The Person
Page 4
was fascinating. I mean, I’d been out with a couple of guys before then, and they were – well, we were 17, 18. We were stupid, and well – they were guys, so they were even more stupid. But David was totally different. He was... I don’t know, I want to say he seemed older but that’s not right. He seemed better. As if he was on a totally different plane to everyone, and he was letting me peek into that world.
64: The relationship developed quickly and, at that time, smoothly. It might be thought that being in a relationship would have released something in David, but Marisa herself said, with an impressive degree of candour:
DEFENDANT: He never changed. I mean, literally, never changed. Not even from moment to moment, let alone over the course of months. He was never angry, never really excited, never... It was like he was watching the world from above – observing. But I loved that person. Some people said he was like a robot, but I said he was consistent. I could meet up with him and know that he wasn’t going to be sulking or grumpy or whatever. It was... odd. Disconcerting even, I guess. But not bad. Definitely not bad.
65: Only six months after they began their relationship, Marisa and David were married on 8 July 2023.
66: Marisa gave the following evidence of the proposal:
DEFENDANT: It came totally out of the blue. I didn’t expect it – in fact, if anything, I expected him to suddenly get bored with me and break it off. It was the night of his birthday. He didn’t want to go out – he hated his birthday. He refused to celebrate it. So we were just having dinner, pretending it was any normal day. And suddenly it happened – he dropped to one knee and asked, just like that.
67: David had bought a modest apartment – at least, modest in comparison to his financial capacity – a month after inheriting his father’s fortune, and Marisa moved in after the wedding. In this respect, the following exchange took place during Marisa’s evidence:
SAUL CJ: I must apologise, Ms Baker, if this is either an ignorant or an offensive question, but waiting to cohabitate until after marriage was old-fashioned in my day, let alone now. Why did you wait?
DEFENDANT: I... Sir, I... To be honest, Sir, I got the feeling he didn’t really want to live with me at all. He was so protective of himself that he... I think he was afraid to be seen outside his element – to let me see that side of him. To see him when he’s just woken up, or when he’s sleeping or... But we were married, and... well, he let me move in anyway.
David’s studies
68: During his university years, David began to form a reputation throughout the law school which was both admired and disapproved of. He had an eye for subtleties that I would be grateful to have myself. He identified legal issues which were far beyond his years, and tormented his lecturers and tutors with complex and difficult (but always well-reasoned) questions.
69: Unsatisfied by many of the answers, he began approaching the solicitors involved in famous cases, demanding to know why a particular point was not made or why a particular issue was conceded. Mr Salter, a well known and respected barrister in this Court, gave evidence thus:
P SALTER: It was like nothing I’d ever seen. Every now and again – very rarely – we get uni students contacting us, asking for an opportunity to meet. I try to accommodate them, but of course it’s difficult and, to be quite frank, generally unhelpful to both parties. But I get this letter from Mr Baker – well-written, precise, accurate – brutally attacking the line I took in a TPA case a few years back. I was fascinated, and invited him to speak to me. He walks into my chambers – this 19-year-old kid with less than a year and a half of law school under his belt – and calmly explains to me why I got it all so wrong.
M KELLY: And did you accept his explanation?
P SALTER: I did. But the Judge hadn’t. I’d won the case – but this kid, David Baker, convinced me there and then that I shouldn’t have.
M KELLY: What happened then?
P SALTER: I offered him a job of course.
M KELLY: Did he accept?
P SALTER: No. He said he’d get back to me when he had the time.
The First ‘Incident’
70: The first ‘incident’ occurred on 7 May 2023 – a date Marisa remembers (not surprisingly I might add) with clarity:
DEFENDANT: I came home from uni at around six-thirty. I was sure David would be home – it was a Wednesday, and his lecture finished at five. He always went straight home, like clockwork. But he wasn’t there. Or at least, I didn’t think he was.
M KELLY: What happened then, Marisa?
DEFENDANT: I went upstairs to get changed. I opened the wardrobe to put my jacket on the hanger and there he was. Inside the wardrobe, totally naked, with... with his thumb in his mouth, like a baby, except he... Except he’d chewed off the end so it was bleeding everywhere, but he just kept on sucking at it.
