Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby) (8 page)

Mr Crosse was a drab, earnest solicitor in his mid fifties. He wore a dark suit, rimless glasses, and the regimental tie of the Royal Engineers, which he had served in as a young man. Sarah led him through a series of questions to establish his credibility; he was chairman of his local parish council, and a senior partner in a firm of criminal solicitors. He had known Brian Winnick for ten years, and represented him in court several times. He had last seen him in St James’s hospital in Leeds.

‘Was he very ill when you saw him?’ Sarah asked.

‘He was, yes. He had difficulty breathing, and was hooked up to an oxygen cylinder.’

‘What was the nature of his illness?’

‘He had lung cancer. It was terminal. The doctors had told him he had just a few weeks to live.’

‘What was his state of mind at the time?’

‘He was quite lucid. Perfectly clear in his head, no doubt about that. But he was in a serious frame of mind, as you’d expect. That’s what he’d asked to see me about. He wanted to make a statement about all the lies he’d told in the past.’

‘And what was his motive for this?’

‘Remorse, I think. He’d just been received into the Catholic church. There was a priest at his bedside shortly before I arrived.’

This comment seemed to impress the judges. They asked a number of questions, to ensure that the priest had had no hand in the actual phrasing of the statement. Then Sarah led him through the details of what Brian Winnick had said, and the notes Mr Crosse had made of their conversation.

‘He told me that the evidence he gave in the trial of Jason Barnes was a lie. Mr Barnes did not tell him he had murdered Brenda Stokes. Mr Winnick made that up, and lied about it to the police, he said.’

‘Did he tell you why he’d done that?’

‘To get a reduced sentence, he said. He was charged with drug dealing, and hoped the police would drop those charges if he helped them convict Jason Barnes.’

‘Did he say which police officer promised to do that?’

‘That ... he didn’t say.’ Mr Crosse hesitated, glancing nervously across the court at the two detectives who sat glowering at him. ‘I don’t think he mentioned names.’

‘Very well.’ Sarah moved swiftly on, but when she had finished and Gareth Jones rose to cross-examine, he returned immediately to this point.

‘You’re an experienced solicitor, Mr Crosse. You understand the importance of getting a statement as clear as it can possibly be. So why didn’t you ask your client? Which officer was it who made him such a promise?’

‘I suppose ... I was too surprised by the nature of the details he was telling me. And then, he was very weak. I didn’t want to put him under too much strain.’

‘It was difficult for him to speak, was it?’

‘Yes. There were long pauses. At times he closed his eyes and seemed to sleep.’

‘I see.’ Gareth Jones paused. ‘Mr Crosse, you’ve told this court you believed Mr Winnick was of sound mind, even though he was dying and needed oxygen. Did you get medical evidence from a doctor to support this belief?’

‘I ... no, I didn’t. I did consider it but there was no one around at the time. The doctors were all very busy.’

‘I see. As a layman, Mr Crosse, do you accept that when a dying person has difficulty breathing, their brain may become starved of oxygen? In which case their grasp on reality may be somewhat limited?’

‘I don’t know. I’m not medically qualified.’

‘Quite. So your opinion, that Mr Winnick was of sound mind and telling the truth, rather than indulging in a fantasy, is just an opinion, isn’t it? You have no medical basis for saying that?’

‘No medical basis, no. Just thirty years professional experience of interviewing clients.’

‘Many of whom lie, no doubt.’

‘Of course. I believe Mr Winnick was telling the truth.’

‘But you didn’t administer an oath?’

‘No. I intended to do that when I returned, with the statement typed up for him to sign. Unfortunately he died before that was possible.’

It was an incisive performance, inflicting maximum damage on Sarah’s principal witness. As they adjourned for lunch, she wondered if she might have more time in Cambridge with Emily than she had anticipated.

As court resumed after lunch, the senior judge looked down at the barristers.

‘Very well, we have heard Mr Crosse, and have come to a decision. This court is prepared to consider the notes of his conversation with Brian Winnick in the appeal. But before we hear argument on what weight to attach to it, do you have any other evidence you wish us to consider?’

