I turned my computer off. Soon I would actually meet Tasha Roux in person, not a face on a computer. An actual person facing the most damning charge of all: murder.
The case of the sizzling Gypsy sisters
Another question I’ve been asked over the years, granted, usually by blokes, is whether I’ve ever fancied one of my clients, or worse, ever been tempted to have, for want of a better expression, a fling with any of them.
The answer to that is a resounding no.
As you will have gathered, most of my criminal clients are male and, even if I was that way inclined, almost always in the clutch of some kind of addiction which usually comes with an associated unpleasant medical condition. As for my female clients, though they are not universally unattractive, the reality is that the places we meet, and the circumstances of our brief relationships, means that romance – or even a bit of harmless rumpy-pumpy – is about as far from our collective minds as it is possible to be. And in any event, one glimpse of me in my wig and cape and even the most committed nymphomaniac would be rendered passionless and indifferent.
Of course the Bar Council would disapprove of any kind of inappropriate behaviour between a client and her or his learned advocate. And quite right too.
However, I must confess, and after all this is a book about confessions, that I did have a brief unprofessional thought during the case of one Maggie Casey.
Ms Casey was a traveller, a proper Gypsy girl complete with model looks, a massive family, an unfathomable Irish accent and a rather reckless attitude to the law of the land, shoplifting in particular.
She had been accused of stealing a water pistol from Woolworths in Basildon.
And I, as a very junior barrister barely out of Bar School, had been sent to represent her.
Her instructions were that her nine-year-old brother Joseph had picked up the pistol and put it in her bag and that she had known nothing of the theft until she was stopped at the doors. This was significant because Joseph, being only nine, was under the age of criminal responsibility and therefore couldn’t be prosecuted, but Maggie, being seventeen, could. I got the feeling the Casey family knew this.
When I entered the waiting area of Basildon Mags, I was confronted by what appeared to be a dance troupe: a gaggle of young, beautiful women, all wearing incredibly tight clothes and with immaculate make-up. Frankly, I’d never seen so much fake tan in my life.
As I stood there, they all looked up at me and I felt my throat instantly dry up. ‘Er, is anyone here called Margaret Casey?’ I asked, and was met with a barrage of giggles.
‘I am,’ came the answer, and a long-lashed, flaxen-haired lovely in an astonishingly low cut top stood up from one of the seats and walked towards me. Five other girls, similarly dressed, followed behind her.
‘And these are my sisters, Mary, Molly, Magda, Shona and Patty,’ she paused, ‘and that little shite is Joseph,’ pointing at a grubby little lad with a crew cut, ‘the fecking reason we’re here.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Okay. I’m your barrister, Russell, Russell Winnock.’ I felt my blue polyester M&S tie tighten around my neck as I became conscious of the fact that I was desperately trying not to look at her chest, or come to that, any of her five sisters’ chests.
‘Shall we go and find a room where we can talk?’ I asked.
This suggestion, which I make to all my clients, provoked further giggling.
‘Can my sisters come as well?’ asked Maggie.
‘It’s better if we’re alone,’ I suggested, cue more giggling and a very twinkling smile from Maggie. ‘If you say so, Russell,’ she said, and she may have winked.
Maggie Casey won her trial. The Magistrates heard little Joseph make a rather rehearsed admission that he had meant no harm and didn’t understand that you had to pay for the gun and that his sister had no idea, and, ‘as God was above him,’ he’d do everything he could to make amends. A confession which he repeated word for word, when he was cross-examined by the prosecutor.
Afterwards I bade the girls goodbye, shook a couple of them by the hand, wallowed in a bit more giggling, and left the court building to make my way towards the car park. After I had gone about 50 yards or so I heard a shout.
‘Mr Winnock.’
I turned around and could see that Maggie and her sisters were standing in a row a few metres from the front of the court building.
‘Which one of us has got the nicest arse?’
With that, the six girls mooned me.
I grinned all the way back to chambers. I bet that never happened to Lord Denning.
