One Law For the Rest of Us

by Peter Murphy

  ‘Then why does it matter now?’ Steffie asked.

  ‘I only found out about this a few days before trial. There was no time to do any further investigation. Now there is.’

  ‘What kind of investigation?’

  ‘I’m thinking that Mary probably wasn’t the only girl who had her fees waived as a bribe to her family not to rock the boat,’ Julia said. ‘I’m thinking that some of those other girls have parents who are still alive, and could give evidence about it. And I’m thinking that Lancelot Andrewes has records stashed away somewhere that would corroborate their evidence.’

  ‘Of course,’ Audrey said. She suddenly sounded engaged again. ‘The school has complete records of fees for all the girls.’

  ‘Would it be clear why a girl’s family wasn’t paying fees?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Audrey replied. ‘Almost all the girls are fee-paying. Payments are made quarterly, and their files should contain records of all payments, and any missed payments. Non-fee-paying girls are either on scholarship, in which case their file is marked with a capital S, or charity cases, like my sister and me, whose files are marked with a C. What we’d be looking for are cases where payments for fee-paying girls stopped abruptly for no obvious reason.’

  ‘All we need are two or three instances where that happened,’ Ginny said. ‘It would turn the case around.’

  ‘How can we get our hands on these records?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Records of current pupils are kept at the school, together with records for pupils who have left within the last five years,’ Audrey replied. ‘All the earlier records are housed in the diocesan storage facility, an old warehouse at Impington, just outside Cambridge. It shouldn’t be difficult to find what we need.’

  ‘We’ll need a subpoena to produce documents, and a search warrant for the storage facility,’ Andrew said.

  John Caswell and both police officers nodded.

  ‘We’re on it,’ Steffie said.

  ‘What about the Three Musketeers, sir?’ Ted asked.

  ‘It’s time to invite them to the party,’ Andrew replied. ‘Give them the opportunity to come in voluntarily for interview. Do it as quietly as possible. I don’t want anyone complaining that we’re exposing them to unnecessary publicity. Let John and myself know what they have to say before you charge them.’

  ‘Andrew, do you think we have enough?’ John asked, tentatively. ‘They are men in the public eye. The Director is going to be nervous about it. What can I tell him?’

  ‘Remind him that we have two victims who positively identify all three of them,’ Andrew replied. ‘That ought to do it.’

  ‘What about the indictment?’ Ben asked.

  ‘We can’t just add them to the original indictment at this late stage,’ Andrew replied. ‘I’ll ask a High Court judge for a fresh bill of indictment, so that we can join all four of them.’

  ‘Will that be a problem? We’ve already had one trial.’

  Andrew smiled. ‘Shouldn’t be. We keep one or two tame judges for such occasions. Audrey, go home and see Emily, and regroup. We’ll keep you up to date.’

  ‘I’m on my way,’ she replied.

  36

  Audrey Marshall

  I told Ben I didn’t know how I was going to explain the hung jury to Emily. But now, on the train back to Ely with time to reflect and nowhere to hide, I am forced to admit to myself that Emily isn’t the problem. I am. Emily has overcome any fears she had about the case and the courtroom. She will get up and do it again fifty times if she has to. I’m not afraid of explaining it to Emily. I’m afraid of explaining it to myself.

  Ben and Ginny told me over and over again that the hung jury isn’t a personal rejection, and so I shouldn’t take it personally. It doesn’t mean that I wasn’t telling the truth in their eyes. Intellectually, I understand that. I understand what corroboration means, and I understand that there are experts who don’t accept that what I experienced can be real. But for me, this is not an intellectual exercise. I’m not standing where Ben and Ginny are standing. I’m not watching this game from the side-lines. I’m a player. I’m one of the people whose lives this case is going to change forever, and beyond recall. Twelve people I don’t know, and who don’t know me, found that they couldn’t rely on my evidence. To me, that is personal – very personal.

