The Doubt, The Whole Doubt and Nothing but the Doubt.

Part 4: 12 Calm Men.

You'd have thought the employment history of Ricky G would have been quite significant. It was surprising that neither the defense nor the prosecution had brought it up. I almost felt a little insulted that it was casually slid in there, like we wouldn't notice (it also bothered me that the press found out before we did, although I didn't find that out until afterwards).

I couldn't figure out if it worked for or against him. On the one hand, a police officer, you'd hope, is a man of honour. Surely someone who spent 25 years locking (and sometimes beating) up people who committed similar crimes to what we were hearing had to be falsely accused? Then again, someone with experience on that side of the law would learn a thing or two about the correct way to cover yourself up and tell a great lie. With his knowledge of criminal behaviour and enough time, it would have been easy to put on a convincing act.

Obviously at the ripe old age of 78, Ricky G was now retired. He'd worked his later years as a taxi driver and now, judging by the state he was in, I very much doubted he could hold down any sort of job. This once powerful and respected man now hobbled across the courtroom floor at a snails pace. Shuffling his feet almost as if he was pushing a zimmer frame. Could this really be the same person that has been built up in our minds as a devastatingly evil beast over the last 6 days?

I almost expected him to be brought out of his glass box in chains, just in case he made a break for the door while holding a biro against the throat of an usher and demanding a helicopter.... But actually, I ended up just feeling a bit sorry for him.

His cross examination filled my mind with even more doubt. He honestly seemed to be telling the truth. I was even looking for clues in his body language. He looked to the left when answering more in depth questions. According to the ever-correct-and-100-percent-accurate internet, this would indicate a lie. But that would be reversed for people who were left handed. I had written this down on my notes, but quickly scribbled it out after realising how much of a dick I sounded. I was no Columbo. There was nothing that was going to be sussed out. It was purely his word against theirs. This was finally confirmed by the Judge.

"You have the envy of no one being in your positions in this case" he said. "It is not going to be an easy decision to make and you have as much time as you need to go over what little evidence you have been presented with."

The Judge, Barristers and ushers had been so calm and casual throughout the proceedings I had started to think maybe this was a common case and not as heavy as I thought it was in my mind. How often does a case like this come around? But then, all the other jurors in other court rooms seemed to be having such a grand old time. While we sat around in the holding pen is cold silence, they'd be cracking jokes and quite openly saying things like "Naaaah, he's blates guilty". Something they could be arrested for themselves.

I felt relief that it was finally confirmed that, yes, it was a fucked up case and yes, it was going to be extremely hard going for all of us. 

Surely the majority of paedophiles just plead guilty knowing they will be caught by DNA or some other scientific evidence, therefore eliminating the need for a jury. Ricky G must have known this, being an ex-cop. If he really had raped his Granddaughter only a few weeks before hand, he'd know there would be DNA proof to nail him and he'd just admit to it. But he hadn't. And there wasn't. Was he taking a gamble, or was he confident purely because he didn't do it?

He genuinely seemed like a nice bloke who loved his family and wouldn't want to ever hurt them. But did that love go too far? I was about ready to smart repeatedly smacking my head on the bench until I'd hopefully wake up in a nice hospital bed far away with all of this gone and forgotten.

Maybe Emma was confused. We already know she had access to the internet. It wouldn't have been too much of a surprise if she had stumbled upon some hardcore pornography. It had also been mentioned on a couple of occasions that she had accidentally walked in on her mother having sex with her boyfriend. Mix all this with the fact she had been a long time sufferer of night terrors and a story about these strange things happening to her could have been fabricated within her mind, right? But if so, why would she think to make up little details like how when he used to play with her he'd say "Yeah, that feels good, doesn't it?". A girl of her age, even after witnessing the act of sex, would not be able to comprehend sexual pleasure. Or could she? Then maybe Catherine, as a way to further punish this man who may or may not have done anything wrong, decides she too was almost abused by him. Two words against his. It was plausible. 

-

Guilty;

- How could a little girl make up all that stuff?

- The mother went through something similar.

- Other witnesses, such as Emma's younger brother, had their stories very straight.

- He showed no emotion at all in court.

- The vaginal examination supported Emma's story.

Not Guilty;

- She knew what sex was. She could have gotten confused.

- Can you lock away a man on verbal evidence alone?

- The vaginal examination also supported his story...

We entered the deliberation room and finally it all came spilling out. All these thoughts and opinions that we had been keeping to ourselves now flooded the room. We needed a foreman to keep it under control and also to actually stand in court and read the verdicts. I had thought about doing it myself, but wondered if I'd actually be able to stand and say what I had to say without cracking. Instead, I nominated a relatively young guy who'd become my single-serving friend over the last week. He was a medical student and he had his head firmly screwed on. Everyone agreed with me. Because of this, I ended up being given the nickname "vice foreman".

