Wednesday, 14th January 1998
SUMMING-UP (Continued) Page 1

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MR JUSTICE HIDDEN: Christopher Bowen is the solicitor of the Supreme Court who was admitted on the 1st March 1995 whose firm is Jepp and Sons of Northfields, Colchester. He has the conduct of the case of Michael Steele. He made a particular inquiry to the Texaco fuel station at Hardley in Colchester on the 22nd May 1997. Before going there his inquiry regarding the matter of the credit card voucher, the copy is Exhibit 271, was a long and bitty one. That day, the 22nd of May, he spoke to Stephen Mann. As a result, he went to the premises for the purpose of looking for a till receipt for the purchase of fuel on the 6th December and also for a credit card voucher relating to the same purchase. He had a copy of the statement of account of Steele's Barclays PremierCard. On arrival he spoke to the assistant who he thought was Steven Mann. He was permitted to make a search, to enter the store room containing the receipts and vouchers.

He was only looking at till receipts in the first instance for the 6th December 1995 for the sum of £25. After some time he found the till receipt for the time of 17.01 and he then began looking for the voucher. He was just over two hours in searching. He used the details on the till receipt to make a comparison and after a considerable time he found the voucher which matched the time and amount. On the voucher he looked at the account number of the holder and it matched the account number in Steele's statement. He sought authorisation from Mr Randall to take the documents to his office to photostat them and he was not allowed to remove them without indicating that he would return them the same day. He took the documents to his offices in Colchester and he went to the photocopy department and photocopied them. He made several copies of the voucher and of the audit roll on which was the receipt.

He took the audit roll and the receipt, by which he meant the voucher, because the receipt is actually part of the audit roll but he took them back to the filling station that day and handed them back and he made an attendance note shortly after his attendance at the garage that evening. It was done first thing in the morning, the 23rd May. He then asked David, the attendant, that the document be put in a safe. He underlined that the documents were of importance in a court case. Exhibit 270 is the till receipt copy cut from the audit roll. He was responsible for the till roll being cut in that way but he told you that was not cut on the first time. It was cut on the second time. It was in his possession. He said: "I made that copy from the original document. The copy is a copy of the credit card voucher", and he produced it as Exhibit 271. He said that was a copy of the credit card sales voucher which he took from the garage. It did have a signature on it which was the carbon copy of an original which he recognised as being that of Michael Steele.

He had seen the signature on several occasions prior to retrieving the document. The last occasion, he said, on which he saw the original of the sales voucher, "was the day I retrieved it which was the 22nd May 1997. I spoke to the person who I gave it to, which was David, and thereafter I dictated a letter to the garage for the attention of Steven Randall. That letter was sent through the ordinary course of post. That was dated the 2nd June 1997." He produced not a copy of the letter but the original of the letter, the actual letter which he had sent to Steven Randall. Several letters were sent and they were signed by his immediate boss, Linda Fontain. He said: "I made a call on the 22nd October to Mr Randall. Initially, he had indicated that the whereabouts of the two documents were not known. He was not involved in the search for these documents after the 22nd October.

He was cross-examined by Mr Munday and he said he was a careful man who was anxious to do his job to the best of his ability. He agreed that he had actually logged 19 days of inspecting unused material at Chelsea police station. He agreed that, subject to the direction of the court, all relevant material must be disclosed to the defendant or his advisers. He accepted in the course of those 19 days he was able to take thousands of pages of documents which he examined. He thought his attitude was to take all inquiries as diligently as possible and explore any avenue he felt worth exploring.

He agreed he was responsible for the defence of Mr Steele and Mr Whomes his firm, that the responsibility for the defence of Corry was elsewhere in his firm. He produced Exhibit 287, the receipt for the tapes, and you saw the wording of that. He agreed he had dealings with the three alibi witnesses: Mrs Street, Miss Stanbrook and Mrs Stanbrook. He also had dealings with Dennis Whomes. He agreed that the purpose of the alibi notice was to notify the prosecution of the names of the alibi witnesses so that the prosecution can be aware of the witnesses who are to be called to enable them to make inquiries of their own. He agreed that his last letter said: "Please note that the witnesses do not wish to be contacted by the police". He had spoken to Detective Sergeant White to the same effect. He ultimately confirmed that the witnesses were refusing to be interviewed. The topic of cross-examination moved back again to the credit card voucher, the copy of which is Exhibit 271.

