Judge Walden: Back in Session E-Book

Peter Murphy

• Herausgeber: No Exit Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Walden of Bermondsey
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 629

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Judge Walden is back, to preside over five new cases at Bermondsey Crown Court. Retired resident judge Peter Murphy takes us back to the world of criminal trials in South London for another session with Charlie keeping the peace between his fellow judges - Marjorie, 'Legless' and Hubert - while fighting off the attacks of the Grey Smoothies, the civil servants who seem intent on reducing the court's dwindling resources to vanishing point in the name of 'business cases' and 'value for money'. Meet the rum and memorable characters who pop into Charlie's domain, including Lester Fogle from one of London's Disorganised Crime Families, Arthur Swivell the one-time Bermondsey singing legend and the very unbardlike Elias Shakespeare. And you will never feel the same about 'The Owl and the Pussycat' or the Entente Cordiale again. Fortunately, Charlie has Elsie and Jeanie's lattes and ham and cheese baps, and newspaper vendor George's witty banter, to sustain him in the mornings; and in the evenings, the Delights of the Raj, or La Bella Napoli, to enjoy with the Reverend Mrs Walden.

Leseprobe

JUDGE WALDEN: BACK IN SESSION

Resident judge Charlie Walden is back, to preside over a new collection of stories from the Bermondsey Crown Court. Retired resident judge Peter Murphy takes us back to the world of criminal trials in South London, with Charlie keeping the peace between his fellow judges – Marjorie, ‘Legless’ and Hubert – while fighting off attacks of the Grey Smoothies, the civil servants who seem intent on reducing the court’s dwindling resources to vanishing point in the name of ‘business cases’ and ‘value for money’. Fortunately, he has Jeanie and Elsie’s lattes and ham and cheese baps, and newspaper vendor George’s witty banter, to sustain him in the mornings; and in the evenings, the Delights of the Raj, or La Bella Napoli, to enjoy with the Reverend Mrs Walden, priest in charge of the church of St Aethelburgh and All Angels in the Diocese of Southwark.

About the author

Peter Murphy graduated from Cambridge University and spent a career in the law, as an advocate, teacher, and judge. He has worked both in England and the United States, and served for several years as counsel at the Yugoslavian War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. He has written seven novels: two political thrillers about the US presidency, Removal and Test of Resolve; five historical/legal thrillers featuring Ben Schroeder, A Higher Duty, A Matter for the Jury, And is there Honey still for Tea? The Heirs of Owain Glyndwr and Calling Down the Storm. He lives in Cambridgeshire.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

FOR WALDEN OF BERMONDSEY

‘No one writes with more wit, warmth and insight about the law and its practitioners than Peter Murphy. He has no equal since the great John “Rumpole” Mortimer’ – David Ambrose

‘Though his exasperation is sometimes palpable, what triumphs over everything is his sense of humour. And it is the humour that makes Walden of Bermondsey such a delightful read. Think of him as what Rumpole would be like if he ever became a judge, and you get some idea of his self-deprecating wit and indomitable stoicism. Add a dash of Henry Cecil for his situation and AP Herbert for the fun he has with the law, and you get a sense of his literary precedents’ – Paul Magrath

FOREWORD

By Lord Judge, former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales

Charles Walden, the Resident Judge of Bermondsey Crown Court, is amply qualified for inclusion in any list of fictional National Treasures.

With the support of his delightful wife, the Reverend Mrs Walden, he is able to fulfil his judicial, pastoral and administrative responsibilities at a small Crown Court. He has the advantage that his cases are always interesting. In this second collection of his experiences, for example, he describes how the defendant in one case was mortified at the deliberate insult paid to him and his family when the police sought to treat him as a minor criminal; in another, the defendant is a vicar seeking mortification of the flesh for penitential relief. Beyond the ongoing trials themselves there is always a simultaneous compelling outside distraction impacting on the work of the Court, not least the discovery of an ancient artefact, now, after a struggle with bureaucracy, forever to be identified as the Bermondsey Cannon.

Judge Walden is a wise, patient and thoughtful judge, cocooned by his self-deprecating humour against that dreadful disease, ‘judgitis’. He is not anxious to emerge from the ‘jurisprudential shadows’ into the ‘predatory’ sights of the Court of Appeal. He is acutely aware of the foibles, and prejudices of his colleagues, but recognises that together they form a sound judicial team. He notices the qualities of the advocates who appear in front of him, describing one advocate who prefers to muddy the waters rather than pour oil on them, and another who is excellent, short and to the point. The forensic process is examined in a light touch, good-humoured style, which will evoke a constant stream of smiles, and chuckles from nonlawyers and lawyers alike.

At times there is a sharper tone to the humour, never departing from the humorous but occasionally touching the satirical. At these times, the defendants, the witnesses, and indeed all those directly participating in the judicial processes form the backdrop, while the main focus shifts to others. Sometimes this focus falls on the senior judiciary. But Judge Walden’s particular anxiety is the way in which the ‘Grey Smoothies’, as they call them at Bermondsey, do not always appreciate the true nature of judicial responsibility. When they are being obtuse, he is nevertheless extremely skilful at finding or waiting for a satisfactory solution to emerge. Within this sharper tone you can discern some of the frustrations and anxieties of the judiciary in the Crown and County Courts. This collection is much more than a series of funny legal stories.

I like Judge Charles Walden, the human being as well as the judge, and I have come to relish and respect his subtle, thoughtful insights into and observations arising from all the processes by which justice is administered in his Crown Court.

Igor Judge

WHO STEALS MY PURSE

Monday morning

Few words uttered by a member of staff at any Crown Court are more calculated to strike fear into the heart of a judge than those our list officer, Stella, spoke this morning when she came into my chambers to go over the week’s schedule. Stella is given to sounding rather like the voice of impending doom, but I don’t blame her for that at all. There’s a lot that can go wrong in Stella’s job. She has the unenviable task of making the work of four judges and four courtrooms run smoothly, in the face of the constant efforts of defendants, solicitors, barrister’s clerks, the Crown Prosecution Service, and not infrequently the judges themselves, to throw spanners into the works. Stella has learned to see catastrophe lurking just around every corner, and as a result, often sounds rather fraught. So I make every allowance. But her tone has conditioned me to expect the worst whenever she comes into chambers, and this morning my expectations have been fully realised.

