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Free Daze

Please let me know of any updates I can post here.

On August 30 Gary's sentence was reduced to a £4,500 find 200 hours' community service. He has to pay the fine off at £500 a month.

Gary's appeal was successful. His original sentence of 28 months imprisonment was overturned by the High Court of Appeal. He will reappear in court in 6 weeks time for sentencing, which is likely to be community service and a fine.

As reported in:

Some of the newspapers are now reporting the damage was estimated at around £12,000 instead of the £270,000 initially reported, a figure which is believed to have come from the British Transport Police.

Gary's appeal will be held at the High Court of Appeal in Edinburgh on Friday 27th June at 10.30. Members of the public are welcome to attend, so you can go along to show your support if you want.

As of 12th May, Gary was freed on "interim liberation" while his appeal goes through. He could still go back to finish his sentence if his appeal is unsuccesful.

Graffiti writer Daze (Gary Shields) was jailed in March for 28 months at Ayr Sheriff Court. This was for eight offences. Gary pleaded guilty to a value of damage agreed with the Procurator Fiscal of £10,000. The figure of £270,000 worth of damage is what appeared in the news, and is believed to have been supplied to the media by the British Transport Police.

The papers are reporting this as the longest sentence for vandalism in Scotland. However, the same Sheriff gave a 33 month sentence to someone for spraying anti-Semitic graffiti on the war memorial in Troon, just last December.

Sheriff Colin B. Miller (61), who's hobbies include "railways", was previously in the news last year for giving someone a 3 year suspended sentence and putting him on the sex offenders register for masturbating with his bike. So in other words he's a trainspotter with an eye for controversy.

The story was initially reported in the Evening Times and Daily Record, along with a BTP press release

Since then there has been both a positive article in the Sunday Herald and a negative one in the Evening Times. Even the Howard League for Penal Reform in Scotland has weighed in on Gary's side.

So what can you do?

Join the Facebook group
Add the Free Daze My Space profile to your friends list
There are two online petitions to sign, sign them both:
- www.ipetitions.com/petition/freedaze
- www.livepetitions.co.uk/freedaze
There's also an offline petition which you can find at Shakewell and Fat Buddha in Glasgow, Skinnycap in Dundee and maybe a few other places too.
You can write to him at:
Gary Shields 107205,
Barlinnie Prison,
81 Lee Avenue,
Glasgow,
G33 2QX
There is more information on the Facebook group about what you can send etc.

Gary's lawyers are putting an appeal in. There are obvious similarities with the Krek and Mers (TJ Dolan and Thomas Whittaker) case from last year. They were sentenced to 15 months and 12 months, but following an appeal were released after just two months. Hopefully Gary's appeal will be similarly successful.