I was feeling different this morning. Responsibility had palpably entered the equation. I headed to Sainsburys to get my lunch. Yesterday, the usher had advised us our case may conclude this morning; at which point we’d be sent directly and untampered with, to a Square Room to deliberate our verdict. This meant pack lunches should be prepared in case.
Egg mayo sarnies and bananas for me. I also picked up a copy of The Sun. Falling asleep to Five Live last night, I’d heard said paper had the supposed scoop on Pompey’s new boss.
Two days on the trot without setting off the metal detectors, I walked into The Juror Lounge. At this point memories of Café Girl and our hideous encounter yesterday, began infiltrating my mind. I sniggered to myself, I was hoping for another fun exchange today.
Sadly, she and her blond companion had been replaced today; by two lesser models. Whilst comfortably of child bearing age, neither was inducing thoughts of the necessary deposit.
I was second in. Can you guess who was first? That’s right, Teacher was sat at a table; nonchalantly atoning for her public transport hell of yesterday. She was reading a book and wearing a low cut top. This represented quite a departure from her customary, semi-frumpy appearance. I contemplated if she too had altered her attire for a desired impact in the end game.
Denim Prick had continued to avoid his favourite material over the course of the second week. I think he may have sensed fellow juror’s derision of his trademark outfit. With more austere garments draped over his bigoted body, he sought to attain more credibility for his crackpot deductions.
I had always been smartly dressed in the first week. Always shirt, trousers and shoes. I saw fit to dress down a bit from Monday; T-shirts and trainers have played a part. If I’m honest, I think some of my colleagues were a bit intimidated or wary of me to begin with. These walls have really come down; and particularly with Thicky and Carny, I feel dressing down has played a part. That and getting to know me of course!
Anyhow, back to Teacher’s top. Was she hoping this garment change would appease some Square Room battle? Could it simply be a specific and direct attempt to nullify some of Denim’s hostility towards her? Perhaps she wanted to cement support from the less prominent and unallied male jurors?
As I sat down opposite her with my coffee and said hello, I remembered that this woman loves confrontations. She wouldn’t knowingly do anything that would avert or lessen one. Clearly, I just had sex on the brain.
Teacher was both gregarious and chatty this morning. She needed no provocation or encouragement to begin slagging off Denim at length. I was free to admire her top and its contents. Teacher was fascinated by Denim’s obsession with being Foreman. She too had been incredulous, when yesterday, he tried to revive this previously bottomed issue.
“I don’t want him to be Foreman. I don’t want him trying to bully other people into agreeing with him. He seems to think being Foreman will give him some sort of extra influence in talks! – I mean, he clearly wants the job!”
This was a mildly rabid outburst from Teacher, she was flushed and agitated, her big eyes flashing brightly. Despite feeling strangely pliant, I simply stated: “I’m happy to be Foreman. We’ll have a vote when the time comes.” A reiteration from yesterday’s Square Room discourse.
Teacher beamed at me and squeezed her shoulders together and up.
What a bitch.
Mark was next to enter the fray; he’d brought a flipchart. That, and pens “of every colour of the rainbow”, he dead-panned sarcastically as he sat down with us. He was looking forward to deliberations in much the same way as I. I felt pleased that we’d elected him to help facilitate discussions. He was adamant there’d be no arguing with him in charge. All such statements however, were accompanied with a mischievous grin.
“Pens mean power”, he proclaimed, and laughed.
The siege mentality was spreading.
Officer was next in and joined us. She too was in a similar frame of mind. Laughing and nodding her flabby head at predictions of conflict. I like Officer a lot. The more dangerous the joke, the longer the half-life of her laugh. That tells you plenty.
It was time for a fag. I’d seen the usuals go in, so I wouldn’t be short of someone to talk to. There was Thicky, hunching his inefficient frame within his Parka. Underneath was the fifth different Lambretta t-shirt I’ve seen since day one. Carny, Puffy and Denim were also in attendance, but the only available seat was next to Miserable Bloke. This pleased me, as he’s been going up in my estimation as the trial’s progressed.
We got chatting and he was far warmer than usual. I think he was moved by the level of mirth I displayed, following his M&S story of yesterday. Feeling suitably relaxed and eager for a break from trial discussions, I asked him who his favourite Juror Pussy was.
