‘I was in total despair but then I started fighting back’

AS ONE of the Cardiff Newsagent Three, Mike O’Brien spent 11 years in prison for a murder he did not commit.

It’s an experience that has inevitably defined his life and which could easily have crushed him.

While he was in prison awaiting trial for the murder of newsagent Phillip Saunders his three-month-old daughter Kylie was a victim of cot death.

After a huge public campaign the convictions of him and his co-accused were quashed.

Years later he found happiness with his partner and then wife Claire but before long they had to deal with a further tragedy.

Their two-year-old son Dylan died of a genetic disorder. Mike and Claire have since set up a charity that raises funds for sick children.

The centrepiece of the book O’Brien has written with psychotherapist Stuart Coulden is a conversation between the two of them in which Coulden asks O’Brien to explain how he has coped with what life has had in store for him.

O’Brien says: “I put my resilience down to be inherited from my mother, who had a tough life but showed great resilience in always having the knack of bouncing back from whatever life threw at her, and I seem to have the same traits as her.

“Some earlier life experiences when I was growing up on a tough council estate also stood me in good stead. Seeing poverty and domestic violence as we were growing up made me determined not to live my life this way and I wanted to better myself.

“I was also determined that I would not bring up my children in a violent atmosphere like we had then and have kept that promise.

“It was important for me to break the cycle.”

Asked whether there was a particular thing about his mother that led him to realise that difficult situations could be overcome, he said: “My mother showed me that even when something bad happens there’s always light at the end of the tunnel.

“She overcame her mother dying at an early age and losing a sister and showed me after I lost my own daughter that I could overcome and learn to live with her death too.

“My mother lost two children too and had a mental strength that you see in very few people. It certainly rubbed off on me and helped me to overcome what life threw at me too.

“I got my mental strength from my mother, who I have no doubt was an amazing woman.”

Explaining his feelings after being found guilty of a murder he did not commit, O’Brien said: “When I was found guilty I had lost all hope in the criminal justice system.

“I was in total despair and felt that God had abandoned me. I thought I was never going to be a free man again and be with my family. I was close to a nervous breakdown. I had suicidal thoughts and wanted to die.

“At this stage I had no fight in me. I first turned to drugs to cope with what happened and it took me two years to get my head together.

“The turning point for me was meeting other prisoners who were fighting to prove their innocence, who helped me get off the drugs, and then I got angry and decided to study law.

“Then I started fighting back and began educating myself. I dug deep and the strength I got was finding out how this happened to me and how I was going to put it right.

“One of the prisoners said to me you have got to start writing to people and get focused on fighting to clear your name. No-one is going to do it for you. He gave me a rollicking and didn’t mince his words.

“That night as I lay in my bed it sunk in that he was right. So I went to see the psychologists who helped me come off the drugs and started getting counselling.

“From then I never looked back and started studying my case and the law and the fightback began.”

Overcoming Injustice and Loss by Michael O’Brien with Stuart Coulden is published by Moving Mountains and is available for £5.71 from Amazon. A Kindle edition costs £2.99.