Blazing Obsession

by Dai Henley

  “I just wanted to frighten her, that’s all. As I said before, I’d never harm my family.”

  Mr Winn poured water from a jug into his glass and took a sip. The courtroom remained eerily silent.

  “Now let’s look at the murder of Leroy Johnson. In the messages between you and Johnson and you and Greenland, it’s clear Johnson blackmailed you by threatening to go the police and tell them about your alleged involvement in the arson attack. You said Johnson was trying it on, didn’t you?”

  “I’ve told the court. He’s a lowlife, trying to make easy money.”

  “That may be the case. But why did Johnson single you out?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I suggest he singled you out because you were responsible for the fatal arson attack. You paid Leroy Johnson to carry out the threat you made to Lynne Hamilton in your final message to her. However, it appears that you didn’t pay him enough, did you?”

  “That’s rubbish!”

  “And because you were losing control of the situation, you murdered Johnson. The evidence I presented to the court earlier proves it, doesn’t it?”

  “If you’re referring to the clothes and trainers, I know nothing about them. I’ve told you, all I remember that night, is someone came into my flat. I have no recollection of anything else after that.”

  “So you can’t explain how your jacket and trousers became covered in Leroy Johnson’s blood and hair particles?”

  Hartley raised his voice in exasperation.

  “Someone must have taken them away and returned them. If I did wear them I’d hardly leave them stuffed behind my boiler would I?”

  “Only if you didn’t have time to dispose of them. The police obtained a search warrant for your flat shortly after the night of the murder. The clothes were still there, complete with a bottle of chloroform. And you had disappeared.”

  “I’ve told the court why already.”

  “And can you explain the footprints left by the Nike trainers, at the spot where you dumped Leroy Johnson’s body into the River Thames; the ones the police also discovered at your flat? I assume they were stolen and returned too?”

  “Yes. They must have been.”

  “And what about the discovery by the police of Johnson’s bloodstains and fragments of his teeth on the floor of the disused workshop underneath the railway arches? Footprints from your Nike trainers were found there too. Can you explain that to the court?”

  Hartley mumbled, “No.”

  “And what about the CCTV evidence showing you driving your car from the railway arches to the Embankment. Can you explain that to the court?”

  “I told you. How many more times! I stayed in my flat the entire evening.”

  “And what about the key to the railway arch door that the police found in a sideboard drawer in your flat. Can you explain that to the court?”

  Hartley, now thoroughly rattled, spat back, “I don’t know anything about a railway arch. I don’t recognise the key. And I’ve already told the court, somebody had knocked me out when all this happened. I couldn’t possibly have driven my car. I was out of it. The whole thing’s a pack of lies! How many more times do I have to tell you? It’s a set-up!”

  Mr Winn had Hartley pinned on the ropes and laid into him for the knockout blow.

  “How much do you weigh, Mr Hartley?”

  Slightly bemused by the question, he mumbled, “Around fourteen stone.”

  “And you’re powerfully built. We know that Leroy Johnson weighed around ten stone. I’d say it’s perfectly plausible for you alone to dispose of the victim, especially after you’d applied the chloroform. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Hartley’s face, growing redder, looked fit to burst. His indignant glare at the prosecution team did his appearance no favours.

  “No, I wouldn’t!”

  “Also, why, if you are innocent of all the charges brought against you, did you disappear from your flat for several days?”

  “I’ve already told the court. I felt fearful for my life.”

  “I put it to you that you went on the run because you were responsible for these crimes and the net was closing in on you.”

  “That’s rubbish!”

  “Why did you set fire to your car?”

  Hartley snapped back, “I didn’t. Someone stole it!”

  “That’s not true, is it? You torched your car, didn’t you? You wanted to destroy the evidence. I’m talking about the fact that the boot of your car, on separate occasions, held the bodies of Leroy Johnson and Alisha Alleyne.”

  Before Mr Jones could object, Hartley shouted back, “I’ve told you, the car had been stolen.”

  Mr Winn’s model of calmness contrasted strongly with Hartley’s increasing anger.

  Mr Jones jumped to his feet. “Objection, your honour! There’s absolutely no evidence to support the allegation that the defendant set fire to his car.”

  “Objection sustained. Please keep to the facts, Mr Winn.”

  “Why didn’t you report your car stolen? There’s nothing in the police files and nothing in your insurance records.”

  Hartley roared back, “I didn’t have time to report it stolen.”

  “I suggest you didn’t report it because you were on the run, weren’t you? Trying to flee the country. The last thing you’d have wanted is to draw attention to yourself from the police.”

  “That’s bloody ridiculous.” Hartley’s voice had reached such a volume, Judge Winter warned him about his language and told him to calm down.

  Mr Winn said, “I have no more questions, your honour.”

  The judge adjourned for the day, allowing the barristers time to prepare their closing speeches. After that, the jury would consider their verdict.

  Although impressed by the prosecution case, I didn’t know what to think about our chances of getting away with what we’d done. I had doubts about why I’d ever got involved with RP’s plan. Naively, I hadn’t thought it through fully. The detectives were incredibly thorough in their investigation and the barristers’ cross-examination skills placed great pressure on witnesses.

