Читать книгу Confessions of a Barrister - Russell Winnock - Страница 15

Back in my room at chambers, my three roommates Amir, Jenny and Angus were crouched over Amir’s desk looking at some photographs of a pavement.

As I walked in, Amir shouted across at me, ‘What do you think, Russ,’ he said, ‘we’re having a debate as to whether this paving stone is a hazard or not. Angus thinks that it is, Jenny thinks that it isn’t.’

‘Course it bloody isn’t,’ interjected Jenny, ‘only if you were completely pissed and wearing high heels, and then it’s your own fault, frankly.’

‘Was the complainant wearing high-heeled shoes and pissed?’ I asked.

‘No,’ said Amir, ‘he was a pensioner.’

‘Well they’re always falling over,’ said Jenny.

‘They need to be protected,’ said Angus, ‘the duty of care is totally with the council on this.’

‘What do you think, Ammie?’ I asked.

He looked back at the pavement – ‘My instinct says that this will settle,’ he told me.

And there it is, that word: instinct. It’s absolutely fundamental to our line of work. The ability to sniff the air and guess correctly what’s being blown towards you; the ability, learned from experience, to accurately predict what will happen in a given case.

Instinct is vital because, as barristers, we are often in a state of ignorance. Think about it: I am not allowed to converse with a jury, I have to guess what they will make of evidence, what they will understand and what they will not. Similarly, I have to second-guess the position of a Judge. I have to instinctively know what will annoy him or her, and what will soothe. And finally, I occasionally have to reach into the mind of a criminal or a client, work out what they are thinking and what advice will be best for them in their particular circumstances.

I’m not saying that I always get it right, what I am saying is that instinct is important and it’s not something that can be taught in a book or in a lecture theatre, it is something that is acquired over years of practice, it is something that is honed by getting things wrong, by irritating Judges, by watching others.

It is one of the reasons why barristers get so cross when successive governments have tried to undermine our profession by reducing our rates of pay and allowing others who are not as qualified, not as experienced, who don’t possess the instinct, to do our job.

In the case of Porky Pie West my instinct told me that she would not get the injunction she wanted, my instinct also told me that the deal that was being offered was a good one, and that she should take it.

Okay, it was a quick decision. It could turn out to be the wrong decision. As Mrs Murdoch said, I’ll only know if Mr West comes back and throttles his wife. But, somehow, I don’t think that that will happen – somehow, my instinct tells me that out of Porky and her branded husband, the most likely person to see the inside of a courtroom again will be her.

As my colleagues discuss pavements, my mind goes back to the case of Harvey Mannerley.

It was one of my first cases, and it showed me just how important instinct was going to be in my career as a barrister.

Harvey Mannerley was a rather pathetic individual in his mid-twenties. He was accused of harassing an eighteen-year-old girl he had met whilst they were both working in a supermarket warehouse. The girl was called India Williams. She was about to go off to university and found herself, as part of a summer job, working alongside Harvey – well, I say alongside, the reality is that India didn’t really take much notice of Harvey.

Where she was young and beautiful with a radiant, gleamingly effervescent smile that was just about to be unleashed onto the world in a million exciting ways, Harvey was a sad man with pallid grey skin and black hair that sat on his head as a greasy afterthought. He was thin and gaunt and had the look of someone who spent hours in his own bedroom, wanking.

He convinced himself that India was smiling for him and he embarked upon a campaign of letter writing. He would send her long, sinister anonymous letters in which he would tell her in fairly unsubtle detail what he wanted to do to her. In short, he was a stalker.

The evidence was overwhelming – his fingerprints were found on some of the envelopes and a handwriting expert had stated that there was extremely strong evidence to suggest that the handwriting on the letters belonged to Harvey Mannerley.

The case took place in small town Magistrates Court. I was young, barely 24, fresh out of Bar School – with very little experience and very little instinct. I was told that I wouldn’t have a solicitor with me – you rarely do in the Magistrates Court – and my instructions simply invited me to do my best in the face of very strong evidence.

I met Harvey in the reception area and took him down to a small, airless, windowless conference room in the basement. He wouldn’t look me in the eye; something that now, with a few years under my belt, I know is a bad sign. Back then, I knew nothing.

