Judge Savage

by Tim Parks

  We was in the Tally Ho till about ten. I’ve said that.

  Well, I’m asking you to say it again, Mr Sayle. Could you please remind the jury whom exactly you mean by we?

  Well, there was Sasha and John and . . .

  Could you give us their surnames, please, Mr Sayle.

  I’ve already told this part.

  Mr Sayle, I’m asking you to tell it again. You have been questioned by your defence counsel who invited you to present your version of the story. Now I, as prosecution, am questioning you about that version which I suggest is actually a pack of lies.

  Sedley shocks, Daniel observed, by being suddenly offensive without any change of pace or delivery. But it seemed poor advocacy to him. There was the danger that the jury wouldn’t come on board.

  Okay, there was Miss Singleton, that is Sasha, Jamie Grier, Ryan Riley, Stuart Bateson and Ginnie Keane. Five plus me.

  Sedley ticked off the names painfully slowly.

  Stuart Bateson has denied he was there. Did he tell you why he denied it.

  You’d have to ask him.

  Mr Sayle, I didn’t ask you why he denied it, I asked you if he talked to you about it.

  I won’t talk to a liar, Sayle said firmly. As far as I’m concerned he doesn’t exist. He was there.

  Do you mean that you are angry with him because he departed from a prearranged story?

  There’s no prearranged story. He didn’t tell the truth, because he was scared that then people might think he did it. Which he didn’t.

  But that is speculation.

  What? Sorry.

  You are speculating as to why he said what he said. You don’t know.

  I do know, Sayle said. It’s clear as daylight.

  Mr Sayle, all of the names you mention as leaving the pub with you were originally among the defendants, with the exception of Ginnie Keane. Did she come with you to the bridge or not?

  Ginnie went off somewhere else.

  Good. We will come back to Ginnie later. So, there were six of you when you leave the pub; one of the six goes off on her own, but in the meantime you phone various others.

  As I said.

  You had a mobile?

  Yes.

  In fact I gather every member of the group has a mobile.

  I’ve said so, yes.

  Mr Sayle, could you explain to the court the way in which the telephone numbers of the group were recorded on the memories of each mobile.

  David Sayle had no problem with this request: Each of us, had, like, a number, in the group, and that was also the number you had in the memory on everybody’s mobile.

  Mr Sayle, Judge Savage interrupted, are you chewing gum?

  ‘Fraid so, your honour.

  Could you please remove it, Mr Sayle? At once.

  David Sayle put his fingers into his mouth, then stopped. The court usher offered him a tissue.

  Thank you, Mr Sayle.

  So if I can get this business of the numbers straight, Sedley began.

  Yes, for example, Sasha, Miss Singleton, is two which means if you press number two and hold it down on any of our phones that automatically calls Sasha.

  Ah, I understand. And whose idea was this?

  Mine.

  And what was the reason for it, Mr Sayle?

  I liked to feel we were a close group, like, that we was all good friends.

  I see. Presumably this sort of tight-knit community was something you also appreciated about the church.

  Yes. I liked the youth club.

  But that was for under-twenties.

  That’s right, though some of the people that goes are a bit over. I mean, it’s not a hard rule.

  Thank you. Now, who was number one on those mobile memories, Mr Sayle?

  Beg pardon?

  Each member of the group had a number and that was also their number on the memories of the mobile phones. Who was number one?

  I was.

  And why was that?

  Sayle shrugged his shoulders. Because it was my idea, I suppose.

  And not because you were the leader of this, er, close group of friends.

  Not really.

  Not really, meaning you were a little bit, or meaning some people thought you were, but in fact you were not.

  Sayle looked puzzled.

  Judge Savage said: I think counsel is suggesting that ‘not really’ is not as clear an answer as yes or no. Were you or were you not the leader of this group?

  Sayle hesitated. He had an honest, open beefy face. No, he said.

  And your girlfriend Sasha Singleton was number two on the mobile memory?

  I just said that.

  And was she the leader of the group?

  No, definitely not.

  Ah, definitely not. And what number was Mr Riley.

  Ryan is five.

  Not quite the order in which you appear on the indictment, Sedley mused aloud. It was improper comment, but the defence counsels wisely refrained from objecting. Just one member of the jury chuckled. David Sayle again looked puzzled.

  And was Mr Riley the leader of the group?

  Now the defendant smiled broadly. Not at all.

  Could you explain your merriment, Mr Sayle?

  Sayle took a breath, then fell silent.

  Could you explain why you thought my question about Mr Riley amusing?

  If you knew him, Ryan’s not the kind to be a leader, Sayle said. Of anything.

  So who was the leader?

  Sayle shrugged his shoulders.

