Proof of Life

by Steven Suttie

  “When you slept in Mr Pollard’s home on the evening on Thursday the 16th of May, can you please tell the court where you slept?”

  “On the settee.”

  “And what about in the motor-home?”

  “On the pull-out bed. Mr Pollard had the bedroom at the back.”

  “Did Mr Pollard, at any time, suggest that you should share a bed?”

  “No. Why would he? Why do you keep trying to make out that he’s a weirdo?”

  “Mr Pollard has got a reputation for being quite an angry personality. Whilst you were with him, did you witness this side to his character?”

  Darren thought about the question. He looked confidently at the prosecutor as he made his reply. “Yes, I’m not going to lie, there was one occasion when we were in the motor-home. He totally lost it.”

  “And would you like to describe what happened?”

  “Yes Sir. We were driving along on the motorway with the radio on. The DJ kept singing over the songs in a really annoying way. After a while, Mr Pollard started screaming and shouting at the radio. He was banging his hand on the dashboard shouting ‘this man is a bloody imbecile!’ and turned the radio off. He was raging, Sir, it really annoyed him.”

  The judge interjected and spoke directly to Philip Pollard with a glum expression. “Was it Steve Wright?” he asked.

  Pollard nodded.

  “Hmmm.” Said the judge. “Carry on.”

  The prosecutor was having a bad time and it was obvious to everybody in the court-room. His hands were shaking as he leafed through the paperwork on his lectern. The only sound in the court was the rustling of his case notes. The jury could almost hear the sigh of relief as he found the page that he’d been searching for.

  “When you were interviewed by police officers on the day that you arrived at your mother’s address in Aberdeen, you made a comment to the detectives. Do you recall telling them that ‘Mr Pollard took you away so that he could teach you a lesson?”

  “Yes Sir.”

  Suddenly, the prosecutor began to grow in confidence and his voice lifted several octaves. “Now bearing in mind that yourself and Mr Pollard had shared a very volatile, often difficult relationship within the school environment, did you not feel any sense of danger upon hearing such a vague comment?”

  “No, Sir.”

  “You mean to say that you didn’t wonder what Mr Pollard had meant, when he said that he wanted to ‘teach you a lesson?”

  “Yes Sir, I did.”

  “Ah, so you did wonder what he meant by that?”

  “Yes. So, I asked him.”

  There was another uncomfortable moment in the court as several people stifled laughs, disguising their unfortunate, involuntary sounds with coughs and exaggerated throat clearing.

  “And what was his response?”

  “He said that he would show me what it was when we got to Scotland.”

  “And you were happy with such an ambiguous explanation?”

  “What’s does ambiguous mean?”

  “It means, as I suspect you are already aware, that his answer was rather unclear and confusing.”

  “Oh right, well no, I just thought he’d tell me when he was ready, like he said.”

  “And did you ever find out what this so-called lesson was?”

  “Yes Sir.”

  “You did? Excellent! And would you care to share the same lesson with the rest of us?”

  “Well, I will do. But I must warn you Sir, it was pretty boring to be honest.” Darren smiled widely at the jury and a wave of laughter travelled through the court. Darren had skilful comic-timing and it was this, more than the actual things that he said which caught the audience off-guard. The judge looked at the jury with a stern expression of dissatisfaction.

  “Well, to explain that, it would be easier to tell you about the last night in the motorhome. It was the Thursday night. Mr Pollard allowed me to cook the tea that night and after we’d eaten, he did the washing up. Then, he sat me down and explained the plan for the following day. He said he needed to leave the place where we were camped really early so he could get the motor-home back on time.”

  “Carry on,” said the prosecutor, desperate to pounce on a detail that he could pick at.

  “He told me how to get from the place where we were, to my mum’s. He gave me some cash and said I could keep the mobile phone I’d been using all week, on the condition that I had to text him the moment I arrived outside mum’s house.”

  “And where exactly were you at this point in time?”

