Our College students in Arkwright (Year 11), participated in a fascinating assembly focusing on the theme of ‘Second Chances’.
Students staged a play featuring the story of Raphael Rowe, who was wrongly convicted of robbery and murder in 1990 and subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment. Following an appeal, after 12 years in prison, Rafael was cleared of all convictions and released. During his incarceration, against all the odds, he studied journalism through a correspondence course, and after his release, joined the BBC as a reporter on Radio 4’s Today Programme. He has used his second chance to become journalist and documentary presenter and has appeared on ‘Pilgrimage: The Road to Santiago’ with other celebrities and presented ‘Inside the World’s Toughest Prisons’ on Netflix.
Raphael has used his experiences within prison and the challenges he faced during his trial and appeal to give him a unique approach to journalism and is making the most of his new lease of life. Perhaps not surprisingly, much of his work focuses on human tragedies born from wrongs within the criminal justice system.
