When I couldn’t find any trace of Caitlin online, I decided to pay a visit to a charity who dealt with people who had been left disabled by car accidents. YouKnight they were called. I visited their headquarters without invitation one day. Just so it would remove some guilt from my mindset. The charity is run by a bunch of saints; folk who give up their time for those in need. Nobody earns a cent for the work they do with people in need. I walked in, had no meeting booked or anything, just strolled towards a woman sitting at a random desk at the front of the dilapidated building.
‘I’m eh… here to just take a look around,’ I said. ‘I’m interested in maybe helping out if I can.’
‘Sure, we’d love that,’ the woman said. ‘I’ll call down Clara and she’d be happy to have a word with you.’
I sat on a chair as she made a phone call and took in my surroundings. It looked like a community centre, slightly run down, but with a lot of love attempting to cover over the cracks. There were paintings and drawings from patients dotted across the walls. Photographs of their faces, too. I wanted to believe one of the patients was called Caitlin. But I never found her.
‘Hi, can I help you?’ a woman said to my back.
‘Oh – hi,’ I replied turning around. ‘You must be Clara…’
I saw her face light up.
‘Jason Kenny. Wow – what are you doing here?’ she said, holding her hand out for me to shake.
‘I eh… I read about what you guys do and I want to help out.’ I put my hand inside my jacket, pulled out an envelope from my pocket.
‘I’m hoping you might take this for starters.’
I watched Clara’s face as she opened the envelope and pulled out the cheque. She lit up.
‘Are we late… did we miss the flight to Newcastle?’ I ask the first person we come across.
‘Eh…’ she scratches her head. ‘I can get you on. Quickly though.’
She holds her hand towards me.
‘Passport,’ she says.
‘We eh.. don’t have passports, but you take regular ID, right?’ I say.
She shakes her head.
‘We haven’t done that for a few years now. You need a passport to travel by air, even to Britain.’
Bollocks!
I sigh. A deep loud sigh, muffled by my hands spread across my face.
Then we all look to our feet and hobble off to sit on the horribly uncomfortable steel chairs.
‘I need to go to the loo,’ I say after a while.
I peel my back up, vertebrae by vertebrae, and head for the stairs.
‘Hold up,’ Zach shouts, jogging after me. ‘I need a piss meself.’
We both plod up the steps and when we reach the top, Zach holds a hand across my chest.
‘Hey, let’s book a hotel room across the way,’ he says.
‘Okay…’ I reply without really thinking it through. ‘Eh… what do we need a hotel for?’
‘C’mon man.’ Zach steps in front of me.
‘We’re both banging that bird tonight. I don’t care if it’s in your gaff in Newcastle or the Airport B&B. She’s too hot to not bang. We’re not letting this opportunity go.’
I squint my eyes at him. Try to make out whether he’s being serious or not. I don’t say a word. I just study his face.
‘C’mon man, you’re a fuckin’ footballer. This is what footballers do. They play football and fuck hot birds. How many times have I talked to you about a roasting, huh? Here’s the perfect opportunity. She’s mad for it.’
‘She’s not mad for it, she’s—’
‘She’s willing to take a flight with three strange blokes to Newcastle for fuck sake. She’s practically got her tits out all night… her nipples are fighting to stay inside that jumpsuit she’s wearing. She followed us to Coppers. She has ‘mad for it’ written all over her.’
I’m still staring at Zach’s face, still squinting.
‘She’s already kissed you, right?’ he says, not relenting. ‘Already kissed me. She’s probably down there sucking the face off Li as we speak.’
‘Hold on. She kissed you?’
‘Course she did. Was all over me on that rickshaw. She’s up for it, man. I’m tellin’ ye. C’mon – we owe each other this, Jason. You’re a pro footballer. I’ve always had a hard on for roasting some young one. I get mad jealous when I read about footballers doing this all the time. You know all I wanted was to be a footballer… I’ve missed out on all these opportunities. C’mon man… ye know what this would mean to me.’
