Unravel a Crime - Tangle With Women (49 page)

“
Mr. Evans” said the Judge,
and Evans was obliged to rise to his feet again. “Correct me but Miss Lappin
will need to make her opening submissions before any witnesses are called.” He
looked at Lappin who nodded. “I would have thought that this may allow these
witnesses time to come to the Court.”

“
My Lord, I was going to make
application that Mr. Black be allowed to be in Court during Miss Lappin’s
opening, so that he might be aware of the case against him, if I may so
describe the Defence.”

Lappin flew to her feet.

“
With all due respect to my
Learned Friend, that is outrageous. This is a criminal trial, not a civil
dispute, and all witnesses must be outside the Court before they give
evidence.”

The Judge nodded in agreement.

Evans was not about to give
up. “But this is an expert witness, not a witness as to fact. He is here to
assist the Court and in my respectful submission he should be allowed to be
forewarned of, and be able to consider any challenges to his professional
opinions.”

Lappin who had sat down while
he spoke, started to rise to her feet, but the Judge waived her down.

“
Mr Evans, I am afraid that I
cannot accede to this unusual request. The Prosecution have been aware of what
the Defendant says about Mr. Black’s evidence….”

“
We only received my learned
friends skeleton argument by fax last Thursday..”

“
Pray do not interrupt me Mr.
Evans. I was referring to the letter sent by those who instruct Miss Lappin
many weeks ago, and which is at the beginning of the Defendant’s bundle of
documents. I presume a copy was provided to Mr. Black.”

“
May I take instructions, My
Lord?”

“
By all means.” The Judge sat
back in his chair with a half amused look on his face. Lappin turned round and
raised an eyebrow.

Evans had a whispered conversation
with Enid Crawford. He drew back from the conversation with a deep breath.

“
May it please Your Lordship,
I regret to say that. due to an oversight Mr. Black has not seen that letter?”
he said.

“
Miss Lappin.”

“
My Lord?”

“
I am conscious that this case
has been hanging over your client’s head for some time now. On the other hand
it does seem to me that if Mr. Black is made aware of the allegations against
him, then your examination of him may be quicker and more effective, because he
will have had time to prepare his responses.”

“
My Lord.”

“
Mr. Evans, what I propose to
do is to start this case. Those sitting behind you should be prepared to meet
Mr. Black as soon as he arrives; furnish him with a copy of Miss Lappin’s
Instructing Solicitors letter and her skeleton argument, and find somewhere
where he can sit quietly to consider all that is said. If he has not prepared
himself by the time that he is needed in the witness box, then I will consider
an application for a short adjournment at that stage, but it must be a short
adjournment.”

“
Very good, My Lord.” said
Evans and turned round to Crawford, who nodded. The other lady collected copies
of the two documents and left the Court room.

“
Yes, Mr. Evans?”

“
May it please your Lordship and
as Your Lordship is aware I act for the Prosecution in this matter and my
learned friend Miss Lappin acts for the Defendant Newberry. The facts of this
case are that…”

“
Mr Evans I hate to interrupt
you. You were not at last week’s hearing, but I have read the statement of case
prepared by yourself, Mr Edwards-Mitchell and Mr. Luke, although I observe that
neither of those are here. In the light of that, and of course having read the
letter I have referred to, the witness statements, and Miss Lappin’s skeleton
argument I think that I have a good grasp of this case. As I understand it the
thrust of this application is simply that the expert evidence submitted by the
Prosecution is so unreliable as to not constitute a prima facie case. Is that
correct.”

“
My Lord, as I understand it,
yes.” Conceded Evans.

“
In those circumstances unless
there are any other matters you wish to bring to my attention, may we take it
that the statement of case stands in this matter.”

Evans was experienced enough
to be able to guage which way the Judge was leaning, and not to upset him by
unnecessary argument.

“
May I take instructions, My
Lord?”

“
Certainly.”

Evans turned to have a stage
whispered conversation with Crawford. “You have heard what the Judge has said,
is there anything you want me to do.” The buck was being passed.

Crawford shook her head.

“
There are no other matters at
this stage, My Lord.”

“
Then Miss Lappin, perhaps you
would care to begin.”

Lappin rose to her feet.
Suddenly the electronic sound of a South American tune filled the Court.

Brakespeare clutched at the
pocket where his mobile phone was. He pulled it out and fumbled with the
buttons to try and switch it off.

Lappin turned to him
furiously. “If you don’t know how to turn it off, get outside.” and turning
back to the Judge. “My Lord I do apologise. It appears that my Instructing
Solicitor has forgotten to switch his mobile telephone off.”

“
Or hasn’t learned how to.”
replied the Judge, smiling.

The phone was still ringing
still as Brakespeare rushed into the foyer. On the screen was a number he
recognised.

“
Hello boyo.”

“
How did you get this number
Joe.”

“
I rang your office to leave a
message for you and they told me your number – but only after I told ‘em that I
was helping you with the case.” Gargan’s belly laugh rang out from the phone.
“I knew you were in Court ,and that’s why I rang to leave a message. I thought
that I would get the answerphone on this mobile.”

“
Voicemail.” Corrected
Brakespeare.

“
Well either way, I thought
that you should know that we got the warrant last Friday, and we went in
National’s solicitors offices on the dot at nine o’clock this morning. Talk
about shit hitting the fan. Your friend Masters has rung everyone except the
Prime Minister to find out what’s going on. I reckon your man Black will know
what’s going on.”

“
He hasn’t turned up, yet.”

“
Well there’s a surprise.
Anyway I thought that you might like to know.”