Such a shame. I’d passed a very agreeable weekend with my good lady, the Reverend Mrs Walden, priest in charge of the church of St Aethelburgh and All Angels in the Diocese of Southwark. On Saturday, the parish held its annual spring fete – insofar as any parish in Inner London can credibly hold an event with such a bucolic ring to it as a spring fete. It was all very Jam and Jerusalem: the choir belting out a selection of thoroughly modern hymns no one else seemed to know, accompanied by the church’s resident guitar and vocal duo, Ian and Shelley; a bouncy castle for the children; stalls selling candyfloss and ice cream and doubtful-looking hot dogs; others inviting you to throw a ball and knock various items off a shelf, or score a double twenty at darts, to win a stuffed animal or a box of chocolates: and of course, the inevitable tombola and raffles to raise money for various parish projects.

It was the kind of thing that would have seemed more natural in a churchyard in rural Lincolnshire, surrounded by open fields and ancient trees, than one in Bermondsey, surrounded by your stereotypical inner city decay. But due in part perhaps to the beautiful weather, it was surprisingly well attended, and the Reverend Mrs Walden pronounced it a great success, which it therefore was. This led to a very pleasant evening for the two of us at La Bella Napoli, where we partook of sea bass baked in salt, roast potatoes, spinach with garlic, and a bottle of the house’s special reserve Chianti to wash it down. And on the following morning, the sermon had positive, cheerful themes – not always the case with the Reverend Mrs Walden, who can sometimes give way to a certain judgmental tendency when it comes to the perceived shortcomings of her congregation.

In addition, this morning I have a very pleasant stroll in to work. As always, I call into my favourite coffee and sandwich bar, which is run by two ladies called Elsie and Jeanie in a small archway under the railway bridge, not far from London Bridge station. It gets crowded if they have more than two customers at a time, but they do a wonderful latte. The only slight downside is that often, while it’s being prepared, I have to listen to a litany of complaints. Jeanie has a husband who likes a flutter on the horses or the football; Elsie has grandchildren I’m probably going to see in court one of these days when they’ve graduated from the Youth Court. But not this morning. This morning, Jeanie prepares my latte with unusual enthusiasm, the result, she confides in me, of her husband’s success in his betting activities over the weekend. Jeanie’s report of this is highly technical, and features such terms as accumulators and cashing out early, which rather elude me; but the net result is that he has done very well for himself, and she is understandably pleased that the rent money is safe for the month – which isn’t always the case. Elsie tells me proudly that her grandchildren have managed to stay out of trouble for the second consecutive weekend – which also isn’t always the case. Next door to Elsie and Jeanie is my newsagent, George, who is in just as good a mood, handing me my copy of the Times with a cheerful, ‘Good morning, guv’, and not a bad word about the Labour Party. So I arrive in chambers in an excellent frame of mind. But a matter of seconds after I take my seat behind my desk and start to savour my latte, Stella enters in full Angel of Doom mode, and announces –

‘You’ve got Lester Fogle, Judge, and he’s representing himself.’

A defendant acting in person is the prelude to a nightmare of a trial. American lawyers are so traumatised by it that they try to cover up the horror by putting it in Latin – they refer to it as the defendant acting ‘pro se’. I don’t see how that improves the situation; I suspect that trials with a defendant acting ‘pro se’ are just as bad as those with the defendant acting in person. Mercifully, despite the ravages wrought by the government on the legal aid system, we have not yet reached the situation in the Crown Court in which defendants have to represent themselves because they can’t afford a lawyer and the state won’t provide one. So defendants representing themselves are still something of a rarity, and when you encounter one, it’s almost always because the defendant thinks he can do a better job than a barrister or solicitor of convincing a jury that there may be some reasonable doubt about his guilt. The statistics don’t support this brand of optimism; in fact, the reverse is true. But the kind of defendant who prefers to act in person is not the kind of person who sets great store by statistics, and even when they are brought to his attention by the judge, he remains convinced that he is the exception that proves the rule. When convicted, he will complain that the judge or jury, or both, were biased against him, or that the police engaged in some skulduggery to take him down; but never that he was just another statistic.

During the trial itself, he can be his own worst enemy. The judge is legally obliged to bend over backwards to help a defendant acting in person, and we do make a sincere effort. Every stage of the trial is explained to the defendant, he is told what options he has, and the judge will always give assistance if he can’t think of the right question to ask a witness. Defendants often don’t have the first idea of how to examine a witness; or of the difference between asking questions and hurling abuse; or between asking questions and making a speech to the jury. But however helpful the judge tries to be, the defendant often interprets it as an effort to prejudice him in the eyes of the jury. So towards the end of the trial, it’s usual for a certain tension, if not outright animosity, to have developed between judge and defendant, and it can occasionally get out of hand. Trials with a defendant in person take longer, and involve many more headaches than trials in which the defendant is represented, even by a lawyer who’s not one of the stars of the Bermondsey Bar.

In addition to that, the defendant is Lester Fogle. I don’t know Lester personally, but I know of him, and I am well acquainted with his family. I had a considerable number of professional dealings with them in the old days, when I was in practice as a barrister. The Fogles are one of a group of local families known affectionately to the Bar as the ‘Disorganised Crime Families’, or to the more cosmopolitan as ‘Le Cinque Famiglie di Bermondsey’. There’s no reason for the Gambino or Genovese families to lose any sleep over Le Cinque Famiglie di Bermondsey. The Fogles in particular have a delusional view of themselves as Bermondsey’s undisputed crime lords, but their main claim to fame within the criminal justice community is their propensity to get nicked and sent down on a regular basis. Indeed, they are notorious for having perpetrated some of the most spectacular cock-ups in the annals of London crime. But their attrition rate has never seemed to discourage them from leaping headlong into the world of serious crime on a generational basis, and apparently Lester is one of the current cadre of Bermondsey ‘made guys’ who thinks he’s terrorising South London.

Sitting in chambers waiting for the day’s proceedings in court to begin, I scan the file and go through Lester’s antecedents. His record follows a familiar pattern. It begins with the exploratory minor offences typical of young offenders starting out – shoplifting, criminal damage and the like – and gradually escalates to handling stolen goods, and finally to robbery, the family’s main business. When Lester’s father Bill and his uncle Tony – my main client in the family – were active, the fashion was for hijacking lorries. Today it seems to have moved on to knocking over jeweller’s shops and the occasional building society. It’s all rather depressing. Lester is thirty-five now, and hasn’t learned at all from the experience of his father and uncle, both of whom spent long periods of their lives inside, leaving their world-weary wives to carry on as best they could. This time, I glean from the indictment, it’s a bit less serious. He’s charged with stealing a car. Not just any car, admittedly: a classic 1965 Volkswagen Beetle lovingly preserved in pristine condition by its owner, one Raymond Hunter Lewis, which was found by police parked in the driveway of Lester’s house, standing there for all to see, two days after Mr Lewis had reported the theft. Lester was duly nicked.

