Authors: Andrew Symeou
Extradited (28 page)
A
fter a three-year battle to clear my name, the court had found me not guilty. According to the president judge’s summing up, it was due to the attacker having ‘never been described as sporting a beard’.
Moreover, the evidence shows that the nightclub had low levels of light, and only flashing, colourful disco lights that could have altered the visual appearance of a person’s face. This was made more difficult with the lateness of the hour, and degree of alcohol consumed by the victim’s friends before the incident, in addition to their young age. Together with the sworn testimonies of all defence witnesses – the identification of the defendant as the person who fatally attacked the deceased is clearly refuted.
These were all things that should have been revealed in a competent investigation.
I walked out of the courtroom into the hallway and the first person I called was Riya. I choked up, but managed to say the words, ‘I’ve just been found innocent.’ All I could hear on the other end of the telephone were wailing cries.
I felt as though I should have been happy – of course I was –
but it wasn’t how I’d imagined it would feel. We’d been fighting for justice for so long, and we finally had it! I thought that I’d be over the moon because a weight that’d been holding me down for three years was instantly lifted. What bothered me was that the weight should never have been holding me down in the first place. I’d spent almost a year in prison – where was the justice in that? No one could ever make up for it, or even begin to understand how difficult it was for me.
The not-guilty verdict was too little too late, and it left me feeling completely exhausted. All I remember wanting to do at the time was go back to the apartment and lie down.
According to the trial transcript, three jurors out of a judicial panel of seven had voted guilty. It made no difference to the verdict, but still pissed me off massively. After witnessing what was (in my opinion) a massive sweep under the carpet regarding the police’s flawed investigation, I didn’t believe that the ratio was true.
There was no way on earth any jurors voted guilty. I couldn’t let this frustration go, so a couple of years later I did some investigating. I managed to find one of the jurors on Facebook because all of their names were listed in the transcript. I sent a message, explaining what the transcript had said about the verdict. I then asked about the process of voting and whether the ratio was true.
Luckily the juror spoke some English, and I received a response within an hour:
I can tell you for sure is that we didn’t have any connection with the judges. We gathered as jurors and we make our decision which was a not-guilty verdict. It was a common decision. Really how did you come into the conclusion that the other three voted
against you? Anyway, these are all that I remember and I can tell you for sure. I have no clue how the other procedures done. Andrew, what’s done is done. You cannot erase the past but you can go on with your future. Finally the truth came out. Keep that and try to forget all the hard and difficult times that you had and become strong. Bringing all these back to your mind it will not help you to overcome and go on with your life.
It was such a lovely message to receive, and I appreciated it greatly. A criminal complaint had been lodged against the investigating police officers in Zante. The response was that there was no evidence of any wrongdoing, and that their investigation was totally competent. As for the perjury suits in Greece, they seemed to have been completely forgotten about.
The flight from Athens International Airport to London Heathrow was something that I’d been dreaming about since I’d landed in Greece almost two years earlier. It’d finally become reality – I was sitting next to a window on the right-hand side of the cabin. The smell of aeroplane food and recycled oxygen brought back the memory of my extradition. It seemed like an eternity had passed since that day, yet I could remember it so vividly. I travelled back in my mind to how terrified I was, and how oblivious I was to everything that would follow. It could have been a week, a month, or even years before I could clear my name and return home. ‘I’ll probably only be there for two weeks and I’ll make bail back to the UK,’ is what I’d said to Riya on the morning that I was extradited. It had been a life-changing two years in Greece. Finally I was going home.
I stared out of the aircraft’s window and saw a few fluffy clouds beneath us. As we approached England, the clouds became bigger and greyer.
Ding
– the seat belt sign lit up. I looked out of the window again; I could see the same bright blue sky above us that I’d become accustomed to in Greece, but we were gliding over a dark, whitish bed of fleecy fog. The plane began its descent. The window next to me turned into a grey painting that was drenched in droplets of condensation from the outside. All of a sudden I could see the River Thames, the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye out of the window. It was an incredible sight, and London’s rain-clouded sky had never looked so beautiful.
