A Kind Of Wild Justice

by Hilary Bonner

  Christ, she’s a dyed-in-the-wool Euro-sceptic, thought Joanna. That was all they needed. She had to be, of course. A woman who wouldn’t allow her territory to be invaded by what had actually been a very necessary reservoir was highly unlikely to be impressed by the demands of Strasbourg.

  Nigel Nuffield had his back to Jo, but she could tell that he was dumbfounded. You didn’t encounter the likes of Davinia Slater at the Old Bailey or the Law Courts on the Strand. The officialdom of London bowed more and more towards Europe, as indeed it had to do. But it wasn’t like that in Okehampton yet. This was factor X. Any idea originating in Europe had to be a bad one. Jo had not given that a thought and neither, she suspected, had Nigel Nuffield. Davinia Slater was a dinosaur in every respect and Jo hadn’t realised that magistrates like her still existed. They did in Okehampton, apparently.

  The clerk saved the day, albeit only momentarily. He approached the bench again. Once more Jo was able to catch odd phrases: ‘Should be seen perhaps to take into account’. ‘Must be careful not to be unlawful’.

  The furrow in Lady Slater’s brow deepened. However, she seemed to have been persuaded that at least her court should listen. Even if grudgingly.

  ‘Very well, Mr Nuffield. You may continue. I assume you are going to tell the court that you have new evidence sufficient to warrant the extraordinary measures you are suggesting?’

  In reply, Nuffield asked the defence if O’Donnell would come to the stand.

  ‘Of course,’ responded Brian Burns smoothly. ‘We are all here today in the interest of justice.’ Nuffield ignored him as Jimbo made his way to the dock.

  ‘Mr O’Donnell, do you know what DNA evidence is?’ he asked.

  ‘Not really, sir, I just know I never did anything to that girl.’

  ‘DNA is a genetic blueprint. For example, were your DNA found in relevant samples taken from Angela Phillips, that would give absolute proof that at the very least you must have had sexual contact with her.’

  Jo wasn’t quite sure what Nuffield was doing. He was skating on thin ice, that was for certain. She reminded herself that all the barrister had to do was persuade the magistrates to allow the case to go forward for jury trial.

  Predictably Brian Burns rose to his feet at once to object. ‘I would remind the court that no attempt at any such DNA match would be either lawful or indeed possible in this case, as there are no admissible DNA samples available,’ he said. ‘Only DNA extracted specifically in regard to the particular charge my client faces could, of course, be admissible.’

  Lady Slater’s frown deepened even more. The clerk approached the bench again and there was another conflab, this time in voices so low that Joanna could not catch a word.

  ‘This is surely not the alleged new evidence to which you earlier referred, is it, Mr Nuffield?’ the chairman of the magistrates asked eventually.

  ‘Partly, Your Worship,’ admitted Nuffield.

  ‘But I am advised that all such evidence is indeed inadmissible.’

  Nuffield threw back his shoulders and projected his voice in his most theatrical and what he presumably thought his most impressive manner. ‘At this stage and in this court, yes, Your Worship. However, if Your Worship were to commit the defendant for trial this would allow admissible DNA samples to be taken from him. I have reason to believe that such samples would link him inexorably with Angela Phillips. That is the new evidence to which I have referred.’

  ‘But Mr Nuffield, you know very well that we can only pass judgement based on evidence which is admissible in this court.’

  Of course he knew. But Nigel Nuffield also knew exactly where he was leading. ‘Indeed, Your Worship,’ he boomed. ‘I would therefore like formally to ask the defendant if he will voluntarily submit to a new DNA test, a blood test, perhaps, the results of which would of course then be admissible in any court. Surely, if he and my learned friend are to be believed then Mr O’Donnell would be anxious to clear up this matter without question.’

  Jo thought that was a highly convincing ploy and Nuffield’s confident authoritative manner was awesome. This was a man with virtually no concept of failure.

