Unlawfully At Large, page 53
part #2 of DCI Tyler Series
Jack couldn’t see up into the public gallery from where he was sitting directly behind Lacroix and his junior, but from all the noise coming from above, it sounded full to capacity.
Jack took in his surroundings with the same sense of awe that he always experienced whenever he sat inside this bleak but illustrious room, which had been home to some of the most sensational trials ever to have been held.
It was both a monument and a living tribute to the law of the land, and a place where the moral and social changes of recent history had been charted. Traditionally reserved for the most serious and high-profile crimes, it had first opened its doors in 1907. Since then, Number One Court at The Bailey had heard it all, and human drama, unspeakable tragedy, tales of hatred, greed, revenge, and betrayal had quickly become its staple diet.
A large enclosed dock stood in the centre of the court, dominating everything around it. Measuring sixteen feet by fourteen feet, it was a room within a room, solid and impenetrable.
Defendants who were evil, depraved, and sometimes just plain pathetic had gripped its rails over the years, accused of the most heinous crimes imaginable. William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw), John Christie, Ruth Ellis, Ian Huntley, Dennis Nilsen, Peter Sutcliffe, the Kray Twins, and Dr Crippen, were just a few of the famous – and sometimes infamous – people to have stood trial within its confines.
From their seat in the dock, the four defendants sat facing the trial judge’s seat some twenty five feet away, almost on eye level, but not quite. They were, however, raised above everyone else who had participated in the court proceedings.
Winston, dressed in prison attire, looked as sullen and aggressive as ever, while Garston, who had at least made the effort to wear a suit and tie, looked overwhelmed. Angela Marley appeared much healthier than the last time they had seen her. She had put on some weight and her skin pallor had improved. Mullings just looked confused.
To the judge’s left and the defendant's right, there were two rows of benches reserved for counsel. They ran perpendicular to the dock, and the custom was for the prosecution to sit nearest to the judge and for the defence to sit nearest the dock to enable them to take instruction from their clients during the trial.
Lacroix and his junior, a bubbly blonde barrister called Heather Quayle, had made themselves comfortable on the green leather seats that were built into the benches and they were busily sorting their papers out in readiness for the court to convene for its final sitting in this case.
Once everyone was seated, the usher slipped out to bring the jury in.
Conversation was muted as the twelve men and woman filed into the court from the nearby jury room, and virtually every person in the room studied them intently, trying to second guess their decision.
The jury consisted of five men and seven women, and they were from a diverse range of ages, colours, and backgrounds. Their foreman, a smartly suited black man in his mid-forties, looked drained as he took his seat at the front, and he made a point of studiously avoiding eye contact with anyone else in the court.
Dillon leaned over and whispered into Jack’s ear. “He looks frazzled,” he said.
Tyler nodded. “They all do.” He guessed that this hadn’t been an easy one for them to all agree on, and he was grateful that it hadn’t gone to a majority.
Suddenly there were three loud bangs and the door opened to admit the red-robed trial judge. The room went deathly quiet as everyone stood up respectfully.
As he sat down, Tyler glanced at the defendants. Winston glared intimidatingly at the jury foreman, trying to get his attention.
Not doing yourself any favours there, Jack thought, pleased to see that the judge had also noticed.
Garston looked like he might throw up at any second, and he was wringing his hands together nervously and fidgeting in his seat.
Marley just stared down at the floor, resigned to her fate.
Mullings was more interested in picking his nose than what was going on around him. He looked bored.
A number of security officers stood in the dock behind them, and they had been fully briefed on Winston’s penchant for extreme violence. They were prepared for him to kick off if things didn’t go his way.
“Will the four defendants please stand up,” the Clerk said, breaking the silence.
Garston, Marley, and Mullings rose to their feet straight away, but Winston had to be chivvied along by one of the security officers.
The Clerk turned to the jury. “Mr Foreman of the Jury, I am going to read out the charges in relation to each defendant, and in response, I require you to answer guilty or not guilty. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” the foreman replied, sounding like he had a frog in his throat. The usher quickly moved forward and gave him a glass of water, which he downed gratefully. “Yes,” he said again, his voice sounding much firmer.
The Clerk nodded. “Very well, with regard to the first defendant, Claude Marcel Winston, do you find him guilty or not guilty of the murder of police constable Stanley Morrison?”
There was a drawn-out silence in which the foreman risked a furtive glance at the dock. “Guilty,” he said.
The public gallery erupted in applause, which the judge tolerated for several seconds before indicating that was enough.
“Quiet, please,” the Clerk barked, and the noise quickly died down. She returned her attention to the foreman of the jury, upon whose brow a film of sweat had broken out. “With regard to the second defendant, Deontay William Garston, do you find him guilty or not guilty of the murder of police constable Stanley Morrison?”
This time the foreman refrained from staring at the occupants of the dock. Instead, he looked straight at the judge and spoke without hesitation. “Guilty.”
There was more cheering from above, but this time the judge didn’t let it pass without comment, and the public gallery was told to refrain from making any further noise.
“Here’s where it gets interesting,” Quinlan whispered.
Tyler glanced sideways at him. “They’re all going down,” he murmured under his breath.
