by Peter Murphy
But you can’t tell the Grey Smoothies any of that. As far as they’re concerned, they’re on the road to the Holy Grail, and now they think they’ve ironed out the teething troubles that held back Sir Lancelot, Sir Gawain and the rest of them. So the Paperless Court is about to be rolled out, as the phrase is in Grey Smoothie-speak; and Stella, who’s done a whole day of training in Cardiff to prepare her for this new era of technological wonders, has been deputed to show all of us how it works this morning, so that we can take our computers into court for the first time. Her presentation ends just before ten thirty – the appointed hour at which the Paperless Court is to be switched on for us simultaneously, rather like the Blackpool Illuminations.
All four judges will be doing a test hearing with our computers in place on the bench. Mine is a plea and case management hearing in the case of a thirty-something defendant called Gerry Farmer. Gerry Farmer is charged with three counts of handling stolen goods, to which Emily Phipson, who’s prosecuting, tells me he is about to plead guilty. I’ve got Stella sitting up on the bench with me, just to make sure that I get off to a good start. Stella is our brilliant list officer, who almost single-handedly keeps the work of the court flowing: scheduling trials and pleas of guilty, and applications of every kind; making sure that each of the four judges has the right amount of work; arguing with solicitors, the CPS, and anyone else who tries to stand in her way. She’s also my confidante in sensitive matters, such as those affecting the other judges and the court staff. She is the one person in the building without whom the place would actually fall apart.
Stella has summoned up the file in Mr Farmer’s case for me on the screen. I’m feeling less than comfortable about having my computer with me on the bench. It’s invading my personal space, taking up room in front of me and to my left, room I’m used to having available for Archbold and my notebook. Once the file has come up, Stella whispers to me that if I want to take notes, there’s another file I can go to. Together we press a letter on my keyboard, and sure enough up it comes – a blank screen inviting the taking of a judicial note. But I’m not sure I could find my way back to the case file without Stella, and I’m aware of Emily and Piers Drayford, who’s defending, grinning up at me. They’ve been told what’s going on, and asked to be patient: but to them, switching between files is second nature and their patience isn’t going to last indefinitely. Besides which, I can’t spend all day on Gerry Farmer. I need to get on with the case of Muriel Jones before lunch if I’m to finish her evidence today and not have to drag her back to court tomorrow. So the habit of a lifetime prevails: I grab a pen and make my notes in my notebook. Now I need to go back to the Farmer file to look at the indictment, but when I try to return, the screen goes a bright blue colour and there’s a message saying, ‘Please sign in’. I glance at Stella, panicking slightly.
‘I have signed in,’ I protest quietly.
‘Enter your password again,’ she whispers.
Recently, I’ve taken a simple approach to passwords. Until someone told me that the Grey Smoothies insist on frequent changes of password, I opted for rather complicated ones designed to thwart even the most ingenious hacker – like Marjorie, who is working her way through the pantheon of Greek and Roman deities. But when I had to change them regularly, it all started to seem unduly complicated and since then I’ve resorted to CharlieWOne, CharlieWTwo, and so on. That seems to work well enough. But not today. When I type in ‘CharlieWFour’, the current version, I get the message, ‘Incorrect password: try again’.
‘No, it’s asking for your new “Paperless” password,’ Stella whispers; and belatedly, I remember that Paperless requires a second password, beginning with a capital letter and containing at least eight digits and including at least one numeral and one other symbol. I duly selected such a password this morning, and I confess that in frustration I went with ‘Sodthis!1’. I duly type this in the space provided, and the Farmer file pops back up. Stella smiles benevolently, and points to where it says ‘Indictment’. I tap again, and hey presto, there it is.