Bail
I walked into the City Magistrates Court with my chin up and my head back. I wasn’t there for the poxy motoring list, or some fight outside a kebab shop just after closing time. I wasn‘t defending some junkie who’d been caught stealing razor blades and legs of lamb from supermarkets (strangely, the items of choice for shoplifting drug addicts), or a kid passing joints around his mates. No, I was there for the first hearing in a murder case. My first ever murder case. And to mark the occasion, and in an attempt to appear as barrister-like as I possibly could, I’d decided to wear my most garish pin-striped suit, one which I usually avoided as it made me look like a bit of a pompous arse.
But today that was precisely the look I was aiming for, because I was counsel on a murder and that, as far as I was concerned, made me the most important barrister in the building – and didn’t I bloody know it.
I met Kelly Backworth in the foyer and walked up to the door of court one, where I was accosted by Shandra Whithurst. ‘Mr Winnock,’ she said, ‘thank god that you are here.’
‘Hello, Miss Whithurst,’ I said, in a voice that I assumed was similar in tone to that used by superheroes when they’re being thanked by people they’ve just saved from burning buildings, ‘how lovely to see you again.’
‘She’s not guilty of this,’ said Shandra, ‘I swear to you, Mr Winnock, she is not guilty of this. That Dickinson man was a complete thug, he used to beat her and pimp her out and everything.’
I frowned, and glanced at Kelly, who was standing close by, as ever, giving absolutely nothing away.
‘I tell you what, Miss Whithurst,’ I said, ‘I’m going to speak to Tasha, then, at some point, I’d like you and me to have a proper chat about everything. Is that alright?’
She nodded, then thanked me again, then grabbed both of my hands and assured me that Tasha was essentially a good girl.
This was good. This was me as Counsel in a murder case, this was me being confident and clever in my pin-striped suit. I swanned into court and declared loudly that I was there to represent Tasha Roux.
At this, the court went quiet. A group of men of a certain age, build and haircut, who were conferring at the back of court, turned to me and looked me up and down. Clearly this was the murder squad, and standing with them was Josh Benedict-Brown of Extempar Chambers. Josh is a very confident and very able barrister a couple of years senior to me. He is clearly expensively educated and speaks with a plum in his mouth and a whole bag of plums stuck up his arse and, annoyingly, he was wearing an even more garish pin-striped suit than me. Damn. His suit was every inch the alpha suit in the room.
‘Hi Russ,’ he said, before adding caustically, ‘you been sent to do the legwork in the Mags for this Roux case?’
‘No,’ I smiled, ‘this is my brief.’
‘Oh, well done,’ he said, making no effort to hide his surprise, ‘first murder brief?’
This threw me. The truthful answer was ‘yes’, but I didn’t want to let on to anyone, especially the whole bloody murder squad, that I was green in the ways of cases involving dead people.
The words, ‘not especially,’ came tripping out of my mouth, which confused both Josh and me. He looked at me for a second, then asked me if I would be applying for bail.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Well you won’t get it will you?’
‘We’ll see,’ I said, though I knew he was
probably right.
I turned to the Clerk of the Court and introduced myself. ‘Russell Winnock,’ I told her, ‘here to represent Tasha Roux.’ She seemed uninterested. ‘We’ll get to you in about ten minutes, Mr Winnock, the Judge wants to get you away.’
‘Okay,’ I said, then started to look around for anyone else who I felt needed to know that I was in the courtroom and that my client was faced with a charge of murder.
‘Perhaps we should go and see Tasha now,’ said Kelly, who didn’t seem particularly impressed with my posturing.
‘Oh, yes, right.’
We left the court and made our way past the usual suspects, then down the steps that led to the cells, through the security doors, past disinterested security guards and into the corridor of locked doors. Behind each and every door, I knew, would be a tragic tale, but today I was only interested in one such tale.
Tasha Roux sat quietly in her cell. She looked very different from her Facebook page. In Facebookworld she was confident and sassy, opinionated and outgoing, she went on sunny holidays and drank cocktails. Here, in this dark cell, she was scared – plain and simple.