I sat him down and after introducing myself decided to tell him how grave the evidence was. ‘I’ve got be honest with you, Mr Mannerley,’ I said, ‘I think you’ve got a few problems today.’

At this he looked up at me, seething. ‘I’m not going guilty,’ he spat, ‘there’s no way I’m going guilty.’

‘No one’s trying to make you plead to anything,’ I said.

I paused. The pause was a mistake, a sign of my weakness, my inexperience and lack of confidence, a sign that I wasn’t in control. I now continued in a rather stuttering way. ‘I respect and appreciate that, that’s fine, but, Mr Mannerley—’

Before I could say anything more, he interjected again, ‘I ain’t pleading guilty. No way. I ain’t done nothing.’

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘then can you tell me why your fingerprints are on those envelopes?’

He shrugged. ‘Whoever was sending them must have got them from the supermarket where I was working – I used to handle hundreds of envelopes – it doesn’t prove anything.’

I sucked my lips in and nodded as enthusiastically as I could.

‘Okay, that’s fine.’ I paused again. It allowed Mannerley to look at me and work out that I wasn’t quite as experienced as I was trying to make out.

‘How long have you been doing this for?’ he asked.

‘That doesn’t matter,’ I said.

‘It bloody does to me,’ said Mannerley, ‘you fucking come in here, telling me to plead guilty.’

‘Look, Mr Mannerley, I haven’t told you to plead anything. I’m simply pointing out that the evidence is strong.’

‘No it’s not, it’s shit, they can’t prove anything. No one has seen me do anything.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘not only are there the fingerprints, but there’s also a handwriting expert who says that your handwriting is the same as that in the letters.’

‘That’s just his opinion.’

‘Well, he is an expert. He spends his life having opinions about people’s handwriting. And,’ I continued, ‘the girl herself is convinced it’s you – because of some of the things that you’d said to her.’

He snorted contemptuously at this, then put his hands over his ears and shouted at me – ‘I am not fucking pleading guilty. Do. You. Understand?’

At this point, I was actually quite nervous. I realised that I was sitting in a room with a man who may have been capable of anything. I decided that the best thing to do was to simply go into court. ‘Come on then, Mr Mannerley,’ I said and we made our way into the courtroom where I would mount the defence of ‘it wasn’t me, Guv,’ despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The Magistrates sat looking at us: the usual three upstanding pillars of the community who are plucked from their day jobs to pass judgement over petty criminals, speeding motorists and those who pose a nuisance to their communities. In this case, the Chairman of the Bench was a tall angular man called The Doctor, because, well, he was a doctor. To the right of him was a man who looked a bit like a frog, and to his left was a woman who looked like she should have been at the Conservative Party Conference lamenting the passing of Margaret Thatcher.

Harvey Mannerley sat on a chair behind a desk to my left. Further along sat the prosecutor. The prosecutor was a Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) advocate by the name of Joe Hunter. I’d only ever been against him once before when he spent most of the time telling the Clerk of the Court how much he was looking forward to his retirement. He was grey and bored and clearly under-prepared. He stuttered as he told the Magistrates what the case was all about – then he called his first witness: Miss India Williams.

India made her way, nervously, into the courtroom and towards the witness box. She was attractive, dignified and harmless – everything that Harvey Mannerley was not. I looked over to my client and saw that he was staring intently at her; he seemed to rise slightly in his chair, as though trying to get a better look. It was creepy.

The prosecutor, Hunter, started to question the witness, inviting her to tell the court her version of events. At first everything was normal. She told of how she was working at Shopsmart Warehouse as a stock clerk and receptionist in the summer before she was due to go to university (the bench love the reference to university, they always do – in their eyes, it instantly makes her a more compelling and credible witness). She told them that Mannerley had also worked there and that she had been friendly to him, but not in a special way.

Then things got a bit weird. Hunter, inexplicably, handed her the letters and asked her to read them out. Miss Williams, clearly uncomfortable, dutifully started to read out the first letter. The contents were extreme, a childish attempt to describe pornographic desires. It was filth. Pages and pages of what he wanted to do to her in the toilets and in the staff room and round the back of the frozen food section. I squirmed uncomfortably in my seat as this young girl was made to read out the words of this horrible, delusional pervert.

