by David Cooper
“Can’t be helped. So all on course for tomorrow?” Squire replied.
“All on course. Half nine start, so it looks as if you might be on at midday. Or we might have an early lunch and call you on at half one. Depends how long these paralegals take.”
“All just makeweights, of course.”
“Well, you know that, and I know that, and I’m pretty sure Grant does too. Wayne’s still touchingly loyal to them. Anyway, if his side of that particular story doesn’t hold up, his offer’s good enough to cover any award. As long as it stops right there.”
“The things we do for money, eh, Tony? I’d better have a word with Paul. Get him down at court tomorrow morning.”
Wagstaff headed off and Squire picked up his phone to summon Craven, who arrived moments later.
“Paul, I think it would be a good idea if you came along with me to listen to my evidence tomorrow. It’ll give you a few tips on the approach you need to take to back up Wayne’s defence. Can you clear your diary for the morning?”
Craven looked apprehensive.
“I don’t think I can. I’ve got a meeting at the Edgbaston office to go over a report with the expert who wrote it. It’s something that Mr Wagstaff asked me to cover for him. There’s a deadline we need to meet.”
“Can’t he come down here and save some time?”
“No, he’s in a wheelchair. His office is near Mr Wagstaff’s, and he insists…”
“Oh, bloody hell.” Squire reacted instinctively, before recovering himself. “Well, can you just make sure you finish with him as soon as you can, and get down to court PDQ once you have?”
The acronym meant nothing to Craven, but he checked himself before asking Squire to translate it.
“Er…yes, of course. Is there anything in particular…”
The ringing of Squire’s phone cut straight through Craven’s hesitant response. Squire glanced at the displayer.
“I need to take this. All you need to do is keep on message. If anyone asks you anything that goes beyond those two documents, just stop and think, and remember that every answer you give will need to support Wayne’s arguments. It’s really not that difficult. Remember what’s in it for you too.”
Squire dismissed Craven and picked his phone up. Craven retreated to his office and decided that he would be better off spending the rest of the day making sure that he understood Frank Wharton’s report and Wagstaff’s brief on the report as fully as he could. The witness statement could wait until his meeting was over. It was, after all, only a case of familiarising himself with two documents, and confirming that he had received one through the post and signed the other.
Tuesday 18 th June
As was her usual custom when involved in a trial, Soraya arrived on the court floor half an hour ahead of the resumption time. She took the same conference room that she had occupied on the previous morning. Neither Lennie nor Karen were in sight. She looked around to check whether there was any sign of Collins, and noticed that her opponent was sitting in one of the larger rooms on the other side of the floor, his back turned to the glass front.
The view through the undrawn blinds showed that he had a large audience. Soraya counted five additional occupants. There was no sign of Wagstaff, but the unkempt trainee who had been in court with Avery on the previous day was there, along with Avery himself. Although the other three faces were all unfamiliar, there was only one sensible explanation. They were the three paralegals whose statements were due to come under scrutiny in court that morning.
Soraya frowned. The very last formal ruling from the previous day, based on the need to avoid any risk of collusion, was that the witnesses waiting to give evidence should not be allowed to listen to those actually doing so ahead of them. So how could her opponent possibly consider it proper to hold what seemed to be a last minute coaching session, with all of them gathered together in the same room?
Deciding she could not simply let the point go, Soraya walked up to Collins’ conference room, tapped on the door and made an entrance.
“Grant, I really don’t like interrupting you like this, but surely this isn’t right?”
Soraya gestured towards her opponent’s audience. Collins gave her a distinctly unfriendly look, not quite managing to hide a touch of embarrassment on his own part.
“I’m only explaining what they need to know about procedure. You don’t have to be so waspish all the time.”
Soraya was dismayed to be on the receiving end of the same insult that she had heard from Collins twenty four hours earlier when she had confirmed that she was still objecting to the late service of Craven’s statement. And her shock was quickly compounded.
“Yeah, fuck off.”
Soraya briefly locked eyes with the individual who had sworn at her. The inane grin on his face was almost a perfect complement for his ill fitting suit and his tightly gelled hair. She turned to Collins and gave him a passing look, noting his further unease at the witness’ gratuitous profanity, before deliberately and slowly turning her back and walking off without a further word. By then Lennie and Karen were waiting on the other side of the floor, and Soraya wasted no time in telling them what had just taken place.
“Right, I’ve got an idea.” Lennie quickly explained the thought that had struck him.
“I see what you mean. And I think I can improve on that…” Soraya made a few notes on her list of cross-examination issues. “If only we could be sure he’ll be on first.”
“Shall I tell you what I think?” Karen spoke up. “He sounded to me as if he was the alpha male, the ringleader. I reckon there’s every chance.”
Twenty minutes later, the clerk had again formally announced the resumption, and Judge Banks had reviewed the short list of housekeeping issues. She told Collins that it would be sensible to have Squire standing by for midday, and that the court would take a short break before his evidence, followed by a late lunch after he had finished. Once she had heard Craven’s evidence, possibly enabling an earlier finish than expected, she would keep to her plan for the delivery of judgment on the following morning.
