‘Yes,’ replied Everdene. ‘The Recorder acceded to the Crown’s application. It was put to my client at the pre-trial review last week. We had no objection. It simplifies the issue for the jury.’
‘And for me!’ added the judge. ‘Two-fifteen it is then – after I’ve let the jury in waiting know the position.’
Chapter Fourteen
‘Members of the jury-in-waiting. When your name is called will you please answer and take your place in the jury box.’
Marcus dipped his hand into the wooden box in front of him and pulled out the first card. ‘Elizabeth Mary Duston.’
Miss Duston appeared slightly surprised but she indicated her presence and shuffled forward, her bag in her hand. She smiled at the judge and entered the jury box and sat down. A few minutes later, another eleven jurors had been called including the University student who had failed to be chosen at all the previous fortnight. Three potential jurors had sought to be excluded from sitting on the case. One pleaded child issues. A second, a consultant surgeon had a heavy list at the local hospital, and the third had a holiday booked for the following week. The judge excused them all without further investigation and they were quickly replaced. He then invited the Attorney-General to go through the names of the witnesses the Crown intended to call to make sure that none of the jurors was acquainted with them. The Attorney, who had just arrived at court, was taken by surprise and delegated the task to Edward Markham-Moore, who sensibly added the name of the Defendant to the list. One of the jurors on the back row raised his hand. ‘I think I’ve met the Defendant once before,’ he said. ‘She was involved with a case involving my brother.’
Julia Hamilton leant forward and scrutinised him. She shrugged her shoulders and shook her head as Everdene jumped to his feet. ‘Perhaps it would be wiser if this gentleman did not serve, my Lord. My client does not recognise him, but out of an abundance of caution?’
‘I agree,’ responded the judge. ‘Thank you for drawing that to our attention.’
The juror stood and manoeuvred his way past the others in his row and re-joined those waiting to be called. Marcus took another card from the box.
‘James William Murphy,’ he announced, surveying the large group of individuals who had been crammed into the left hand corner of the courtroom. No-one responded, then a voice murmured ‘Yes’ and the youth with the tattoos emerged from behind two other potential jurors and made his way to the second row of the jury box. He looked rather smarter that he had the previous week and his tattoos were almost hidden by his jumper.
‘Do you have any knowledge of the Defendant or the witnesses who are to be called?’ asked the judge. ‘I take it you were listening to counsel when he read them out?’
The youth glanced at Julia, still standing in the dock. He looked her over, approvingly. He could not remember the names of the witnesses but he would certainly have recalled the defendant if he had ever seen her before.
‘I think I’d remember her,’ he said, cheekily. ‘And I don’t know any of the witnesses.’
The judge directed him into the second row of the jury box. Marcus then began to swear in the jurors. He quickly refreshed his memory from the card in front of him then glanced at the defendant. She had chosen her clothing with considerable care. Dressed in her almost black two-piece suit underneath which she sported a crisp, white blouse, she looked the consummate professional that indeed she was. A pearl necklace graced her neck and her hair had been carefully arranged by one of the other prisoners in the mother and baby unit who had trained as a hairdresser. Her pearl earrings, which had been supplied by her mother together with the necklace, added the final touch. She wore very little make-up and a light coloured lip-stick that seemed to bring out a translucent quality in her near-perfect complexion. Marcus was almost transfixed as he addressed her. How could anyone convict her of the crime with which she was charged?
‘Julia Margaret Hamilton, the names you are about to hear are the names of the jurors who are to try you. If you object to them or to any one of them, for cause, you should make your objection as they come to the book to be sworn and before they are sworn and your objection shall be heard.’
Marcus turned and faced the jurors.
‘Members of the jury, you are about to be sworn. When your name is called, please stand, take the book in your right hand and read the words from the card then sit down. He looked at Miss Duston. ‘Elizabeth Mary Duston.’
Miss Duston stood, took the testament from the usher and read the words from the card, slowly and audibly.
‘I swear by Almighty God that I will faithfully try the Defendant and give a true verdict according to the evidence.’
She passed the testament and the card to her immediate neighbour, then sat down. The other jurors, with varying degrees of confidence, took the same oath, apart from two, including the youth with the tattoos, who chose to affirm. Marcus then put Julia Hamilton in the charge of the jury.
‘The Defendant, Julia Margaret Hamilton, is charged on indictment that between the first of February and the eighth of April 1999, with intent to pervert the course of public justice, she did a series of acts which had a tendency to pervert the course of justice in that she arranged or facilitated the unlawful abduction and detention of Celia Campion and Christopher Campion thereby applying unlawful pressure upon one of Her Majesty’s judges, namely His Honour Judge Thomas Campion, who was then trying the case of The Queen against Michael James Doyle and Charles Anthony Benson. To this indictment she has pleaded not guilty and it is your charge to determine, having heard the evidence, whether she is guilty or not.’