“We’ll see,” Quinan said, noncommittally.
“With regard to the third defendant,” the Clerk said, “do you find Angela Coreen Marley guilty or not guilty of the murder of police constable Stanley Morrison?”
The foreman seemed to hesitate, and Tyler felt his stomach tighten. Taking another sip of water, the foreman looked over at Marley and then turned to the judge. “Guilty,” he said.
“With regard to the fourth defendant,” the Clerk said, “do you find Gifford Anthony Mullings guilty or not guilty of the murder of police constable Stanley Morrison?”
The foreman glanced over at Mullings, and something flickered across his eyes. Was it pity, Jack wondered? Maybe the jury hadn’t been convinced about the level of his involvement and had decided to give him the benefit of the doubt? He could hardly blame them if they had, and three out of four was still a fantastic result.
“Guilty,” the foreman said.
The public gallery applauded.
A wave of relief flooded over Tyler, who looked at Quinlan and winked. “Told you,” he said.
◆◆◆
The customary piss-up started as soon as the press interviews outside The Old Bailey were concluded, and Tyler knew it would probably go on until the pub that they had wandered into at the end of Old Bailey closed.
In accordance with tradition, the first round had been on Quinlan as the SIO. Having briefly stood in for Andy while he’d been off sick, Jack felt obliged to pay for the second round, which he’d jokingly described as a consolation prize for them having to put up with his manic leadership for a few days.
About an hour in, Jonathan Lacroix and his junior arrived, and the barrister insisted on putting his hand in his pocket and buying everyone a drink.
Murray had been the first to accept the offer. “I’ll have a double scotch,” he’d declared, eyeing up Heather Quayle hungrily.
Steve Bull saw this and leaned into him with a smirk. “She’s way out of your league, sunshine!”
Murray was having none of it. “Rubbish. There’s nothing posh totty like her enjoy more than a bit of rough.”
Bull nearly choked on his beer. “You really have no idea about women, do you Kev?”
Before long, they had effectively taken over one corner of the pub. Nibbles were organised and then the obligatory speeches started. The first was from Quinlan, who thanked everyone for a job well done, and the second was from Lacroix. The QC was full of praise for the magnificent way in which the murder squad officers had carried out the investigation and prepared the case for court.
After toasting their fallen comrade and the victory they had obtained on his behalf, which left a bittersweet taste in their mouths, Lacroix had felt compelled to touch upon the bravery and professionalism of the officers who had been awarded Judges Commendations for their roles in apprehending those responsible at the end of the trial, namely Tyler, Dillon, Susie Sergeant, Nick Bartholomew and Terry Grier.
Bartholomew and Grier had been gobsmacked to receive the Judge’s commendations at court and were dead chuffed to have been invited along to join in the celebrations afterwards.
Lacroix also spoke a little about the sentences that each of the defendants had received, saying how pleased he was with the way that the judge had summed things up. He ended by proclaiming that justice been done today and they could all sleep well tonight, knowing they had played a part in making it happen.
“I’m gonna sleep well tonight because I’m pished,” Charlie White had slurred, and everyone laughed.
Tyler was invited to speak next, and after thanking everyone for all their hard work he said that he hoped the harsh sentences that had been handed out today would act as a deterrent for others in the future, and that taking Winston out of circulation had undoubtedly saved more lives.
As he supped his beer afterwards, Tyler reflected that the four defendants were going to serve a combined total of ninety-nine-years. Winston had received thirty-five-years for Morrison’s murder; Garston had been given twenty-eight, and Marley and Mullings had got off lightly with a mere eighteen apiece. The judge had explained that his starting point had been a tariff of thirty and that he had then taken into account any specific aggravating or mitigating factors that counsel had flagged up to him when he’d invited each of them to address the bench in turn before he’d passed sentence.
There had been a host of other charges on the indictment, including possession of firearms and ammunition with intent to endanger life and administering noxious substances to PCs Lassiter and O’Brien. The jury had also unanimously convicted the three defendants on all of these.
“I spoke to Winston’s QC before I came to join you,” Lacroix said when he was alone with Tyler, Dillon, and Quinlan. “His view is that Winston should just plead guilty to the two outstanding attempted murders and not waste everyone’s time with a lengthy trial that will inevitably end in a conviction. After all, the CCTV evidence alone is sufficient to prove his guilt.”
“I could live with that,” Tyler said.
The trial for the two counts of attempted murder had been put back until November. There had been discussions at one point about linking all the outstanding matters together and just holding one trial, but that would have been a logistical nightmare. In the end, Winston’s counsel had requested separation, with the murder of PC Morrison to take primacy and the two attempted murders to be dealt with afterwards.
Tyler had always suspected there was a hidden agenda behind the request; if Winston had already been convicted of two attempted murders when the judge passed sentence for PC Morrison’s murder, Winston would most probably have been looking at a whole life order being imposed. This way, at some stage in the distant future, he might still qualify for parole.
“Of course, he’s yet to persuade his belligerent client to agree to this course of action,” Lacroix said, smiling ruefully, “but he seemed fairly optimistic that Winston would go along with it.”
