In Your Defence

by Sarah Langford

  It was the man tasked with repairing water damage on Peter’s laptop who first called the police. When the two officers were shown into Peter’s home by his pale-faced mother, he admitted his guilt immediately. He led the police to his bedroom, where they found his walls and shelves filled with the relics and mementos of childhood. In the corner of the room was a computer, and on it was a drive with more of the forbidden pictures stored upon it. Peter took the police straight to it. He said he wanted to show them everything he had, to draw a line and never step into this rabbit hole again.

  Later that day Peter waited in the foreign land of the police station with his mother, frozen into silence by the wailing drunks and junkies with whom they shared their bench. The policemen were nice to him and he told them everything. How he had been posting pictures of himself online since he was thirteen, sending them to other boys who had asked him to do so and who had sent him pictures of themselves in return. He agreed with the officers’ questions: no, he didn’t know for sure that the people he was messaging were also boys; yes, he supposed they could have been men. He was quite good at computers, he told them, adept at wiping and rebooting. This was why none of those images of him on the cusp of adolescence survived on his computer. And so, after it had all begun, he had found himself straying into those corners of the internet where he should not have been. Folders of images had sprung up in surprise invitation and he had downloaded them. There they had waited, dormant, ready for the moment in the early hours of the morning when curiosity and something darker pulled him towards the glowing monitor in the corner of his room. He hadn’t looked at all of them, he insisted; there were too many for that. After the interview, he repeated his confession to the two police officers separately, as though he was glad that his time of click click clicking late into the night had been ended for him – although both officers knew what kind of searching Peter must have done to have been invited into the world he had joined. They also knew that the court would not care whether or not he had looked at the hundreds of images within each file, nor whether he had taken his own kind of pleasure in them. He knew they were there and what they were, and that was enough for the law to prove his guilt.

  The policemen were young and kind and told him that, maybe, this could be dealt with by way of a caution: a legal slap on the wrist.1 Not really a conviction, more a you made a mistake but all this shall pass kind of resolution. But it wasn’t up to them. They filled out their forms and wrote up their statements and ticked off their boxes, then gave the whole bundle of bureaucracy over to someone from the Crown Prosecution Service.2 It was this unknown person, sitting in an office, who would decide Peter’s fate.

  The CPS solicitor looked at the file and, of course, saw only the evidence. Two hundred and fifty still photographs and thirty-eight films: innocence and violation and exploitation divided by the law into levels of perversion.3 The majority of the pictures were at Level 1: nude or erotic poses, but no sexual activity – the stuff of Greek antiquity and art-house exhibitions. But there were nearly fifty images and some twenty films at Level 2, showing some sort of sexual activity between children or solo masturbation by a child. And then they found the pictures and the fifteen films at Level 4: the penetration of a child by a child, or of a child by an adult. I can guess at their relief not to find the final level, Level 5: the unimaginable, reduced to the legal descriptive of ‘sadism’.

  The sentencing guidelines were clear.4 If a large number of the upper category of images had been downloaded for personal use, but not shared with others, any sentence should start at twelve months’ imprisonment. It could be reduced for a guilty plea and other mitigation, but not below six months, or if the judge thought the case serious enough it could be increased up to a maximum of two years in prison. Peter was seventeen when he was reported to the police, but it had taken some five months for the CPS to work through the evidence, in which time his joyless eighteenth birthday had come and gone. And so, now officially an adult and therefore to be treated in law as such, the CPS solicitor decided his fate.5 Peter was going to be charged.

  The papers arrived in chambers the day before the hearing, spouting out of the printer in hot bursts. I was representing Peter. Peter the paedophile.

  Peter’s solicitors had represented him when he entered his guilty plea at the magistrates’ court at the first hearing. The magistrates, inevitably deciding the case was too serious for them to hear, had sent it up to the crown court and so a barrister was instructed. This barrister’s trial had overrun and so now – the evening before Peter’s sentencing hearing – the solicitors were passing Peter on to me. I scanned their cover letter. It gave a short, cold summary of what had happened. As I read it, I felt a guilty surge of relief. The solicitors acknowledged that it was too late to arrange an appointment for me to view the secret CD of all the indecent images in the case. I would therefore have to take it from them that they had been through the evidence and agreed with the prosecution’s categorization. I thought of my old pupil master. You must always view the images, he had said. You can never trust that the prosecution will have done so thoroughly or properly, or that their decisions are correct. Besides, this is your client and it is your duty to look at all the evidence, however horrible. He was right, of course. But while I had represented people charged with possessing indecent images before, for whatever auspicious reason the pictures themselves kept eluding me. They were like kryptonite; the CDs that contained them were kept by the police to be viewed by the defence by appointment only, and shown to the judge only in his room in court, on a laptop kept specially for the purpose. This, inevitably, led to a limitless number of bureaucratic breakdowns, which had, so far, enabled me to avoid the gruesome obligation of my job. Reading the letter, I realized with guilty relief that my luck was going to continue.

