by Giles Ekins
And now the council were planning to sell of the playing fields and rugby pitches as they considered competitive sport elitist and al West Garside secondary schools were to be turned into ‘academies’, whatever that might mean and Brian had serious misgivings as to what kind of education his daughter Hayley would receive in three years’ time when she left junior school.
As he walked towards the headmaster’s study, boys and some girls were running down the corridors, pushing and jostling at each other with no apparent sense of discipline or restraint. However those girls wearing the hijab. and there seemed to be a lot of them, walked softly and chatted quietly in serious groups of five or six
Mr Raybone, the headmaster, only a year or so from his retirement, displayed all the world weariness of one who has battled against the tide of falling standards for years and knows he has failed, knows that his successor will fail and that his successor will fail after that.
Raybone was tall and thin, with a sharp nose, thinning hair, thick glasses in a black frame and large arthritically bent hands. He wore a blue suit, sharply pressed, a white shirt and a university tie and his academic robe hung up on a peg at the side of the door.
After gingerly shaking hands and ordering tea, Raybone finally got around to answering enquiries about Julia Jarrett. ‘Had there been any concerns about her behaviour which might indicate trouble at home?’
‘Jarrett? Julia Jarrett, yes, I do remember reading about that, her tragic death, I mean and of course, the more recent events. Such a waste.’
‘But about Julia, what can you tell me about her?’
‘To be honest, I can’t say I recall her at all. It was only later, when the dreadful news was discussed in the common room, did I even realise that she had once been a pupil here. I know that sounds awful, ’Raybone continued, ‘but so many children pass through the school these days that I regret to say that very few make any impact whatsoever, except in the most negative of ways, of course.’
‘Would any of her class teachers be able to help? I’m most anxious to learn if any teacher had concerns about her behaviour or falling standards in her work, or that things at home were not as they should be?’ Brian asked, putting down the cup of weak tea that Raybone’s secretary had brought in and nibbled at a stale digestive biscuit instead. ‘It would be those teachers in the latter years of her time here that would have the most insight.’
‘You might think so, but our average classroom size is now 45 children, 65% of whom do not speak English as a first language, so the chances of any of our teachers being able to spot if anything is amiss at home is extremely remote.
However,’ Raybone gave an audible sigh, and pressed the office intercom on his desk. ‘Margery, can you please check our records for Julia Jarrett, yes, that’s the one, poor girl, and let me know who her class teachers were for the…last three years?’ raising an inquisitive eyebrow at Brian who nodded in agreement. ‘Yes, the last three years and see if we have recorded any concerns in her file. Oh, and another cup of tea for the sergeant, his seems to have gone cold.’
‘Thank you, sir, and it is detective, detective constable, not sergeant.’
Margery, middle-aged and bustlingly efficient, came in with another cup of tea for Brian, bustled out again and returned with some manila files which she placed, almost reverently, in front of the headmaster who beamed at her benevolently. ‘Thank you, Margery, consistently efficient as usual,’ he said, so warmly that Brian wondered if there had been something between them in the past.
Raybone picked up the first file and began to read. ‘You must realise, sergeant, that these records are extremely sensitive and confidential.’
‘I do realise that, sir, but I do need to ascertain if any concerns have been raised and to that extent, I wish to talk to Julia’s teachers. I would remind you sir, that we are conducting a murder enquiry and it is your duty to assist in any way you can.’ Brian said forcefully.
‘I do not need to be instructed as to my duty, sergeant, however, I will arrange for you to talk to Mr Dawson, Mr Copstick and Mrs Buckley, Julia’s last three class teachers but I must insist that the files remain confidential. Unless of course you produce a court order,’ he added pompously.
Only Mrs Mary Buckley showed any empathy towards Julia Jarrett. Doth Dawson and Copstick said they vaguely remembered her, and that was only after her death. They could offer no insights into Julia’s behaviour, her records did show a fall in her grades and an increasing indiscipline, but neither teacher showed any curiosity why that was. ‘It was just a teenage thing,’ offered Copstick whilst Dawson considered her behaviour ‘something that all kids go through’.
