by Kia Abdullah
‘Today, and over the coming days, the Crown will serve to prove that Jodie Wolfe was raped by the accused. You will hear from doctors and DNA experts but, first, you will hear from Jodie herself, a broken young woman who trusted her classmates. We will show you – without a reasonable doubt – that Amir Rabbani and his band of followers are callous rapists who must be found guilty of their crime. I trust you, members of the jury, to look beyond the papers, to look beyond the hysterical tenor of rhetoric and make the right decision. The only decision: to find the defendants guilty. Thank you.’ Leeson turned to the judge. ‘I call my first witness, Jodie Wolfe.’
Hushed excitement pulsed through the room as the doors drew open with a whine. Jodie, shielded from the dock with a screen, entered the witness box, her lopsided shuffle rustling softly on the carpet. The jury stared at her. There was no need for a hundred furtive glances to piece together the horror of her face. Here, they could look to their hearts’ content.
Zara willed Jodie to look up, to see her nearby and find solace in her presence. Instead, her gaze was glassy in that vacant way that focused on nothing. Coupled with her hollowing cheeks, it made her deformities more ghoulish than usual. In fact, as Jodie took the oath, Zara noticed one juror lean to another and whisper something. Together, the two men sniggered.
Jodie shrank beneath the jury’s attention. She trained her gaze on a large patch of damp by the TV next to the jury’s box and traced the dirtied brown lines outwards. She shifted in her seat and turned to the judge. In her mangled diction, she said, ‘My Lord, if they can’t understand me, are they allowed to say so?’
Judge Braun blanched with sympathy. ‘Yes, of course.’ He addressed the jury, ‘Please, if you feel that you missed a part of Ms Wolfe’s testimony, raise your hand and I will ask her to repeat it.’
Jodie nodded gratefully. ‘Thank you. I will try to speak clearly but, sometimes,’ she gestured to her face, ‘it’s difficult.’
Zara swallowed a smile. They had already scored points with the judge.
Leeson nodded at the jury then turned to the witness and started. ‘Jodie, can you tell me how you know the four defendants?’
Jodie stilled her hands by her side. ‘They went to the same school as me: Bow Road Secondary School. I shared some classes with them.’
‘Would you say you were friendly with them?’
She hesitated. ‘Not really. Maybe Mo … Mohammed. He’s helped me in class before.’
‘Who invited you to the party that took place on Thursday the twenty-seventh of June?’
Jodie shifted in the witness box. ‘It was Nina, one of my friends.’
Leeson drew out the details of their schedule: where and when the two girls met, what time they left for the party, when they arrived and what route they took.
‘Did you have a drink?’ he asked.
Jodie swallowed. ‘I had a glass of punch which had alcohol in it.’
‘Were you drunk?’
‘No. I’ve never been drunk. I need to be in control in case I’m targeted.’
‘Targeted? In what way?’
Jodie gestured softly at her face. ‘People tend to shout things at me because of the way I look. I need to be able to get away from them quickly.’
Leeson glanced at the jury with a mournful smile. ‘Thank you for elaborating, Jodie. We have confirmed that you weren’t drunk. Were you even slightly tipsy?’
‘No. I had one drink – that was it.’
Leeson led her through the first hour of the party, asking several times for minor details mainly to prove that her memory was sharp. Soon, they arrived on the gravel outside and Amir’s approaching footsteps.
‘What happened next?’ asked Lesson.
Jodie was perfectly still. ‘Amir came and sat next to me. I was nervous because he never really talks to me.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said “aren’t you joining Nina?” and I said she was busy inside. He told me that she was actually at a private party nearby. He asked me if I wanted to go. I—I wasn’t sure but Amir told me he’d take me so I went.’ She paused. ‘On the way there, I nearly tripped and he reached out and grabbed my hand to steady me.’
Zara watched Jodie tell the lie with skill. It left her with a sense of unease, rough and brackish in the back of her mouth.