  However, before she could begin to share his apparent confidence a little more, Brian Burns was quickly on his feet. ‘Your Worships, my client would be more than happy to submit to a blood test, but unfortunately he has a phobia against needles. This is, as I am sure Your Worships knows, a medical condition, from which my client has suffered since he was a child.’

  Joanna could barely believe her ears. This was farcical. Yet everyone in the courtroom seemed to be taking the protestation perfectly seriously. She remembered with foreboding the case of a famous Fleet Street columnist who had claimed needle phobia as a defence against a charge of refusing to take a blood test after being arrested on a drink-driving offence. He was acquitted.

  Looking at big, burly O’Donnell in the dock, the thing was too absurd for words.

  But Lady Slater, bless her, was at least not rolling over. ‘There are other methods of obtaining admissible DNA evidence, are there not, Mr Burns, and would your client not submit to those either?’ she enquired frostily.

  Thank Christ, thought Jo. She mightn’t like Europe, but she’s no fool. Maybe Nuffield could still pull it off.

  ‘Your Worship, we both feel that my client has suffered enough indignities,’ replied Brian Burns. ‘This case has been trumped up against him by people who will not accept the proper verdict of a court of law twenty years ago. My client is an innocent man and as a matter of principle should not be submitted to further tests.’

  All three magistrates looked unconvinced. For a fleeting moment Jo began to feel almost optimistic. She should have known better.

  It was almost as if Brian Burns were playing a game with the court. Being a barrister, he quite probably was, Jo thought later. He played his trump card then. And it was an ace. ‘In any event, Your Worships, I would submit that even if a new DNA sample were on offer, and whether or not this were volunteered by my client or taken with or without his permission after his committal to trial, such a sample would still be inadmissible.

  ‘I must draw the court’s attention to the case of Michael Weir whose conviction for murder was overturned by the Court of Appeal in May this year on the grounds that although the prosecution had offered as evidence DNA obtained from a second sample taken when Weir was arrested for murder, without a first ineligible sample from an unrelated crime he would never have been linked to the murder scene.’

  The magistrates looked a bit bewildered. The clerk approached the bench yet again. There followed two or three minutes of sotto voce mutterings and head noddings, once more quite inaudible.

  The PACE ruling that DNA samples could not be used in any investigation other than the one for which they were acquired was bad enough – when you took it a stage further like this it made a nonsense of science as well as justice, Jo thought. But she had not known about the Michael Weir case and neither, she feared, had Nuffield. She reckoned the barrister had not done his homework as well as he might have. She suspected that Nuffield had long ago reached that stage in his glittering career where he no longer believed he could lose, and it suddenly looked to Jo as if this might be the case where this would finally work against him and all those who had risked so much to put O’Donnell in the dock again. Her heart sank.

  The defence wasted no time in pressing home its advantage. ‘My client has waived his rights, appeared here today of his own free will …’ droned Brian Burns, spending several minutes repetitively pushing his point. Then he turned to O’Donnell, who somehow contrived yet again to create the impression of dignified injured innocence which had so irritated Jo all those years before, and asked him to explain to the court why he had pleaded not guilty.

  ‘Because I never touched that Angela Phillips, let alone harmed her,’ said Jimbo, who had patently expected the question. ‘I’m an innocent man. I’ve been acquitted once. I should never stand trial again, that’s my ri
ght. But they bring these Mickey Mouse charges against me, no disrespect, Your Worship, and if they weren’t Mickey Mouse there wouldn’t have to be a private prosecution cos the Crown would have done me, wouldn’t they? Stands to reason, doesn’t it?’

  How such a monstrous man could ever come across as endearing was beyond Jo. But he did, no doubt about it.

  There followed a brief exchange with Lady Slater about how O’Donnell shouldn’t think for one moment that anything that happened in her court was Mickey Mouse and that he might yet find there was nothing Mickey Mouse about the powers it possessed either. O’Donnell grovelled a bit, but Jo suspected from the expressions on the faces of Lady Slater’s two fellow magistrates that his words had already had the desired effect, on them at least.

  She didn’t like the way things were going one little bit. O’Donnell was good, no doubt about it. She dreaded to think about what might be coming next.