Mr Bowen agreed that he did not sign a receipt for it at the garage. He said that was because he was not asked for one. He did not ask the garage to provide him with one either. He looked at the original receipt which had been cut at both ends from the till roll and that was marked 270 (a) . He said that Exhibit 270 was a copy he had made which he had taken from the whole till roll on the 22nd May. There was no cutting of the audit roll on that day; it was done later. He was asked to compare what had been done with Exhibit 195 on page 220 when he sought authentification of the original of Rolfe's address book. You remember that is a document (you can look at it now if you want to but you do not need to) which has a signature on it to authenticate that a copy has been taken.

He said when he did the photocopies of Exhibit 270 and 271 it did not occur to him as belt and braces to ask someone to authenticate that he had taken a copy of the original. He understood the importance of retaining the original documents and of an explanation if an alleged original document is lost or overlooked. He said he had copies of 271 which did not have the bit of handwriting on it and he said: "The photocopy I took will stand in place of the original document". He agreed that Exhibit 270, which is a photocopy, was not the same as the document which had his initials on it: CLB1. He said 270 was a copy of the audit roll for the 6th December, which is Exhibit 272. He said his 270 was a copy that he made on the 22nd May and was a copy of the audit roll. I used the number 272, members of the jury, for the copy of the audit roll. I should have used 292. 272, you will remember, is the Irish tapes. The exhibit I am referring to is 292 not 272.

He could not say for certain that was the only copy he took. He took several, trying to get the best quality copy. The exhibit displayed the hallmarks of pieces of paper being used to shield the other parts, and you remember the straight lines across the photocopy was what he was talking about. He understood the audit roll to have been cut by an employee of his firm, Hazel Jones. He agreed he had been provided with Exhibit 265, the VAT book. He agreed he did not receive the original voucher, Exhibit 271, from Mr Steele or from his accountants. There was no particular reason why he did not get a receipt from David when he took the documents back. The documents were put on the table after he had asked David to put them in a safe. He said: "I made it perfectly plain how important they were and I asked him for them to be put in the safe". He referred to Exhibit 284, a letter which was written from Jepps, the solicitors, on the 2nd June which was his letter which he had not signed.

He said: "The word 'document' in the singular is used in the first paragraph, but I also used the word 'documentation' . I didn't sign the letter. It was signed by a colleague of mine. The letter is only dated the 2nd June. That is two Mondays after Thursday 22nd May, but that sort of delay happens. The voucher never left my possession, the original and other people in the office saw it. I returned it to the garage that evening. Until the 22nd October I thought the originals were at the garage. I'm almost positive Exhibit 271 is exactly what I photocopied. I recognised the signature the moment I saw it. It was a moment I won't forget. I checked both documents against each other and those documents against the statement and the signature. The moment I found that I shall never forget. At no stage did I get a receipt. Randall was well aware of my euphoria at what I had found. I didn't see him to get the copies authenticated."

In re-examination he said: "I did not at any stage do anything to alter the documents, but looking at all unused material which the prosecution have is all a normal part of a solicitor's duty of preparation for the trial". Finally, in relation to his failure to get a receipt for the documents he said there was no particular reason. As to why he did not get the documents authenticated by a witness, he said it was not something that went through his mind at the time. With hindsight that should have been done, he conceded. Members of the jury, matters of evidence are entirely for you but you may think however unsatisfactory the handling of that voucher itself taken from the records of the garage and then at some later stage lost, it is not something that you should hold against Mr Steele. You have the evidence of Mr Bowen that when he was looking at the garage document, which is the contemporaneous one, two are produced, one is given to the customer and one is kept in the garage; it is his evidence that when he saw it he recognised the signature.

He said he took it straight back to his firm and other members of his staff saw it. You may think that the safest way to treat that evidence is that the document did exist even if you have not seen it and you should not hold against Mr Steele the errors of ways in whoever has lost the original. That is a matter of evidence and therefore it is your decision. I merely give you what may be helpful assistance but it is not a direction of law. That means you can approach the document as you wish, but I hope I have indicated the fair way to approach it. You obviously will approach things in a fair way. Doctor Holse is the meteorological consultant employed by the Meteorological Office. He was asked to consider the records held by the office and to try to make an assessment of weather conditions on a particular three days. He produced Exhibit 297 and I would like you to turn that up, if you will, as well as the map, Exhibit 17 on page 17 in your main exhibits bundle. I had a certain amount of trouble finding my own copy. That is why I wanted to make sure you have your own copies to refer to Doctor Halls's evidence. It looks, you may remember, like this and after the text there are appendices that look like that.

MR MUNDAY: I think it should be in Exhibit 128. That is the defence bundle, the defence folder.