Hugely relieved, Sarah rose to her feet once again. The first hurdle had been cleared. She might be only a junior barrister from the north east, but she had won a point, at least, in the Court of Criminal Appeal. She addressed the judges, half-aware as she did so of a background of bitter whispering from the two detectives.

‘Yes, my Lords. The second major point of Mr Barnes’s appeal concerns the evidence of Amanda Carr. As your Lordships will know, Ms Carr was a student nurse at Naburn Maternity Hospital at the time of the original trial. As soon as she read about the case in the local press, she went voluntarily to the police to make a statement. She had seen a young woman answering Brenda Stokes’ description on the road outside the hospital at four a.m. that night, she said. This evidence was available to Superintendent Baxter...’ She glanced coolly at the elderly detective. ‘... but was never used in trial or disclosed to the defence. My Lords, I submit that this was a serious abuse of process. Had the defence been aware of this evidence, they could not have failed to use it to establish reasonable doubt. My Lords, Ms Carr has been troubled by this matter ever since. Her memory of that night remains clear, and she is here in court today.’

The judges turned to her opponent. Gareth Jones rose swiftly.

‘My Lords, I strongly oppose my learned friend’s submission. Your Lordships will be aware, as she is, that this matter was raised at a previous court of appeal. On that occasion their Lordships concluded that it was
not
possible to say that it would have created reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury, as Mrs Newby contends. In view of this prior judgement, My Lords, I submit that it is unnecessary to consider this evidence once again.’

Sarah had expected this. She had read the details of the previous appeal at four o’clock that morning. As he sat down, she rose to her feet.

‘My Lords, my learned colleague omits a crucial point of their Lordships’ previous judgement. Let me refer you to paragraph 12. What their Lordships actually said was that they were not convinced that Ms Carr’s evidence
on its own
would have been sufficient to create reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury. My Lords, those three words
on its own
are crucial. My client’s appeal today does not rely on Ms Carr’s evidence alone. We seek to combine it with the statement of Brian Winnick, as well as three minor points which I also intend to lay before your Lordships. It is my client’s contention that these five points
taken together
are more than sufficient to persuade you that he has, for the past eighteen years, suffered a serious miscarriage of justice.’

The judges took several minutes to consider. Then, to Sarah’s relief, the senior judge said: ‘Very well, Mrs Newby. We are prepared to hear from Amanda Carr.’

Amanda Carr was a small round cheery woman in her early forties. Her evidence was brief, clear, and helpful. Eighteen years ago she’d been a student nurse at Naburn Maternity Hospital outside York. Driving home from a hospital party she’d passed a young woman wandering along a country road. The young woman had been wearing a schoolgirl outfit, but looked too old to be a schoolgirl, so Amanda assumed it was fancy dress. It was only a few days later, when she read of the disappearance of Brenda Stokes, that she went to the police and made a statement. But to her surprise, she was never called to give evidence.

Gareth Jones stood to cross-examine her. His manner, as Sarah had expected, was very polite, gentle, and charming.

‘Mrs Carr, this is very public-spirited of you. This matter still troubles you today, does it?’

‘Yes, it does. If only I’d stopped to offer that girl a lift, she might still be alive today.’

‘Naturally, a very troubling thought. You’re assuming, of course, that it was Brenda Stokes who you saw.’

‘Yes, of course. I’d never met the girl in my life. But the person I saw matched the description in the newspapers. Almost exactly.’

‘Yes, I see. Did you think of stopping to offer her a lift?’

‘No. I wish I had now, but it just didn’t enter my head.’

‘You were coming home from a party at the hospital, were you?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘About four in the morning, you say?’

‘About that time, yes. It was quarter past four when I got home. I remember that; my mother was waiting up, and she made a big fuss about that.’

Gareth Jones smiled. ‘I’m a lawyer, as you see, but I went to a few parties with nurses when I was younger. Pretty lively affairs, as I recall. Were yours like that?’

‘We had a lot of fun, yes.’

‘Quite a lot to drink?’

‘Yes, probably.’

‘Mrs Carr, I’m not here to be awkward or score petty points. We’re here to find the truth, all of us. But, purely in the interests of truth, would it be fair to say that when you were driving home from that party eighteen years ago, you might possibly have had rather more to drink than you or I would consider safe to drive on today?’

Amanda considered the point seriously. ‘Was I drunk, you mean?’