The judge then dismissed the other potential jurors, assuring them there would be work for them in the other courtrooms. It took several minutes for them to leave the room, during which Julia Hamilton stared silently at the judge. He tried hard not to look in her direction, but found himself unable to resist stealing an occasional glance. She really was beautiful. And she seemed to remind him of someone. He couldn’t quite place who. Dignified too. He’d often wondered what it would be like to sit in the dock on trial for a serious offence. If anyone doubted that poise and a certain nobility could be maintained in such circumstances, even the briefest observation of Julia Hamilton sitting between the two dock officers in Court Number One would have set aside any such misgivings. She looked simply sensational. Already two of the male jurors had almost concluded she must be innocent before the Attorney-General had uttered a word in opening the case against her.
The judge explained the timetable which he proposed to follow. The trial was estimated to last two weeks. The court would sit each day at ten-thirty and break for an hour at one o’clock for lunch. The proceedings would conclude for the day at around four-fifteen, depending where they were in the evidence. He warned the jury about discussing the case or the evidence with anyone outside their number and advised them to restrict such discussions to the jury room when all twelve of them were present. He then nodded towards the Attorney, who jumped to his feet, catching the sleeve of his new silk gown in the metal hinge of his seat. Cronshaw smiled as he heard the sound of tearing material. But the Attorney was not unduly concerned. He introduced counsel to the jury then, following Cronshaw’s typed opening to the letter, he began to explain the Crown’s case.
Advocacy, of course, is more an art than a science and a great deal depends on the personality and presence of the advocate. The Attorney seemed rather nervous as he began. Although he had Cronshaw’s carefully crafted words before him, he somehow managed, as he hesitatingly began his outline of the prosecution case, to reduce what ought to have been a quite fascinating and exciting narrative into something resembling the minutes of a meeting of a local authority planning committee. Cronshaw or Markham-Moore would undoubtedly have made a better fist of it. But the representatives of the press and television scribbled down what he said. No doubt it would be moulded into a sufficiently dramatic ch
ronical by the time it appeared in the newspapers the following day. Eventually, his nervousness under a degree of control, the jury began to take notice.
‘This was a well planned and professionally executed venture, the purpose of which was two-fold. First, so far as Julia Hamilton is concerned, to intimidate one of Her Majesty’s judges into making a decision that would lead to the dismissal of the case against her lover, Michael Doyle, who faced prosecution for conspiracy to rob – the very case the learned judge was about to try. Had this succeeded, Doyle would have walked free and no doubt disappeared. But there was, or may have been, a second element to these events. Doyle had crossed, we say, a master criminal by the name of Gus Grayling. It was, we shall prove, to Grayling that Hamilton turned in order to intimidate and blackmail the judge. She was probably ignorant of the precise nature of the previous relationship between her lover and Grayling but turn to him she did. Why Grayling? A moment’s reflection makes that very clear. To whom else could she turn? There are few criminals who would dare to do what was done in this case. To kidnap the wife and child of a serving judge and to hold them hostage in order to make a wholly improper demand of the judge. Only someone like Grayling would have had the nerve and the means of putting such a plan into operation. So, Grayling and his associates went along with Hamilton’s plan, but Grayling inserted his own little variation. He ordered his associate, Derick Duffy, to inform the police where the judge’s wife and child could be found, well before the judge was due to give his ruling.’
The Attorney paused and looked at the jurors one by one anxious to see if the point he was trying to make had been sufficiently driven home. They returned his glances in different ways but all seemed to be interested in what he might say next. Several leant forward in anticipation.
‘You see, members of the jury, so far as we can establish, Grayling having died of natural causes since these events occurred, the underlying objective of those who actually carried out the kidnap and blackmail was to make it look for all the world that Doyle had planned the whole thing because he would, it seemed, be the obvious principal beneficiary were the plan to succeed. In this way, Julia Hamilton’s original purpose was overridden and subverted by Grayling and his associates but her responsibility and intent remain. Howsoever they changed things, her criminality stays the same. Why did Duffy inform the police where the wife and child could be found? The answer again, of course, is obvious. To ensure that the plot borne of Julia Hamilton’s aspiration was foiled, thereby bringing the whole force of the law down upon Doyle. And it nearly worked. The police, at first, were convinced Doyle was behind it.’
A couple of the jurors nodded involuntarily. Miss Duston, however, gave nothing away. Her expression never changed. The Attorney seemed compelled to address his words directly to her as he continued.
‘Whether Doyle played any part in these events we shall probably never know. But we do know and will prove to your satisfaction that Julia Hamilton was involved. Indeed, we say she instigated the whole enterprise. It is, of course, quite impossible for the Crown to know with certainty what was actually going on in her devious and calculating mind. We pay her the minor compliment that at least her initial intention was to free her lover. Whether that remained her intention we shall probably never know with certainty. But we shall prove that she telephoned Grayling on the twelfth of March last year for the specific purpose of arranging a meeting where her plan could be discussed and the financial compensation agreed. By happy chance, that telephone conversation was recorded. For reasons we need not go into, Grayling’s telephone was being monitored by the police. We shall, in due course, play that recording to you. It is our case that the woman making the call is Julia Hamilton. The call was made from a telephone box in a village in Leicestershire where her mother had once lived and still maintains a property. That village is Thrussington, a few miles north of Leicester, just off the A46. Julia Hamilton tried to disguise her voice but the surrounding circumstances point decidedly to the call being made by her. Why do we say that? Because she had an appointment at the nearby hairdressing salon shortly after the call was finished – an appointment she kept. There is no issue about that. In fact, she had been driven there by a friend of hers – a barrister with whom she had been working that very morning at this court centre. He drove her to Thrussington and dropped her off just before two. Again, there is no dispute about it. Let me tell you about another interesting fact about the village of Thrussington. It is situated in a dip and obtaining a signal for a mobile phone is difficult and frequently impossible. Although Julia Hamilton stayed at her mother’s cottage after her appointment, there was no land line at that address. Any call she made that afternoon would have to have been made from the phone box by the village green, opposite the salon. You see why we say it had to be she who made the call?’