It seemed the old members of the jury had all made up their minds. Guilty. The barely even wanted to discuss it. Eventually this seemed to spread to everyone else. Having watched 12 Angry Men only a few days before, I ended up making a few people quite annoyed. "I feel that he's guilty, but given the situation and what is going to happen to this man, we at least owe him a discussion." I couldn't just say guilty without first talking about it. Giving reasons for and against. We were in that room for 1 hour. 1 hour? That is ridiculous. I'd spent all week worrying about how difficult it was going to be and even the judge thought we were going to be deliberating for days. 30 minutes of that hour was spent ordering and eating a jacket potato!

Guilty on all 15 counts. Why not? If he was guilty of one, he may as well be guilty on all of them. Was I sure? It was too late now. I had wanted to say guilty, I really thought that is what I felt inside. Perhaps I was just giving in to the pressure of the group? They had all said guilty, maybe I just didn't want to be "that guy". That could have been what everyone else was thinking too.

When we re-entered the court room I was so glad I hadn't put myself up for foreman. I was shaking. (afterwards, the foreman told me that it was the scariest and most difficult moment of his life having to stand and read out the verdict aloud). This freedom also gave me the chance to look Ricky G right in the face when his world came crashing down. Police don't exactly have an easy time in jail, and can you imagine what kind of reception an ex-cop and child molester will get inside? At his age, I doubted he would last even the minimum sentence that could be given to him. Even if his health didn't fail him, he'd probably end up getting shanked. We knew that. He knew that.

One by one the counts were said in the court. A "Guilty" came in response to each. The family members, including Catherine, who had been sitting facing us uncomfortably from the other side of the court for the whole week started celebrating. One member punched the air. I stared directly into the defendants eyes. You could see the defeat.

He nodded his head in agreement.

The doubt was erased. 

The Doubt, the Whole Doubt and Nothing but the Doubt.

Part 3: Bedtime stories.

I now know more about the hymen, particularly those found in prepubescent girls, than anyone other than a doctor should know. The one to blame for this is Dr Emmett Brown. Or at least a doctor who looked like him. Long, grey hair that was balding on top with a bright and welcoming smile. That's exactly the kind of smile you need when you're going to be poking around the vagina of an 8 year old.

Listening to the examination process was almost as uncomfortable as listening to the original testimony. To look for clefts or tears in the hymen, the girl must be placed in two different positions. First on her back with her legs spread and then on her hands and knees, also known as "doggy style", although funnily enough no one used that phrase in the courtroom.

"As you can see here from the diagram, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the tear indicates that a rather large object has penetrated Emma's vagina, therefor backing up her story" is what I wanted him to say. Unfortunately this was not going to be that easy. The examination proved nothing. Any slight clefts that were found were also occasionally found on young girls who had not been abused. Of course, other doctors were called. Another professional who had been with Dr Brown also concluded that it showed some support of abuse, but could not be used as evidence. This wouldn't have been quite so annoying if we hadn't had to wait a whole fucking day for her to arrive to tell us that. And this was supposed to be the prosecution?! Of course we had to again wait for the defense doctor to arrive to give her verdict.

This third doctor fit the bill perfectly. She looked like she'd worn a business suit about as many times as she had brushed her hair. No wedding ring to be seen. She walked across the courtroom floor in a similar fashion to a child trying to walk along a curb. I figured she must have been scraped from the underside of the same boat as the defense barrister. She had not even been present at the examination, so I had already decided I wasn't going to bother listening to what was basically just her opinion of a rough pencil drawn diagram of a vagina. The plot thickened when the crown questioned whether or not she had seen the DVD recording of Emma's tests. "No" She replied, "Unfortunately this DVD was lost before I could view it". That was a bit of a head-scratcher. A doctor had lost footage of a close up of a child's genitals and they were still employed? Was it just floating around out there for anyone to see? Maybe there was something more sinister behind it... Had the footage vanished on purpose to cover up the defendant? 

Either way, after 2 days of sitting around and waiting for these testimonies, we were now in an even worse position than we had been before. We now realised any evidence we had to look at was going to purely be he-said-she-said.

-

Catherine had been 10 years old when the abuse started. Her mother had met Ricky G when she was very young. He was the only father figure in her life, which is why she always referred to him as Dad. She couldn't remember exactly how it first began, but it was usually at bedtime. Her step-sister would be in the upper bunk while should would sleep in the lower. Almost every night, Ricky G would come in to tell them bedtime stories. He'd make up silly little tales like 'The Bear with no hair' and 'The Frog who couldn't jump'. Perched on the edge of Catherine's mattress, he'd slowly snake his way underneath her duvet and start rubbing her non-existent breasts and nipples, before moving down to put his fingers inside her privates. 

