by Gary Bell
I didn’t rush in robing.
It mightn’t be superhero spandex, but the court dress brings a great responsibility, and I allowed myself the time to neaten the starched white linen bands that hung from my winged collar, to straighten the horsehair wig, now a mottled ivory, that had seen such liberty and loss over the years, and to train the heavy, flowing folds of silk, as black and smooth as crude oil, that draped over my waistcoat and trousers like a cape, swallowing my physique whole. Then I gave myself an extra few minutes to stand in utter silence, to breathe in the mantra I’ve carried since my early, anxious days.
I was to meet Zara in the canteen, but almost failed to recognise her when I first turned from my place at the counter ten minutes later, cups of tea in hand.
‘What do you think?’ She approached tentatively, turning slightly on the spot, case papers bundled in the crook of one arm.
‘Wow. You look so … grown up!’
I didn’t mean for it to sound patronising, but I wasn’t lying. Dressed in an immaculate new suit and wig, she looked both competent and in control, and I felt the strangest flush of paternal pride. She was even wearing actual shoes for once, not boots, though I knew by the soles that they were still lace-up Doc Martens.
‘Ugh!’ she groaned. ‘I emptied my whole bloody overdraft for this and look at me! I look like such a white wig!’
‘You do not.’
Senior juniors are proud of their yellowing wigs and tattered gowns, which signify experience, while a newly called barrister is often dismissed as a white wig.
‘Honestly,’ I reassured her, ‘you look the part completely. A wig that’s half fallen to pieces and ragged gowns might rank well in the quirks of the Bar, but to a jury they only signify an impoverished tramp, and you don’t want that for your first day, do you?’
She shrugged, eyes on the floor, and hugged herself with both arms. ‘Maybe you should’ve chosen someone with more experience. I bet I’m going to be the youngest person in the court. I feel like a fraud.’
‘Most cases are won and lost on their facts. We can only make any sort of difference in the small minority. Results are important, of course, but in the long run, things will always even themselves out. The better barristers will win more cases than they lose, and the poorer will level the statistic. All that’s expected of you is to do your very best. Be honest, fair and fearless, and you won’t go far wrong.’
I believed that. I still do to this day.
She sighed, checking her reflection in the nearest window, and adjusted her glasses.
‘It’s like a new pair of Converse, I guess. They never look right without a few scuff marks.’
‘Then I’d say that leaves us with only one option …’ I handed her one of the teas and took half of the papers, gave her my best smile, and gestured to the corridor. ‘Let’s go and earn you some scuff marks, shall we?’
She smiled back, sheepishly, and then we walked side by side through the wooden doors into Court One, the most famous courtroom on the planet.
We were early enough to find a caretaker still polishing the face of the dock, cheerily whistling no particular tune to himself as he brightened the same glass box that had once caged the Kray Twins, the Yorkshire Ripper, Ruth Ellis, Lord Haw-Haw and Ian Huntley to name only a handful.
I was wondering how many convicts had gone on to loathe the smell of that floral polish, forever associating it with the moment they were sentenced, when I bumped straight into Fraser Hayes, our freckled fledgling of an instructing solicitor, who had been crouched low, reading the imprint on the court’s oak seats.
‘Good morning, Mr Hayes,’ I grumbled, managing to catch my sliding papers before they hit the floor.
‘“Domine, dirige nos”,’ he read, jabbing his thumb at the inscription, and gave Zara an anxious smile. ‘Who knows what that means, eh?’
‘Lord, direct us,’ I told him simply, leaving him to take his position behind us.
The Bar was originally the section of the court that divided legal professionals from lay people, and so passing the Bar earns the right to step down into the well in front of the dock, where advocates line up to face the judge’s bench, the focal point of power, which sits before the royal coat of arms under the court’s pediment and grand Corinthian columns. The jury box shares the well, always at a right angle to the dock, along with the witness stand.