I’m not going to get to him immediately, needless to say. It’s Monday morning, and I have a courtroom full of advocates waiting to make and oppose bail applications, and to conduct plea and case management hearings in cases to come to trial in the future. The first three of these involve defendants in custody appearing by way of live link from the prison. The live link system was introduced several years ago by the Grey Smoothies – the name we use at Bermondsey to refer to the civil servants responsible for the running of the courts – as a measure designed to save time and expense, specifically the time and expense of the prison authorities in bringing defendants to court in time for their hearings. Saving money for the taxpayer is the Grey Smoothies’ consuming passion; which would be all well and good but for the magical thinking that goes with it, according to which the courts will continue to function just as efficiently, regardless of how much of our resources they take away by means of cuts, and regardless of how much they dismantle our proven methods of working.

The live link is a prime example. You have to book appointments for each live link individually, at intervals of fifteen minutes. If a hearing runs longer than expected; or if the defendant hasn’t had the chance to confer with his counsel or solicitor beforehand; or if the prison has overlooked a defendant and left him in his cell; or if the link goes down because of one of any number of technical problems, any subsequent hearings may have to be abandoned and the defendants brought to court later in the week for a personal appearance. If the defendants made a personal appearance in the first place there wouldn’t be any technical problems, and I could juggle the list to take whichever case was ready at any given moment and give the others time to get ready. With live link that’s impossible, and with all of this going on, it’s not unusual for it to be eleven o’clock or later before I get to whatever trial I may have in progress or about to start. Meanwhile I have a jury of taxpayers cooling their heels upstairs, doing nothing and wondering why everything in court takes so long. Today, I lose two plea and case management hearings until Thursday because we are late for our appointments.

Lester has dressed up nicely for court, in a smart light blue suit and tie, his shoes nicely shined. I’m not surprised. That would be the influence of his uncle Tony, who always looked the very image of the innocent businessman whenever I represented him – which was a fair bit over the years. He’s been on bail, and my court clerk, Carol, tells me that he arrived at court at nine o’clock sharp. I’m not surprised by that either – Tony was always scrupulous about arriving at court in good time for every hearing.

I notice, too, that he’s brought Archbold with him. That’s something else I remember from the old days. Some families have family bibles. The Fogles have Archbold, and in my day never came to court without it. I remember fondly sitting in a conference room at the Inner London Sessions, listening to Tony explain to me, referring me to the text, why his appropriation of a huge quantity of railway signalling wire from the side of the tracks couldn’t amount to theft because it appeared to have been abandoned. ‘I mean, it says it right here, it’s “res derelicta”, innit, guv?’ But the volume Lester has brought with him looks as though it may be seriously out of date. Tony and Bill wouldn’t have been seen dead with anything other than the current edition, but with the younger generation it seems standards have slipped. I ask our usher, Dawn, to borrow a copy of the current edition from the library and loan it to Lester for the duration. There are few things more dangerous than an out-of-date edition of Archbold; indeed, with the possible exception of the Physician’s Home Companion, the 1924 edition of which I remember as the medical bible in my grandparents’ home, none springs immediately to mind.

Carol identifies Lester formally, and we are ready to go. Lester is fairly soft-spoken, I notice immediately – another family trait; I was forever telling Tony to keep his voice up when he gave evidence. But Tony was always legally represented, so apart from his time in the witness box, it didn’t matter. Now it does. I can’t have the jury struggling to hear Lester in the dock throughout the trial. Having consulted Susan Worthington, who’s prosecuting, I release Lester from the dock and ask him to sit in the same row as Susan, nearer to the jury. He wishes Susan a polite good morning as he takes his seat, calling her ‘madam’; she gives me a quick grin.

‘Mr Fogle, stand up, please,’ I begin. ‘I can’t help noticing that you’re not legally represented today.’

‘No, sir.’

‘Would you mind telling me why? Were you refused legal aid for some reason?’

‘No, sir. I just prefer to represent myself.’

‘Mr Fogle, a barrister or solicitor with experience of these courts is likely to be more effective in presenting your case than you would be yourself. If you want to represent yourself, of course, you’re free to do so, and if you do, I will give you any help I can. But I have a duty to tell you that you would be well advised to have someone to act for you, and I will adjourn the case for a short time if you would like to make arrangements.’

Lester nods. ‘Thank you, sir. I do know how helpful barristers can be. My uncle Tony has told me how much you helped him when you represented him.’

Susan starts to giggle, and has to hold a hand in front of her face.

‘Yes, well, it’s very kind of your uncle Tony to say so, I’m sure –’

‘He remembers the birdcage case with great fondness, sir. He asked me to remind you of it.’

I need no reminding. The birdcage case was a classic Fogle family disaster. Tony ‘masterminded’ the hijacking of a lorry without much prior intelligence of what it might contain, the assumption being that any given lorry must contain something worth nicking. The job followed the Fogle family’s trademark routine. The lorry was diverted into a side street using fake road works signs. When it stopped, Tony and his crew hauled the driver out and slapped him around a couple of times. I should point out that the slaps were strictly token, and the driver was always offered a good drink for his trouble; to their credit, the Fogles had no truck with violence. Tony then commandeered the lorry and drove it to a warehouse where the goods would be unloaded. Unfortunately, on this occasion, due to an administrative oversight, the warehouse was still full of gear from one of Bill’s capers and wasn’t available, and so Tony had to unload the swag into his own garage at home. Even worse, the lorry proved to contain nothing except three hundred odd wicker birdcages.

Tony struggled valiantly for some weeks with the problem of how to fence three hundred wicker birdcages. It wasn’t the kind of gear he could sell to his usual customers or offload at the pub. In the end, he resorted to advertising in a number of bird-fanciers’ magazines, which had some limited success in terms of sales, but was ultimately to prove his downfall when the owners of the consignment, noticing the close resemblance between the advertised goods and their hijacked load, put two and two together and made four. When the police came, Tony, weeping with relief, led them straight to the garage and told them he was having a nervous breakdown trying to work out what to do with so many cages. He pleaded guilty, and, I suspect largely because the judge found it all rather amusing, was given a charitable twelve months, a good result for a man with his record, for which I took some largely undeserved credit. The birdcage caper represented the high-water mark of Fogle family disasters for some three years until Bill hijacked a lorry containing a contingent of shoes – all of which turned out to be for the right foot, a simple but effective security device.

