Court Out

Court Out - By Elle Wynne


Chapter One





“Court Rise.”

As I uncross my ankles, raise myself to my feet and take a low bow, I silently thank God that this Judge has a ferocious nicotine habit that gives me time to compose myself before I have to make my speech to the twelve assembled jurors in court.

It’s funny, no matter how many trials I do, I’m always at my most nervous at this point. Imagine trying to talk to a group of people who have no reason to believe or trust a word you say, imagine trying to convince them that your interpretation of the evidence that they have spent days listening to is more rational than that of the other side. It’s not easy.

Further, there is a curious phenomena that I like to call the “nodding dog” syndrome; I’ve found that when you talk forcefully to a group of people they will all nod their heads at you, regardless of whether they agree or not. I suppose it would take a very strong personality to sit, glare at you and either shake their head and metaphorically (or literally) give you the finger. I’m happy to say the latter hasn’t happened to me yet. Yet.

As the twelve in question shuffle out of their narrow seats to their exit, grateful for a break themselves, I glance to my right to see my opponent who gives me a cheeky wink. Robert Morgan is a member of my Chambers, about six years ahead of me in terms of practice and about ten years junior to me in terms of maturity.

If I were to be polite, I could put him under the umbrella of ‘lovable rogue,’ if not, ‘smarmy creep.’ On this occasion, given he has conducted the trial thus far in a fairly neutral way I decide to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“That speech was pretty quick for you,” I tease. “I expect you want an early bath so you can go home to your lovely wife?”

He laughs, “Hardly Chase! Hot date later, although I might grace the old girl with my presence if things don’t go to plan.”

This is classic Robert. I have met his wife Joanna on a handful of occasions when she’s attended social events to support her husband. She is a year younger than him, so at 38 could hardly be described as an ‘old girl.’ This unfortunate term of endearment quite possibly stems from Robert’s interpretation of her fondness of dressing in Laura Ashley circa 1980 coupled with her ever-present obligatory pearls and hairband.

Robert is about the same height as me, stockily built with a paunch acquired from far too many boozy lunches. His dark hair is receding at the front and slightly balding at the back. For a man whose ruddy face bears the weight of his many vices, he’s surprisingly youthful looking, with a wicked glint in his khaki coloured eyes.

Today he is sporting the classic uniform of the typical middle aged male barrister: a navy three piece pinstriped suit over a crisp white shirt finished with shiny black patent leather shoes. The tidy ensemble is marred slightly however by the red wine stains on the bottom of his bands, the long rectangular white tabs that barristers have to wear around their necks.

The last time I saw Joanna she’d popped into Chambers to collect some papers for Robert. As she walked into the clerks room she had made jolly small talk with the various assembled members, none of whom had the heart to tell her that her feckless spouse was sat in the bar next door attempting to get the latest work experience girl drunk.

Robert has always been frank about the state of his relationship; he’s never been shy about broadcasting that he married his doting wife not for love, but for the security of living with someone with a vast personal bank account. I don’t envy the calls that our secretaries have to field from Joanna who is often searching for her errant husband.

The reality is that the long hours Robert spends away from home are more often than not in the company of Messrs Moet and Chandon and whichever female has the misfortune to misinterpret said purchase as an indication of wealth and power. As I look over at him, giggling to himself as he texts something undoubtedly blue to his date for the evening, for the millionth time since joining the Bar I silently count my blessings that I have Sebastian.

“Please don’t implicate me in whatever sordid plans you have to keep you occupied from now until then,” I beg, knowing that when he finally answers his phone to Joanna at 3am and is asked what is keeping him from home he will most likely drag my name into it by claiming we are working on some novel point of law that has cropped up today.

He smiles and narrows his eyes. “Are you sure that you don’t want to be the one actually keeping me occupied?”

I can’t help but laugh at his cheek. “Positive, but I’ll bear you in mind if I ever want to be cited in divorce proceedings.”

He chuckles good-naturedly. “How long do you think we’ve got?” he asks, indicating to the now empty chair where our withdrawing Judge had been shifting in his seat for the past twenty minutes.

“Depends how many he thinks he needs to get himself through my speech and summing up.” I reply.

“Got something special up your sleeve to wow them into an acquittal?” Robert baits, knowing full well that up to this point the evidence against my Defendant is completely overwhelming.

