LEYTON: Disgraced councillor continues to proclaim innocence

10:03am Thursday 5th June 2008

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Six months after her conviction for smearing an election rival was upheld, former councillor Miranda Grell is still maintaining her innocence.

Miss Grell, who had been a rising star in the Labour party, was found guilty under the Representation of the People Act and forced to give up her council seat and her job as aide to the Deputy Mayor of London.

She told voters that Lib Dem candidate Barry Smith was a paedophile. As a result, Mr Smith was abused by the public and was forced to leave the borough.

On Sunday, Miss Grell published an article on the Justice for Leyton Ward website, which was set up by her friends to campaign against her conviction.

She said: "Ten years ago, if anybody had told me that as I approach my 30th birthday I would be unemployed with a criminal conviction, I would never have believed them.

"Some people have said I am in denial. Over the last 14 months I myself have felt that I must still be asleep, experiencing a very bad dream and at some point I would wake up and return to normal."

Miss Grell claims that it was not hard for her to resign her job or seat.

She said: "But what I have absolutely refused to let go of is my innocence because if I do that, I may well stop living.

"I need to hold on even if others can't or won't, for the sake of those who elected me and still believe in my innocence, and for my young niece, nephew and godchild who all wonder why Auntie Miranda has been punished when she did nothing wrong."

Miss Grell said she has received email abuse from "nutters" but said people in the street show "sympathy, anger and compassion" for what's happened to her.

Nowhere in the article does Miss Grell express remorse or sorrow or acknowledge what Mr Smith went through following the election.

She said: "I still believe in justice and that's why I still believe that, one day, however long it takes, there will be justice for all those people who cast their votes for me two years ago, only to then have them unjustly stolen."

All but a small part of the website article can be viewed below.

IT has now been six months since Snaresbrook Crown Court upheld my conviction for allegedly committing two offences against the Representation of the People Act 1983.

Six months may have passed but I feel the pain of that day, and of the past fourteen months as a whole, as if it had all only begun yesterday.

Ten years ago, if anybody had told me that as I approach my 30th birthday I would be unemployed with a criminal conviction (of any kind), I would never have believed them.

Some people have said I am in denial. Over the last 14 months, I myself have felt that I must be still asleep, experiencing a very bad dream, and at some point I would wake up and return to normal.

But the nightmare is unfortunately very real and I am devastated. I have had all the time in the world to reflect on the last 14 months but I still cannot get my head around what's happened to me.

But I am philosophical about my life and I know that I must be going through all this for a reason. I know that life is a series of tests and trials, and as good friends keep telling me, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger".

That's why it wasn't hard for me to resign my job with the former Deputy Mayor of London, my membership of the Labour Party, or all the other organisations I had been involved with.

I have never been particularly materialistic and those positions and the two incomes I used to receive are just that - material. So it's been easy to let them go because I know that one day something else will take their place.

But what I have absolutely refused to let go of is my innocence because if I do that, I may as well stop living.

There's a poem on the Justice for Leyton Ward website called Hold On and that's what I've been trying to do.

I need to hold on even if others can't or won't, for the sake of those who elected me and still believe in my innocence; and for my young niece, nephew and Godchild who all wonder why Aunty Miranda has been punished when she did nothing wrong.

It is their strength and their young, innocent questions about what's fair and what isn't fair that keep me going.

I need to show them, and others their age, that it is still safe for them to believe that they will be rewarded, rather than punished, for working hard.

That's why I still believe in justice myself and I have to keep believing that one day, however long it takes, I will be cleared.

My "life" as I knew it has obviously changed immeasurably over the last six months and the last 14 months as a whole. I have lost "friends" and learnt about the truth of my relationships with other people I thought I knew well.

I don't really like leaving the house now - not just because of a continued fear that one of the nutters who email me abuse might spot me - but rather, because when people who've known me since I was a baby express nothing but sympathy, anger and compassion for what's happened to me. I become a wreck, unable to control my tears and emotions in the street, overwhelmed and devastated all at once by their very sincere and straight-from-the-heart Leyton kindness.

That has been the second hardest reality to face after the theft of my innocence - that many people who still don't know I'm not their councillor any more, still come to me for help and now I'm powerless to help them.

The very same feelings of anger and frustration I have now are what led me to stand for election two years ago - anger and frustration with the neglect of a ward that I still believe should be Waltham Forest borough's number one priority.

So that's been my last six months. A period of pain, bewilderment, upset and depression, but also very much a period of love, support, faith and hope too.

Losing both my jobs has meant that I've had to tell the bailiffs who've turned up at my front door that they can't have the nearly £6,000 court fine I owe them, all at once. I had never met a bailiff before this year.

I am just trying to be philosophical about that experience too and consider it "one more thing to experience before I'm 30" - just like the first time I ever entered a police station last March and the first time I ever entered a court room last April.

Hope. Faith. Justice. Those are my new daily "buzz thoughts" and I am strangely grateful that I now think I understand their true meaning.

So to all those people who have emailed or texted me over the last six months to ask how I am, this is it, now you know - warts and all.

I hope you now understand that when I seem not to want to speak on the phone or to meet up socially it's not because of anything you've done. I just have a lot I'm still working through because, as you can see, my fight isn't over.

I still believe in justice and that's why I still believe that, one day, however long it takes, there will be justice for all those people who cast their votes for me two years ago, only to then have them unjustly stolen.

Thank you to all those people who are still helping me to fight for true Justice for Leyton Ward.