The plane landed in London, and I didn’t know how to feel because I’d never been in the situation before – it was a perfect balance of nerves and excitement. My parents and I exited the plane and walked to the terminal. There was an empty maze of queue-divider belts that we had to weave through in order to get to passport control. There was no queue – only one family in front of us with about four or five young kids. The kids were standing in a line, holding on to each other and running through the empty queue dividers and screaming ‘We’re a caterpillar!’ Something about it gave me a happy feeling – probably because it reminded me of primary school. The boys in my class and I would sometimes hold on to each other and run around in a circle until we’d all fall over. The kids in the airport reminded me that my memories weren’t all about prisons and courtrooms. The burden of the case had been hanging over me for so long that I’d started to forget how it felt to be ‘me’. Something that I hadn’t thought about since I was six years old had suddenly come flooding back to me and filled me with joy.
We walked through the arrivals gate and were bombarded with loud cheers and screams – I couldn’t stop smiling. Several of my family and friends were there and they all ran towards me
and hugged me – some of them jumped on me and I could hardly breathe. It was all too much – my granddad was there – some of my best friends were too. I remember hugging my cousins Andreas, Eleni and Charlotte with my auntie Mary. I was so happy to see that my uncle Theo, Pav, Koulla and Aki were there. Georgina, Teresa, Jenna, Sarah, Luke and even Sophie’s friend Danielle was there too. It was emotional hugging everyone, especially my grandma. They were holding banners and balloons saying: ‘WELCOME HOME ANDREW’. I held Riya in my arms for the first time in three years as a free man – it was the best feeling in the world.
We stepped out of the terminal. London’s air was cool and I felt fine droplets of rain on my face. I still couldn’t believe that I was even there – it was so bizarre. It was so strange to see right-hand-drive cars and English registration plates again.
Riya drove me home – my friends George, Kyri and Pani were squashed into the back seat. Music was playing on the radio – I turned the volume up to full blast and we were all dancing in our seats.
When we arrived, there were about fifty of my family and friends on my driveway – cheering with a massive banner that said: ‘WELCOME HOME SYMEOU FAMILY!’ It was emotional and overwhelming to see everyone there, together, in my house after two years.
I couldn’t believe that I was in my house again. It was the strangest feeling in the world. More and more friends and family kept turning up and we partied until the early hours of the morning.
Someone pinned a ‘21 today’ badge on me, because I’d spent my twenty-first birthday in prison. My friends had had T-shirts custom-made with my face on the front, which said ‘He’s Back!’ A group of my best friends put them on and then put one on me
and started to sing ‘Happy Birthday’, ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’ and then did a countdown to ‘Happy New Year!’ twice in a row because I’d been gone for two years. It was amazing and everyone in my house must have been smiling.
When I was in Greece I always felt like I was missing out on special moments back home. But on my first night back, I felt like I hadn’t missed them at all. They were always there – waiting for me to celebrate.
I was given two Christmases, two Easters, two birthdays, and two New Year’s Eves rolled into one huge party – it was one of the best nights of my life.
M
onths passed. I had my life back, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling of anxiety for some reason. Prior to my arrest I’d been a positive person who took each day as it came – suddenly I couldn’t stop worrying about the future. I knew that I was expected to go to university and then become successful in one of the most competitive cities in the world. I started to doubt myself and felt incapable. Most of my friends seemed to be comfortable in the workplace, some in huge central London firms. The thought of it terrified me; even the thought of university terrified me. It may sound strange, but I would have felt more comfortable in Korydallos Prison. Once I’d become used to the violence, lack of hygiene and drug problems, all I had to do was wake up in the morning, make a
frappe
, spin my
pegleri
between my fingers and stay out of trouble! I’m not saying that I liked Korydallos Prison, or that I would rather go back there than go to work. In prison (or even out on bail) I didn’t have to socialise with people on an intellectual level. I didn’t have to prove myself to anyone, or work towards anything on a daily basis. In fact, nobody had expected anything of me for the previous three years! All of a sudden I had an entire life to live and I felt like I was too scared to live it.
I knew what I had to do: I had to draw the positives from my experience and realise that I could mould my life into anything that I wanted it to be. This is, of course, far easier said than done – but I gave it a go. In October 2011 I attended Middlesex University to pursue a degree in Psychology with Marketing and worked part time in a local bar. I forced myself to take small steps towards ‘normality’ and focus on everyday tasks. Life was falling into place, but something still never felt quite right. For months and months, I felt like my mind was always elsewhere. Throughout my experience in Greece I would constantly attempt to escape my environment, and I would do so by losing myself in thought for long periods of time. The nightmare had ended; I had my life back – so why I was still in ‘think’ mode? If I wasn’t reliving things that had happened in prison or elements of the trial, I was worrying about having to find my right path in life.
