Guilty Not Guilty

by Felix Francis

  He confidently removed his spectacles and polished the lenses with a handkerchief.

  ‘No more questions,’ said the eel, and he sat down.

  The prosecution barrister stood up eagerly, but the judge quickly intervened.

  ‘I think we’ll take a short break there,’ he said. ‘Before the cross-examination. To allow the jury to stretch their legs.’ He looked at the clock situated on the wall above the exit doors. ‘We will reconvene in twenty minutes.’

  ‘All rise!’

  *

  ‘He’s going to get off, isn’t he?’ I said to DS Dowdeswell over a cup of coffee. ‘I could see the jury believing every damn lie he uttered.’

  ‘It always looks bad just after the defence have asked their questions of the defendant. Let’s wait until after our man has had a go at him. I’m sure he has some tricks up his sleeve to catch Bradbury out.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ I said. ‘At the moment I’d put all my money on an acquittal.’

  39

  ‘How would you describe your relationship with Amelia Jane Gordon-Russell?’

  The prosecuting counsel was opening his cross-examination.

  ‘We loved each other,’ Joe said. ‘As a brother and a sister.’

  ‘I suggest to you that you did no such thing. When did you last talk to your sister prior to the supposed telephone call the night before she died?’

  ‘The call was real, I tell you,’ Joe said. ‘She called me.’

  ‘But when did you speak to her prior to that night?’

  ‘I can’t recall for sure.’

  ‘Would you say that you were in regular communication?’

  ‘Quite regular, yes. I sent her emails.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the prosecutor dryly. ‘Your emails. We will come to those.’

  Joe suddenly looked rather worried. As well he might.

  ‘But when did you last actually speak to your sister prior to the call you say she made to you on that Tuesday evening?’

  ‘I’ve already told you. I can’t remember the exact date.’

  ‘Is that not because your sister hadn’t spoken to you for nearly two years prior to her death? Indeed, did she not refuse to speak to you after you had been so nasty to her and her husband?’

  Joe said nothing.

  ‘Do you recall receiving an email from your sister in the January, twenty-one months before she died?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ replied Joe.

  ‘Then I’ll read it out to you, to remind you,’ said the prosecutor. He lifted a piece of paper. ‘Joseph, I hate you, I hate you. You are causing so much hurt and pain. I never want to see you again, ever. I have blocked your calls and I do not want to receive any more of your horrid emails. Leave us alone.’ He waited in silence for a few moments before looking up at the witness. ‘Would you say that was the sort of email you might expect to be sent between two people who love each other as a brother and a sister?’

  ‘All siblings have their minor problems occasionally.’

  ‘But this is not a minor problem, is it, Mr Bradbury? Let me read your reply to that email, a reply sent by you in spite of being asked not to.’ He picked up another piece of paper. ‘This was found in Amelia Gordon-Russell’s inbox on her computer. It arrived the day after your sister sent the previous one to you. Amelia, it is not me that is causing so much hurt and pain, it is you and your vile husband. He is like a cancer in our family and the sooner you get rid of him, the better. He has destroyed his own family and he is now trying to destroy ours too. He is a hateful, hateful man who is trying to ruin my relationship with my mother. I wish he were dead. The whole family hate him and I have the evidence to prove it. He is a fraud and a liar and I am building a dossier against him.’

  He laid the piece of paper back down on the table.

  ‘Not much brotherly love shown there, wouldn’t you say, Mr Bradbury?’

  Joe said nothing and the prosecutor waited patiently, looking at him.

  ‘The witness will answer the question,’ interjected the judge.

  ‘No,’ Joe said in a whisper.

  ‘Speak up,’ commanded the judge. ‘The recording equipment won’t catch what is said if you whisper.’

  ‘No,’ Joe said again, louder.

  ‘And that is not the only email you have sent to your sister since that time, is it, Mr Bradbury?’

  ‘No,’ Joe said again.

  ‘No, indeed,’ replied the prosecutor. ‘In fact, since then you have sent no fewer than twenty-six equally unpleasant emails to either your sister or your brother-in-law, in spite of receiving not a single reply back from either of them. Would you call that harassment, Mr Bradbury?’

  Joe said nothing and, this time, the judge let it go.

  But the prosecutor wasn’t finished with the emails just yet. ‘The jury will be given printed copies of all these emails as an evidence bundle.’ He held up a wad of papers. ‘It is not contested by the defence that these emails were sent by you to your sister and brother-in-law from your personal computer. Isn’t that right, Mr Bradbury?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Let me remind you of just one more of them. You sent the following to your sister just five days before she died.’ He picked up one of the pieces of paper from the wad and read from it. ‘I hear from Mum that you have been bullying her again, telling her that I am wicked and evil. Her words not mine. I am hugely disappointed that you should choose to target a frail old lady with such abusive comments about her own son, shouting at her and threatening her. You are a stupid, stupid woman. Are you aware how much of a relief it is to everyone else that you can’t have children, so that you can’t pass on your crazy genes to the next generation? I will not tolerate behaviour like this towards our mother and will take severe action against you if it continues.’ The prosecutor paused. ‘What sort of severe action would that be, Mr Bradbury?’