“Are you ready with the next witness, Mr Collins?”
“Yes, Your Honour. I shall call Mr Chris Thompson.”
None of the three paralegals had come into court while the opening formalities had been addressed. When the door opened once more and the clerk guided the first witness of the day towards the stand, Soraya could hardly believe her luck. There was no mistaking the individual who had spoken in such an out of turn manner earlier that morning.
Once Thompson had been sworn and asked to confirm the truth of his statement, Soraya rose to her feet and carefully looked him up and down, deliberately prolonging the moment by glancing down at her notes twice and ensuring that she had the judge’s undivided attention. She was certain that Thompson had had no idea of exactly who had been on the receiving end of his profanity earlier that morning, and that he was rocked at the sight of his victim poised to return fire.
“Mr Thompson, do you accept that earlier this morning, you and all of Mr Avery’s other witnesses were gathered together outside court in the same conference room, with my learned friend, presumably discussing the case together?”
Soraya made a slight gesture in Collins’ direction, as if to explain her formal description of him for Thompson’s benefit. Her prediction that Collins would literally rise to the bait was immediately borne out as he made to stand up, provoked into firing off an indignant objection. But he was beaten to the draw.
“Mr Collins, that’s quite improper. Absolutely disgraceful conduct!”
Judge Banks’ magisterial intervention caught Collins in his tracks. Realising that it would only make matters worse if he defied the judge and disagreed with what she had inferred, he sat back down. Soraya was not minded to let the initiative slip.
“I shall take it as read that you cannot deny that, Mr Thompson. Would you please confirm that when I myself attempted to object to that gathering, and when
my learned friend told me that I didn’t have to be so waspish, you then told me to fuck off?”
Having put Thompson’s own words back to him, in an unemotional manner that left everyone in the courtroom astonished, Soraya gave him a cool look and waited patiently for an answer.
“I never said that.” Thompson replied.
Soraya had anticipated the evasion. She gave Collins a meaningful glance and sat down. For a few moments, Collins seemed to be frozen to his seat and lost for words, before the judge stepped in.
“Well, Mr Collins?”
Collins sighed. His own ill tempered dismissal of Soraya’s concern earlier that morning had spectacularly backfired upon him.
“Your Honour, I regret that I have to concede that I do recall words of that nature being used.”
Judge Banks wasted no further time with Collins and turned to Thompson.
“Mr Thompson, you are treading a very fine line here. You may only be a paralegal who joined the legal profession straight out of school, if the copy of your CV in the court bundle is to be believed, but only a few minutes ago you swore a solemn oath to tell the truth. You already appear to have been caught out in a lie. And I entirely accept Miss Modaresi’s account of the vulgar abuse that you directed towards her. You had better not give me any further reason to explain what is meant by contempt of court.”
It was plain that the judge’s stern words had hit home. As Thompson cowered, Collins knew that he had no scope to come to his witness’ defence. Soraya took the opportunity to resume her attack.
“Let me take you to the email you sent Miss Rutherford on the nineteenth of March.” Everyone was soon looking at the relevant page. “You didn’t compose this yourself, did you?”
“No, I didn’t. Wayne did it for me. I’ve never denied that.”
“In what circumstances did Mr Avery provide it to you?”
Thompson hesitated.
“Er…I didn’t know what to write, so he helped me.”
Soraya gave Thompson a patient look.
“Let’s take a step back, shall we? One moment, you are a candidate on Ripple Birmingham’s books, and the next moment you are moving to a new agency, Wave Recruitment. What made you change?”
“I found out that Wayne had set up on his own.”
“You found out. So someone must have told you, or you found out for yourself. Which was it?”
Soraya noticed Thompson flicking through what she assumed was the copy of his own witness statement.
“Wayne must have told me. As I’ve said, we were mates.”
“What kind of mates? Football, drinking, gym buddies, something else?”
“Drinking mates.” Thompson’s hesitation was only brief, but Soraya did not miss it. She turned back a few pages in her notes and found the highlight that she had marked across the words ‘Stella Artois lager’ from the previous day.
“What’s Mr Avery’s favourite drink?”
Thompson realised to his consternation that he could not duck the question, despite not knowing the answer, and had no option other than to punt and hope.
“Er…real ale, best bitter, if I’m not mistaken. Or…”
Soraya made sure that the judge had noted the anomaly before moving on.
“So you found out he’d set up on his own. When did you find out?”
“It must have been the day before I terminated with Ripple.”
“Did you have any contact with Mr Avery in the previous week?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Are you sure?”
“Er…yes, I reckon so.”
“I’d like to take you to a summary of Mr Avery’s phone records. You will find them in the blue binder.” Soraya waited until everyone had the relevant pages open in front of them. “Can you please confirm your mobile phone number?”
Thompson threw a desperate look in the direction of Collins and Avery. It cut no ice with Judge Banks, who intervened.
