Jasmine’s best friend.
Oh well, justice is blind, like the statue outside.
Phil Turner rose to his feet. In his old wig and gown, he looked just as Sarah had feared. The ancient wig was shoved back a little and to the side, like the flat cap of a farmer. His gown and suit were comfortable rather than smooth or ostentatious. He turned his rugged, dependable face towards the jury, and began.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, the case you are to try is a murder. All murders are serious, but this was a particularly horrible and brutal one, and it will be my duty to present you with some very unpleasant and upsetting evidence. I am sorry for that, but it cannot be helped. It is my duty to prove that the man who committed this awful crime, the murderer, is the young man whom you see sitting in the dock — Simon Newby. It is the job of my learned colleague Mrs Newby here — who, most unusually, you may think, happens to be Simon’s mother — to defend him against this charge.’
He paused, while the jury examined Sarah with interest. A hushed murmur came from the public gallery.
‘And it is your job — the most important job of all — to listen carefully to all the evidence put before you, and then to decide on one simple question: does this evidence prove, beyond all reasonable doubt, that Simon Newby committed this murder, or not?’
Wonderful, Sarah thought, as several jurors nodded solemnly. They’re eating out of his hand already. The moment that man opened his mouth they had him placed; as a decent, dependable Yorkshireman, one of their own. And he’s telling them my son’s a murderer.
‘It’s as simple as that,’ Phil Turner continued calmly. ‘And my answer is equally simple: does the evidence prove that Simon Newby is guilty? Yes, it does.’
He lifted one foot comfortably onto the bench beside him, like a countryman leaning on a fence, telling a story to a group of friends.
‘Let me outline it for you. Firstly, the murder itself. You will hear police officers and forensic scientists describe it all in great detail. But the basics are these. Early on the morning of Friday 14th May a man was walking his dog on a footpath near the river Ouse south of York, when the dog found something in the bushes. When the man looked he saw the body of a young woman. He called the police and later that day they identified the body as that of Jasmine Hurst, a young woman of 23 who lived with her current boyfriend David Brodie about half a mile from where her body was found.
‘The forensic scientists will tell you, members of the jury, exactly how poor Jasmine was killed. But in simple layman’s terms, she died because her throat was cut. Her throat was cut with a large, serrated knife by someone who was standing behind her, probably pulling her head back by her hair to expose her neck. Naturally, once her throat was cut, she died very swiftly.
‘But her ordeal was not swift, ladies and gentlemen. The cuts on her arms, the bruising to her face and genital area show that before she was killed she was beaten and raped. This young woman suffered a prolonged, brutal attack in which her death was only the final stage.’
The jury watched him, riveted. He looked at each of them briefly, then resumed his story.
‘So, how do we know who did it? Well, firstly, there were a number of footprints near the body. Footprints, in particular, of a man’s training shoe, size 9. You will know that all training shoes have different patterns on the sole, and you will hear that there are forensic experts who make a study of these. You will hear, too, that in Simon Newby’s house the police found a pair of training shoes whose size and make exactly matched these footprints by the body. And you will hear that one of those training shoes, the shoes found in Simon Newby’s house, was stained with the blood of Jasmine Hurst.
‘Secondly, you will hear evidence that Jasmine Hurst was raped, and that semen was found in her vagina. You will hear forensic evidence that the DNA in that semen matches exactly the DNA found in a sample taken from the accused, Simon Newby. Proof conclusive, you may think. Her blood on his training shoe, his semen in her body. That is what the prosecution believe.’
He paused, and looked down thoughtfully at Sarah. Long enough for the jury to examine her too. Sarah willed her face to show no emotion whatsoever.
‘But Mr Newby pleads not guilty, as is his legal right, and so it is my duty to call all this detailed evidence before you so that his defence can question it.’
Which makes it my fault, Sarah thought. Well done, Phil. None of us would have to go through any of this excruciating torture if only I’d told my son to own up and plead guilty. That’s what he wants them to think. That’s what they
Phil Turner’s calm, reassuring voice continued, inviting the jury to trust him to lead them through this maze of guilt and evil.
‘But why, you may ask, would anyone do such a dreadful thing? Was this a random attack or was there a motive? This is something the police always ask. Well, yes, there certainly was a motive — a very basic motive, jealousy. It’s a simple, age old story. You will hear that Simon Newby was a former boyfriend of Jasmine Hurst. They had lived together for several months. Then Jasmine met another young man, David Brodie, and went to live with him. No crime in that; it happens all the time. But it made young Simon jealous. A quite natural, understandable emotion. Except that, unfortunately,
‘Then, the very day before she died, Simon met her again, and persuaded her to come to his home. But they didn’t make up, as he probably hoped: they quarreled, violently. You will hear a witness who saw them arguing bitterly in the street outside his home; a quarrel in which Simon punched his former girlfriend in the face.
‘And finally you will hear what Simon did the day after this quarrel, after he had punched her in the face. Was he at home when the police came to question him about the body they had found? No, members of the jury, he wasn’t. He had run away in the middle of the night — the same night that Jasmine was killed. No one knew where he’d had gone or if he ever intended to come back. It was only by good detective work that the police found him, a fortnight later, in Scarborough. And you will hear that when he was arrested and interviewed about Jasmine’s death, the first thing he told the police was that he hadn’t seen Jasmine for weeks. When in fact, a witness saw him hit her on the day of her death.
‘So that, in brief, is the evidence I shall lay before you, members of the jury. Evidence of a terrible crime motivated by sexual jealousy. Evidence that Simon Newby was the last person known to see Jasmine Hurst alive, and that he was using violence towards her then. Evidence that he disappeared on the night she was murdered, and lied when the police interviewed him about her death. And most conclusive of all, forensic evidence that his training shoe, with her blood on it, matched the footprints found at the scene of the crime; and his semen was found in her bruised vagina.
‘It’s a terrible, damning story. However, you must not simply take my word for it. It’s my task to prove that all this is true, and it is for you to judge, after listening to all the evidence, if I have succeeded. If I have not — if there is still any doubt in your minds about Simon Newby’s guilt — then he gets the benefit of that doubt. Simon Newby does not have to prove anything. He says he is not guilty and that is all he is required to say. It is for me, representing the prosecution, to prove to you that he is.’
He paused, surveying each of the jurors in turn, drawing them into his confidence.
‘And so now I would like to call my first witness.’
Why bother? Sarah thought gloomily, watching the jury. As far as they’re concerned you could take him out and hang him now. You may say he’s innocent until proven guilty but none of them listened to that. It’s all over in the first half hour. The rest is just going to be a charade.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Terry took the photofits of the Irishman, Sean, to Helen Steersby. To his delight, the girl said, yes, her attacker had looked something like that. Then he played her a set of tapes of men all speaking in different accents. She picked one from southern Ireland as nearest to the voice of her attacker. Hardly a positive identification, but a satisfying morning’s work nonetheless.
If Sean