What if I go down the wrong route and I have regrets? I’ve wasted too much time, I can’t waste any more.
They were pointless thoughts and I felt like I couldn’t stop them. I just didn’t feel like ‘me’ any more. I was trying to be fun and happy like my friends, but I couldn’t do it. Even when I was relaxing with my girlfriend or we’d be out on the weekends, I would constantly overthink and not live in the moment. We took a trip to Venice, which was lovely, but as I overlooked the stunning city from the top of St Mark’s clock tower, it felt as though I couldn’t even absorb it. My body was there, but my mind was flowing in and out. I’d started to realise that I felt most comfortable when in my room, concentrating on my university work – alone.
Almost a year had passed and I ended up completely destroying my relationship with Riya. After everything that we’d been through together, it felt like I couldn’t even help it. Losing her was so difficult to accept that I don’t even want to write about it.
O
ver a year had passed since my return and our lives were back on track. My parents were both working again and I’d managed to start putting my experience behind me. I’d lost almost seventy pounds in weight and passed my first year of university with a first grade. One of my lecturers had selected me as a ‘student learning assistant’ in my second year of university, so I was being paid to help first-year students with their work in seminars, as well as conducting my own group and one-on-one learning sessions. I was technically a member of staff, so I didn’t feel like a normal student. After all the years of being made to feel insignificant, I had a sense of importance – and it felt pretty good.
It was November 2012 and I’d just finished helping a first-year group prepare a presentation assessment. It’d been a long day and I made my way home. I stepped into the house and my mum called me from upstairs. She was sitting in our study, holding a letter in her hands. ‘How would you feel about testifying in the Coroner’s Court for Jonathan Hiles’s inquest?’ she asked.
I tutted. ‘I wasn’t there, so what could I have to add!?’
‘Well, that’s exactly what you’ll have to tell them.’
She handed me the document, which was an official summons from the Cardiff coroner.
Things were going so well in my life; I’d put everything that had happened behind me. What did they want from me now!?
‘Can’t I just make a written statement?’
‘It doesn’t look like it,’ said my mum.
I was legally required to attend, even though I really didn’t want to. After the years of moving forward and rebuilding my life, all the stress came flooding back.
It was Day 1 of Jonathan Hiles’s inquest and I sat on the second row of the public benches. I couldn’t believe that I was being dragged into it all over again. My parents had appointed a barrister to defend me from any slanderous comments – other than that I was simply there to tell the coroner that I wasn’t present on the night that Jonathan was allegedly attacked.
My parents were sitting to my right, and to my left were two South Wales police officers who were there to testify. The entire left wall of the courtroom was filled with journalists and reporters. I glanced at one of the journalists who held a pen and notebook in her hands. I looked at the blank, white page of her notebook and wondered what she would end up filling it with. I had absolutely no idea what was about to happen.
Chris Kyriacou and Charlie Klitou walked into the court – they’d been summoned too. I could see both of them in my peripheral vision walking past to the left of me, but I didn’t make eye contact with them. The last time I’d seen them had been two years earlier, at the trial in Patras. Even then I hadn’t spoken to them. I’d never blamed them for what had happened in Zante: they were put in an awful situation and they did what they had to do to get out of it. Although I’d never held anything against
them, I felt like I couldn’t be a friend to them any more. Not after everything that had happened.
Jonathan Hiles’s five friends entered the courtroom just after Chris and Charlie. I didn’t make eye contact with them either – looking at them would have brought back too many dark thoughts that were already behind me.
The courtroom began to fill with the family and friends of the victim – it left a silent tension in the room.
I learned that coroner’s courts are quite informal; so all witnesses are present throughout the entirety of the inquests.
The inquest ended up being like another full-blown trial! It began with the testimonies of Jonathan Hiles’s five friends, who were with him on the night of the attack. They were each called to testify. The coroner pressed each of them on the point that their statements made to South Wales Police and to the Greek authorities were completely different. For example, the first of them to be questioned by her was Lee Burgess:
Mr Burgess, I want to talk about how the Greek statements could be so wrong. What you’ve said to me in court does accord with what you said to the South Wales Police in 2007 – I’m not worried about fine detail but I’m worried about the thrust of your evidence. However, it doesn’t accord – as we’ve established – with the evidence that the Greek authorities have sent me. I’d like you to tell me whether you could provide me with any explanation for that?
‘I told them the same thing that I’ve told you,’ Lee answered.
