Read the transcript of Linda Carty's speech to Trafalgar Square

Recorded this week in Mountain View Unit, the prison where Linda Carty is being held on death row, this speech will be broadcast on a loop in Trafalgar Square at 10am this morning. Linda tells her story and pleads with the British people to help save her life.

You can also listen to the speech and help us help Linda by contributing to our urgent appeal for Linda Carty.

Hello Trafalgar Square! My name is Linda Carty and I’m speaking to you from Death Row in Texas, in the United States.

It is everybody’s worst nightmare to be executed for a crime they did not commit. I am living that nightmare.

I have begged for justice and a fair hearing here in the United States, but I am afraid that by the time people find out the truth, it will be too late.

I’m sorry if I sound like a desperate woman. I am desperate, because the British people may be my last hope. If they ask for my life to be spared, maybe Texas will listen.

That’s why I need to tell you my story. Please listen, and tell everyone you know. Please don’t let me die here.

Back in 2002 I was sentenced to death for a murder I did not commit.

My trial was full of terrible mistakes. That is why I am so desperate to tell my story here today and to tell you what went wrong. So here’s what happened:

I was framed by three men who kidnapped my neighbour and put her in the boot of a car where she suffocated. For many years I had worked as an undercover informant for the Drug Enforcement Agency, here in the United States, befriending suspected drug dealers and passing the information on to the Agency, leading to the arrest of criminals. And they were notorious criminals. These three men, all known criminals, tried to place the blame on me for something they had done, and I can prove that. They all reached deals with the prosecution and got lesser sentences, avoiding the death penalty themselves to ensure that I would die.

When I was first arrested I thought it would be all over within a few minutes, I didn’t know anything about the crime and I assumed the police and the D.E.A would soon realise their mistake. How wrong I was.

I wanted to pick my own lawyer, but the court appointed one for me. Although my life was on the line, the appointed lawyer, Jerry Guerinot, barely did any investigation on my case.

He hardly spoke to any witnesses before the trial. He hardly spoke to any of my relatives or friends. The first time he spoke to me was just two weeks before my jury selection, fifteen minutes or less! He told me he was too busy to work on my case and that his time and his attention was going to be geared towards his daughter’s upcoming wedding. During the appeal he tried to explain why he hadn’t spoken to me. Well, he lied and he told them that he had to bribe me with chocolate bars. Surprise, I’m allergic to chocolate too.

It turns out that Jerry Guerinot has many [sic.] clients on death row than any other lawyer in the US. I wasn’t convicted and sentenced to death because I’m guilty, I was convicted and sentenced to death because I had a terrible lawyer.

When the jury reached its verdict I was absolutely devastated, I went numb. At the same time part of me accepted it because I’m also a pragmatist and if you have a lawyer who hardly presents any evidence you can’t get mad at the jury for thinking that means there is no evidence and therefore the defendant must be guilty.

I was born and raised on the Caribbean island of St Kitts where I lived until I moved to Houston with my family when I was 23. St Kitts is a beautiful and relaxed place and I loved my job as a primary school teacher. I also taught kids with special needs and Sunday school in my spare time. I led a volunteer social-work group and sang in the national youth choir. By the way, I was also featured as a solo alto for Prince Charles when he visited the Bastion in St. Kitts. Life in Houston working with the Drug Enforcement Agency was a completely different world; it was exciting but also dangerous.

Now I spend 23 hours of each day in solitary confinement in a small cell on death row. We are woken for breakfast at 4 am and have one hour of recreation of our cells, well, I have to clarify that part. I am more capable so I work and I rec. two hours, each, per day. The rest of the time, I am locked up in that cell, actually, it’s a cage. In my cell there is a toilet and a small sink. A steel bed is the only piece of furniture that we have and we have to eat our meals either on the bed, floor or sometimes on the toilet or sometimes at the desk. We are not allowed to have TVs in our cells. I spend most of my time reading - romance novels and magazines. Music helps me relax, I listen to pop, soul, r n’ b and some classical. I like sports – I love cricket and I love to play golf – and I like to follow the cricket and I love to make sure that people laugh.

I have a daughter, Jovelle, and two beautiful grandchildren. Whom I would really love to get the opportunity to see grow up, go through high school and go through college and become probably the President of the United States one of these days. It breaks my heart that I am unable to be there for them in any way that I would like, to play with them and to watch them grow. I have to talk to them through a glass partition through which I am now talking to you. Whenever they come to visit, I cannot touch them or hug them because… I’m on Death Row. And that is devastating.

So far the US Courts have refused to help me. Time is now running out and I appeal to every one of you and to the British government to please help me. Please don’t allow them to kill me for a crime that I know I did not commit, and that if you really… if someone took the time to investigate, they would really discover I did not. Thank you.

HELP US HELP LINDA by contributing to our urgent appeal for Linda Carty.

More details on Linda’s disastrous case at www.reprieve.org.uk/lindacarty or below. For more information please contact Katherine O’Shea at Reprieve’s Press Office katherine.oshea@reprieve.org.uk 020 7427 1099/ 07931592674.