Lift the Ban: reflections from holding cell number 6 at Kentish Town Police station

This is one of a series of posts about my experience of the Defend our Juries (DoJ) 'Lift the Ban' campaign. See my Lift the Ban page for more.

Note: this is work in progress and I shall be coming back to edit it from time to time.

OK, I'm not writing this in the cell. It is four month later but these are thoughts that at least began in the cell on 9th August 2025.

  © Copyright Jim Osley and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

 

I was locked in the cell in Kentish Town Police station for a total of about 4 hours. (I'm not sure exactly how long I was in there. I was in a state of, not shock, but bewilderment for most of the day, and after my arrest they took my phone and my watch off me which was surprisingly disorientating). After 67 years of complete conformity with the law and coming from a 100% law-abiding family, it felt quite incredible when they locked the cell door.

Now here though is what I wasn't expecting: I felt an extraordinary sense of peace locked in the cell. Trying to understand this, I think that some sources of deep-seated anxiety had been cleared by what I had done and what had happened. This is how I explain it (at the moment, ie, provisionally)

1) I'd done something completely aligned with my religious faith. There's an almost paradoxical twist to this, because my religious beliefs have become increasingly less 'real', and yet more sincere, in the past year (while I've been editor of Sofia, the magazine of the Sea of Faith Network). It was like as if I was, for the first time in my life, sincerely serving God - but it was a God that I didn't believe existed and I was fine with that! There's a lot more that I want to say about this, the 'religious' angle, but that is for another, later, post. 

2) I'd done something brave, or at least 'authentic'. I've never thought of myself as brave person (a bit timid and maybe cowardly, if I'm honest) and was gobsmacked at what I'd done! 

3) I found that I wasn't afraid of what might be to come. In the short term I wasn't in any real danger. The police were treating me OK (they'd even given me what was really quite an acceptable vegan pasta dish to eat) and I knew that I would be released some time in the next few hours and that I could get home safely. But also longer term, I realised that if the worst case scenario came about and I ended-up (I end-up: this is still a possibility, albeit unlikely) spending some time in jail over the next few years, I was, sort of, OK with that because of #1 above. 

I found myself thinking about how much I've time got left. I'm 67 and my parents both remained healthy into their mid to late 80s so I'm reckoning on up to another 20 years, but I've lost a couple of friends of my own age just this year, so who knows? Would I resent having to spend some of my remaining precious years of life in jail? My answer was again a surprise to me because it was 'no', if it is for a good cause. I found myself thinking of my future years as 'capital' and I should chose how to spend it. I am going to die eventually, and I want to use my remaining life for something meaningful. Opposing genocide is meaningful.