| Flowers in Gods Garden - Holly Wells
and Jessica Chapman - Documents |
10/12/03 - Soham Trial Transcript
Wednesday, 10 December 2003
SKY News
Richard Latham is the chief prosecutor; his colleague
on the prosecution team is Karim Khalil QC. Stephen Coward
QC is Ian Huntley's defence barrrister. Michael Hubbard
QC is Maxine Carr's defence lawyer. Mr Justice Moses is
the judge. Other witnesses and lawyers are introduced
as they appear.
Page 01
02
MR JUSTICE MOSES
yes, Mr Latham.
MR LATHAM
Thank you. My Lord. members of the Jury I am conscious
the last time I stood up to address you in early November
it was the best part of three days and you may with a
heavy heart be expecting a similar effort now. Well, you
are not to anticipate that. I have no intention of making
a long speech today. I have made that decision for a number
of reasons, which I want to explain at the outset.
firstly, in setting out the prosecution case at length
at the beginning of this trial, we are now conscious that
having heard the evidence largely, it has followed what
was explained to you in opening and we set out how the
case was put then and it has not changed as a result of
the evidence you have heard from the prosecution witnesses.
It has been apparent to everyone in this court you have
given this case 100 per cent concentration of every minute
you have been sitting in this Court Room and I am quite
sure if I say to you the report of the second red Fiesta
or the bin bag man report to the special constables using
the chronology, you can place those events in the correct
place in the sequence of events and you understand perfectly
well why we invite you to conclude that from those pieces
of evidence there is something to be gleaned and no amount
of repetition on my part is going to make it any stronger
today.
It is either a good point or it is not. Members of the
Jury, you work as a team and may I suggest that it can
be guaranteed that between you, you will be able to analyse
pretty much every entry on that chronology that you have
had as the trial progressed and, indeed, remember the
relevant evidence working as a team.
When you retire you are going to be provided rather unusually
with a lap-top and on that lap-top you will have all the
plans, animations and indeed copies of the media interviews
that have been played to you during the course of the
trial on the monitors in front of you. Again, that will
mean you can use all that material as you see fit when
you retire.
In addressing you, I cannot begin to anticipate all the
points that are going to be made by each of my learned
friends when they address you later on today and perhaps
into tomorrow. That does not mean that because I have
not mentioned a point which is raised by one or both of
them, that there is not an answer. It just means that
you will have to analyse the points that they make in
the same way that I hope you will analyse the points that
we make this morning and decide whether they hold water
or not.
What has changed since I opened this case to you, members
of the jury, is that both defendants have given evidence.
That, if you think about it, is the main difference between
the way I explained the case to you and hoped and anticipated
the evidence would fall at the outset of this case and
where we are today.
We do need to look at that aspect again against the background,
which we suggest is proved, bearing in mind that most
of the events are not in dispute. You have heard what
has been challenged. you have heard the evidence of the
two defendants and, largely, what has been described by
the prosecution witnesses simply is not in dispute. It
is of course the interpretation which is placed on that
evidence which matters.
Members of the jury, can I give you one other piece of
advice? It is this Don't expect that by the time you retire
you will necessarily be in a position to resolve every
single issue that you may be able to identify in this
case. It is not what a true and proper verdict requires.
There are bound to be, in cases like this, occasions when
you are simply unable to resolve one way or the other
whether something is right or whether it happened or whether
it did not happen.
But that, we emphasise, does not make your task of reaching
a proper verdict impossible. It maybe those are things
you simply have to put on one side. Can I start with the
first defendant as a matter of logic, Ian Huntley. I start
by making a general point which, in fact, applies to both
defendants.
You have heard from him a number of admissions as lawyers
sometimes describe them, against interest - admissions
against interest - from him. We suggest that when an individual
makes an admission that something has happened, and it
is against that individual's interest, the admission is
likely to be true, if you think about it. People do not
admit things that do not help them unless they are true.
Therefore, when Huntley says "Holly and Jessica died
while in my care at number 5", and that "I dumped
the bodies", that "I removed the clothes and
I subsequently burned both bodies and the clothes",
those are admissions against interest and you may think
they are true. Equally, when Carr tells you that on Tuesday,
when she got back to the house, there was washing in the
washing machine of the nature you know about perfectly
well, you may think. Again, as an admission against interest,
that is likely to be true.
Where, however, a defendant goes on to tell you something
which exculpates either him or her, we suggest you have
to be very much more sceptical about what they are saying.
May I start against Ian Huntley by saying this to you
We make it absolutely clear that we do not - not - accept
his account of what happened in number 5. We say you will
have no difficulty in concluding that both girls died
in number 5, while alone with Ian Huntley.
But, if you are able to be sure he was wrong in his description
of events given to you from that witness box, then, of
course, he will have lied to you, as you know he has lied
over and over and over again during the course of the
events with which you are concerned. If you conclude he
has lied to you in his description of what happened in
that house, we say you can safely conclude he murdered
both of those girls.
Although it would be intellectually much more satisfactory
for you to be able to say with certainty by the time you
have considered all the evidence in the time, the motive
here, the attempted rape of one girl, room A, followed
by manual strangulation after a struggle, thereafter suffocation
of the second girl in room B and so on, we do not suggest
you are ever going to be able to be that precise.
But you do not have to be, members of the jury. All you
have to be sure about in relation to each girl is that
he murdered that girl. Once you reject his explanation
that it was an accident or that there was a lack of any
intent to do harm, we simple pose this question what is
left once you have rejected his explanation?
A central plank of his defence to each death is that he
was frozen to inaction by panic and fear and that he has
an inability to recollect the detail surrounding the death
of each of these girls. Let us look, if we may, at this
man's behaviour as he comes round from his little turn
on the landing, because that is what he has described,
is it not; almost waking up on the landing to the horrific
picture in the doorway and further on into the bathroom.
He assembles the two bodies.
