‘How many police officers would you say were in the police station?’ asked the prosecuting lawyer.
‘Erm … maybe seven or eight?’
‘Lies! How can you explain that your friend Chris Kyriacou saw fifteen policemen in the police station!? It couldn’t have been that traumatic if you can’t even remember how many there were.’
‘If that’s what Chris said, that’s what he thinks! I would say there were about seven or eight, I didn’t count them!’ Charlie said.
Patras is home to the Basilica of St Andrew, which is ironic because I am his namesake. Apparently, the apostle was crucified in Patras in the late first century, and the cathedral there is one where his relics are now kept.
I would go there every few days to unwind. The scent of burnt candle wax and incense lingered in the airy space and I could almost hear the echo of my own breath. Soaring walls were covered in biblical artwork, each of which burst with colour and told a different story. A broad, domed ceiling displayed a huge mural of Jesus Christ, whose eyes were wide and mesmerising. Sometimes I felt like I could have stayed in there forever, like how I used to sit at Michael’s grave years earlier. I didn’t really pray very much; it was more therapeutic just to sit and let my mind wander. When I was there, I would feel sheltered from the chaos back at the apartment. I’d leave the cathedral and take a stroll by the sea in the early-summer Greek sun. I would sit and listen to the waves slap the rocky coastline – they would break into white splatter and I would feel a cool spray of salty seawater on my face.
My cousin (and ‘Bum Squad’ member) Andrew Demetriou flew out to Greece to surprise me, as did my friend Kristianna Paraskeva and godfather Lef. My aunties Teresa and Georgina were coming back and forth – and even my uncle Spyros and auntie Nikki came for part of the trial. It was amazing to see them all, but difficult to fully enjoy their company with the thought of the trial in the back of my mind.
Between court days we’d spend most of our time in a local café. I absolutely loved it there because the café owned every board game that I could possibly imagine. I would meet my grandma and uncle George there most mornings and we’d play tavli for a while. The others would meet us later and we would all play a Greek card game, which was similar to Rummy. I remember one afternoon we all played Greek Monopoly. Sometimes we played games for hours – it passed the time and kept our minds busy. I never would have spent so much time with my family back at home; this was probably the only positive thing I could say about my time in Patras in 2011.
We appeared in court again after an eleven-day break to hear the testimonies of the Rescue nightclub owner, the photographer, a Rescue nightclub member of staff, a security guard and one of the investigating Greek police officers. None of them saw the incident or a person urinating.
A member of staff from the nightclub testified, claiming that there were no raised stages in the establishment. The prosecuting lawyer submitted a photograph to the court, which showed people dancing on an elevated stage with no safety barriers. ‘How can you explain that these people are raised then!?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said the witness – denying all knowledge.
Of course there were raised stages in the nightclub! It wasn’t an opinion; it was a fact. Anyone could have gone there and seen for themselves. The president judge just rolled her eyes.
A security guard who worked at the entrance of the nightclub gave his testimony: ‘I thought someone may have fainted, but I was told that a boy was hit. One of the boy’s friends came with me to look for the guy who punched him, but we couldn’t find him. I can’t speak English, so I don’t know who they were looking for!’
One of the nightclub’s owners, Anastasios Zades, told the court that he wasn’t in the establishment at the time of the incident, but was told about it three days later. He briefly explained how the nightclub is laid out, saying that there are some stairs leading up to balconies. ‘The dance floor is flat, not elevated,’ he claimed. Anastasios stated that there were no CCTV cameras installed in the nightclub until 2009 – two years after the incident. He wanted the judges to know that he could prove this with receipts – and I’m not sure why he was so intent on making this point.
The president judge pulled him up on this, reminding him that CCTV had been mentioned in the investigation. Anastasios Zades denied all knowledge and said that any images or video that were included in the investigation must have been from the photographer – James Gibson.
James Gibson testified in court next, explaining that he wasn’t in the nightclub on the night in question. He was taking promotional photographs there on the night before the incident (the night I was there) and he couldn’t remember taking any video. The photographs that he’d taken the night before the attack were used in the investigation at Laganas Police Station in Zante. James Gibson told the court that he was present when the photos were shown to Jonathan Hiles’s five friends.
I stayed at the police station for about three hours with my laptop. The boys looked at the photos together. They picked out someone from the photos, but there was definitely some doubt. One boy said, ‘maybe it was him’, then another said, ‘no, well … maybe,’ then they began to convince each other. It was a difficult and stressful process. I’m not sure who they picked out. The police wanted them to find the perpetrator and the boys were tired and pressured.
One of the investigating police officers, Angelos Polizos, later gave his testimony. He was born in 1987, so must have been only nineteen or twenty years old when the incident had occurred. As a witness for a serious homicide trial, he represented the entire Laganas police force, wearing jeans, trainers and a hoodie.
Angelos stated that there was no CCTV in the nightclub at the time. When asked why CCTV had been referenced in the investigation, Angelos claimed that they meant a ‘DVD with photographs saved on it’.