‘I should have thought, Mr Fogle,’ I say, ‘that with your family’s experience, you would know by now that having a barrister to represent you is the wise thing to do. But it’s up to you. I can’t keep the jury panel waiting indefinitely, but if you would like to change your mind…’

‘No. Thank you, sir.’

‘Very well. Are we ready to go, Miss Worthington?’

‘We are, your Honour. It should be a fairly short trial. As Mr Fogle is unrepresented, I will call the owner of the car, Mr Lewis; we also have the officer in the case, DC Hemmings; and the investigating officers, PC Jenkins and PC Hartley. In addition, Mr Fogle has asked me to make one other police officer available, a DI Venables. The prosecution is not aware of any connection DI Venables may have with this case, but since Mr Fogle wants him, we have no objection to making him available.’

Having read the file, I can’t see any connection either, but the name of DI Venables rings a bell immediately. I’m slightly surprised he hasn’t retired by now. My curiosity is aroused.

‘Would you like to tell me in outline what kind of defence you will be offering to this charge, Mr Fogle?’ I inquire.

‘No, thank you, sir. I’d prefer to keep it to myself for now, so that I don’t lose the element of surprise, if you take my meaning.’

With or without schooling from Tony, Lester has just homed in on one huge advantage of being unrepresented. Any defence lawyer knows that the courts no longer allow trial by ambush. These days, under the Criminal Procedure Rules, the defence is obliged to serve a defence statement on the court and the prosecution, outlining the nature of the defence, and giving details of any witnesses to be called. This means that the court and the prosecution have some idea of what the case is about, and can prepare accordingly. It appears that Lester has overlooked this procedural step. In theory, the rules apply equally to defendants acting in person, but as a matter of practical reality, it’s a waste of time trying to make a defendant acting in person comply. We shall just have to wait and see what the defence is.

Unfortunately, by the time we’ve had this conversation, my colleague Judge Rory Dunblane – ‘Legless’ as he is known to all, as a consequence of a now obscure incident after a chambers dinner while he was at the Bar – has grabbed a jury panel for his trial, and the jury bailiff won’t be able to sort out another panel until two o’clock. I extend Lester’s bail for the duration of the trial, send everyone away until after lunch, and retire to chambers to reflect further on how to deal with Lester Fogle representing himself. No great ideas come to me, and eventually it’s time to join my colleagues in the judicial mess for lunch. But just as I’m about to leave chambers, Carol puts her head around the door.

‘Sorry, Judge, but I’ve got a bit of an unusual situation. Counsel in the trial in Judge Drake’s court have asked to see you.’

‘Counsel in Judge Drake’s court?’

‘Yes, Judge.’

‘If they’re in Judge Drake’s court, why aren’t they seeing Judge Drake?’

Carol nods. ‘I did ask. They say something has come up that they haven’t been able to resolve with Judge Drake; it’s delaying the start of the trial; and they need to see you as resident judge to see if you can sort it. Will you see them?’

I think for a moment or two.

‘I don’t think I should do that without speaking to Judge Drake first and finding out what’s going on, do you?’

‘I suppose not, Judge, no.’

‘He is here, is he? He hasn’t pushed off to the Garrick Club or anything?’

‘No, Judge, he’s here.’

‘All right. I’ll see him at lunch. Tell counsel to report back at two o’clock – but no promises.’

‘Right you are, Judge.’

And so to lunch, an oasis of calm in a desert of chaos.

I’m the last to arrive. Judge Drake, Hubert, is tucking into the kitchen’s dish of the day, billed as home-made lasagne with garlic bread. Hubert’s courage in tackling the kitchen’s dish of the day on a regular basis is something the rest of us all admire. Legless and my remaining colleague, Judge Marjorie Jenkins, have gone with variants of the baked potato, tuna for Marjorie, baked beans for Legless, and I’ve selected the cheese omelette – all of these being regarded as safer bets by connoisseurs of the court cuisine. There are many days when I pick up a ham and cheese bap from Elsie and Jeanie, just in case there’s nothing reasonably safe on the menu. But Hubert grapples with the dish of the day every day of the week, and today he is attacking his lasagne with a vengeance. He says nothing to explain why counsel in his trial might want to see me. I decide to approach with caution.

‘How are everyone’s trials going? Have you all got started?’

‘Mine’s fine,’ Legless replies. ‘I’m sorry I tied the jury panel up just before lunch, Charlie. I gather you needed a jury too. But I had a couple of long sentences this morning, and I couldn’t get to it any earlier.’

‘Not a problem. Marjorie?’

‘Yes, all set. Conspiracy to supply class A drugs, probably take until towards the end of the week, but no problems.’

‘Good. Hubert?’

‘Yes, Charlie?’

‘How’s your trial going? It’s a GBH, isn’t it? Have you got it started?’

Hubert looks a bit shifty, and keeps his eyes down on his plate.

‘No… not as such… not just yet, Charlie. We’ve had a… a legal question come up, that’s all. I’ve sent counsel away to think about it over lunch. I’m sure we’ll get underway this afternoon.’

‘Difficult one, is it, the legal question?’

‘Difficult? No. As far as I’m concerned it’s perfectly simple. Why do you ask?’

I put my knife and fork down.

‘I ask because, just as I was leaving my chambers to come to lunch, I received a message from counsel in your case, saying they want to see me. They say there’s some kind of difficulty they haven’t been able to sort out with you. It seemed a bit odd, and I was wondering whether you’d care to enlighten me before I decide what to do?’

Marjorie and Legless both raise their eyebrows in my direction.

Hubert finally looks up from his lasagne.

‘It’s nothing I can’t deal with, Charlie.’

‘So I would have assumed. But apparently, counsel don’t agree.’

Hubert takes a deep breath and lets it out in one heavy, frustrated, exhalation.

‘Very well, if you insist. I had to tell the advocate for the defendant that I couldn’t hear her.’

We all consider this for a moment or two, and I note the coded language. When Hubert uses the term ‘advocate’ he means that she is a solicitor advocate rather than a barrister. If she were a barrister, Hubert would have referred to her as ‘counsel’. We’ve had solicitor advocates in the Crown Court for many years now, but Hubert has never reconciled himself to them. He still believes that solicitors should know their place – namely, sitting behind counsel – and that barristers should have a monopoly of advocacy in the Crown Court.