I lean my head back against the wall. What Zach is saying is just noise. I’m barely listening to his bullshit anyway. I’m used to zoning out on him. He doesn’t see women as human beings… just as sex toys. It’s nothing new. It’s not the first time he’s mentioned roasting to me. And it won’t be the first time I turn down his offer either. But all I’m playing over and over in my head is an image of Sabrina kissing him. My heart feels heavy. I thought she was different; thought she was genuinely into me. I was even thinking I wouldn’t have sex with her tonight. That it’d be more romantic if I just got to know her. I was hoping we would just curl up, watch a movie together in my cinema room. Maybe have a few snogs under a blanket. But that’s all out the window now. She has no intentions of getting to know me. Zach’s right. She’s only after one thing. I fuckin’ hate being a celebrity.
I let out a sigh, zone back in to hear Zach still talking about fucking roastings.
‘Here mate, give us your phone,’ he says. ‘You go have a piss, I’ll book a hotel room nearby.’
I let out a loud sigh, clench both of my fists until my knuckles turn white. Then I release them slowly, finger by finger.
‘It’s okay,’ I say grabbing at my phone. ‘I’ll book it.’
9
Number Five’s silently hoping her face isn’t turning red as she coughs into her hand, aware all eyes are on her.
She sits more upright, eyeballs Number One and repeats what she’d said for emphasis.
‘Yeah – I have gone home with guys after meeting them that night. I think most women — definitely of my age or whatever — they would say the same. It doesn’t always lead to sex and I certainly wasn’t just going home with them for sex. But y’know… y’know…’ She begins to stutter.
‘Absolutely,’ Number Eleven says, backing Number Five up. ‘Socialising in these days is a lot different to what it was a generation ago. Both myself and Number Five have admitted to going back to guys’ houses after meeting them that night, and that’s just two girls out of seven in this room. I don’t—’
Number Seven holds her hand up, stopping Number Eleven in her tracks.
All jurors turn towards her.
‘Listen, I wouldn’t say this to most people… but I feel I need to say it here. I’ve done the same; have gone back to a man’s apartment after meeting him that night. Like Number Five said, it wasn’t necessarily for sex… I just… I just wanted the night to continue. I have a feeling Sabrina did the same thing here. I don’t think we should judge her just for wanting to go to Jason’s home. Agreeing to go to his house is not an agreement for sex.’
The jury room falls silent, save for the sound of a couple of jurors swallowing hard. The arguments are not only getting heated, they are getting personal too.
Brian tap claps his hands, in appreciation of the three jury members speaking their truth, though most view it as him seeking attention again.
‘Okay…’ Number One says, killing the silence. He shuffles his paperwork, wondering where they should go next with their deliberations. ‘Ah yes,’ he says, ‘the taxi driver who drove them to the airport… what did we make of his testimo—?’
‘Inshignificant,’ Brian spits out before Number One has finished the question. ‘Well, inshignificant in terms of he didn’t really add much, did he? He jusht said that he drove them to the airport.’
‘I agree with Brian,’ Number Five says, generating stares from around the table. It was the first time Numbe
r Five had agreed with anything Brian had said. ‘All this fella said was that Li sat in the front, Jason, Zach and Sabrina in the back and that there were no signals of discomfort or anything. I didn’t see his testimony as helpful in any way.’
‘Yeah — I’m surprised the judge allowed it,’ says Number One. ‘I mean what did it do for either side?’
‘Well, the defence tried their best to make him say Sabrina was comfortable, right?’ Number Seven says. ‘But yeah… it doesn’t add anything to the case because Sabrina admits herself that she was quite comfortable at this stage.’
‘I guess the judge just wanted the testimony of all those who interacted with the four of them throughout the night; thought it would benefit us. The rickshaw guy testified, the taxi man who brought them to the airport… the taxi man who then dropped them from the airport to the hotel… I guess his testimony was kinda insignificant too, huh?’
A nod of heads circulates the table.
