The Brief
Page 11
Correct.
MR HOLBORNE:
Exactly what members of your family did he refer to?
WITNESS:
He didnae say.
MR HOLBORNE:
Does he know your family?
WITNESS:
I don’t know.
MR HOLBORNE:
Well, what family do you have?
WITNESS:
I’ve got a mother.
MR HOLBORNE:
Is that all?
WITNESS:
Eh…I got an uncle too.
MR HOLBORNE:
Where does your mother live?
WITNESS:
I don’t know. I havenae kept in touch. She remarried a while back.
MR HOLBORNE:
To whom?
WITNESS:
Some chap. I cannae remember his name.
MR HOLBORNE:
Where does your uncle live?
WITNESS:
He used to live in a place called Helmsdale.
MR HOLBORNE:
Where’s that?
WITNESS:
It’s on the north-east coast of Scotland, about 100 miles north of Inverness.
MR HOLBORNE:
Have you ever introduced Mr Plumber to your mother?
WITNESS:
No.
MR HOLBORNE:
To your uncle?
WITNESS:
No.
MR HOLBORNE:
So, to summarise: you neither know your mother’s name nor her address, and your uncle used to live in the wilds of north eastern Scotland, but you don’t know where he lives now. Correct so far?
WITNESS:
Aye.
MR HOLBORNE:
Mr Plumber has met neither of them, and probably didn’t know that they existed.
WITNESS:
Maybe.
MR HOLBORNE:
And the threats were being made by a man of whom who you are not in the least frightened?
WITNESS:
So?
MR HOLBORNE:
You must’ve been quaking in your boots, Mr Sands. (Laughter). I suggest that your evidence that Mr Plumber threatened your family is completely untrue. You have made it up.
WITNESS:
No. It’s true.
MR HOLBORNE:
I suggest that your evidence that he bullied you into saying there was a third man is also untrue. I suggest the bullying was the other way round. You threatened him.
WITNESS:
No.
MR HOLBORNE:
Mr Sands you have, I think, six convictions for robbery do you not?
WITNESS:
Meybe. I have nae counted.
MR HOLBORNE:
Well, I have. In 1948 you robbed a Post Office in Croydon of six pounds five shillings and four pence.
WITNESS:
So?
MR HOLBORNE:
The way you got the postmistress to hand the money over was to threaten her with a knife.
WITNESS:
I don’t remember.
MR HOLBORNE:
I have all the details here, Mr Sands. I can ask one of the police officers to be recalled to read details to the jury if you need me to jog your memory.
WITNESS:
Whatever you say.
MR HOLBORNE:
Are you agreeing with me that you threatened the postmistress with a knife?
WITNESS:
Yes, I suppose so.
MR HOLBORNE:
After you came out of prison you were convicted in 1951 of three offences in which you robbed rent collectors in Sheffield. Is that right?
WITNESS:
Yes. But I served my time. It’s got nothing to do with this.
MR HOLBORNE:
I say it has everything to do with this. How did you get the rent collectors to hand over their money?
WITNESS:
I dinnae know what you mean.
MR HOLBORNE:
Oh yes you do, Mr Sands. You understand me full well. You made the rent collectors hand over their money by threatening them with physical violence. One with a knife and two with an unloaded ex-army revolver. Isn’t that right?
WITNESS:
If you say so.
MR HOLBORNE:
And during the last of those three offences, the rent collector, a Mr… forgive me, My Lord I have the document here somewhere… yes, Mr Thompson, gave evidence that you threatened to hurt his wife and baby if he didn’t comply.
WITNESS:
I never said that! That’s a lie.
MR HOLBORNE:
I have the sentencing remarks of the judge in front of me. He referred specifically to that as an aggravating feature when he sentenced you to prison. Lastly, in 1957 you were convicted of another robbery were you not?
WITNESS:
Aye.
MR HOLBORNE:
On that occasion you didn’t threaten violence. Instead you coshed a security guard over the head and put him in hospital for three weeks. So, I suggest Mr Sands that you have no compunction whatsoever in threatening or using serious physical violence to get what you want.
WITNESS:
And what about him?
MR HOLBORNE:
Yes, I was about to come to Mr Plumber. It is quite true that Mr Plumber also has a long criminal record. A full list of his convictions has been agreed with the Crown, my Lord. It is agreed by the Crown that Mr Plumber has never been charged with any offence in which he personally used or threatened violence. His involvement in robberies has always been as a getaway driver.
JUDGE:
Is that agreed, Mr Hogg?
MR HOGG:
It is, my Lord.
MR HOLBORNE:
Now, Mr Sands, let’s change subject. In August this year, you had a visit in Brixton from Detective Inspector Wheatley.
