by Trevor Grove
And here is Lord Devlin’s famous encomium in Trial by Jury, the book based on his 1956 Hamlyn Lecture:
The first object of any tyrant in Whitehall would be to make Parliament utterly subservient to his will; and the next to overthrow or diminish trial by jury, for no tyrant could afford to leave a subject’s freedom in the hands of twelve of his countrymen. So that trial by jury is more than an instrument of justice and more than one wheel of the constitution: it is the lamp that shows that freedom lives.
My view is that even if Oppenheimer’s invective is on target, which as a caricature of course it is, it does not extinguish Lord Devlin’s lamp. In 1965 an independent committee under the chairmanship of Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, appointed by the Home Office to look into the jury system, had this to say:
Jury service is viewed by some as an onerous and unwelcome duty, and by others as a precious and inalienable right, but we have been told that those who start their service holding the former opinion often end up by holding the latter. While we do not wish to pronounce on whether jury service is a right as well as a duty, many of our witnesses have told us of the profound sense of responsibility with which jurors discharge their functions … There may sometimes be doubts about the correctness of particular verdicts, but no witness has expressed the view that jurors act irresponsibly or perversely …
Thirty years on, that still rings true.
John Mortimer QC, celebrated defence lawyer and creator of the immortal Rumpole, gave me a paper he had written some years ago.
Juries are not composed of perfect people – they are not meant to be. They are meant to be people like us, full of imperfections. Our peers. Those of us who appear in criminal trials are always impressed by the jury’s care, attention and sense of responsibility, and by verdicts which show, when there are a number of charges to consider, an astute awareness of the strength of the evidence on various complicated counts.
The conviction of Louise Woodward by a Boston jury in October 1997 seemed at first to be a sickening blow to those who share John Mortimer’s opinion. No one wanted to believe that this very ordinary 19 year old from Cheshire could have been capable of murdering little Matthew Eappen. The initial response on both sides of the Atlantic was that the jury’s decision was incomprehensible. The tabloid press in Britain went into its usual chauvinistic mode on such occasions, jeering at the jury for perpetrating a miscarriage of justice. It was suggested that, as Bostonians, they were influenced by the city’s historic anti-English prejudice. Louise Woodward’s home village worked itself into a frenzy of outraged emotionalism, egged on by the media.
The overreaction was embarrassing. On cool reflection, it was plain that the trial had been meticulously conducted and what is more had been seen to be so, thanks to the very television coverage which had helped to whip up the controversy in the first place. Unlike most of their critics, the jury had listened to every word of the evidence and deliberated on it for three days. Judging by what a couple of them had to say afterwards, and the probings of Marcel Berlins on Radio 4’s Law in Action programme, the real error was not theirs but the defence team’s, in going for the flamboyant ‘noose or loose’ gambit. Had the nine women and three men been allowed to bring in a manslaughter verdict, there would not have been half the fuss, and Judge Hiller Zobel would not have had to do it on their behalf ten days later. His reconsideration of the verdict (which would have been impossible in most other states, just as it would in Britain) was to be applauded. The damage done to the standing of the jury system may take longer to mend, despite his exoneration of the jurors. He stated at the end of his ruling that ‘neither they nor anyone else should interpret today’s decision as in any way a criticism of them’.
The key point was that Judge Zobel did not exculpate Louise Woodward from having had a hand in the little boy’s death, however unintentionally. Although the people of Elton seemed keen to disregard this fact as they partied uproariously to celebrate her release from prison, in that respect he supported the jury’s finding.