Why were the police hiding such vital evidence? It would have instantly exonerated me as the attacker! The CCTV would have shown me entering the Rescue nightclub at around 4 a.m., staying near the front bar and then leaving. It would not have shown me entering or leaving the nightclub at any earlier time – but it had mysteriously vanished.
Angelos continued his testimony:
We showed the photographs to the victim’s friends, which were taken on the previous night. They looked at these individually and they all identified one as the perpetrator. We zoomed in on the photo and sent it to all the police stations, airports, ports and to Interpol. From the information we received back, the alleged offender was staying at the Mariana Hotel in Laganas. When we showed the photograph to the manager of the hotel, he told us that the suspect had departed back to England. His two friends admitted that this male was Andrew Symeou.
The young officer made it clear that there was no reason to violently intimidate Chris Kyriacou and Charlie Klitou because they’d volunteered the information. He also stated that he wasn’t present during the majority of the interrogations: ‘There was no reason to force the witnesses to tell us things that they didn’t know about; the statements were taken by an interpreter and we tried to tie the case up.’
Angelos Polizos was grilled about the word-for-word identical statements signed by Mark O’Gorman, Christopher Paglionico, Jason Mordecai, Robert Hares and Lee Burgess: ‘I don’t know why the statements of Jonathan Hiles’s friends are the same; in no event did we copy one statement to another. They all said the same thing.’
The young officer described the perpetrator as ‘1.65 to 1.70 metres tall, a tanned complexion, with regular short hair and a beard’.
In George Pyromallis’s cross-examination, Angelos was shown a photograph of me in the Rescue club, taken by James Gibson on the night before the incident. My beard was clearly visible and my eyes were closed – it was a picture of a crowded dance floor, which was taken from afar and zoomed in. ‘Is this the photograph of Andrew Symeou which was used in the investigation and identified him as the attacker?’ asked George.
‘Yes.’
‘So the description you’re giving now … is it the description that the friends of the victim gave? Or are you just telling us what you see in the photograph?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I’m describing the photograph.’
‘Right, because in your investigation the victim’s friends stated that the attacker was clean-shaven.’
‘Yes, I don’t remember them mentioning a beard. I remember them saying that the attacker must have shaved his beard and left long sideburns.’
George took a deep breath and raised his voice, ‘Are you telling this court … that the suspect who you – and the victim’s friends – were looking for at the time of Jonathan’s death was a clean-shaven male!?’ he roared.
‘Yes,’ Angelos nodded.
The trial continued the next day – 20 April 2011. The DJ who was working in the nightclub on the night in question gave his testimony to the court – he didn’t see the attack, but said that he had alerted the security staff with a laser when he saw that a person had fallen. One of the bar staff gave evidence just after; he told the court only that the nightclub had no raised stages and that there were no CCTV cameras.
A second nightclub security guard testified to the court:
I was alerted that someone was hurt, so I entered the nightclub and saw a man lying down. I asked what had happened; one person said he was hit with a bottle – another said that he was punched. The man was unconscious and his friends were very nervous. We carried the victim outside with my colleague and the victim’s friends, then an ambulance came. I went back into the nightclub with one of the man’s friends – I can’t remember his name – we were looking for the man responsible, but found nothing. He described the man as dark-haired and stocky, but there was also mention of a blond male too. There were a lot of people in the place by this time; it was difficult to get past people because no one stopped dancing. The lighting was low and disco lights were flashing – the victim’s friends couldn’t recognise anyone.
The witness made it clear that at no stage was distinctive facial hair mentioned to him. ‘None of them told me that the man responsible had a beard. They told me that the man was stocky, not with words, but with gestures. They didn’t gesture that the guy had a beard.’
The prosecution was complete.
39
* * *
ANY BLONDE WILL DO
* * *
My defence was simple – I wasn’t even in the nightclub at the time of the attack. We submitted photographs that were taken by my friend Andrew Christophides and female friends of ours called Toni Martelli and Christina Christou. All the photographs were taken throughout the night of the attack and had been uploaded to Facebook not long after they’d all returned from the holiday in 2007. Toni and Christina were from separate parties and didn’t know each other – they happened to be in Zante at the same time as us.
A forensic photography expert tested the original digital image files that were taken on all three of the cameras. His report came back saying that the original images had not been altered and that the date of the digital image files must have been the date that the cameras had been set to at the time. The dates on all three of the cameras must all have been the same – 19 July (before midnight) and 20 July (thereafter). Everyone wore the same clothing in all of the pictures, further suggesting that it was the same night. Moreover, there were pictures on the same cameras from a night earlier, and I was wearing the same clothing as in photographs taken by James Gibson (the professional photographer), who was present only on that one night. The photographs were clearly legitimate and undoubtedly strengthened my defence.