  Usually when I read a case I imagine it as though it is a film playing out in my head. It helps me remember it; helps me put myself into the shoes of the defendant, the victim, the witnesses. It helps my speech to the jury, as I pull them into this world and ask for their judgement. Of course, this sometimes means looking at morbid evidence: photographs of a room decorated with a man’s blood; cigarette burns on flesh; brain or bone fragments; a long serrated knife with a dead woman’s blood dried on its blade; CCTV of punches, punches, punches, before a final, lethal stamp to the head. I do not forget them, but by treating them cinematically I play the role of director, distancing myself behind the camera. But there was something different about indecent images of children, as though I had drawn an invisible line for myself that I refused to cross. I had appeared in child abuse cases in the family courts – I had seen photographs of welts and teeth marks and read statements about maggots in mattresses and cruel punishments in dark wardrobes. Why, I debated with myself, were sexual abuse images different? Why did I want to maintain that thin shield of innocence between myself and those obscure corners of the web that I knew existed but had never seen? I reasoned it was because I knew the seen could not be unseen and I feared being haunted by the images. And so, if I could get away with not looking, then I wouldn’t look. But what I had not considered – not until Peter – was how my not seeing the pictures would make it impossible to represent someone properly who took their perverse pleasure from them.

  I began to read through the bundle of papers on my way back on the train and it was only then that I realized what a mess they were in. Once home, I spent several hours attempting to chart how the prosecution had come to the eleven charges they were bringing; trying to work out whether the continuity – the gossamer thread stretching between the evidence and the eventual charge – was all in place. In truth, without the images and a schedule detailing which picture went with which charge, it was a maze without end. In the early hours of the morning I decided that, as Peter had already pleaded guilty to all the charges, there was nothing to be done. I would just have to get to court early and hope that the prosecutor was in the mood to be helpful. At least, I thought, the he
aring was at Inner London Crown Court, a tube ride away from home. I wondered whether, if all went well, I would make it back by lunch.

  Inner London Crown Court casts a stately presence over the block in which it stands, flanked by tenements and council housing and tired, polluted streets. Its black iron railings, white Portland stone and grey slated roof do not entirely prepare you for its entrance hall. Once you have climbed the steps and walked under the broad stone pediment, you find yourself in a vast, double-height hall with a barrel-vaulted roof, its walls panelled in dark timber. Above you a piano nobile is marked off by a wooden gallery and, were you to turn and look back at the entrance you have just passed through, you would see three large windows, set into the stone and filtering light on to the stone-flagged floor. It smells of polish and dust and, although built a year before the First World War ended, the ghosts of the Sessions House it replaced, which had stood on the site for well over a hundred years, seem to whistle down the corridors. I can only imagine the fear that leapt into Peter’s throat as he crossed its threshold and took it all in.

  Once at court, I went to the advocates’ room and dressed in my robes. Unable to find my prosecutor, John More, who had not yet signed in, I went to collect Peter’s pre-sentence report.6 It painted a sympathetic portrait and, with a written shrug, confessed that the probation officer wasn’t exactly sure what useful work could be done with Peter to address whatever issue he had with his sexuality. At the end of the report she had suggested that, if custody was inevitable, could the judge consider imposing it at the lower end?

  I waited outside the courtroom until Peter arrived, alone. It was the first time we had met. He stood out among the tracksuits and jeans and bravado, one of only a few wearing a suit and a face fixed with tension, failing in his effort to appear more grown up than he was. He had the habit of pushing his glasses back on to his nose when their heavy frame made them slip, and the tick gave him the air of a juvenile academic.

  We sat in the corridor outside the double doors to court. Peter spoke at length and with animation about his life, finding relief, it seemed, in describing his normality. He told me about his job in a shop, the diploma he had just completed with distinction, the university place waiting for him in September. He talked about the break-up of his parents’ marriage; how hard it had been for him and his two older brothers. He described the solace he had found with his local youth organization – how he would spend his weekends volunteering for them, running clubs, organizing camps. He said how proud he was to wear their lanyard with his name on it, confirming his position and his status in black and white.

  I nodded and smiled and wrote it all down, then flicked to the end of the probation officer’s report, tapping at the paragraph with my finger. Right at the end was a line that suggested a Criminal Records Bureau request had recently been made by Peter to the youth organization for a paid job.7 As they were obliged to do, given that the role involved working with children, they had asked the police whether he had a criminal record. The probation officer explained that the information had reached her after her interview with Peter, so she had not been able to ask him about it, but that she thought the court should know. It was odd, she said, that he should have applied for such a role given the charges he faced. It showed perhaps both a lack of insight into the offence he had committed and the risk he might pose to children. Peter denied it, furiously. He had not applied for the job, he insisted; why would he, knowing all this was coming up?