I want to believe in the jury system because it seems to me not only a tolerably effective method of judging serious crimes but an inspired means of helping a society to believe in itself. Lord Bingham, the Lord Chief Justice, has expressed the view that jury trial is something that even a convicted defendant can live with, however much he may resent his conviction. Before he became New Labour’s first Attorney-General, John (now Sir John) Morris QC said, ‘It may well not be the perfect machine, but it is a system that has stood the test of time … a system of which we can be proud. It has been exported across the common-law world …’
Its supporters throughout that common-law world, in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries that still cling to it (plus some, like Russia, which aspire to it), would argue that to let justice rest in the hands of its own citizens is the highest expression of a mature, civilised, self-confident democracy. Whether one agrees or not, to undermine it or abandon it in this country, where it is so rooted in our history, would be catastrophically dispiriting. It would be to admit that as a people we no longer trusted ourselves.
Our case lasted long enough for me to form some strong and mainly favourable impressions of the jury system in action. This seemed a persuasive reason to try to write something in its defence, at a time when juries were so heavily under attack. Neither fiction nor faction would fit the bill. The difficulty was how to tell the story as authentically as possible without contravening or even appearing to challenge our very tough contempt of court laws – laws which I myself think are right and necessary.
Section 8 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 forbids any disclosure of what occurs in the retiring room once a jury has been sent out to deliberate and reach a verdict. I saw no problem in sticking to this. As to what had occurred in court and corridor during the course of the preceding trial, here I would seek to abide by the spirit of Section 8, even where the letter of the law did not appear to apply.
To determine what this spirit might be, I looked up the House of Commons debates on Section 8, which took place in the first half of 1981. Most of the discussion focused on the desirability or otherwise of allowing some academic research into jury deliberations.
Despite the support of the Conservative Attorney-General of the day, the pro-researchers lost the argument. This was what the late Sir Michael Havers said: ‘I should have liked an amendment that did not create the stupid, silly criminal offences arising, for example, from a discussion over the dinner table or a juror returning to his home and talking to his wife or to the neighbour over the fence. I should have liked to see some measure of research into juries taking place under strict control.’
The former Labour Attorney-General, Sam Silkin, was also in favour of allowing investigation of the jury system ‘without breaching the secrecy of the jury room … in a way which enables successive generations to see whether the system is working in the way that it should and, if it is not, put it right’.
John Morris, who was Mr Silkin’s successor as Labour Attorney-General until 1999, spoke up passionately on behalf of both jurors and the jury system, ‘warts and all’. Like many of the lawyers in both Houses he felt that research could imperil both them and it. However, he also championed an amendment which sought to avoid ‘stupid and trivial prosecutions’ by ensuring that prosecutions could only be brought with the consent of the Attorney-General.
He was questioned about this important safeguard by another Labour MP, Christopher Price, who recollected that ‘folk as distinguished as Katharine Whitehorn, Simon Hoggart, Alan Coren and Graham Greene’ had written about their experiences as jurors. ‘Would a prosecution against someone of that kind … come into the category of stupid and frivolous prosecution?’
Mr Morris replied: ‘Certainly, reminiscences in the Graham Greene vein would not at first blush seem to me to be of a kind to be in contravention of the Bill. It would be for the Attorney-General of the day to ensure that there is both fairness
and consistency and that the law is not brought into ridicule.’
Well, I was no Graham Greene. And unlike him, I preferred not to disguise the case at issue, except by changing the names of my fellow jurors. On the other hand, I was encouraged by the words of the then Attorney-General, who took the view that the key amendment they were debating did not seem ‘to exclude a journalist from saying afterwards that he did not think very much of counsel for the Crown or counsel for the defence; or that the judge was a bit dozy and did not seem to know the law; or that the usher was incompetent; or that the lunch was filthy; or that he had to wait for days before he was allowed to try a case.
‘None of those interesting things,’ he went on, ‘which I think the bar, pupils, solicitors and everyone else could gain by, would be prevented by that amendment …’
So I decided to go ahead, though obviously with great care. In doing so, I did not pretend to myself that one juror’s account of serving in one trial could amount to a clinching defence of the jury ideal. But the experience did reinforce my own belief in it. If I could convey why, it would be a worthwhile undertaking.
