Extradited (5 page)

T
he five weeks between the hearings were exhausting, stressful and monotonous. My family and the ‘Bum Squad’ had become additional lawyers, working towards building the best case and campaign possible. The online petition had grown to over 4,000 signatures and another protest was being arranged for 12 August.

We’d received the South Wales Police statements a couple of days after the adjournment. I remember feeling uneasy as my dad opened the large brown envelope. What we were about to read had the potential to determine my destiny. He pulled out a hefty wad of documents and I sighed with relief when I saw the first page; it was a list of the people who’d made statements and every one of Jonathan’s friends was there. My dad and I spent an entire day reading them.

Unlike the word-for-word identical statements the Zante police had written, the statements that the five had given to the British police each gave detailed, subjective accounts of the events that surrounded the attack. The statements presented an accurate description of the first day of their holiday.

They had landed in Zante on the morning of 19 July 2007 then made their way to their hotel. Taking a little while for the staff to prepare their rooms, they waited at the hotel bar area and
had a beer or two. After dropping off their bags and walking into town for some food and drinks, they showered and met up again in the hotel bar. Following a few more drinks and after playing some cards, Mark O’Gorman, Christopher Paglionico, Jason Mordecai and Robert Hares headed to ‘the strip’, which is where the nightclubs and bars are located. They left Lee Burgess and Jonathan Hiles in the hotel bar, as they were talking to some girls.

The four boys who had gone to the strip sat in the outdoor bar area of the Rescue nightclub, where they had a drink before Jonathan and Lee caught up with them. Once they were all together, they went into the dance area of the nightclub. Their statements gave a detailed description of the layout – the raised platform dance area was 5 or 6 feet high and next to the DJ. After buying a drink at the bar, they made their way onto the raised podium to dance. All of the boys admitted to being tipsy, apart from Lee who was noticeably drunk.

They were dancing with a group of six British girls on the raised stage when a man who they didn’t know barged through them and began to urinate. One of the boys describes this male as having ‘hair which was cut short in a mullet style, spikey on the top. He was a big build, not fat, not all muscle.’ From detailed head-to-toe descriptions, not one of Jonathan’s friends had said that this male had a moustache and goatee like mine. I considered myself to be quite fat – their descriptions did not portray how I looked. Christopher Paglionico, who gave a very detailed description, admitted to seeing the male for a maximum of five seconds only, after several drinks and with flashing disco lights.

It was mentioned that the urinating male was in the company of two other males, one of whom was described by Jason Mordecai as ‘a white male, early twenties … over six foot tall and of an average type build. He had shortish blond hair and he appeared to have a badly pock-marked complexion.’

Christopher Paglionico, Lee Burgess, Robert Hares and Jason Mordecai jumped off the stage because they had been urinated on and wanted to clean up in the toilet.

Mark O’Gorman and Jonathan Hiles remained on the raised platform. Mark O’Gorman stated:

The first thing that I thought when reading the statements was that I would never, ever commit such an offence. In no situation
would I ever decide to urinate in a nightclub and then punch someone for no reason! The second thing that struck me was that Mark O’Gorman was the only eyewitness to the alleged attack. This was a complete contradiction to what was written in the Greek statements, which claimed that all five of the victim’s friends were 100 per cent certain that I was the attacker.

According to the South Wales Police statements, Jonathan was taken to hospital in an ambulance. Lee was drunk and returned to the apartments while Mark and Jason went to the police station to report the attack. They stated that the police didn’t allow them to make a complaint and said that Jonathan would have to do so himself.

Christopher and Robert followed the ambulance to the hospital in a taxi, where Jonathan was left on a stretcher in the recovery position. According to Christopher Paglionico, the doctors told him that Jonathan was OK and was just asleep. Tragically, Jonathan died two days later after being transferred by plane to a hospital in Athens.

The victim’s friends then described how the Zante police sat them in a room together and showed them CCTV footage around the time of the incident. The CCTV mainly covered the tills behind the bars and did not show the attack. They noticed three men leaving the nightclub quickly, who could have been the perpetrator and his friends. They were also shown photographs as a group, all of which were taken by a professional photographer the night
before
the incident had occurred. I was wrongly identified as the urinating man – another blond male who I didn’t know was identified as his friend. The picture of me was of my face (with my eyes closed) in the middle of a crowded dancefloor. It certainly wasn’t strong enough to make an accurate identification.