It was a stressful and emotional two-day inquest. Mark O’Gorman (the only eyewitness) identified me with complete certainty as the attacker again. Mark and his four friends seemed to hold onto the proposition that they didn’t give a full description
of the attacker, or male urinating, because they didn’t understand the importance of the South Wales Police statements.
The coroner later commented on Mark O’Gorman’s testimony:
Mr O’Gorman, having said that I’m not sympathetic to any suggestion that a witness giving a statement to the police shouldn’t take that seriously, I’ve since been assisted by my coroner’s officer. The version of your statement from which I’m working is the typed version, because of course it’s much easier to read a typed version than a version handwritten by a police officer, even if it’s relatively neat writing. But my coroner’s officer has in front of her the handwritten version and she has just handed up to me the last page of the handwritten version. There are two matters that I notice about the handwritten version. One is that the final statement in the handwritten version says: ‘I’m prepared to attend at any court proceedings and I consent to any person with a genuine interest in this case be given a copy of this statement.’ Well, the first thing is that that statement there appears just above your signature. So the last paragraph is … five lines above your signature. That’s the first thing that I noticed in terms of what the statement is going to be used for. The second thing I noticed about this handwritten version is that … just looking at the last page, and that’s page thirteen, there are three points on this page where crossings out have been made, and you’ve initialled them … I’d like you to confirm for me, a) that it’s your signature at the bottom, and b) that it’s your initials on the crossings out in three places.
Mark O’Gorman was handed the original copy of his statement. ‘Erm … yeah.’
‘Thank you,’ said the coroner.
Over two days the coroner heard evidence from a pathologist, the five friends of the victim, Chris Kyriacou, Charlie Klitou,
myself and two South Wales police officers. The coroner’s ruling was as follows:
The evidence about what happened to Jonathan on the evening of 19/20 July 2007 all comes from Mark O’Gorman. Mr O’Gorman is the only person who actually saw Jonathan come off the stage on which he was dancing and hit his head. If I accept Mr O’Gorman’s evidence as truthful and accurate – that another person punched Jonathan without provocation and caused him to fall off the stage, hit his head and die as a consequence – then unlawful killing is the appropriate verdict. If I do not accept his evidence, then it is not. I’ve said that Mr O’Gorman’s evidence is the only evidence … I’m conscious that the evidence of the pathologist who conducted the post-mortem examination in Cardiff was that – apart from the devastating head injury, there was a facial injury. However – that could have been caused by a punch, but wasn’t necessarily caused by a punch. So on that basis – simply on the pathology – Jonathan could have simply fallen. I thought very carefully about whether another person on this crowded stage, where everyone was dancing and lots of people were likely to have been drinking, could have thrown an arm out and accidentally caught Jonathan on the side of his face. Mr O’Gorman was sure that that wasn’t the case. He described very clearly the way in which the man faced up to Jonathan after having been challenged about urinating on the dance floor, then quite deliberately punched him. I remind myself that when considering this I must be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt, I must not return a verdict that is unsafe. Ultimately, I do accept the evidence of Mr O’Gorman … on this point. I find him to be truthful in this respect. I accept that he has an accurate recall of the events of the evening of 19/20 July 2007. That therefore makes a verdict of unlawful killing appropriate.
I completely agreed with the verdict. It had been said from the very beginning that a punch was thrown, which was indeed unlawful.
The coroner continued:
I could stop there … but in this case, I think that would be inappropriate and I would be doing a disservice to all concerned. It is incumbent upon me in this instance, as in every instance, not only to give my decision but to give full reasons for my decision – and in this respect, I think that I must turn to the question of identity.
If I were sitting with a jury and I were leaving the verdict of ‘unlawful killing’ open to them, I would direct them as to the identity of those people who may potentially be responsible for the unlawful killing. I intend to follow that same path today as I give you reasons for the decision that I make. In a normal course of events I would not be hearing such an inquest, because the matter would have been heard by way of a criminal trial at Crown Court. There was a criminal trial in this instance, but it wasn’t in this country. As Jonathan was brought back to my jurisdiction and no trial has taken place in the Crown Court, I have been obliged to hold an inquest – I did not have a choice in this. I am, by law, prohibited from returning a verdict that appears to determine criminal guilt on the part of a named person. However, that does not apply to my summing up – and in this unusual situation – I’m of the view that I must tackle the issue of the person who threw the punch that caused Jonathan to fall off the stage in the early hours of 20 July 2007.
