Heavy Duty Trouble (The Brethren Trilogy) (44 page)

I now turn to the law which you are being asked to consider.

The five men before you are each accused of three counts of murder
, as well as of conspiracy to murder
.

Murder is
of course as well as being one of the gravest crimes, also
one of the oldest crimes on our statute book and so its definition
goes back
centuries
.

For you to find that murder has been committed you have to find that the Crown has proved a number of things. The traditional definition of what these are is somewhat archaic being
when a man of sound memory and of the age of discretion, unlawfully kills within any county of the realm any reasonable creature in
rerum natura
under the Queen's peace, with malice
aforethought
, either expressed by the party or implied by law, so as the party wounded, or hurt, et
c
die of the wound or hurt, etc
.

For the purposes of this trial I will translate the relevant parts of this for you as follows.

Firstly that as a
direct
result of some action, someone living has been killed.

Secondly that the killing was unlawful, and not for example the killing of an enemy soldier in wartime.

Thirdly that the killing
was pre-meditated.

And
finally,
that the killer is
responsible for their actions
,
and is not
,
for example
,
insane.

When deciding upon the guilt or innocence of these men it
does not matter
whether the particular individual was involved in actually firing the gun, or even actually at the site of the alleged attack.

It is a princip
le
of English Law that where two or more people share a common purpose, they can share
equal
responsibility for the consequences of each others’ action, even if these were not necessarily agreed or planned in advance.

So, if you deliberately help somebody to commit a murder, then you are as guilty as they are.

So, if you knowingly go along with someone that you might reasonably be expecting to commit a murder, and they do so, then you are as guilty as they are.

So, if you commission,
organize
or arrange for others to carry out a murder on your behalf, then you are as guilty as they are.

Therefore,
i
f you find that
any of the defenda
nts were involved in
staging
the attack
, you may find them guilty of murder even if they did not actually pull the trigger.

Equally, if you believe it has been proved beyond reasonable doubt that one
or more
of these men
was not at the scene, but had
shared a common purpose with those who actually carried out the attack, if they planned it, or commissioned it for example, then they will share full responsibility for the attack and are as liable for it as the people who actually carried it out.

As I mentioned at the outset, y
ou have heard the case
s both
for the
P
rosecution and for the
D
efence. It is
now
your job to decide whether the
Crown has proven the c
ase without a reasonable doubt
, and so I’d like to turn to this and discuss this requirement with you
.

It is said that
T
hroughout the web of the English Criminal Law one golden thread is always to be seen that it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner's guilt
.

It is
the
P
rosecution
which carries
the
burden of proof
and
so it is up to the Crown to
prove their version of events to th
e standard of beyond reasonable doubt, but what, you may be asking yourself is reasonable doubt?

Well, let us start by saying what
beyond a reasonable doubt does not
mean. Under English law, it does not
amount to a requirement
on the Crown
to prove the case to
what is described as ‘
a moral certainty
’.

Instead it is broadly taken to mean that the case has to be proven to the extent that in the mind of a ‘
reasonable person
’, there could be no ‘reasonable doubt’ that the defendant is guilty.

In other words, there can still be some doubt, but only to the extent that it would
not
affect a reasonable person's belief as to whether a defendant is guilty or not.

So
, given the
D
efence
raised,
I would suggest to you that the questions before you in this case are firstly to decide w
hether
there
was
actually a
crime
of murder planned or committed.

Only once you have formed a view on this, and that there is therefore a case to answer, can you then sensibly go on to ask secondly
,
whether
the Crown proved
the case beyond reasonable doub
t
.

When doing so, you need to remember that e
ach man is accused separately
. S
o
in reaching your verdicts you will have to consider the evidence you have heard against each individual, in respect of each charge made against them, and ask yourself
whether
or not
the Crown has proved each case
,
against each man
, to the required degree
.