He makes a decision to remove them from his home. he takes
careful precaution before opening the front door that
neither body can be seen by anyone who happens to be walking
past. He makes a decision within minutes of his coming
round from his little turn that he is going to burn the
bodies.
He goes off, unlocks the school, and obtains petrol. He
obtains bin bags, having thought that he would like to
put something on his feet so he does not leave traces
in the muddy ground of the field where he envisages he
is going to leave the bodies. He even gets rubber gloves
- he can remember that detail even to this day - he can
describe it movement by movement, going into his office,
getting those items, why he got the items, the thought
processes.
Then he tells you he goes into auto-pilot again and finds
himself on the Wangford Road, which happens, you may think,
to be the ideal place to hide the the bodies. Then he
turns up a track he tells you he has never driven on before,
never walked on before, despite its proximity to a home
occupied by his father not long before, and drives along
that track and dumps the bodies.
It is not just a casual dumping of these bodies in a panic,
is it? Just think about it. It is a series of ruthless
acts at that ditch. Cutting the clothes off the girls
because of carpet fibres. If that is true, members of
the jury, that that is his thought process at that time,
I simply ask you this question how many of you appreciated
that that might be a possible notional danger before this
case started?
That clothing would pick up carpet fibres, that type identifiable
back to a particular carpet and therefore evidence against
you. Is this the mind not of a man who has closed down
and cannot act rationally and has not got a proper memory
of what occurred? We suggest it is exactly the opposite.
It is a man under control and he is thinking - thinking
very hard indeed. He returns to Soham.
He tells you that he got the hangar keys. He was aware
of the possibility, he tells you, that if he set fire
in the hangar, he might set off the fire alarm. Would
a man in a panic have gone through that thought process?
He got some water and put it in a container in case he
needed to put the fire out. Again, how is that mind working?
Then, within a very short, time he has to interact with
members of the public.
He knows of course, because of what he has done - and
he can remember what he has done, he is not suggesting
that there is a complete mental blank by the time he is
back in Soham - he knows, as he must, that people are
going to be out looking for those two girls. By definition,
by ten o'clock at night they are bound to be, are they
not?
He admitted that in cross-examination. What do we get?
At 10.35 we get a denial when he is first asked "Have
you seen two missing girls?" then at 1.30, it is
"Oh, those girls, the ones with the Manchester United
tops on? Oh yes, I saw those earlier." He can cope
for an entire hour in the early hours of the morning with
the dog handler. I am not going to go through that evidence.
You can remember it.
He is behaving perfectly normally, carrying out a perfectly
confident and natural conversation with her, such that
she thought he was a really helpful chap. He does his
best with Hurrells and with Sergeant Nelson, but all the
time the mind is ticking, because it is not long after
the police first realised there may be CCTV pictures that
there is Ian Huntley looking through that glass panel
to try and find out if they are on tape.
7.30 in the morning knocking up neighbours, he is admitting
to you again, when I asked about it, that that is to establish
whether those neighbours had seen the girls at any time
and particularly at the critical time for him, around
half past six, because of course those near neighbours
may have seen the girls and been able to report something
which will require him to taylor the account which by
now he is giving.
All, we suggest, examples of the manipulative and careful
and thinking mind. It is also that he can try and appreciate
the size of the problem which confronts him. What follows
from 7.30 onwards on that Monday, 12 days of cynical depression,
Members of the Jury, driven to admit in cross-examination
that he, throughout that period, was playing the part;
the role of the helpful caretaker, whilst at the same
time arranging an alibi, cleaning up the home, cleaning
up the Fiesta, and by that I use that as a compendious
term to catch everything from the tyres through to the
change of the carpet through the cleaner.
Continuing to take an an interest in the CCTV material,
to the extent that when he learned the answer, when it
became public, he is immediately wanting to change the
time in the statement and of course taking a keen interest
in police progress and how that might affect him. Imagine
you had done something a 10th as bad as he had done, being
involved in - I use the neutral expression - involved
in the deaths, as he was of two ten year old girls.
Do you think you, if you had done something a 10th as
difficult, and as terrible as that, you would have been
able to function as well as he did over those 12 days?
Being able to describe, as he has done in the witness
box, the intimate detail he provided to you of what he
was doing, alibi, what he was thinking, and why he was
doing things? look at the little detail of his action.
You may be able to resolve some of the disputed points,
others may end up in the, "I simply don't know"
category, but we suggest if you do find it difficult to
resolve some of these minor issues of what occurred during
those 12 days, it is highly unlikely to affect your verdict,
because your verdict at the end of the day is going to
be based on his account of what happened in that house.
There is a dispute by both defendants about when the alibi
plan came into existence, is there not? Interestingly,
we suggest that the evidence against each suggests that
it was hatched on the Monday over the telephone. Carr,
you know, says she never really was in agreement ever
and certainly not until the house-to-house inquiries on
the Friday. Yet, in interview, after her arrest, she told
the police that Monday was the day when she had agreed
something and she was later to confirm in that covertly
recorded telephone conversation with Huntley's mother;
that that was when the agreement was reached - and it
was an agreement, she said, in that call, and it was on
the Monday.
I will come back to that when I deal with the case against
Maxine Carr. But that is what she, we suggest, was saying
about when it came into existence. Let us look at Huntley's
position. If you accept the evidence of the officers who
went to his home to take the witness statement at lunch
time on the Monday, he, during the time he was with them
and talking about what had occurred the previous evening,
spoke the whole time about "we", didn't he?
Indeed, he spoke in detail about Maxine, his partner,
being off, being interviewed for a child-minding job in
Soham. That is why she was not around when the police
were there. At 9.30 that evening, to an entirely different
individual, having had a perfectly pleasant sort of conversation
near a police van in the car park, he said "I must
go, my missus has got my tea ready". Now those witnesses,
both at the house at lunch time and the witness at about
9.30 in the evening, only had one dealing with Ian Huntley
during the course of these events.
