Unravel a Crime - Tangle With Women (45 page)

“
My Lord it appears that the
witnesses have either taken their holidays or are not taking their holidays for
some time.”

“
Good, then that’s settled. I
take it that your client has no objection to coming back next week Miss
Lappin?”

She turned with a smile to
Newberry, who shook his head.

“
No objection My Lord.”

“
Good. It does have the
advantage for the Court that it quickly fills the trial fixture which we have
just vacated ,and if we do overrun beyond the five days, then we shall be able
to go into the following week. The other Defendants and their solicitors need
not attend if they do not wish to. Are there any other matters?”

“
Bail?” said Edwards-Mitchell.

“
I’ll come to that. Firstly
I’ll make some ancillary directions.”

The Judge took out a fountain
pen and opened a book in front of him. He wrote for a few minutes, and then
paused to read out what he had written.

“
Firstly, all matters which
can be admitted by schedule should be. Secondly Counsel should agree any
matters between themselves that can be agreed. You have in effect 3 working
days to do this, and I am sure that in this case, where as I understand it from
your skeleton Miss Lappin, that the facts are not in dispute; that this is
sufficient time.”

“
My Lord” both Lappin and
Edwards-Mitchell mumbled from their seats.

The Judge leaned over to the
Clerk beneath him. “Don’t list anything substantive for me until say the
Thursday of the following week. Only list anything which can be cancelled if
this application goes over.”

“
Very good, My Lord.” The
Clerk acquiesced in a loud enough voice to concentrate attention on herself.

“
Now, while in no way do I
want to seem to prejudge the issue, should we fix a trial date in case the
application is unsuccessful?”

Lappin shook her head, but
looked across to where Edwards-Mitchell was sitting. He caught her eye.

“
My Lord, from the Prosecution
point of view, the outcome of this application in whatever way, may well
shorten this case..”

The Judge tapped his pen on
the desk in front of him, and thought.

“
Very well. I’ll leave any
trial date until the outcome of the application. I don’t suppose that putting
the decision off for a fortnight at the most will alter the date much.” He
leaned over to the Clerk.

“
Madam Clerk what sort of
listing dates are we looking at now?”

“
It will be April next year,
My Lord.”

The Judge raised his eyebrows.
“Really. Perhaps everybody will bear that in mind.”

“
Is there anything else?”

All three defence barristers
rose to their feet. The other two looked towards Lappin.

“
My Lord, Mr. Newberry is on
unconditional bail. I ask that that be extended until next Monday.” Lappin
asked.

“
Very good. Mr. Newberry?” The
Judge looked at him.

“
Stand up” hissed Brakespeare.

“
Mr. Newberry your bail is
extended until ten o’clock next Monday when you must be here in this court. Do
you understand?”

“
Yes”

“
My Lord.” Brakespeare hissed
again.

“
Yes, My Lord.” Newberry
stuttered.

“
Very well. Next”

The other two barristers went
through the same procedures with their clients, but with bail extended to such
time as they should be notified to the Court to attend.

“
The Court will rise.” Intoned
the usher. The Judge rose to his feet and left the room, but not without, in
time honoured fashion, bowing to the solicitors and barristers, who in turn
bowed to him.

Newberry, slightly taken by
surprise, bowed also.

“
No need”. Whispered
Brakespeare. “Lawyers only.”

Rosemary Lappin turned in her
seat. “Right, we need to find somewhere to talk.” she said, and led them out of
the Court.

Just off the foyer they found
a stuffy, windowless consulting room, with a scratched wooden table and a
motley assortment of chairs. Rosemary Lappin took off her wig and peeled off
her gown.

“
Well, that’s a good result.”
she said.

“
The Judge seemed biased to
me.” said Newberry grumpily.

“
How so?” demanded Lappin as
she settled herself down.

“
Well he wanted to list the
case for a trial before had had even heard our application to have the case
struck out.”

“
Oh, come on Mr. Newberry. The
Court has a very busy fixture list. It takes all the serious cases that the Old
Bailey can’t take. If you don’t book your slot, you could be kept waiting a
long rime. Anyway, the good news, is that we have a hearing next week, and I
hope that we shan’t need to fix a trial.”

“
I still think that the Judge
was biased.” said Newberry like a spoilt child.

Lappin looked at him with
contempt. “Mr. Newberry, I have known Judge Martin Green for over 20 years both
as a barrister and a judge. He is the Senior Judge in this Court, and as you
probably appreciate from the fact that he is addressed as “My Lord”, and not
the more usual “Your Honour”, he is sitting as a deputy High Court Judge, and
not as a Circuit Judge. He is extremely fair, and will sort the wheat from the
chaff; and there’s plenty of chaff and very little wheat in this case - I
suspect that he has seen that as a result of reading my skeleton argument,
which is why I had Jonny send it in. It always pays to let your argument be the
first one that a judge reads. Now no more of this griping at the Judge, we have
to move quickly. Jonny we need to get a trial bundle served and agreed.”

Brakespeare nodded and
produced his Counsel’s notebook from his briefcase.

“
First of all I want your
excellent letter to the C.P.S. included. The Prosecution cannot now claim to be
unaware of their weaknesses and seek to have the case postponed while they try
and put things right.

Then I want the charts and
statistics that Lisa prepared, but I also want a schedule giving the exhibit
reference number for each of the valuations that she has used.

Finally I want a separate
bundle of the National – Redshaw Linden Steele – Suttons – Skinner
correspondence. Send that to the Prosecution and ask them to agree it. I can’t
see how they can refuse as it came from the Police files, but if they don’t we
can use Black to verify it. How quickly can you do this?”