Jodie continued, ‘When we got there, Amir said I should wear lace more often because it makes me look pretty.’ A splutter from the dock carried across the courtroom. Jodie pretended not to hear. ‘I went all red. No one had ever called me pretty before. He said that he had always wondered what my lips felt like.’
‘Please go on,’ said Leeson.
Jodie gripped the cuffs of her sleeves. ‘I was really confused. I didn’t know what to say.’
‘What happened after this?’
‘Then, things changed really quickly. Amir was nice until now but then he said, “what do your breasts look like? I ain’t gonna touch ’em if they’re ugly like the rest of you.”’ A gasp from the dock echoed through the room, its source unseen by Jodie. She continued, ‘Before I could react, his friends came in from another room. They were laughing and shouting, making fun of Amir for bringing me.’
‘And what did Amir say?’
Jodie grimaced. ‘He said “she’s got a pussy, don’t she?”’
Amir’s voice cried out in disbelief, high and angry over the lip of the screen.
Judge Braun was quick in his reprimand. ‘Mr Stark, I will have no interruptions. Quieten your client immediately.’ In the fresh silence, he asked Jodie to continue.
Her voice grew unsteady. ‘Amir told me to get on my knees. I said no, but he forced me. I thought I could fight him but he was stronger than me.’ Tears welled in her eyes.
Leeson looked at the jury, his face now creased with anguish, knowing that this day would be one of Jodie’s hardest. Over the next hour, he drew out the events in excruciating detail: the sequence of the rapes, who was standing where, what they said, where they touched her, where they penetrated her, what they used and where they ejaculated. The required level of detail was unremittingly cruel and Jodie broke down in tears despite her efforts not to.
Zara watched in sick relief. These past weeks, Jodie had stopped crying, succumbing instead to numbness. Her tears now revealed her pain and juries needed to see this. Lawyers knew that more than anyone else.
‘Once they finished, did they help you?’ asked Leeson, driving Jodie on.
‘No,’ she said, her voice thick from tears. ‘They cleaned up and they left.’
‘What do you mean they cleaned up?’
Jodie grimaced. ‘They wiped the floor and threw alcohol over it.’
‘Before they left, did they say anything else to you?’
Jodie seemed to sway a little. ‘Yes. Amir said, “it was just a bit of fun, yeah, Jodie?” and then they left.’
‘“It was just a bit of fun,”’ repeated Leeson, letting it hang in the air for a while. ‘Then what happened? Did you call the police?’
‘No, then I went home.’ Jodie’s voice caught on the word. Her mouth curled inward as she tried not to sob. ‘I went home. I had a shower and hid the clothes. I thought I could get on with my life. I thought I could forget it but I couldn’t.’
‘What did you do after this? Did you tell anyone?’
Jodie nodded. ‘I told my mum.’
‘Did you report it to the police?’
‘Yes, I went to Artemis House first. I found them on the internet and they helped me report it to the police.’
Leeson turned to Judge Braun. ‘My Lord, the interview transcripts are on page two hundred and ninety-eight.’ He paused for the rustle of paper to settle. ‘Jodie, the judge has granted your request to read out a part of your victim statement. If you are ready, you may do that now.’
Jodie smoothed the statement in her hand, sculpted over several days so that she could best put across what she had to say. She took a moment to compose herself, th
en cleared her throat and began. ‘I wish I was better at talking to people. I know I don’t have a clear voice and my words get stuck in my mouth. I know I don’t have the sort of face that people want to look at. I can’t smile and win you over because my smile isn’t charming. I know the only reason I’d ever be the centre of attention is because I’m so terrible to look at.