They may have had to cast their minds back, because they
did not make specific notes about what was said immediately
afterwards or, indeed, at the time but you may think they
were, in fact, the simplest of contacts. It is difficult
to imagine a conversation about a child minder and the
interview if it never, ever occurred. If those things
were said, what does it reveal? It reveals a confidence,
doesn't it, that he could advance the story about Maxine
being around?
We suggest he could do that because that alibi plan had
already been hatched. Members of the jury, the smell of
lemon, the washing line at lunch time on the Monday in
the pouring rain with things on it, the tyres, the complete
clean up of the Fiesta interior in the early evening of
the Monday. This is, as I keep emphasising, a thinker,
a planner, a man who is thinking calmly and rationally.
The dining room flood as he would have it, it is not a
make or break point for the prosecution. we do not place
it before you on that basis at all. Ian Huntley says,
as you know, that there was the flood in the bathroom
and the flood was caused by the damaged bath, and you
know the reason for the damage, he says, and that a huge
amount of water poured out of the bath through the ceiling
and there was so much water it brought the light fitting
down of its own accord. no question of him pulling it
down, it literally detached from the ceiling because of
the amount of water that went through.
Members of the jury, there are two pieces of physical,
independent evidence which you may need to look at. Firstly,
the bath itself, you will be entitled to look at that
bath, you know where the crack is. According to Mr Huntley,
a vast quantity of water came out of that bath to cause
the light fitting to detach downstairs, and you may think
it came out of that crack. It would have flowed down the
outer skin of the bath on its way on to the ceiling below.
As it came down it would have been bound to hit the chipboard
plank or platform that forms part of the bath, you have
seen it. You look at that piece of chipboard. See whether
you can see any evidence at all on that chipboard of it
ever having been wet at all. You have heard the gyp rock
evidence, the ceiling evidence from a man who examined
what turned out to be brand new gyp rock that had been
put up 8 months before, during the rebuilding work when
Huntley and Carr first moved in.
The board is actually dated. It is new gyp rock. He can
find no evidence of any serious flooding into that gyp
rock board such as you would have expected if any quantity
of water had dropped on to the top surface of the board
under the floor boards and then bled right through the
gyp rock board and out on to the bottom surface. Just
think how much water you would need before the gyp rock
plasterboard would have got so soggy that the light fitting
screws would have been unable to hold themselves and the
light fitting in place in the gyp rock, and just released
allowing the light fitting to drop.
Members of the Jury, something happened in the dining
room, we suggest. we will never be able to prove precisely
what but we suggest you have not heard the truth from
either defendant about that dining room. Do bear in mind
that Huntley knew there had been a real flood in that
bathroom and down into the dining room while Kerton was
a tenant. Do you remember you heard the reason for the
new ceiling was that the old one had been badly damaged
by some sort of plumbing catastrophe upstairs in the bathroom.
The repair work was done after he started as caretaker
and he was living there rather camping there, during the
redecoration, which would have included, of course, the
repair and redecoration of an entirely new ceiling in
the dining room. It is his account of this "flood"
- and I put the word in inverted commas - an example of
his inventiveness, building on something he knew about
which had actually happened and converting it into a reason
for explaining why there was water in the dining room.
We suggest that there was water in the dining room as
part of a clean-up, members of the jury. The walls of
the dining room, we suggest, were wiped for the signs
of damp or wetness on the walls, the carpet was still
damp, there was that lemony smell, and we know that there
was, in fact, a massive clean-up of the entire building
which included, of course, the bed linen. The clean up
centred on the dining room, even the curtains were laundered
by Carr very shortly after she came back from Grimsby.
What is the result of that massive clean-up? Well, you
know not a fingerprint of either girl was to be found;
not a head hair of either girl and not a swab has revealed
any DNA from either girl for blood or saliva or whatever.
That is all put down to Carr. "Obsessive cleanliness",
do you remember how much that was emphasised both by her
evidence and by calling the very last short witness at
the end of the defence case on her behalf?
Members of the Jury, she may be excessively clean but
do bear in mind that when this house was inspected by
the police it was certainly clean and tidy - as it was,
we suggest, when the police went there on the Monday morning
to take the statement at lunch time, something, we suggest,
both those officers noted, made a mental note of at the
time. Yet, when the police started searching the house,
there was plenty of dog blood about. There were hairs
about, other than hairs of the girls. so it wasn't that
clean.
She is not that obsessive. But what has gone is any evidence,
fingerprint, head hair, DNA, that the girls were ever
in the house. Of course, we know, there is no dispute,
that those girls were in the house during that Sunday
early evening. May I return to the bin in the hangar?
On his account, nothing happened on the Sunday night which
could have involved two dusters and a dish cloth. Just
think about his account of what happened with the girls
up to the point of his leaving Soham with the girls in
the boot and coming back and immediately going to the
hangar and firing the clothing.
They are domestic dusters and it is a domestic dish cloth.
They are not, we suggest, from the school. One of the
dusters and the dish cloth have carpet fibres on them
which match the carpet fibres from the house. We know
there was a red can seen in his possession on the Wednesday.
We know he was in Lakenheath on Wednesday evening, which
is, what, a mile and a half from where the bodies were
burned? We know that to several witnesses, during the
course of Wednesday, he expressed an interest, an inquiry,
into DNA.
You will remember the evidence, the names are on the chronology.
I am not going to go into the detail for reasons I have
explained. Would he really have been thinking carpet fibres
on Sunday night, because of course that is his only explanation
for cutting the clothing off on the Sunday night, is it
not? If you are unable to resolve so that you are sure
that he did go back on the Wednesday, as we have suggested,
as I say, it is not for a moment fatal to the prosecution
case.
But if you do decide that he went back on the Wednesday
and that is when he removed the clothes, by which stage
dusters and a dish cloth may have got injected into the
equation, things that needed to be disposed of, because
they had been used during the course of some part of the
clean up and may have had in some way DNA or whatever
upon them, then it is yet another serious lie, is it not,
told to you by Ian Huntley?