  “I’m not sure Sir, but he dropped me off the next morning at a bus stop and told me to catch a bus to Inverness, then catch a train from there to Aberdeen. He wrote it all down for me, the times and that. He said I had to keep my hood up and do a Scottish accent when I was getting on the bus.”

  “And was your Scottish accent convincing?”

  “Aye, it wis, Sir, it wis.”

  “How long were you on the bus for?”

  “I don’t know, an hour, maybe two.”

  “And then when you arrived at Inverness railway station, you went in and you bought a ticket for Aberdeen?”

  “Yes, well, I used the machine. And then I just waited on the platform for the train.”

  “Yes. And you arrived in Aberdeen in the afternoon.

  How did you get to your mother’s address from there?”

  “I walked it Sir, because I had about two hours to spare, so I just took a stroll around town first, and then headed over to my mum’s.”

  “Well that sounds like quite an adventure. But getting back to this lesson that Mr Pollard wanted to teach you. You said that he gave it to you the night prior?”

  “Yes Sir. He started asking me loads of questions, he had them all written down on a piece of paper. It was all to do with the stuff we’d been doing all week. So, one of the questions would be about how to cook spaghetti Bolognese, which he’d taught me. Then he asked me why the Pennines are called that…”

  “The Pennines, as in the vast range of hills and mountains which separate the north-west with Yorkshire?”

  “Yes Sir. They go further than that though. They start just north of Birmingham and go all the way up into Scotland.” Darren looked pleased to have out-smarted the posh legal bloke.

  “Thank you. And would you like to share with us the answer to that question, of how the Pennines got their name? I’m sure we’re all desperate to know?”

  “Yes, well Penn is the old-fashioned name for a hill, it’s what they were called in Anglo Saxon times. And there’s nine of them.”

  This remark received a gentle laugh from the jury and even the prosecutor seemed quite endeared by the explanation, his wide smile displaying a warmth, for the first time, towards Darren Jenkins.

  “And may I ask how you knew the answers to these questions that Philip Pollard was putting to you?”

  “Yes, well we had a deal. He said that I could pick the places we went, but I had to tell him interesting things about the places, or I wouldn’t get any tea. He gave me a phone to use and he said that I had to plan the route we were taking, and each day we had to visit an interesting place and I had to tell him all about it.”

  “And what other things did you discover on this trip?”

  “Loads Sir. Like Scarborough, where we went on the first day, there’s a hotel there that was built especially for a visit from Queen Victoria. It’s called The Grand and its shaped in a V for Victoria. It was built on a design to do with the calendar. It’s got 365 bedrooms, one for each of the days in a year. It’s got 52 chimneys, one for each week, there are 12 floors, one for each month, and it also has four towers, one for each season. It was the biggest hotel in Europe when it was built in 1867.”

  “Wow, well, I must say that was impressive.” The prosecutor looked quite astounded by Darren’s knowledge of the famous building on the Yorkshire coast. “And so, as you travelled around, Mr Pollard asked you to come up with facts about the places that y
ou were travelling to. And then he did a test, is that right?”

  “Yes Sir. And I got twenty-four out of twenty-five questions right.” Darren looked quite chuffed with himself.

  “And was this the lesson that he said he was going to teach you?”

  “No Sir. There was more to it than that. I also had to learn the names of twenty famous people who were expelled from school.”

  The jury looked quite perplexed by this bizarre turn.

  “And did you find twenty?”

  “Yes Sir. There’s a lot more actually, but I learnt them off by heart.”

  “And would you like to tell us a few of these names?”

  “Yes Sir. I can tell you all of them. But I need a pen, so I can keep count.”

  The prosecutor took a pen from the desk behind him and found a piece of scrap paper. He walked across to the witness stand and handed them to Darren.

  “Okay. And will we have heard of these people?”

  “I think so Sir. You’ve heard of Albert Einstein?”

  “Of course!”