  Mr Sayle, you know perfectly well that you were the leader of this group, indeed the only reason it was formed was so that you could be leader of it and the truth is that you decided and dictated everything that the group did, where they spent their evenings and how they were to arrange the memories on their mobile phones. You lived in a delirium of power and self-importance, did you not?

  That’s not true, the defendant said immediately. He hesitated. I just proposed things from time to time. Sort of. I have more ideas. Often it’s hard to know what to do in this town. There are no facilities like, are there? For young people. After a pause he added: Just because there’s a group there’s no need for there to be a leader. He hurried on. Or it’s like, they was relying on me knowing what to do, not me bossing anyone around. If there’s a group it’s because people like to rely on one another. Same at the church, he said, they often ask me to arrange tournaments and outings and things. Because I have ideas.

  Mr Sayle, I shall have to ask you to keep your answers brief and to the point. Let us get back to the evening in question: what was it that at 10 o’clock on the night of March 22nd outside the Tally Ho pub, where you had consumed, let me see, how many, yes three pints of beer you say, of Caffreys to be precise – what was it that you proposed to the members of this group of which you were not, you claim, the leader, but let’s say, the ideas man?

  Sayle sighed. I said, Let’s call the others and meet somewhere and chill out. That was normal.

  The others being?

  Sayle rattled off the names.

  Or perhaps you’d like to give us their numbers?

  4, 7, 8 and 11.

  You seem to know the numbers very well Mr Sayle.

  It was a joke we had.

  It sounds ominously paramilitary to me, Sedley remarked.

  Your honour! Sayle’s defence counsel stood up. I object. This is personal comment of the worst kind.

  Objection upheld, Daniel said. He had often noticed how it was the QCs far more than the humbler lawyers who tried to exploit this kind of weapon. As I am sure you are aware, Mr Sedley, he said drily, you must put your thoughts to the defendant as direct questions, not disparaging remarks.

  Quite so, my apologies, your honour. Sedley paused, as if gathering important thoughts: Was there, Mr Sayle, something deliberately paramilitary about your thinking of each other as numbers rather than names? Paramilitary, he repeated.

  I don’t understand the difference, Sayle said, bet
ween military and paramilitary.

  How ably this defused the question! The jury were amused. Unexpectedly, Sayle was coming across as a very ordinary and quite candid boy, Sedley as a man pompously exhibiting his superior education.

  Let me put it another way, then. Was this business of using numbers part of a general habit of seeing yourselves as engaged in war games?

  Not at all, Sayle said sensibly.

  And yet, Mr Sayle, what you proposed to members – he consulted his notes – 4, 7, 8, and 11 of your group was that they meet you on the bridge where Malding Lane crosses the ring road.

  That’s right.

  Why?

  Beg your pardon?

  Mr Sayle, please. My voice may not be of the loudest but I am quite sure you heard my question. I asked, Why, why go there?

  Sayle didn’t respond.

  Why would 4, 7, 8 and 11, want to go and meet, 1, 2, 3 or whatever on a busy road bridge? Was there entertainment of some kind to be had there? Was there a supply of food and beverages? Was there music?

  The young man stared across the court

  Why on earth would anyone agree to meet together in such a place. It is hardly a convenient location for a chat, is it Mr Sayle? Or for contemplation of the night sky?

  The defendant said nothing.

  Mr Sayle, in your statement to the police you claim that when you and the others arrived at the bridge, in two separate cars and a motorbike, one car from one direction and one from another, it was to find yourself looking at the scene of an accident that had already happened. Is that right?

  Yes, that’s what I keep saying. We were getting to the bridge, you know there’s a bend, then the road climbs a bit and just as we get to the top we see these kids running away down the embankment.

  Please, Mr Sayle, we’ll come to that in a moment. What I would like to ask you now, though, is why you went to the bridge in the first place? In your statement to the police you say the group, and I quote, ‘frequently met there’. What I want you to tell the court now is why. Why did you choose to meet on the bridge?

  Dressed in dark suit and tie, shoulder length blond hair in a ponytail behind, Sayle seemed for the first time completely nonplussed. Could he really have come to the witness box, Daniel wondered, without expecting he would be asked this question?

  Was it to throw stones at the cars?

  No! I’ve said it a thousand times.

  Why then?

  The defendant’s fingers fidgeted with each other and his weight shifted back and forth from leg to leg. Why hadn’t he pleaded guilty, Judge Savage wondered, looking at the young man? A show of remorse, an admission of one drink too many, some statement to the effect: I can’t believe I did it, I want to pay the price. In that case the sentence would probably not have exceeded six years, of which he would serve only four and might even be paroled after three. And instead here he was facing the impossible question. Why did you frequent the bridge? The jury, who had seemed rather sympathetic, were watching intently. The three benches of the public gallery, mainly relatives and friends of the defendant, were clearly excited.