Members of the jury, do bear in mind that although the
clean up started as something that Ian Huntley did on
his own, as she simply was not there, as soon as she got
back on any view she was engaged in a clean up as well.
Look at the rest of his behaviour before his arrest. The
second red Fiesta point, injecting that into the equation.
The special constables and the bin liner man. The return
of the video to Blockbusters. The injection of Kerton
into the equation - quite a sophisticated ploy that was,
was it not, members of the jury? He knew Kerton had nothing
to do with it. He has accepted, has he not; he is the
person who is responsible for these two deaths.
Not criminally responsible, but he knows it is nothing
to do with Kerton, yet he injected Kerton into the equation
and that is pretty cynical, is it not, and it is pretty
clever? It is an ideal way, is it not, to detract attention
from yourself to, as he did - and remember the way he
did it, it was almost in an embarrassed fashion, was it
not "I don't like to mention it, but..." because
of course he knew of Kerton's reputation - he knew the
reason for Kerton having been sacked, and he was suggesting,
you may think, and implying that Kerton had the potential
for access both to the hangar and the school because he
may still have had keys and he knew and had access to
the security codes.
What better candidate to inject as a suspicious character
to cover his, Huntley's, back. All that behaviour, we
suggest, is behaviour of the thinking man. The arguments
about precisely what he was wearing during the house-to-house
incident. Wanting to find out if he could access Detective
Chief Superintendent Beck's appeal message or message
which had been left on the voice mail of Jessica's telephone.
And do remember this everything I have spoken of in the
last 20 minutes or so, these actions of Ian Huntley are
things which he speaks of in his evidence; he can remember
them all, he can tell you about the details and indeed
he can challenge when he says the prosecution witnesses
are slightly wrong about something.
His memory is fine, members of the jury. His behaviour
was cold and calculating. then, members of the jury, he
exhibits possibly the utmost cynicism that is to be shown
in this whole case. You are being invited to give judgment
as a man and of what he was or was not capable of doing.
His media interviews - we suggest it takes nerves of steel
knowing, and again I put this neutrally, that he was present
when Holly died, that he had dumped her body and then
fired it, and when it was decomposing in the ditch where
he left it as he was engaged in these media interviews,
he actually sought out Holly's father - sought him out.
"Kev, I hope everything turns out okay
and that the kids return safely home." He is cold
and calm enough to be able to do that. It was done, as
he acknowledged, to divert attention away from himself,
to behave normally, to be seen to be concerned. That was
quite ruthless, it was quite deliberate and it was calculating.
Members of the jury, I put this bluntly to you he is a
capable and convincing liar and you are entitled to bear
that in mind when considering whether a word of truth
is present in the central account that he gave you, and
the principle applies to both defendants when you are
looking at media interviews. Watch those interviews again,
I ask. Note the lies to camera. Note the ease with which
the lies are told.
His cynicism, her chatty, relaxed manner as she lied through
her teeth, on any view, about the important thing, the
fact that she was present on the Sunday night, when she
was not. Both have given evidence and they invite you
to believe them. Members of the jury it is an important
test that I pose to you - and I take Carr as an example.
You have an advantage, you have been told the answer,
you have known the answer since I opened the case to you.
Try and imagine, watching those media interviews that
you were being asked to assess cold, whether she was being
wholly truthful to camera when she was talking to the
police, that she was being wholly truthful. Ask yourself
that question. Ignore whether you know the answer or not.
Just imagine the occasion when she made her witness statement
and that long chat she had with that woman Detective Constable
at the dining room table, and then watch the videos and
ask yourself the question, well, suppose we did not know
the answer? Was she telling the truth or not? Members
of the jury, we do not suggest for a moment that the approach
is they lied so they have done it. But what we do suggest
is this be very careful before you accept anything which
either of them tells you; if it is in their own self interest,
because we suggest you are dealing with two equally accomplished
liars.
Back to Ian Huntley specifically. He was arrested and
almost immediately went off to Rampton. By early October
he was back in the normal prison system where people who
face very serious charges are remanded in custody. That
is where he remains to this day. You, in this case, are
being provided with a very unusual privilege, an insight
into both defendants, very unusual for a jury to hear
a defendant revealing information in the way that you
heard in those covert recordings.
It is not argued on behalf of either defendant that the
transcripts are inaccurate, or that the words were not
spoken or meant at the time they were spoken. Eavesdropping
is unattractive. Of course we accept that. But you may
think this case exhibits more than any other case could,
that sometimes it is warranted. How do they help you,
members of the jury? Huntley, by October the prosecution
case, as you know, was in its infancy, was it not? Many
of the scientists still had to report.
You know that geology was a long way off, pollen was a
long way off, that fixing of the Fiesta and the petrol
can and the shoes to the deposition site, all a long way
off. The fibre evidence relating to number 5, which of
course placed the girls in the house, had not been served
in evidence . Mr Lamb literally had hours of work together
with his team to do on carpets and clothes that he had
been provided from number 5. Painstaking searches by scientists
take months.
What the (inaudible) requires is the prosecution keeps
the defence informed, provides the witness statement on
which they intend to rely that they have got, provides
a case summary of what the prosecution case is about,
why the allegation is being made and, indeed, requires
disclosure of the witness statements which have been taken
from witnesses upon which the prosecution do not intend
to rely but may somehow be helpful to the defence. This
all has to be disclosed.
By October you may have no doubt from that covert recording
that Huntley knew the basic case against him and he had
an answer, did he not? It was not him. the girls had fallen
into the hands of some dreadful stranger who was out to
frame poor him, Ian Huntley, the victim in all this. Was
it Kerton - the man with knowledge of the site, and access
around the site and with a reputation?
