Walden of Bermondsey

by Peter Murphy

  ‘Can we get on with it, please, Mr Drayford?’ I ask. ‘I assume the jury will see photographs of all this in due course.’

  Drayford smiles ingratiatingly.

  ‘Yes, of course, your Honour. Members of the jury, what engaged DC Mitchell’s attention more than the décor of the room was the scantily clad young woman who greeted him with a warm smile and the offer of a massage. DC Mitchell accepted the offer, undressed, and lay down on the massage table, covered by a sheet. The massage proceeded, and for some time nothing was amiss. But you will hear that, after a certain time, the young woman concerned offered the officer a certain sexual service. He declined the offer, paid for the massage and left the premises.

  ‘Three days later, another undercover officer, DC Mostyn, repeated the procedure. Having spoken to Valkov, he too was led upstairs – the American room, room four, on this occasion – and a very similar scene unfolded. After this, the police concluded that the upstairs area of Jordan’s was being used as a brothel. They applied for a search warrant, which was executed by a number of uniformed police officers on the following Saturday evening at about eleven o’clock. You will hear a number of officers give evidence about what they found in the four upstairs rooms.

  ‘To take it shortly, sexual activity was taking place in each of the four rooms. It is right to say that none of these three defendants was upstairs at that time. In fact, all three were working in the restaurant or the bar at the time. But six young women who had been providing sexual services were detained, and their clients, four men, had their particulars recorded, and were told that they would be reported with a view to possible prosecution.

  ‘Members of the jury, I have been asked to make it clear, and I do so willingly, that none of the six young women reported any kind of mistreatment. When the police discover a situation such as this, they are obliged to inquire whether any of the women has been trafficked or mistreated in any way. They were questioned about this, and their answers were recorded. Without exception, they said that they were not trafficked; they had possession of their passports; they were free to come and go as they wished; they received all the money due to them; and they were satisfied with their conditions of work. I am glad to make that clear, but of course I must also make it clear that a well-run brothel is still a brothel.

  ‘Finally, if you will look at the indictment, members of the jury, you will see that Dimitri Valkov and Robert Jordan are charged with being concerned in the management of the brothel, and Lucy Trask is charged with assisting in the management of the brothel. The prosecution say that Jordan, as the owner of the restaurant, leased the upstairs rooms and knowingly made them available for the purposes of prostitution. We say that Dimitri Valkov was the creator and day-to-day manager of the brothel. He was responsible for supplying the furnishing and equipment, for employing the women who worked there, receiving the money paid by the customers, paying the women what was due after deductions, and generally making sure that the brothel operated efficiently day to day. We say that Lucy Trask knew what was going on upstairs, that she took appointments for the upstairs rooms, welcomed customers when they arrived, and assisted Valkov in running the brothel.’

  ‘Duncan Crane, Police Constable 768, attached to Bermondsey police station, your Honour.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, officer,’ Piers begins. ‘I want to ask you about an evening in October of last year, when you were off duty, and you had occasion to go somewhere in a taxi, is that right?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘About what time of day was it?’

  ‘It was between eleven o’clock and midnight, sir.’

  ‘And tell the jury where you were when you hailed the taxi, and where you were going.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I had been out for a few drinks and an Indian meal in Kennington with some of the lads from the nick – sorry, your Honour, some of my colleagues from the police station. I didn’t want to drive obviously, because I had been drinking, so I took a taxi home.’

  ‘I see. Did the driver draw your attention to anything during the journey?’

  ‘Yes, sir. As we were passing Jordan’s – Jordan’s restaurant here in Bermondsey – the driver said to me, “I don’t suppose you’d like to call in at Jordan’s this evening, guv, would you?”’

  Piers raises an eyebrow in the direction of the jury.

  ‘Officer, was that said in response to anything you had said or…?’

  ‘No, sir, it came out of the blue.’

  ‘How did you respond?’

  ‘I was a bit taken aback, obviously. I mean, Jordan’s is a bit out of my league, sir, if you take my meaning. It had never crossed my mind to go there. So I just said I’d already had a curry and I was going straight home.’

  ‘And how did the driver react to that?’

  ‘He laughed and said, “That’s a shame, guv. I’m on fifty quid every time I take a punter to Jordan’s. Not a bad night’s work, is it?”’

  ‘Officer, at that time, did the driver know that you were a police officer?’

  ‘No, sir. I wasn’t in uniform, obviously, and I hadn’t said anything to him.’

  ‘Did you say anything further to the driver?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I said something like, “Blimey, that’s not bad. What kind of people do you take to Jordan’s?” He said, “All kinds. It could be your foreign tourists I pick up at Heathrow, or off the Eurostar at St Pancras. It could be your well-heeled gents you would usually find in the West End. I drop the name Jordan’s and if I deliver them, I get fifty quid in my hand, no questions asked.”’

  ‘I see,’ Piers says. He pauses. He knows he’s going to have a bit of a problem going very much further. ‘Did the driver say why it would be worth giving him as much as fifty pounds to bring a customer to Jordan’s?’