MR JUSTICE HIDDEN: 128. It is there and, members of the jury, it appears before the photographs of Mr Whomes's premises which is Exhibit 298. It is in the right place. If you would have 297 open at the first page and if you would have Exhibit 17 page 17 open for a moment, what Doctor Halls said was the map, page 17, is a good portion of the southern North Sea. He said there are three main sources of data and he gave as the sources firstly the charts which are analysed by forecasters at Bracknell and which are said to be archives. Secondly, the marine observations of wind, weather and sea conditions which are made by shipping itself and by admiralty buoys on life vessels. Thirdly, an archive of computer model data used to assess the weather and sea conditions.

He said he had used all three and you will see the reference to the data sources at the top of page 1 which is the second page in your document which says: "Assessment of weather and sea conditions southern North Sea between Blankenberg, Belgium and Clacton-On-Sea, England for the period OOOO UTC 1st October 1995 to 1800, UTC 3rd October 1995. You do not have to be tripped by "UTC", members of the jury, because he told you that means Greenwich Mean Time. If you would look at page 1, members of the jury. I am sorry look at what is numbered as page 1, the first page of the document, there being the other page 1 for appendix A. Paragraph 1(1) specifies the area that was being looked at that I just read out from the title and says: "The report concentrates on conditions in open waters away from direct coastal influences between the two locations".

He then summarises the general synoptic situation. The time, you will remember, we are looking at is the night of the 2nd October and the early hours of the 3rd October. I will not read out to you, therefore, the 1st October. The 2nd October says: "Winds blowing from around a westerly direction first, back to south-westerly as a weak ridge of high pressure built across the southern North Sea and the low countries." 3rd of October: "Frontal troughs moving north across northern France in the low countries eventually into the southern North Sea; rain and thunder storms in the afternoon." For weather and sea conditions at page 3 the report reads: "Winds became strong during the 1st October as frontal troughs moved east across the southern North Sea and reached (inaudible) force 7 locally during the afternoon. Significant wave heights, wind,sea and swell combined built to around 2 metres through the second half of the day."

That is the 1st which you are not really concerned with. He moved on to the 2nd and 3rd: "The wind eased and backed south-westerly on the 2nd October, however with significant wave heights to increasing between 1 and 2 metres. A further decrease in wind strengths occurred early on the 3rd October with significant wave heights dropping further to 1 metre or less. A freshly south or south-westerly breeze set in in the afternoon however." Then you can look, if you would, further on in the exhibit to the page which deals with the Beaufort Scale. In particular, you will be looking at on that scale force 4 and 5: 4 being a moderate breeze and 5 a fresh breeze. The moderate breeze has a mean equivalent speed in knots of 13 with a limit of 11 to 16, from 11 down to 16 up. The fresh breeze has a mean speed of 19 knots which covers the bracket of 17 to 21. The next page: "Wave and visibility definitions". "Waves other than swell height in metres", and if you want to look particularly at slight which is over .5 to 1.25. Moderate, you see, is over 1.25 metres to 2.5 metres.

If you would look at the assessment for the 2nd October, which is page 4, if you would look at 18.00, 6 pm Greenwich Mean Time, the wind direction is south-south-west to south-west and is force 4 or force 5 slight to moderate, which I have just referred you to, for at sea. The swell is said to be cross direction very low. If you would go on to the top of the next page, page 5, midnight between the 2nd and the 3rd the wind is south- south-west, force 4 and slight and at 06.00 the wind is south-south-east to south-south-west, force 3, smooth or slight. The swell is cross direction very low and force 3 is said to be a speed of 9 knots mean with the limits up and down of 7 to 10. He said in his evidence apart from the report 1800 on the 2nd October 6 pm was the same position as midday on that day. It was neither calm nor strong and would have involved small waves.

For midnight and 0600 he said in his evidence that smooth or slight meant large wave lengths but white horses would be much less frequent. He was asked about the weather for the 2nd and 3rd and he said he would not say it was extremely bad weather. The force winds was not Gale force. Force 7 was a mere gale. Given the sheltered nature of the stretch of sea where they were travelling what the sea would look like would depend on the wind direction. The wind direction experienced on the 2nd and 3rd was predominantly from the south to west. You could not describe the condition as heavy seas, not to Doctor Halls's way of thinking, but he said: "I have no definition of heavy seas and it is a very subjective term". He said, "You could not describe it as large waves or extremely bad weather", but he added, "I'm not a boating man". Cross-examined by Mr Munday he said: "As a meteorologist there are set terms by which you gauge wind speed and wave height."

