pretty well, too — well enough to persuade them to break every rule in the book.
Fry supposed she ought to feel grateful that someone was on her side, and that person was willing to help her buck the system and achieve proper justice. She touched the front of the file where it lay on the table. She couldn’t quite figure out why that feeling of gratitude didn’t come.
Now she didn’t know what to do. She’d always tried to go by the book, to follow procedures and not put a foot wrong. It was the way she’d planned to advance her career, having sussed out the restrictive times the police service was going through. An insensitive or imprudent comment could damage an officer’s prospects permanently.
Yet she saw officers breaking the rules all the time. And not just back in the nineties when she first joined up. Even now there were people willing to bend the rules, play the system, or totally cross the line. Sometimes they did it for their own benefit, to fund a gambling addiction, or to help out a friend who happened to be on the wrong side of the law. Other times, though, they did it for reasons they might claim were good and honourable ones. Reasons like loyalty, justice, the righting of a wrong that the court system alone couldn’t deal with.
So which situation was this? Was there some honourable justification she could claim for implicating herself in a breach of the rules? Did it really make any difference? The outcome would be the same, if she was found out.
Besides, what was she planning to do with the information? If she’d obtained these names in any other way, what were her intentions? Nothing that was within the rules. She acknowledged that fact to herself for the first time, accepting that a determination had been growing slowly inside her, a bloom of anger that needed an outlet, and which cared nothing for correct procedure.
From the moment she faced that fact, and accepted her own failing, she began to feel an awful lot better.
And who had done this to her? Who had been the Satan who placed temptation in front of her, the person who was so much inside her mind that she knew the exact moment when Diane wouldn’t be able to resist? Who would get their satisfaction from corrupting her principles?
Diane went to the window of her room, looked down into the central square with its fountains. She watched her sister walking away towards Broad Street, striding confidently, not glancing to either side as the bag swung on her shoulder.
After all this time, Angie Fry was no longer the figure that Diane remembered from her past, the older sister she’d worshipped. Now, she was a totally different person. Another broken angel.
Fry opened the case file. The various forms were numbered in order, from MG1, in accordance with the Manual of Guidance.
Form MG1
RESTRICTED WHEN COMPLETE
FILE FRONT SHEET
File Type: Expedited
CPS Office: Birmingham
Anticipated guilty plea? No
And then there were two sections for the defendants’ details:
Defendant’s full name: Darren Joseph Barnes
DOB: 19/07/1981
Male X
Persistent Offender? No
Occupation: Unemployed
PNC Ethnicity code: IC1
Nationality: British
No of TIC(s) (if applicable)
Previous convictions? Yes
Previous cautions/final warning/reprimands? Yes
Defendant’s full name: Marcus Shepherd
DOB: 07/03/1980
Male X
Persistent Offender? No
Occupation: Unemployed
PNC Ethnicity Code: IC3
Nationality: British
No of TIC(s) (if applicable)
Previous convictions? Yes
Previous cautions/final warning/reprimands? Yes
Fry had already committed the names to memory. Barnes and Shepherd. When she first heard them, they’d sounded so innocuous somehow. So rural, even. When she looked at their dates of birth now, she could see that they’d both been teenagers at the time of the attack.
According to their PNC ethnicity codes, one of them was white and the other black. At least, that was the opinion of an arresting officer entering their details on to the Police National Computer. She couldn’t have testified to that herself. It was a detail beyond her recollection.
MG1 concluded with a dated declaration:
I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, I have not withheld any information which could assist the defence in the early preparation of their case, including the making of a bail application.
At the bottom it was signed by Gareth Blake as the ‘officer in case’, and by his supervising DCI. Fry turned to the second page, Form MG5. The Case Summary.
Regina v. Shepherd and Barnes
There are three witnesses. One independent witness Louise Jones had an unobstructed view of two males seen running from the scene of the incident. At a subsequent ID parade, Miss Jones made a positive identification of Darren Barnes as one of the males. A second witness Miss Tanya Spiers states that she encountered Shepherd and Barnes at a club later that night with a group of other males, when they boasted that they had ‘done a copper’. Shepherd and Barnes were both previously known to her. The third witness is the IP, who is unable to make an identification.
Officers arrested Darren Barnes and Marcus Shepherd. Barnes stated in his first interview that he had not been with Shepherd at all that night, but said he had heard about the incident. Shepherd stated in interview that he had been with Barnes in the general area, but they had been drinking in a local pub and had not left until around 21.30 hours, when they visited the Sub Zero club in Broad Street, Birmingham. On re-interview, Barnes stated that he had seen Shepherd at the club, but had not been with him at the pub in Digbeth.
I submit this file for review.
There was more, lots more. MG11s for the witness statements, several pages of MG15, the Record of Interview.
WITNESS STATEMENT
(Criminal Justice Act 1967, section 9)
Statement of: Louise Jones
Occupation: Editorial Assistant
This statement signed by me is true to the best of my knowledge and belief and I make it knowing that, if it is tendered in evidence, I shall be liable to prosecution if I have wilfully stated in it anything which I know to be false, or do not believe to be true.
I am the above-named person and reside at the address overleaf.
My name is Louise Susan Jones DOB 05/05/1979. At approx 12.15 a.m. I was leaving my place of employment after an evening event. As I walked to my car I looked down the street. I had a clear unobstructed view. I saw two males running away from an area of wasteland near the Connemara pub. The first male was white, skinny build, I would say probably approx five feet eight inches tall. He was wearing a dark sweatshirt and jeans.