Mark O’Gorman, the only eyewitness to the attack, stated:

As mentioned previously, the Zante police had shown the photographs around a few of the hotels. At the hotel where we had been staying, the manager told the police that Chris and Charlie were my friends. After they beat them into signing statements that claimed I was the attacker, the five friends of Jonathan Hiles signed the Greek word-for-word identical statements:

The Greek and South Wales Police statements were completely different. Surely this parody of an investigation was ridiculous enough for the British authorities to intervene?

G
oing to the cemetery and sitting on the bench next to Michael’s grave was something that I’d do regularly. It had been almost a year since we’d lost him to leukaemia, and he was still in my thoughts every day. He was like a cousin to me and I missed him so much. Soon his bench became somewhere I would go to escape, think things through and be alone. Sometimes I felt like I had nowhere else to go. I would go every few days just to sit and watch the tall evergreen trees dance with the wind in the distance. There was something tranquil about it – and I would stay there for hours because I didn’t want to return to the chaos at home. There was one particular day when I sat on Michael’s bench from the early afternoon and didn’t leave until sunset. When I eventually brought myself to make my way home, and I walked through the front door, I was told that the court hearing on 12 August would be adjourned too. Since the South Wales Police statements had been thrown into the mix, the Crown prosecution needed more time to build an argument.

The day of 12 August 2008 began in a similar way to the first adjourned hearing on 7 July. Actually, the morning was pretty much exactly the same. The same emotions, the same sickening feeling of not being able to eat, the same nerves and the same
route in our friend Sim’s cab to Horseferry Road in Westminster. As we arrived I noticed another huge group of supporters outside with the same placards. The hearing was quick, and adjourned until 30 September – another seven weeks.

The next day I remember overhearing my mum making a desperate phone call. ‘Hello, I know this might sound ridiculous, but would it be possible to speak with the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown?’ She hung up the phone and noticed that I was listening and chuckling.

‘They put me through to a recording,’ she said.

‘You know you can’t just call the Prime Minister. He doesn’t work for T-Mobile, you can’t just call him up to complain when you’re not satisfied with the service!’

‘But why not try?’ she said.

I guess you don’t get anywhere without trying, even if the odds are, well … impossible.

Although we never managed to catch Gordon on the phone, we’d written letters to him, as well as to the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, the Greek ambassador, Jack Straw and many others. My uncle Les was listening to the radio station talkSPORT and told us that Jacqui Smith would be on the show that week. The host of the show was a presenter called Jon Gaunt, nicknamed ‘Gaunty’ by his fans. His style was confrontational and he had a reputation for giving both callers and his guests a hard time. At this time, we had no direct communication with anyone in the government apart from our local MP, Joan Ryan, who felt that my extradition was inevitable. Les attempted to call the show and raise my case with Jacqui to see what her public reaction would be. He managed to get put through to an assistant who asked him the nature of the question that he wanted to ask the Home Secretary. He told her that he was interested in her opinion as to whether the government thought it was justifiable to extradite British citizens
without first determining if there was an actual case to answer. He purposely didn’t mention my name before being put on the air:

The speed at which the call was dropped was impressive, especially for a live radio show. I could imagine the Home Secretary pulling an imaginary blade across her neck as soon as she heard Les say my name. Jon Gaunt, a fearsome and argumentative presenter who hosted a radio show that is often controversial, had been silenced in a fraction of a second. He’d encouraged no debate on the subject, which was unusual. We wondered if he’d been notified in advance that during any talk concerning the EAW he was
to cut it short if my name was mentioned. We will never know – what we do know is that Jacqui Smith was well aware of the case. Her refusal to speak publicly on the subject spoke volumes.

I
t was 30 September 2008 – the date to which my extradition hearing had been adjourned. It was a long, stressful and emotionally strenuous day. Overlooking a courtroom full of lawyers and journalists, I sat in the defendants’ dock for the fourth time. Sitting there, alone, I was at least confident in knowing that there was no case against me whatsoever. I just hoped that the judge had the courage to go against the EAW and consider my innocence. He was an older judge who hopefully wanted to end his career with a bang and use his common sense to prevent a possible miscarriage of justice.