  Sayle said nothing.

  Mr Sayle, Daniel interrupted, once you decide to give evidence you are bound to answer all the questions you are asked. You have sworn to tell not just the truth, but the whole truth.

  The young man was looking blankly across the court to the public gallery. He opened his mouth then shut it again. A full minute went by.

  Mr Sayle. Daniel used his gravest judge’s voice. The question as to why you chose to go to the bridge over the ring road on the night and at about the time of the alleged crime is a proper question and you must answer it.

  Mr Sayle, Sedley nodded to the judge and began again. He spoke as one obliged to undertake a task as wearisome as it was essential. Let me repeat my question in the clearest possible fashion: can you explain to the court why you and your group liked to go to meet on the bridge where Malding Lane crosses the ring road?

  Again there was a long pause. Then Sayle flexed his hands, gripped the box, and said: We went to talk to the prostitutes.

  Sedley was taken by surprise. There had been no mention of this in any interview given by any member of the group. Nor had Sayle spoken of it during examination in chief with his own counsel. The barrister put his hands together as though in prayer, fingers to lips, swaying back and forth. To talk to prostitutes, he repeated. Now he will be obliged to improvise, Judge Savage thought. To talk to prostitutes, Mr Sayle! Sedley went for a rising note of incredulity, but he was stalling. The young defendant came ingenuously to his aid: There are always a couple of girls doing business, you know, down on the circular in the lay-by near the bridge. We used to go and talk to them.

  I see. And why did you go and talk to them?

  I think it’s quite normal actually, Sayle said. Lots of people chat to prostitutes.

  Do they indeed?

  Course they do. You should look around you, Sayle said. He was embarrassed, but defiant.

  You are saying, let me check that I have this right, Mr Sayle: you are telling the court that you think it is quite normal to spend an evening in the pub and then gather together a group of carefully numbered friends to drive off to a busy road and talk to some prostitutes. Did they have numbers too?

  I said you should look around you.

  I am looking around me, Sedley replied. And what I see is a group of young people on trial for a most serious crime. Perhaps you would like to tell us what you used to talk to these ladies of easy virtue about.

  Life, Sayle said. This and that. Sometimes we’d bring along some cans of beer or a take-away. We’d talk about where they were from, why they were on the game. They’re mainly immigrants, you know.

  How fascinating, Mr Sayle. And your girlfriend, Sasha isn’t it . . .

  Miss Singleton, Sayle said with some irony.

  Miss Singleton didn’t mind this entirely normal interest of yours in these ladies of the night.

  Sasha likes to talk to them, Sayle said. They know a lot about life. Everybody’s so wrapped up in their own little bit of the world. But they see everybody.

  Quite so, quite so, Mr Sayle. I can see that three pints of Caffreys does nothing to blur the spirit of philosophy. But let’s get this straight – you are telling the court that you regularly visited to the bridge to bring a couple of friendly prostitutes beer and burgers?

  That is correct.

  And stones?

  What, sorry?

  And stones? You take these friendly women, cement of society and source of worldly wisdom, beer, burgers and stones. The back of the car you were travelling in was full of stones, Mr Sayle.

  The defendant sighed. I’ve explained that the mess in Jamie’s car was to do with the building work his uncle has been doing.

  Ah, yes, of course. I’d forgotten about Mr Grier’s DIY uncle, how silly of me. We shall come back to him. But for the moment, could you perhaps explain to the court why you have, to date, never mentioned these engaging soirées with our local courtesans, not in any of the statements made to the police.

  Sayle hesitated. He sucked his lips: His manner was a strange alternation of belligerence and compliance, each quality manifested in such standard and immediately recognisable social postures that it was difficult to get any sense of what he might really be like. If not just the normal modern youth.

  Mr Sayle, I am asking you why you never mentioned that you and your girlfriend, not to mention the other members of the group, visited prostitutes of a Saturday evening? What are we supposed to imagine? You were inviting them to abandon a life of shame and to come to church with you the following morning?

  Course not.

  Mr Sayle, you spared the police no detail of your churchgoing, but you omitted to mention these visits to prostitutes. Can you explain why?

  Sayle didn’t respond.

  There’s nothing wrong, Mr Sayle, in trying to recuperate a woman who has fallen into sin. Even the most noble of our n
ineteenth-century Prime Ministers, William Gladstone, was actively and personally involved in a mission to help the ladies of the street. I wonder, therefore, that you didn’t tell the police at once. I wonder you didn’t offer glowing accounts of the souls you’ve saved. Or is the truth of the matter, Mr Sayle, that actually you just thought up this clever answer two minutes ago, on the spur of the moment, when you found yourself in a rather tight corner?