‘Miss Roux?’ I asked, and she nodded. ‘Hi,’ I said gently, ‘I’m Russell, I’m here to look after you.’
She nodded again, I could tell that she was sizing me up, I could tell that she was asking herself the question ‘Is this man on my side?’
And I was. As I stood there looking at her in her prison garb, I was most definitely on her side. I vowed that I would do all I could to help this young woman. And that is what I told her.
‘I’m going to ensure that you get the very best representation throughout your trial,’ I said, ‘and, I’m going to try to get you bail,’ before adding quickly, ‘but, Tasha, don’t get your hopes up. The chances are that they won’t give you bail because of the seriousness of the charge.’
She nodded, then added with a reed-like voice, ‘Will I be found guilty?’
I breathed in, then sighed deeply before answering, ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Look, I’ll tell you what, I’ll come and see you next week wherever you are and we can talk about it properly then. Is that okay? At the moment I don’t know much about the evidence, because they haven’t served it on us yet, so I don’t want to start making you promises I can’t keep.’
She looked up at me, her big brown eyes imploring me. ‘Will I go home today?’ she asked. ‘Will you be able to get me bail?’
I sighed again. ‘I’ll try my best.’
She seemed happy with this.
We went upstairs. I would try my best. I would do battle with Josh bloody Benedict-Brown, I would do everything I could to get this woman bail. I would wave the trusty sword of British justice around the court and remind the District Judge that everyone is presumed innocent and that Tasha Roux has no record of offending or absconding or committing offences on bail and that she was going to fight to clear her name. Judge, I would say, let this young woman prepare for the fight of her life from the comfort of her own community and the bosom of her family.
District Judge Barnes refused bail.
‘Mr Winnock,’ he said, ‘you’re not addressing a jury now – bail is refused. I’ve concluded that the nature of the charge is so serious that there is a real possibility that Miss Roux will be tempted to breach her bail. Take her down please.’
This wasn’t good. I turned to Kelly. ‘Bollocks,’ I said, hoping that Kelly might tell me how good my bail application was, swoon in admiration at my advocacy skills, comment on my wonderful suit, anything. But, instead, she replied in her usual frosty way, ‘You were never going to get bail, were you?’
We left court and Josh Benedict-Brown followed me out. ‘Russ,’ he said, ‘the good news is that the CPS have allowed me to have a leader.’
‘Oh,’ I said. This was good news, because if the prosecution had a Silk, then there was every chance that a Judge would let me have one as well. ‘Great.’
‘I’m going to be led by Roger Fish.’
‘The Fishmeister!’ I exclaimed. This news was petrifying. Roger Fish QC, aka the Fishmeister, was one of the best criminal advocates around. He had just successfully defended a senior civil servant accused of selling state secrets to the Chinese – it was a case that no one said he could win, but such were his forensic skills and power with the jury that they acquitted him.
‘Who’ll you instruct?’ asked Benedict-Brown.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said, ‘haven’t given it much thought yet.’
Which was a total lie, I had thought about it constantly since I’d got the brief, but now I was going to have to make my mind up for real. Who was going to be my Silk in my first murder case?
Silk
Right, now seems a good time to say a little bit more about Silks: who and what are Silks? And why, for that matter, are they called Silks?
Silks, or Queen’s Counsel, to give them their proper title, are the most senior barristers. They tend to have no fear of any Judge, jury, witness or piece of law. They get away with all kinds of little tricks and devices that we more lowly juniors wouldn’t dream of doing, and they ultimately have the final say on any big decision in any big case because the chances are that their experience and judgement will be better than yours.
They are called Silks because their gowns are made of silk, simple as that. Whereas mine is made of cotton, well polyester-cotton mix, if I’m going to be honest, and I think you can get them in viscose now as well.
In theory, I could choose any Queen’s Counsel in the land to lead me in the case of Tasha Roux. In reality though, I had to be careful. Different Silks had different foibles and were cluttered by different bits of political baggage.
