Fit Up (20 page)

Back at the seating area that I had adopted as a temporary base, I looked towards the end of the corridor where Court 36 exited. I saw a man sitting with a file and looking through papers and wondered if it was Fouhey. Then another man came through the entrance to the
hall and walked towards him and, although I could not see his features very well, there was no mistaking the voice. It was Hopkins! I sat bolt upright, which helped conceal me behind a pillar and where I was able to peek without being seen. I could see Hopkins pacing back and forth and he turned to look up towards my end of the hall. From his position I was sure he could now see me. Our eyes met briefly and suddenly I was back in my bedroom on 30 October 2003 when he told me that Jeremy was being arrested. I remembered those close-set eyes which seemed to hold some amusement at my shock and discomfort. He looked away quickly and I wondered if he had recognised me after all this time, as it had been four and a half years since our last encounter.

Fouhey acknowledged Hopkins, but did not engage in conversation. Hopkins moved away and then Grundy came out to have a word with him before he disappeared from the hall. It was probably to tell him that he would not be on the stand today and in any case I wanted to get on first so that I could watch Leslie dismantle his testimony.

Fouhey was then called in and I kept my vigil until late afternoon when Jeremy came out of the courtroom talking with Andre and Leslie in a huddle with their assistants. I was not privy to the conversation but later on, when we were on our way home, Jeremy said that they were ecstatic with the way Fouhey had performed. He was a compliant witness and had apparently, in their words, ‘sung like a canary'. It could not have gone better for us at the end of day two.

The days were blurring into each other now. It felt like purgatory. Today was the day I was on the stand to give evidence. I was cool and calm on the journey into London, and I tried not to think of what was to come.

Finally, I was allowed into Court 36. My only view previously had been through the small windows of a door but I could now survey the whole scene. The only outside light came from very high windows at
one side to cheer up the dark wood panelling that was everywhere. Even the flooring creaked and groaned with each step as I made my way towards my seat. Behind me sat Dr Stuart Turner, the psychiatrist both Jeremy and I had seen previously, and I acknowledged him with a nodded hello. Jeremy sat beside me at the end of the pew and Andre turned around to talk to us. He gave me that warm smile and talked quickly and quietly of the proceedings for the day. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Challenger setting out his papers and trying to make friendly banter with Leslie while Grundy sat behind him. Over my shoulder a small audience of girls from Andre's office were settling in with their notebooks.

From out of nowhere a sudden chill crept up my neck. I found I could barely breathe and I struggled to fill my lungs, but my thoughts were quite lucid in how I was going to get out of this place. It was as though my body was being taken over. Although Jeremy was blocking my path, I thought, I could ease myself past him on the pretext of going to the toilet, get my coat and be out of here. I knew it would let him and the legal team down if I did not give evidence but I knew I could not go through with it. I wanted to scream and cry so hard and beg not to have to go on the stand and there was still time to make my escape. I looked at Jeremy's face, thinking how much I loved him, and knew that he would understand and eventually forgive me. I had earned Andre's respect in my undying support for Jeremy and the case and I was sorry that I was going to have to fail both of them now.

The clatter of a closing door brought me to attention. I was going to have to make my move soon as Andre had returned to his papers, Leslie had put on his wig and the court clerk was moving to the front of the room. My heart thudded faster as my mind pictured myself moving past Jeremy, walking to the door and running down the long corridor towards the freedom of outside. Dramatically I imagined Jeremy and
Andre chasing me but I was going to out-run them. ‘Do it now,' I thought and as I leaned forward to pick up my bag from the floor I heard the clerk announcing ‘all rise'.

A
s I stood with everyone else looking towards Mr Justice Cranston taking his seat I realised I was too late and the phrase, ‘he who hesitates is lost’ came to mind. That was true for sure and I now had to accept what was to come. Cranston acknowledged the gathering and nodded that we could sit down.

As he sat down higher than all of us atop his bench he reminded me of the character of Waldorf from the Muppets, one of the disagreeable old men who would heckle the other puppets with Statler from their balcony seats. I could see that he was balding from the front with grey and white hair at the sides with his wig perched in the middle. This would become a familiar sight to me as the trial progressed, because his judging style was to say little, keep his head down and write copious notes.

My thoughts were interrupted by Leslie opening proceedings quickly. ‘My Lord, I think the state of proceedings is that we should hear from Mrs Clifford first.’ My stomach churned. Despite the fact that I was beginning to accept my fate, the idea of passing out to delay the inevitable popped up in my mind. Leslie continued, ‘I am just going to touch upon one or two matters and how it has affected the relationship. Then we are going to hear from Dr Turner, the claimant’s psychiatrist, then we are going to hear from Dr Van Velsen, the defendant’s psychiatrist.’

Challenger got up to announce that Dr Van Velsen had not yet arrived at the court and that Grundy was checking her whereabouts.