However, Mary Buckley had been concerned, not only had she been Julia’s class teacher when she was fifteen but also her English teacher. Mary had noticed the decline in her work and attitude, ‘she used to write brilliant essays, but then she hardly bothered to even hand anything in, she got sullen and uncommunicative, which is such a shame. She could have easily got her A’s and gone on to university. I was utterly devastated when I heard about her death, such a loss. And now her parents as well, what a tragic, tragic family.’
‘Mrs Buckley…’
‘Mary, please.’
‘Mary, did it ever occur to you that Julia might have been abused Could she have been abused by her father?’
‘I can’t say, she certainly never said anything to me, but yes, undoubtedly something was troubling her. But what that was, I can’t say. And I won’t speculate, and I can’t or rather won’t, speak ill of the deadI’m sorry, I can’t really help you any further.’
‘You seem to be the only teacher here that has showed the remotest interest in Julia.’
‘I’m a teacher and I try to be a good one, I used to love my job, I thought it the greatest job in the world, moulding young minds to give them a head start, but now I think it the worst job in the world. Sorry, I shouldn’t really have burdened you with that.’
‘No, that’s fine Mary, but you have been helpful, confirming that she was troubled, but like you say, we shall probably never know why. Thank you.’
Forty-Six
If the two hours spent at the school had been frustrating, it was nothing compared to the stone wall of bureaucratic obfuscation and determined obstruction he faced at the Social Services Department in the West Garside Council offices.
Despite endlessly complaining about ‘savage cuts’ to their budget, the council still managing to find several million pounds to upgrade and extend their offices and employ large numbers of jobsworths in meaningless positions, whilst closing care homes for the elderly, 9 libraries, reducing bus routes and frequencies of service and awarding a 25 year PFI contract to a highways contractor who immediately took a chain saw to hundreds of perfectly healthy trees in order to sell off the wood and save themselves the costs of maintaining those trees.
The council called this contract ‘good value for money’ but refused to allow anyone to read the contract, stating that it was ‘commercially confidential.’ Anybody who actively protested the wanton destruction of centuries3 old trees was threatened with the law and five protesters had in fact been taken to court.
Brian’s frustrations began as soon as he entered the council building. The entrance and reception were housed in a gleaming new glass and stainless-steel extension, the costs of which to the tax payer was also considered to be ‘commercially confidential’
After identifying himself as a police officer, Brain asked at reception to be directed to Social Services, only to be told that the department was not accessible to the public.
‘I am not the ‘public’ I am a police officer and I will find the department no matter what but if you continue to obstruct me, you could face arrest.’, Brian said firmly.
‘Look it’s not me, I’m only following the directives, Social Services are not accessible to the public, else we’d have everybody coming in and making claims,’’ she answered. ‘Service to the Public’ was obviously
not a credo that the council followed despite a sign on the wall behind the reception desk declaring it as their prime goal.
‘I am not the public. Now, pick up that phone and call whomever you have to and tell them that a police officer, will, I repeat will, be making enquiries with Social Services.’
The receptionist, called Barbara according to her name tag, picked up her phone, consulted a list of extensions and then explained to whoever answered that a policeman wanted to make enquiries. ‘OK, I’ll ask him. Mr Patterson asks, do you have a warrant?’
‘Tell him the only warrant he’ll be seeing is the one for his arrest for obstructing a police officer in the course of his duties.’ Brain retorted, by now, thoroughly exasperated.
The threat worked, and Brian was directed to the fourth floor. ‘See. That wasn’t hasn’t hard was it?’ he said and walked across to a bank of gleaming stainless steel lifts.
At the Social Services Department reception desk, Brian again explained his purpose, wondering why there was a reception desk and receptionist if nobody was ever allowed to visit.