He initially seemed abashed, and I began to wonder if my legendary powers were off target here. I’d felt sure he’d lap this one up. With my doubts still embryonic, his face exhaled and creased – into that now familiar, leathery grin. I exuded well concealed relief.
Miserable Bloke was all about tits and long hair. He grinned and chuckled continuously, as he extolled the virtues of some stroppy Courtney Love look-a-like that hadn’t even disturbed my radar. He eventually got round to bitching about his “missus”, and this brought about a more tired chuckling on his part – I was looking for pastures new.
No time. The Usher came for us all, and up those familiar stairs we went.
Rover sat next to me as we waited outside the oak doors. Football love ensued. We talked about Warnock; how our style of football in England, precipitates inadequacies like those displayed against Portugal last year. It would take time, but the technical mindsets of our players would eventually adapt. Keep the faith. Ah bliss.
Inside; and it was Defence summing up. Needless to say, it was utterly compelling. This is what people pay the dollar for.
The barrister initially reiterated the basis for our decision on all three charges. We had to be sure. Anything less and we must acquit this man. Rapier like, this was followed by a swift stab at all Prosecution evidence. He spattered seemingly obvious doubts over every aspect of the case made against his handcuffed employer.
He spoke of the need to “leave all emotion outside the court doors”; how any prejudice, assumptions and feelings should be put to one side. We were here to judge this man solely on the evidence we had witnessed in court. This was our duty – the only way in which we could “properly, perform justice”. I knew Teacher would be thinking exactly the same as me when those words were uttered. Probably Mark too. ‘I hope fucking Denim’s listening’.
Defence proceeded to orate famous quotes relating to our justice system. One fuck had said, “It is better to let ten guilty men go free than falsely convict one innocent man”. “There are occasions” he continued, “when a jury has a feeling, even a great and grave suspicion, that a defendant is guilty.” “But if they cannot be wholly sure of this on the evidence put in front of them, they must acquit the accused”.
Well when can you be sure of anything?
His speech wasn’t rocket science, but it was highly effective. And with the prosecution consisting entirely of circumstantial evidence, I was being swayed towards my initial ‘not guilty’ stance. The circumstantial evidence, despite several reliability issues, was quite rich and deep in its make up. It was decent circumstantial evidence. But when you’ve got to be ‘sure’? The prosecution case was on a hiding to nothing.
The summary lasted the entire morning, so we were free to have lunch as usual. Going down the stairs, I sensed I was far from alone in my verdict leanings. After the first week it’s like a sixth sense. You go out the court doors and don’t talk. No-one’s tactless enough for loud exclamations whilst the court door is still wide open for the last juror to shut. In these silent seconds, all it takes is a glance at the people in front of you. The body langage, who they’re looking to speak to, the expression on their face, doubtlessly set for the duration of their opening gambit….
Deep down, I’m sure the vast majority of us believe he’s guilty. Half the jury have vocalised it to me at some time. I myself, believe he’s guilty. But I can’t convict this man. There is lots of doubt. I don’t want to convict with doubt, and we’re not meant to convict with doubt. The early etchings of these thoughts were appearing on my colleagues’ foreheads.
Having bought a pack lunch, I would spend the rest of the day rinsing out my swipe card allowance on coffee.
Wolfing my sarnies down, I made for the Smoke Pit. It appeared fervent. Sure enough, the discussions centred on the compelling Defence. Thicky was convinced. He liberally stated that up until this point he’d not really understood the thrust of the Defence case. This perturbed me, given the “thrust” was the complete absence of any concrete prosecution evidence. Surely that wasn’t hard to spot?
Fuck me gently.
In layman’s terms; ‘Oh dear’.
Still, I was pleased that some sanity was descending on this good hearted juror. He said there was doubt with all the evidence. Puffy and Carny made noises at points that revealed their agreement with him in parts. I’d long suspected they had leanings towards a guilty verdict, particularly Carny – Puffy maybe less so. Thus it was reassuring they had ample seeds of doubt in their minds for me to water, come deliberations.
I was sat next to Mark when Denim came in. The former was engaged by Prick, who boldly declared, “Well I think the Defence helped the Prosecution more than themselves.” This was the first time Denim had created silence in the Smoke Pit. Silence had been confined to Square Room exchanges thus far.