‘People see me and wonder what sort of life I’ve had – if it’s been really hard.’ Jodie looked up at the jury. ‘The answer is yes. It’s been hard. I don’t have a dad and my mum hasn’t always coped. We don’t have a lot of money and there’s this.’ Jodie gestured at her face. ‘But even with all this, I had ways to be happy. I did well in school and that made me happy. I had some friends who cared about me and I had dreams about the future.’ Jodie wavered. ‘I wanted to become an architect one day and to build important things. I know I’ll never have a big life but I was happy with my small one – until that night.
‘Something was taken from me that night and I tried so hard to tell myself that I was okay, that I was fine, that everything was okay. I looked in the mirror and I smiled and said “look at you, you’re still the same person, you look strange but you’re smart and you work hard and you can still be an architect and you can still build things.”’ Jodie’s voice cracked. ‘But I didn’t believe it.’ She gripped the piece of paper, creasing its borders.
‘I live in a small flat with my mum and we have neighbours on every side. There aren’t any big parks near my house and the thing I found most hard is that I couldn’t go anywhere to scream.’ The piece of paper shook in her hands.
‘Instead, I stopped eating and sleeping, and I changed. I was never pretty but I was gentle and steady and strong. I could look after myself and my mum. Now, I’m ashamed of how weak I’ve become, how scared I feel just walking down a street.’ A teardrop fell on the sheet of paper, staining it a bluish grey.
Jodie looked at the screen that stood between her and the dock. ‘What they will lose are concrete things: a place in college, maybe a future job. What I have lost can’t be seen. I’ve lost my courage, my confidence, my belief that I can have a good life.’ Jodie swallowed, fresh tears now streaming down her cheeks.
‘Until that night, at least my body was mine – deformed and disabled but mine. That night, it became something else; someone else’s. I was terrified of it. I wanted to take it off and burn it. How could it cause me more pain? On top of everything else, if this is what happens, then something must be wrong. How can I believe there are better things ahead? I don’t know what I can say to the defendants to make this better. All I can tell them is that I’ve lost my hope.’
Jodie wiped at her tears. ‘There is a quote I used to like, “The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.”’ She took a deep breath. ‘It used to mean something to me. No matter how hard things got, I always believed that I could handle more. That I could survive. But I don’t think that anymore.’ She pointed towards the dock. ‘They took that from me and I won’t ever get it back.’
Silence settled on the room as Jodie folded the sheet in half and gripped it in her hands. Zara felt a rush of affection mixed with a desperate sadness. She was proud of Jodie’s performance and saw that the jury was affected too. As they filed out for recess, several fought back tears; one held a scrunched-up tissue tightly in her fist. Zara felt a stir of hope but swallowed it immediately. Optimism could be deadly in a case like this.
After recess, the atmosphere in court felt starkly different. Hushed sorrow became perverse thirst, for this was the spectacle they’d come to see: the defence examining Jodie.
Stark regarded her like one might approach a sleeping lion: slowly and quietly with an alert wariness. His grey eyes, only subtly wrinkled in the corners, were solemn and sympathetic. ‘Ms Wolfe, do you mind if I call you Jodie?’
‘No.’ Jodie’s eyes were red from crying but her tone was firm and her voice now steady.
‘Thank you.’ He hesitated for a moment, as if his first question pained him. ‘Jodie, have you ever felt a romantic attraction towards Amir?’
Jodie shifted on her feet. ‘I—all the girls in my school did.’ She followed Zara’s advice. Don’t crumble under Stark. Take a few seconds after everything he says. Think about your answer and then say it.
Stark made a conciliatory sound. ‘Including you? You too were romantically attracted to Amir?’
‘At one time.’ Jodie swallowed her shame.
‘Is it true that you sent him gifts and notes?’
She blinked. ‘No.’
‘There is nothing to be embarrassed about and you should bear in mind that you are under oath, so I’ll ask again. Have you ever given Amir a gift or a note of affection?’
Jodie hesitated. ‘Once, but it was a joke Valentine’s.’
‘Is it true that it was a £50 computer game he said he wanted?’
Jodie’s gaze dipped low. ‘That was a long time ago.’
