‘And what did you do with the money?’
She seemed somewhat surprised by the question, but I had briefed the barrister and we both thought it was a question worth asking.
‘Some of it went to paying off debts, and some on a new car.’
‘A black Nissan?’
‘Yes.’
‘So were you heavily in debt before he received the hundred thousand?’
‘Quite heavily,’ she said. Then she smiled. ‘You know what it’s like with three small kids. They can be a considerable draw on the family finances.’
Perhaps she said it as a way of trying to garner a little sympathy from the jury. But she didn’t get it.
The prosecutor pounced. ‘Did your mother-in-law not help you out with some of your children’s expenses, as their grandmother?’
‘You’ve got to be joking. She was tighter than a duck’s arse when it came to money.’ She emitted a hollow laugh.
There was a long pause in which her laughter died away. And no one else joined in.
‘And yet,’ said the prosecutor gleefully, ‘you would have us believe that she simply gave your husband a hundred thousand pounds. I suggest to you that the hundred thousand was stolen by your husband because of the financial difficulties in which you found yourself as a couple. It was just too good an opportunity not to take what you felt was rightly yours, don’t you agree, Mrs Bradbury?’
Just as at the funeral, Rachael stupidly couldn’t resist having a dig at her late mother-in-law.
‘She wouldn’t miss it,’ she said. ‘She had millions.’
There was a groan from the dock that the whole court could hear, in spite of the glass panels. Rachael looked over to her husband with shock and surprise on her face, but the damage had been done, and everyone knew it — everyone, that was, except her. But she soon worked it out.
‘No further questions,’ said the prosecutor, and he sat down.
Rachael, now in floods of tears, was dismissed.
How the fortunes in a criminal trial could ebb and flow like the tide.
Such was the power of cross-examination.
Just a few hours ago, I’d have staked my house on an acquittal, but now, and especially after Rachael’s debacle, I was more confident of a conviction.
40
The last two days of the trial proper were taken up with closing arguments by the barristers, legal submissions and the summing-up by the judge.
First up was the prosecutor, still on a roll after his cross-examination of the defendant and his wife.
‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,’ he said, facing them. ‘I have laid before you a compelling banquet of evidence in this case, evidence that must lead you to the inevitable conclusion that the defendant, Mr Joseph Bradbury, is guilty of all three of the indictments he faces: theft, attempted murder and murder itself — the murder, no less, of his own sister, his own flesh and blood.’
He was like an actor on stage, giving everything to his performance.
He outlined the prosecution evidence, reminding the jury of what his witnesses had said about the hundred thousand pounds, the ANPR results of the Ford Transit van on the road to Banbury, the white paint found on the back of the Fiat 500, the CCTV footage of the black Nissan at the petrol station early on the morning of the murder, the defendant’s DNA on the neck of the victim and on the murder weapon, and the lack of any record of a supposed telephone call made by the victim to the defendant on the night before.
He also reminded them of the monetary gain that Joe had stood to receive as a result of Amelia predeceasing her mother, and of his financial plight that Rachael had so clearly signalled in her testimony.
Finally, he turned to Joe’s emails, reading out some of his most offensive comments, many of which contained veiled, and not so veiled, threats against both Amelia and me.
‘I am sure that you are all fair-minded individuals and you may say that much of the evidence in this case is circumstantial, and you would be right. But circumstantial evidence is like a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece on its own may seem fairly meaningless but, when all of them are fitted together, they build up a picture of guilt that should be clear for you all to see.’
And we had to hope that the defence couldn’t knock enough pieces out of the jigsaw puzzle such that the picture became impossible to discern.
‘My learned friend, the counsel for the defence, will try and tell you that there is uncertainty in this case, that there is no “smoking gun” that would prove, beyond any shadow of doubt whatsoever, that the defendant is guilty. But I say to you, that there is ample evidence to demonstrate the defendant’s guilt beyond any reasonable doubt. This is not a fantasy movie where special effects can defy the laws of nature and the most improbable and unlikely exploits can seem commonplace. This is the real world and the heinous crime of murder has been committed, depriving Amelia Gordon-Russell of the most precious commodity that each of us possess, life itself. We have shown that Mr Bradbury had both the opportunity and the motive, as well as the mental attitude to kill and to attempt to kill, and his DNA was found all over the murder scene. It is now your duty, as the jury in this case, to ensure that the perpetrator of these appalling offences, that is the defendant in the dock, is justly condemned and punished for his actions by finding him guilty.’
He sat down. Those would be the prosecution’s last words in the case. He had done all he could.
The eel stood up and straightened his gown and wig.
‘Members of the jury,’ he said. ‘There has been much argument and counter-argument in this case but one fact stands out above all others: there is no direct evidence to prove that Mr Joseph Bradbury has committed any of these offences, and you must, therefore, return verdicts of not guilty.’
He took a drink of water from his glass to give time for that sentence to be absorbed by the jury.
‘Mr Bradbury does not need to prove his innocence, that is presumed by the law until shown otherwise. Instead, it is for the prosecution to prove to you that he is guilty, something that I contend they have singularly failed to do.’
Another sip of water.
‘The term beyond reasonable doubt is one that my learned friend has raised with you. “What is beyond reasonable doubt?” I hear you ask. So I will tell you. It is the burden and standard of proof that you must apply in this case. In order to convict you have to be sure, not just almost sure, that the defendant has performed the actions of which he is accused. If you only think that he might have done them, or even that he probably did them, then that is not good enough and you must acquit. In order to convict, you must be sure he did them.’
The eel is good, I thought.
No reasonable doubt about that.
‘And I put it to you, members of the jury, that you cannot be sure of what happened in that kitchen on that fateful morning, you cannot be sure that Mrs Gordon-Russell wasn’t already dead by the time the defendant arrived at her house, you cannot be sure that the van driven by the defendant did collide with a car driven by Mr Gordon-Russell, and you cannot be sure that Mrs Mary Bradbury didn’t give a hundred thousand pounds to her only son. And, because you cannot be sure of any of these things, it is your solemn duty to return three verdicts of not guilty.’
He sat down. His time was up too.
I was totally confused. And if I was, then how were the jury faring? They were the ones that now had to make the decisions and I had absolutely no idea of what was going on in their minds.
I was thinking that an acquittal was back to being odds-on favourite.