WITNESS:
Yes.
MR HOLBORNE:
You asked your solicitors to get in touch with him, and as a result, he paid you a visit?
WITNESS:
I don’t remember.
MR HOLBORNE:
That’s his evidence. Do you disagree?
WITNESS:
I suppose not.
MR HOLBORNE:
And at that visit, you told Inspector Wheatley that you had lied before about the third man, and that Plumber had carried the shotgun?
WITNESS:
Aye.
MR HOLBORNE:
You obviously felt by then that your dear lost mother was no longer in danger from Mr Plumber. (Laughter)
JUDGE:
That’s a comment, Mr Holborne, not a question.
MR HOLBORNE:
I apologise my Lord. Let me put it this way Mr Sands, you tell us that you were forced into agreeing to making up the existence of a third man by Mr Plumber’s threats to your mother. But at some point you decided, despite that threat, to request a visit from DI Wheatley so you could tell him your present story. Correct so far?
WITNESS:
Maybe.
MR HOLBORNE:
Well, what part of what I have just said is wrong?
WITNESS:
Nothing.
MR HOLBORNE:
So the answer isn’t “Maybe”; the answer is “Yes”. So, what changed?
WITNESS:
I thought about it some more, and realised that that pansy would never actually do it.
MR HOLBORNE:
I see. So, on reflection, you decided that Mr Plumber was not really the sort of man to threaten violence to your family. Right?
WITNESS:
Aye. I changed my mind.
MR HOLBORNE:
Now, I want to ask you this: when you changed your story, did the Inspector believe you at first?
MR HOGG:
My Lord, I object to that question. It is of no relevance to the jury whether the inspector believed this witness or not; the question is, do the jury believe him?
JUDGE:
> That’s right, isn’t it Mr Holborne?
MR HOLBORNE:
Put thus, my Lord, yes. But the purpose of the question is not to usurp the function of the jury. I wish to ask about the witness’s motives for discussing other matters at the same time.
JUDGE:
You may certainly ask about other things spoken about, and Mr Sands’s motives, but not about how they affected the officer’s mind.
MR HOLBORNE:
Very well. Mr Sands: in addition to telling Inspector Wheatley about what you say was Plumber’s role, you gave the officer other information, did you not?
WITNESS:
(pause) Do I have to answer that question, my Lord?
JUDGE:
You do.
WITNESS:
I…er…I really don’t remember now. It was a couple of months ago.
MR HOLBORNE:
Do try and assist the jury, Mr Sands. I’m sure you’ll remember if you think hard about it.
WITNESS:
I cannae recall what we spoke about.
MR HOLBORNE:
Let me refresh your memory, Mr Sands. You gave the police information about other crimes, didn’t you?
WITNESS:
I don’t know.
MR HOLBORNE:
You informed on a number of your friends.
(Disturbance in the gallery. Shouting at the witness)
JUDGE:
If this noise does not cease immediately, I shall clear the court!
MR HOLBORNE:
You turned grass, didn’t you, Mr Sands?
WITNESS:
No, I never!
MR HOLBORNE:
Do you wish me to call Inspector Wheatley to prove that that’s a lie?
WITNESS:
No.
MR HOLBORNE:
Then the truth please, Mr Sands. You informed on a number of your criminal friends, did you not?
WITNESS:
I… I was helping the police with their enquiries.
(Continued disturbance in gallery)
JUDGE:
Master at arms, take those men out! Any further person making any noise from the gallery will be committed for contempt forthwith! Carry on Mr Holborne.
MR HOLBORNE:
The reason you informed on your colleagues was so the Inspector would believe you. You wanted him to believe that Plumber, and not you, used the shotgun, isn’t that right? (Pause) Do you intend answering that question? (Pause) May I take it that you have no answer? (Pause) Very well. As a result of the information you gave to the police, you hoped to receive lighter sentence for the robbery, didn’t you?
WITNESS:
I don’t know.
MR HOLBORNE:
Of course you know! By giving information to the police did you hope to receive a lighter sentence or not?
WITNESS:
Well, I thought if I scratched his back…
MR HOLBORNE:
Exactly. And having been originally charged with murder in the alternative to Mr Plumber, the charge was dropped against you.
WITNESS:
Aye, it was.
MR HOLBORNE:
I suggest to you, Mr Sands, that in giving evidence to this jury you are not in the slightest motivated to tell the truth.
WITNESS:
I am telling the truth.
MR HOLBORNE:
I suggest that your sole motive was to escape the hangman, and if that meant dropping Plumber and all your other mates in it, then so much the worse for them.
