Law & Order
Page 24
‘I am sure you will find this court indulgent to a fault, as this trial progresses, Mr Macmillan,’ he said. ‘But don’t start out by trying its patience. Unnecessary delays in criminal trials are costing the taxpayer a good deal of money. Something all of you might bear in mind with your unnecessarily lengthy submissions as to the doubtless virtues of your clients,’ he went on, embracing the other three defence barristers in the warning.
Sitting in the dock listening to him, Lynn could feel his anger rising at the prejudice towards the defendant. Quigley was clever, not saying a word out of place that could be interpreted as taking other than the fair, middle ground when later being read back in transcript on appeal. Everything was done with emphasis and inflexion. He would slaughter them.
‘Perhaps in the event of this vital evidence not being forthcoming when the time is relevant,’ the judge said, ‘you might make a further submission to this court. It is now seven months since committal, ample time to prepare a defence.’
‘With respect, my Lord,’ Macmillan said, his hands on his lips, dominating the court, ‘perhaps you’d care to listen to my argument.’
‘No,’ Quigley said, ‘I’d much prefer to proceed with the swearing of the jury.’
It was a clear indication to Lynn of the way the trial was going to proceed.
There was no right of objection to any of the jury. Two were excused by the judge on account of poor health and work commitment. From the looks of the twelve jurors they finished up with, Lynn tried to assess what their backgrounds were. The two who were excused were pukka middle-class professionals who he assumed would believe they had the most to lose from the breakdown of law and order, and who saw anyone in the dock as a threat to well-ordered society. As his defence consisted of undermining that order by attacking the police, he was well rid of them. A lot of people were having doubts about the police now and he hoped the two black men on the jury might have had some brush with the law. Of the rest just three took fleeting glances towards the dock; one of these he was sure would elect himself foreman.
The opening address by the prosecution was long and detailed, despite Gordon Harpenden-Smith saying it was a straightforward case. His outlining of what he was supposed to have done, in company with the other three defendants, made Lynn angry again and he wanted to shout this was bollocks. Several times the words were on the tip of his tongue. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to stay quiet for the whole course of the trial. Harpenden-Smith was stout and middle-aged, with three chins and a habit of removing his eyeglasses, waggling them up and down in his hand, as if suffering from Parkinson’s disease. After about an hour of it, Lynn was so irritated he felt like telling him to keep his fucking hands still.
Witnesses for the prosecution appeared in chronological order, following statements being read from the police plan drawer and official photographer. Street plans and photographs put in as exhibits at committal weren’t challenged. Each witness seemed to take about half a day giving evidence. Perhaps it was his imagination being overactive, but the cumulative effect of the various defences was an impression of vagueness among the witnesses, who shifted ground from: ‘Quite definitely him’, to ‘It might have been him’, or ‘Not sure’, or ‘It was someone like him!’ Tully, Coleman and Isaacs remained silent throughout this evidence, no matter what was said. Lynn couldn’t, and sprang to his feet to call witnesses liars. They were never just mistaken, but an active part of the police conspiracy to fit him. He told them how the filth operated. Despite the judge’s warnings that, if his outbursts persisted, he would be removed to the cells, and his counsel suggesting he calmed down, he couldn’t check his emotions. Easy for the defence bench to stay calm, they weren’t in the dock listening to the lies. Some days Lynn felt worse than others about what was said; on the bad days he saw his prospects as abysmal.
It was neither coincidence nor irony that by the sixth day, with the departure of the last civilian witness for the Crown, more had identified him as being on the robbery than any of the others and a sick-making feeling was churning his stomach. Travelling back to Brixton that evening in the prison transporter, which was divided into sixteen cubicles off a central aisle, he felt depressed and defeated. The certain belief that he was going to end up with a heavy prison sentence made him murderous. Also, he was worrying about the weak counter arguments from his silk, why he didn’t bring out such and such a point. The chatter coming from various cubicles was going past him until John Tully spoke to him. They rarely spoke to him as if afraid it might provoke an attack from him.
‘They’re well fitting you, Jack,’ Tully said from the cubicle in front of him. ‘That fucking judge, he’s bending over backwards to help them.’
‘What a no-good wicked bastard, him,’ Isaacs added from across the aisle.
‘You slags are helping him do it,’ Lynn said, and punched the wall. It silenced the entire truckload of men. He was glad he was locked within two square feet, his knees tucked under the seat of the cubicle in front, or he might have done some damage.
Lynn let his gaze find the tiny horizontal window as he considered his lost liberty.
#
The first of the police witnesses sounded well-rehearsed and Lynn grew more depressed listening to him tell how he and Coleman supposedly collected the rung cars from the lock-up, parked it for the changeover car, then from a second-hand dealer collected the stove to crash the door of the Gas Board with before picking up the other two blaggers. So matter-of-fact was this evidence that Lynn wondered how the jury could do other than believe it. When the detective who made the video was giving evidence Lynn was sure the blurred, out-of-focus few minutes of tape he produced would prove conclusively it wasn’t him there.