Perusing the indictment, I see that we have a problem we never seemed to have before draft indictments were sent electronically: namely, that no one ever seems to proofread them before sending them to the court. In the present case, Emily is in the embarrassing position of having to ask for leave to amend the statement of offence in count one, so that it reads: ‘Handling stolen goods, contrary to section 22(1) of the Theft Act 1968’ in place of the current text, ‘Ask counsel to insert appropriate details’. I allow the amendment with a deliberate show of ill grace; only to move to count two and find something that doesn’t feel quite right in the particulars of the offence. The particulars of offence in count two allege that Mr Farmer: ‘Dishonestly received a solar gorilla, knowing or believing the same to be stolen goods’. My court clerk, Carol, duly puts count two to Mr Farmer, who looks a bit bemused, but as Piers has advised, duly proffers a plea of guilty.
‘Are we sure that’s correct, Miss Phipson?’ I ask.
‘Your Honour?’
‘Has anyone been in touch with the London Zoo?’ Both counsel are staring at me. ‘To ask whether they have a record of such a creature going missing,’ I explain. ‘It sounds like the kind of thing they would notice, don’t you think?’
They both look at count two again, and Emily mutters something under her breath. Piers is also looking a bit embarrassed – as he should. Emily turns behind her to consult the CPS representative and the officer in the case, DC Martindale, and after some whispered discussion – and, ironically, some shuffling of old-fashioned paper – it emerges that the item dishonestly received by Mr Farmer was in fact a solar-powered grill. I allow the amendment, and ask Carol to arraign the defendant on count two again. He pleads guilty again, this time more confidently.
And so it goes on. By the time I’ve released Gerry Farmer on bail pending preparation of a pre-sentence report, I’ve just about mastered the art of accessing case files and individual documents, and to my delight, I find and open the Laura Catesby file without any assistance whatsoever from Stella. She leaves, assuring me that she is only a phone call away if I need her. For the first time, I find myself alone in the Paperless Court.
‘May it please your Honour, members of the jury, my name is Susan Worthington and I appear to prosecute in this case. The defendant Laura Catesby, the lady sitting in the dock at the back of the court, is represented by my learned friend Mr Roderick Lofthouse.’
Susan appears regularly at Bermondsey, both for the prosecution and the defence, but I’ve always felt that prosecution is her forte. She is naturally quite tall and imposing, and when on the prosecution side, has the habit of drawing herself up to her full height and giving the court, defence counsel and defendant alike a particularly menacing stare through her dark brown tortoiseshell glasses. Sometimes she gives the jury the same treatment if she thinks their attention may be wandering a bit; but thus far this morning she has reserved the stare for Roderick.
That’s not going to put Roderick off his game – during his long career he has been faced with many menacing stares, including a fair number from me. He will react as he always does, smiling blandly and giving every appearance of ignoring it: nothing new there. What’s more interesting about Roderick in this case is that he isn’t prosecuting. For some years now he has spent most of his time trying to get convictions rather than prevent them, and I’m curious. Glancing through the file, I see that my first instinct is correct: Mrs Catesby is not in receipt of legal aid. Roderick will have been retained privately, and I’m sure his clerk will have negotiated a very decent fee for her defence. Mrs Catesby comes from monied respectability – it’s one of the more puzzling aspects of the case – and I’m sure the prospect of a prison sentence had her solicitors scrambling to retain the most senior member of the Bermondsey Bar before the CPS could snatch him from them. No wonder Roderick is looking so pleased with himself. That’s the kind o
f attention to warm the cockles of any barrister’s heart.
‘Members of the jury, I’m going to ask the usher to hand out copies of the indictment, which you heard the clerk read to you a few minutes ago.’
Dawn, our usher, also the court’s first aid person and expert on home remedies and today wearing a bright orange dress under her gown, flits around the courtroom with truly astonishing speed. Despite her lack of height, she moves like a human dynamo; in a matter of a few seconds, she has furnished the jury with copies of the indictment, one between two, casually retrieving and restoring a pen one of them had dropped over the front of the jury box along the way.
‘If you look at the indictment with me, you will see that Laura Catesby is charged with five counts of theft and a sixth count alleging attempted theft. These counts represent what the prosecution say is a pattern of dishonest conduct over a long period of time. You will hear that over a period of about four years, Mrs Catesby stole money from a woman called Muriel Jones. Mrs Jones, members of the jury, is an elderly lady, a widow now almost ninety-three years of age. You will hear that Mrs Catesby met Mrs Jones at the church they both attend, the church of St Mortimer-in-the-Fields, here in Bermondsey.