  And she was right to dread it. Very skilfully Mr Burns led his client into continually stressing what was being presented as unfairness as well as the alleged illegality of the private prosecution.

  Suddenly O’Donnell went off on a tack which Joanna had most certainly not been expecting. ‘It’s that DI Fielding, he’s always had it in for me,’ he blurted out. ‘Came to see me, didn’t he, accused me of murder. Twenty years later, mind. And he had no right. No right at all. I’m innocent. I’ve been properly tried and proven innocent. I didn’t murder that Angela Phillips, I didn’t. And I didn’t kidnap her or rape her either. How many times have I got to prove myself against this Mickey Mouse stuff? Begging your pardons again, Your Worships …’

  Joanna looked across the court at Fielding, saw him slump in his seat. She didn’t have long, however, to consider his discomfort before she too was targeted by O’Donnell. ‘It’s him and that woman Joanna Bartlett from the Comet,’ O’Donnell continued, actually pointing across the court at her. ‘They set this up. They set me up. It’s bleeding harassment, that’s what it is. The Phillips family didn’t take this case out against me. Not really. They did. She did, anyway. The Comet agreed to pick up the costs and more. It’s nothing to do with new evidence. They’re getting paid for it, that’s why they’re having another punt at me after all this time. For money. That’s why!’

  There was, of course, pandemonium. Bill Phillips looked as if he’d been punched. His son lowered his face into his hands. Young Les looked stunned.

  Joanna was horrified and shocked rigid. She really hadn’t expected this. Neither had Fielding. Paul had seen the dangers, but she had reassured him. She had been so certain of herself, or at least pretended to be. As for Nuffield – she’d got the impression that the bloody man thought he was invincible. Indeed, he had always seemed to be so. Jo couldn’t bear it. Was the inevitable blow to his invincibility going to come now? She feared it was.

  The O’Donnells might have guessed about the Comet’s involvement, but how had they known it was Fielding who had put her up to it, she wondered. Perhaps they guessed that too. But there were many ways – not least that Fielding, so delighted that the case was going to happen, had boasted about his part in it to his colleagues. Particularly if he’d been drinking. Joanna assumed that he still drank. Probably more than ever.

  Anyway the damage had been done now. These were bold tactics on behalf of the defence. They were also probably very clever ones. You could never underestimate the sanctimonious hatred the British public profess to have for the tabloid newspapers they read so avidly. And their sanctimony invariably knew no bounds if they found themselves in a position, as magistrates, or sitting on juries, where they felt they had these scurrilous rags and those who produced them at their mercy.

  Unwelcome examples flashed through her head. Jo didn’t see how anyone in their right mind could have believed Jeffrey Archer’s ridiculous story that he had arranged for an intermediary to hand a bundle of cash to call girl Monica Coghlan on King’s Cross Station, not in return for her silence but out of the goodness of his heart.

  But as far as the jury had been concerned the alternative was that the Daily Star, the most downmarket of all the British tabloids, had been telling the truth. Jeffrey Archer, bold and streetwise as ever, had correctly gambled that no jury would willingly allow that possibility.

  By focusing on a tabloid newspaper’s involvement in his prosecution, O’Donnell was in effect playing the role of an innocent man being persecuted by the press – with a little bit of help from a maverick policeman. And the magistrates, Jo feared, were lapping it up. She was still numb with shock and could hardly bear to think about the possible consequences.

  It was all over that same day. The magistrates withdrew for just a few minutes shortly before four o’clock. Then Lady Slater delivered the verdict of the bench. In doing so, she predictably strongly criticised the Comet for its role in the débâcle. Mike Fielding also got a roasting for irresponsible behaviour, which Lady Slater decreed could indeed be regarded as harassment. She threw in all the relevant legal jargon – ‘part of the circumstances’ and so on – and concluded: ‘The laws of double jeopardy still stand in this country. In spite of the arguments of prosecuting counsel, it seems to this court unconstitutional that unadopted clauses of the European Convention on Human Rights should have any bearing on our proceedings and it is the magistrates’ inclination to adhere only to what is actually the law of the land until and unless a much higher court than ours rules otherwise.