Denim Prick seemed to sense it for a change. Maybe his normal denim clothes had been acting as some sort of shield; deflecting and blocking out the thoughts and sensibilities of others. Today, in normal clothes, he appeared unusually sensitive to group mood. Slightly flustered, he asked Lieutenant Thicky for his opinion.
Thicky stuck to his guns; he had doubt all the way. He wasn’t declaring his verdict as such; but I had more than enough access to his heart strings to ensure he wouldn’t be pulled back by Denim.
A brief period of silence preceded Puffy drawing attention to the “revised timetable” of proceedings. This gave Mark and I the opportunity to simultaneously look at each other and murmur, “11 to 1”. Wide grins!
It was now apparent that deliberations would probably not start until tomorrow. After lunch we still had to listen to the Judge’s summing up. This should take up the afternoon but be useful. I was hopeful it would provide further guidance and insight into how we should make our decision. Needing to buy some tobacco, I buttoned up my coat and made for the streets. Plenty of lunch time left.
Denim Prick was walking behind me and drew level to my shoulder as I exited the building. “Off for a pint?” he enquired. I explained my tobacco predicament and he revealed his alcoholic destination.
We were walking up #### Street; Tesco, as my nearest tobacconist, in sight.
Denim wasn’t shy. He asked for my thoughts and I gave them. “I think he’s probably guilty; but there is no concrete evidence. There is doubt every step of the way”. I said it was hard to imagine myself being swayed from this stance, but that “maybe the Judge would give us more insight”. I was diplomatic to the hilt. We’d reached Tesco’s by this point. Each second of continuing conversation was grating me; listening to this prick eating into my lunch hour.
Denim put his cards on the table. Guilty on all three charges. The basis for this being the ####’s lethargic response to the letter of hostage demands – that appointed them mediator, sent by the ####. What a cunt. As he expanded on his theory, the results of his tedious amateur sleuthing; all he revealed, once more, was his bigotry.
“Decent citizens would have taken it more seriously, called the Police straight away”.
That may be; but what a pissy argument this proved to be. It didn’t involve any facts or agreed events. It was a diatribe of assumptions and crude racist projections from his own mind. Some of it made me laugh, so retarded was its nature. But as we stood outside Tesco’s and he continued to babble away; my overriding feeling was of the joy I’d take in smashing his teeth out.
He went on to tell me he’d drafted a document, explaining the basis of his opinions. He’d been working on it for a couple of days. He wanted to know if he could give me a copy and maybe everyone else. I was imagining the look of horror and realisation on his face, as his mouth shattered back to his incisors under my fist.
“Would you be alright with that?” He enquired hopefully. “Do you think anyone else would mind if I brought it into deliberations?”
Why was he being so dumb? I told him of course it was fine, everyone’s ears were open, the whole point of this is to bring our thoughts to the table; and together we can all make a decision. Still, he needed further reassurance, he lightly complained he thought the jury perhaps “too liberal” in its make up. He quickly retracted this without prompt, and instead, gently bemoaned the limitations of circumstantial evidence. At least he’d taken that much on board.
I reassured him once more; we’d all have our say – that was the point of deliberations. He eventually set off for his watering hole. Entering Tesco’s, I realised he was still scared of me. He’d come to me first – because he saw me as the most influential. He might be right on that one.
Back in the comparative snug of the Juror’s Lounge, lunch was evaporating fast. With ten minutes before we were due to be called, I made for the Smoke Pit – like the socialite I am.
Available Seat was, on this occasion, by Puffy and Carny. Ideal. The returning Denim was emanating his liquor fumes in the seat next to Mark. I always know what I’m going to get with Puffy and Carny. Unflappable, down to earth characters. Really pleasant to be around. You know the ones.
As they bumbled their warm tirades at me, I couldn’t help but overhear some of Denim’s conversation with Mark. I caught the word “printout” and clocked his arm dangling gesticulation of handing them out to the group. It gave me no cause for concern though. Denim was probably going to do the rounds. One look at Mark told me all I needed to know. He looked forcibly sombre, as if he were feigning interest. I couldn’t hear the content of his reply; but when it came, the tone was of blithe, non-committal diplomacy.
This made me smile. I had 100% faith in Mark. We’d talked at length, had both approached the case the same way. Had both arrived at the same conclusions.