“Stranger things have happened?” I chance.

“Such as?”

I smile, give a halfhearted shrug and bend down to retrieve my handbag from below my seat. A true work of art in pillar-box red, my Mulberry Bayswater never fails to cheer me up whenever I’m having a bad day.

An impulse purchase about six months ago, I was in Harvey Nicks when from across the shop floor I spotted it, like a cherry beacon amidst a sea of tan and chocolate leather. From that moment there was no point in worrying about how my overdraft would cope with such a purchase, or what Sebastian would make of this new addition to my already extensive handbag collection. Without thinking, I had run over and grabbed it from its display, fearful that some other shopper had designs on it too and before I knew what had happened, was punching in my PIN number to the delight of the assembled sales girls. Would I do it again? Definitely. It’s worth it given the number of covetous glances it usually attracts.

I heave the bag onto my upper arm and quickly glance over my shoulder to see where the man of the hour is. The dock behind me is empty. Where’s he gone? The dock officer spots me frantically searching the back of the courtroom and points to the exit door that leads into the main concourse of the court building. I give him a grateful wave, grab my notebook and hurry out. This is so not something I need right now.

“Mr. Walsh? Mr. Walsh!” I cry, as I do my best to run down the two flights of stairs to the main entrance area of Farrington Crown Court. Aha! I can see him! I shout again and try as best as I can to gain speed in an attempt to catch up with my fleeing Defendant. In these shoes, it’s neither easy nor graceful. As I pant along the concourse, Mr. Walsh comes to a reluctant stop about two feet before the exit barriers before turning to face me.

“And where do you think you’re going?” I demand. “We’re not finished, we just have a quick break before we have to go back in to finish this trial, your trial I might add!”

He looks shiftily at me.

“I’m going for a fag. If the Judge is allowed to, then so am I!”

I frown, pause and take a deep breath. “This trial has taken us the best part of a week. During those five days I’ve never see you with so much as a biro in your mouth. We both know you don’t smoke.”

Defiantly, he returns my stare.

“Well... perhaps I’ve decided to start!”

Fine, whatever. I have better things to do than attempt to babysit grown men who seem to think that the small matter of their innocence comes second to whatever other whim takes their attention.

“Well be back, outside court four in no more than five minutes. Five minutes. Any longer than that and the Judge will think you’ve decided to do a runner and send the police out looking for you.”

He mumbles something incoherent and practically sprints out of the door. He is definitely up to something, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt as given he’s actually turned up at court every day to face the music, I doubt he’d choose to do a bunk now.

It’s a relatively minor indictment that Mr. Walsh faces. Two security guards in a local department store spent a happy afternoon last March following him around their lingerie department and apparently saw him hide numerous pairs of lace knickers in a plastic bag that he had bought with him. On realising he was being tailed, just when he was about to leave the shop, apparently Mr. Walsh took them out and flung at the guards.

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Walsh tells things slightly differently: having clocked two men dressed in black puffa jackets stalking him around the hosiery section he became annoyed at being treated like a criminal and threw the pants at them in an act of defiance and frustration having been simply looking for a present for his wife.

I swear, if the British taxpayer knew half of the nonsense that was litigated at their expense then there would be riots.

Unfortunately for Mr. Walsh, he is well known to the courts as a serial shoplifter and since the early eighties has been troubling the police with his endeavours to leave various shops and supermarkets with all manner of sundries concealed on his person.

To his credit, he has never been concerned in any manner of knicker-nicking before and between you and me, I do suspect that the guards spotted him a mile off and recognised him as an easy target for getting a few days of paid holiday whilst they attended court to give their evidence.

That being said, I have no idea what the jury is going to make of this, or indeed what I’m going to say to them in a few minutes to convince them that there could be some doubt surrounding these events. There is always an irresistible want to conclude that just because someone has done something once, twice, thrice before, they've done it this time. Whilst it would make my life a great deal easier if that was the case, it rarely is.

As I have a few minutes before I have to return to court, I make my way across the floor to the ladies and push open the door. As I walk in a smell of cheap perfume and air freshener hits me. The mirrors, for reasons best known to the court service, are made of silver plastic so I can only guess as to the state of my makeup.