‘Although Mrs Jones is in remarkably good health for her age, like anyone aged eighty-eight, as she was when they first met, she was glad to accept offers of help from friends, doing things like shopping and cleaning, which had become harder for her over the years. Mrs Jones’s own family live far from London; she has one son in Yorkshire, and the other living abroad, in South Africa. She didn’t see much of them, and her friends replaced them in her life to a large extent. She numbered Mrs Catesby among her friends. But the prosecution say that, far from being a true friend, Mrs Catesby made a pretence of befriending Mrs Jones, so that she could win her trust and pave the way for a campaign of theft which, over a four-year period, enabled her to steal a total of over ten thousand pounds. Mrs Jones was not a rich woman, members of the jury, but her husband, Henry, had left her reasonably well provided for after his death. Sadly, a large chunk of that provision is now gone, stolen by Mrs Catesby.
‘How, you may ask, was Mrs Catesby able to steal so much before what she had done came to light? Members of the jury, it was, as I said, a question of building trust. She started by insinuating herself into Mrs Jones’s life, volunteering to run errands for her, doing some shopping, picking up cleaning, washing up, making her a sandwich and a cup of soup at lunchtime, and so on. At first, you will hear, Mrs Catesby paid for any shopping out of her own money, presented Mrs Jones with the receipts, and was then reimbursed in cash. But as time went by she persuaded Mrs Jones that it would be easier if Mrs Jones trusted her with her debit card when she went out shopping. Seeing no reason to doubt this woman she knew from her church, Mrs Jones did as Mrs Catesby suggested.’
I see some members of the jury looking in the direction of the dock, and I follow their eyes. Laura Catesby is sitting next to the dock officer with a faraway expression that suggests that the proceedings are boring her. She is dressed in a frilly purple blouse with a black skirt, and she’s flaunting a string of pearls around her neck, not to mention a gold watch and two or three impressively sized rings. Now in my experience, regardless of what you’re charged with, it’s probably not a great idea to appear in front of a Bermondsey jury looking like that; but in a case where you’re charged with stealing more than ten thousand pounds from an elderly widow it seems almost reckless. I’m surprised that Roderick or her solicitor didn’t send her straight back home to change. Perhaps they tried. She doesn’t look like a woman who likes being told what to do. A middle-aged man in a grey suit and a red tie is trying not to look too conspicuous in the public gallery – the husband, I deduce, from the occasional furtive exchange of glances between public gallery and dock. Appearances can be deceptive, of course, but he strikes me as a man who spends more time following orders than giving them.
‘Count one,’ Susan continues, ‘is a count covering the whole four-year period. It deals with all the known occasions on which Mrs Catesby used Mrs Jones’s debit card improperly when she went shopping. There are many examples of Mrs Catesby taking more than the cost of the items she bought and gave to Mrs Jones. Her main method of stealing money was to ask for cash back in the amount of twenty-five or fifty pounds, which she then kept for herself. On other occasions she purchased items for herself and used Mrs Jones’s money to pay for them. The total amount she obtained in this way over that long period of time, the prosecution say, is in the region of eight thousand pounds.
‘Counts two to five relate to specific occasions on which Mrs Catesby stole money from Mrs Jones by inventing stories involving her two daughters. Members of the jury, in many ways this is the most distressing and puzzling aspect of the case. Mrs Catesby didn’t need the money she stole. She had a good job as a business manager in a large accountancy firm. Her husband is a fund manager in the City. She has two daughters, Sophie, now aged sixteen, and Emma, now aged thirteen. You will hear, members of the jury, that Mrs Catesby told Mrs Jones a number of blatant lies involving her two daughters. Count two deals with an occasion on which she told Mrs Jones that Emma was seriously ill and needed money for private surgery. She told Mrs Jones that it was just a loan, that it was necessary only because of a temporary financial difficulty, and that she would repay the money as soon as she could. Mrs Jones told Mrs Catesby to take what she needed out of her savings account, and gave her the authorisation to do so. On that occasion, Mrs Catesby took one thousand pounds. That sum was never repaid. Members of the jury, Emma has never needed surgery, and, as far as the prosecution is aware, has never been seriously ill.