Now it may seem strange to you that for such a fundamental concept,
as you will have gathered
,
there is no firm definition of what is meant
‘
by beyond reasonable doubt
’
in English case law
. B
ut it is possible to give some indicative guidelines as to what tests you are in practice being asked to apply.

It is important to remember that
the
use of ‘
beyond a reasonable doubt
’ as the standard of proof in a criminal trial
is
fundamental to that basic assumption of any
criminal trial,
that
the
defendant is
presum
ed
innocen
t.

So I would suggest to you that in reaching your verdicts you need to remember that it is up to the
P
rosecution to prove their case, the
burden of proof rests on the
m
throughout the trial
.

The
P
rosecution does not have to prove to an absolute certainty that the defendant is guilty. They are not required to provide proof beyond any doubt.

But they do need to prove more tha
n
just
that the defendant is probably guilty.

When considering whether you have any reasonable doubt then you should consider that
a doubt based upon sympathy or prejudice
is not a reasonable one and should be discounted. You are not being asked to consider imaginary or frivolous doubts when coming to your verdict.

However a doubt which is
logically connected to the evidence or
to the
absence of
any
evidence
, and which is based on reason and common sense, is likely to be a reasonable doubt.

If, at the end of
the
case, there is a reasonable doubt, created by the evidence given by either the
P
rosecution or the
Defence
, as to whether
a
defendant
killed the deceased with a malicious intention, the
P
rosecution has not made the case and the
defendant
is entitled to an acquittal.

If you only think that a defendant is probably guilty, then you should acquit him.

If you have any
reasonable
doubt, then your duty is clear an
d you must acquit the defendant
.

I will ask you now to retire to consider your verdict.

Thurs
day 1
6
th
June 2011

Good afternoon, and first
this lunchtime we are going
live to our legal correspondent
,
Eamon
Reynolds
,
who is in our Newcastle studio where the murder trial of five bike club members ended dramatically a short time ago this morning.

Eamon
, what have you got to tell us?

Ye
s Peter
,
tha
n
k
you
. W
ell as you say, there have been dramatic developments
and extraordinary scenes here, both inside and afterwards outside
Court
this morning as the jury reached its verdicts
on the charges
against each of the five accused.

As you know, the
Judge gave
his
summing up
yesterday afternoon and the
jury
were
then
instructed to
retire
to consider their verdict. Given the end of the trial we can now reveal that in order to keep the jury secure, the
J
udge had taken the unusual step of ordering th
at they be sequestered for the d
uration of the trial and so the jury have all been staying at
a hotel just across the river from the courthouse and have been brought into
Court
each day under police escort.

They returned to Court this morning to continue their deliberations but in fact it only took them a
very short time indeed
since
we understand that
by about half past
ten
the jury foreman had sent a message to the
Court
officials that they had reached unanimous verdict
s
.

The Court then had to assemble and the defendants be brought up from the cells so in fact it was just after a quarter past
eleven
before the
Judge
formally asked the jury foreman to stand and announce whether they had
a verdict
s
that
they
ha
d
all agre
ed on.

The foreman nodded and told the
Judge
that y
es
,
they had
.

Then,
as
the
verdict on
the first charge was read out against
Charl
i
e Graham, the
P
resident of the Freeman, the alleged power brokers within the club,
the public ben
ches of the C
ourt
which were packed with club members and supporters,
erupted with cheering as the jury foreman
announced they had found him
not guilty.

For a moment, it looked as though the
J
udge was about to call for the Court to be cleared, but in fact he didn’t have to speak as
after
a few quiet words from some key members of the club on the public benches the crowd fell silen
t
immediately
. T
hen
,
while those on the front rank of the public benches remained seated to hear the rest of the verdicts, the remaining spectators began filing out and into the corridor outside the
c
ourt
room.

And so in the emptying C
ourt, as the charges
against each man were read out
and
the foreman replied not guilty
, those of us inside the
court
room could hear a degree of hubbub from the
growing
crowd
waiting
outside
in
the hallway
to
greet the
accused
on their release
.