  Emily Phipson is on her feet immediately.

  ‘Whether he did or not,’ she objects, ‘the answer would be hearsay, and it is inadmissible.’

  ‘That must be right, Mr Drayford, mustn’t it?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes, your Honour. Did the driver say who at Jordan’s gave him the fifty pounds?’

  I look at defence counsel, but apparently no one is bothered by this question, whether the answer would be hearsay or not.

  ‘Yes, sir. He said it would be either the barman, Dimitri, or the receptionist, Lucy, depending on who was in the reception area when he came in with the customer he was introducing.’

  ‘So, the driver was saying this had happened more than once.’

  ‘Indeed, sir, yes.’

  ‘Officer, what did you do as a result of this conversation with the taxi driver?’

  ‘Well, sir, it seemed pretty obvious to me…’

  Piers interrupts him before Emily can intervene again.

  ‘No, officer, please listen to the question. I’m not asking you about what you may have thought. I am asking you what you did.’

  ‘Sorry, sir. I told my desk sergeant, Sergeant Jenny Cullen, about what the driver had said.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, officer. There may be further questions. Wait there, please.’

  At first, no one seems interested in asking further questions, which is probably wise, given that the witness would clearly love to give the jury a few more titillating details. But eventually, Emily decides it is just about worth taking a limited risk.

  ‘Officer, do I gather from what you have said that the taxi driver was given the fifty pounds in the reception area of the restaurant?’

  ‘Yes, I believe so.’

  ‘Where there would be the customer he had brought, and perhaps other customers, waiters, and so on milling around?’

  ‘Yes, I presume so, Miss.

  ‘Yes. Thank you, officer.’

  We now turn to what happened when Sergeant Jenny Cullen had digested the information she had received from PC Crane. Her witness statement, a very
anodyne document which no one wants to challenge, is read to the jury. It doesn’t enlighten them very much. All she tells them is that she passed the information on to the Serious and Organised Crime Unit. Officially, therefore, we still don’t know what the police thought worth pursuing about the fifty pound payments to taxi drivers, though I am sure the jury has got the message by now. There is something suspicious afoot upstairs, and they are agog to hear about it. The next witness is DC Mitchell.

  ‘Officer, were you assigned to go to Jordan’s restaurant in an undercover capacity?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘What time was it when you arrived at the restaurant?’

  ‘It was about two-fifteen, two-thirty in the afternoon.’

  ‘When you entered, how did the restaurant appear? Were there many people?’

  ‘There were quite a few. The lunch hour was drawing to a close, but I could see a number of people sitting in the bar and in the restaurant itself, and there were members of the staff walking around.’

  ‘Now, you were there as a result of information received by the police, is that right?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And as a result of that information, what did you do on entering the restaurant?’

  ‘I approached a woman I now know to be Lucy Trask, who appeared to be acting as receptionist, and told her that I wished to speak to Dimitri.’

  ‘Is that the same Lucy Trask you see in the dock today?’

  ‘It is, sir.’

  Piers pauses. ‘All right, officer, thank you. Would you look please at the floor plan of Jordan’s. Your Honour, may this be Exhibit one, please? Can you tell the jury where you were when your conversation with Ms Trask took place?’

  The officer holds the floor plan up with his right hand, indicating the spot with the forefinger of his left hand, and does a sweep around the courtroom.

  ‘Just here, by the desk in the reception area.’

  ‘Did Ms Trask tell you where you might find Dimitri?’

  ‘Yes, sir. She directed me to the bar, where I did in fact find Dimitri.’

  ‘I don’t think there is any dispute about it. Is “Dimitri” in fact the defendant Dimitri Valkov?’

  ‘Yes, that is correct.’

  ‘What did you say to Dimitri?’

  ‘I said I was interested in a massage, and asked him if he could arrange one for me.’

  ‘I see.’ Piers pauses for a surreptitious glance at the jury. ‘Officer, Jordan’s is known as a restaurant and bar. Was there any material that you saw, either inside or outside Jordan’s, advertising the fact that massages were available?’

  ‘Not that I saw, sir, no.’

  ‘Did you see any indication of a massage room, or changing room of any kind?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘How did Dimitri respond to your request?’

  ‘He asked me if I had been in before. I said no. He took me to one side and asked me to wait for a moment. He left the bar. He was gone no more than a minute or two. When he came back, he said that a young lady was available upstairs, that the cost of the massage was one hundred pounds for half an hour, and that it was expected that I would add a tip if the massage was to my satisfaction.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I told Dimitri I wished to go ahead with the massage. He asked me to follow him. We went back into the reception area. He ducked in behind the desk for a moment and retrieved a key. His movement suggested to me that the key had been hanging on a hook behind the desk. He proceeded to the door shown on the plan here’ – again the officer does a helpful sweep – ‘and opened it with the key.’

  ‘Where did the door lead?’

  ‘Immediately inside the door was a staircase, which led upstairs to a corridor with four rooms. This is shown on the second side of the floor plan. I followed Dimitri, and he took me to the second room along from the top of the staircase. He knocked and opened the door, and invited me to enter, which I did.’