‘Counts three, four and five deal with similar requests for money, also dressed up as loans, and also involving thefts from Mrs Jones’s savings account. In each of these cases, Mrs Catesby told Mrs Jones that because of temporary financial difficulties she was unable to pay school fees for Emma or Sophie at a well-known Christian school for girls in Surrey. She told Mrs Jones that she might have to take the girls out of that school and send them to an ordinary London comprehensive where, Mrs Catesby insisted, they were likely to encounter drugs and immorality. On hearing this, Mrs Jones gave Mrs Catesby the money she asked for: five hundred pounds on each of the occasions dealt with in these three counts. Members of the jury, neither Emma nor Sophie has ever been educated privately. Both girls attend a state comprehensive school in South London.
‘The thefts came to light because, when the so-called loans were not repaid, Mrs Jones started to worry, and became suspicious. She contacted Ronald, her son who lives in Yorkshire. Ronald will give evidence, members of the jury, and he will tell you that when his mother voiced these concerns, he came to see her, took charge of her bank statements, and immediately saw the scale of the money that was missing. Rather ingeniously, you may think, having a certain technical expertise as an engineer, he also installed a hidden camera and voice-operated recorder in Mrs Jones’s kitchen, where Mrs Jones and Mrs Catesby talked when Mrs Catesby visited. He then arranged for Mrs Catesby to visit Mrs Jones in the kitchen while he concealed himself in one of the bedrooms. As luck would have it, the camera caught Mrs Catesby rifling though Mrs Jones’s purse while she was at the stove making coffee, and on his monitor in the bedroom Ronald was able to watch her do it in real time. Ronald left the cover of the bedroom, confronted Mrs Catesby, and saw that she was holding fifty pounds in cash. Members of the jury, that is count six, the charge of attempted theft. Ronald immediately called the police, and detained Mrs Catesby until they arrived.’
Susan scans her notes for a few moments.
‘Members of the jury, I needn’t take up your time going through the police investigation now. You will hear all about it from the officers. To put it shortly, they carried out a thorough examination of Mrs Jones’s bank accounts. They would have liked to go through the receipts Mrs Catesby gave her when she returned from shopping, but the
receipts were not in Mrs Jones’s flat. The police did find two or three receipts in Mrs Catesby’s house when they searched it, but that was all. The prosecution say that she made sure to remove them from Mrs Jones’s flat when she left, so as to cover her tracks. It was to be a paperless crime. But fortunately, DC Benson, the police forensic accountant, was able to reconstruct the amounts from the records of two stores where most of the shopping was done. The police also applied to a judge to order the disclosure of the Catesby family’s bank accounts. An examination of those accounts revealed no payments either for private surgery or for private school fees.
‘Mrs Catesby was arrested and interviewed under caution at the police station in the presence of her solicitor. She told the police that Mrs Jones had given her permission to take “a little something for herself” whenever she did the shopping. She also claimed that the payments in counts two to five were outright gifts from Mrs Jones to Emma and Sophie, gifts made for no better reason than that she liked the girls and wanted to help them. She denied any mention of loans for surgery or school fees. Members of the jury, the prosecution say that her explanation is patently false and dishonest.
‘With your Honour’s leave,’ Susan concludes, ‘I will call the evidence.’ She turns to me. ‘Your Honour, Mrs Jones is here at court. She’s been waiting with one of our volunteers from the victims and witnesses unit. She’s in good health, but she has told us that she can’t sit in one place for too long. I’ve promised her that we will give her frequent breaks. Would your Honour rise for a few moments, so that we can bring her into court and make her comfortable?’
With any elderly or vulnerable witness, trials move rather more slowly than in other cases and of course, I’ve had Gerry Farmer and the Solar Gorilla to deal with this morning before I became free to start the trial. But it’s something you can’t avoid – you have to work on the witness’s schedule until her evidence is concluded.