‘It’s exhibit 17, my Lord,’ Gordon Harpenden-Smith QC put in. ‘It has been certified by the forensic laboratory as being a true recording without editing or interference. Perhaps it would be useful for the jury to see the video at this stage?’
‘I’m sure it would, Mr Harpenden-Smith,’ the judge said. ‘Indeed, I would like to see it.’
Lynn felt relaxed for having been shown the tape earlier with his barrister. He knew no sane person could identify him from it.
Harpenden-Smith need not have done anything further to score after the tape was played as the judge said, ‘This is quite the most remarkable video I have seen!’
His comment together with the glance he gave across the court to the dock left no doubt that he believed they were the men captured on video. He said to the witness, ‘You are to be congratulated on both your steady hand and a steady nerve. Especially in view of a beating you had to watch a colleague endure.’ Again he glanced at the defendants and shook his head. ‘Quite remarkable.’
The detective’s confidence was less apparent under cross-examination by Horace Macmillan. His attack was savage. He acted as if his case was already won, causing Lynn’s spirits to rise.
‘Wasn’t this procedure rather unusual, constable?’ Macmillan asked, requiring him to explain how he came to be tailing the robbers.
‘No, sir, I don’t think so.’
‘Presumably you’ve had lots of cases where you have been conveniently armed with a video camera, instead of what might have been more appropriate, a loaded pistol?’ – implying the detective had been conducting himself in a less than proper manner.
‘It was the first such situation I’ve been in, sir.’
‘I’m sure. Did it not strike you as odd, your being asked to pursue a gang of robbers single-handed, armed only with a video camera?’
‘It was an observation detail.’
‘One which was, if I’m correct, by the merest coincidence set up only a day before the robbery? Doesn’t that suggest prior knowledge of the robbery?’ Horace Macmillan said.
‘I don’t think we’re interested in that kind of conjecture, Mr Macmillan,’ Mr Justice Quigley put in, as if anticipating
the QC and blocking his tack. ‘The witness has stated how he came to be where he was at the time.’
‘With respect, my Lord, it’s my contention that the video tape offered in evidence, remarkable as it might be in content,’ – dripping with sarcasm – ‘in no way identifies the defendant Jack Lynn.’
‘Then what is the point you are seeking to make?’
‘That the police had, in fact, long prior knowledge of the robbery, but chose not to prevent it or send a squad of armed detectives to apprehend the robbers as that would have left them little scope for their subsequent conspiracy to indict Jack Lynn. This quite remarkable video offered in evidence does that extremely well, if only in its inability to identify anyone.’
‘In order for that to be acceptable, Mr Macmillan, you would need to establish a prima-facie case against the police. This I feel you won’t achieve by conjecture,’ the judge said. ‘But you’re welcome to try.’
The points his silk was scoring against the police were lost in that one gesture, Lynn felt. The bastard judge got the upper hand at every turn.
Now he questioned if the cross-examination was making any lasting impression on the jury, even though his brief scored a number of points about the fit-up conspiracy. Getting the detective to admit he was a keen amateur video maker, he then asked why this video was so out of focus and how many other people he had taped going to the lock-up garages – there were none. He challenged him over how he managed to tail these two cars as he did on his own, when it was normal for six police cars to be employed on such a detail, saying how lucky he was to have got so close to the robbers at the Gas Board, and undetected. The obvious conclusion was that he had prior knowledge to be able to position himself outside the Gas Board to await the robbery to videotape it out of focus and so aid the police conspiracy. The silk knew his stuff and up before any other judge he would have been well ahead with the jury.
The next detective in the witness box drew sympathy for the beating he got when he said he tried to prevent the robbery. Even the most liberal-minded juror would feel this detective trying single-handed and unarmed to prevent a robbery was a hero.
The sawn-off shotgun he was examining Lynn recognised as having been taken from his garage and saw the trap closing over him.
‘Are you able to say whether that was one of the guns used in the raid on the Gas Board?’ Harpenden-Smith asked.
‘It is exactly similar, sir,’ the detective said. ‘I recognise the same plaster binding round the stock. Also the same sort of leather loop through the handle.’
‘Exhibit 27, my Lord,’ the prosecution said.
As he watched the usher take the exhibit from the witness, Lynn felt like calling him a prick, saying that every sawn-off shotgun ever used to make one had plaster around the sawn stock to avoid leaving fingerprints and a loop for holding it.
‘It looks singularly offensive,’ the judge observed.
Next, Lynn got a mild surprise as Harpenden-Smith proceeded with his witness. The detective went on to id Benny Isaacs as the man who knocked him to the ground. Lynn had expected he would identify him, which he did subsequently, saying he had been there, and that he later picked him out at the identity parade. Only with great effort did Lynn stop himself calling out, Liar!
William Eaton was a willowy barrister in his fifties, with skin tightly drawn across his face as though having undergone plastic surgery. He never once smiled, not even after making a good point in Tully’s defence.
