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In Your Defence

Page 18

by Sarah Langford


  ‘I mean, I don’t know – it’s not like that is what our client has said, that Maria is lying to Lola, not us. It’s not our instructions. It just seems to – I don’t know – fit. Do you think?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Mark, deliberately. ‘I do think.’

  Mark’s cross-examination of Maria came before ours. As he stood to begin, Maria’s face was set, her jaw squared in defiance. His style was respectful, firm, stealthy and very effective. Maria scoffed in denial every time he challenged her, but the explanations she gave just opened up new ways to expose her. The jury learned of other allegations of rape Maria had made which were almost identical in detail, and which she later retracted once they got her what she needed. To her claims of weakness and fragility they were shown evidence of the violence she had meted out on others. And they were told of the many and varied reasons why Maria might have decided to take up the offer of witness protection long after she was offered it: reasons which had little to do with any desire for reformation. Her evidence fell apart, piece by piece. I found myself looking away, avoiding her humiliation. I realized I felt none of the satisfaction I often did when watching effective cross-examination, for Maria was so obviously a victim that no matter what the truth was, there could be little pleasure in witnessing her exposure. She denied everything Mark said, but I could see there was little fight left in her. She was worn out. Mark paused. Lola was the only reason, he suggested, wrapping up, that Maria had made this allegation. Lola, whom she said she still loved even though they had now broken up – something Maria blamed on the stress of the case – was the answer to it all.

  Maria’s denial was exhausted, her tone flat. She looked beyond Mark and said, almost to herself, ‘I thought if I didn’t go through with it I’d lose everything. But I’ve gone and lost it anyway.’

  After the other defence barristers had finished their questioning, Philip re-examined her. Maria resumed her denials, her assertions, and maintained to him that although she had not wanted to come to court, although she still did not want to be there, she was telling the truth. What else, I thought, looking at her words in my notebook, could she possibly say?

  Joe and I sat in a small conference room in the cells on a pair of nailed-down chairs, looking at Dan. The prosecution’s case was over. The jury had heard it all. Over weeks and weeks, they had sat and listened to the evidence. Reams of text messages of drug deals in street slang read out by Philip in stilted tones, much to the mirth of the jury; cell-map sites and CCTV plotting the calls to estates in London and along the south coast, and the journeys between the two. Then came the prosecution witnesses. Street-level drug dealers, there to confirm it was the defendants who had given them heroin and crack cocaine to sell in return for drugs. They were an army of the people that life had forgotten, who climbed up the steps to the witness box with crutches and eye patches and lost limbs, and told the tale of what it is to be beholden to these drugs. Some were forced to come to court and, once in the witness box, were too terrified of the defendants to give their evidence. Two came from their own prison cells, one refusing a screen to shield him from the defendants because he was, as he put it, banged up with them anyway.

  And now, it was the defendants’ turn.

  Joe leaned across the metal table and said the words I had said to clients many times before. Dan did not have to give evidence. No one could force him, not even the judge. He had answered ‘No comment’ in his interview, but he had written a prepared statement which outlined his defence and which had been read out to the jury.5 The jury had heard the questions put to witnesses by Joe, and therefore knew what Dan was denying and what he said had happened. But nothing was better than a defendant telling his story in his own voice, standing in the witness box to be weighed and tested. This would be his only chance. If Dan did not give evidence, Joe warned, then the judge would tell the jury – as the law says he must – that they could draw an inference from his silence. An inference, if they wished, of guilt. But when he learned that his co-defendants may not give evidence, Dan leaned back, his decision made. He was not going to either. He looked relieved and I wondered, not for the first time, how so big a man could be so weak. It was fear, of course, but of what? Fear of speaking of things of which he was ashamed? Fear of getting it wrong – of not having the right words at the right time? Fear of clever people’s tricks? Fear of lies unravelling? Or was it fear that if he told the truth worse things than a prison sentence lay in wait? I wanted to say to him You are different from them. They have nothing to lose by going inside. You have everything. You do not look like, sound like, act like them. You do not have a criminal record many pages long. You wore your work uniform, drove your work van. You do not have a street name. You did not try to hide yourself. It is not your fist that is accused of punching, nor your palm of slapping, nor your foot of kicking. You have a girlfriend, you have a job, you have a life. Fight for it. But he knew all this from Joe and so I wrote a note of Dan’s decision in my book, asked him to sign it as a record that he was going against our advice, and followed Joe out of the cell.