As a journalist I noted all sorts of aspects of those involved, such as class and education, to which in some quarters it is no longer considered politically correct to draw attention. But such matters are of great significance, for they form the blurred subtext of much of the debate about the jury system. Only two of our jury members had been to university. Few read a newspaper regularly. Our case was not a fraud trial, often claimed to be beyond the grasp of the average juror. Yet it lasted as long as some fraud trials do and was just as complex and document-laden as many of them are. If a jury such as ours could cope with this and reach the right conclusion, which we believe we did, then it seemed to me a jury such as ours could cope with almost anything.
Trial By Jury
THE ARREST
At around nine o’clock on the evening of Tuesday 2 April 1996 two unmarked police cars drew up behind a rented green Rover saloon in the Golders Green area of north-west London. The driver of the Rover was a well-built, pale-faced Greek in his mid-twenties called Thanassis Zografos. Beside him in the passenger seat was an older, smaller man, also of southern European appearance. This was Constantinos Korkolis. A witness saw the two men laughing.
The next thing they knew was that the doors of their car were being pulled open and there were shouts of ‘Police! Police!’ Both men were hauled out on to the pavement. Neither of them put up any resistance. They were hustled out of sight of each other, searched, made to don police-issue paper overalls on top of their clothes, and driven off in separate cars.
Meantime a young woman detective constable who had arrived with the arresting officers spotted a mobile telephone on the car-seat vacated by Korkolis. WDC Hills saw that it was switched on, put it to her ear and spoke into it briefly. In the footwell in front of the passenger seat she noted an array of wires leading from the Rover’s cigar lighter socket to what looked like two mobile-phone chargers placed side by side, in one of which sat another telephone. This did not strike her as odd at the time. Possibly she was too busy wondering about the short conversation she had just had on the mobile. Only seconds earlier, one of the arrested men had been speaking into it. Yet the voice at the other end was one she knew well. It belonged to Detective Inspector Peter Young of New Scotland Yard’s Organised Crime Group, a specialist in hostage and kidnap operations.
About an hour and a half later, the residents of a quiet mews in Maida Vale might have noticed something unusual taking place. That is, if they were nosy, neighbourly types, which they were not. Hogan Mews is one of those incurious corners of London where people come and go without prying or asking questions. It is a stroll from the stuccoed mansions of Little Venice and just a spit away from what is nowadays the little Levant of the Edgware Road. On this particular April night, not a curtain in Hogan Mews twitched as a small group of police officers, some in plain clothes, sidled surreptitiously along the front of one of the houses, Number 5. One of the men rang the bell. There was no response. He tested the door gently to check that the mortice was not locked. Then, bracing himself against a colleague’s shoulders, he kicked hard. The door gave. The police rushed in, stepping over a man lying crumpled in the narrow hallway. The door had evidently hit him in the face. One of the officers bundled him into the downstairs lavatory.
Like its neighbours, 5 Hogan Mews is a small, modern, unprepossessing town house. The kitchen/dining room is just a few strides from the front door. As the officers ran in, they could see this was no ordinary domestic household. A mattress lay propped against one wall. A coat was draped over the ceiling light. There were clothes in plastic bags hanging from a radiator. The kitchen surfaces were cluttered; among the bottles of mineral water, the washing-up liquid and several cartons of Malboros were one or two unusual items: a face mask, quantities of tranquilliser pills, and a pair of handcuffs.
A door led off the kitchen. It was unlocked. A uniformed officer opened it. Behind the door was a pitch-dark, windowless room not much larger than a cupboard, reeking of urine. The constable was joined by a detective. They peered in and saw a bedraggled middle-aged man wearing boxer shorts and a dressing gown. For a moment he looked startled. Then he fell on the necks of the two policemen. Detective Constable Graham Clemence, a dark, tough-looking police officer with a beetling brow, was slightly embarrassed when he came to tell the court what happened next. ‘He grabbed me so tight as to cause me to feel pain,’ said DC Clemence awkwardly. ‘Then he kissed me on the cheek.’