You have read the transcript, I am not going to trouble
you by going through it again. We invite a further read
of that transcript. In speaking to his mother, firstly,
he professes to remember everything. He is quite insistent
on the point and he speaks of supposed tapings from his
car which it is suggested may link the girls to his car.
That is an interesting word, "supposed", and
you know why it is interesting, we suggest. He tells his
mother he can't say too much but, "I 100% remember
the girls leaving my house".
He has analysed, has he not, it is quite apparent from
those transcripts, he has analysed the statements that
have been provided to him, and he knows that there have
been purported sightings of these girls after 6.45. We
know now that those witness statements have to be wrong,
do we not, because of what Ian Huntley accepts happened
and when it happened. But he had been provided with witness
statements from people who thought they had seen the girls
after 6.45, and that was very helpful to him, was it not,
because he had been telling everyone he had seen the girls
at around half past 6, and that they had left in perfectly
good order after a chat of a couple of minutes.
So if there were people who had seen the girls later,
then he did not need to concern himself with his contact
with the girls. And that is what he is talking about in
this conversation with his mother. The clothes in the
bin, he told his mother, which of course he knew was a
problem, he had found, as he told her, on the Friday.
He is presumably referring to the Friday immediately before
his arrest.
His hair, which he knew by then had been found in the
bin with the clothes, had happened as he leant over and
looked into the bin. he couldn't fit two bloody girls
into his boot, he told his mother. Well, he could. He
doesn't want what he is telling his mother to come out,
because it will give the police time to counteract everything
I am going to say. and he is pleading for his family to
have faith in him.
What does he reveal in that conversation with his mother?
He reveals a man who is going through the known prosecution
case and analysing the other statements disclosed to him
and inventing an entirely false account which will exculpate
him, and he is keeping his powder dry, is he not "Don't
tell anyone, I don't want the police to have time to counteract
everything." Months later, on 15th April of this
year, a formal court document, which is required of any
defendant, was served on behalf of Ian Huntley.
His defence case statement, a court document which denies
he had any part in any killing, denies he dumped the bodies,
denies that he fired the clothes. In effect, his defence
was this it is a "Who Dunnit?" trial, it wasn't
me. Eight months after his arrest he was saying that.
You know the mind set of Ian Huntley, members of the jury,
he makes a cold, calm assessment of the problem and produces
the best explanation that will fit the facts that he cannot
get round.
Now we come on to October, very shortly before this trial,
he is driven by the scientific evidence to acknowledge
that those girls were in the house. He is driven by the
scientific evidence to accept that it can be proved that
his car was on the drive, and of course, that covert conversation
with his mother is served in evidence upon him and he
knows that his cover is blown on that conversation and
what he was doing way back in October. Members of the
jury, he is driven to change to the position he has adopted
in front of you.
He has had Dr Cary's post-mortem report for a year; he
knows what causes of death cannot be excluded because
of the decomposition of the bodies. The condition of the
bodies is, of course, a product of his own efforts from
day one. I come to Huntley's account now. We start with
two fit, lively, intelligent, sporty ten year olds who
understood the basic rules about strangers.
I hope you all understand what I mean by the "say
no to strangers" rule. You have heard Dr Cary's evidence
about girls like that with no medical background of any
significant illness which would have possibly have affected
their well-being. You have heard him tell you about the
likelihood of just one of those two girls dropping dead.
It can be excluded. Members of the Jury, we say that if
Huntley's account of what occurred in the house is untenable,
he was lying again and on this occasion there can be only
one reason for lying to you. You will be able to conclude
he is guilty of murder.
Firstly we say there simply was no good reason for ever
taking those girls upstairs. On any view, his account
just simply will not run on the very first point as to
how it was that the girls had got upstairs. You know why,
I cross-examined him on the point. I am not going to go
through it in detail there is a kitchen, there is a sink
with running water and there is indeed a cloakroom downstairs
with running water, both (inaudible) floor it does not
matter if blood falls.
The first matter I invite you to put to one side does
not work; the girls going upstairs and the reason for
it. Even before you get to that point, that is even if
he could have persuaded them into the house in the first
place. How likely do you think that would have been? To
them he was a stranger, they had a mobile phone, they
were 100 yards from the sports centre which is a safe
place, they were what, 5 or 600 yards from Holly's home.
By car, her parents could have been there in what, two
or three minutes, and they knew that.
We suggest the only way he could have got those girls
into that house is by some form of lie. They would not
have felt comfortable going into that house but for one
thing, and it is obvious, is it not? They thought Miss
Carr was in the house. There simply is no good reason,
no reason at all for Holly ever to have been taken into
the bedroom, let alone sat on the bed. When we came to
the very explanation of her meeting her death, I cross-examined
him at great length. I do not propose to insult your ability
to recollect by wading through that again.
Holly losing her balance as a result of a nudge caused
by a slip. Just imagine what sort of slip in the side
of that bathroom, in the confined space and what he says
they were up to, could possibly have caused a nudge which
propelled her into the bath. Having lost her balance,
she drowns in 6 to 8 inches of water? Even that account
has changed when the account was put to Dr Cary. Do you
remember the 18 inches of water account? Once Dr Cary
had pointed out how that would not work, he has had to
change that as well.
And she drowns with Jessica and Huntley both an arm's
grasp away. Just think about that, members of the jury.
It is instinctive, is it not, instinctive - both would
have done something other than in his case freeze and
go through some mental process of saying oh, isn't it
dreadful I shouldn't have these two girls in my house,
it is against the rules, and while he is doing that he
is doing nothing .
And Jessica, rather than instinctively helping her friend,
is just screaming and getting into an argument with Huntley
rather than helping Holly "You pushed her, you pushed
her!". Members of the Jury, you do not leave - that
is the value of the jury system in this country - you
do not leave your common sense behind you, your knowledge
and experience, your collective experience of life and
people and children and bathrooms behind you.
You know who we know, on his own admission, was capable
of the cold-blooded sequence of events that followed these
deaths, would not have fallen apart because of the result
of a genuine accident - that he had nudged a ten-year-old
into 6 to 8 inches of water. Remember Dr Cary's words.