  ‘It was just a turn of phrase,’ he mumbled.

  The prosecutor left it hanging, and the jury looked suitably horrified by what they’d just heard. After a fitting pause, the prosecutor went on.

  ‘Let us now turn to why you drove a Ford Transit van belonging to your High Court enforcement firm all the way from Ealing in west London to Banbury and back, a distance of some seventy miles each way. You have told the jury that you undertook the journey solely because you believed that being close to where your sister died might give you some comfort in your grief. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes,’ Joe said.

  ‘But when you were first questioned by the police, did you not deny ever having been in Banbury on that day, and then, when confronted with the automatic number plate recognition evidence that showed the van on the M40, did you not then deny being the driver? Were you lying to the police then, Mr Bradbury, or are you lying to us now?’

  ‘I was lying to the police then,’ Joe said at little more than a mumble.

  ‘And why would that be?’ the prosecutor asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe I panicked.’

  ‘Now let us turn to this concrete post that you claim to have hit. Where is this post exactly? Does it also have white paint on it from the Transit van?’

  ‘I don’t know of its exact location. I can’t remember.’

  ‘I suggest, Mr Bradbury, that you can’t remember because the post doesn’t exist. I further suggest that the white paint found on the back of Mr Gordon-Russell’s car was from the white van you drove to Banbury. And you went there with the express intention of murdering Mr Gordon-Russell and that is exactly what you attempted to do by crashing the van into his car.’

  ‘No,’ Joe said. ‘I can’t think why you would say that.’

  ‘Maybe because it’s true.’

  The prosecutor picked up yet more papers.

  ‘Finally, let us turn to this supposed telephone call of the Tuesday evening. I have here the phone records of both Mrs Gordon-Russell and yourself, for your landlines and mobile phones. In them, there is no indicatio
n of any call from her to you on that evening, from any of her numbers to any of yours. How do you account for that, Mr Bradbury?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Joe. ‘She definitely made the call. Perhaps she used a public call box.’

  ‘If so, then that too would be shown on the documentation. But it isn’t. The records show that only one call was received by you on that evening, at five past eight, from your mother.’

  ‘Then the records must be wrong. I’m telling you, Amelia called me.’

  ‘I suggest,’ said the prosecutor, ‘that no such call was ever made. That you made it up to justify your actions in going to your sister’s house on that Wednesday morning, and there you strangled her as the severe action that you had previously threatened her with.’

  ‘No,’ Joe shouted at him in desperation. ‘That’s not true. I didn’t kill her.’

  I looked at the jury and wondered how many of them were believing him now.

  And then, if things weren’t bad enough already for Joe, they were about to get a great deal worse.

  *

  The second witness for the defence was Rachael Bradbury, Joe’s wife.

  In the United Kingdom, as in the United States, other than in very limited circumstances of domestic or child abuse, a wife cannot be compelled to give evidence in court against her husband, nor a husband against his wife.

  This is known as spousal privilege and stems from the English common law position that a husband and wife are considered, by ‘legal fiction’, to be one person.

  Every individual has the right in law not to incriminate themselves through their testimony, a right originally established by common law in England, and by the fifth amendment to the constitution in the United States, which states that ‘no person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself’. Hence the term ‘taking the fifth’ as the excuse for a witness not to answer a question in a US court.

  It is also the basis for the ‘right to remain silent’ on arrest and in police questioning.

  As ‘one person’, therefore, a wife also has the right to remain silent and cannot be forced to testify against her husband.

  But she could do so voluntarily.

  Or by mistake.

  Rachael had been called by the defence to further the claim by Joe that he had received a telephone call from Amelia on the night before she died.

  Having given her testimony in answer to questions by the eel, she was then open to cross-examination.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Bradbury,’ said the prosecutor, smiling at her. ‘It must be very difficult for you to come to this court and give evidence when your husband is sitting in the dock.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ she replied, glancing across at Joe. ‘Very difficult indeed.’

  ‘Now, tell me,’ went on the prosecutor, ‘did you personally speak with Mrs Gordon-Russell on the telephone during the evening in question?’

  ‘She spoke to my husband.’

  ‘But not to you?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘But I could hear their conversation.’

  ‘All of the conversation?’ asked the prosecutor. ‘Or just your husband’s side?’

  ‘Well, just his side, I suppose, but I could hear a voice from the other end of the phone even if I couldn’t hear the exact words.’

  ‘Then I suggest that your evidence is of no value to the court. For all you know, your husband could have been talking to the speaking clock. Isn’t that right, Mrs Bradbury?’

  ‘The speaking clock doesn’t call us,’ she said. ‘I know he was talking to his sister.’ There was a touch of desperation in her voice, as if she was trying to convince herself as much as the jury, and they all heard it.

  And the prosecuting barrister wasn’t finished with her, not by a long way.

  ‘Now, Mrs Bradbury,’ he said. ‘Were you aware at the time that your husband received a hundred thousand pounds from the sale of some of your mother-in-law’s belongings?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ replied Rachael. ‘It was a gift from his mother. I was there when she gave it to Joe.’

  ‘And what did you do with the money?’