  And then I asked him about the offence. He stopped talking and stared between his knees at the floor. I paused, at a loss how to reach him. I took out the indictment and explained that on that piece of paper were written eleven separate charges, each one called a ‘specimen count’, each one representing a different type of image or film. The judge would know that many images and films belonged to each count, but this was how the prosecution could capture the various levels without charging each image individually. Peter nodded his understanding, staring impassively at the black capital letters on the whiteness of the page. I paused. My voice was gentle. I need to talk to you about prison. He had to understand, I said, that the judge was bound by the sentencing guidelines, even if I could persuade her that Peter’s circumstances were unusual in that he had been lured into this way of life by others. She would have to find a very good reason not to follow the guidelines, and if she did not then the sentence could be challenged. It was inflexible and sometimes unfair, I agreed, but that was the way it was. It might be that I could persuade the judge that the probation officer was right – that this was not a case for custody; that Peter was too young to have his life shattered by a prison sentence; and that the circumstances of his initial involvement in this world were that of a victim, not a predator. But he must prepare himself for the very real possibility that I could not and that, at the end of today, he would leave the court in a prison van. Some, faced with the possibility of prison, rail angrily at the unfairness of it all. They say they won’t go; they say they’ll run. Peter wasn’t like that. I wondered whether, if I softened my voice and put my arm around him, he might start to cry. When Peter finally looked at me, fear had frozen his face into a mask. ‘I can’t do it,’ he whispered, ‘I just can’t.’ I nodded, but knew that my understanding of his fear could not prevent it. I knew too that there would be worse problems waiting for him – the prisoners alongside whom he would be incarcerated, the vigilantes who would seek their own form of restorative justice, and, even when he was released, the constant fear that people would find out, and what they would do when they did – all were more frightening than the sound of a key in the door of his cell.8

  I told Peter that the prosecution would probably apply for a Sexual Offences Prevention Order – a list of restrictions that would haunt his movements even after his sentence had come to an end.9 As well as this, for the rest of his life he would have to notify the police of his details every year.10 If he changed his name or moved, or even went away for a certain period, he must tell the police within three days. If he failed to do so, then he would be in breach of the order and would be brought back to court for the judge to punish the breach. He would, of course, be barred from working with children, which in turn meant that his voluntary work would have to end. I stopped talking and watched him as he slowly realized that his world, and his future, had fallen apart.

  Leaving Peter within his silence, I went to find John More. He was someone I liked and respected, without particular style or flair but competent and capable, with a ghost of the overworked, careworn sigh that many of the prosecutors employed by the Crown Prosecution Service carry with them. I eventually found him in court – he was covering all the hearings that morning, some twelve cases, all listed to start at 10 a.m. There was little chance of being able to talk before we were called into court, or of being able to work out where we agreed and disagreed so that we were not left floundering in front of the judge.

  The morning’s progress was slow. Our sentence was still waiting to go on when the court stopped for lunch and, in the brief hour that he was free, John handed me his hastily drafted application for a Sexual Offences Prevention Order for me to agree its terms.

  Eventually, just after lunch, we were called in. John smiled a greeting sideways at me as I hustled to my place, the retreating barrister before me still collecting his papers from the bench. John tried to whisper something to me, but it was too late: we were off.

  We both stood as our judge walked in. I knew her well. Outside court she was quick-witted and charming. Within it, she was terrifying: bad-tempered, quick to anger and impatient. As the years slipped by and I found myself in the same collection of courts, day in, day out, it was inevitable that I would come to know the judges, the other barristers, the staff. It was also inevitable that I found myself in courtrooms opposite and in front of friends. I often wondered – as the barristers laughed and gossiped before the arrival of the judge or jury hushed them – what the clients thought of this, as they watched from
the dock or the bench. How they must wonder at the split of personality required in these people to be friends one minute and foes the next. Having appeared in front of Peter’s judge before, I was under no illusion that her relaxed and irreverent nature out of court bore scant resemblance to the frown darkening her face as she sat in the judge’s chair, glaring down upon us.

  Peter had been separated from me at the door and ushered into the large, glass-slatted dock at the back of court, into which he was locked away from the rest of us. When asked by the clerk to confirm his name and address, he did so in a thin voice. I was expecting the usual process of sentencing to unfold. John would introduce both barristers to the judge by name, with nods and slight smiles, followed by confirmation that the defendant had pleaded guilty and was here to be sentenced. He would then go on briefly to outline the charges and the facts, before handing over to me. I, rising, would take the judge through the probation officer’s report, before saying something sensitive about my client’s circumstances and his remorse. I would then go through the sentencing guidelines, pointing out where I conceded any aggravating factors and suggested any mitigating factors in respect of the offence itself. Finally, I would make a plea for leniency. And sit down. And wait.

  Instead, our judge roared. This, from the evidence she had seen, was clearly a case of distribution of images, so why had it been charged as the lesser offence – mere possession? As John stumbled to his feet, my stomach lurched. I had not expected this, nor did I know how John would respond – whether he would fold under the wrath of the judge and agree that the more serious charge should be preferred. That would mean an immediate and lengthy prison sentence was guaranteed. I stared at my Archbold book on the bench in front of me as though hoping it might fly open and deliver up a way to stop this happening. I wondered if I should start leafing through it, or whether, anticipating my attempt to halt her, this might enrage the judge even more. John began to speak, hesitantly, but the judge barked over his reply. She was going to put this matter back until the end of the day so that the prosecution could get an answer. The court clerk called the next case. Admonished, we left, as the barristers in the case behind us eagerly filled our seats.