Trevor Coyne — a fifty-two-year-old taxi driver for over two decades — also testified, despite only driving the three men and Sabrina for less than five minutes from one side of the airport to the other. He described Zach as being ‘snappy’ and ‘a little hostile’ but aside from that offered nothing of significance during his time on the stand. In rape cases — especially ones like this where there is an admission of sex from both sides, but a discrepancy over whether or not it was consensual — evidence is hard to come by. Judge McCormick was trying to give the jurors an overall picture of the night in question, by allowing the rickshaw driver and taxi drivers to give accounts of their time spent with all four players.
Delia McCormick has thirteen years’ experience of presiding over trials. This has been her tenth rape trial to judge. In eight of those trials, the defendant — or defendants — were found to be not guilty. Rape is one of the most difficult crimes to earn a conviction in. In fact rape is one of the most difficult crimes to even make it to trial. This trial barely made it because evidence is practically non-existent. This whole case relies heavily on the statements of witnesses. And even at that, there are zero witnesses to the actual crime itself. Except, of course, for the four people involved; three of whom offer almost the exact same account of the specific half-an-hour — between midnight and half-past midnight on the night in question during which the claimant claims she was raped — while her account is, obviously, in stark contrast to theirs. ‘The odd one out’ as defence lawyer Gerd Bracken suggested during his closing argument.
The only hard evidence offered to the court was that delivered by Dr Dermot Johnson – the doctor Sabrina visited two days after the incident. He professed that the internal cut Sabrina suffered was ‘certainly as a result of rough intercourse’, backing Sabrina’s claim. Though under cross examination, Dr Johnson was forced to admit that cuts like the one found inside Sabrina can occur as a result of consensual sex. He did suggest on the stand that this type of cut wouldn’t occur if intercourse was being enjoyed by the claimant, but this vital piece of expert evidence washed over the jurors.
‘If Ms Doyle,’ he said on the stand, ‘was a full participant in the intercourse and — as a result — was producing cervical fluid, this cut would likely not have occurred.’ He was trying to state, in his opinion, that this cut was the result of non-consensual sex; that Sabrina’s vagina must have been dry in order to be cut. But every time Number Eleven — the only juror affected by the doctor’s testimony — tried to bring this up, she was shut down.
‘If the cut can happen in consensual sex then it’s insignificant isn’t it?’ Number Twelve had said, his arms out almost in apology. All of the other jurors agreed with him on this. They agreed to wash over Dr Johnson’s testimony; felt the defence lawyer’s counter argument overshadowed it.
‘So, given your expertise, Doctor Johnson, can you inform the jury that these cuts can — and indeed do — occur from consensual intercourse?’ Gerd Bracken asked.
Dr Johnson, being the noble and honest man he is, nodded his head, moved closer to the microphone and said ‘yes’.
That was enough for the jurors to forget the main point he was trying to make; that Sabrina mustn’t have been producing ‘cervical fluid’ during the intercourse. Had he not been so technical with his phraseology, this argument might have rung more true with more jurors than just Number Eleven. Had Sabrina’s lawyer highlighted this part of the doctor’s testimony by describing it in layman’s terms, using words such as ‘cum’, or ‘wet’ or ‘moist’ then the jurors would have considered it more readily. As it was, Dr Johnson’s testimony — which Judge McCormick felt was pivotal in the trial — was far from pivotal in the minds of eleven of the twelve jurors.
‘It seems it’s all we have to go on, innit?’ says Number Three. Just random people’s words. How are we supposed to convict these three men when we have such little evidence to use against them?’
‘It’sh what I’ve been saying all along,’ Brian says, his face gurning into a smug grin. ‘There jusht isn’t enough evidensh to convict.’
Number Three taps her fingers against her wheelchair armrest again, then takes in a loud breath through her nostrils.
‘But how do prosecutors provide evidence in a case like this? How is a girl who has been raped supposed to get a conviction against those who raped her when they all agree that sex did indeed take place? The argument is consensual or not consensual isn’t it? But how are we supposed to know?’