Confusion clouded her judgement. Was it normal? Should she tell him to stop? Why wasn't he doing it to her sister? That created a disturbing feeling of happiness for her. He never paid her as much attention as his own daughter, so maybe this was his way of showing her that he really did love her. Similarly to Emma, she couldn't tell anyone out of fear of making people upset. She did however try to prevent it. She would wear two pairs of pyjama bottoms and wrap herself up in the duvet. This proved to be a very small challenge for the strength of her Dad, who would usually unwrap her and carry on. Occasionally he would simply tut, finish the story and leave the room. These were peaceful nights for Catherine.

"But.... That never happened.... Did it?" asked the defense barrister, Agent Smith, during the cross-examination. "He never touched you. He never touched anyone. This is made up, along with the fabrication you have brainwashed your own daughter with". He was obviously desperate. The best idea he could come up with was to basically call bullshit on her. The abuse ended when she was age 12, after her telling Ricky G that her periods had started. "I don't believe you would have told him that at all" another desperate attempt from Agent Smith, "A 12 year old girl would not discuss such things with her step-father". "Maybe in your house", she replied. My loud snigger seemed to interrupt Agent Smith's train of thought, as he was now giving me a death-stare across the room.

"I was scared and confused. Even years later, I still couldn't accept that what he did was child abuse. I thought it was just playing that had gotten out of hand. How could he have been a paedophile? He was, in his own words, the kind of man that would beat up a child molester before he'd even got him into the cell"

A burst of electricity shot through my veins. I quickly scanned my notes, although I knew I wouldn't see anything there. The juror to my left had the same look of sheer confusion. What did that mean? Had I heard her right? 

The defendant was a policeman.

To Be Continued...

The Doubt, the Whole Doubt and Nothing but the Doubt.

Part 2: Truth and Lies

'Granddad' looked a hell of a lot like Richard Gere if let his hair grow out and generally stopped giving a shit. If only his crimes were as simple as his, we may have been looking at a simple animal abuse charge (Confused? Google "Richard Gere Gerbil"). He was kept at the back of the court in a glass box. I was thankful for this. It wasn't that I was threatened by him, or that I thought he might leap out and attack if not for the glass, but I really didn't want to be in the same room as this beast. The box gave that feeling of security. 

I would constantly find myself staring at him, looking for twitches in his face or something that might give away some truth. Was he looking back at me? It was hard to tell with those beady eyes buried so far inside his weathered face. He gave away nothing. He didn't even seem to bat an eye-lid when his step granddaughter explained, on a live video feed, that she didn't like having his penis in her mouth because it didn't taste very nice.

With young children it is common for their witness statements to take place over a TV link from somewhere else within the courthouse. As she was only 9, this was also the case with Emma. Also for youngsters, the oath was a more simple question of "Do you know the difference between the truth and a lie?" followed by an example from the child.

We were first of all made to watch a video that took place over a year earlier, when the accusations had first been made. To say it was an uncomfortable watch would be an extreme understatement.

Over a period of two years, Emma's Step Granddad (who she referred to as simply Granddad, and who I shall refer to as Ricky G) was in charge of babysitting both her and her younger brother most Saturday nights while their mother went to work. By work, she clearly meant "concentrating on her social life". Almost systematically, every visit would be the same. Brother and sister would fall asleep in the same room. At some point, Ricky G would quietly enter and take Emma into his own bedroom and do, in her words, "all that stuff he does".

This information was first given not to her mother, Catherine, but to a very close family friend almost straight away after her first admitting it. She was obviously embarrassed, scared, confused and did not want to make her Granddad upset. She refused to say anything to her mother. The family friend (We'll call her Irene) had done a lot of work with children over the years and was very good with them. As a trusted friend, Catherine knew she would be the best person for Emma to talk to. According to both of the witness statement, she called and said "please don't say I told you so, but I think my Dad is abusing Emma."

They spent an emotional hour together alone, while mum sat in another room. Afterwards, she asked "Is it the worst it can be?". "Yes..." responded the teary eyed Irene.

You're probably wondering what she meant by the "don't say I told you so" comment. Had they both had suspicions in the past? Well, Irene did. Catherine is just a completely oblivious and naive mother. You see, Emma wasn't the first young girl Ricky G had molested. He'd abused Catherine too when she was 10 years old. She never told the police and only told a few friends in confidence. She tried to block it out of her mind, so much so that she didn't even wonder if maybe he'd do the same to her own daughter. How can anyone be so fucking stupid? Her air headed ignorance is likely to continue pissing me off long after this guy is thrown in jail. And that I was certain of at this point. Obviously he's guilty. If the video recording wasn't bad enough, I then listened to a live interview with a little girl explaining, in great detail, how her own Granddad would remove her clothes, kiss and penetrate her 'mini' with his fingers and make her touch his penis. His fingers would often hurt because his nails were long and would scratch her insides. Of course it hurt even more when he put his 'willy' in there.