"Only the very young and the very old and the very
inebriated when on their own drown in bathrooms".
If there is another in the room, apart from the person
who drowns, in his experience the person drowns because
the other is taking an active part in the drowning.
You do not need to be a doctor to work that out, members
of the jury. You may be addressed on the basis that Holly's
predicament under water was all a ghastly accident, and
if you conclude it was an accident that you should consider
the proposition that it was somehow nothing more than
grossly negligent for him to do nothing. We invite total
rejection of any such proposition of that nature as being
wholly theoretical and nothing whatsoever to do with the
real facts of this case.
We say that if you examine his account of such an accident
it falls apart at the lack of reaction by him to her slipping
into the bath so as to make you sure it never was an accident
in the first place. If it never was an accident in the
first place, the concept of what is called by lawyers
"gross negligence manslaughter" is a complete
non-starter. I mention sexual intercourse in passing because
I anticipate it may be something about which mention is
made in due course. I mention it simply to dismiss it.
Members of the jury, I come to Jessica; the defence cannot
avoid this because it has come from his own lips. He has
a clear recollection of holding his hand to her face across
both her nostrils and her mouth. He said that to you,
did he not, and I went through it with him in cross-examination?
He did that, he tells you, for the purpose of stopping
her screaming. Members of the jury, that is not how you
stop someone screaming is it? If you need to resort to
physical violence to stop someone screaming you only need
to cover their mouth - that is where the noise comes out.
If you do that, they can carry on breathing. He will not
tell you, he says, "I can't remember." yet he
remembers all the other details, members of the jury.
He will not tell you where the other hand was. Do you
remember my describing it? If you think it is an unfair
description, put it to one side. The important hand. If
she was manually asphyxiated - and that is how he accounts
for her death - his single hand blocking her ability to
breathe.
We suggest she was pinned to the ground or pinned to the
wall or was grabbed with a vice-like hold with the other
hand, the important hand, and for a long time. why do
we say that? Because it is instinctive is it not, if somebody
puts a single hand across your face and you cannot breathe,
your instinctive reaction is to withdraw, turn your head,
so you can get a gasp of air. If she died because she
could not get any air, it has to be because the other
hand was being used to prevent her doing precisely that.
She could not, if he is telling the truth, that is how
she met her death; by the use of the hand across her face.
My learned friend examined, with Dr Cary, what is known
technically as vagal inhibition, do you remember that?
Where you get somebody round the throat and you happen
to inhibit the vagal nerve and very quickly it can lead
to death. Very rare according to Dr Cary, but it can be
done. But that is a grip to the neck and the defendant
does not suggest he was gripping her to the neck, he can
remember he was gripping her across her face.
We invite you, members of the jury, to reject the account
of both deaths as so many desperate lies. We suggest the
whole business in the house was motivated by something
sexual, but whatever he initiated with one or the other,
or both girls, plainly went wrong and thereafter in this
ruthless man's mind both girls simply had to die. They
had to die in his own selfish self interest.
Each was a witness, a potential complainant, and he was
quite merciless. Members of the Jury, you have one other
advantage in this case. It happened on the morning I was
cross-examining him and it happened at five to one. I
think you will remember what I am talking about. He lost
his temper, did he not, with me. It may have been wholly
justified, it does not matter. You have seen him lose
his temper, members of the jury. he does not flare his
hands and shout and make a noise.
You remember his body language in that witness box. When
he loses his temper, he maintains control over himself
and we suggest you saw a change, a very different person
in that witness box. For some reason we suggest that is
what happened in that house and we suggest it was murder,
indeed, double murder. My Lord, I am well on the way.
I wouldn't mind a short break.
MR JUSTICE
MOSES
yes
(Short adjournment).
MR LATHAM
(inaudible) touched upon it. She is a liar. Her initial
set of lies, she explains, is motivated by trying to protect
an innocent man but, members of the jury, without the
two tapes of the telephone calls from Holloway to Mrs
Huntley, do you think for one moment that we would have
heard that she knew from day one, namely the Monday, the
5th August of last year, that the girls had been in the
house and upstairs and, indeed, on the bed?
I am sure you found it heavy going when I was cross-examining
her on her interviews; it is always heavy going, and I
apologise for having done it, but it was done for what
I hope you accept was a valid reason. It is only in that
way that one appreciates the fact that she continued to
say over and over and over again, members of the jury,
that she wasn't hiding anything from the police. She was
being straight with the police.
Members of the jury, I only want to read out to you four
very short passages as examples of what she said. I give
you the page references if anyone wants to note them down.
I am not suggesting you need to turn them up now as I
read them to you, it is literally four or five lines from
page 55 "Have Holly and Jessica ever been to your
house? No. Are you sure about that? Not inside my house,
no. sorry? No, inside my house, no. Not inside your house?
They had not been to my house until Ian told me they had
been to the door, that's the first time they had been
to my house".
So there - a specific denial had they had ever - to her
knowledge - been inside the house. page 92, an officer
gave her a talking to, if you like "I think as my
colleague has said, you need to be very careful, you need
to think about your answers before you give them. There
are a lot of inquiries that have been going on whilst
you have been here, and we want to get your account of
what has been happening, because if all you have done
in all this is to make that false statement initially,
then we can see why you have done that.
If inquiries continue as they are and it transpires that
you know something more, and you are involved in it, then
it is very difficult. She says in terms "I'm not
trying to protect Ian in any shape or form" - page
160 - again, one of the officers talking "If you
know anything about this, Maxine, you owe it to yourself
and you owe it to Ian, and more importantly you owe it
to Holly and Jessica", and she says this "I
haven't got anything to say about anything, because I
don't know anything. I can't help them, I don't know anything"
- page 165 - "Is there anything you want to add to
that which you have said, Maxine, any of those questions
we haven't asked that you haven't answered?
