by Graham Ison
Beneath Harris were seated the pick of the English bar, their briefs marked at amounts some wage-earners would have been happy to take home in a year. In Harris’s eyes, their task was a simple one. To get him off at all costs. Privately, these barristers had expressed grave reservations about their chances of succeeding; the counts on the indictment were, in their view, overwhelming. But, as has often been said before, there is nothing quite as fickle as an English jury.
Day after day it dragged on, much of the time in the earlier stages taken up by sophisticated wrangles between counsel and the judge over the admissibility of evidence. These esoteric legal joustings usually took place in the absence of the jury, many of whom started to wonder whether they were really needed.
Counsel for the prosecution, a shrewd and competent QC, made much of Harris’s refusal to give a sample of his semen. ‘Why, members of the jury,’ he enquired with contrived naivety, ‘should a man decline to assist the prosecution to prove the very innocence which he so vehemently protests?’ He dropped his arms and allowed his shoulders to droop at his own apparent inability to grasp the archness of the accused. ‘Surely, ladies and gentlemen,’ he continued, ‘there is but one construction that can be put upon that refusal.’ He paused dramatically. ‘And that is the knowledge that such a sample would prove categorically his guilt.’ Then, just to make sure, he drew attention to the letter addressed to Billie Crombie which had been sent to the Richmond address and which bore Harris’s fingerprints.
Inevitably there was some light relief too. And just as inevitably, it was the cross-examination of Fox that provided it.
‘Detective Chief Superintendent.’ Harris’s counsel rose from his seat with a magnificent flourish of his gown and carefully adjusted his half-lensed glasses as he peered down at his brief. Then he looked up, sweeping his glasses off again. ‘My client asserts that at your instigation, he was interviewed in New York City by a … ’ Counsel raised his glasses momentarily and stared through them once more at his brief. But Fox had given evidence too often in his career to be intimidated by the theatricality of barristers. ‘By a Lieutenant Moroni who, my client says, was wearing a Red Indian headdress at the time.’
He paused irritably as a ripple of laughter ran along the public gallery … and certain parts of counsel’s benches. ‘And that this officer attempted somehow to implicate my client in a murder which had been committed in that city. Furthermore, Chief Superintendent, my client claims that he was threatened with the electric chair. I put it to you, Chief Superintendent, that instead of seeking his return under the extradition treaties which exist between this country and the United States of America, you deliberately arranged for my client to be threatened by the police in New York so that he would be coerced into returning to the jurisdiction of this court.’ He threw his glasses on to his brief and pushed his hands into his trouser pockets.
‘Really?’ said Fox.
Counsel’s mouth opened slightly before he returned to the fray. ‘Well, do you have an answer?’
‘If you have a question, sir,’ said Fox with a benevolent smile.
‘Let me put it another way,’ said counsel, suddenly aware that the police witness was no fool. ‘Did a Lieutenant Moroni threaten my client in New York City to the extent that he was terrified into returning to England?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What d’you mean, you don’t know?’
‘Firstly, I wasn’t in New York. In fact, I’ve never been to New York. Secondly, I don’t know whether your client was, in fact, coerced into returning to England,’ said Fox. ‘I was not privy to his state of mind at the time. But return he did.’
‘I do wish that counsel for Harris would refrain from asking convoluted questions.’ The rasping voice of the judge broke into the proceedings, and he glared at the high-lofted ceiling.
‘My lord?’ Harris’s counsel glanced at the judge, barely able to conceal the annoyance he felt at being interrupted.
‘These are fatuous questions,’ said the judge, raising his glasses to peer disconcertingly at the barrister. ‘This officer—’ he nodded towards Fox — ‘has stated that he wasn’t in New York and he cannot possibly know what went on there. You must know that any answer to such a question would be hearsay.’ The judge gave a dry cough. ‘If you are trying to put forward the proposition that your client returned to this country under some sort of duress, then so be it. Perhaps he should have been extradited, but he was not. I would remind you, however, that this court is not concerned with the manner in which your client was brought before it. He’s here and that’s all there is to it.’ The judge sighed. ‘Red Indians. Really!’
