Fit Up (12 page)

O
ur letters of introduction concerning the libel case against Gerard had borne fruit and Louis Charalambous, a solicitor with Simons Muirhead and Burton, had responded and said that, on the face of it, Jeremy had a good case but they wanted a lot more information.

Louis had invited Jeremy to meet with him on 23 June. We were anxious to appoint a solicitor to start the litigation and to give Bob Crabtree their name so that we could see the two emails he had from Gerard.

At the meeting, Louis had asked for a lot more background information, especially in relation to the criminal case. He confirmed that the conversation recorded of Julie Cullivan and Gerard was slander. Jeremy told him about the contents of the emails, which would be evidence of libel. Despite this strong evidence we would have to pay our own legal fees as neither he nor Counsel would consider acting on a CFA agreement due to the fact that there could be a viable defence to the slander allegation. Then there was the uncertainty about the recovery of our costs against Gerard.

That afternoon Jeremy spoke to Bob Crabtree and gave him the solicitor’s email address to forward the Gerard emails. Bob was kind enough to copy Jeremy in at the same time and we sat down to read the attachment together.

The first email was on 18 March 2005.

This was, we were convinced, a desperate request from Gerard for Bob to remove any erroneous links to himself and Video Action from the DVDoctor website. Bob had replied that he had not had the time and to contact him again the following week.

Gerard replies on 21 March:

Needless to say, we were shocked by this new information. We had heard from a supplier that Lloyd had told him some time ago that he had not been feeling well and that he was going to see a consultant for tests. We never thought any more of it but Jeremy knew that Gerard smoked
marijuana daily and if he had been experiencing any pain it was surely going to be masked by the effects of the drug.

Bob’s next email wishes him luck.

On 7 April, Gerard writes:

It seemed quite predictable that in his effort to recover from a very painful operation, the first thing he could think about doing was turning the screws on Jeremy from his hospital bed. We could see that he had been spinning a fair few lies and exaggerations. We were right about one thing, though – he had been talking about the court case.

Bob never answered this email from Gerard – we could only guess that he must have started to feel uncomfortable about the way the correspondence was going.

While we were glad that Bob had come forward with this evidence, it made hard reading and knowing that Gerard had been spreading the word across the industry, just as Jeremy had predicted at the police interview, was incredibly upsetting.

I could tell Jeremy was hurt by these emails and determined to take
this case to the end. He so badly wanted Gerard to know about the evidence he had against him, to show him that he was not as smart as he liked to think he was. Waiting to slap a letter of claim on him was eating Jeremy alive.

Sensing he was disappearing into a dark mood, to take his mind off things I suggested we go out for something to eat. While Jeremy drove, the radio played ‘No Matter What’ by Boyzone. It was our first dance song at our wedding (although he preferred the Meat Loaf version). As the words ‘I will keep you safe and strong and sheltered from the storm’ were sung, Jeremy became emotional and was unable to look at me as he said, ‘I’ve failed to do that.’ My eyes started to well up and I couldn’t respond, I felt too sad.

Jeremy had also received a response from Mark Afeeva, a direct access barrister about whom Jeremy had been enquiring. We reasoned that it would cut costs if we could eliminate the need for a solicitor and just pay the barrister to present the case against Gerard. Mark was in the same place as Louis in that he also required more information, and each time anyone asked for the history it became easier to collate and relate the events.

Although steps had been made in the right direction, Jeremy had not been as upbeat as he had been prior to seeing the emails a few days ago. The path to justice was taking so long and was, it seemed, never clearcut. To him it was simple, the proof was there in black and white and audio. In the days that followed Jeremy was resentful and bitter. He snapped at everyone, not caring who he hurt in the process. I came off worse of course and I could not do right for doing wrong. Our relationship had always been loving and easy-going, and now I felt I was living with a stranger. He talked to me like I was on the side of the enemy, telling me that I must have thought he was a paedophile. He even went as far as to accuse me of hiding the truth about how his own family ‘don’t say it to my face but they think it just the same’. However, my feelings
of injustice ran just as deep, as deep as the love I felt for this man and on whom I would never give up. Only he did not see it at this moment.

I could not let Gerard and the police get away with what they had done, not just to Jeremy, but to me and our families. It was exhausting having to constantly try to build him up, to look for positives. Even Sasha could not pull him out of his mood. I went to work early in the morning but would return at lunchtimes to make sure Jeremy was eating, and to get him to converse about his progress with Mark or any other developments. One afternoon I returned home to see the curtains still closed in our bedroom. My heart sank, fearing that he was slipping back into the dark place that it had taken so long to get out of the previous year. I went upstairs to find him feet up on the desk in the back bedroom, still in his dressing gown with music blaring. I got his attention but he had a vacant look which unnerved me. The songs were from what he told me were the most enjoyable era of his childhood, where he regularly appeared to be retreating to happier memories. I was literally losing him to the ’70s.