The only person who saw the punch was Mark O’Gorman, and Mr O’Gorman was sure that the person who threw the punch was the same person who was earlier urinating among the dancers. Others in Jonathan’s group had seen the person
urinating, so there were several witnesses involved in the question of identification because of the linking of the two events. The identification procedure conducted by the Greek police was
not
the same as the identification procedure that would have taken place in this country. It would not have been an acceptable way of conducting matters in this country. Several witnesses looked over photographs together. Once one witness had made what he thought was the identification, the other witnesses all looked at
that
photograph. This, frankly, placed those witnesses in an appalling situation. While I’m satisfied that they were doing their best on that night, the reason why such care is taken over identification procedures in this country is because it is so easy to get it wrong. In this country, I have known loved ones to identify the body of a deceased to the police, only subsequently to discover that the person is not in fact their family member. I know that has happened on more than one occasion. However much those witnesses looked at the photographs in the police station in Zante – in July 2007 – however much they tried to empty their minds of the views of their friends … I think that that was impossible for them to do. After the first person had pointed out the man we now know is Andrew Symeou in the photograph, all of the young men turned their attention to that photograph, rather than having to pick the suspect out with fresh eyes. Identification in such a situation seems to me a wholly unsafe identification to make.
The photograph wasn’t the only matter. I turn from that to the descriptions given by the witnesses who were with Jonathan, and who either saw the punch or the man urinating. The best evidence is generally from first witness statements taken close to the events. The witness statements I received from Greece, and had translated, I’m very sorry to say I’ve found of no assistance at all. I find that they do not represent the substance of the
information given by Jonathan’s friends. They are not separate statements of individuals, but a mishmash of information, lumped together by police – and they bear almost no resemblance to the individual versions of events as given by the five young men. In terms of the evidence given since, the witnesses have focused in court on the beard of the man who threw the punch – but there has been doubt as to whether he had a moustache. The identification
now
simply cannot measure up to the standard of proof to which I must adhere. Nearly six years have passed since Jonathan died. The witnesses have all seen Andrew Symeou sitting in the dock of a Greek courtroom in the meantime – and with the best will in the world, I simply cannot rely on the evidence that they give now in that respect.
Having decided that this identification evidence is unsafe, I want to tell you that I then went on to consider whether there was evidence the other way. In other words – whether there was evidence that the person who punched Jonathan was not Andrew Symeou. I considered the other evidence that I heard, most particularly from Andrew Symeou and the friends who were with him on the night. Those three young men gave evidence that they were not in the club where Jonathan was punched at the relevant time. Before considering the evidence of the three individuals, from whom I heard on this point, what struck me on the outset was that … if they’re lying, because the three of them were at the Rescue bar, and Mr Symeou
did
punch Jonathan, then … to concoct a lie to try and deal with that – by giving the story that they
weren’t even in
the bar at the relevant time is a very risky strategy. These are young men, they are of a generation used to Facebook, used to the internet in all its forms, used to an environment in which many people – not just young people – have cameras on their mobile phones and there is often CCTV in bars. A lie of that nature might quite easily be disproved. So at
the outset, I say that this would be a risky strategy. Of course it’s possible, but it’s something that I bear in mind.
I turn now to the oral testimony I heard from Christopher Kyriacou, Charles Klitou and Andrew Symeou himself. I say plainly, that I found these witnesses to be utterly truthful, completely accurate and wholly compelling. I find that not only did Andrew Symeou not punch Jonathan Hiles, but he was not even in the bar at the time. I’m aware that Mr Kyriacou and Mr Klitou made statements to the Greek police saying they were there, and they saw Mr Symeou was the perpetrator of this crime. I’m very sorry to say that these statements are simply not worth the paper they are written on. They contain fanciful information about an argument over a young woman, and I find that they were concocted by the Greek police in a very misguided effort to solve this crime. The story I heard from Mr Kyriacou and Mr Klitou, of the way they were treated, I would not have believed unless I had heard it with my own ears. They were not just badly treated, they were not just bullied – they were beaten. They signed the statements put in front of them for one reason, and one reason only: because they were afraid … and with good reason.
Jonathan’s death is an absolute tragedy for his family, but they were not the only ones who were hurt here.
For the avoidance of doubt, I’m returning a verdict of unlawful killing. I do not name the perpetrator of the crime – because that would be unlawful. However, the basis upon which I return this verdict is that I do not know who the person was who killed Jonathan, but I know that that person was not Andrew Symeou.