‘But, my lord—’
‘Have any enquiries been made of the New York police?’ asked the judge, determined to thwart any grounds for a later appeal.
‘Certain enquiries have been made, my lord, yes,’ said defence counsel reluctantly. He was beginning to regret his attempt to score points about the New York interview. He had raised it in the hope that Fox would be made to look unreliable and devious, a policeman who would cut corners. If that could be shown to be the case, the jury might well be doubtful about other parts of his evidence. That was the theory of the thing, anyway. But now that the judge had decided to pursue the story, it promised to blow up in counsel’s face.
‘And has this Lieutenant Moroni been traced … or interviewed?’
‘My enquiries indicate that there is no officer called Moroni in the New York police, my lord.’ Harris’s counsel looked quite crestfallen.
‘And no Red Indians either, one presumes?’ The judge smiled and the occupants of the public gallery took this as licence to laugh again.
‘No, my lord,’ mumbled the barrister.
‘I see. And is counsel aware that the death penalty in the State of New York is carried out by way of lethal injection and not electrocution?’
‘So I believe, my lord.’
‘And what was the locus in quo of this murder your client was allegedly accused of having conspired to commit?’
Counsel looked decidedly unhappy. ‘There are many murders in New York, my lord, and I’m afraid that it has not been possible to identify the one which the New York police were allegedly discussing.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said the judge, leaning forward. ‘I didn’t quite catch that.’
Harris’s discomfited counsel repeated his statement and the judge smiled sympathetically at the jury. ‘I can only apologize, ladies and gentlemen, for this waste of time,’ he said and returned his gaze to the well of the court. ‘So,’ he continued, ‘it amounts to this. Your client says that he was interviewed by a police officer in Red Indian headdress — a police officer now found not to exist — about a murder that seems not to have occurred, and threatened with a penalty which is not enshrined in the State of New York’s laws … such as they are.’
‘Er, yes, my lord. I suppose so.’
‘Perhaps then, you would oblige us all by asking questions of a less factitious nature, Mr, er … ’
‘As your lordship pleases,’ said counsel and turned to glower at the solicitor who had prepared the brief.
‘I do,’ said the judge.
The trial ended one month after it had begun. The jury, unimpressed by the glittering array of legal talent, found the accused guilty of the most serious charges. But just to demonstrate their independence, they threw out a few of the minor counts. And Alfie Penrose, who had turned Queen’s Evidence, actually walked free from the dock. That he was mysteriously run over and killed in East India Dock Road three days later by a car which did not stop, did not invoke anyone’s sympathy.
When the verdicts had been returned, the judge delivered sentences that he thought would dissuade anyone else from emulating the activities of Harris and company. With little ceremony, Steel and Guerrini were given life sentences for the murders of Carter, Crombie, and Rix, but the judge reserved his most swingeing address for Harris himself.
‘Thomas Wal
ter Harris,’ he began. ‘For many years you have behaved as though you are above the law and you have conducted numerous nefarious enterprises that have netted you vast sums of money. During your felonious rape—’
‘I never raped no one,’ shouted an agitated Harris.
‘Shut yer gate,’ said the prison officer next to him.
The judge frowned. ‘During your felonious rape of the society in which you live,’ he continued, ‘you have ridden roughshod over your fellow human beings. But like those of you who have gone before, you have to learn that there comes a day of reckoning. You will go to prison for life, and to ensure that you will not benefit from your ill-gotten gains, and to act as a salutary warning to other like-minded persons, I shall recommend that you be not released before the expiry of thirty years.’ The judge paused. ‘Oh, and I shall make an order of criminal bankruptcy,’ he added. ‘Put him down.’
‘Well, guv’nor, what have you got to say to that?’ asked Gilroy.
‘A large Scotch, please, Jack. See you in the Magpie and Stump in ten minutes.’
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