Blue Murder
Page 22
*
Because of the Crown Prosecution Service decision, when Webb and Pritchard came to trial, they each faced only the one indictment of being concerned in the making of pornographic films. Webb, additionally, was indicted with possessing cocaine. Pritchard was sentenced to a term of eighteen months imprisonment and Webb received three years.
Tanner’s counsel successfully petitioned for his client to be tried separately from Bernie Watson, but Tanner was still convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation that he serve at least twenty-five years. And Chester Smart was also sentenced to life for the murder of Anna Coombs whose only sin, in her pimp’s eyes, had been to talk to the police. And even then, she hadn’t said very much.
Katharine Delaney had been let off with a caution and the last the police heard of her was that she had taken up residence with another West Indian pimp.
The last trial was that of Bernie Watson. He cut a sad figure as he entered the dock in Number One Court at the Old Bailey. Gone was the ebullience, the fun, and the jokey, jovial villain. In his place stood an old man, bowed down at the thought of yet another long prison sentence.
But at least Bernie Watson had the benefit of a competent counsel. A young man, and not even a silk, he succeeded in introducing the video showing Beverley Watson being beaten and raped. The women on the jury were in tears at the end of the barrister’s impassioned plea of justification for the actions of the reformed criminal whose crime, if such it was, had been to avenge the terrible death of his only daughter.
But it was to no avail. The judge, the Common Serjeant of London, told the jury to set aside their sympathy for Watson, and their antipathy towards Leighton, and decide the case on whether Watson had committed the offence with which he had been charged. And on the basis of that exhortation, the result was inevitable. Bernie Watson was found guilty of inciting John Tanner to murder Michael Leighton.
But the judge was not entirely without compassion, even after Watson’s ignominious record was read out to the court. He sentenced him to a mere five years in prison, being pretty sure in his own mind that Watson would qualify for parole in twenty months’ time.
But even a sentence as lenient as that did not appease Geraldine Watson who had been stunned by the long list of her husband’s previous convictions. The last time Bernie Watson ever saw his second wife was when she leaned over the front of the public gallery, waving a ham-like fist at him. “Bernie Watson, you bastard,” she screamed. “I hope you bleedin’ rot in hell. Who’s going to pay the bills now, you tosser?”
At long last, Bernie Watson said what he’d been wanting to say for most of the past three years of his disastrous marriage to the gross Geraldine. “Shut your bleedin’ gate, you fat cow,” he shouted back.
“Remove that woman,” said the judge, raising his eyes to the public gallery and gazing mildly at the gesticulating, shouting figure of Geraldine Watson. Struggling, screaming and kicking, she was finally taken out, but not before several members of the posse of ushers and policemen who had responded to the judge’s direction had sustained painful cuts and bruises.
Fox walked out through the two sets of double doors at the entrance to the court-room and into the lobby of the old part of the Central Criminal Court, relieved that at last the series of trials arising out of the triple murder in Cyprus was over.
“Mr Fox.”
Fox turned as the elegantly-dressed figure of Lee Watson came towards him. “Mrs Watson, I didn’t realize you were here,” he said.
“I’ve been in the public gallery throughout the trial.”
Fox nodded. “Anything I can do for you?” he asked.
“I know it might be a bit difficult, Mr Fox,” said Lee Watson, “but would it be possible for me to see him before they take him away?”
Fox smiled. “I’ll see what I can do, Mrs Watson,” he said.
*
Jane Sims was attired in jeans and a man’s white shirt. “Is it all over, Tommy?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Fox. “We got a result. At long last. So how about dinner?”
“I thought you always had a party at the Yard when you’d finished a case.”
“Not anymore,” said Fox. “The Commissioner doesn’t like that sort of thing. And, for that matter, neither do I. There’s nothing to celebrate in seeing people sent to prison.”
Jane smiled. “You do have a heart after all, Tommy,” she said.
“Anyway,” continued Fox, ignoring the girl’s good-natured taunt, “I’d much rather take you out to some quiet restaurant.”
“I hoped you’d say that. I’ll get changed,” said Jane and walked through to the bedroom. About five minutes later, she called out, “There’s a bottle of champagne in the fridge. I got it specially. Be a dear and bring it in, will you?”
She was standing in the center of the room when Fox entered, the bottle of champagne in one hand and two glasses in the other. “You haven’t got far,” he said, glancing at the black satin robe she was wearing.
Slowly, Jane undid the sash. “One of us had to take the initiative,” she said and slipped the robe from her shoulders, allowing it to fall to the floor.
*
But the saga of the skin flicks and all that emanated from their making, did not finish with the trials.
As Webb and Pritchard had already discovered, the inmates of Her Majesty’s Prisons do not like sex offenders, and although they had not been tried for either the rape or the beating of Kirsty Newman, the prison telegraph had worked overtime and news of their activities was common knowledge.
The weak-willed Webb found that, at mealtimes, his food repeatedly missed his tray and ended up on the floor of the mess hall, to the intense annoyance of prison officers who always seemed to think, unfairly in his view, that it was he who was responsible. And his cell always stank of urine, mainly because the other prisoners thought it a bit of a laugh to empty their pots into it, and more often than not over its occupant.
And so it was that the treatment to which Webb was subjected by his fellow prisoners during the first few months of his incarceration, eventually became so intolerable that he hanged himself.
Pritchard, however, was a much tougher character and he didn’t respond to threats, even punching his way out of a few confrontations. Nevertheless, the mattress in his cell somehow caught fire one night and he was suffocated. It was later found that the door had become inexplicably jammed.
At least, that was the verdict of the coroner’s jury. But then they didn’t know just how many friends Bernie Watson had got on the inside.
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