Felix Francis - Guilty Not Guilty

But the CPS didn’t want that episode to ‘cloud the issue’, as they considered that there was insufficient evidence to charge him over it. I, however, felt that it was another prime example of Joe’s obsession with doing away with me.

I also wanted to tell them that, prior to that Wednesday, I had been down to Weybridge to speak to Jim and Gladys Wilson, and I had found evidence that proved Joe had stolen a hundred thousand pounds from his mother. And I wanted to tell them that, on the Tuesday afternoon, Joe had just learned that I was no longer considered a suspect in the death of his sister and he mistakenly believed that killing me was a way of getting himself off the hook.

But the CPS didn’t want me to bring any of those things up either.

‘Just answer the questions that you are asked,’ the prosecuting barrister had said to me in earnest during our pre-trial meeting. ‘And nothing else.’

He was strongly implying that I shouldn’t try and answer those that I wasn’t asked.

He told me they had good reasons for keeping quiet at this stage, and that these matters would be introduced later. Not that they were coaching me or anything. That would have been illegal.

In addition, the CPS had made it perfectly clear that they would prefer it if I also didn’t mention anything about me having been arrested on suspicion of murdering Amelia.

‘But surely the defence will bring that up,’ I’d said.

‘They might or they might not. Depends on how desperate they are. If they do, then they will show themselves as trying to blacken the character of a bereaved widower. Juries tend not to like that. And we would have the last word in re-examination to confirm absolutely that you have an unbreakable alibi and that the police no longer have any interest in you as a suspect.’

So I simply explained to the jury how I had driven my wife’s cream Fiat 500 from my home to Waitrose supermarket in Banbury on that Wednesday afternoon.

‘Did you notice anything during the journey?’ the prosecutor asked.

‘As I backed out of my drive, I spotted a large white van parked further down the road. I assumed at the time it was one of the many similar courier vans that deliver online-shopping packages. I remembered thinking that he wouldn’t be delivering to me as I hadn’t ordered anything. Other than that, I noticed nothing unusual and I arrived at the Waitrose car park about half past four.’

I went on to describe how, after doing my shopping and loading everything into the car, I had set off to drive home a little before five-thirty, and by that time on a dull dank late October afternoon, it was already completely dark.

I had driven out of Banbury and, after indicating to turn right off the main road into Hanwell village, I had realised far too late that the headlights behind were not slowing down.

I told them how someone had driven straight into the back of Amelia’s Fiat 500, shunting it forward with such force that hitting the opposite grass verge had sent the car airborne. It had passed over the hedge, crashing into the tree in the field beyond.

‘And what happened after that?’ asked the barrister.

‘The next thing I remember was waking up in the John Radcliffe Hospital some ten days later.’

‘And what were your injuries?’

I catalogued everything, starting with the break to my neck and the bruising of my spinal cord, which had resulted in my motor-nerve paralysis.

‘And are you fully recovered now?’ asked the prosecutor.

‘No,’ I replied. ‘Over the past eight months, with constant physiotherapy, much of my mobility has returned. But I still have problems, with my legs in particular, and I am informed that I may never recover full movement and control.’

‘So would you describe your injuries as being life-changing?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Very much so.’

But not as life-changing as losing my wife.

‘Thank you, Mr Gordon-Russell. No more questions.’

The prosecuting barrister sat down, leaving me still standing there in the witness box with a look of total surprise on my face.

No more questions?

But I had more to say.

How about asking me about Joe’s vile emails? And his threats? What about his attempts to brainwash his mother? And the theft of the money? And his false accusation that I had assaulted his daughter?

I had so much more to say.

‘Am I right in thinking that you refer to yourself as Bill Russell rather than using your full name?’

The ‘right slimy eel’ defence barrister was on his feet and asking the questions in cross-examination.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I do.’

‘Why is that? Is it some kind of reverse snobbery?’

He made it sound like a major failing.

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s just simpler.’

Specifically, it had been simpler when I’d been riding as an amateur jockey, as ‘Mr W. Gordon-Russell’ had been too long to fit on the racecourse number boards, not that many of them had those any longer.

But maybe the eel was right too, in a way. Being the son of an earl, and with a double-barrelled surname to boot, didn’t make getting spare rides any easier.

Historically, in British horse racing, the jockey was always considered to be the owner’s servant, and the earliest race records show only the names of the horse and its owner, and not that of its rider. Even in modern times, for some of the old school, offering a ride to someone who they considered had a higher social standing than them was a no-no.

‘Mr Russell,’ said the eel, ‘I put it to you that much of what you have told the court today has been a pack of lies.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It has been the truth.’

‘An intricate tissue of lies to cover up your own carelessness and wrongdoing?’

‘Not at all. I have told you the truth.’

‘You have told the jury that your relationship with your wife was a loving one, but I suggest this is far from the reality?’

‘No. I loved my wife deeply. We had a blissful marriage.’

‘But was it not your mental cruelty towards your wife that resulted in her being admitted to a psychiatric institution on several occasions?’

I was doing my best to keep my cool. This was clearly a line that Joe had spun to his defence team. It was what he had accused me of many times in his ranting emails, when it had been his doing all along.

‘No,’ I said.

‘But your wife had been admitted to such institutions?’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘But not due to any cruelty on my behalf. I suggest you look at your client’s behaviour to find the true reason.’

He ignored me. ‘Your wife suffered from depression. Is that correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you say that a happily married person would be depressed? Does not the very word depression imply unhappiness?’

‘That is far too simplistic a view, and one that is totally wrong,’ I said. ‘Depression is a complicated issue and doesn’t necessarily relate to someone’s happiness or unhappiness.’

‘Was your wife suicidal?’

‘She had been, in the past.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And had your wife not been rushed to accident and emergency several times as a result of trying to take her own life?’

‘Yes.’

‘Hardly the behaviour of someone in a blissful marriage, wouldn’t you say?’

‘You are misrepresenting the situation,’ I said.

‘No, Mr Russell. It is you that is misrepresenting the situation. Was your wife not desperately unhappy in your marriage, to the point of trying to end her own life on multiple occasions? Is that not the true situation?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘That was absolutely not the case.’

He ignored my answer yet again.