  Back in the courtroom we all stood when the judge walked in. As the other advocates sat down, I noticed one stayed on his feet. Mr Murder’s barrister. He had said very little in the trial so far, asked few questions, challenged only what he had to. Now he turned to the judge and, as his client left the dock and walked up to the witness box, confirmed that Mr Murder was going to give evidence. It was to be the performance of a lifetime.

  He was the youngest of the five defendants, but he stood in the witness box and commanded the room. It was not just the other defendants who were under his spell as they sat in the dock, watching him with faces of studied blankness. The rest of us – barristers, judge and jury – were gripped by him too. His power was magnetic, fascinating and terrifying. He was also one of a small selection of defendants I have met who are, I suspect, truly dangerous. The prosecution said he was Cash, and Ghost, and Mr Murder, and Bruiser, and all the other names that were exchanged between the dealers. As he explained to us during his evidence, a name never belonged to one person. Cash was the guy you called for drugs, the guy you met on the street corner, the guy who came to your door when your debt grew large enough. It was, he said, more than anonymity. It was a franchise – one based on ensuring confidence in his customers. They knew Cash’s gear was the best, no matter whether Cash was one man or ten. Although he didn’t call them customers. He called them cats. Cats who needed feeding. The takeover of a new drugs patch would happen slowly, methodically. London was too full now – there were too many gangs already fighting over turf; but the towns outside it were ripe for the taking, full of junkies who craved good-quality gear. There were fewer guns and less competition. His strategy for taking over was well practised. He would pretend to be a junkie for a while, live rough, come to know the places where the dealers went, and then, when the time was right, he would start to introduce his own supply.

  ‘Did you ever take the drugs yourself?’ his barrister asked him.

  Mr Murder looked as though he had bitten into fruit and found it rotten. ‘No way. I would never touch that stuff. It’s filthy.’ Not for the likes of you, I thought, watching him. He had a beautiful face. Olive skin, high cheekbones, mesmeric feline eyes. He had changed into a suit and open-necked white shirt, and I thought of Maria in her borrowed clothes and wondered if she had ever really grasped the contempt that people like him had for people like her. When they asked her to try a new batch of heroin had she ever thought, ‘You try it. You take the gamble’, or had her mind been filled only with desire for the drug, with no room left for doubt. The risk of addiction or overdose or death was not one this man would ever be prepared to take. But the risk of getting caught? Yes, he was prepared for that. It was an inevitability, eventually, he said. But it was also a price worth paying. He could make more money in a month dealing drugs than in a whole year doing a normal job. He could buy cars, clothes, watches – whatever he wanted. At the age of twent
y-one he had – he imagined – earned more money than his father had over a lifetime. He could do prison – he had done it before. In fact, that was how he had met the man who got him into the game. He might lose control of his patch, but his reputation would be bolstered, his contacts fostered by those other dealers he met in prison. When he was released he could try to take it back or move on somewhere else. He simply did not care about being caught. Which is why he was telling the court now, today, that he had not been there in that van. He was the only one Maria had not identified, and that was because he had never met her. He was Mr Murder, the Devil, Ghost, Bruiser – he was at the top of the tree. He would not bother taking some junkie prostitute off the street for the sake of a mere £1,000. His arrogance and contempt were as breathtaking as they were chilling.