If I got my choice wrong it could turn the thrill of being led in a big case into an arduous experience fraught with stress and ending in epic failure. It was a big decision. I decided to get some advice from Jenny Catrell-Jones.
‘It’s a tricky one, Russ,’ she said. ‘My advice is that you don’t want to choose a Silk who’s too brainy, because, before you know it, he’ll have you drafting up schedules and reading up on obscure aspects of law and all sorts.’
I nodded intently, yes, I didn’t fancy that.
‘Then again,’ she continued, ‘you don’t want some ancient old bastard either, because, remember, as the junior, if he dies or his prostate packs in or similar, then bingo, you’re out of the co-pilot’s seat and into the limelight.’
I nodded again, there was wisdom in those mixed metaphors. ‘And Russ, as you know,’ she continued, ‘the junior taking over successfully from the leader to win the case only happens on the telly. In real life, only bad things happen once you lose your leader and find yourself going solo.’
She was right. ‘So who would you pick?’ I asked.
‘For your case?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’d probably go with the Fishmeister.’
‘I can’t have him, he’s bloody prosecuting me,’ I whined.
‘Ah,’ she replied, which was code for ‘Hard luck, you’re completely stuffed.’
I went back to reading the depositions I’d been sent. Later that morning, I was summoned to Clem Wilson’s office.
‘Mr Winnock,’ he said smiling in a syrupy way at me. Funny how civil he was now I had a decent case.
‘You’ll be needing a Silk for your murder.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘as it happens I was talking about that only this morning.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘as you know, you can have any QC in the whole known universe if you like.’
‘Yes,’ I said, then added by way of a lame joke, ‘so many Silks, so little time.’
‘Any Silk,’ he continued, ignoring my attempt at humour, ‘just as long as you choose someone from here.’
Here. Okay. I could see the wisdom in this. Choosing a Silk from my own chambers would make me quite popular with the seniors and would be easier from the point of view of work.
I considered my opt
ions: Thomas Sadwell QC, Richard ‘Dicky’ Brindle QC, Yussef Lachmi QC and Timothy Belton QC.
Tommy Sadwell, Head of Chambers, was a decent bloke, but now, alas, probably past his best. Rumour had it that he was considering retirement, having been passed over for a job on the High Court bench. I liked Tommy but I wasn’t sure I could work with him. To me he seemed from a different age, it would be like working with your granddad.
Then there was Dicky Brindle, another popular barrister. He was, however, famed for his ultra-laid-back attitude. I remember once being at the Old Bailey and watching the ashen face of his junior, Jimmy Connoly, as it got to 25 past ten on the first morning of a trial before Dicky finally came waltzing through the doors of the robing room, with the untouched pink-ribboned brief in his hand, declaring, ‘So, Jim, what’s this all about then?’
No, Dicky Brindle was a rollercoaster ride I could do without.
Yussef Lachmi was a different kettle of fish again. A wonderful orator and advocate, a real star performer, but the view on the street was that he tended to ignore his junior altogether as he dominated the show from start to finish.
I pictured Tasha sitting there forlornly. I’d vowed to help look after her, and somehow ceding everything to my leading counsel wasn’t attractive.
Which left me with Tim Belton. Christ, he wasn’t a particularly appealing choice either. Belton was a stickler, a proper lawyer, who relished nothing more than arguing every point until everyone else would be worn down into submission. As much as I respected Tim, I wasn’t sure I could stomach that level of intensity. I imagined long nights, just me and my chanting monks, as I drafted submissions and charts and documents. No, he wouldn’t do.
I looked at Clem. ‘I’m not sure,’ I said, ‘I suppose Yussef Lachmi would be great.’
Clem shook his head. ‘Yussef is going to be stuck in a case involving a series of dead Belgians buried under a shed in Ealing, it’ll take him forever to prepare it. I’m not sure he’ll have time to do your case justice.’
Confessions of a Lawyer Page 15