‘I take it, Hubert,’ I comment eventually, ‘that you were using the phrase “couldn’t hear her” in the legal sense, not in the sense that she wasn’t speaking loudly enough.’

‘Obviously,’ Hubert replies. ‘I’m not a complete fool, Charlie. If she wasn’t loud enough I’d tell her to bloody well turn up the volume, wouldn’t I? I can’t hear her because she’s improperly dressed.’

‘In what way, improperly dressed?’ Marjorie asks. ‘Do you mean she forgot to bring her robes to court, or left them somewhere else? I get that sometimes; I’m sure we all do. It shouldn’t happen, but it does, and in the end I let them get on with it rather than waste the court’s time.’

‘No, I don’t mean that, Marjorie,’ Hubert replies. ‘I’m not always as charitable as you are. If the robes are anywhere within striking distance I send counsel off to fetch them. I agree – there are times when you just have to overlook it and move on. But not in these circumstances.’

‘What circumstances?’ Legless asks.

‘The circumstance that Miss Gloria Farthing has bright pink hair under her wig.’

Marjorie giggles momentarily, but quickly recovers by putting her napkin over her mouth. Legless and I exchange glances and have much the same reaction, but it’s pretty obvious that Hubert doesn’t see a funny side to it, so we, too, compose ourselves as best we can.

‘Pink hair?’ I ask.

‘Bright pink hair, and it’s protruding from under her wig on both sides of her head, and at the front.’

‘Gloria Farthing?’ I muse. ‘I’m not sure I know her.’

‘She’s one of those solicitor advocates,’ Hubert replies with distaste. ‘I have counsel prosecuting – Piers Drayford, who’s all right, of course. But it’s always the same with these bloody solicitors.’

‘Oh, come on, Hubert,’ Marjorie intervenes. ‘Some of them are just as good as counsel, and let’s be honest, we all know barristers who are not exactly ornaments of the profession.’

‘I agree, Marjorie,’ Hubert replies. ‘But these solicitors don’t get enough training in advocacy; they don’t have to study the rules of evidence; and they don’t have the Bar’s ethical standards. It shouldn’t be allowed.’

I know from previous experience that it’s pointless to argue with Hubert about this.

‘What exactly happened, Hubert?’ I ask. ‘What did you say?’

‘Miss Farthing had some submissions to make to me about the evidence before we swore in a jury,’ Hubert replies. ‘And that’s when I noticed the hair. Obviously, I couldn’t let her get away with pink hair, so I did the only thing I could do. I told her I couldn’t hear her.’

Legless laughs. ‘I didn’t know anyone still said that,’ he says. ‘I thought that was a thing of the past.’

‘Certainly not,’ Hubert replies indignantly. ‘It happened to Sammy Mountford when I was at the Bar. We were down at Surbiton or somewhere, at the Sessions. Sammy’s train was delayed and he was late getting to court. And you remember Frank Godwin, the Chairman of Sessions down there, I’m sure. Dreadful man, terrible temper. We were all terrified of him. If you were a minute late for court he’d come down on you like a ton of bricks. So anyway, on this particular day I was prosecuting Sammy, and I was already in court. So was Godwin. We were all waiting for Sammy, and suddenly I saw him rush into court and begin to apologise and explain about the train and so forth. And I’m waiting for Godwin to land on Sammy, but instead he starts laughing and can’t stop, and he keeps saying “I can’t hear you, Mr Mountford.” Sammy has no idea what’s going on. He raises his voice as much as he can until he’s virtually shouting at the bench, but Godwin is still saying “I can’t hear you” over and over again. Sammy looks at me as if to ask what on earth is happening, and it’s only then that I notice the same thing as Godwin, and I start laughing too, so much so that I can’t get a word out to tell him.’

‘To tell him what…?’ Legless asks. Hubert had stopped and seemed poised to turn his attention back to his lasagne.

‘What? Oh, yes. Sammy had been in such a rush that he’d forgotten to put his wig on. He was wearing his wing collar, bands and gown, but instead of his wig he was still wearing his bowler hat. So, you see, that’s one example. Judges still say they can’t hear counsel if they’re not properly dressed.’

‘It’s been a few years since you were at the Bar, Hubert,’ I point out.

‘What’s that got to do with it?’ he asks. ‘We still wear robes. What’s the point of wearing robes if advocates are going to turn up improperly dressed?’

‘But you could argue that Miss Farthing was properly dressed,’ Marjorie suggests. ‘She wasn’t wearing a bowler hat. She was wearing her robes. All that’s happened is that you don’t like her choice of hair colour.’

‘I’m not sure about that, Marjorie,’ Legless says. ‘Hubert has a point, doesn’t he? You can’t claim to be properly dressed if you’re making your robes look ridiculous.’

‘What’s ridiculous about it?’

‘With pink hair? Come on, Marjorie.’

‘No really. I’m serious. I –’

‘Look,’ I interject. ‘I understand what Hubert’s saying. In our day, if you’d appeared in court with pink hair you would never have heard the end of it. You’d probably have been drummed out of chambers.’

‘There weren’t any women at the Bar in your day, Charlie,’ Marjorie replies.

‘Of course there were –’

‘A few, a very few. It was a man’s world, and they had to dress and behave themselves in ways men approved of, and in those days men didn’t approve of hair if it was pink, red, blue, or anything other than one of the natural colours. Times have changed.’

‘That doesn’t mean that advocates can appear in court dressed as if they were on their way to a party,’ Legless insists.

‘I’m not saying it does,’ Marjorie protests. ‘All I’m saying is that most people today feel that women are allowed to make choices about how to colour their hair, and that men shouldn’t be telling them that some colours are out of bounds.’

‘I have no problem with women with pink hair in a social context,’ Legless insists, ‘if they’re going to a party or a rock concert or whatever. God only knows why any woman would want pink hair, but if she does, good luck to her. But if she’s appearing professionally in court she must respect the dignity of the court, and I don’t see how she can respect the court with pink hair under her wig. It undermines the whole system.’

‘Oh, come on, Legless. That’s a bit anachronistic, isn’t it?’

Before Legless can respond, I decide it’s time to jump in. My RJ’s instincts are beginning to whisper to me that an academic discussion about changes in societal attitudes to hair colour isn’t going to produce an end to this matter.

‘Look, fascinating as this all is,’ I say, ‘it seems we have something of a situation on our hands. Hubert has refused to hear Gloria Farthing, a solicitor advocate, because she has pink hair. Now she wants to see me about it, as RJ, at two o’clock. Meanwhile, she’s representing a defendant charged with GBH who’s expecting a trial in Hubert’s court, and what I need to know is what, if anything, I can do to get the case back on track?’