  I shared my thoughts with Alisha that evening over dinner at her flat.

  She said, “I had no idea it would end up in court like this. We’ve got to hope Mr Winn does his stuff tomorrow.”

  *

  Mr Winn’s closing speech rubbished his learned friend’s attempt at putting up a plausible defence for all the charges against the defendant.

  Summing up the prosecution case, brim-full of confidence, he derided the defence’s claim that Leroy Johnson’s blackmail attempt had been merely a try-on.

  “The defendant, in the midst of a torrid sexual affair, besotted with Lynne Hamilton and desperately needing to be a father, couldn’t face life without them. So he hired Leroy Johnson to burn down the cottage.”

  In a more sympathetic tone, he said, “You will almost certainly question whether any father would go so far as to murder his daughter. It’s rare but, regrettably, familicide occurs in this country two or three times a year.”

  Mr Winn continued, “There is one common denominator. In many of these cases, the father suffers from an antisocial personality disorder of some kind.

  “It’s entirely plausible that this is the situation in this case. The major characteristics of such people are that, despite being superficially charming, they are manipulative, devoid of conscience and incapable of accepting rejection. The defendant, humiliated by the fact Lynne Hamilton chose to marry someone else, who would bring up his child, grew full of jealously, resentment and fury and took his revenge.”

  He dismissed Hartley’s claim that he’d been set up for the Johnson murder. “It’s ludicrous to suggest that someone could come up with such a perfect plan to frame him. It’s laughable.”

  Not as laughable as you believe, I thought.

  He said the circumstances of Greenland’s murder were straightforward. He reminded the jury that Desmond Lafayette had already ple
aded guilty and had indicted Hartley as the instigator. The wads of notes found in Lafayette’s flat bearing Hartley’s fingerprints were another clear sign of Hartley’s guilt.

  “And the prosecution simply doesn’t buy the defence’s claim that the cash paid to Desmond Lafayette had been for the supply of drugs. None were ever found in the defendant’s possession or his flat.”

  He questioned again, why, if the defendant was innocent, did he disappear and try to leave the country and set fire to his car? He dismissed the joy-rider explanation, citing the lack of evidence provided by the defence.

  His closing remark brought home to me the risk I’d taken in seeking justice outside the legal framework.

  “Were it not for the clear-thinking of Alisha Alleyne following her abduction by the defendant’s hit man, Lafayette, we may have been looking at another murder; such is the defendant’s ruthlessness and determination not to be caught. In addition, he’s trying to evade the consequences by suggesting someone set him up. There is simply only one verdict possible in this case. The defendant is guilty as charged on all counts.”

  Surely, we had Hartley now.

  Forcing his large frame off the bench, Mr Jones stood to make his closing speech on behalf of the defence.

  “The defendant accepts having an affair with Lynne Hamilton and contacting her in July and August 1998 on his release from prison, but emphatically denies planning with others to take revenge for what the prosecution alleges was the result of jealous rage.

  “Being besotted with a stunningly beautiful woman with whom the defendant was having a sexual affair is not abnormal. It’s certainly not a criminal offence. It’s human nature to become obsessed in these circumstances, say things in the heat of the moment that later we regret. However, is it enough to suggest the defendant would want to murder the mother of his child, her son and his daughter? You will have to decide.”

  Regarding the mobile phone message evidence, he suggested that Johnson had been a chancer; just trying out his luck, attempting to blackmail Hartley for a quick return.

  “And the messages between Hartley and Greenland simply referred to the blackmail attempt, that’s all. It doesn’t prove the defendant’s involvement in the fatal arson attack.”

  Mr Jones slowly ran his eyes over each member of the jury, as if defying them to disagree.

  “And as for the evidence we heard from the former Mrs Hartley, I’d ask you, members of the jury, to put it in perspective. Here is a woman, rejected by her husband, who had an affair resulting in his mistress falling pregnant with his child. I put it to you that her view of events could be prejudiced. What’s the expression? ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman, scorned’. Again, you will have to decide whether you believe her testimony or not.”

  Referring to the Leroy Johnson murder, he focussed heavily on the set-up theory. First, he referred to the chloroform.

  “Doesn’t it seem odd that the defendant has testified on oath that someone called at his flat and when he opened the door, this person held a rag covered in chloroform over his face? Isn’t it too much of a coincidence that the pathologist’s report, following the autopsy on Leroy Johnson, showed his face too, had been covered in red sores consistent with the application of chloroform, despite being submerged in the River Thames for two days? I suggest this shows someone else must have been involved in knocking out the defendant and using the same modus operandi for Leroy Johnson.”

  The courtroom grew thick with tension.

  “That someone could easily have borrowed the defendant’s car, jacket, trousers and trainers and returned them after Leroy Johnson had been dealt with. And it defies belief that Hartley’s mobile, containing the messages referring to the blackmail attempt, just happened to be found in a cafe by a complete stranger and handed in to the local police station.”

  Mr Jones exaggerated his hand gestures, enjoying being centre stage.

  “Is it feasible that the defendant could, on his own, have trussed up Leroy Johnson, attached a weight to him and flung him over a wall into the River Thames?