  “So, that’s one, then there’s Stephen Spielberg, Sir Richard Branson, Adele, Amy Winehouse, Guy Ritchie, Stephen Fry, Frank Skinner, Kevin Bridges, Lily Allen, Liz Hurley, that’s eleven so far. Charlie Sheen. Marlon Brando, Russell Brand, Jon Bon Jovi, Eric Clapton, Johnny Rotten, Jackie Collins, Lewis Hamilton and Keanu Reeves.”

  Darren looked pleased with his rendition.

  “Well, I’m sure the jury will agree with me that is quite a list. There are a number of names there that I am profoundly shocked and surprised to hear.”

  “Yes Sir. I was surprised myself.”

  “And what was Mr Pollard trying to achieve, do you think, in making you do this research?”

  “Well he made me do a few. He said I had to do one of famous people who have done well but don’t have any qualifications.”

  “And was that list as shocking as the list of people who had been expelled?”

  “Yes Sir. Some people you wouldn’t expect. Like Sir Alan Sugar, Prince Harry, Jon Snow, Deborah Meaden, Simon Cowell, Jeremy Clarkson, Sir Phillip Green, Sir Richard Branson.”

  “Well, this is really fascinating, Darren.”

  “He was just trying to make me realise that school wasn’t everything. I think he felt responsible for me getting expelled.”

  “And did these exercises make you feel a little better about that fact?”

  “Yes Sir. He also said that the reason that I was always getting into trouble was because I probably had ADHD. I started arguing with him, you know, nobody wants to have that, and have to go to a special school, or take loads of drugs that make you docile.”

  “Was this a serious argument?”

  “No Sir, Mr Pollard just told me to come up with a list of people who have got ADHD and I’d see that its not that bad. So I did.”

  “And was he right?”

  “Sir, something you have to know about Mr Pollard is that he is always right.”

  This comment received a huge smile from the accused.

  “He always says ‘next time I’m wrong will be the first time.”

  “Okay, thank you Darren, I think we get the picture. Tell us all about the ADHD list you came up with.”

  “Yes Sir. Some of the famous people who have ADHD are Michael Phelps, Will Smith, Jamie Oliver, Jim Carey, Stevie Wonder. There’s loads of them, Sir.”

  “Go on,” said the prosecutor, with an encouraging smile.

  “I could be here all day…” said Darren, receiving a warm laugh from the jury. “No really, there’s a lot. It’s easier to break it down into professions. So, like from painters, it’s basically the most famous ones. Leonardo Da Vinci, Picasso, Van Gogh.”

  It was clear from the faces of the jury and the people who filled the public gallery, that these comments from Darren Jenkins were surprising, to say the least.

  “In music, there’s John Lennon, Robbie Williams, Justin Timberlake, I’ve said Stevie Wonder, Cher, Ozzy Osbourne. In politics, there was Abraham Lincoln, John F Kennedy, Winston Churchill.”

  “This is a genuinely fascinating topic Darren, but I’m conscious of time. I feel we must move on…”

  “Yes Sir. But the main thing that I learnt about ADHD was that the people who have it are the best hunters.”

  “The best hunters?”

  “Yes, you see, human evolution is all thanks to people with ADHD. We’re all here today, in this court, thanks to people who had ADHD two million years ago. It’s always been around you see, it’s just a thing, like shyness or being good at dancing. The earliest humans relied on the ones with ADHD to travel further hunting, climb higher up mountains, stay up later guarding the camp and the herd, fighting off other tribes and stuff. The ones with ADHD are automatically ready for risk taking, so they used to be put in charge of the hunting and gathering, building the rafts or the rope bridges that got them from one side of the valley to another.”

  “That’s extremely interesting, but how can we possibly know this?”