  It’s personal that the law regards my evidence as inherently suspicious just because it concerns sexual abuse, as opposed to burglary or fraud. It’s personal that the law regards my daughter’s evidence as inherently suspicious for the same reason, and doubly so simply because she’s a child. It’s personal that the rules of evidence make it so easy for somebody like Anthony Norris to turn a trial into a forensic game of chess, instead of a search for the truth. It’s personal that experts can analyse my memory as nothing more than a scientific speculation. You can’t do that, I want to scream at them: not if you haven’t been where I’ve been; not if you haven’t stood as a terrified seven-year-old, barefoot in a flimsy nightdress, in Father Gerrard’s library, waiting for men to put their fingers inside you; not if you haven’t found your sister hanging from the staircase because she was sorry she couldn’t stop it; not if you haven’t listened to your seven-year-old daughter telling you that she has suffered the same abuse, after you’ve sent her to the same school, because you had no inkling that anything was amiss. If you haven’t had those experiences, I want to scream at them, don’t fucking tell me that my recovered memories aren’t real. And you, Anthony Norris: don’t tell me that I’m in this because I want to sue Lancelot Andrewes School for money – as if any amount of money could begin to make up for what has happened to me. Don’t you dare. Don’t you fucking dare.

  The men who abused me, those cowardly men hiding behind the protective shield of false initials, don’t have to worry about rules of evidence. They don’t have to worry about corroboration, or the opinions of experts. It’s personal that the law places no such obstacles in their path; that it’s apparently so easy for them to walk away.

  I want desperately to give it all up and hide away in some hole for the rest of my life. But I can’t. I can’t: because I have a little girl at home who had the courage to come out from behind a screen and confront the man who abused her in front of the whole world; and I can’t let her down.

  PART THREE

  37

  Friday 17 May 1974

  ‘Good morning, everyone,’ Steffie began. ‘Sorry you all had to get up so early, but it’s in a good cause.’

  ‘I hope so, ma’am,’ a female voice replied from the back of the room, to general laughter. ‘I’m missing all my beauty sleep.’

  Steffie joined in the laughter. ‘It doesn’t show, Ruthie.’

  ‘It does from where I’m standing,’ DS Steve Harris commented.

  Ruthie punched him hard in the arm, to more laughter. ‘Cheeky bugger.’

  ‘Now, if everyone’s got coffee to keep them awake, let’s get started. I think you all know me by now. I’m DI Steffie Walsh from the Met. You’ve just been introduced, in typical Met fashion, to two of my colleagues, DS Ruthie Foster and DS Steve Harris, who both have forensic accounting training. I’ve asked them to spend a few days with us here at Parkside, to assist with the inquiry into the records of Lancelot Andrewes School. Do you all have the notes I typed up yesterday?’

  There were nods around the room.

  ‘Good. This information comes from Audrey Marshall, one of our victims, who works for the diocese as an administrator, so there’s every chance she’s right about what we’re going to find on the ground. The general idea is this: we have reason to believe that the school has been paying off the families of victims of child sexual abuse by waiving their child’s school fees if the child complained. This comes from another witness, Mary Forbes. We couldn’t use Mary’s evidence at the trial because it’s hearsay: her father knew about it
, but he died some time ago. But we don’t think Mary’s family was the only one this happened to.

  ‘So, what we’re looking for is evidence that a girl’s family suddenly stopped paying fees for no obvious reason, after a particular date. The problem is that we have no way of estimating how many such cases there are, and they could be cases of girls at the school at any time between 1940 and the present.’

  ‘“Obvious reason” meaning that the girl was on a scholarship?’ Ruthie asked.

  ‘Either on a scholarship, or the fees were waived for charitable reasons, such as in Audrey’s case – she was an orphan and an evacuee from London during the war. In a few cases, fees may have been waived temporarily if the family fell on hard times, with an understanding that they would resume payments when they could.