No one responds immediately.

‘I’m not sure you can do anything today,’ Legless offers after some time. ‘Even if Miss Farthing has seen the error of her ways – which I doubt, given that she apparently wants you to intervene – she can’t change the colour of her hair while she’s at court, can she? So unless Hubert changes his mind, he’ll have to adjourn until tomorrow in any case.’

‘I’m not going to change my mind,’ Hubert insists. ‘Someone has to keep standards up in this place, and I don’t hear anyone else volunteering to do it.’

‘How long is her hair?’ Marjorie asks him.

‘How long is it? I don’t know. Long enough to be seen. What’s that got to do with it?’

‘Well, I was wondering whether she could put her hair up and stuff it all under her wig so that it can’t be seen,’ she suggests.

‘That’s not a bad idea, Hubert,’ I agree. ‘An advocate’s hair is supposed to be covered by the wig, isn’t it, if she’s properly dressed? So if you can’t see it, there’s no problem, and honour’s satisfied on both sides.’

‘But her hair would still be pink, wouldn’t it?’

‘So what?’ Marjorie demands. ‘If you can’t see it, why should you care? For that matter, why is it any of your business? Are you going to ask her what colour knickers she’s wearing?’

‘Because she would be in my court, and I would still know that her hair was pink, wouldn’t I? She would be mocking the court under her wig.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Marjorie says.

‘All right, look,’ I intervene, seeing that things are getting a bit out of hand, ‘we need to find a solution of some kind.’

‘The solution is perfectly obvious, Charlie,’ Hubert says. ‘She can get rid of the pink hair, or she can get someone else to take the case over. Perhaps she’ll instruct counsel. That would be better all round, anyway.’

Marjorie snorts.

‘Do you want to deal with it?’ Hubert asks me.

‘No. You’re the trial judge. You’re the judge who’s refused to hear her, so it’s up to you to say what solution is acceptable.’

‘Fair enough,’ Hubert says, standing. He seems to have lost interest in the lasagne, and is ready to return to chambers.

‘I’m not sure about this, Charlie,’ Marjorie says after Hubert has gone. ‘I think perhaps you should deal with it. You know what Hubert’s like, and it occurs to me that he may not be on solid legal ground.’

‘Oh, come on, Marjorie,’ Legless protests.

‘No, I’m serious. Hubert’s saying that Miss Farthing can’t exercise her profession with her hair a certain colour. What gives him the right to do that? What colours are acceptable and what aren’t? How is she supposed to know? Are there any rules about it? Because if so, I’ve missed them.’

‘You don’t need rules to tell you that pink hair is unacceptable,’ Legless insists sullenly.

‘That might have been true in the 1960s or whenever it was that Frank Godwin and dinosaurs like him roamed the earth,’ Marjorie replies, ‘but it’s not true today. I wouldn’t want to be defending that proposition in the High Court if Miss Farthing were to challenge it. I think we ought to move carefully, Charlie, and I think it would be better for you to handle it.’

I shrug. ‘I don’t see how I can, Marjorie. Hubert is the trial judge. It’s his court. It’s up to him. Perhaps he’ll come round to the idea of her putting her hair up. Let’s just hope that Miss Farthing’s hair isn’t too long.’

‘Or too short,’ Marjorie points out. ‘That would be just as bad. It won’t fit under the wig properly unless the length is just right.’

‘What would you have done, Marjorie?’ Legless asks. ‘Nothing, I suppose. You would have just let her carry on.’

‘I’m not sure,’ Marjorie replies. ‘But I would have seen her in chambers on her own before the trial started, rather than raise the subject in open court.’

‘That would have been better,’ I agree, ‘but it would be easier for you, as a woman, wouldn’t it? If I had to do it, I’d ask you to see her with me, or at least have Carol or Stella sit in with me. I wouldn’t fancy talking to a woman about the colour of her hair on my own.’

‘But if she insisted that her hair colour was her choice,’ Marjorie adds, ‘I think I would have to let it go at that.’

* * *

Monday afternoon

‘We’re now going to start the trial, Mr Fogle,’ I begin once court has been assembled. ‘The first thing we have to do is select a jury. The jury bailiff will bring a jury panel into court; the clerk will pick twelve names at random from the cards she has in front of her, and these twelve will take their seats in the jury box. You’re only allowed to object to a juror for cause – in other words, you can’t ask me to excuse a juror just because you don’t like the look of them. Do you understand?’

‘You didn’t need cause or nothing in my uncle Tony’s day,’ Lester complains. ‘You could just object to up to seven of them for any reason you wanted, and the judge had to sling them off the jury. He told me all about it.’

‘Well, you can’t do that now. You can only object if there’s a real problem, for example if the juror is someone you know, or someone who’s had some involvement in the case, or has some knowledge of it.’

‘That’s not fair,’ Lester protests.

‘That’s the law,’ I reply.

Are you beginning to see now why trials with defendants acting in person take so long?

This afternoon my panel consists of fourteen good citizens of Bermondsey, thirteen of them wearing what I call Bermondsey smart casual – an open-necked shirt with jeans or tracksuit bottoms for the men, a brightly coloured blouse and tight black slacks for the women – plus one woman who is quite differently dressed. I confess that my first reaction on seeing her is to ask, ‘Why me?’ and then, ‘Why today, when I’m dealing with a defendant representing himself, and why today when that defendant is Lester Fogle?’ There’s no answer to that, of course, except the obvious one: it’s Sod’s Law. Obviously, it has to be today, and no other day, that the jury bailiff sends me a female juror wearing the hijab, including the black burqa and niqab, which conceals her entire body apart from the eyes. Glancing at Lester Fogle, I see the spectre of cause arising in his mind.

It’s not the first time we’ve had a woman wearing the hijab at court, of course. These days, it’s not uncommon at Bermondsey or at any urban court centre. They may come as jurors, or as witnesses, or occasionally as defendants, and whenever they come, they pose one or two practical problems. The first is identification. How does the court know that she is who she claims to be? The second is a certain feeling of discomfort at not being able to gauge someone’s reaction to what’s going on in court, which, without a view of the face, you can’t. Then there’s the case where she’s the defendant and wants to give evidence without letting the jury see her face, which is another matter entirely.