What questions? That perhaps you ought to. What questions
haven't I answered? Well if you don't get asked the question
you don't always volunteer the answer do you? Oh, no,
no, nothing, no. Are you being straight with us now? Yes,
I am being straight with you". Members of the Jury,
if those two calls had not been taped in which she reveals
in terms what she had learned over the telephone, she
says at about 4.25 on the Monday afternoon, we would have
gone through this trial on a wholly false basis, would
we not? Do you think for a moment she would have told
you?
Would you not have felt sorry for her, members of the
jury? and that is what she wants, is it not? She is not,
I emphasise, suggesting that the silence in those interviews
was on legal advice. There is, in the covert telephone
calls, reference to legal advice she was given. She admitted
when I cross-examined her the legal advice she is talking
about was not given during the course of those four days'
interviews.
So in failing to reveal, she kept entirely secret, was
a decision she made at the same time. She was not just
keeping quiet, she was making a positive assertion. There
is nothing else to tell you. The issue on counts 3 and
4, members of the jury, the serious charges, or more serious
charges, against Maxine Carr, is her state of mind at
the time. She undoubtedly gave a false account to the
police and the media. It was done, we suggest, there is
no dispute about it, with intent to impede Huntley's apprehension
and she certainly had no lawful authority or reasonable
excuse for her actions.
The issue is if she knew or believed that Huntley had
done what is alleged against him on the indictment. Knew
or believed. Members of the Jury, you may think you know
something if you see it with your own eyes; you believe
it if you end up working it out. Believe what? Either
that he murdered these two girls or at the very least
unlawfully killed them, members of the jury. Either will
do, murder or unlawfully killed the two girls.
If she believed either of those states of affairs existed
in relation to either Holly or Jessica, that would be
sufficient. You know what her reaction was the moment
on Monday she was told about Huntley's account of the
girls coming into the house. It may be you would like
just to pick this up on the transcripts. I am going to
refer to two or three points on the transcripts right
at the very end of our grey lever-arch file.
These are her telephone calls. If you go to page 8 of
the transcript, at the second hole punch, members of the
jury, she says this, this is the second telephone call
she had, when she accepts she was quite calm when she
was talking to Mrs Huntley "well, that shocked me,
I mean, he said to me that, um, she had gone up and she
was holding her nose, she was over the sink." If
you go on to the very last page of the transcript, the
last page in this entire bundle, 18.07 "He just,
because I said to him, what the hell were you doing, Ian,
letting two girls in?"
Mrs Huntley said, "It is against his job. that's
what I, that's what I said. It is against the rules of
the job. That's what I said, because I said to him, you
know, if next-door like, or anybody had seen it, you know,
they would have said, well hey, Mrs Bryden, you know,
young girls going round and all that - that was her instantaneous
reaction - you may think as it would have been from anyone
in her position who had been told what she accepts she
was told by Huntley inviting what for him were two strange
girls into his house and, indeed, taking them upstairs.
Members of the jury, look if you need any further confirmation
of that, back at page 4 of the transcripts of the first
telephone conversation, which is at the beginning of the
bundle, so it is back to the beginning of the last tab,
page 4. Look at the reaction of Mrs Huntley. Again, it
is the second hole punch on page 4. Do you have that,
members of the jury? It is the end of what she said at
7.59 "But the thing is, they came into our house".
Mrs Huntley said "They came in the house? "
The person who transcribed it has put the exclamation
mark there but you heard the tenor of that from Mrs Huntley
when you heard the tape, didn't you? "They came in
the house? Yes, they did come in the house. I told my
solicitor that, my solicitors told me not to say anything".
Members of the jury, you will recollect her reaction when
she was told at the beginning of the second telephone
call that Mrs Huntley thought she would have to go to
the police and tell them the truth.
You remember how the call starts? "Oh God" -
that's her reaction, because of course for Mrs Huntley
telling the truth would involve, apart from anything else,
Mrs Huntley revealing to the police that she, Maxine,
had known from Monday afternoon that girls had been in
the house and had been upstairs. Members of the jury,
we know now that that's what she knew from Monday afternoon
at the latest.
Look at her reaction when she was at the boot of the Fiesta
when she was collected by Huntley. She was in tears. She
admits now that when she first looked into the boot she
saw at once that it had a new carpet in it. She admits
now that she appreciated at once that the Fiesta had been
subjected to a substantial clean-up. now, that is not
something that she knows in isolation, is it? She had
been told the night before, the afternoon before, that
the girls had been in the house, the nosebleed, the bed,
and so on.
And now she is looking at the boot of the car and looking
at the inside of the car and he has gone to the lengths
of changing the boot carpet and cleaning the car up. Then
we have the hitchhiker evidence. Because you do not just
look at these things in isolation, members of the jury.
These are pieces of information which, to use a crude
phrase, go into the memory bank, do they not? The hitchhiker
information needs to be looked at in context. Can I ask
you to go to tab 3, back to a document I do not think
you have ever looked at before.
Tab 3 is a series of press releases which sets out when
information was made public. I want you to look at the
very first page, tab 3 have you got that? It is a press
release which at the top left has the date 6th August.
Do you see? That is of course the Tuesday. It is an appeal
from Superintendent Hankings given at a press conference,
so this has gone public "Firstly, I would like to
thank everyone for attending this press conference this
morning----".
Then look at the third paragraph which is at the second
hole punch "We have had many calls to the inquiry
team, one in particular which is promising. A lady has
reported she saw two girls matching the description of
Holly and Jessica at 6.45 a.m. yesterday morning, Monday.
They were walking along the A10 of Thetford in the direction
of Cambridge, about 8 miles by road from their homes.
The witness told the police she saw two young girls wearing
shiny football tops walking along.
They appeared to be happy and laughing. This call is encouraging".