The call came shortly after; within minutes we were on the bench listening to the Judge sum up. It was comfortably the worst part of the trial so far. There was a tiny amount of common sense advice given on how we needed to go about making a verdict. Even the small elements of legal direction we needed were blindingly obvious, even to a cretin. I’m not sure what I was expecting. I felt like the cretin for hoping the ‘final word’ would make the decision making process easier.
What we got for the duration of the afternoon, was a grey haired old man, reading through our bulky file of agreed facts at pensioner pace. I felt physically sick. Some of us were close to nodding off at one point. Indeed, all three Police Officers in the Court; had done exactly that. It was embarrassing. We all thought the Judge had finished after one enormously protracted pause. He dashed our hopes with the words, “now I will summarise the defence case”.
Rover is sat to my right, Puffy is his file partner. When the Judge made clear his summing up was far from over, he whispered “I’m losing the will to live”, in my ear. I guess he could have done a better job, because most of the bench heard, and giggle stifling embarrassingly filled the Judge’s numerous pauses thereafter.
We’d all kicked back and slumped down with our arms folded. We looked like petulant school kids – and to be honest, I felt like one. This prick was boring the shit out of us. He was reading and referring to nuggets of evidence we’d heard, seen and noted repeatedly since day one. Even Teacher’s scratching ceased early doors. She wasn’t adding to her 55 pages of notes. This was insufferable.
Mild relief came when Thicky spilled his notes off his front row seat with a clatter. Like a startled fawn, our eager usher silently traversed the distance to him. The notes were picked up, our entertainment was gone, we would have to concentrate on the Judge again.
No one wanted to hear it. Only a couple of days ago, we’d been hungry for more facts, eager to make sense of the convoluted landscape being presented to us. Now we’d heard them, registered them and could probably fucking recite them. The Judge was reading page after page of these facts aloud, with despicably long pauses at seemingly innocuous junctures. I was beginning to feel violent.
As a means of anger aversion, I decided to play a game with Frail.
From day one, I’d taken sole charge of page turning the evidence file when required. Mark had done just the same with Denim. After an inordinate amount of time, Judge finally rattled out all the facts on page seven. It was time to turn the page. I did nothing. Several seconds later, the Judge having begun page eight’s nuggets; Frail began raising a distinctly uncertain limb. He was going to turn the page. I moved my left arm up, no suddenness, moving my hand towards the file. Frail withered and contracted like a Barbie doll on a bonfire. Inside I felt a bit bad. But it was fucking funny.
The torture ended at ten past four. After a short briefing tomorrow morning, we’d be deliberating – solidly.
Everybody was pissed off as we made our way down the stairs. My head was throbbing, owing to my level of incensement. Mark believed his head to be even worse.
The two of us were joined by Puffy and Carny for the now traditional Final Cigarette. We had the Smoke Pit to ourselves once more. Even on this most important of days, we were out before those poor Fraud bastards. Everyone vocalised similar sentiments regarding the Judge. Puffy mimicked slapping his face, and telling him to “bloody get on with it!” Carny cackled raucously at this remark.
Mark resonated her feelings before leading the conversation back onto the case. He said he found it hard, because in his job, he was given solid facts to digest and make decisions on. “Circumstantial” is not something he relates to or ever uses. Now he’s being asked to send a man down for Kidnap, Imprisonment and Murder on a set of circumstances. Puffy and Carny empathised greatly, and we had a joke and bitch about the inept Police handling of the case. Several blunders were made; no taping of evidence, delayed arrest warrants – even giving a prime suspect back their passport from an initial arrest so they could then flee the country.
I thought to myself, ‘If we are going to let a guilty man walk free, we’ve certainly got diminished responsibility’. The Police fucked up the investigation, and the Prosecution has been shit. We all agreed on that.
Mark hoped that the Prosecution didn’t really expect to win this case. He hoped this case had landed on the barrister’s desk “like a sausage from a sausage machine”. A packaged case, churned out by the system, it’s merely fallen on him to pick it up. “If the Prosecution barrister was down here now”, Mark grinned; “I’d expect him to say, “I did the best I could with what they gave me. It was just me who had to do it.”
I hoped he was right. Cigarettes extinguished, we traipsed through the empty lounge, and out into the dark. Tomorrow was it. There could be no more delays.
Tags: Comedy, Fiction, Humor, Humour, True Stories