  “And as for the key to the railway arch door being found in my client’s sideboard drawer, this could easily have been planted, couldn’t it?”

  Mr Jones’s oratory transfixed the jury. They hung on his every word.

  “My learned friend for the prosecution has suggested this scenario is laughable. On the contrary, the defence maintains this to be a perfectly plausible set of circumstances.”

  I fidgeted in my seat. Mr Jones had accurately replayed the events on that damp, windy night.

  “And regarding the Colin Greenland murder, the prosecution relies heavily on the evidence from someone who, it appears, had a score to settle with the defendant. You will have to decide if Mr Lafayette’s version of events is true or not.”

  He took a deep mouthful of water, I suspected more for effect than need, and pressed on.

  “Before retiring to consider your verdict, there are further points I’d like you to consider.

  “If, as the prosecution allege, the defendant hired hit men to murder Mrs Hamilton, her children and Mr Greenland, then why did he not employ the same modus operandi to murder Leroy Johnson? Why would he take the risk of dealing with him himself? It’s not realistic. It doesn’t make sense.

  “And you’ve heard the testimony from Alisha Alleyne, Lynne Hamilton’s best friend, explaining her dalliance with Leroy Johnson. She implies just a passing interest. Does she come across as someone so desperately lonely that she’d seek him out, of all people? No, I suggest it may well have been part of an elaborate plan to gain revenge for her friend’s murder and to find out who else may have been responsible.

  “Once the interested parties discovered who they thought was involved, the defence asks you to consider the possibility that it was they who planned to eliminate Johnson and Greenland and frame the defendant.”

  He eyed each member of the jury once more before facing the judge and saying, “That’s all your honour.”

  Mr Jones flopped down on to the bench, looking pleased with himself.

  My confidence in a successful prosecution nose-dived. Mr Winn hade presented the prosecution case well, but I wasn’t convinced he’d done enough. No doubt, Alisha and I were the ‘interested parties’ Mr Jones had referred to.

  I squirmed in my seat again at the thought.

  Mr Jones had found us out.

  But it was Judge Winter’s final comments, after his summing up before asking the jury to retire, which unnerved me the most.

  “You must now consider the evidence you’ve heard. You must decide whose testimony you believe. Please bear in mind, members of the jury, the prosecution must prove its case so that, having considered all the evidence relevant to the charges, you must all be sure the defendant is guilty. There must be no reasonable doubt in your minds. If you have any doubt whatsoever, then you must return a not guilty verdict on any of the three indictments against the defendant.”

  Judge Winter nodded at the court usher who asked the court to rise as the judge stood, and returned to his chambers.

  I slumped back in my seat and closed my eyes.

  That was it. Full time. Except we didn’t know the result.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  September 2000

  Later that evening, I called Simon Brotherton. I explained in as much detail as I could remember the last few days’ proceedings, particularly the barristers’ comments and the judge’s summing up. I wanted his opinion about the outcome.

  He remained silent for a moment, considering what to say to me.

  “Mm… James, I think you should be very clear about this. If the jury accepts Hartley had been set up, especially for the Johnson murder, the CPS will consider you and Alisha as number one suspects. I’d expect them to re-open the file immediately. You’d both be in the dock before you knew it.”

  “I thought you’d say that.”

  “We’d have a job on our hands to successfully defend you both. The
prosecution could easily prove you and Alisha are in a relationship and therefore would examine her liaison with Johnson in much more detail.”

  I thought Alisha had explained her contact with Johnson well, playing down the intensity of their relationship. Fortunately, he couldn’t testify otherwise.

  Simon continued, “You told me Alisha explained to the court that Johnson had told her Hartley paid him to set fire to your cottage. So the big question in the jury’s mind would be this; why didn’t she pass this information onto the police?”

  “She told the court. She’d lost faith in the legal system.”

  “It’s a bit weak, isn’t it? I hope the jury believed her. She’s already perjured herself, which is a serious offence. Maybe you and RP made the plan too neat. Why don’t you call him, see what he has to say?”

  “I will.”

  I dialled RP’s number immediately and didn’t give him a chance to speak.

  “Roger, this is looking fucking serious. The defence questioned everything; Hartley’s MO for Johnson’s murder being different from the other two, the chloroform ‘coincidence’ and Hartley’s mobile mysteriously appearing at the police station. That’s just for starters. They majored heavily on Alisha’s affair with Johnson. You must admit it does appear like a set-up.”

  “Calm down, James. You’re getting paranoid. OK… possibly the plan wasn’t perfect. But look at it from the other side’s point of view. Hartley posing as a victim of a set-up for the Johnson and Greenland murders doesn’t add up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Hartley’s made several mistakes, which point to his guilt. First, he hires a hit man to abduct Alisha in his car. Then he tries to leave the country, but not before torching his car. Why did he do all that if he had nothing to hide? Obviously, to get rid of the forensic evidence.”

  “But Hartley’s not dim. Maybe his car had been stolen by joy riders and set alight,” I shouted down the phone.

  “No, sorry James. I’m convinced the jury will believe that Hartley panicked. He realised he’d lost control of the situation. And we know he’s uncomfortable with that.”