And I knew they were Mannerley’s words. I just knew it. I know I’ve already said that we don’t ponder for too long about our clients’ guilt or innocence, and I know I’ve said that it is no business of ours if the court convicts or acquits – but, in this case, it was overwhelmingly clear that the words being so innocently read out by this girl had been written by my client.

Even worse, though, was the reaction of Harvey Mannerley. I looked over to him – he was entranced – this was his fantasy brought to life. The trial was no longer a test of his innocence or guilt, but had become an extension of his crime.

I looked over to Joe Hunter, who was stood, disinterested, probably counting the days until he was on his boat or in his French retirement home; I looked at the bench, at the Doctor and the Frog and the Thatcher woman, who were just sitting there impassive.

Then I looked back at Harvey Mannerley – who was now rubbing his thighs in barely contained excitement.

This had to stop. My instinct told me that I had to do something. Even though Mannerley was my client, there was no way I could allow this to go on so I stood up.

‘Sir,’ I said, addressing the Doctor. I wasn’t sure what to say next – you are not taught in Bar School what to do when your client is actually getting off on his own words being read out by his victim.

‘Yes, Mr Winnock?’

‘Er, can I have a brief adjournment please?’ Mannerley shot me the type of look that a toddler might give to his parent when being pulled out of a toyshop. ‘I need to take some instructions from my client.’

The Doctor conferred with his colleagues and nodded at me.

I turned to Mannerley. ‘Come on,’ I said to him – and we went back to the small, airless conference room we were in before.

‘Sit down,’ I said. I had no idea how I should deal with this, so I decided to lie. ‘This is terrible,’ I said.

‘Why?’

‘Because,’ I told him, ‘this girl is giving evidence in a way that means that this Magistrates Court are going to send you to prison for four years.’

‘What?’

‘Four years,’ I repeated, slowly, even though I knew full well that the maximum sentence that they could impose for this offence in this court was six months.

‘Imagine that. Four years in prison, four years of no TV, no computer, no nothing. You, and all manner of psychos and perverts. Do you want that, Mr Mannerley? Because that is what is going to happen if you continue with this.’

At this point Mannerley got up to his feet and started to slowly circle the room, his head in his hands. He was mumbling something – and he was becoming increasingly loud and more and more agitated. I could hear him behind me. I braced myself, expecting him to hit me.

Thud.

I flinched. But he hadn’t hit me, I turned around to see Mannerley standing in the corner, banging his head against the wall – ‘You all think I’m guilty, you all think I’m guilty.’

‘I don’t,’ I said, which was another lie, ‘I just don’t want you to spend more time in prison than you have to.’

He turned to me, seething. His fists clenched. His teeth gritted in vicious hatred of me, and, just as likely, of himself. I stood there, looking him in the eye, bracing myself for the violence that I was sure was about to follow.

Instead, though, he turned away from me and ran out of the conference room and out of the court building.

My heart pounding, I went back into court.

‘I am sorry,’ I said to the bench, ‘I’m afraid that Mr Mannerley has just run away.’

The Doctor looked at me – ‘Mr Winnock,’ he said witheringly, ‘we realise that it’s not your fault that Mr Mannerley has decided to abscond, but we do question whether it was right for you to ask for a break whilst Miss Williams was in the middle of her evidence.’

I nodded and apologised, because that is what you are supposed to do, but I wasn’t sorry that I’d brought the ordeal to an end. Not for one second. The Doctor then granted what’s known as a bench warrant for the arrest of Harvey Mannerley, which would mean that the police could arrest him as soon as he was discovered.

As I left court I spotted India Williams standing with her, clearly, very nice parents – they were talking in hushed tones. I went to walk past them, then stopped and turned around.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’m not supposed to say this, but if they ever arrest Harvey Mannerley, and if there is another trial, for god’s sake, tell the prosecutor that you won’t read out any of those letters. You don’t need to. The prosecutor can either hand them up, or read them himself without you being in the room.’

I smiled politely and left.

For the record, Harvey Mannerley was arrested four months later. Thankfully I didn’t have to represent him again. As it happened, on that occasion, he pleaded guilty and was made subject to a Community Order.

Did I do the right thing? My instinct tells me that I did, but you’ll make up your own minds.