One of the photographs (which was taken on the night of the incident) was of a group of me and friends in a different nightclub. You could zoom in on my watch, which clearly showed the time as being 1.20 (a.m.) – the same time as the digital information on the image file (11.20 p.m., set to British time) and around the time of the alleged attack in the Rescue nightclub.
The prosecuting lawyer stood up and objected to the submission of the photographs. ‘These images must be fake!’ he yelled.
‘You haven’t even looked at the pictures! You’re just saying that they’re fake because you don’t like what they show!’ George Pyromallis cried.
If you’re making the accusation that these photographs are fake, you’re not only accusing the defendant of fabricating evidence, but you’re accusing me of submitting false evidence and the forensic company for producing a false document! If you’re serious about this accusation I suggest you lodge a criminal suit against all three of us!
The prosecuting lawyer sat back down and didn’t make an official complaint, as it had absolutely no basis in truth.
To counter the forensic report for the photographs, the opposition scanned low-resolution hard copies of the photographs and had them forensically tested for lighting and gamma. I’m surprised that the company had even accepted digital scans of copies. The report, which they later submitted, stated that the datestamps on the photographs had been superimposed onto the image – which all cameras do. Their report also stated that the face of my watch could have been ‘crudely cut and pasted’. I was furious because the report was based on low-resolution scans of the original images after being printed on normal printing paper. Our forensic report was based on the original digital image files – their report was not. At no stage were any photographs tampered with, which the court had already accepted.
Even if the court were to disregard the forensic report of the original images, George Pyromallis provided evidence that the photographs had been uploaded to Facebook around 24 July 2007. For the images to be altered, the people who had taken them would have had to alter them before uploading them to the social networking site, and I wasn’t even a suspect at that time. The accusation of the photographs being fake was ridiculous.
My friends Andrew Christophides, George Georgiou, Alex Kalli, Jason Demetriou, Aron Rouse, Toni Martelli and Christina Christou gave evidence over the next few court days – as did one of the holiday reps, Georgina Clay. My friends reiterated the statements that they had given to my lawyer in 2007 – all of us were together in a different nightclub over 200 metres away. If it wasn’t for the statements made not long after the holiday, it would have been extremely difficult for any of them to remember – so it’s lucky that we took that precaution.
The prosecuting lawyer challenged them on all having the same story (we’d been to the same series of nightclubs together, so their statements were very similar). They were all accused of conjuring up a fake alibi to protect me. I doubt that the court took the accusation seriously. We were on holiday together, so we went out together!
One of my best friends, Andrew Christophides, was the first defence witness to testify. The prosecuting lawyer wanted to know if any members of our group on the holiday were blonde, or whether we’d spent time with any blonde people. The alleged perpetrator had been described as being in the company of a blond male.
Andrew told the court that our group of friends were all British Greek Cypriots, apart from Aron, who’s black. The prosecuting lawyer showed the court a photograph that had been uploaded to Facebook. The BBC had used the photograph for a news piece on my case; it was a picture of Andrew Christophides, Chris Kyriacou, Charlie Klitou and me with a tall, blond male. The Hiles family had seen it and had probably been told that the blond guy was the alleged accomplice.
‘Who is this blond male in the middle of the photograph?’ asked the lawyer.
‘He was one of the holiday reps … his name was James, I think. He came out on special event nights, but he was working,’ Andrew said.
The prosecuting lawyer changed the subject and didn’t submit the photograph. It must have shocked him, because he’d probably been told that this blond male was the same person as the blond male from the Greek investigation. Jonathan Hiles’s friends – yet again – had wrongly identified someone from a photograph.
Georgina Clay (th
e holiday rep) testified in court after Andrew. George Pyromallis asked the prosecuting lawyer if he could see the photograph that was submitted earlier, ‘the photograph with the blond member of staff from the travel company,’ George elaborated.
‘I didn’t submit that photograph,’ the prosecuting lawyer said.
‘No, but I’d like to submit it!’
The prosecuting lawyer handed the photograph to George, who showed it to the judges then placed it on the lectern in front of Georgina. ‘Do you know this male, the blond one?’ he asked softly.
‘Yes, he’s one of my best friends – James.’
‘And you worked together?’
‘Yeah, it was my second year working in Zante. I’d worked there the year before and I asked him if he wanted to come and work with me the next year.’
‘In your statement made to the South Wales Police in 2007, you spoke about the Greek police coming to the hotel where the defendant and his friends had been staying – the Mariana Hotel.’
‘Yes…’ she agreed.
‘But at this stage, the defendant had gone back to London. This was the time when the Greek police took Chris Kyriacou and Charlie Klitou to the police station after recognising the defendant’s picture. You said the police had two photographs: one photo was of the defendant and the other photo was of a blond male.’
‘I remember the pictures, yes,’ Georgina nodded.
George picked her South Wales Police statement out of a wad of papers on his desk and walked towards her. ‘You said in your statement: “I was at the Hotel Mariana, even though it was my day off, when the Greek police turned up. I was called over by two other staff members and I was asked by the police to identify the photographs.” Do you remember this?’
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