  ‘However, in any event, the only new evidence offered by the prosecution is indeed, and will remain, inadmissible. There are no properly obtained DNA samples available in this case, nor can there be, in any circumstances, because of the manner in which the defendant was linked to the crime in question. We have no alternative, therefore, but to uphold the defence’s submission of abuse of process. We find that there is no case to answer and I duly dismiss the case.’

  O’Donnell had got away with it. Again.

  He and his mob had run rings around the law once more, and she and her newspaper had been made to look foolish. Jo supposed she had been naive to think that the paper’s involvement could be kept quiet. She certainly hadn’t expected anything like this, though. She was furious, but not nearly as furious as she knew her husband would be.

  She sat for just a few seconds in a kind of stunned daze, only vaguely aware of Bill Phillips, his face like thunder, pushing past her and rushing out of the courtroom. The rest of his family followed at once. They did not try to speak to her, which was all for the best, because for just a few seconds she was not sure that she was able to speak. Slowly she stood up and began to make her way outside.

  It was quite a cool, breezy late October day, but Joanna was sweating. She was wearing a woollen trouser suit and beneath the jacket her cotton shirt was sticking to her. Her face felt as if it were burning. She had previously not really given much thought to the consequences of this case collapsing. She had not allowed herself to think about it.

  On the steps of the court she was confronted with the nauseating sight of O’Donnell giving one of his impromptu press conferences. His father was by his side as ever. Frail in body Sam might be, but his toughness and strength of character had not left him – as much of his earlier weariness seemed now to have done. Still leaning heavily on his walking stick, he used his free arm to clap his son on his back, beaming, openly triumphant. Extraordinary. Joanna continued to find it hard to accept that he could really believe in his elder son’s innocence, because she genuinely thought that Sam the Man would find this kind of crime as repugnant as would almost everyone else. Surely the only explanation could be that Jimbo really was the old man’s blind spot and that when it came to his favourite son he truly couldn’t see what everyone else could so clearly. She knew that was what Fielding thought. Fielding. All she wanted to do was get away as quickly as possible, but the crush of bodies on the steps impeded her progress. She looked around for the detective. He was right behind her, as desperate to escape as she was, she suspecte
d. Their eyes met briefly again. There was a blankness in his. His mouth was set in a firm, hard line. Come to think of it, he looked pretty much the way she felt.

  Apart from anything else, O’Donnell had made certain that the link between them was public knowledge. And under privilege in open court too – which meant that the papers could print what they liked free from the restriction of the laws of libel.

  With half an ear she was aware of O’Donnell’s slightly whining voice. She could catch only snatched phrases above the hubbub of the crowd but it was enough to know he was repeating yet again the now familiar story: ‘… I’m an innocent man. I’ve been persecuted … harassed … set up …’

  Suddenly the pitch of his voice changed. ‘There they are, there they are now,’ he shouted, and this time neither she nor anyone else within a half-mile radius could have any difficulty in hearing him. ‘There they are!’

  To her horror, she realised Jimbo was pointing at her and Fielding, his face screwed up in hatred as he spat out the words.

  The gathered hacks and snappers turned as one and surged forward towards them. Jo was about to learn the hard way what it felt like to be on the receiving end of this level of press attention. Suddenly a flash exploded in her face and she was dazzled, momentarily blinded. At almost the same moment someone lurched into her side. She stumbled, almost fell. A strong hand grasped her elbow, supporting her. She looked round. It was Fielding. He was half smiling, a wry, resigned sort of smile. She smiled her gratitude back. More cameras flashed.

  Joanna Bartlett and Mike Fielding were no longer just a journalist and a policeman who had worked on the case. They had become an important ingredient in the whole Beast of Dartmoor saga.

  Eleven

  All Joanna wanted to do was go home and hide. And for perhaps the first time in her marriage she quite desperately wished that she did not share her home with her editor. The large, impeccably furnished and decorated house on Richmond Hill was going to be no hiding place at all.