Tributes have poured in following the death in Devon of Erwin James who became a newspaper journalist in prison after being convicted of murder. The 66-year-old was recovered from the water at Brixham marina last Saturday, January 20, at around 10.50am.
Police have confirmed the death is not being treated as suspicious. An inquest into the circumstances will be held at a later date.
In a tribute to him, prison newspaper Inside Time said it was believed Mr James had tripped on the quayside and fallen into the water, hitting his head.
Mr James, real name Erwin James Monahan, was convicted of murder in 1984 and served 20 years in prison. While serving a life sentence, he wrote a column for the Guardian called A Life Inside from 2000 until his release in 2004. It was the first such column of its kind in the UK.
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He continued to write extensively for the newspaper after his release, offering a glimpse of the reality of life behind bars and the challenge faced by those trying to build a rehabilitated life after it. He was credited with inspiring a generation of prison reform campaigners.
Mr James also penned three books, including the memoir Redeemable: A Memoir of Darkness and Hope, published in 2016. In it, he detailed his troubled childhood and life in the Foreign Legion while on the run from his crimes, as well as his years in prison.
That same year he became the editor of Inside Time, the prison newspaper, which he had described as his “dream job”, continuing in the role until 2023. He is said to have left behind his wife Margaret, his sister and two daughters.
Mr James was born in Somerset in 1957, to Scottish parents. After he lost his mother at the age of seven, his father turned to alcohol and violence. At the age of 10, Erwin was sleeping rough when he committed his first offence of breaking and entering. He became a drifter, committing crimes to survive.
In 1982 he carried out two robberies during which men died. He fled to France and joined the Foreign Legion, but later handed himself in, and at the age of 28 was sentenced at the Old Bailey to life for murder.
He was sentenced alongside another man for murdering Greville Hallam, a theatrical agent, and Angus Cochrane, a solicitor. Mr Hallam, 48, was robbed and strangled in his north London home in September 1982. Mr Cochrane, 29, died after being mugged in the West End three months later.
While inside, Mr James earned an Open University degree and became the first serving prisoner to write regularly for the national media.
Ian Katz, now the chief content officer at Channel 4, who as Guardian features editor first commissioned James to write for G2, said: “Jim was an acute observer of people and gifted writer who offered us a rare, humane – and frequently hilarious – insight into life inside the prison system.
“He was also something still rarer – physical embodiment of the possibility that even people who have done the most terrible things can turn their lives around in prison and earn a second chance at life. Jim put his second chance to extraordinary account – he challenged our assumptions not just about the prison system but about those who commit the most heinous crimes. He was generous, open, funny, vulnerable and will be greatly missed.”
Alan Rusbridger, the former Guardian editor, called his death “a big loss”. He said: “Erwin James wrote a really remarkable column from prison for the Guardian, full of humanity and insights into life inside, and the purpose of prison – in theory and in practice.”
John Roberts, the publisher and director of Inside Time, said: “We shall be forever grateful to Erwin for his contribution to the success of Inside Time during his time as editor, and he will be missed.”
The Prisons Reform Trust, of which he was a former trustee, described him as “a man of deep intelligence, humility and warmth”.
After becoming Editor of Inside Time, Mr James said: “As a life prisoner in the 1990s, I remember well the introduction of Inside Time into prisons. For the first time ever, it not only gave prisoners a voice but also an invaluable source of reliable information about prison issues. Since then, under the expert editorship of the paper’s founder Eric McGraw, it has grown considerably and become a required monthly fixture on wings and landings, enjoyed by prisoners and by many readers outside prison, including students, lawyers, and tabloid journalists.
“Over the years I was an occasional contributor: I was in prison, but I was free to think and free to write. In my wildest dream I even imagined that if I worked hard enough at thinking and writing, one day I might make it as a journalist – and then against the odds I made it as a columnist and feature writer for The Guardian. Since my release 11 years ago after serving 20 years, I’ve written for many publications, including Radio Times, The New Humanist, The Big Issue, The Daily Mirror – and still occasionally Inside Time.
“My first thought when I heard there was going to be a vacancy for the Inside Time editor’s desk was, ‘That would be my dream job.’ I’m deeply honoured to have been chosen from the candidates who applied and I will do my best to uphold and maintain the values and standard of editorship that Eric so admirably set.”