WITNESS:
No.
MR HOLBORNE:
You were the one with the gun, Mr Sands.
WITNESS:
No.
MR HOLBORNE:
You threatened Mr Plumber into saying there was a third man who carried the gun.
WITNESS:
No.
MR HOLBORNE:
You then turned Queen’s Evidence to avoid a murder charge, and falsely accuse Mr Plumber of carrying the gun.
WITNESS:
No.
MR HOLBORNE:
You murdered William Wright.
WITNESS:
No. Plumber did it, I tell you.
[End of cross-examination]
MR HOGG:
I have no re-examination. Does my Lord have any questions for the witness?
JUDGE:
No, thank you.
MR HOGG:
That is the case for the Crown.
JUDGE:
Mr Holborne?
MR HOLBORNE:
There is a matter of law, upon which I should like to address your Lordship.
JUDGE:
I suspected there might be Mr Holborne. Members of the jury, counsel has a point of law for me to decide, and, as questions of law are for me alone, I shall ask you to leave the jury box. I do not anticipate that this will take long. I shall send for you in about ten minutes.
CHAPTER TEN
R. v. Plumber – Transcript of Evidence
Friday, 18 November 1960 (continued)
JUDGE:
Mr Holborne submits to me that Mr Plumber has no case to answer in respect of the murder charge. He concedes that in most cases the weight and credibility to be given to a witness are matters for the jury to consider and that the judge should not intervene. He however submits further that this is one of the borderline cases where the evidence is so tenuous, weak or inherently unreliable that no jury properly directed could safely convict the defendant, and that therefore I ought to stop the case. Mr Hogg agrees to the principle, but says that this is not such a borderline case.
The foundation stone of the Crown’s case is the evidence of a Robert Sands, who is conceded to be in the category of an accomplice. If, as in this case, there is no corroboration of Sands’s evidence, and if that evidence is tenuous, weak or unreliable, the Crown cannot succeed. In such cases I cannot let the case go to the jury. In deciding if the evidence is so tenuous or weak or inherently unreliable as to render it unsafe, I must apply my own judgment.
I reach my decision upon three grounds. Firstly, in my view Mr Sands was a patently unreliable witness. His evidence in relation to a central issue, his wish to distance himself from the shotgun used to murder Mr Wright, is contradictory and, in my opinion, unreliable. Secondly, I do not believe that any reasonable jury, properly directed, could conclude without reasonable doubt that it was Sands who was threatened by Plumber, rather than the other way round. Thirdly, his motives for giving evidence are suspect in the extreme. He obviously had the most powerful motive of all for lying to throw guilt on the accused: to save himself from the gallows.
In these circumstances I am of the view that no jury properly directed could rely on his evidence with any safety, and I shall therefore direct the jury when they return to acquit Mr Plumber. Mr Hogg?
MR HOGG:
My Lord?
JUDGE:
Before I ask the jury to return, I feel constrained to express the view that in the light of the evidence that has been given, I am most concerned at the decision taken by the Crown to offer no evidence against Mr Sands. I am not a jury trying him, but it is at least possible, if not probable, that he has wrongly escaped conviction of murder. In the circumstances, I propose referring the matter to the D.P.P. to see if any further action should be taken.
•
‘If you don’t let go of my hand Mr Plumber, it will fall off!’
‘I still don’t know what to say, Mr Holborne, it was terrific! I’ll never be able to thank you enough,’ said Plumber, still pumping Charles’s hand.
‘Take it easy now; you do have six years to serve for the robbery.’
‘Yeh, but even that’s a result. I’d, wossname, resigned meself to the same as Sands got, you know, nine. To get six, on top of getting off the murder, well…’
‘You don’t have anything like as bad a record as he does,’ said Cohen.
‘Not only that,’ said Charles, grimly, ‘but your six will be a doddle
compared to his nine. He’ll have to spend it all under rule 43 – solitary.’
‘That’s right,’ said Cohen. ‘Life inside as a grass is not pleasant.’
‘I’d not thought about that,’ replied Plumber. ‘Still, serves him right. By the way, what was all that about the D.P.P.?’
‘In simple terms, if the Crown can find a way, by hook or crook, to try Sands again for the murder, they’ll do it.’
‘Is that possible?’ asked Cohen.
‘He’s technically been acquitted once, and he can’t be tried again for the same offence unless there was some technical defect, for example in the indictment. Of course, the other possibility open to the Crown would be to charge him with attempting to pervert the course of justice. That, I’m pleased to say, is not my problem.’
In fact Charles’s problem awaited him in the form of an envelope addressed to him in his pigeon-hole when he reached Chambers.