  ‘When you entered, what did you see?’

  ‘I saw that I was in a room decorated in what appeared to be an oriental style. On the far side of the room, about two feet from the wall, was a thin table, with a sheet partially covering it, which I took to be a massage table. There was another, smaller table up against the wall, on which there appeared to be plastic bottles containing massage oil, some tissues, an incense burner, and two small red candles in glass candle holders.’

  ‘Was anyone else in the room?’

  ‘Yes, sir. As I walked in, I saw a white female, I would estimate in her early or mid-twenties. She was scantily clad.’

  ‘I suppose people might have different ideas about what “scantily clad” means,’ Piers comments. ‘Could you tell the jury what she was wearing?’

  ‘Yes, sir. She was wearing a very short black top, not much more than a bra, really, and black shorts. Dimitri introduced her to me as Laura.’

  ‘What did Dimitri do then?’

  ‘He left the room.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘Laura asked me my name and confirmed that I wanted a massage. She said the charge would be one hundred pounds for half an hour, just as Dimitri had said. I had a sufficient sum with me, the expenditure of which had been approved by the DI in charge of the investigation. I handed Laura five twenty pound notes. She then instructed me to take my clothes off and lie on the massage table on my front under the sheet.’

  ‘Did you understand that you were to take all your clothes off?’

  ‘Yes, and that is what I did.’

  Piers pauses. ‘Officer, it may be that the jury think this is all a bit unusual, but is this something you have had occasion to do before?’

  The officer smiles. ‘It is, sir, yes. It is a form of undercover work that some of us have to undertake occasionally, so it wasn’t my first time.’

  ‘What happened once you had taken up your position on the table?’

  ‘Laura began the massage. She had lit the candles and put on a CD of classical guitar music, and she began by applying massage oil to my back and shoulders.’

  ‘And did the massage proceed in a conventional way for some time?’

  ‘Yes, it did. For some time it appeared to be a standard, conventional massage, at which Laura appeared to be quite skilful.’

  ‘But did something happen to change that?’

  ‘It did indeed. After she had massaged my back and shoulders and the backs of my legs, Laura asked me to turn over and lie on my back.’

  ‘Did you do that?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘As she was massaging my legs and thighs, Laura asked me a question.’

  ‘What did she ask? Please use her exact words, if you remember them.’

  ‘I do remember, sir. She said, “Would you like to try a special, more intimate massage?”’

  ‘How did you respond to that?’

  ‘I asked her what the intimate massage consisted of.’

  ‘I assume,’ Piers said, ‘that you had some understanding of that without asking her?’

  ‘Yes, of course, sir,’ Mitchell replies. ‘But if an offence may be committed, my evidence must be as clear as possible.’

  ‘You have to ask her to be precise?’

  ‘Exactly, sir. A response like that is standard practice.’

  ‘Did she reply?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking, yes. She ran her hand up my leg in a very suggestive way, and said, “I’m talking about a full body massage”. She emphasised the word “full.”’

  ‘What conclusion did you draw from that? The term “full body massage” does have a legitimate use, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It does, yes. But it wasn’t just what she said. It was what she said combined with the movements of her hand up my leg, a
nd in the immediate vicinity of my private parts.’

  One or two of the jurors snigger. It is all fairly obvious now, but Piers is right to be thorough.

  ‘So you concluded…’

  ‘I concluded that she was offering me a hand job.’

  ‘A hand job. Quite so,’ Piers says. His tone, I think, is intended to suggest some distaste for the very idea, but it doesn’t really work and sounds more squeamish than anything else. I’ve noticed this kind of reaction in some counsel over the years. It’s almost as if there is something not quite right about using explicit sexual language while wearing a wig and gown. With some barristers, the more seedy, older variety, it can even come across as positively indecent. It doesn’t come across that way with Piers at all. But even he seems anxious to gloss over the sordid details.

  ‘I then followed the protocol again,’ Mitchell says, without being asked, ‘by asking her how much an intimate massage would cost.’

  ‘Did she reply to that?’

  ‘She did. She told me that it was up to me, it was in the way of being a tip, but that fifty pounds would be about right, and that was what her clients generally paid.’

  ‘And what does the protocol call for you to do at that point?’ Piers asks.

  ‘I have to find a way to decline, hopefully without arousing her suspicions that I may be a police officer. I have a variety of ways of doing that.’ He looks across at me. ‘Your Honour, I would prefer not to divulge operational details.’

  ‘No. Quite right,’ I say. ‘It is not relevant.’

  ‘Did you decline?’ Piers asks.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Was there any further suggestion of anything sexual?’

  ‘No, sir. I got dressed, gave her a tip of twenty pounds, went downstairs, and left the premises.’

  ‘Did you see Dimitri again?’

  ‘No, sir. I saw Ms Trask on the way out and wished her a good afternoon. I didn’t have any further conversation with anyone. I then returned to the station, reported to DI Price, and wrote my witness statement. That was the extent of my involvement in this case.’