The usual players filtered into place beneath the light that poured through the room’s glass roof – the stenographer, clerk, judicial assistant and usher – and then in marched Harlan Garrick QC, followed closely by Ted Bowen, both bewigged and lugging the weight of the substantial evidence between them in cardboard boxes.
‘Is that Garrick?’ Zara whispered as they made their way down into the well.
‘Yes,’ I sighed. ‘That’s him.’
He hadn’t changed much since our last bout, except, I noticed as he neared, fine grey hairs now circled his entire neckline below the wig, which, incidentally, had gone well beyond frayed yellow, into the territory of deep Dijon mustard. He was still as hatchet-faced as I remembered, with a thin line of a mouth above a sharp chin, and deep-set brown eyes that barely glanced at us on approach. A purist Etonian to the core, rumour had it that he planned on entering politics before his upcoming fiftieth birthday.
Any potential for awkwardness with him was effortlessly overshadowed by Bowen. It was the first time I’d cast eyes on him since our encounter on Chancery Lane, and he wore the scrunched expression of a man confronted with a particularly foul stench.
It took great willpower to curb my urge to floor him for all his underhanded perfidy.
‘Morning,’ I said coolly as they started to scatter loose papers over their half of our shared counsel’s row, marking their territory.
‘Your client is almost sixty,’ Garrick replied without looking up. ‘I don’t know why he’s bothering to contest this case when he’s certain to be convicted and to spend the rest of his miserable life behind bars. At least if he pleads guilty, shows some remorse, he might be out in time to receive his telegram from the Queen, assuming a miner has ever lived that long.’
‘On the contrary.’ I tugged my gown straighter across the curve of my stomach, comforted by the smooth silk between my fingertips, and gritted my teeth. ‘He’ll be out in time to collect his free bus pass, Garrick, and that’s in less than a month.’
‘Ha!’ Bowen had reddened, voice rising like a missile about to go off in my face. ‘Not with your hundred per cent losing record against Harlan! If you truly think that –’
‘Silence please!’ came the voice of the clerk, quelling the retort and smothering the fuse, and silence fell like a stone. ‘All persons who have business before the Queen’s justices draw near and give your attendance. God save the Queen.’
We all straightened, Zara with military stiffness, as doors creaked open ahead.
High Court judges – known as Red Judges after their distinctive scarlet robes – are always referred to as Mr or Mrs Justice, and addressed as My Lord or My Lady. It was therefore Mr Justice Judge Merton Pike who took his place in the high-backed perch overlooking the court. A short man, even from that angle, he must’ve been well into his seventies, with lank white hair peeking from the back of his wig and flushed, ruddy skin around the neck, so it was hard to tell where the uniform ended and the man began.
He gazed languidly over the room, seemingly almost stifling a yawn, and then scratched his stubby nose. ‘All right, let’s have the defendant in, please.’
I rummaged deep for my game face. The moment had finally come.
In unison, we turned to see Billy rising up into the box, inch by inch, one weighty step at a time, as if he might keep coming and coming until he filled the glass completely, like a shark in a goldfish bowl. Even the dock officers, heavyset as they were, looked like they might have a struggle on their hands if things were to turn ugly, and Garrick’s and Bowen’s expressions were those of lifelong sceptics gazing upo
n the most farcical circus attraction one could imagine. I even heard Garrick mutter something about being done in time for lunch, and Bowen sniggered in response.
Billy didn’t look much better in a suit. In fact, the outfit only seemed to draw more focus to the incongruity of the tattoos on his face, neck and fists; the Celtic cross under his eye socket looked brasher than ever, the red of the Templar cross clear as blood against the white of his collar. He eyed each of us in turn through the glass, ending on me, on my wig and robes, with the slightest hint of a smug smile. Arrogant to the end.
‘Are you William Barber?’ the clerk asked.
‘That’s me,’ Billy nodded, and then sat down with the grace of an anvil.