After a short while, a girl, apparently the most junior member of staff, a young girl barely out of school, came over and stood nervously in front of Brian, clutching a file to her chest as if it was a life saver.
‘Afternoon love, as I explained, I’m trying to establish if you have any records for a Julia Jarrett, particularly any reports of parental abuse?’ Brian asked the nervous girl.
‘I’m sorry, sir, we’re not allowed to discuss individual cases with anybody.’
‘Then go and find somebody who can discuss a case with me.’
‘I don’t there is anybody available, sir, they, they…are all in an important meeting. Perhaps if you come back later? Or tomorrow.’
‘I know it’s not you love, but you had better go back in there and find somebody, Mr Patterson for instance. I’ll give him five minutes to come and talk to me before I go through that door and start making arrests.’
The girl scurried back into the offices and after three or four minutes another, a more senior staff member came out, but she only repeated the mantra that individual cases could not be discussed outside of the department.
‘Now look here, I am rapidly losing my patience, if I do not speak to somebody with authority to assist me, Mr Patterson for instance…’
‘Mr Patterson, but he’s the third assistant head of department!’
‘I don’t care if he’s the Grand Panjandrum of Hungalbaria, get him out here to me now. Now!’ Brian demanded.
Brian paced up and down the corridor in exasperated impatience before ‘Mr Patterson’ finally made an appearance, so obviously a social worker with regulation scruffy beard, blue denim shirt, faded jeans and suede desert boots that Brian had to restrain himself from laughing out loud.
For the third time he explained his mission and this time did get a more positive response.
‘Although it is not standard procedure, due to the extenuating circumstances I will ascertain if we do have anything on record for a Julia Jarrett, although I cannot recall the name ever having come up in case conferences.’
After a further wait of several minutes, Patterson finally returned to state that they had no record on file of any Julia Jarrett, no report had ever made in respect of parental abuse.
‘So why could nobody tell me that right from the start, instead of all the prevarication and time wasting. I know, I know, don’t tell me, you can’t discuss individual cases.’ ‘What a pathetic bunch of jobsworths. Wrapped up in their little bubble of self-righteousness. No wonder those grooming gangs in Rotherham got away with it, if Social Services there was anything like this shower,’ he thought.
He drove back to the station, wrote up his reports, caught up with other members of the team on progress of the case before finally able to leave and head for home and the most difficult task of the day, telling his daughter Hayley that he could not take her to the stables for a riding lesson, as promised.
At first, Hayley pouted in annoyance as only an eight-year-old girl can do and flounced off to her room but soon came back down again. She walked over to Brian as he sat in his armchair, a scotch and soda in his hand, unwinding after his long and frustrating day. Hayley climbed up onto his lap, put her arms about his neck and said, ‘It’s all right Daddy, I know you have to work and take care of us. And I don’t like horses anyway,’ and gave her Dad the biggest of hugs and suddenly his day felt an awful lot better.
Forty-Seven
After returning to the station following her interview with Chloe Macbeth, Emma Cox had spent the rest of the day, together with Danny Moss and other delegated officers, scrolling the hundreds of CCTV recordings that the DCI had been authorised to obtain. Recordings from the library where David Jarrett had spent some 34 minutes, recordings from the shops he had claimed to visit. the streets of the town centre and the car park where he had parked the Volvo. All this CCTV had to be scrutinised to build up a timetable of David’s movements.
It was stressful work, requiring great concentration, straining her eyes as she studied the grainy black and white images of sometimes flickering poor definition film. Uniform officers had knocked on the doors on all the houses in Blackmires Road and surrounding streets, requesting the tapes, or rather the digital cards. from any CCTV cameras that the residents had installed on their houses, or from dash-cams in their cars.
All these images, hundreds of them, had to be carefully scrutinised for sightings of David Jarrett. Or any other suspicious characters lurking about or without apparent reason to be there or cars parked in locations from which the Jarrett house could be observed.
