Howard League Scotland: 50th Anniversary of the Barlinnie Special Unit - 'Silent Scream' Film Screening

To mark the 50th Anniversary of the Barlinnie Special Unit - the experimental therapeutic facility designed in sharp contrast to Peterhead's segregation unit - HLS is hosting a film screening of 'Silent Scream', the 1990 film based on the true story of one of Barlinnie Special Unit's residents, Larry Winters. We'll be joined for a Q&A session by the film's screenwriter Bill Beech and the psychotherapist Sara Trevelyan who was married to one of the unit's other prisoners - Jimmy Boyle - and who worked there. There will be a short presentation by Prof. Richard Sparks who conducted seminal research with the unit's residents and staff, which will be followed by a short drinks reception.

About the Film

It's 1963. When Larry Winters violently murders a Soho barman he is sentenced to life imprisonment. Within 10 years he is addicted to prescription drugs and feared as one of Scotland's most violent prisoners. One of the first men to be transferred to the experimental Barlinnie Special Unit, Larry finds new and creative ways to express himself through writing and poetry, whilst continuing to explore drugs as a means to escape the confines of his prison cell. Based on a true story, the film beautifully captures his harrowing psychological decline. Through flashbacks of his own and his mother's, we learn how he came to end up in the Barlinnie Special Unit and how his life was shaped in an intimate examination of 1960s society. Directed by David Hayman with exceptional performances from Iain Glen and Robert Carlyle, it's a brutal, mind-bending journey into Larry Winters' psyche that poses important questions about the nature of punishment, that are as relevant today as they were then.

About the Speakers

Bill Beech

Bill Beech was introduced to the Special Unit by Richard Demarco during Demarco’s Edinburgh Arts programme in 1974. Together with artist visitors such as Joseph Beuys, Bill developed a working relationship with the inmates, particularly Jimmy Boyle and Larry Winters. Bill’s collaboration with Larry was to lead to a set of exhibitions including Larry’s writing and poetry with Bill’s drawings illustrating Larry’s battle against drug addiction.  Larry’s tragic death in 1977 threatened the whole survival of the Unit and in the search for a positive outcome, using the work they had made together Bill produced an illustrated screenplay based on Larry’s life and writings. This initially commissioned by Alan Fountain at Channel 4, with additional  support from Colin McCabe at the BFI, enabled the critically acclaimed feature film Silent Scream to be made in collaboration with David Hayman, the exceptional Glasgow Filmmakers, and with an extraordinary leading performance by Iain Glen.

Sara Trevelyan

"All that I have lived in my life leads me to believe that with wisdom and compassion we can heal our relationship with ourselves, our loved ones, and our world"

Sara graduated as a medical doctor in 1977 at St.Thomas's Hospital in London. She married Jimmy Boyle when he was imprisoned in the Barlinnie Special Unit in 1980. Having left hospitals and medicine behind, Sara went on to explore mental health in the community. She co-founded the Gateway Exchange, a charitable organisation which was set up as an experimental arts project to support people moving from prison to the wider community. Sara has dedicated a large part of her life to healing, working for more than 30 years as a counsellor and psychotherapist. She was ordained as an Interfaith Minister in 2018 and now lives between the spiritual community of Findhorn and Edinburgh. 

Richard Sparks

"Prisons disrupt people's attempts to improve their lives"

Richard is Professor of Criminology at the University of Edinburgh and is a former Convenor of Howard League Scotland. In 2019 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from KU Leuven. Richard's research primarily concerns relationships between crime control, especially penal policies, and democratic politics. He is involved in debates on the sociology of punishment; public responses to crime and punishment; and the uses, abuses and non-uses of criminological knowledge in shaping public discourse and policy on crime and punishment. He has a specific interest in comparative and international dimensions of these areas. Much of his work has concerned prisons, and especially problems of legitimacy with respect to power and control in prisons in the UK and internationally. Richard has authored and edited numerous books and articles - described as both "timeless and timely" - including work on the Barlinnie Special Unit. 

Event Link

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