We followed suit, while Garrick remained on his feet for the usual introductions.
‘My Lord,’ he said with a slight bow, greasing his nose up early for easy insertion, ‘this matter is listed for trial in the case of the Crown against William Barber. I appear for the Crown along with Mr Theodore Bowen. Acting for the defendant is my learned friend Mr Elliot Rook QC, who shall be leading Miss –’ a pause, an obvious, pointed glance down at his papers before returning to his seat – ‘Miss Zara Barnes.’
It was an intentional, wholly disrespectful move.
Mr Justice Pike nodded and glanced over the sheets of the case file. ‘Any preliminary legal issues to deal with, Counsel?’
Already incensed, I only shrugged and shook my head.
‘Very well,’ he said, ‘may we have the jury in please?’
Sixteen people shuffled into the room. Twelve names were called to take their place in the jury box, while the remaining four were dismissed.
I’ve always found jury selection exciting.
It might be the all-powerful state that brings a charge, but the dispensing of justice lies in the hands of twelve complete strangers, twelve ordinary members of the public, as it has done for nearly a thousand years.
Almost anybody can appear on the panel and cannot be challenged without good cause; a juror working in a relevant sector to the crime, in a fraud case for example, may be challenged by the defence, as might a serving police officer with a liable risk of bias, typically in cases where the defence is alleging a copper is lying. Cases are usually tried near to where they happen, unless there is likely to be an adverse local reaction to it, and before the jury is sworn, there’s a questionnaire regarding names, addresses and companies, although chances of conflict of interest are generally less common at the Bailey, where cases tend to be geographically distant.
It’s a raffle, a lottery, and yet, for the defendant, those strangers are akin to Peter at the Pearly Gates.
I watched their affirmations closely, trying to gauge what we were up against by noting sex, class and ethnicity, imagining the personal experiences each might have had that would affect every decision they ever made. It made me think, as it always did, of what Shakespeare says in Measure for Measure: the jury passing on the prisoner’s life may in the sworn twelve have a thief or two guiltier than him they try. I’ve always believed that.
There were five men and seven women dressed in shirts, sweaters and blouses. Eight of the twelve were white, and more than half were already casting thinly veiled grimaces up into the dock. The Bailey had come a long way since shreds of Dr Crippen’s dead wife’s skin were passed around the same room on a plate for inspection, but the jurors looked every bit as anxious over what may soon await them.
When they were finally sworn and seated, Judge Pike leaned across the bench to address them.
‘The evidence upon which you will decide the outcome of this case is that which will be presented in this court,’ he told them. ‘You should discuss the case among yourselves, but reject the influence of any media reporting or information obtained from outside of court, including social media. As jurors, you have a collective responsibility to ensure that you all act according to your oath, and if you do any Internet research into this case you will be committing a criminal offence for which you might be jailed.’ He nodded to the prosecution. ‘Please begin, Mr Garrick.’
I heard Zara exhale, slow and steady as a punctured tyre close to my shoulder, and caught Juror Number 6 lean eagerly forward in her seat, holding her breath, while Number 9 looked sick with nerves already.
The pieces were in place, the chessboard was primed, and Garrick rose with a face of iron resolve to make his opening move.
25
‘When you all received your summons to do jury service,’ Garrick began, after introducing counsel, ‘I’m sure you wondered what case you would end up trying. Would it be burglary? An armed robbery? A major drugs conspiracy, perhaps?
‘The single count on the indictment today is one of murder. The victim, an unidentified teenage girl of Middle Eastern ethnicity, was strangled and beaten so savagely that her nails were torn from her fingertips, her teeth were broken from her mouth, her legs were fractured, and veins burst under the skin all over her body. She was dumped, completely naked, on a disused railway on the evening of the fourteenth of April, the night paradoxically known as Good Friday.’
He gesticulated like a composer before an orchestra, enunciating all the finer, horrible details with both hands.