My blurred reflection confronts me from above the sinks. I’m quite tall for a girl, five feet eight without shoes, but I always accessorise with heels at least four inches high. Whilst neither comfortable nor practical, in a job where you have to interrogate people across an emotionally charged courtroom, I think that any additional height helps to give you more of a presence.

I re-pin a few strands of my long chestnut hair that have escaped from my meticulously tied ponytail and check that my grey horse-hair wig is secure on the top of my head. I sneezed during Robert’s cross-examination of Mr. Walsh yesterday and it fell off. I don’t think the Judge was amused at the giggling that followed. From me, I should add.

My black skirt suit still looks relatively uncreased after a day of advocacy and unlike my opponent, my white bands sit on my chest providing me with a crisp starched lace collar.

As I turn to grab a tissue, I get caught in the fabric of my almost floor-length gown. This is typical; if I’m not getting the sleeves caught on door knobs or the stair banisters then I’m falling over it. I smile as I remember a child asking me a couple of weeks ago if I was a character from Harry Potter.

People always ask me about the tradition and history behind the costume of the Criminal Bar; it’s an odd concept that there is a breed of people who adorn seventeenth century garb to go to work every day. The best answer I can give is that it helps us all look the same, so when you have been ferociously cross-examining someone all day they won’t recognise you in Tesco and start flinging canned goods your way.

I take a deep breath and mentally run through what I’m going to say in my speech. As I finally stumble on something that may be useful I hear my name being loudly and impatiently tannoyed over the court system:

“Miss Chase of Counsel to court four immediately please, Miss Lauren Chase to court four.”

Oh damn, this must mean that His Honour is cutting down on the evil weed at the moment. I attempt to check my teeth for lipstick in the useless mirror and hurry back to court.

As I make my way through the courtroom, weaving between the rows of seats and files to the dock, I note with alarm that Mr. Walsh is conspicuous by his absence. The court clerk is sat in the well of the court indicating to her usher that the jury should be brought up, ready to resume.

I take my seat and wait. I can hear the clock ticking behind me. Robert clears his throat expectantly. To distract myself, I pick up my copy of Archbold, a huge annual tome that contains all the law your average criminal barrister could ever need. As I flick through it, looking for nothing in particular, my eyes dart anxiously to the door. Time seems to move in fast forward. I’m aware that everyone is looking at me, waiting for me to do something. After a couple of minutes I can take it no more.

“Has the Defendant been tannoyed?” I ask the court clerk.

She looks at me and I swear I see a hint of something resembling amusement in her eyes.

“Yes Miss, twice.” She knows that any attempt on my part to persuade the Judge to assemble a search party will provide an entertaining floorshow for her this afternoon.

I take a split second to think and weigh my options. If he doesn't return then the Judge will issue a warrant for his arrest and the trial will continue as if he were here. The Jury will know he’s decided to absent himself, therefore meaning that my speech will fall on deaf ears. Not good.

“I’ll just see if he’s by the front door,” I say, running to the exit, inadvertently kicking over a box of papers in the process.

“Well hurry up, I’m going to get the Judge in two minutes,” the clerk warns.

For the second time this afternoon I run down the stairs, this time almost losing one of my sling-backs in the process like some dark-robed Cinderella. I stumble down the last few steps and run outside the main doors.

I look left and right, frantically shielding my eyes from the rain. I spot him about twenty metres to my right, down a side street that runs alongside the front of the court. He is facing the redbrick wall and his greasy untidy hair is being whipped round his face by the wind as he hunches over something in his hands.

Without hesitation I run over, lunge towards him and successfully grab him by his coat sleeve. This causes him to jump about a foot in fright, dropping a bag in the process. I barely register the sound of breaking glass as I navigate him back towards and into the court building.

The look of fury on my face has the helpful side effect of dissuading the court security guards from instigating their usual routine of searching every nook and cranny of my Mary Poppins-esque bag, a task that normally takes the best part of half an hour.

As I manhandle Mr. Walsh back up the main flight of stairs I hiss sideways to him, “What do you think you are playing at? Where have you been and why do you smell like something that has died?”

He hiccups and mumbles, “Needed sumfing to cheer me up.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I question, turning to face him halfway up the steps. His face is ruddy and his eyes are glazed. As he hiccups again, a wave of fumes, akin to a sea of whiskey hits me full in the face.

“What have you done you idiot? If the Judge cottons on that you’re paralytic you’ll be sent down to the cells whilst you sober up and I’ll be stuck trying to explain this to the jury!”