“
Thanks Joe.”

“
Let me know how you get on.
You may owe me a drink.”

Brakespeare carefully switched
the telephone off before entering the room. As he did so he noticed the lady
from the C.P.S. sitting waiting, papers in hand for Black to arrive. He crept
back into the Court room. Rosemary Lappin was in full flow. Lisa turned round
as he approached the defence table and raised an eyebrow. He walked behind her
chair to whisper in her ear.

“
The Police have moved into
the solicitors office. The alarm bells are ringing.”

He resumed his seat quietly.
Newberry looked at him enquiringly. Brakespeare simply shook his head.

“……
and that is the brief
background to this case. Quite simply law this.“ Lappin picked up her copy of
Archbold’s Criminal Pleading. “ and I refer to section 6 subsection 1 of the
Criminal Justice Act 1987. The Judge shall dismiss the charge if it appears
that the evidence against the applicant would not be sufficient for a jury to
properly convict him.

Your Lordship will have noted
that the conspiracy charge has been amended by the Prosecution. The original
allegation that the Defendant; the applicant in this case, was in some way
connected with Clearfield Limited has been dropped. In it’s place we now have
an allegation that the Defendant conspired, and I quote ‘that stage payments
would be authorised in respect of developments that at the time that the said
stage payment was authorised were nit then properly due to be paid.’

My Lord in my respectful
submission there is not one iota of evidence to support that in the 6 feet high
pile of papers in this case. It is not of course for the Defence to prove a
negative, but for the Prosecution to prove their case. I shall therefore be
expecting my learned friend Mr. Evans in due course to identify to Your
Lordship and the Court what evidence, if any, he relies on, in relation to the
stage payments, and I therefore reserve the right to address Your Lordship on
this point at a later stage.”

The Judge nodded.

“
As far as the main part of
the charge; the alleged conspiracy that the Defendant would, and again I quote,
‘ensure’ that the National Bank, or Building Society as it was then, accept
properties as security, which, if I may paraphrase, were overvalued, then
again, there is absolutely no evidence to support this. What evidence there is,
is from the two surveyor colleagues of the Defendant, Messrs. Dover and Baines,
who again to paraphrase, say that they were not at any time pressured by the
Defendant in any way over their valuations which form the majority of those in
this case.”

“
This is why you’ve called
them, to confirm this?” interrupted the Judge.

“
My Lord, yes, and of course
for Your Lordship to see them and form a view of them and their veracity.”

The Judge laughed. “I am sure
that I don’t need to see them to make a judgement on that. They are after all
Chartered Surveyors!”

“
Indeed My Lord, but in the
absence of any concrete evidence against the Defendant, I would not want the
Prosecution to imply that these gentlemen in any way contributed to the alleged
conspiracy.”

“
Very Good.”

“
That, My Lord leads us to
what is the only tangible evidence in this case, and that is the evidence of
Mr. Black on whom the Prosecution rely. What we say are two things. Firstly
that his valuations are palpably inconsistent and unreliable and secondly, that
while he was employed by the National Bank strictly as an independent valuer,
in fact he compromised his position by seeking to find buyers for various
properties.”

“
You mean that his valuations
might have been influenced by his desire to earn commission on a sale.”

“
Precisely so My Lord. This
may explain why, as I hope to show, his valuations fluctuated more than one
might reasonably expect.”

She turned round and whispered
out of the side of her mouth “He’s grasped the point already”

She turned back to the Judge.
“Does Your Lordship have the bundle of documents prepared by the Defence in
this case.”

The Judge held up Lisa’s
bundle.

“
That is the one My Lord. If I
may I will take Your Lordship through it.”

“
I have read it.”

“
I am obliged for Your
Lordship’s assistance on that point. For the record in these proceedings, I
will simply draw Your Lordship’s attention to what the various charts and
graphs demonstrate. They are analyses of both Mr. Black’s valuations and the
extent to which the disputed valuations were carried out by the Defendant.”

The Judge turned to Evans.

“
Is all this information
agreed, Mr. Evans.”

He rose to his feet, nodded
and mumbled “My Lord.”

For the next hour Lappin took
the Judge through Lisa’s analyses, summarising the conclusion each one showed.
The Judge continually nodded throughout, and made notes of her points.

“
The results of all this were
set out in my Instructing Solicitors letter to the C.P.S., so the Prosecution
have now been aware for some weeks of these issues. No additional or rebuttal
evidence has been served, nor can it be because, alas for him, Mr. Black’s
valuations are set in concrete.”

“
A slightly mixed metaphor,
but I understand what you mean”, smiled the Judge.”

Lappin then took the Judge
through the correspondence between Redshaw Linden and Steele and Skinners. The
Judge appeared to be making copious notes.

“
And that My Lord is the basis
of this application.” She finally concluded.

“
Thank you, Miss Lappin”, said
the Judge, glancing at his watch. “Mr. Evans, it’s now almost midday. It would
seem a suitable time to take a break, and perhaps you could make enquiries as
to whether your witnesses are here. We will resume in 15 minutes, at 12.15.”

“
The Court will rise”. The
Usher invoked the adjournment procedure.

“
I’m going for a coffee and a
cigarette.” announced Lappin. “Perhaps you would take Mr. Newberry to the
public café? We’ll see where we are at a quarter past twelve.”

She pulled her robe round her
and left the Court, talking to Evans.

Kate came over. “She ain’t
half good, ain’t she.”

“
That’s why we haven’t got Mr.
Breezie here today.” said Brakespeare dismissively “Come on, let’s go to the
café.”

They walked out into the
foyer.