  When this man of a dozen different names had retaken his seat in the dock, Kit stood up. Only then did I realize that, in the lunchtime adjournment, Mark must have persuaded him to give evidence. As Kit left the dock, walking stiffly, his eyes fixed straight ahead, I looked at the other defendants and for the first time I saw how high the stakes were for giving evidence. Dan’s face was grim, his jaw clenched. In his face I saw his fear: fear of what Kit would say, but also fear for Kit – and I finally understood that to turn against a dealer was worse than going to prison. It could be a death sentence.

  Kit fidgeted in the witness box, his eyes flicking between Mark and the jury. He did not look at the dock. His evidence was no surprise. He, unlike Dan, had given answers in his numerous police interviews and he stuck more or less to these. He was just a drugs runner, he said, acting under orders, not part of any conspiracy or plan. The sex had been Maria’s idea. She wanted drugs, he had them, and this was her way to pay. She had provided condoms and then, the following day when Dan had gone, she had given him a blow job in return for more drugs. That’s why his semen was on her jacket and on the backs of the legs of her jeans. She had been naked the night before – there was no way it could have got on to her clothes then. Yes, he said, the four of them had been in the van that day. And the man they collected on the way to London? Kit shifted, cleared his throat. When he spoke his voice sounded weak. It was the fifth defendant. Mr Murder, Bruiser, the Devil. It was him. He, you see, was the one in charge of it all.

  And then it was all over. Now it was the lawyers’ turn – their chance to sift through the evidence, offering up those nuggets they wanted the jury to see in their closing speeches. Look here! one would cry. No! Over here! said another. I watched the jurors’ faces as they were pulled this way and that by elegant words of persuasion until, at last, after nearly two months, it was all over.

  After a jury have been sent out in a long trial, we fall into a sort of suspended space. Nothing more can be said or done and fate must play her hand. A term-end feeling of lightness takes hold and, in a case full of the kind of camaraderie that builds among those marooned in a place for weeks on end, it becomes easy to forget why we are there. Easy, amid the long lunches and chatting and waiting, to stop thinking about what might happen when the jury file back into the courtroom and give their verdicts.

  Late in the afternoon on the fourth day of their deliberations, we were finally summoned back to court. It was not a verdict. The jury had a question. They were confused. They wanted the judge to repeat the legal direction on the definition of consent.

  A few years before this trial the law had changed. It altered the burden of proof in law for specific circumstances of rape and the definition was now hugely complicated.6 If the prosecution could prove that a complainant was being held against her will when she had sex with the defendant – and that the defendant knew she was being held against her will – then the burden of proof switched. He was guilty of rape until proven innocent. However, if the defence had raised sufficient evidence about the issue of whether or not she had consented to sex, then the burden switched back to the prosecution. They then had to prove that she had not. In one sense the law was logical. The same statute defined ‘consent’ as an agreement by choice from someone with the freedom and capacity to make that choice. Someone held against their will could not have had a genuinely free choice over whether or not they had sex. But the way the law expressed itself and the technical detail of the evidential burden switching back and forth was dense and convoluted. But this is the law and the judge was obliged to read it out.

  The judge repeated the direction, slowly. I watched the frowns deepen upon the jury’s faces. They looked tired. I wondered what factions had developed among them, who had argued, who had aligned themselves with whom. With breaks for illness and bad weather, they had been locked in the same room for nearly a week. They filed out again and an hour later another note came through. We still have not reached a verdict upon which we are all agreed. Can we go home now, please?

  At midday the next day the judge called us all into court. The jury had been out for nearly thirteen hours in total. Unless counsel objected, he intended to give a majority direction and tell them that if ten of their twelve could agree on verdicts then he would accept that instead of unanimity. As we debated, the usher hurried into court and up to the judge’s bench. He leaned forward as she reached up to whisper something. Then he sat back. ‘No need,’ he said. ‘We have a verdict.’

  The jury filed in. They looked exhausted and tense. The foreman stood and was asked by the court clerk if the jury had a verdict on which they were all agreed. Yes, he nodded, for all but one defendant.