No argument. Guilty. Throw the book at him. Throw everything at him. Put him in prison along with all the murderers and psychopaths. The ones that go out of their way to punish child molesters. Hopefully one day, while he's showering, he'll be hit in the back of the head and held down by several inmates while another castrates him with a filed down piece of chicken bone.Why did I even need to stay in that court room for the rest of the week? It felt like a total waste of time when I, and surely all the other 11 jurors, had already made up our minds.


At least that's how I felt until the doctors were called to the stand.

To Be Continued

The Doubt, the Whole Doubt and Nothing but the Doubt.

Part 1: The Queen Versus...

Our court usher was on the verge of being a racist. Not in a Neo-Nazi/Swastika-carved-into-forearm sort of way, but that relatively innocent old fashioned racism that flies out of the mouth as easily as it flies over the heads of most that hear it. Either way, it wasn't a great start to my two weeks on jury service.

"Is everyone ok to swear on the bible?" she asked, while her eyes quickly circled the room and stopped dead on a dark skinned chap who looked a lot like the owner of a kebab shop I frequented in my youth. His response was the same as all of ours, nothing more than a mumble and a quick nod of the head. There was a brief pause as she continued to stare at him with an oblivious grin. He gave a quick wave of his right hand as if to say "No, that's fine with me". "We have all of the holy books" she said directly at him. Kebab mans eyebrows, which were just as thick as his bushy moustache, were now negatively dipped in the middle. She finally understood and decided to shut up.

It's probably wrong to say this incident was the start of my week. It actually began a couple of hours before, waiting. Then there was waiting to wait. We waited in a hallway to wait in a room to wait in a jurors "holding pen" to wait in another room. The whole tedious process lasts the majority of the morning. I was lucky in that I got selected for a case the first morning. Another juror I spoke to in the holding pen had been in that very same room for a whole week having never successfully been selected for a case.

The process is simple. 30 or so people are summoned at a time. They stay in this pen until one of the ushers calls out 14 names. Some more waiting happens, usually an hour or more, before they are herded into the court. Only 12 are then selected to sit on the panel. The reason for the extra 2 is that in the event a juror knows the defendant, depending on the relationship, the judge is likely to not let them take part. Also, it's possible the defence may wish to reject someone. Another reason is case length, which became apparent quickly when the judge announced "If anyone has any reason they will not be able to take part until at least next week, please say so now". A list of names was then called out. These names were witnesses, people who had given statements, police officers, etc. Again, depending on your possible relationship with these people, the judge may remove you from the case.

The names all seemed to be family members and my worst thoughts had come true. This, along with the trail length, could surely mean only one thing - I'd been selected for a long and boring fraud case. This guy had probably just been screwing his family (financially) for years and they were out for blood.

I was hoping for something I could get my teeth into. Something gritty. Maybe a local chav robbing a post office had then blamed it on another chav. Or even a chav stabbing another chav to death and denying the whole thing. You know, something interesting but an overall victim-less crime.

The bomb was dropped in the form of a 7 page indictment listing 15 acts of extreme deviance. As the list progressed, each turn of the page felt like I was lifting a brick.

I could feel a mix of rage and pure disgust building within me. The only way to stop myself from standing up and shouting at the defendant was to try to lighten the situation within my mind. The crimes could wait. I decided to start looking at everyone in the court and judging them based on their appearance, as you do.

Surely they had chosen the barristers on image alone? The prosecutor; "The Crown", was a relatively attractive woman. A bright smile, friendly, well spoken, married and heavily pregnant. On the other hand the defence; the "Bad Guy", had most likely been a weasel in his past life. Hunched over and balding with no wedding ring.What hair he did have left had been attacked by an awful dye job to cover the grey. I don't think he was even that old, but his looks had been ravaged by many years of evil deeds. To top it all off he spoke         LIKE this.... With  long      BROKEN gaps and that      PATRONIZING tooone    that seems to jump   UP and     DOWN    for no reason.

My mind, like the majority of the story to come, had wandered into a tangent. It was time to start doing my duty and at very least pay attention. Let me take you back to last year, February to be exact. A young girl aged 8, who shall be referred to as Emma, is pestering her mother to let her join a kids chat room on the internet. All the other girls at school were allowed on it, so why wasn't she? The mother was careful though. She knows the dangers of the world wide web and, quite understandably, she wanted to check it out to make sure it's safe for her little girl. But wwwhhhhyyy mummy? I can imagine her response would be. The mother said something along the lines of, "There are sometimes bad people on the internet who want to take away little children and make them do bad things. Things that might make them hurt or make them upset. These people are sick in the head." Emma threw a brief tantrum before returning to the computer. Several minutes later, in her innocent and childish way, calls out to her mum - "Does that mean Grandad is sick in the head?"

To Be Continued...