  “It’s common sense, Sir. But there was a big study a few years ago into a nomadic tribe in Kenya. It discovered that the strongest and healthiest members of the tribe showed signs of ADHD. They were just better than the rest at doing natural stuff, like climbing, hunting, swimming, fighting and stuff like that. It’s the risk-takers that get things done. The professor who did the study says it is proof that people with ADHD shouldn’t be locked up in schools because it’s unnatural and that it’s not the right environment for them, they need to be outside doing proper stuff, looking for new things and experiences. The study showed that the tribes-people with ADHD were always on the go but the ones who didn’t have ADHD were better settlers. Then they tried teaching the tribes-people in a classroom and the ones who were the best at all the stuff they needed to be good at, they couldn’t deal with the lessons, and learnt nothing. But the settlers were excellent students. You should read up about it, its proper interesting Sir. It explains why kids with ADHD are always struggling to stay still and keep quiet, but if you give them a bit of freedom and let them build something, or make something, or create something, they’ll be no trouble because the part of the brain that’s working faster than everybody else’s is busy doing the task. The point is, ADHD people can’t just sit in a class and learn, just like somebody who hasn’t got ADHD can’t paint a picture like Vincent Van Gogh, or create a song like Stevie Wonder, or win a war like Winston Churchill, Sir.”

  Everybody in the court-room seemed engrossed in Darren’s information.

  “In school, we’re treated as though we’re freaks and told that there’s something wrong with us. But it’s a load of rubbish. It’s like saying there’s something wrong with the fast runners, or the kids who find algebra easy. But because they don’t cause a nuisance with their fast running and algebra, nobody says anything. It’s all wrong, Sir.”

  “And I’m guessing that this was the lesson that Mr Pollard wanted to teach you?”

  “No, Sir. I think Mr Pollard would be the best person to ask about that.”

  The prosecutor turned and faced the accused. Mr Pollard stared back from the dock.

  “Mr Pollard?”

  “Well, it’s quite simple really. In the letter that Darren wrote me, the one that I refused to read, and which set off this chain of events, he said that he couldn’t do school anymore because he couldn’t learn. He said he was thick and that it was a waste of time. But I think we have all seen today that this simply isn’t true. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth! However, it was us, the teachers, the school system that had drummed that opinion into him, sending him out of class, treating him as a moron and constantly reinforcing the view that he is bad and that he is doomed to fail. Well, that’s not entirely fair. Our teaching model is still based on the Victorian model of preparing children for the army, for taking orders and treating them all the same. Sit down, shut up and learn this. But that simplistic approach doesn’t accommodate kids like Da
rren. Every single class has a kid like Darren, we established that already, you all remembered the Darren Jenkins in your own class. There are 25 thousand schools in this country, so we’re talking about tens of thousands of kids in our schools today, right now, being tormented by teachers, parents, school-mates, simply for being themselves. I wanted to show Darren that it is the system that is wrong and that people like him can, and do, go on to achieve amazing things in life. But most importantly, I felt that I had a duty to demonstrate that Darren could learn, arguably better than most kids. But just in a different way.”

  Darren Jenkins was smiling at his teacher as he held his hand up, as though he was still in class. Mr Pollard nodded at him.

  “He also told me that today’s human beings are capable of putting satellites into space which beam TV channels down to earth and can build cars that don’t need a driver and can swap a bad heart for a good heart inside a human body. But human beings haven’t yet sussed out how to keep kids like me quiet in a classroom without expelling us or filling us with drugs. But he also said that if anybody can come up with a positive way of dealing with kids who aren’t wired up for sitting still and writing down words from a book, it will probably be somebody who has got ADHD. Somebody like Albert Einstein, a man who had ADHD, failed his exams, got expelled from several schools and went on to give the world the Theory of Relativity.”

  There was a moment of silence as the jury members considered the information that Darren had provided, coupled with the words of Philip Pollard, who had explained that Darren hadn’t believed that he was capable of learning.

  The prosecutor was looking at his case notes and it was becoming quite obvious that he was stumped. Everything that he had built his prosecution case around had been explained and the information that had been presented to the court was credible. The major problem with this case was that Darren Jenkins had always maintained that Philip Pollard was not responsible for any offence. These statements had been made again, in the court, in great detail.

  The prosecutor closed his file and walked across to the judge.

  “Your honour, based on the information that we have heard here today, I wish to inform you that I am giving notice under section 23A of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 that the proceedings are to be discontinued.”