His words seemed to be having the desired effect; shudders of disgust, dismay and morbid curiosity were rippling across the members of the jury like the waves of an aurora.
‘It is the Crown’s case that the murderer was William Barber, the defendant you see before you today. Mr Barber has been given the choice as to whether he pleads guilty or not guilty to the crime, and he has pleaded not guilty. You must therefore enter this trial assuming that he is an innocent man. We, the prosecution, bring the case, and the burden of proving his guilt rests squarely upon our shoulders. It is my duty to present the evidence, and the facts are entirely a matter for you.
‘You’ll be guided on the law by Mr Justice Pike, who will instruct you on the technical elements of what defines the crime of murder, but as a matter of common sense you may conclude that whoever did the terrible things that led to this poor girl’s brutal and frightening death clearly intended to end her life, and indeed did so.
‘The prosecution say it was the defendant, William Barber, and that his motives for committing such a horrifying crime stem from an unstable, perverse character that is wholly driven by hatred. He is violent to the point of being unhinged. He enjoys violence against women, and he is a fundamental racist who hates anyone he regards as non-British.
‘Now, we don’t know where the victim of this murder was from. We don’t even know her name. But we do know that her ethnicity – the simple fact that she was not white – was sufficient enough for William Barber to hate her.’
He folded his arms and turned his mouth down at the corners.
‘But what of it? You may well ask. Barber might have hated the victim, even if only for the colour of her skin, but where’s the evidence that he killed her?’
These things Garrick counted out on long, curling fingers:
‘She was murdered in a cold and remote place outside the village of Cotgrave in Nottinghamshire. It is a place without amenities or purpose, and yet you will hear evidence, unchallenged by the defence, that Barber’s mobile phone was in use shortly before the murder, accessing the same cell-site mast that serviced the area in which she was killed. The mast had a range of three miles, and the body was discovered just a mile and a half away from it.
‘For reasons we don’t know, the victim had gone on the evening of her death to the Welfare Scheme Social Club in the heart of the village. She spent roughly fifteen minutes there, using the facilities on the premises, before leaving and walking towards the scene of her death. A woman called Donna Turner was outside when the victim left the club, but she wasn’t alone. William Barber, already heavily inebriated, was also there, smoking.
‘When the victim came out and walked into the darkness, Barber turned to Mrs Turner and said –’ he held up the sheet of paper as i
f it were physically soiled, and read – ‘“What the fuck is that Paki doing in Cotgrave? She’ll be lucky to make it through the night!” He then extinguished the cigarette he’d only just lit, abandoned his pint, undrunk, and followed her into the darkness. Broken, bloodied fingernails would soon stud the trail from that spot to the scene of the murder.
‘Mr Barber wasn’t seen again until the following morning, when he was not only witnessed, but actually photographed, burning the clothes he’d been wearing in a brazier in his back garden. The clothes were charred beyond being of any evidential value, but the defendant’s bathroom was also checked, and showed that in the hours between the death and his arrest, he’d taken a shower!’
Garrick shook his head in disbelief, dropping the paper back onto our row.
‘Of course, there may well be perfectly innocent explanations for Mr Barber’s actions on that night and in the following morning, and he was given the opportunity to elucidate those in his police interview. Perfectly reasonable questions were asked of him. Where was he on the night of the murder? Why did he have a shower and burn his clothes in the early hours? Why did he walk after the victim, away from his home, into the night?
‘And what were his answers to these questions? What reasonable explanations did he offer? Simple, really. He answered “no comment” to every question asked. More than eighty questions, and not one single answer.
‘No answers were given, the prosecution say, because Barber had no answers to give, except for the one he kept to himself. He murdered that poor girl, and he isn’t going to stand up and admit to it. One might say that he has every right to provide no answers. The prosecution bring the case, so let the prosecution prove it. Well, we intend to. It is our duty to prove the case to a standard, and you must be sure of guilt before you can convict the defendant.