  ‘The school starts an administrative file for every girl on the date of her entry. That file contains two sets of records. The first part consists of her academic records: her marks for school exams; extracurricular achievements – sports, music, and so on; scholarships awarded; what O-levels and A-levels she got; university entrance; and any disciplinary actions taken against her. There may be some interesting stuff in there if the girl’s history isn’t clear, but the second part is more directly relevant.

  ‘The second part consists of her financial records. There should be a record of each quarterly payment of fees, and of any reason why fees were not paid. If it was a scholarship or charity case, the file should be marked with a capital S or C, and it should be obvious that fees were not being paid from the relevant date. What we’re looking for are girls who started off paying, but whose payments stopped without any evidence of a valid reason. I need complete copies of all such files, including current contact details. Then we’re going to interview as many of them, and their parents or guardians, as we can.’

  ‘They were admitting roughly forty girls a year?’ Steve Harris asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And would all of those be boarders?’

  ‘No, but there were very few day girls, and we have no evidence that any day girls were abused; so don’t worry too much about that.’ She paused. ‘Any other questions?’ There were none.

  ‘All right. Now, we’re going to divide into two teams. Team A, led by DI Phillips, will have Steve, plus DC Woolley and PCs Martin and Kelly. Steve is very experienced in inquiries with masses of documents, so he will be your guru. If you have any questions – any questions at all – about a file, he’s the man you go to.’

  ‘Don’t be nervous about it; I’m a very nice bloke,’ Steve said. ‘Ruthie will tell you: won’t you, Ruthie?’

  ‘No comment,’ Ruthie replied, to renewed laughter.

  ‘So don’t be shy about it.’

  ‘Thank you, Steve – or Mr Nice Guy, as we all call him down in London,’ Steffie said. ‘I will lead Team B, with Ruthie, DC Lund, and PCs Everett and Shaw. Ruthie has the same experience as Steve, and she will be our guru.

  ‘Team A, DI Phillips’s team, will be visiting the school itself, where they keep records for current pupils and any who’ve left school in the past five years. So the files you’ll find there are relevant mainly to our inquiry into more recent abuse, including Audrey’s daughter, Emily.’

  ‘Though they may be helpful more generally, depending on the picture they form. They may suggest that the abuse has been going on consistently over the years,’ Ted added.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Steffie agreed. ‘Treat everything as important. In Father Gerrard’s absence, the diocesan administrator, Bill Hollis, will be the man to show you round. Bill is Audrey’s boss, and she says he’s a reasonable enough fellow; but she also says that the diocesan staff are all fiercely loyal, so how he will react when you confront him remains to be seen. Don’t take anything for granted, but don’t take no for an answer.

  ‘Team B, my team, is going to the diocesan storage facility at Impington, where they keep all the older records – or so we hope. We currently have no reason to believe that they’ve destroyed any records; but this scandal has been all over the papers recently, so it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that someone may have been tempted to dispose of some embarrassing documents. If so, they probably weren’t very subtle about it, and they will have left clues. Keep your eyes open – any suspiciously low number of files for a particular year, any files that are suspiciously light on documents, any hesitancy or nervousness on the part of the staff. You all know what I’m talking about.’

  ‘Who’s the man in charge?’ Ruthie asked.

  ‘Donald Terrence,’ Steffie replied, ‘your typical jobsworth, according to Audrey, but nothing else known. Now, look: timing is important. If it hasn’t occurred to anyone yet to start disposing of documents, it might once they get word that there’s a search warrant on the way. We’ve kept very quiet about it. Superintendent Walker is going to serve the warrants for both places on John Singer, the school’s solicitor, at nine o’clock precisely, at his office. If he’s not there at nine o’clock, the Super will let us know: in that case we go into both buildings anyway at that time, and the Super will serve Singer as soon as he can. DI Phillips and I will keep in regular radio contact, to make sure we’re on the same page.