“I’m shorry,” he slurs, “It’s, s’my birthday... no-one... prison!”

As I catch the odd word I start to panic. Whilst some Judges would happily adjourn the case for a short while after receiving a coded message from a barrister, this one won’t. I rummage in my bag and from the bottom fish out a half eaten packet of extra strong mints.

“Right, eat these and keep your mouth closed. Not a word to anyone. I’ll tell them we’re ready to go.”

As he stumbles through the door to courtroom four in front of us, needing two attempts to get through, it dawns on me that this could go horribly wrong. When I get back into court, the parties are fully assembled, with, oh no, the Judge already ensconced in his seat, tapping his pen on his notebook, looking far from amused at having been kept waiting for sixty seconds or so.

Horrors of horrors, the jury are also sat in court looking impatient. I’m seething. They should have waited for me. I hurry to my place, offer a quick apology for our lateness and reach for my notebook where the points I have made for my speech are scrawled. Crap, it’s not there.

The courtroom is in total silence and you could hear a pin drop. Oh God, where is it? I lift my papers up, hoping to see the familiar blue A4 book underneath. No such luck. I turn to see Robert looking quizzically at me.

“Notebook?” I silently mouth to him.

He shakes his head and starts looking around him. I can feel twelve pairs of eyes boring into the side of my head. What on earth am I going to do? In the absence of anything better to do, I pick up a polystyrene cup from the bench and fill it from the jug of stale water next to it. Well, I can’t see my notes anywhere, and I can’t exactly ask the Judge to give me time to find it given I’ve already fallen from grace by keeping him waiting. As if on cue, he speaks.

“Is there a problem Miss Chase?” he asks, his tone reminding me of a bored cat playing with a cornered mouse.

It suddenly dawns on me that I must have left my book in the loo. Right, well I guess this is why I’m paid to think on my feet. I inhale deeply, turn to my left, smile and confidently speak.

“Well members of the jury, it now falls to me to address you on behalf of Mr. Walsh.”

Ten minutes in and my confidence is growing. Most of my speeches follow roughly the same pattern so I’m on solid ground and as long as I don’t stray into any specifics about the evidence I should be ok.

At the moment I’m trying to get the jury to imagine being an innocent shopper targeted by malicious store detectives. I’m sure we’ve all had it. Personally, whenever I go shopping anywhere other than high street stores wearing my ‘weekend clothes’ I can feel the beady eyes of the assistants trying to penetrate my purse to see if I have the means to even consider purchasing some of their overpriced wares. To be fair, nine times out of ten, I don’t.

“So, members of the jury, with that in mind, imagine you had gone out to purchase a gift for a loved one, had spent time carefully considering your options then became aware that for no good reason you were being followed, unjustifiably suspected of being a thief. How would that make you feel? Would you be frustrated? Annoyed? Angry? Wound up enough to throw a pair of pants?...”

This last point is met my by some bemused looks. One young, male juror stifles a giggle. I quickly change tack.

“You have heard that Mr. Walsh has numerous convictions for shoplifting. The prosecution want you to conclude that because he’s done it before, he’s done it this time too. Well I hope you agree that this time is wholly different from before. Yes he may steal bottles of spirits or the odd leg of lamb but he always confesses straight away to the police. This time he maintains his innocence.”

I can feel myself getting caught up with the passion of my words.

“Think of him to some degree as the boy who cried wolf. To work on the basis that he could never be telling the truth because he has been dishonest before would be unjust, it would be unfair, if you were him, wouldn’t it make you-”

I stop, my last word still stuck in the back of my throat as I hear a peculiar noise coming from the rear of the room. Not one of the jury is looking at me, they are staring with looks of abject horror on their faces at the dock.

One lady of the front row has turned an alarming shade of green. The court clerk is wide eyed with disbelief. With an overwhelming sense of dread I rotate slowly to see what has captured the attention of the court.

As I turn, a foul odour seeps into my nostrils and I visibly recoil. The source of the stench soon becomes apparent when I notice all hell breaking loose in the dock. The court security officers are trying to unlock the door to the cells to escape from Mr. Walsh who is vomiting copiously and indiscriminately.

I pivot back to face the twelve nauseated chosen, I really only have one option here.

“I rest my case.”