The old rogue, he’s charmed her, Sarah thought. Cunning move.

‘Well, yes. I mean, don’t worry, nobody’s accusing you of drink driving or anything like that. Things were different then, after all. And we’ve all been young once.’

‘Yes, well, it’s possible, I suppose. But I wouldn’t say drunk. I could still drive the car ok. I must have done, I got home.’

‘Yes, but my point is, when we’re drunk, you know, our perceptions aren’t as clear as when we’re sober. We make mistakes. And you only saw this girl for a few seconds, didn’t you, in your headlights? So what I’m suggesting, you see, is perhaps you did see someone, and thought nothing of it. Then a few days later when you read this description in the paper, your mind played a trick on you, and you imagined the person you saw looked like Brenda Stokes. Whereas it wasn’t really her at all.’

Amanda frowned. ‘Well, I never said it was Brenda, did I? But did I see a girl in a schoolgirl outfit? Yes. Did she have long dark hair, as it said in the newspapers? Yes, I think so. I can see her now in my mind’s eye. I wasn’t that drunk, Mr Jones.’

Gareth Jones bowed to her slightly, and sat down.

Sarah’s success in persuading the judges to consider Amanda Carr’s evidence began to fade almost as soon as she left the stand. The next hour was taken up with argument about how much significance should be attached to that evidence. And here, Sarah frequently found herself worsted by her opponent. Gareth Jones was not a QC for nothing, and he was determined to run rings round her if he could.

Amanda’s evidence, Gareth Jones argued, was worth very little. As experienced High Court judges, their Lordships could not fail to know how notoriously unreliable identification evidence was. Witnesses frequently picked out the wrong people in identification parades, even when they had seen their assailant face to face, which Mrs Carr had not done. Given all these doubts, it was hard to see what difference her evidence could have made to the jury. Even if the girl on the road had been Brenda, it was still possible that Jason had killed her after Amanda saw her.

Sarah opposed this point vigorously, using a map to illustrate the distance from the point where Amanda had seen the girl, to the point where Jason said she had left him by the river on Landing Lane. ‘My Lords, there is no dispute about the time when Amanda Carr got home. It was after four a.m. – her mother berated her for it. So if the girl she saw
was
Brenda Stokes, she was still alive at four in the morning. Which means that my client would simply not have had time to murder Brenda, dispose of her body, and then drive to Leeds and torch the car so that it was completely burnt out before 5.20 a.m. It’s not practicable. In any case it conflicts with the version presented in court, which is that my client murdered Brenda Stokes soon after 2 a.m., and dumped her body in the river.

‘But what if my client’s story is true? They had a violent quarrel at Landing Lane, after which she fled into the night. She ran off, bleeding and terrified, to hide from him in the undergrowth. He searched for her with the torch, but eventually gave up and drove back to Leeds. Then, when it was quiet, she may have ventured out, and made her way south along the footpath by the river, to a field opposite Naburn Lane, where the old Maternity Hospital used to be. Which is exactly where Amanda Carr saw a young woman, dressed as a schoolgirl, wandering along the road at 4 a.m. that morning.’

Sarah looked up, at the three learned faces watching her thoughtfully. ‘My Lords, I do not say this definitely happened; I cannot be sure. But I do say that it is a version entirely consistent with the evidence. It fits my client’s story; it also explains the evidence of Amanda Carr. The only evidence it conflicts with is Jason Barnes’s alleged confession to Brian Winnick, which Mr Crosse has told us is a lie.

‘And that, My Lords, explains quite clearly why Amanda’s statement was such an embarrassment to the police, and why they failed to follow it up, or disclose it to the prosecution. It ruins their version of events. It gives my client a watertight alibi, which was never presented to the jury. Quite simply, it proves his innocence.’

Gareth Jones rose to his feet beside her. ‘My Lords, I am reminded of games I used to play as a child. We balanced one playing card on top of another, to build a castle as high as we could. But sadly, it always collapsed in the end. The foundations were simply not there.’

Sarah turned on him coldly. ‘That, it seems to me, is more apt as a description of the prosecution case than the defence. My client has spent 18 years in prison for a conviction in which there was no body, no real forensic evidence, and a fake confession.’