“Let me save you the trouble. Mr Thompson. On the first of those pages, is it the number that has been annotated with the letter T in the right hand margin?”
It was as if a schoolteacher had drawn on all her reserves of patience to ensure that a delinquent schoolboy had no choice other than to own up to a misdemeanour.
“Yes, Your Honour, that’s my number.”
“What these records show, Mr Thompson, is this.” Soraya resumed her cross-examination. “Mr Avery called your number four times on the preceding Thursday afternoon, and four more times between then and your decision to jump ship. All of the entries indicate calls of at least five minutes, some of them longer. Do you accept that you spoke with Mr Avery on those occasions?”
“I suppose I must have done.”
“So your answer just now, that you did not have any contact with Mr Avery in the previous week, that was a lie, wasn’t it?”
Thompson’s silence spoke volumes. Judge Banks gave him a piercing stare, but chose not to add to his humiliation then and there.
“One last issue, Mr Thompson.” Soraya decided there was no need to labour the point about phone contact any longer. “Can I take you to Wave Recruitment’s bank records.” She told him the page number and waited for everyone to catch up.
“Did Mr Avery succeed in finding you a job?”
“Yes, he did.”
“With whom?”
“Compensation Now. They’re personal injury specialists.”
“Bear with me a moment.” Soraya looked through the entries for incoming payments immediately above the one that had caught Lennie’s attention when the documents had first been disclosed. She could never have expected it to be that easy.
“Mr Thompson, please look at the entry nine lines down from the top. It seems to be a payment of three hundred pounds from Wave Recruitment into a Barclays account, as the sort code suggests, and the reference is ‘THOMP’. Is that your personal account?”
Soraya knew that if Thompson denied it, she would have to let the point go. But by now Thompson was terrified of being caught out in any further untruth.
“Yes, it is.”
“So on the day after Mr Avery received his commission from Compensation Now for introducing you, he pays you three hundred pounds. Were you expecting that?”
“He’d promised me.”
“What was in it for Mr Avery?”
Thompson did not answer. It was plain that he had frozen up altogether. Soraya turned for a rapid whispered conversation with Lennie and Karen, before addressing the judge.
“Your Honour, I don’t think I need trouble this witness any further.”
“Indeed not. Mr Collins?”
Collins was in no doubt that he could do nothing whatsoever to repair the damage that had been inflicted upon Thompson. He remained silent.
“Very well. The witness may stand down. But he is not to leave court until I give my express permission.”
Judge Banks was clearly not minded to explain what she had just ordered. Collins had little option other than to steer Thompson towards Wagstaff in the row immediately behind him, and leave the necessary explanation in Wagstaff’s hands. As Mark Davenport was led in, he looked anxiously in Thompson’s direction, and could not help noticing that the individual who had been so confident and cocky earlier that morning now seemed to be a pale shadow of his former self.
“One initial matter, Mr Davenport.” Soraya wasted no time once Davenport had been sworn and taken through the opening formalities. “Do you accept that earlier this morning, you and all of Mr Avery’s other witnesses were gathered together in the same conference room, with my learned friend, presumably discussing the case together?”
“Yes, that’s right.” Davenport’s response was one of innocence, verging on a query. Collins knew better than to attempt any intervention, and Judge Banks contented herself with a disapproving stare in Davenport’s direction.
“Let me now take you to the email that you sent to Ripple Birmingham, to tell them you had decided to s
witch to Wave Recruitment.” Soraya waited for Davenport to find the page. “Can you explain why the title is in Arial 10 point font, and the body of the message is in Times New Roman 12 point?” She noticed the blank look that Davenport gave her in return. “The typescripts look different, Mr Davenport. Can you explain why?”
“Oh, I see…well, I often compose things in Word, then cut and paste them to Outlook when I send emails.”
“So you wrote this yourself?”
“Yes, I did.”
“But in your statement, which you signed as true and accurate only a few weeks ago, you said that you’d shared a template.”
“What about it?”
“There are two possibilities, Mr Davenport. Either the email you sent Ripple was all your own work, or you adapted it from the template. Which is it?”
“Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, I did use the template, but the amendments were all my own work.”
“Including the substitution of ‘in the view’ for ‘in the light’, in the first line?”
Davenport evidently did not want to own up to his clumsy substitution, and remained silent.
“Who sent you the template?” Soraya awaited the answer with eager anticipation, and was not disappointed.
“Wayne did.”
“Wayne did. Thank you.” Soraya ticked off three follow up questions that Davenport’s concession had rendered surplus to requirements. “How did you find out that Mr Avery had set up on his own?”
“Um…I think word must have got around. Or it might have been online.”
“Online?” Soraya willed Davenport to go into further detail.
“Yes, that must have been how. It probably came up when I did a Google search.”
Soraya gratefully seized the opportunity to yank the rug from under Davenport’s feet.
“In which case, Mr Davenport, would it surprise you to know that Mr Avery only registered a domain name for his website on Thursday the twenty eighth of March, eight days after your email to Ripple?”
Collins stood up, thankful for the chance to take what he saw as a legitimate objection.