M KELLY: : What else did you see, Marisa?
DEFENDANT: He was crying, and... and he was sitting in his own faeces.
M KELLY: What did you do?
DEFENDANT: I took his thumb out of his mouth and led him out of the cupboard. He was like a child – just letting me do whatever I wanted with him. I wrapped a bandage around his thumb, cleaned him up in the shower, put a dressing gown on him and drove him to hospital.
M KELLY: Did he say anything during this period?
DEFENDANT: No. He just... whimpered.
M KELLY: What happened at the hospital?
DEFENDANT: I went to the counter and told them what had happened. I left him sitting on the chairs. Then as I was filling out the forms, he was suddenly behind me, with his hand on my shoulder. And he was himself again. He said something like, “I’m fine now, let’s go.” I tried to force him to stay but he just walked out and waited by the car. He didn’t argue – just left. I drove him home and he went to bed.
M KELLY: What happened the next day?
DEFENDANT: I don’t really know. I woke up and he was gone. He came back that night with his thumb properly bandaged. He must have been to a doctor, but he didn’t say anything to me about it.
M KELLY: Didn’t you try to talk about it?
DEFENDANT: I was... It was just so horrible that I pretended it never happened.
71: Marisa was only able to pretend for another six days. Her evidence of 13 May 2023 was as follows:
DEFENDANT: I woke up in the middle of the night – about 3am I think. David wasn’t in bed. We’d gone to bed together at about 11, but now he was gone. I thought he must have just gone to get a drink or something, so I laid there for about ten minutes, awake, waiting for him to come back. But he didn’t.
M KELLY: What happened then?
DEFENDANT: I was worried, so I got out of bed and went looking for him. The house was pitch-black – none of the lights were on. But when I went down the corridor I could hear a beeping coming from the kitchen. I went in there. The only light was from the fridge. David was standing there, naked, staring into the fridge.
M KELLY: What was he looking at?
DEFENDANT: Nothing. He wasn’t... I went right up to him – virtually put my face in front of his, and he just kept staring, like he was a million miles away. It was the fridge beeping because it had been open too long. And then... then...
SAUL CJ: Ms Baker, do you need a break?
DEFENDANT: No, no, I’m... I’m okay.
M KELLY: What happened then, Marisa?
DEFENDANT: I was saying, “David, David, what’s wrong?” And suddenly he snapped. He slammed the door shut and stared at me with this look of... rage. And he screamed, “Don’t call me that!” Then he started smashing his fist against the cupboards, smashing plates, throwing glasses at the wall. He was screaming it over and over again, “Don’t call me that!”
M KELLY: What happened then?
DEFENDANT: He... he punched me in the face. I fell back against the wall. I thought he was going to hit me again, or do something worse, but he just glared at me and said, “I hope you die,” and then left.
M KELLY: When you say he �
�left’...
DEFENDANT: He just stormed out the front door. He was still naked. He didn’t take keys or money or cards or anything. Just stormed outside.
M KELLY: When did you next see or hear from him?
DEFENDANT: Three days later. I woke up and he was there, right next to me. I don’t even know how he got in – we don’t leave a spare key out.
M KELLY: Did you ask him what happened?
DEFENDANT: : Of course. He thought I was crazy. He had a memory of everything that had happened over the last three days – stuff that didn’t happen. Things he did with me! He thought I’d gone crazy. So did I, for a while.
David’s deterioration
72: Marisa gave detailed evidence as to the deterioration of David’s mental state, which I will not repeat in detail here. For the next few months, the incidents appeared, at least on the surface, to be isolated – pockets of severe disturbance within an ocean of relative calm. Some such incidents involved accusations of adultery, some involved violence and others involved behaviour that can only be described as bizarre and depraved. These incidents would last between a couple of hours to several days and on each occasion he would come out of them with clear and detailed false memories of what occurred in the interim.
73: It was not of course only Marisa who noticed the disturbances. Whether by luck or by some subconscious design, it was only in the later stages of his decline that these incidents manifested themselves at university. Prior to that, the only indication his friends and lecturers had of something going