  ‘Both teams will have plenty of copies of the warrants. The warrants are valid, so we’re not going to let anyone hold us up. They may try to fob us off, saying they want to call Singer. We will tell them they’re welcome to call anyone they want, but we’re starting the search immediately.’

  ‘Protocol?’ Steve Harris asked.

  ‘One officer to be designated exhibits officer, to be in charge of any files you decide to seize, and those files to be removed and brought to Parkside when you finish at the end of each day. Work as long as you like; tell the staff you’ll lock the place up for the night. Remember, this is going to take more than one day, maybe three, or even four – it’s hard to say until we get a feel for what we’re dealing with: so some poor bugger will have to be elected night watchman, to make sure the place is secure overnight, including over the weekend.’

  There were moans around the room. Steffie smiled.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but I’m hearing things about John Singer that are making me nervous. We can’t take any chances with these files. Our prosecuting counsel say they may make all the difference between winning and losing when the case comes to trial.

  ‘So: let’s synchronise our watches. Mine says it’s eight fifteen. If there are no more questions, let’s hit the road and get into position.’

  Donald Terrence, manager of the diocesan document storage facility at Impington, had had a premonition that he was going to have a bad day. He had slept through his alarm, and had woken up feeling stiff, unrested, and out of sorts. His stomach was upset, and he had a vague headache. He’d had to rush his morning routine in the interests of making it to work on time. He’d cut himself shaving, and had no time for breakfast. He knew that his worst fears were to be confirmed when a group of five people, obviously police officers, pushed past his receptionist at the main entrance to the building, just as a spluttering John Singer was trying to explain something to him, over an indifferent phone line, about a search warrant. The woman who led the party approached his desk, produced her warrant card, and gestured to him, making it clear that she expected him to complete the call without delay. Terrence told Singer that he would call him back as soon as he could and replaced the receiver. He stood and tried to appear as defiant as he could.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he asked her, brusquely.

  ‘Yes, you can,’ Steffie replied. ‘I am DI Steffie Walsh, and, as you can see, I have four other police officers with me. We’re here to execute a search warrant. This is your copy.’ She gave him a few seconds to run his eyes over it. ‘We will be here until further notice, which may be several days. We expect your full cooperation.’

  Terrence shook his
head. ‘I don’t know about this. I’ll have to ask Mr Singer. I can’t just let you –’

  ‘Mr Terrence,’ she interrupted, ‘in case I didn’t make myself clear, I’m here to execute a search warrant, of which I’ve provided you with a copy. Unless I’m very much mistaken, you’ve just been speaking with Mr Singer, and I would sincerely hope he’s explained to you that you have no alternative but to cooperate with us. If you refuse to cooperate, I will ask DS Foster here to arrest you for obstructing us in the execution of our duty.’

  Any appearance of defiance in Terrence evaporated.

  ‘So,’ Steffie said, ‘I would be grateful if you would show us where the historic files for girls at Lancelot Andrewes School are kept, and make sure we have full and unrestricted access to them.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Terrence demanded sullenly.

  ‘Yes. Once you’ve done that, gather your staff together, and make it clear to them that anyone who tries to obstruct us, or interfere with the records in any way before we’re finished with them, will be arrested and prosecuted.’

  Terrence took a deep breath and placed his hands on his hips.

  ‘And, just as a point of interest, Mr Terrence,’ Steffie added, ‘has anyone removed any of those files, or interfered with them in any way recently?’

  Terrence recoiled and put his hands in his pockets.

  ‘’No… no, of course not. Why would anyone do that?’

  ‘I’m just asking.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. I’m glad to hear that, Mr Terrence, because if you or your staff were to do anything like that, or if anyone were to ask you to do anything like that, we’d be out of the realm of obstructing a police officer. We’d be in the realm of perverting the course of justice – and believe you me, you don’t want to be involved in perverting the course of justice: does he, Detective Sergeant Foster?’