The room falls silent again. Some jurors shake their heads. The speed in which their discussion turned once they felt they were on their way to a verdict has stalled. There’s been more silences in the past fifteen minutes than there had been for the entirety of the three-hours of deliberating before that.
‘I just… I just,’ Number Three says, pushing a finger to her eyeball, forcing the tear that threatened to fall from it back inside. ‘I know we’re not supposed to let our own personal feelings dictate our argument, but I can’t help but think that if Sabrina was raped — and I think she was — we can’t let these men get away with it. It’s our job to deliver justice.’
‘That’sh not true,’ says Brian. ‘It’s the judge’s job to deliver jushtice. Our job is to weigh up the arguments. That’s all.’
Number Three snorts in an attempt to suck back up the tear that has now begun to fall down her cheek.
‘I think I have to change my mind,’ she says. ‘I have to go from guilty to not guilty. I thought all along that I’d decide guilty, because I believe in my heart that Sabrina was raped. Well…’ she says, holding up her palm before steadying her breathing, ‘I believe that Sabrina feels she was raped. That, I genuinely believe. The three men might not think it was rape, but she certainly does.’
Then the tears come quicker. She holds her entire face in the palms of her hands and begins to sob.
Number Three’s emotions reverberate around the table. She wasn’t supposed to be the one to crack. She had proven to other jurors that she was strong minded, probably because she was weak in body.
Number Three’s real name is Caitlin Tyrell. She’s just turned thirty. She’s been in a wheelchair since three months before her tenth birthday when she was run over by a car a mere ninety-metres from her home in Howth, County Dublin. It was a hit and run; the driver never caught. She underwent almost three years of rehab before she was allowed home full-time. Since then she has gone on to live a happy life. She works as a receptionist at a health club in Dublin’s city centre and recently got engaged to a man who suffered a similar tragedy to herself; he too wheelchair bound for life. She had felt, from the very outset, that all three men in this case were guilty; she just damned the lack of evidence, so much so that she was now beginning to change her mind.
The tears currently rolling down her face have nothing to do with Sabrina – as most jurors assume they do. She is crying because she has just — in the past few moments — realised that she has to find all three men not guilty of this charge, even though she doesn’t want
to. Her head is overruling her heart. And that’s exactly how it should be when you sit on a jury.
Despite Number Three’s realisation, she is hopeful that an argument can be raised that will help her change her mind once more. But she’s not confident of that. She’s been through everything in her head countless times… she doesn’t think such an argument exists. Her tears are tears of frustration, tears of guilt almost. She wants to see Jason, Zach and Li go down.
Number Eleven rubs Number Three’s back and offers a sympathetic turning down of her lips.
‘I know how you feel,’ she whispers into her ear.
‘This is difficult for all of us,’ Number One says, standing up. ‘None of us could have predicted just how emotional this would be. I almost feel like crying myself sometimes. In fact I’ve found myself wiping my eyes when I’m in bed at night these past few days as the trial culminated… but I guess we need to try to push emotion aside for now and give full focus to our mission: debating the arguments raised in this case and eventually coming to a verdict.’
Number Three sniffs and nods frantically at the same time, to agree with Number One’s sentiment. She sweeps the palm of her right hand across her face, removing any moisture left and then smiles up at the Head Juror.
‘I guess,’ he says to her, ‘when this is all finished, we’ll all be crying. This will bear a heavy scar on all of us.’
A succession of tuts are heard around the table; not tuts of irritation, but tuts of sorrow.
‘The hotel,’ Number One then says before sitting down and re-adjusting his glasses.
Brian interrupts him.
‘Yesh… the hotel. It’s one thing that Sabrina wanted to go to Newcashtle, to maybe see how the other half lived, to witness the luxuries a professional footballer possesses… but why go to a hotel room with three strangers, a hotel room that ish only twenty minutes from her own home?’
She Said, Three Said Page 17