Turning off the CD player, I firmly told him to shower, get dressed and come downstairs for something to eat. He dutifully did so and as we sat together eating soup and bread rolls, he leaned forward and said chillingly, ‘I could quite happily kill Lloyd. The thing is, it’s only a matter of planning how and getting away with it. Mind you, I don’t think I really care as long as he is dead.’

I laughed and said, ‘Don’t be daft, don’t let this guy take any more from you. Your time for retribution will come but let it be the legal way, he’s just not worth letting him sap all this energy from you.’

‘Of course, you’re right.’ He smiled and seemed brighter and I asked what he had planned for the afternoon. He said he had to make a phone call to Mark Afeeva as he was starting to write up the Particulars of Claim against Gerard and would take Sasha for a nice walk in the park. Before I returned to work he showed me that he had received a letter from the
National Identification Service confirming that they had updated their records with the ‘not guilty’ verdicts on all the charges. ‘Well, that is a step in the right direction,’ I said encouragingly, and with that I kissed him goodbye and told him I wouldn’t be home too late.

I did not speak to Jeremy at all that afternoon but as I pulled up in the drive, he was waiting for me. His hands were in front of him as if in prayer, and he had that same blank look he had had at lunchtime. I placed my hand on his shoulder and said gently, ‘Sweetie, whatever is the matter?’

Jeremy looked up from the steeple of his fingers and looked me directly in the eye. A feeling of dread suddenly swept over me as he said, ‘Lloyd’s dead!’

I
n that moment, the world seemed to have come to a grinding halt. Still standing in the front drive, I searched Jeremy's face for information but he just stared at me impassively. My heart was thudding so hard I could hardly breathe and I was trying to ignore the horrible thoughts that were pushing to the front of my mind. He had not called me that afternoon, which was unusual, and I had put it down to the fact that he had probably got busy with something. Then, remembering what he had said at lunchtime that he could ‘quite easily kill Gerard' made me shiver in the late afternoon sunshine. Was it possible that, once I had left, Jeremy had planned to find Gerard and … do what?
Could
he? Had everything that had taken place simply messed with his mind and made him unable to stand it any more? Then came the ‘
how
had he done it?' thought. All these questions were forming thick and fast in my mind when my subconscious stepped in and helpfully formed the words that I had been trying to ignore: ‘He's only gone and murdered Gerard!'

Jeremy's arms were now by his side, his shoulders slumped, and he was staring at the ground. I quickly looked him up and down for clues, like blood, and to see if his knuckles were bruised. I couldn't quite believe what I was thinking until finally I had the courage to say, ‘How did he die?'

Jeremy looked up at me. ‘He died of cancer.'

A wave of relief swept over me and my reaction to this news was to burst out laughing. Not at Gerard's demise, but at my overactive imagination.

Jeremy looked at me, puzzled as to why I was laughing, and I told him I'd thought he had murdered Gerard that afternoon. Still, he was not smiling, and so I asked, ‘Why the face? You look disappointed.'

‘I am,' he said, ‘because I won't be able to sue him. He won't know what I have on him and I won't be able to make him pay.'

I could see what he meant but, to my shame, I have to admit that I was secretly pleased at this news. Gerard would no longer be in our lives and, more importantly, no longer around to hurt Jeremy.

I found out that the news had come through a supplier in the industry who had phoned Jeremy about it. As shockingly quick as his death was, and at such a young age (forty-four), it held little concern for me. The only feelings of sorrow I had were for his children and parents. He had been going through a divorce from his wife Jo, and from what Jeremy had told me about how Gerard had treated her, I could only imagine that she was relieved to be free of his overbearing ways. Jeremy had once told me of a time when he overheard Gerard castigating her for spending fifty pence on a call to directory enquiries.

As we went inside the house, Jeremy said he was off to call Mark Afeeva and tell him the news. The slander and libel case against Gerard had literally come to a dead halt.

Later on that evening, while reading up on further information from the vast amounts that had been accumulated from textbooks and the internet, Jeremy discovered that although you cannot sue a dead person for slander, we could still sue a company for libel. Suddenly he was fired up once more and began looking jubilantly back at the emails that Gerard had sent. They were all from the Video Action address. He couldn't wait to call Mark the next morning to see what could be done.