There was a little more interaction between the parties and then I heard Cranston say, ‘Let us hear from Mrs Clifford.’ This was it. Here we go, I thought. As I stood Andre turned to give me a reassuring smile. Passing Jeremy, he placed the flat of his hand at the small of my back for some comfort. He knew how I would be feeling. As I got nearer to the stand it rose above me like a wooden tower that had to be climbed. For a moment I disappeared from the view of everyone to climb the steps before emerging into the witness box like it was some castle turret. I was now on more of a level, but side on with Cranston and as I turned to face Leslie and my fighting corner, they seemed to be so far away and small. The stool was so high that I could not get up on it properly with my legs trembling so much so I chose to remain standing but lean against it. I was given a Bible by the clerk of the court and was sworn in. Feeling queasy at this lofty height, I turned towards Leslie who said, ‘There are a couple of things about giving evidence in court. One of them is to keep your voice up. I could not hear you over here and it may be that because I have a cold my ears are a bit blocked but if you could keep your voice up please. Secondly, listen to the questions and watch his Lordship’s pen because he is making a note of what you say. Start by giving your full name.’

‘Faith Julie Clifford,’ I replied.

Leslie responded: ‘I still cannot hear you.’

‘Faith Julie Clifford,’ I repeated, feeling as though I had made a huge effort to shout. It sounded loud from where I was but obviously by the time my voice reached those at the low seats, I was barely audible. As I looked towards Leslie I saw Andre looking concerned, probably thinking I was not going to be as good a witness as they thought I was going to be. Now I was up here, I had to get a grip.

‘And your address?’ was Leslie’s next question. I responded with a louder voice this time but I got: ‘Louder please.’ Frustrated, I repeated my address and I could see Leslie’s big sigh with the rise and fall of his chest. I could see he was annoyed and felt tears threaten to well up in my eyes. He said, ‘I know it is difficult and I know you are not used to speaking in court and the acoustics in this building are not fantastic, but it really is important that your evidence is heard. Do you understand?’

‘Oh, dear God,’ I thought. ‘I so wish I could be spirited away somewhere.’ I looked towards Jeremy and his head was tilted to one side with a look of pity and concern.

I answered, ‘Yes,’ and then was asked my occupation. ‘Facilities Manager,’ I responded. I must have hit the right pitch because the questions from Leslie started to flow without complaint.

‘And are you Jeremy Clifford’s wife? When were you married? Obviously you remember the wedding day, what time did you get married?’ As I answered each of the questions in turn I began to feel more at ease. I knew where Leslie was leading me to get the point over at what time we were married to dispute the police accusation that Jeremy was purchasing child pornography on 21 April 1999 around that time. My responses were short in either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ format, and then Leslie asked if Jeremy had bought a laptop computer to the wedding and I started to grin. I replied ‘no’, and then had to suppress laughing out loud when he said, ‘So, as you were talking to the registrar, he was on the internet trawling for porn?’ I again replied ‘no’. So far in this question and answer dialogue I realised I had forgotten to look towards the judge, as it is customary to do. I was so mesmerised by Leslie’s theatrical presence in the courtroom that everyone else had faded into the background. He paused to look to Challenger and Grundy to see if this point had sunk in for them and then he told Cranston that he was going to play a tape for me to identify the voice. The tape was duly played and again Lloyd Gerard rose from
the dead. His weedy little voice filled the room as a small part of the dialogue of his conversation with Julie Cullivan was played. I confirmed that this was indeed Gerard and that the other voice was Julie Cullivan. Leslie then asked if I knew what this case was about and to confirm that the statement in the file in front of me was mine and to read the sentence above my signature. ‘I believe the facts stated in this witness statement are true,’ I read, and then confirmed that I still stood by that. Leslie asked Cranston to accept my statement as evidence. Cranston responded ‘yes’, but did not look up.

I was well into my stride now with Leslie. He had the ability to calm me down and make me feel that he and I were the only ones in the room.

We were then moving on to the impact of the prosecution on Jeremy and me. I said that when we had got married we were very happy, and had been until this incident. As I said this out loud I felt the sadness creep over me and in doing so had not realised that my voice had become hushed. Leslie asked me to speak up again and I continued to say that we were very happily married until this incident and Jeremy’s arrest, and that he was humiliated and disturbed by it.

Leslie briefly mentioned the raid on our house on 30 October 2003 and then moved on to 19 July, when Jeremy was charged. He asked me to explain to Cranston what effect the arrest had had on Jeremy first.

‘He became withdrawn and he lost his easy-going manner,’ I said. ‘He lost his focus on the business, became very depressed. There were times when I used to come home and the curtains were drawn. He was just lying in bed, he couldn’t get up.’

Leslie went on to ask how Jeremy was beforehand, was he the sort of person who would be in bed when I came home in the afternoon? Was that his character?

I confidently responded, ‘No, he was very business-minded, entrepreneurial, very outgoing and then he became withdrawn. It was a noticeable
difference. He became uncommunicative, snappy, irritable, totally different to the person he was.’ Then I was led on to the period after Jeremy’s arrest and before charge and asked if there was any improvement in his behaviour or not.

‘There was a slight improvement. I had to motivate him because I was worried about the business.’ I told the court that the business started in August 2003 so it was fairly new and we had invested a lot into it, both time and money. I was worried about the impact on that so I had to get Jeremy motivated and back to work doing what he does best. After Christmas he became a bit more motivated to do that and he was more encouraged at the fact that he hoped that everything would be sorted out by the time he returned to bail and that it had all been perhaps a misunderstanding and everything would be cleared up by then.