We’ve asked the Senior Judiciary – their Lordships of the High Court and above – for guidance on how to deal with these issues a number of times, but our pleas have fallen on deaf ears. Guidance isn’t usually hard to come by from the Senior Judiciary; often you don’t even have to ask for it. In general, they take great pleasure in trying to micromanage the work of the Crown Court, and explaining to us how much better they would run things, if only they had the time. But faced with a sensitive question such as the hijab, which has the potential to propel their images on to the front page of the Daily Mail, they tend to fall prey to a sudden attack of the vapours. They tell us it’s nothing to do with them: we’re the judges of the Crown Court; we should stop bothering them, get on with it, and use our common sense. So we do, and for the most part, with the assistance of the Bar, it seems to work out well enough. Today, however, I don’t have the assistance of the Bar on the defence side, and I’m not sure how happy Lester’s going to be with my application of judicial common sense.

Of course, there’s always the chance that fate might let me off the hook, that she won’t be one of the first twelve jurors selected from the panel at random; but when Sod’s Law is the governing principle, you just know you’re not going to get off that easily. Sure enough, at Carol’s bidding, she takes her seat in the jury box as Juror Number Six. Once all twelve are in the box, Carol formally advises Lester that if he wishes to object to the jurors or any of them, he must do so ‘as they come to the book to be sworn and before they are sworn’. Lester knows all about that already, of course, courtesy of his uncle Tony, and when Juror Number Six stands and takes the Holy Qur’an, carefully wrapped in its green cloth, from Dawn’s outstretched hand, he duly objects.

‘What’s your objection to this juror, Mr Fogle?’ I ask innocently.

‘I can’t see her face, can I? How do I know what she’s thinking?’

‘I’m not sure we ever know what jurors are thinking, do we?’ I reply. ‘At least until they return a verdict.’

‘No, but if I give evidence or speak to the jury, I at least want to see who I’m talking to.’

‘I understand that, Mr Fogle, but I’m afraid that’s not enough to object for cause.’

‘And in addition to that, how do we know who she is? What if she can’t be bothered to turn up tomorrow and asks one of her mates to cover for her? We’d never know, would we?’

‘I’m sure that the jury bailiff will check her identity, as she does with all jurors,’ I try to reassure him.

‘And the other day – it was in the Sun, wasn’t it? – there was a lady on a jury wearing this get-up who was listening to music all day during the trial using her headphones, and nobody knew because she was hiding it under the… whatever you call it, the veil.’

‘I’m aware of that incident, Mr Fogle, and I seem to recall that the juror in question was fined for contempt of court when it came to light.’

‘And in addition to everything else, your Honour, her culture is different to ours, innit? I mean, she comes over here from Saudi Arabia, where they cut your hand off just for stealing a loaf of bread, and here I am charged with nicking a motor. What chance do I have with her on the jury?’

This, of course, is Lester’s real point. I’m about to address it, when to my considerable surprise Juror Number Six decides to do it for me. She’s a tall, imposing figure of a woman, and when she draws herself up to her full height, shrouded in black, it’s actually a quite intimidating sight.

‘What did you say?’ she demands loudly of Lester.

Lester falls silent. I don’t suppose Tony has prepared him for the experience of being interrogated by a juror, and he’s not sure whether or how to respond – which is fine because I don’t want him responding in this situation. It could get out of hand pretty quickly. For the second time I’m on the verge of intervening, but once again Juror Number Six beats me to it.

‘Now look here, my good man,’ she continues. ‘I’m sure you have all the usual depressing prejudices against people who look different from you. But I will have you know that I did not come over here from Saudi Arabia – or anywhere else, for that matter. If you must know, I’m from Chippenham. My name is Mary Elizabeth Green. My maiden name was Winslow. I read law at Cambridge. I’m a solicitor, and I’m on the selection committee of my local branch of the Conservative Party. And yes, I happen to be a Muslim. Is there anything else you’d like to know about me?’

She subsides a little and turns towards me.

‘I’m sorry, your Honour. I do apologise. I didn’t mean to get carried away, but when people start to talk about cultural differences…’

‘That’s quite all right, Mrs Green,’ I reply, ‘quite understandable. Let me just ask you one question. If you are sworn as a member of the jury, you will have to promise the court to try the case fairly, based on the evidence. Is there anything that would prevent you from doing that in Mr Fogle’s case?’

‘Nothing whatsoever, your Honour.’

I turn back to Lester.

‘Do you still want to object, Mr Fogle?’

‘No, sir, not in that case. And I would like to point out to Mrs Green that I’m not prejudiced against anyone. In fact, I’m proud to be part of a multi-faith, multi-cultural Britain.’

‘Mr Lewis, what is your full name?’ Susan Worthington asks.

She has opened the case to the jury with admirable brevity, less than ten minutes. In the course of her opening, Susan has explained to the jury that if they are not sure that the defendant intended to deprive Mr Lewis of the car permanently, and is therefore not guilty of theft, they can still convict him of taking the car without Mr Lewis’s consent. It’s sensible for Susan to hedge her bets. If Lester had intended to keep the car and sell it on, he probably wouldn’t have left it sitting there in his front drive for all the world to see. So she offers the jury an alternative narrative. Perhaps this was more a borrowing than a theft, a way of ensuring that Lester had a ride home, the culmination of a night’s drinking. For some reason, Lester, who has listened to the rest of the opening impassively, seems to be quite disturbed by this part of it. Shaking his head furiously he consults the index of the current Archbold we’ve loaned him, and scribbles some notes in a loose-leaf notebook.

‘Raymond Hunter Lewis.’

‘And do you live at an address in Canonbury, Islington?’

‘That’s correct.’

‘Are you the owner of a 1965 silver Volkswagen Beetle, registration number EDB 726E?’

‘Yes, I am.’

‘And a beautiful car it is, too, to judge by the photographs.’

Lewis smiles fondly. ‘It’s my pride and joy. I take very good care of it.’

‘That’s obvious, Mr Lewis. On the evening of the twenty-fifth of February of this year, did you go out in your car?’

‘I did. I drove from my home to the Lamb public house in Bloomsbury, Lamb’s Conduit Street. I was with a friend, and we were going out for a couple of pints.’

‘Where did you park?’

‘Nearby, in Great Ormond Street. You can’t park on Lamb’s Conduit Street at that point; it’s too crowded. But where I parked was just a minute’s walk from the Lamb.’

‘Yes. Mr Lewis, do you now realise that you made something of a mistake while you were parking?’

‘Yes. It was stupid, really. I must have left the keys in the ignition and forgotten to lock the car. My friend and I were talking about Arsenal’s chances for the rest of the season and getting a bit carried away, and I didn’t think about it.’

‘At what time did you arrive at the Lamb?’