Andrew Leeson was on his feet. ‘My Lord,’ he started in an exasperated tone. ‘I must ask my learned friend, will we be asking all complainants of rape if they fancied their assailant?’
Stark held out his palms, asking for reprieve. ‘My Lord, I am merely seeking to establish the nature of their relationship in order to interrogate alternative motivations behind the complainant’s report.’
‘Fine. You may continue,’ said Judge Braun.
Stark turned back to Jodie. ‘We have established that you gifted Amir a £50 computer game. It wasn’t really just a joke Valentine’s, was it?’
Jodie looked pained. ‘No, but it was a long time ago.’
‘Did you ever talk to Amir about your crush on him?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because he would have laughed at me.’
Stark repeated it, ‘“Because he would have laughed at me.”’ He arched his brows. ‘So you thought he wouldn’t entertain the idea of having any romantic or sexual contact with you?’
Jodie hesitated. ‘I don’t know.’
Zara felt a bolt of anger. She knew this was a game and Stark was merely playing but she hated what he was doing.
‘Okay, you said that every girl in the school fancied Amir.’ Stark examined a piece of paper as if reading the words off it. ‘So, if he wanted to, he could have had sexual intercourse with several girls that night?’
Jodie faltered. ‘I know. That’s why I didn’t want to come forward.’
‘But you did, Jodie.’ Stark’s voice grew cold. ‘You “came forward” and accused him of forcing himself on you. You accused his friends of raping you. Why? Is it because it was just sex for him? Is it because he didn’t return your phone calls?’
‘I’m not making this up.’ Jodie’s voice trembled.
‘Did you get angry when he didn’t return your phone calls?’
‘I don’t even have his number.’
‘Is he a friend of yours on Facebook?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you follow him on Instagram?’
‘Yes.’
‘And also on Twitter?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you follow him on Snapchat too?’
Jodie’s face grew pale.
Stark gestured to the clerk. ‘My Lord, I have here a list of conversations – I call them conversations but really they were one-sided – between Jodie Wolfe and Amir Rabbani from the morning of Friday the twenty-eighth of June to the evening of Monday the first of July, the day before Jodie reported her rape to Artemis House.’
Leeson stood. ‘My Lord, we haven’t seen this evidence.’
‘I apologise to my learned friend,’ said Stark. ‘Amir forgot his password and was only able to retrieve it this morning.’
‘Then we should have had it this morning!’ cried Leeson with exaggerated dismay.
Judge Braun, however, was in no mood for theatrics. ‘You
have it now, Mr Leeson. I would like to see where this goes.’
Stark provided a copy for Jodie and asked, ‘Can you please read the top line?’
Zara craned in her seat as a howling warning blared at her instincts.
‘Ms Wolfe, if you will, please read the first line for the members of the jury,’ urged Stark.
‘Monday first July, 19.00.’
‘And what does it say beneath that?’ Stark waited.
‘It says “Amir, please talk to me. I can’t stop thinking about what happened on Thursday. Please call me.”’
‘And then?’
‘“I won’t tell anyone what happened. I just want to talk.”’
‘How many times in total did you try to contact Amir – on Snapchat alone – from Friday the twenty-eighth of June to Monday the first of July? It says it right there at the bottom.’
Jodie drew in a breath. ‘Forty-nine times.’
‘Forty-nine times! Why were you so desperate to talk to a boy who you say raped you?’
Jodie’s voice shook. ‘I couldn’t just move on. I needed to speak to him.’
‘But he ignored you.’
‘Yes.’
‘So you plotted your revenge?’
Jodie flinched. ‘No, that’s not what happened. I didn’t make this up.’
‘Oh? Can you turn to page nine and read the last line, including the date and time?’
Jodie’s hands trembled as she turned the pages. ‘Monday first July, 23.00. “Amir, this is your last chance. I swear to God, if you don’t reply to this, you’ll regret it. I can’t take this anymore.”’