He said: "I am talking about an objective approach rather than a subjective approach. Something to one person may be rough and to another not", and he gave the comparison of an International yachtsman and someone else. He said: "The reading in terms of wave height and swell are averages across the area. I would have concentrated on the open sea because there is an odd effect of wind inshore." He said: "The term swell meant something particular. It was waves not generated by local winds which meant generated by a distant force travelling towards the area. In effect it was caused by weather elsewhere." He said the expression "cross direction" on the 2nd October means the possibility of small waves from more than one direction being present.

As to 1800 on the 2nd October he said: "The sea is generated by local winds. Someone's sea can become someone else's swell. Slight to moderate means .5 to 2.5 metres which means that the sea as far as wave height is concerned is on the borderline between the two categories." For the significant wave height he said the way that they work it is to take a sample of waves on an average of a third, one in three. Slight to moderate meant the top of slight and the bottom of moderate. He said he had no data on tidal effects in that area. Tide against weather has to be considered. He said: "I know that the tide can have an effect on waves if the tide is in the opposite direction to the wind direction. On the 2nd October the wind direction was largely south-west to south-south-west, SW to SSW. That would generate seas going from the south-west and the south- south-west. The waves would travel in a south-west to north-east direction. Force 4 to 5 would be between 11 and 21 knots and therefore you could say 15 to 18 knots."

He spoke of the effect of sailing into an 18 knot wind at a 30 knot speed and said he personally had never been on a 20 foot RIB at 30 knots sailing into an 18 knot wind in a slight to moderate sea. Stephen Rogers was the gentlemen who had a detached property on three acres of land and stables at Bicknall(?). It is north west of the Wheatsheaf, about half a mile away, and you looked at the plans and can look at them again to see its position relative to Work House Lane. He said he made a detailed written statement on the 13th December 1995 about what he could recall of events on the 6th December. He had heard a series of shots. He was working in the village hall until 10.30 and went home about 11 o'clock, had a sandwich and a beer and went outside about a quarter to midnight to mix some food to give to the foal. That usually took about 30 minutes. He heard something which struck him as unusual around midnight. He heard a series of shots.

He said: "It's not unusual to hear shots where we live, but this was unusual because it was an extremely cold night and because of the number of shots". He said: "I have heard shots during the evening time but they usually come in a series of two". He said: "I didn't count them but there may have been six, I'm not sure. There was maybe a second or less between the shots". He described it as a "fusillade". "It sounded like a shotgun, a noise we are familiar with." He was outside the stables in an alleyway between them and generally the sound came from the south. It was an extremely still night. He could not work out how far away any of the shots were. He did not think any more of the incident at the time.

The following day he was aware of a news item on the shooting incident. He contacted the police on Saturday 9th when he heard more shots on that day. The shots he heard on the Saturday, he knew where they came from: it was White House Farm. It was the sound of the shots on the Saturday that made him think of what he had heard in the week, as a result of which he contacted the police. He was outside the stables when he heard the noise and walked to the edge of the farm to see if he could see where the sound was coming from. The fence he walked was the fence facing the south. Something in his mind clicked when he heard more than two shots. He did not count them. There was a round, a second between shots. It was not like three in succession and then a gap. "I don't remember a gap", he said. It lasted five or six seconds or ten seconds.

You heard from William Jasper. He told you he attended as a result of a witness summons. In January 1996 he was seen by the police in connection with matters affecting him and he was interviewed. He gave the police oral and written accounts of matters he had been involved in at Rettendon. He gave a detailed account but it was hard to remember where he was. He said he did not know Michael Steele or Jack Whomes, had never seen either of them before or had any association with them. The day before he gave evidence was the first time that he knew he might be required to come here to give evidence in this trial. In cross-examination by Mr Lederman, he said he had been arrested on the 15th January 1996 in connection with another matter.

He said he was an associate of major criminals, sometimes concerned with major robberies and drugs including cocaine. The drugs involved sums of £300,000, that sort of amount. The criminals were those who had no inhibitions about shooting each other if they fell out. He wrote the statement at Forest Gate police station. He would prefer in court not to name the names he had previously named. The question as to whether he was frightened of them, he said, "You could say that". He said: "You could say that is the reason I prefer not to name them". He said he would not have described them in a full statement about killing if it was not correct because to do so it could happen that he could almost inevitably be shot. He told you that he took police officers on a journey once or twice and it was he who directed them.