‘Eight thirty, eight forty-five.’

‘And at what time did you leave?’

‘Just after eleven.’

‘What did you do on leaving the pub?’

‘We walked to the spot where I’d left the car in Great Ormond Street. But the car wasn’t there. That was when I also realised that I no longer had my keys.’

‘Did you report your loss to the police?’

‘Yes. Holborn Police Station is close by, at the top of Lamb’s Conduit Street, so we walked there and reported it.’

‘Two days later, on the twenty-seventh of February, did you see your car again?’

‘Yes. I got a call from PC Jenkins, the investigating officer. They had recovered my car in South London and they had it at the police station in Bermondsey. They wanted me to come and identify it.’

‘Did you do that?’

‘Yes, I did. They had my keys, too.’

‘Did you notice any damage to the car?’

‘No, thank God, there didn’t appear to be any damage.’

‘Mr Lewis, did you give anyone permission to take or to drive your car on the evening of the twenty-fifth of February?’

‘No, I did not.’

‘Thank you, Mr Lewis. Wait there, please; there may be some further questions for you.’

Lester consults his notes before rising to his feet. He knows the drill. But, as I’m obliged to, I explain to him that this is his chance to cross-examine.

‘So, Mr Lewis, you left your motor unlocked, did you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Careless.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you left the keys in the ignition?’

‘Yes.’

‘Even though you tell the jury it’s your pride and joy? Plus, it’s a bit of an antique now, innit? Worth a few bob, I daresay?’

‘Yes. I’m embarrassed. But it happened.’

‘So literally anyone could have nicked it, couldn’t they?’

‘I suppose so, yes.’

‘It didn’t call for your master car thief, did it?’

‘No.’

‘No need to finesse the lock or hot-wire it, was there? All they had to do was jump in and start the engine?’

‘Perfectly true.’

Lester looks up to me with a smile.

‘That’s all, your Honour.’

‘Your Honour, I’ll call PC Jenkins,’ Susan says.

PC Jenkins is a young, energetic officer, who almost bounds into the witness box. He’s wearing a suit and tie for the occasion.

‘PC 1521 Avory Jenkins, attached to Holborn Police Station, your Honour.’

‘Officer, were you on duty at Holborn Police Station on the evening of the twenty-fifth of February this year?’

‘Yes, Miss.’

‘At about eleven twenty-five, did you have occasion to speak to someone?’

‘May I refer to my notebook?’

After a few necessary questions to establish the circumstances in which he made his notes, I agree that he may; another process we could have short-circuited if Lester had been represented.

‘Yes,’ the officer replies after consulting his notes. ‘At about that time, a Mr Raymond Hunter Lewis came into the police station with another gentleman, to report the theft of his car which he had left parked in Great Ormond Street earlier in the evening. My desk sergeant assigned me to talk to Mr Lewis and investigate the matter.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I took statements from both gentlemen, and gave Mr Lewis some paperwork to prove to his insurance company that the theft had been reported. I advised him that we would let him know as soon as we had any news, and I circulated the vehicle as missing, so that it would be on the radar of officers on patrol generally.’

‘And in due course did you receive some information about Mr Lewis’s car?’

‘I did, Miss. This was two days later, on the twenty-seventh of February. In the afternoon, I was contacted by an officer based at Bermondsey police station, who informed me that Mr Lewis’s car had been seen in their bailiwick, and was being kept under observation. He invited me to meet him at his station, which I did.’

‘Who was that officer?’

‘PC Robin Hartley.’

‘Yes. After arriving at Bermondsey police station, did you go somewhere in company with PC Hartley?’

‘Yes, Miss. At about seven fifteen that evening, PC Hartley and I visited an address at 161 Lynette Avenue, SW4, in Clapham. We parked a few yards down the street and walked to the property.’

‘What kind of property is that?’

‘It’s a detached house with a garden and a driveway in front.’

‘How were you and PC Hartley dressed?’

‘We were both in uniform, Miss, and we were in PC Hartley’s marked police car.’

‘And what did you observe at 161 Lynette Avenue?’

‘Parked in the front drive of the address, we observed a silver Volkswagen Beetle, registration number EDB 726E.’

‘Was that the vehicle that Mr Lewis had reported to you as having been stolen?’

‘Yes, that’s correct.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I made a note of what we’d found, and took several pictures of the car and the scene using my phone. We then knocked on the front door of the address.’

‘Did anyone answer?’

‘Yes. The door was answered by a white male who appeared to be late thirties, early forties, wearing a floral open-necked shirt and khaki trousers. I asked the male if he was the owner of the property, to which he replied that he was. I asked his name, and he gave me the name of Lester Fogle.’

‘Pausing there, Officer, do you see that man in court today?’

‘Yes, Miss, he’s the man seated to your left, Lester Fogle.’

‘Thank you. Did you ask him any questions?’

‘Yes, Miss. I said, “This vehicle parked in your drive was reported stolen two days ago in Bloomsbury. It belongs to a Mr Lewis. Can you explain why it’s parked on your front drive?” I then cautioned Mr Fogle.’

‘Yes. Tell the jury the words of the caution, Officer, please.’

‘You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

‘Did Mr Fogle say anything in response to the caution?’

‘Yes, Miss. He said, “I’ve never seen that before.” I said, “What? This car’s been nicked two days ago and we find it in your drive, and you’ve never seen it before?” Mr Fogle then said, “That’s it. I’m not saying nothing else. I want to see my brief”.’

‘What did you do then?’

‘At seven thirty, I told Mr Fogle that I was arresting him on suspicion of theft, and again cautioned him. He made no reply to the caution. PC Hartley and I then conveyed Mr Fogle to Bermondsey police station.’

‘Later that evening, with the assistance of the officer in the case, DC Hemmings, did you interview Mr Fogle in the presence of his solicitor?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘And did he reply “no comment” to all the questions you asked him?’

‘Yes, he did.’

‘Officer, when you found Mr Lewis’s car in the defendant’s front drive, were any keys found?’

‘Yes, Miss. The doors were unlocked and we found the keys in the ignition.’

‘Was the car later tested for fingerprints?’

‘Yes, Miss.’

‘We have the report in case Mr Fogle wishes to refer to it, but please tell the jury whether any significant fingerprints were found.’

‘Yes. Mr Fogle was fingerprinted on arrival at the police station, and we established that his prints were on the steering wheel and the driver’s side door.’

‘Thank you, Officer, wait there please.’

Lester gets to his feet again.

‘Constable Jenkins, do you know me?’