  My heart pulsed. It was Dan; it must be Dan. The court clerk read out the charges, one by one, for each defendant. The foreman gave the jury’s answer in reply. Drax. Guilty of kidnapping, guilty of false imprisonment. Scat. Guilty of kidnapping, guilty of false imprisonment. Kit. Guilty of drug dealing, guilty of kidnapping, guilty of false imprisonment. Guilty of three counts of rape. He got to Dan. My head felt light. Guilty of drug dealing, guilty of kidnapping, guilty of false imprisonment. Guilty of three counts of rape. It was Mr Murder. They could not decide on Mr Murder.

  The judge gave the jury a majority direction and sent them out again. An hour later they came back with a new lightness to them. The foreman stood again as the clerk put the questions to him. On the charge of kidnapping, how did they find the defendant? Not guilty. On the charge of false imprisonment, how did they find the defendant? Not guilty.

  From behind me, a lone shout shattered the silence. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I turned to look. Mr Murder was on his feet, grinning, punching the air. Dan was sitting on the end of the row, his face blank. Next to him Kit had his face in his hands. As I listened to the sounds of victory coming from his co-defendant, I wondered whether Kit understood that this jury, unwittingly or not, had just saved his life. For had it been Kit who was leaving the dock and not Mr Murder, that would surely have been the end of it.

  A month later Kit’s junior barrister, Lucy, and I stood in a lace-curtained hotel in Winchester, colleagues in black tie and long frocks gathered around us. There was a circuit dinner that evening and the smells of scent and hairspray and anticipation were thick in the overheated room. On top of a ring-marked chest of drawers was a small television.

  ‘Here it is – turn it up!’ Lucy cried. On the screen a local newsreader, lipstick bright, introduced our case by name. The screen went dark as grainy footage of a van driving along an empty road began to play.

  ‘Oh my God! They’ve done a reconstruction!’ someone yelped. At that moment the word ‘reconstruction’ appeared in white text at the bottom of the screen and the room erupted into laughter and applause. The shot moved from van to street and a stock film began to play. The footage, shot at hip height, followed a gang of shaven-headed men, their hoods pulled up, their strides loping. They walked in slow motion along a street in an anonymous town. One turned to look at the camera. The face under his hoodie had been fuzzed out with a round, black spot. In slow motion he pointed his first two fingers at the camera and made a shooting gesture. A voiceover began – the cadence a
nd bass similar to those in blockbuster trailers in cinemas. They came: from London. Their purpose: drugs. Their intention: crime. Across the screen flashed five mugshots of the defendants in black and white. ‘I mean, they do look pretty terrifying,’ someone muttered. Dan’s picture was second from the left. I could not take my eyes from his face. After a trial lasting nearly three months, a jury had little trouble in finding the defendants guilty of the kidnap, false imprisonment and rape of a local girl. They were sentenced today at Winchester Crown Court. Now this London gang will terrorize our streets with violence, drugs and guns no longer.

  ‘Wait – guns? What?’ scoffed Lucy. ‘And they haven’t exactly got it right about who was found guilty of what …’ But she was hushed by the others in the room as the screen cut to a reporter wearing a suit and a jazzy tie, standing outside the courthouse. He leaned in towards the camera as he spoke, a large fuzzy microphone in his hand.

  ‘Yes, Suzie, thank you. Today, at Winchester Crown Court, a judge imposed three life sentences on each of the two men convicted of multiple rapes.7’ As he spoke the screen cut back to the mugshots of the defendants, one by one, as the reporter confirmed their names and the sentence each had been given by the judge that day. Scat – fourteen years in total. Drax – thirteen years in total. Mr Murder – seven years for the supply of drugs. And then Dan’s and Kit’s faces flashed up in turn. A total of three life sentences each.

  I could not get the mugshot of Dan out of my mind. Not when we left the hotel, or throughout dinner that night and drinks afterwards, or for weeks and weeks. I had never seen that photograph before. The police must have released it to the press. When, some months later, I walked up the steps under the large porch of the Royal Courts of Justice for the hearing to appeal Dan’s sentence, it was this mugshot I held in my mind.

 

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