Jack wasn’t so confident. “I hope he does, but I won’t believe it until I see it,” he said.
With the murder trial out of the way, and Winston likely to plead guilty to the two attempted murders, there were no other loose ends to tie up.
After his interview at Plaistow police station back in January, Rodney Dawlish had been charged with an offence of assisting an offender contrary to the Criminal Law Act 1967. He had pleaded guilty at his first appearance at Crown Court back in March, at which point the case had been adjourned for pre-sentence reports. As he had no previous convictions and the prosecution had conceded that his learning difficulties made him vulnerable to manipulation by unscrupulous people like Garston, the court had decided to treat him with leniency when it reconvened three weeks later. He could easily have been looking at a five years custodial, but he had instead received a two year suspended sentence. He had also been fined, awarded six penalty points and disqualified from driving for six months for having no driving licence and no insurance at the time that he was stopped in Norman Crouch’s plumbing van.
Unlike Dawlish, Norman Crouch did have a full licence and a comprehensive insurance policy that covered him to drive any other car with the owner’s consent. Of course, that didn’t entitle him to drive like a complete twat when he was three times over the legal limit and high on cannabis and cocaine. In addition to being charged with being unfit to drive through drink or drugs, he had also been charged with dangerous driving and failing to stop for police. Crouch had been fined heavily and banned from driving for two years.
At a separate trial, he had been convicted of possession of cocaine with intent to supply, and for that, he had received a two year prison sentence.
By the time of their trial, the evidence accrued against Charlie Dobson and his three skinhead mates for supplying firearms and ammunition had been damning.
In addition to the CCTV of them selling two Brocock revolvers to Garston and Heston, their fingerprints were all over the two converted weapons discovered in the safe and the equipment being used to convert the blank-firing replicas into real guns. The detailed ledger that Dobson had helpfully maintained had been treated with ninhydrin, and his prints had been found all over it.
Although he had refused to provide a handwriting sample during interview, alternative source material had been found during the search of his home address, in the form of letters he had written to his girlfriend while previously in prison. Subsequent comparisons by a qualified expert concluded that the writing in the ledger matched that in the signed letters and was unequivocally his.
All the spent shell casings recovered from the bucket in the lockup had been fingerprinted, a time-consuming process that ultimately led to all four suspect’s fingerprints being identified on numerous shells. Prints for Garston and Heston had also been found on several of them.
The results were then sent to the National Ballistics Intelligence Service and, after scrupulous examination, the hammer and striation marks were linked to weapons that had been used in three separate murders within the Greater London area during the previous year.
Dobson and his gang were all charged with a wider conspiracy to sell firearms and ammunition in addition to the other matter for which they were to stand trial. The case had been heard in July, and Dobson and his cronies had each been sentenced to twenty years imprisonment.
By the time that George Holland turned up, everyone was well on their way to being merry, and he helped matters along by getting in a round of drinks.
“Bloody nice of you to offer,” Kevin Murray slurred, wrapping his arm around Holland’s shoulder and treating him to a lopsided grin. “I’ll have a double scotch, no ice.”
“How’s the case against Craig Masters going?” Jack asked when Holland had got rid of Murray.
Holland chuckled. “It’s been put back so many times that I’m beginning to wonder if it will ever go to trial. The latest date they’ve given us is in October.”
“What seems to be the problem?” Jack asked.
“Availability of expert witnesses, would you believe. The defence want to rely on a particular specialist to support their death by misadventure claims, and this bloke isn’t available until then. There’s still a lot of behind the scenes discussion going on between the barristers about whether or not the Crown would be willing to accept a plea of manslaughter.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “What’s your view on that?”
Holland shrugged. “I wouldn’t necessarily be against it, but there would probably be an uproar from the victim’s family.”
By nine o’clock, most people were starting to flag, and they started disappearing in dribs and drabs. Holland, Quinlan, Lacroix and his junior were amongst the first to say their goodbyes and head for the door.
Tyler flopped down next to Kelly Flowers, who was sitting with Tony Dillon and his girlfriend, Emma Drew. Emma was a very attractive and bubbly girl who worked as a mortuary technician based at Poplar, and they had been seeing each other for about the same amount of time that Jack and Kelly had been dating.
Dillon was a terrible womaniser, and being with the same girl for this length of time was something of a record for him. To be fair, they seemed to have really hit it off, so much so that Tyler was beginning to suspect that there actually might be some longevity in this relationship after all. Then again, he reminded himself, this was Dillon he was talking about, so he would just have to wait and see.
“When are you two going to go public about the fact you’re a couple?” Dillon asked with a silly grin on his face.
Flowers started to giggle. They had been seeing each other for the best part of a year now, and she spent more time at his place than she did at her own, and Jack still insisted on keeping their relationship a secret.
The question made Tyler uncomfortable and he looked around to make sure that no one could overhear them. Luckily, everyone else was over by the bar.
“It’s not that simple,” he said, shrugging awkwardly. “I’d love to go public, but if George found out, he would probably make Kelly switch teams. I do feel bad about keeping the team in the dark, though,” he admitted, which caused Dillon and Kelly to crack up.