“
As soon as we have finished,
I’ll call the office.” He pulled his mobile from his pocket.

“
You may have to go outside
the Court Building. The signals are a bit patchy.

Brakespeare left the room,
keying in the office number into his Nokia.

Lappin turned to Newberry. “
Now, Mr. Newberry, next week you are going to have your day or days in Court,
and I hope that you won’t have to come back afterwards. It is not a full trial.
Our submission, on your behalf is that there is no prima facie case – nothing
which a jury needs to consider. If I may say so Lady Luck has shined upon you
in the form of Mr. Brakespeare and also Miss Barnes. If I had been sent the
papers without any input from them, I am not sure that I would have spotted
that Mr. Black’s valuations were, to say the least erratic, nor would I have
known anything about the fact that Redshaw Linden and Steele were trying to
sell the properties while at the same time being rather expensive independent
valuers.

Lady Luck has also helped in
that all reference to your having been once involved with Clearfield has now been
dropped by the Prosecution, as you may have gathered.”

Newberry looked visibly
relieved. “When did you know this? Why wasn’t I told earlier?” he demanded.

“
I only knew this morning, I
had time to tell Mr. Brakespeare, I didn’t have time to tell you. I’m sorry.”

She paused, wondering whether
to say anything else to the difficult man. “This means that there will be no
reference in our application to Mrs Potter and your son. If the press are in
Court, there will be nothing for them to report.”

Newberry just stared at her.

“
I assume that your
relationship with Mrs Potter is still continuing?”

Newberry nodded. “I’m going to
stay with her until next week. There’s no point in going home, just to come
back again so soon.”

“
Well that’s a matter for you,
but it will at least remain a private matter, and that’s important, because if
this case were to go to trial, a jury would have been bound to be influenced by
the fact that you were involved in an extra marital relationship.”

Newberry stirred as if to say
something, but Lappin put her hand up to stop him.

“
I know that it seems
irrelevant but a British jury may, totally wrongly, conclude that a man who
cheats on his wife, is also capable of cheating on his employer.”

Lappin wisely did not allow
Newberry to take the discussion further.

“
Now let me outline the
procedure to you. I will begin by outlining what your case is to the Judge;
then we’ll call Mr. Black. The Prosecution may want to have him give his
evidence, but then I will have the opportunity to cross examine him on his
valuations.”

She paused, and looked down.
She spoke as she thought. “No on second thoughts, I think we’ll call your two
colleagues, Dover and Baines first; get them to confirm that they had no
pressure from you as to their valuations. I take it that they are likely to
adhere to that evidence, are they?”

“
Yes, when I last spoke to
them.”

Lappin was astounded and
pushed herself back in her chair.

“
You’ve been talking to them?”

“
Yes” he replied, a little
hesitantly.

“
And when did you last speak
to them?”

“
Last week, when I knew that
we would be coming here. Shouldn’t I have?”

“
Well there’s no reason in law
why you should have not. What you must not do however is try and interfere with
what the prosecution witnesses will say. Does Mr. Brakespeare know?”

Newberry shook his head. “ No.
I’ve had no reason to tell him.”

Lappin thought and a resigned
look passed over her face. “Very well, what did they say to you.”

“
Well, they wanted to know how
I was getting on and basically wished me the best of luck.”

“
Wished you the best of luck.”
Lappin repeated thoughtfully. “So they are going to confirm what they have said
in their witness statements. If I show them the various percentages that Miss
Barnes has extracted from the prosecution case as to how much work you did, and
how much work they did, are they likely to agree with that?”

“
I think so, do you want me to
ask them.”

“
For Christ’s sake no!” Lappin
corrected herself. “I’m sorry, but it would have been best if you had not
contacted them. That way no damage can be done. You must not approach them
again until after this case has been concluded. Do you understand?”

She lectured him like a school
teacher. Newberry bowed his head, but whether or not it was in remorse, or was
just weathering the storm was not clear.

The door opened, and
Brakespeare came in.

“
I’m just talking about the
conduct of the application with Mr. Newberry, and I’ve told him not to contact
any of the Prosecution witnesses as he has been doing.” she said, looking
knowingly at Brakespeare.

Brakespeare showed no
reaction, remembering his conversation with Martin. Christ they were having to
sail close to the wind with this one.

“
Now.” asked Lappin
emphatically. “Are we going to call Mr. Newberry?” and looked from one man to
the other.

“
Well, I think it’s only right
that I do put my case forward.”

“
No, Mr. Newberry. I’m the one
whose putting your case forward. Do we need to hear you deny that your
valuations were false?”

Brakespeare could see what she
was trying to achieve with Newberry, and came to her assistance. “No, it would
be too dangerous. David, we know that you deny any wrong doing – after all we
wouldn’t be making our application if you were not. If you go in the witness
box, you will be cross examined by Mr. Edwards-Mitchell. You haven’t prepared
for a trial…”

“
Yes, I have.”

It was Lappin’s turn to jump
in. “What Mr. Brakespeare is trying to say is that if you give some wrong
answers at this stage, you could spoil what seems to be a strong case.
Therefore I don’t think that you should go into the witness box.”

“
Very good. I’ll take your
advice as you both seem to agree” said Newberry petulantly.

“
Good” said Lappin, putting
her papers together. “That I think is everything.”

She stood up and held her hand
out to Newberry. “We’ll meet again here Monday morning.” She turned to
Brakespeare. “If I hear anything I’ll let you know, and perhaps you’ll do
likewise, Jonny. If you have any problems in getting anything agreed, also let
me know. I understand that Mr. Newberry is staying in London until next week.
You may want to take a telephone number from him.”