‘How long were the robbers in the office building?’
In the witness box dc Peter Footring was less sure of himself than his colleague. ‘About a minute,’ he replied. The previous witness had said about two minutes – maybe not an important point, other than to add to the general confusion about the robbery.
‘Long enough for you and your colleague to get the gas stove loaded onto your van and run those sixty yards or so to the scene?’
‘Yes. That’s as it happened.’
‘Why didn’t you go to assist dc Brett? Surely with two of you there was a better chance?’
‘He told me to go back and radio for assistance.’
‘Even though the detective from Scotland Yard with the video camera was doing just that?’
‘We didn’t know he was present, sir.’
That was a point Horace Macmillan pursued. ‘How did you happen to be where you were at the time of the robbery?’ the QC asked.
The witness didn’t seem to expect the question. ‘We were watching for the robbers.’
‘If that was the case, you seemed curiously unprepared. No video camera?’ People in court laughed.
‘We weren’t sure when the robbery was going to happen, if it was, even.’
‘So there were two of you there just in case, ready to call others to your aid, just as the detective with the video camera was supposedly doing?’
dc Footring agreed. Then Macmillan reiterated the point, before saying, ‘Is it not true you weren’t there because you’d heard a rumour of a robbery, rather, contrary to police regulations, you were collecting a stove for a senior officer to deliver to his home?’
‘No, sir,’ Footring said with emphasis to support his lie. ‘We were using the stove as cover to watch for the robbers.’
‘I suggest that you were there by the merest chance. Do you wish for an opportunity to change your mind about that, to avoid perjuring yourself?’ The brief opened a folder as if about to pull out a deposition to contradict the constable’s evidence. It was a ploy Lynn knew the cid used during interrogation. ‘In fact, I have here a copy of the docket your colleague signed on collecting the stove.’
Footring hesitated, and the judge intervened.
‘Mr Macmillan, I fail to see the purpose of this, or what possible difference it could make how the police came to be there. The important point is that they were present, and witnessed all that occurred.’
‘I am returning to the matter of police conspiracy, my Lord,’ Macmillan informed him in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘I am suggesting that the police conspired not only before the crime was committed, but afterwards also, to make certain that their evidence was corroborative, and in so doing masked their own malpractices.’
‘If that proves the case then I’ll alert the Director of Public Prosecutions to take the appropriate steps,’ Mr Justice Quigley said in a dismissive tone. ‘Meanwhile, perhaps we could take a more direct path through the facts and so assist this court.’
‘But almost the entire defence of my client, my Lord, rests in the sincere belief that the police conspired against him.’
‘Very well, Mr Macmillan,’ the judge conceded with apparent graciousness. ‘We will hear your argument!’ – undermining any argument the brief might make.
Lynn had promised his silk, along with the court and Dolly, he would stay calm but he didn’t know how much longer he could sit there in silence taking this shit.
37
A DOZEN POLICEMEN PASSED THROUGH the witness box, all involved in the chase after the Gas Board robbery, each of them liars. First, the prosecution took them through their evidence and then the four defence barristers sought to diminish their credibility. While Lynn could see the contradictions in the police statements working in favour-of Tully, Isaacs and Coleman, they tended to work against his defence as any active police conspiracy would have tidied up any loose ends.
The pc who had organised a roadblock during the chase received a lot of sympathy for his injuries from being knocked down by the fleeing robbers, as Harpenden-Smith dwelt on this before leading him to identify Isaacs and Tully. Counsel for Isaacs managed to dent the credibility of his identification by producing the test acceleration capability of the model of the car that was hijacked and showed that the policeman got to see the two suspects for only one or two seconds through the reflecting windscreen of a car travelling at seventy miles an hour.
‘How far in advance did you know about the robbery, inspector?’ Harpenden-Smith asked.
‘It was first brought up about a fortnight before by a colleague in Criminal Intelligence. We weren’t able to do anything about it at the time through insufficient information.’
‘From your subsequent inquiries were you able to find out who was to be involved?’
‘Two of them, was all.’
‘Putting a detective on watch with a video camera, is that a usual procedure, inspector?’
‘It’s one we’re having to employ more and more.’
‘As you try and stretch your limited resources over a wide field to give the public the best service possible?’ Harpenden-Smith said.
‘That is correct,’ Pyle said.
‘I would like to go back for a moment, if I may, to consider your earlier evidence about the contents of the lock-up garage. To refresh the jurors’ memory, this contained a veritable arsenal, marked exhibits 37 to 82, photographs of which are in Bundle 2. Perhaps you would just remind the court what explanation the defendant Jack Lynn gave about the contents of this garage.’
Pyle flipped back through the notes with him in the witness box. ‘When I questioned him about the contents of the garage, he replied, “Don’t know nothing about them. I let the garage to a fella I met in a pub, a man called Richard Cook”. Lynn had in his possession receipts made out to Richard Cook.’