The pale, unshaven man in the cupboard was George Fraghistas, a 43-year-old Greek who ran a thriving shipping agency in London. He was a member of a wealthy Athenian family which, if not quite in the Onassis class, figures prominently in the premier league of Greek shipping dynasties. Mr Fraghistas lived in a comfortable £600,000 house in West London. It was not far from Hogan Mews.
Nine days earlier, on 24 March, he had disappeared. Two women friends who had been expecting to have supper and play Scrabble with him that Sunday evening had grown alarmed when he failed to show up. He was a man of reliable habits. Mr Fraghistas’s business partner, his family and the local police were informed. The next day, Monday, an apparently calm-sounding George made a couple of calls to his office. He spoke to Wendy, his secretary. He told her that he had bumped into an old girlfriend and was going away with her for a few days. He made some routine remarks about cancelling meetings and contacting the captain of a ship at sea. They failed to soothe his family’s fears.
Then the ransom demands began. At first they were for £5,000,000. Then they dropped to $3,000,000 – just under £2,000,000. It was George himself who made the calls. He told his family that the sum was actually a debt. His brother Nicos and his sister Marily had by now flown to London from Athens to join his mother, Rhea Fraghistas, in her Kensington flat. They did not believe him. They were convinced he had been kidnapped. They called in Scotland Yard …
And now, nine days later, Scotland Yard had found him. George was almost incoherent with relief. Having kissed DC Clemence, he embraced Detective Sergeant Martin Hawkins, the man who had led the assault on 5 Hogan Mews and kicked in the door.
In the small hours of the following morning, 3 April, four men were charged with kidnap, false imprisonment and blackmail. They were Korkolis and Zografos and two Frenchmen. One was the man who had been knocked down as the police stormed Hogan Mews, Jean-Marc Mereu, a thick-set, bespectacled former Olympic wrestler. He was 36. The other was Djemel Moussaoui, 33, a dark-skinned, round-headed French-Algerian. He had been arrested in a phone box at the end of the mews minutes before the raid on the house. He had been making a call to his mother in Paris. From the moment they were charged until their trial in November the four men remained virtually silent – except that at one point Mereu blurted out to the police that he had been kind to George: he had brought him cigarettes and fruit.
It was all over Thursday’s newspapers. The Daily Telegraph ha
d a big story on the front page under the headline ‘Kidnap victim is freed after nine days in cupboard’. On page two – ‘Snatched shipping agent drugged’ – there were more pictures, maps and a graphic showing a blindfolded man tied to a chair. A woman who lived next door to 5 Hogan Mews, Denise Bennett, was quoted as saying, ‘There was constant banging in the house. I thought it might be the sound of internal doors, but now I think it may have been the poor fellow banging. I feel awful for not doing anything about it.’
The victim’s solicitor praised the detective work that had led to Mr Fraghistas’s release. His client, he said, was ‘extraordinarily grateful for the way in which the police directed this operation …’ The longest nine days any of the Fraghistas family had ever known were over. Their terror was at an end.
None of them knew very much about the English legal system or its adversarial court procedures. So they did not realise that only a few months later they would be living through that harrowing experience all over again as they took the stand, one after another, in a witness box at the Old Bailey. Only this time the ordeal would last not nine days but sixty-four.
INDUCTION DAY
My jury service was due to start on Monday 18 November 1996. On Friday 15 November I got into a dogfight. It was the dogs that were fighting; I was peacemaking. But I was the one who got injured. I did my back in. The idea of travelling into town and sitting in a jury box for five or six hours with my spine in spasm was intolerable.
The yellow form said to ring the jury bailiff if there was a problem, so I did. ‘Look,’ I said when he came on, ‘I hurt my back this morning. It will probably be all right by Monday, but I just thought I ought to warn you that I might not be able to get in.’
