Crime and Punishment - Trial Day 4

It's all over. A strange feeling of deflation. My fellow jurors and I have lived this case for the last few days -someone else's life , the minutiae of someone else's tragedy. And when it came to it, we weren't prepared for the sudden turn of events.

The day started oddly. Monday morning and a new intake of jurors . The queue once again snaking down the street. It's raining and the queue moves slowly. I haven't got an umbrella so scan the line for a fellow juror...I'm going to queue jump if I can. Bingo. Find a 'jury mate' way up the front and shuffle in. As we get through the airport scanners my fellow juror looks round to see Sion Jenkins behind us. We are amazed that Court 1 's star defendant has to come in the same way as the rest of us. You can't say our legal system isn't democratic.

Find some more of my fellow jurors up in Jury Assembly - which is crowded with the new intake. We know the Defence may put our defendant on the stand today and we are apprehensive. ( The reason will become clear when I tell you more)

10.30 and we're back in court. The Judge addresses us . The gist of which is this : Members of the Jury , he says , the prosecution and defence and I have been speaking since we saw you last and they have both put it to me that this charge should be one of manslaughter. I agree with them and therefore I propose to change the charge. I understand that the defendant is prepared to plead guilty to the charge of manslaughter, and having heard the circumstances of the case I am satisfied that this is the appropriate charge and plea.
Or words to that effect. I can sense that we are all relieved. From day one we have wondered why ours is a case of murder.

Next the formality. The Clerk of Court stands and asks our defendant to rise.Our defendant is formerly charged with manslaughter and is asked how he pleads.
'Guilty' .

As we now have a changed charge and a guilty plea there is no need for us to deliberate. But we were set the task of trying the case and must agree with the events that have taken place. The Judge formerly requests the juror in seat 1 to stand and asks if we agree with the charge and the plea. On behalf of all of us she whispers 'yes'.
She knows we all feel the same - we've discussed it often enough in Jury Assembly.

And that is our duty done.

As the defence had not had a chance to conclude their case, His Honour gives the defence barrister the floor to speak. And my, how he does. An impassioned speech. Questioning how and why it had ever come to a charge of murder.
A veiled criticism of the Crown Prosecution Service that had refused to accept a guilty plea to manslaughter to begin with, which would have negated the need for a trial. No criticism of our prosecution counsel. He was just doing his job. It had become apparent to us from the way he presented the Crown's case that he was sympathetic . No rottweiler here.

The judge listened and commented that despite all the defence had said,the laying out of the tragedy before the court had led everyone to conclude that this was the right outcome. Perhaps this had been for the best.

And so to M'Lud's summing up.

He talked of the tragic circumstances of the defendant's life that had led him to take anothers. He spoke of the family who must bear some of the responsibilty, the shame and the blame. But, he said, the fact remained that to take a life is unlawful and a custodial sentence was the appropriate punishment. He was incredibly fair.
4 years. With time already served in custody and time off for good behaviour he will be out in 18 months. What happens to him then I do not know....

So here was our case. A case where one man was responsible for another man's death. A fact he did not deny and had not run from. A charge of murder. A plea of Not Guilty. Here is what I have learned. Behind every murder is someone's story.
Here was a story of a family where violence was commonplace . Of a weaker member of the family who didn't fight back. Then one day he did. And in one almost inevitable moment he stabbed his brother. He got 4 years . It could have been life. Which ever way you look at it , it's still a life sentence.

I have never seen such human despair. What must it be like to relive the moments that lead up to that one mad moment that turns your life. And to relive it in front of your family, your friends and 12 silent strangers sitting in judgement. We all saw the tears that wouldn't stop flowing, the hands that covered ears , the head permanently bowed. Violence breeds violence it is said. The irony is , our man was raised in a violent family culture but he had not been an aggressor. Until now. And in all of this Philip Larkin's poem was never far from my mind. 'They fuck you up, your mum and dad'.

After sentence is passed we file out. All of us subdued. Now , the mundane task of handing in our passes and papers. Time to say our goodbyes to 11 other people we hardly know, with whom we have shared an intensely emotional experience, and go back to our lives.

On the way out two of us bump into our defence QC and his team. I ask him if he has become inured to tragedy -he must see it day after day. No he said, if you are human you don't. And, he said, this was an unusual and particularly tragic case.
There's nothing more real than real life , says his junior barrister.

Indeed.