McBride Alex - Defending the Guilty: Truth and Lies in the Criminal Courtroom

VIKING

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PENGUIN BOOKS

VIKING

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First published 2010

Copyright Alex McBride, 2010

The moral right of the author has been asserted

All rights reserved

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book

ISBN: 978-0-14-195140-9

Alex McBride is a criminal barrister. He is the author of the Common Law column in Prospect magazine and has contributed to the New Statesman and various BBC programmes, including From Our Own Correspondent.

For my parents
and in memory of
my great friend
Harry Brack (19282009)

A lawyer is to do for his client all that his client might fairly do for himself.

Samuel Johnson

In researching this book, I have interviewed some very eminent people who have been generous enough to give me their time.They are Professor Andrew Ashworth of Oxford University; Bobby Cummines, founder of the charity Unlock; Professor JonathanGlover of London University; David Ramsbotham, former Her Majestys Inspector of Prisons; Professor John Spencer QC of CambridgeUniversity; David Thomas QC; and Professor Tim Valentine of Goldsmiths University. In addition, I would like to thank DavidOrmerod, law professor and barrister, for the incredibly useful references to the academic papers and books which kick-startedmuch of my research. Thanks also to the librarians on the Social Sciences wing of the British Library and at Inner TempleLibrary, and to James Dewar at Lincolns Inn and Marion Howard at Middle Temple.

I am also indebted to the many judges and barristers who have spoken to me both formally and informally. Unsurprisingly, theywish to remain anonymous and therefore I thank them without naming names. Special mention must go to my former head of chambers,pupilmasters and clerks. And not forgetting AB, TH, CJ, PK, HLW, JM, CR, HR, SR and TW.

There are two lawyers who have permitted me to mention them by name. They both make vital contributions to the book. The firstis Graham Cooke, who patiently and repeatedly explained the mysteries of DNA and statistical analysis to me despite my obviousintellectual limitations. The statistical examples used in the DNA chapter are his and his alone. The second lawyer is DistrictJudge David Cooper who, apart from me, is the only character appearing in the book whose name is unchanged. I thank him for his devil-may-care attitude in permitting me to use his realname.

At Penguin, I would like to thank Venetia Butterfield, Andrew Smith and, most of all, Will Hammond, my editor, for his brilliantediting, supreme clarity of thought, and for plucking the books title out of a morass of sub-standard alternatives at thevery last gasp. Thanks also to Bela Cunha for her eagle-eyed copy-editing.

Heartfelt thanks to my agent, Zo Pagnamenta, for setting me on the writing road and for her extraordinary verve and confidencein leading me along what would have been an otherwise un-navigable path.

I am also extremely grateful to Prospect magazine and in particular the editor, David Goodhart, and his former deputies, Alex Linklater, Jonathan Ford and Susha Lee-Stothaman,for giving me the column which was the springboard for this book.

Thanks as well to my brother, Nathaniel McBride, and to Allan Pimentel, both of whom assured me that things would turn outall right.

Lastly, I want to thank Nina Raine, who supplied brilliant ideas and loving support. I cant begin to say how much it meant.

Temple Churchs bell strikes one: lunchtime at the bar. From alleyways east and west of Inner Temple come barristers of allages, striding confidently across the courtyard, expensively buttoned-up stomachs rumbling. They cut past the dawdling tourists,fifty-something Mid-Westerners in burgundy windcheaters and grey baseball caps, and swerve around war parties of Italiansengrossed in maps. Looking down from the sun-filled room on the second floor of chambers, I marvel at the ease these barristersradiate; pleased to be there, yes, but comfortable as if they own the place. I am amazed that the bar has given me a shotat joining their ranks, joining the entitled-looking men and women in the courtyard below en route to their lunches.

Ah, lunch. I stretched my arms up, loosening my shoulders in their sockets. I had been looking forward to lunch. I had a particularlyfine sandwich pink slivers of leftover lamb, moistened with mint jelly, slapped between two slices of upmarket bread. Isat back down and hunched over the trial papers that I was reading and started to eat. My pupilmaster and I were due to meetthe protagonist in the case, our client, later that afternoon. I ate gingerly as I read, trying not to drop any of the sandwichon the starchy white pages of the brief. I was hurrying to catch up on the facts of the case, eager to find out how much troubleour client was in. It didnt take long to discover that the answer was plenty.

Eric, our client, had gone down to his local gay bar. The regulars earmarked him as a bit of rough trade. He was behavingoddly, throwing karate poses and jumping around. It was at the bar that he met a young rabbi, a wallflower by all accounts,whom he lured back to his nearby flat. Once they got there, Eric knocked the rabbi unconscious, strangled him and chopped him up.

Dismembering a body is hard work. Just try cutting your way through a thigh. Most chopper uppers do a hack job. Not Eric.He cut beautiful straight lines. The police were faced with two possibilities: either he was a butcher by trade or he wasnta first-timer and had done it before.

There are quite a few unsolved murders out there. Sometimes people just disappear. Eric might never have been caught if ithadnt been for the fact that he got the rubbish collection day wrong. For a whole week in high summer, the rabbi, carefullydivided into six Tescos bags and a black bin liner tied with electrical flex, sat in Erics flats communal rubbish binsslowly beginning to smell. Angry calls were made to the building manager. Theres something off in the bins, they complained,as if somethings died. Badgered into action, the manager went round to investigate. He discovered the residents werent exaggerating.He couldnt even get near the bins they smelt so bad. From a wary distance he spied the black bin liner lying next to thecommunal rubbish. That must be the source of the trouble, he concluded. Specialist equipment was required. He came back armedwith a pair of yellow Marigold gloves and a towel soaked in Lynx deodorant tied around his face. Now he was ready to makehis advance on the bin liner. As he got closer, he saw something was peeking out from a tear in the plastic. In his witnessstatement, the building manager said that hed decided it must be a dead dog.