Ambushed

In 1972, aged only 25, Judith Ward was jailed for life for killing 12 people in an army coach-bombing on the M62. It was 18 years before the evidence which proved her innocence - yet was suppressed at her trial - came to light. She was finally released on appeal in 1992, aged 43. Justice Glidewell concluded her appeal with the phrase "Our law does not allow a conviction to be secured by ambush". After five days and nights of relentless police interrogation, it was just such an arrest and conviction which was to keep Judith Ward for 15 years in the High Security Wing of Durham Prison, a Category A prisoner, allowed only occasional visits, few letters, and locked in her cell for long hours at a stretch. Judith tells the story of her arrest, her several attempted suicides, and her fight to keep sane during one of the harshest of prison lives.