.
[MARYANA] Were you scared?
Yeah, I was, I was scared.
And um.
I just felt awful, to be honest.
I was sentenced to,
I think it was 30 months.
In the end, it was two and a half years.
An early guilty plea gets you a third off of your sentence.
I hadn't had any previous criminal convictions.
My probation officer kind of wrote to the judge
in the pre-sentence report, just saying that she felt
the longer that I was probably in prison
the more unhelpful it may have been.
[MARYANA] Did you feel a lot of guilt?
At the time I did feel a lot of guilt
but I didn't know what to do with it.
Because
how could I ever, how could I ever know
what
the impact was?
And I kind of think I was scared of knowing
what the truth was, like, how that,
how it had actually
impacted on the people involved.
[MARYANA] So what do you think helped you process the guilt?
'Cause it's a common
attitude, I guess,
that
even from
David and Joan,
I think, you know, while I was in prison,
they were
appealing the sentence length
to, you know, because they'd said that two and a half years
doesn't
make up for the loss of a life.
But obviously,
once they were told that they
couldn't keep me in prison for longer, they explored
what other options they had.
And
one of those options was
to actually
communicate with me and speak to me.
Listening to what they were gonna tell me
was going to be difficult.
You know, obviously, they weren't going to sugarcoat it.
They wanted me to know exactly
what the impact was
and to hold me to account.
And I think
that was the start
of me being able to
process my guilt.
Which I'm always gonna be,
I'm always gonna be processing.
And that's my, I guess some people would say that
that's my sentence, really.
[MARYANA] Out of the things that James' parents told you,
what do you think made the most impact on you?
You know, I was told by the parents that
James was the type of person where
he'd want me
to make something of my life
and amount to something positive.
That helped me try to believe in myself a little bit more.
Because I knew I wouldn't be able to achieve anything
if I was just
stuck in the guilt
and shame of what I'd done.
And that's when they asked me, you know,
"What is it that you're gonna actually do
with your life, Jacob," 'cause it's okay saying,
I didn't even want to say the word 'sorry'.
I said, you know, I felt like it would be an insult
to say the word 'sorry'.
I wanna prove to you through my actions
that I actually am sorry.
And then, you know, that's when he says,
"Well, okay, well what are you gonna do?"
And so I said I'll give GCSEs another shot
at 21 years old and
and smashed it.
[MARYANA] Did his mum ever tell you that she forgives you?
Um,
yeah.
[MARYANA] How did that make you feel?
Very grateful,
but I didn't ever want to
expect forgiveness.
I understand that forgiveness isn't something
that is black and white.
Forgiveness means different things to different people.
[MARYANA] Do you think if your mum was around
she would be proud of where you got to?
Yeah, I think she would've been proud.
It was a shame, because she died a week
before I got my GCSE results.
And
I remember getting those A-stars and thinking, "Oh."
You know, that was the one person who I wanted to,
that was one person I wanted to show.
And say, "Look Mum, you were right."
But yeah, I wish that I was a better son.
I wish I helped round the house more with my mum.
I wish I'd tried better in school.
But I was never gonna let that be an excuse to give up.
[MARYANA] And what is the future like for you?
Involved in campaigns to raise awareness
that a single punch can kill,
that us men, in particular, need to
talk more
about our problems instead of letting them all
get bottled up and end up comin' out wrong,
and causing more harm.
I was putting together educational resources, workshops
in schools, in prisons.
Doing mentoring work.
Working with prison staff around training
as to how they can get the best out of the men in prison
that they're working with, men and women.
And so I don't want any of, you know,
that's probably been one of my mantras
for trying to help as many people as I have
and for sharing my stories.
And so yeah, I just didn't ever want to expect forgiveness
and I still don't expect forgiveness.
And even if someone said they forgive me today,
it's okay if they don't forgive me tomorrow.
The biggest thing for me is
my own
journey of forgiving myself.