Felix Francis - Guilty Not Guilty

‘He maintains that those are merely coincidences.’

‘Surely the jury won’t believe that.’

‘In my experience, juries can believe all sorts of strange things. And remember, he doesn’t need to convince all twelve of them. Just three would be enough to ensure he’s not convicted.’

Now he really had me worried.

Joseph Bradbury took the stand at the start of the third week of the trial, as the defence opened their case.

I watched as one of the security guards used his key to unlock the door from the dock to the courtroom proper, and as he then escorted Joe across the floor of the court to the witness box, sitting down right beside him. Meanwhile, the second security officer also took up station, standing four-square in front of the exit double doors out to the concourse.

They were clearly taking no chances that their prisoner might escape.

For the second time I listened as Joseph Bradbury swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and, for the second time, I didn’t believe a word of it.

The defence barrister was quickly on his feet and there was no building up to the murder indictment for him, he went straight into it from the off.

‘Why did you go to see your sister on that fateful Wednesday morning?’ he asked Joe.

‘Because she called me on the previous evening and asked me to go and see her. Our mother had just been diagnosed with cancer and she wanted to discuss her treatment.’

I knew better than to repeat my shout of ‘liar’, as I had done in the Coroner’s Court. So I just sat on my hands and ground my teeth in frustration.

‘But why could you not discuss it with her over the telephone?’ asked the eel.

‘Amelia was quite emotional when she called me and she said she didn’t want to discuss matters over the phone. Hence, she specifically asked me to go over and see her the following morning.’

‘But not at her house?’

‘No,’ Joe said. ‘She wanted me to go to her house but recent relations between Amelia’s husband and me have not been as good as I would have liked, so I suggested we meet elsewhere so that her husband wouldn’t be around to be rude to me, as he always is.’

He turned and looked towards me with his usual pretentious sneer.

It was as much as I could do not to jump to my feet and shout out that it was he who was always rude to me, rather than vice versa. In actual fact, I did my utmost to have no communication with him whatsoever, in order to not inflame the situation. I refused to answer his calls and I certainly did not reply to his ranting, vile emails. Not that that had stopped him sending them. Only him being on remand in Bullingdon Prison had done that.

I pressed my lips together tightly, and gripped the sides of my seat hard to keep myself from standing up.

‘So where did you arrange to meet your sister?’ asked the eel.

‘She said that if I wouldn’t come to her house then we should meet in a pub car park in Wroxton. The Hare and Hounds pub. It’s closed now but we both knew where it was because we had met there before. It’s only three miles from where she lived’

‘Why not meet at your mother’s house?’

‘I suggested that but Amelia was insistent that we couldn’t speak about mum’s future when she was there listening, so we finally agreed on the pub.’

‘And at what time was this meeting due to take place?’

‘Nine o’clock in the morning. I was there a few minutes early so I waited but Amelia didn’t come. In all, I waited there for about an hour. I tried calling her in case she had forgotten but there was no mobile phone signal at that point in Wroxton, so, in the end, I did drive to her house. I rang the front-door bell but there was no answer and it was locked, so I went round the back. It was then that I saw Amelia through the kitchen window. She was lying face down on the kitchen floor.’

His voice trembled. He always had been a good actor.

‘The back door was also locked so I broke in by kicking the lock off. I went straight to Amelia and tried to remove the dog lead wrapped around her neck. Her skin was so cold and her lips were blue. I was quite certain she was dead. I’ve never felt so helpless.’

This time he made out that he was actually crying, covering his face with his hands and blowing his nose loudly into a tissue.

God, it made me so angry.

I knew what real tears were like. I’d wept buckets of them.

‘Then what did you do?’ asked the eel.

‘I immediately called the police and waited for them to arrive.’

The eel shuffled his papers.

‘Now let us move on to the supposed theft,’ he said. ‘Do you admit that you received a personal cheque for one hundred thousand pounds from Mr Newbould in payment for fixtures and fittings, and for some pieces of furniture left at your late mother’s property in Weybridge, which Mr Newbould was purchasing at the time?’

‘Yes,’ said Joe. ‘That’s right.’

‘Was your mother aware of this payment to you?’

‘Of course she was. It was her property that I was selling. She was fully aware of the fact and she agreed that I should keep the money in recognition of the work I had done in selling the house for her.’

‘But we have heard from the detective in this case, and also from your late mother’s solicitor, that she told them both shortly before her untimely death from cancer that she was convinced that you had stolen the money from her. How do you explain that?’

‘Convinced is the right word,’ Joe said. ‘My mother was a frail old lady who was often confused and forgetful, whatever her doctor might say. Just prior to her death, she was convinced by my brother-in-law, William Gordon-Russell, that, among other things, I had stolen this money from her when the reality could not have been more different. She had given it to me as a gift. I remember her clearly saying so to me at the time of her house sale. The fact that, all these years later, she couldn’t remember doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. If it was stolen, would I have been so stupid as to pay the cheque straight into my own bank account for all to see? There simply was no theft. No theft, that is, other than that of half my mother’s estate by him.’

He pointed straight at me and I could see the members of the jury looking across the courtroom to where I was sitting.

He sounded so damn convincing and believable, when I was so sure that what he was saying was completely untrue. But neither Mary nor Amelia were here to refute his lies.

Could the jury not see through this travesty?

I found it impossible to read their thoughts.

Only time would tell.

‘And finally,’ said the eel. ‘Let us move on to the attempted murder charge. Please tell the court what you were doing on that particular Wednesday.’

‘I was at work in the morning, in Ealing, west London. I was carrying out my duties as a High Court enforcement officer, executing a writ of repossession on a property where the tenants were in arrears with their rent.’

‘And did you have a company vehicle for this purpose?’

‘Yes, I did,’ Joe said. ‘A long-wheelbase white-painted Ford Transit van.’

‘And how about in the afternoon?’

‘The repossession took a lot less time than I had expected. The tenants had already packed up their stuff before I arrived, and it was simply a matter of seeing them out of the property and then changing the locks. An hour’s work at most. So I found myself with time on my hands. I regret it now, but I decided to go to Banbury. I had been bereft over the loss of my sister and I somehow felt that being close to where she had died would give me some sort of comfort.’

‘And did it?’ asked the eel.