By the time I got home the next afternoon, Jeremy confirmed that we
would be able to serve proceedings on Video Action. Mark was already under way with the Particulars of Claim. Although I was pleased that we still had a case, I was apprehensive. With hindsight, this is where we should have left the case alone and just been content with the fact that, although Gerard would not be facing charges, at least he was out of our life for good. As my grandmother used to say, ‘God pays debts without money.'

At the beginning of July we kicked off the Gerard litigation, as we called it, by sending our letter of claim off to Yvonne Gerard, Lloyd's mother and a director of Video Action. This is the pre-action protocol for a case against someone before you take it to the next level with the Particulars of Claim, which is a much lengthier document. In the meantime, we were finalising our letters of claim against Hertfordshire Constabulary and George Fouhey.

This detailed the events of Jeremy's case from start to finish, Hopkins's involvement and the financial and emotional impact it had had on our lives. A similar letter was sent to Fouhey's home address as we had thought he was an independent computer forensics expert, but this turned out not to be the case. Fouhey was a retired police officer who was engaged as a consultant within the Computer Crime Unit where he would provide invoices for his services. Although Allison Grundy, the police's solicitor, accepted service for both men, we wondered why Fouhey was not receiving independent representation since he was not actually an employee of Hertfordshire Constabulary.

Shortly after the letters were sent, we received a response from Hertfordshire Constabulary. When the envelope dropped through the letterbox with the HC logo, we opened it with trepidation. The wording was short; it was an acknowledgement of the letter of claim from Allison Grundy.

Grundy also added that she was willing to accept service for the Fouhey letter of claim, which was interesting. He had obviously been in touch with her quite quickly on receipt of his letter. How was it that a member of the constabulary's staff could represent an expert witness who was not employed by them? we wondered. We would have to wait and see. It was going to be a long wait until October but at least in the meantime we could focus on the Video Action case.

At the end of July, however, we received a letter from the solicitors dealing with Gerard's estate telling us that they had considered the contents of our letter of claim and that their clients did not consider that we had a valid claim against the deceased or his company. It concluded with the threat that, should we issue proceedings, our claim would be vigorously defended.

While we had expected such a response, we began to wonder how much evidence it would actually take to convince people that a real wrong had been committed against Jeremy. If the boot was on the other foot, would we have responded in the same way?

August, understandably being holiday time, went quiet on all fronts bar the odd conversation with Mark Afeeva, who was finalising our Particulars of Claim ready for submission before 12 September. Taking legal action was an enormous expense and we were grateful for the break in the proceedings of both cases as it allowed us some respite from the constant work in the evenings. Instead we watched television and went for long walks with Sasha, although all of our conversations revolved around
Gerard and the police, which never failed to raise my blood pressure. I was usually a very quiet and placid person but it frightened me how permanently angry I was.

I took a couple of weeks off work in August as the weather was pleasant but we could not afford to go anywhere. I didn't mind that; I just wanted a change of scenery and a break from acting as if nothing was wrong at work. Sitting at lunch surrounded by my colleagues who talked with enthusiasm and laughter depressed me. I used to be like them: carefree and contributory to conversations, but it was such an effort to be normal around them, which in turn made me feel tired all the time. Although the criminal case was out of the way, I still felt the pressure of being a manager of a busy department, running a home and rapidly having to become a legal expert. The two weeks stretching out before me gave me a sense of relief, and I was finally able to sleep when I wanted, although the feeling of weariness never disappeared. I had not had a full night's sleep since the raid and would often go downstairs in the middle of the night to have a cup of tea. Jeremy sometimes joined me or he would stay in bed to read the legal books. I suppose we both badly needed to see a doctor or at least have some sort of counselling, but neither of us wanted to be taking drugs for depression or to help us sleep because we wanted to be in total control of our daily lives.

The two weeks drifted by and the days merged into one another so much that I had to keep reminding myself what day and date it was, not that it really mattered, but I was worried about my sanity. Each day was becoming a challenge to get through and we had only just started our quest for retribution. What made it worse was that on the days that I felt like this, Jeremy was the opposite. He would be all fired up and in any spare moment his nose would be in his latest favourite book,
Police Misconduct
. I was glad that he had taken this part of the homework on himself, because I didn't think I could face such a weighty, probably
tedious tome, and my strengths were in putting together the words for litigation, in any case.

Upon returning to work I felt that on the one hand I had been away for an immensely long time and on the other that I had only just left my desk for a day or two. It was quiet on the home front with no responses from either the solicitors for Gerard or the police so my mind felt free to concentrate on my work.

I felt I was living two lives, one between nine to five, or however long the work days might be, and the other early evening onwards.