The CCTV from the town centre confirmed everything David Jarrett claimed to have done. The blue Volvo was seen driving along the Penistone Road which would eventually had led to the roads up to Dunmore Edge, but once the car left the central area and suburbs, coverage was sparse, and the car was not picked up again.
The recordings from the houses on Blackmires Road were equally unhelpful, nearly all the CCTV cameras from there covered the front gardens which were often more than fifty yards long and enclosed by high walls or yew hedges, providing little coverage of the road itself whilst the Jarrett house had a burglar alarm but no CCTV so there was no record of any coming or going from the crime scene.
Dispirited at the lack of progress Emma rubbed at her sore eyes and decided to head for home. Danny Moss was hunched up in front of his computer, still working his way through the films from the traffic cameras, searching for the elusive Volvo driven by Jarrett, whilst Fred Burbage had only just left, having written up his report on the visit to Donald Jarrett Accountants and the confrontation with Peter Donnelly.
Fred was convinced that Donnelly had something to hide, something which merited further investigation and so the material recovered from the office had been sent for examination by forensic accountants from the Fraud Squad. Then he had been occupied with his tasks as Receiver, indexing, collating, and cross checking, ensuring that the minutiae, the essential details of every investigation were properly analysed and recorded.
Jessica Babalola was also at the station, writing up a report on her visit to the medical practice where Julia Jarrett had been registered as a patient, Grace reasoning that Julia’s doctors might more readily discuss any issues of abuse with a female detective.
Dr Janice Metcalfe, Julia’s GP, was a tall, middle aged, thin woman, with orange tinted spectacles balanced on the tip of her nose, greying hair tied back in a bun and had the air of a strict headmistress rather a member of the caring profession.
Although the GP did agree to meet Jessica after her afternoon surgery, Jessica was not surprised that she was reluctant to talk about Julia’s medical history, citing patient confidentiality.
.’Surely, officer, you must understand, that without a court order or warrant, I must preserve the confidentiality of a patient’s records.’
‘Even though the patient, Julia Jarrett, is deceas
ed?’ queried Jessica.
‘I’m afraid so, my ethical obligation in respect of Julia’s confidentiality extends beyond death,’ the doctor insisted.
‘But,’ Jessica responded, having researched the legal position on the BMA website, ‘under section 29 of the Data Protection Act, the police can request voluntary disclosure of health records if it is the public interest to do so.’.
‘You might be correct that the police may request voluntary disclosure, however there is no obligation for me for me to agree. And I am afraid that I do not agree,’ the doctor responded tartly. If Julia had been abused, Jessica could well believe she would find it difficult to unburden herself to this strict unbending woman, the one person she ought to have been able talk to.
However, Jessica was not ready to give up just yet. ‘But if there is overriding public interest, under common law, disclosure can be given if it is essential to detect serious crime. And as you are aware, we are conducting a murder enquiry’.
‘But Julia Jarrett was not the murder victim was she, that was her father. so there is no ‘overriding public interest’ in disclosing her records, is there?’
‘There is. We are trying to establish a motive for Donald Jarrett’s killing. Therefore, we have to ascertain if the accusations that Julia’s father abused her, are true.
Jessica was getting annoyed with the GP’s intransigence. She agreed that a patient’s confidentiality should be protected, but according to the BMA guidelines, where serious crime is involved, a health professional could be held legally liable if they fail to act to avoid serious harm and the abuse of children undeniably caused serious harm. However, even when Jessica pointed this out, Dr Metcalfe steadfastly refused to move from her stated position and herself referred to the BMA guidelines.
‘As I have already said, a patient’s confidentiality extends beyond death and section 41 of the Data Protection Act confirms that position, I’m sorry officer, but my answer must and will remain the same. If the police want access to Julia Jarrett’s records, you must apply to the records manager of the Primary Care Trust. That is my last word on the subject and I really must be leaving now.’