Members of the Jury we know of course now that cannot
have had anything to do with Holly and Jessica if it happened
at all, because they were dead by then. That is a piece
of information that got into the public domain at that
press conference on Tuesday morning and you may think
it would have been quite an exciting piece of news and
would have been a cheering piece of news, would it not?
You will recollect that Carr conceded when she was giving
her evidence that she was watching the news and indeed
watching teletext at home - I say at home at her mother's
home - while she was waiting for Huntley to turn up, was
she not? You may think, therefore, that she would have
known about that hopeful, encouraging, piece of news which
had gone into a public domain. The hitchhiker gets into
the car and the conversation quickly gets round to Soham
and Holly and Jessica.
You may think that whatever else is right or wrong, Carr
was interested in those two girls and interested in the
topic of conversation. The hitchhiker says that she was
doing most of the talking. You will recollect what the
hitchhiker said Huntley told him while that conversation
was going on. He suddenly butted in as it were and and
used that expression "I was the last person to see
them until that woman supposedly saw them".
That is why I said earlier on this morning, "supposedly",
note the word. Does that tell you at once, members of
the jury, if you are listening to the conversation and
indeed deeply interested in it? Huntley for some reason
was able to discount a sighting which has just been reported
in the media and is on the television teletext saying
there has been a very hopeful development. How can he
possibly have been able to say "supposedly".
We know now why he used that word "supposedly"
because he knew perfectly well it cannot have been anything
to do with Holly and Jessica, because they were dead and
she heard him say that, and she heard him say that in
the context of knowing the girls had been in their house
upstairs and so on, and she has looked in the boot of
the Fiesta and seen the Fiesta has been transformed and
that upset her, we suggest.
When she gets home that same afternoon, members of the
jury what does she find? The man she has lived with for
a number of years, who you may think she knows pretty
well, who never does a bit of cleaning, who just leaves
his clothes, his take-ups, tea mugs, coffee mugs, his
plates, either sitting on the floor or piles them up in
the sink - and he has been transformed, he has had a clean
up, and a woman who is obsessed with cleaning, you may
think, would immediately be conscious that something had
been going on in her home which was highly unusual.
It must have hit her the moment she walked in through
that front door. It would have hit her in a way, we suggest,
which involved her saying to herself "Why has he
suddenly been transformed? " We suggest she may have
picked up that he had been hoovering. She certainly picked
up the washing machine and the fact that the bed linen
off the bed - where she had been told one of the girls
had been - was in the machine and had been washed and
he had never, ever done anything like that before during
their relationship. She concedes that her first thought
was in effect "sex".
she explains it away now, as you know, by thinking of
an adult. Well, members of the jury, as I have said already,
you do not look at these things in isolation; you do not
look at each pointer individually and then simply put
it to one side and never think about it again, do you?
That is not how life works, is it? If you are concerned
about something and you receive a piece of information,
on its own it may not be sufficient, but you do not then
discard it and forget about it and ignore it when the
next piece of information comes in. And she, we suggest,
was being bombarded with information here.
Because why was she back in Soham at all? She was back
in Soham, whether she likes to admit it or not, whether
he likes to admit it or not, to provide him with a false
alibi, which is all to do with the girls. She is coming
back to start telling lies for him. Members of the Jury,
she does it in the context that he is actually saying
to her "I was the last person to see them" and,
indeed, he goes further than that. She has admitted in
the witness box that he actually said to her that any
other sightings which purportedly took place later, which
she heard about, either before she got back to Soham in
the form of the woman on the A10, or any other reported
sightings she heard about when back at Soham, he told
her were unreliable.
What is that telling you when somebody who supposedly
has said goodbye to the girls at what, 6.35, and does
not know where they went after that, can say that a sighting
at 10 to 7, or a sighting at 20 past 7, or a sighting
the Monday morning on the A10, is unreliable. It is telling
her something and it is telling her something, members
of the jury, fundamental about what the man she lives
with knows. In the ten days before her arrest, it is not
as though she did not have time to think, members of the
jury.
The first public lie that she told was not until the Thursday.
She spoke to the journalists with Huntley. This was not
some dreadful spur of the moment then when she had some
information, but loyalty when she said something on the
spur of the moment and was stuck with it. She had days
to think about it before she went public with her lying
account. May we suggest she is not naive, she is articulate,
intelligent and she is her own woman. In evidence she
sought to subject that it is all Ian Huntley's fault.
She never actually agreed to tell a false story, she was
pushed into it because he started to tell it to the journalists
and hence they were looking to her and she was in a fix.
Members of the jury, can I go back to the transcript of
the first telephone conversation with Mrs Huntley, at
page 2 of the first one? So the last tab, the second page
of the transcripts.
Yes, she was upset in this conversation but she is perfectly
articulate during it, members of the jury. Sometimes it
is a matter for you. You may think when people are upset
they tell the truth. Page 2, 5 minutes 22 seconds into
the conversation "Did you discuss lying and alibis
not, not on the Sunday. Not on the Sunday. On the Monday.
On the Monday you did that? Yes." Over to page 4,
7 minutes 34 into that conversation "You know he
phoned you on the Monday? Yes. He said he discussed lying.
Yes.
Can you remember what time that was. Yes, it was in the
afternoon, it was 25 past 4, because I was at my grandad's.
On the Monday? Yes, that was when he wanted me to come
home". Members of the jury, it is perfectly plain,
is it not, from that conversation that he wanted her to
come home because he wanted a false alibi; they had discussed
lying over the telephone and back to Soham she went. Members
of the Jury, another very important thing was said during
those conversations.
We do not have to prove that she either knew or believed
the precise circumstances of how the girls died; all we
have to prove is that she either knew or believed that
he had either murdered them or unlawfully killed them.
Look at the very top of page 4 "Something very wrong,
darling, we know there is, but we just don't know what.
Something, something happened, and I don't know what happened
but ...", then they go into the Monday telephone
call. Is she not acknowledging there that she knows something
happened? She is referring there to something that happened
in the house involving the girls, isn't she?
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