The Attorney was gratified to see that several heads were now nodding – but not Miss Duston’s. She remained as inscrutable as ever. The Attorney was now well into his stride. Even Cronshaw had to agree he was holding the jury’s attention. He glanced behind him towards the dock. Julia Hamilton seemed to be listening intently but was giving nothing away as to what she thought about his performance.
‘On the sixteenth of March 1999, the arranged meeting took place at Grayling’s home near Hastings in Sussex. Julia Hamilton travelled there during that morning as the rear seat passenger on a powerful motorcycle. She was, we say, dressed appropriately in motorcycle leathers and a set of leathers was subsequently recovered by the police from her mother’s cottage along with a helmet. Both leathers and helmet were subject to DNA analysis. Only her DNA was detected. Present at the meeting in Hastings were the late Mr Grayling and his associate Derick Duffy – happily still alive and who will be called before you as a witness. But unknown to Julia Hamilton there was another person present who, although not visible to her, heard everything that took place. His name is Joseph Hanlon. He was sitting in a high backed chair within earshot of what occurred. Now, members of the jury, a word of warning. Both Duffy and Hanlon are – or were – serious criminals. Both are serving lengthy prison sentences. No doubt much will be made of that by my learned friend Mr Everdene.’
The Attorney smiled and glanced towards defence counsel.
‘But why should they not be credible witnesses? Everyone is at least capable of telling the truth. Julia Hamilton was bent on a desperate venture to free her lover, at least at the outset. It follows that she would have to turn to serious criminals in order to put the plan –the plan she conceived - into operation. Who else would be prepared to participate in such an endeavour? Only criminals! And only serious and experienced criminals at that.’
Several heads nodded involuntarily in seeming agreement.
The Attorney, growing in confidence, then went on to describe in detail the events inside Judge Campion’s home, the kidnapping of his wife and young son and the demand made of him to rule against the prosecution. He described the way Chief Inspector Hood had ‘cracked’ the case and mentioned again the telephone call from Duffy that had only made its way to him after he had identified the farm where Mrs Campion and her son were being held.
‘So, members of the jury, we say this whole enterprise was the idea of this Defendant Julia Hamilton. She was the instigator. The fact that Grayling and his associates may have double-crossed her in an attempt to fix the blame on Michael Doyle is neither here nor there. For all we know she may have joined in that change of plan but the fact remains that she organised what we say was a determined attempt to pervert the course of justice. Knowing or believing as she did that Doyle was guilty of a conspiracy to rob that would lead on conviction to a very long prison sentence, she initiated what started out as a determined attempt to intimidate the judge into ordering the release of her very guilty lover. And there’s no doubt of his guilt. He eventually pleaded guilty and is now serving a fifteen-year sentence for his pains. And what does she say to this?’
The Attorney feigned surprise.
‘That she is innocent. That she knows nothing about it. That she did not attend the meeting in Hastings and that she was out of the country, in Brussels to be precise, when the plan – her plan - was put into operation.’
He paused for effect and gratefully grasped a glass of water handed to him by Markham-Moore. He took several sips before placing the glass to one side.
‘You see, members of the jury, you are dealing with a very clever and determined young woman. She was pregnant when these events occurred, seemingly by Doyle. She had no intention of spending years away from him bringing up their child alone – a child that has now been born to her. At least that is how things were when she set forth on her plan. Whether she later changed her mind and joined in the later conspiracy to fix the blame on Doyle matters not. Whatever the state of play when those who kidnapped the judge and sought to blackmail him acted, she undoubtedly attempted to pervert the course of justice.’
The male members of the jury, who were in a majority, turned as one and looked at Julia. She held their gaze without changing her expression. The Attorney, now flushed with self- confidence, continued.
‘So clever is she, members of the jury, that she created not one but two alibis. First, while Judge Campion was being threatened and his wife and son removed from their home at gunpoint, she was in Brussels with the barrister to whom she had turned having pretended to end her relationship with Doyle. We concede she is a very beautiful woman and some men have weaknesses when such a woman has them in her sights.’
The judge almost nodded his head in agreement.
‘Now, we do not dispute she was in Brussels with Bill Savage a barrister who had just been made a Queen’s Counsel.’
‘A bit like the Attorney,’ whispered Felicity Garrard to Markham-Moore who merely smiled.
A Private and Convenient Place Page 14