My name was the first to be called out to testify. It was a scenario that I’d repeatedly thought about since being on bail. I assumed that my heart would race or I would feel shaky and nervous, but I actually felt pretty confident because I had absolutely nothing to hide. Mr Hiles sat to the right of the witness box – I could see him in my peripheral vision as I stood and took the oath.

During my barrister John Jones’s questioning, I explained to the judge my whereabouts on the night in question. I reiterated the statement that I’d made to a solicitor in 2007, explaining that I was in a nightclub called Bad Boys that was over 200 metres away from the Rescue nightclub. On the strip of Laganas in
Zante, holidaymakers are able to walk freely in and out of the bars or nightclubs with no entrance fee or security check. On the night, my group of friends and a group of girls went into the Rescue nightclub at around 4 a.m. for about fifteen minutes on the walk back to the hotel. This was three hours after the attack had allegedly occurred, and we stayed near the front bar area only.

The prosecuting barrister, Peter Caldwell, cross-examined me. He was curious as to why my friends and I had made statements with a solicitor in 2007. I told him that my mum had sought legal advice after Chris Kyriacou and Charlie Klitou had told us what had happened to them, and that it was suggested we do it to record our memories of the night in case anything were to happen in the future. He seemed to think it was suspicious that we’d documented our memories of the night in question as opposed to a different night. I knew of the date of the attack because Chris and Charlie were interrogated about it! Then I told him that a statement outlining my whereabouts on the wrong night wouldn’t have been much help if I were to stand wrongly accused of the crime – which I assumed would have been obvious.

I remember being unhappy with Chris and Charlie’s testimonies. They both explained what had happened to them in the police station, but I felt like they didn’t get across how bad their treatment truly was. They were nervous and trying to face their fears in court. It was a horrible feeling knowing that my life may have depended on their testimonies. On the other hand, Georgina Clay (one of the holiday reps) was firm and descriptive in her testimony. I remember her clarifying that the Zante police were trying to intimidate her at her place of work. She told the court that she was at the police station when Chris and Charlie were held and that she was not allowed to speak to them, but she had mouthed, ‘Are you OK?’ to Charlie, who had shaken his head and mouthed back ‘No.’ She explained that Charlie’s face had
swollen up once he had left the police station and that she had called the British Consulate. Apparently, the chief of police and the hotel manager were very close friends, and he aggressively shouted at the consular representative, forcing her to leave the hotel because she was apparently trespassing. I couldn’t believe it!

The hearing lasted hours and John Jones had put a firm argument across. Our argument that the EAW was invalid because the Greek authorities had failed to summon me was challenged. John Jones stated that, as part of the Greek judicial system, the process of summoning a suspect to appear before the investigating magistrate for questioning is part of the procedure initiated by the Greek public prosecutor. The EAW must be used only when the requesting state is trial-ready. In other words, the requesting state must not use the EAW as a summons for questioning but only once the investigation has been completed and the suspect is extradited to stand trial. However, Peter Caldwell argued that I was a fugitive. If one is defined as a fugitive, an EAW can be used in such a case. Thus, the EAW
was
valid.

John argued that I was
not
a fugitive. I had no knowledge of the attack, as I was not present at the time. We provided travel documents, showing that I did not leave my holiday early as the judge had previously implied. The prosecutor stated that it didn’t matter if I had left the island when I had booked to leave or not. Without having the opportunity to examine the evidence against me, or for me to present my defence, the Greek authorities had decided that I was a fugitive – so we must trust them. The way I understood it, was that my innocence or guilt would determine whether I was a fugitive trying to prevent facing justice. It was something that could not be determined until the trial had finished and a verdict pronounced – in Greece. Proving my innocence would be the only way to prove that I was not a fugitive, and the EAW wouldn’t allow us to do that!

There were times in the hearing where I had no idea what they were talking about. At times I sat there in utter confusion, attempting to understand the legal jargon as best I could. There was a short break and my solicitor John Tipple approached me in the defendants’ box. I remember him saying, ‘Don’t worry about the prosecutor, he’s just very good at stringing together long and complicated sentences!’ He was trying to make me feel better, even though I knew that the counter-arguments were technically valid.

I was frustrated to my core; it was almost as though no human common sense could be heard in court. When we returned from the recess the judge informed the court that his ruling would be given on 30 October.

As I left Westminster Magistrates’ Court, I once again found myself walking into a barrage of photographers, reporters and TV news cameras.