  She seemed somewhat surprised by the question, but I had briefed the barrister and we both thought it was a question worth asking.

  ‘Some of it went to paying off debts, and some on a new car.’

  ‘A black Nissan?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So were you heavily in debt before he received the hundred thousand?’

  ‘Quite heavily,’ she said. Then she smiled. ‘You know what it’s like with three small kids. They can be a considerable draw on the family finances.’

  Perhaps she said it as a way of trying to garner a little sympathy from the jury. But she didn’t get it.

  The prosecutor pounced. ‘Did your mother-in-law not help you out with some of your children’s expenses, as their grandmother?’

  ‘You’ve got to be joking. She was tighter than a duck’s arse when it came to money.’ She emitted a hollow laugh.

  There was a long pause in which her laughter died away. And no one else joined in.

  ‘And yet,’ said the prosecutor gleefully, ‘you would have us believe that she simply gave your husband a hundred thousand pounds. I suggest to you that the hundred thousand was stolen by your husband because of the financial difficulties in which you found yourself as a couple. It was just too good an opportunity not to take what you felt was rightly yours, don’t you agree, Mrs Bradbury?’

  Just as at the funeral, Rachael stupidly couldn’t resist having a dig at her late mother-in-law.

  ‘She wouldn’t miss it,’ she said. ‘She had millions.’

  There was a groan from the dock that the whole court could hear, in spite of the glass panels. Rachael looked over to her husband with shock and surprise on her face, but the damage had been done, and everyone knew it – everyone, that was, except her. But she soon worked it out.

  ‘No further questions,’ said the prosecutor, and he sat down.

  Rachael, now in floods of tears, was dismissed.

  How the fortunes in a criminal trial could ebb and flow like the tide.

  Such was the power of cross-examination.

  Just a few hours ago, I’d have staked my house on an acquittal, but now, and especially after Rachael’s debacle, I was more confident of a conviction.

  40

  The last two days of the trial proper were taken up with closing arguments by the barristers, legal submissions and the summing-up by the judge.

  First up was the prosecutor, still on a roll after his cross-examination of the defendant and his wife.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,’ he said, facing them. ‘I have laid before you a compelling banquet of evidence in this case, evidence that must lead you to the inevitable conclusion that the defendant, Mr Joseph Bradbury, is guilty of all three of the indictments he faces: theft, attempted murder and murder itself – the murder, no less, of his own sister, his own flesh and blood.’

  He was like an actor on stage, giving everything to his performance.

  He outlined the prosecution evidence, reminding the jury of what his witnesses had said about the hundred thousand pounds, the ANPR results of the Ford Transit van on the road to Banbury, the white paint found on the back of the Fiat 500, the CCTV footage of the black Nissan at the petrol station early on the morning of the murder, the defendant’s DNA on the neck of the victim and on the murder weapon, and the lack of any record of a supposed telephone call made by the victim to the defendant on the night before.

  He also reminded them of the monetary gain that Joe had stood to receive as a result of Amelia predeceasing her mother, and of his financial plight that Rachael had so clearly signalled in her testimony.

  Finally, he turned to Joe’s emails, reading out some of his most offensive comments, many of which contained veiled, and not so veiled, threats against both Amelia and me.

  ‘I am sure that you are all fair-minded individuals and
you may say that much of the evidence in this case is circumstantial, and you would be right. But circumstantial evidence is like a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece on its own may seem fairly meaningless but, when all of them are fitted together, they build up a picture of guilt that should be clear for you all to see.’

  And we had to hope that the defence couldn’t knock enough pieces out of the jigsaw puzzle such that the picture became impossible to discern.

  ‘My learned friend, the counsel for the defence, will try and tell you that there is uncertainty in this case, that there is no “smoking gun” that would prove, beyond any shadow of doubt whatsoever, that the defendant is guilty. But I say to you, that there is ample evidence to demonstrate the defendant’s guilt beyond any reasonable doubt. This is not a fantasy movie where special effects can defy the laws of nature and the most improbable and unlikely exploits can seem commonplace. This is the real world and the heinous crime of murder has been committed, depriving Amelia Gordon-Russell of the most precious commodity that each of us possess, life itself. We have shown that Mr Bradbury had both the opportunity and the motive, as well as the mental attitude to kill and to attempt to kill, and his DNA was found all over the murder scene. It is now your duty, as the jury in this case, to ensure that the perpetrator of these appalling offences, that is the defendant in the dock, is justly condemned and punished for his actions by finding him guilty.’

  He sat down. Those would be the prosecution’s last words in the case. He had done all he could.

  The eel stood up and straightened his gown and wig.

  ‘Members of the jury,’ he said. ‘There has been much argument and counter-argument in this case but one fact stands out above all others: there is no direct evidence to prove that Mr Joseph Bradbury has committed any of these offences, and you must, therefore, return verdicts of not guilty.’

  He took a drink of water from his glass to give time for that sentence to be absorbed by the jury.

  ‘Mr Bradbury does not need to prove his innocence, that is presumed by the law until shown otherwise. Instead, it is for the prosecution to prove to you that he is guilty, something that I contend they have singularly failed to do.’