Akili Charles had a lot of time to think about injustice as he waited nine years in an overcrowded cell in Port of Spain Prison before the court freed him from a murder charge.

'Many of us saw people serving sentences and leaving, and we were still in prison waiting for our cases to be heard. We knew we were innocent, and we were supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but in Trinidad, it feels like you're guilty until proven innocent,' said Charles. 'I couldn't accept that after all the time spent in prison, I'd go to court one day and they would just say, 'You're free.' That's not enough.'

Charles, a practising Buddhist, believed there had to be a better sense of justice, so he legally challenged the system for violating his rights on several occasions.

Together, Charles and his lawyer, Wayne Sturge contacted Senior Counsel Anand Ramlogan, and sued the Attorney General for murder accused to have the right to apply for bail.

Last Thursday, 12 years after his ordeal began, the Privy Council in England upheld the local Court of Appeal's decision. It said the Bail Act, which denied the right to apply for bail while on a murder charge, was unconstitutional.

Charles said, 'The wait was frustrating. I often wondered if the court would come up with a good decision.'

For Charles, the breaking point for his long stay in remand came on an unexpected day in the magistrates' court. For two years after he had been arrested for murder in 2010, Charles waited for his day in court. After constant postponements over the next five years, he went to court one day and heard Chief Magistrate Maria Busby Earle-Caddle say she would restart his matter, because Marcia Ayers-Caesar had been promoted to the position of High Court judge. Ayers-Caesar had a pile of unfinished cases.

'We only had about one more hearing for the matter to finish, and now we were told we were going to start over. So what would that be, another seven years?'

Enraged, Charles spoke out in court. That sparked what the media described as 'a near-riot.'

'Inmates refused to go back into the holding cells,' said Charles.

Ayers-Caesar did not return to the magistrates' court, but later resigned (itself the subject of a legal matter).

Charles returned to Port of Spain Prison and immersed himself in all the programmes he could: CXC English and maths, and a PVC furniture-making class run by the Wishing for Wings (W4W) Foundation. He participated in music class with Officer Lowe and was a member of the ground-breaking W4W/prison debate team, which led to prison debate teams being set up in all ten prisons.

His lowest point came while talking on the phone to his four-year-old daughter.

'She asked, 'Daddy, when are you coming home?'

'I said, 'Soon', and she said, 'Daddy, you're always saying that.'

'I was missing her childhood.'

Akili Charles grew up on Covigne Road, Diego Martin, attended Newtown Boys' Primary School and passed for St James Secondary School, where he got CXC passes in geography and POB.

'I always liked business classes