Leslie carried on: ‘This was his belief once he returned to his bail, that this would be the end of the matter?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘he just thought it would be a formality and we would get on with our lives and this was just a blip.’

Then I was asked how Jeremy’s behaviour had changed after charge on 19 July. I answered, ‘He called me to say that he had been charged and that he couldn’t believe it and he went right downhill after that time. He was very depressed by then. He was back to being uncommunicative, he shut down.’

Leslie talked about the four charges against Jeremy and the various court appearances until April 2005. Then he asked me to explain to Cranston the effect on my husband and our home life.

‘He had completely changed. He went back to being introverted and quiet. If I spoke, it was sort of like I was to blame for everything. He looked to his family. We never socialised and I again tried to motivate him to do the business but was very much aware that Lloyd Gerard was gunning for him.’

‘Tell us about that,’ said Leslie.

‘There was bad blood between them anyway and they had been constant business rivals. Jeremy was trying to get involved in the business although it was half-hearted. There were lots of court appearances and after each appearance he was withdrawn. It got to the point where I was afraid to speak to him and every time he had been to court he would come home and close the curtains, go to bed and not speak to me.’

‘Are you saying that his sleeping patterns changed?’ pressed Leslie. ‘And did it affect your marital relations?’

I was a little thrown by this question, at having to talk about such personal things in front of these people, but I soldiered on despite my embarrassment, not looking at anyone but Leslie. I said that at night Jeremy would be up at all hours watching TV and during the day he constantly slept, which I thought was quite depressive. The physical side of our marriage had come to an end, and I explained that we had had a fairly normal loving relationship but after being charged he didn’t want to know anything about sex at all. I knew that the mere subject of this case had made Jeremy feel that it was somehow dirty.

Leslie asked how the charge of possession or making images of children had actually affected him around children. I replied, ‘He did not want anything to do with them because he felt that if people knew [about this case] they might be worried about how he was with them. He just felt guilty by the association of it really. His sister had a child, she’s two and a half and he has yet to really interact with her.’

In fact I knew his sister was extremely hurt by the fact that Jeremy would not go near her daughter, but I could understand the reasons why. He did not want anyone to think he was that kind of person.

I explained further that our social life had more or less ended as Jeremy felt comfortable only in the company of family and he knew he did not have to say anything to anyone. He was always worried about
people knowing about him and forming an opinion without knowing the facts.

Now we were on to publicity of the criminal proceedings and I talked about buying the local papers after each of Jeremy’s court appearances. I said that we had contained it quite well and that I did not find any articles, which was a relief because we would have felt unsafe with allegations like these. Leslie nodded in understanding.

With Leslie’s guidance, I relived my experience of the break in Spain and Gerard’s meddling as a police witness. Those old feelings came back again and the pleasure at getting an opportunity to have a dig at Gerard never went away.

I was asked to turn to look at a sentence within my statement about Jeremy’s fears of conviction and the associated stigma, followed by the question about the possibility of him being on the sex offenders register.

‘It is the stigma of it and that there would probably be a time when more people would find out about him. Also in the business he filmed at schools and things like that and we knew that this would affect the business as well and also the restrictions of freedom. Every time you go on holiday, especially we like to visit the States, I know that this would possibly show up and that it could impact on where we went, where we go. It was just awful to contemplate that that could happen.’

I felt we were nearing an end as we got to the part about Jeremy’s inability to cope with the business and the closure of the shop. Leslie asked me to address the judge and give him an idea of how Jeremy’s mental state changed vis-à-vis how he was running his business.

I stated that Jeremy had changed from the time of his initial arrest to being charged. Obviously we didn’t know what was going to happen and he was having a lot more meetings with the solicitor prior to the criminal trial. With the time taken out of the shop and not being able to operate it properly, Jeremy was suffering. He was trying to diversify the business
to get away from the competition of Lloyd Gerard and the impact he was making. If customers called him first this affected our business because he was obviously blabbing about the case to all and sundry. Jeremy just couldn’t handle it any more.

I paused here momentarily, thinking of the wreckage that had been caused due to Gerard’s slander destroying a legitimate business and, if it was not for me and our families, almost destroying a good man. My hatred for Gerard was only tempered by the fact that he was, hopefully, in a place to atone for his sins.

Interrupting my thoughts, Leslie asked, ‘Have you and your husband ever received an apology from the police?’

‘No,’ I angrily replied.

Leslie continued: ‘In a word, if it is possible to do it in a word, what do you say to his Lordship about how this has all affected your life and your husband’s life?’

Sensing that this would be Leslie’s last question to me, I said, ‘It has been a financial and emotional disaster. In attacking Jeremy, I’m a victim as well and so are the close family.’

As Leslie sat down, Challenger got up. My mouth was dry and I sipped some water as I wondered what he had in store for me. I really wanted to sit down as it wasn’t exactly comfortable leaning on the stool, but I dared not fidget now.