The route was at his direction. He had taken that journey before. He was pointing out to the officers the route for something that he was a witness to. At that time, he was in a stolen car, a Fiat Uno, and there was a man with him in the car with a holdall. In the holdall was a pump action shotgun and a handgun. He looked in the holdall during the journey. The holdall was taken by the person down a country lane. The person went over a gate into a field and returned with two hold-alls. He was not able to see whether both hold-alls contained anything. They were put on the floor in the passenger side. He then drove back towards Essex in the Woodford direction and dropped the man in a wine bar. He was paid £5000 for doing that. He had been asked to do it a week, or maybe less, before. He was not prepared to name the person who asked him and he was not prepared to name the man in the car.

The passenger on the journey out in the back was wearing hospital gloves. He had not seen the contents of the holdall when he set out. He saw the contents halfway through the journey when the passenger got out to meet someone. He said he was in the Upminster area round about midnight or some time an hour before or an hour after, so at that stage he was giving himself a two hour bracket: either an hour before midnight or an hour after. He said having agreed to do the drive he did not know the purpose of the journey. When the man returned to the car in the lane he got in the passenger side. They had gone over a bridge but he did not know which bridge. He thought it was a couple of minutes away or a minute. He looked at Exhibit 3, the plan, and saw on it a route left into Rectory Lane. He was asked if that was where he took the police and he said it was possibly so but he could not remember if it was that bridge.

There was a "give way" sign. He was supposed to give way but he did not and his passenger was very unhappy. As to the date, he said he could have told the police it was the end of November or the beginning of December. It was unusual to name names. In cross-examination by Mr Munday he said he did not know the defendants at all and had no contact with them before that day. Before the night drive he had never been to that area at all. He could drive from A to B and not know the area. He was not lost and he knew he was in the area of Rettendon on the way back. He said he was shown a map by the police to see if he could point the place out but he could not remember it and he could not remember if he did point it out. He could not remember pointing somewhere out at all.

He had read in the papers of the killing of three men in a car and the papers had said Essex. Howe Green did not ring a bell but it might be that Howe Green was the place he pointed to. He remembered a garden nursery and a car sales place. Then again, as to the time he was asked -about the time again and said he arrived there round about 12-ish, midnight, but he could not remember what day of the week it was and whether it was a weekend or weekday. He probably knew the A127 but he was not good at reading maps. He looked at the Rettendon Turnpike on the map and said: "We went past at first because I couldn't get my bearings. We turned round and went back to the Rettendon Turnpike." He was looking for certain objects to get his bearings.

He did not say, "That farm must be round here"; it was the policeman who said that. He had other problems in his head and he was thinking about other things, not just this. That time he told the policeman to turn left the nursery rang a bell but names did not ring any bells. "I don't know if Rectory Lane was the lane. There were gates on both sides opposite each other. As to the gate on the left, you had to leave the road to get to the lane and the man climbed over the left gate. I turned round and waited half an hour or three quarters of an hour. The time was getting on for 1 o'clock." As to whether there were houses at the bottom he thought there were but he did not drive that far. It was a few feet to the gate and there was a field the other side of the gate. He could not see what was on the other side of the field. He had taken drugs himself and but he did not see what that had to do with it.

He was talking of taking drugs that night. He said he admitted he had had a snort of "coke" before he arrived at the gate. He said, "Maybe the passenger had a snort of 'coke'". He at first said he was not prepared to say if the man snorted the "coke" and then told that was what he had told the police that it had happened he said the man did snort "coke" that night. "The man did it more than once before he got out of the car." The man was wearing tracksuit tops and bottoms and gloves. Mr Faber (sic) said he was arrested for something else entirely than this. He was now in prison. He was prosecuted for offences for which he had been arrested and he was not really worried about these offences. As far as he knew, the man was not arrested for anything and was not in trouble. He had not told anybody else about what had happened that night. He had first mentioned what happened that night to get an easier time from the law and he was hoping to get something out of it to get an easier time.

After he was interviewed he was kept in a police station a couple of days. After that he was not arrested or prosecuted for anything that had happened that night. He agreed he knew what a gun sounds like. He said he was awake in the car while waiting but he did not hear any gun shots. He said he was possibly aware that a record was made of what he had said at the police station and somebody told him that the documents were going to be disclosed to the defence lawyers. He was told what was going to happen a few months back, possibly earlier in 1997. He said he was not frightened of most things but to a certain degree he would describe himself as a frightened man.

He had not been threatened. In re-examination to Mr Parkins he said the passenger was wearing hospital gloves and trainers. The visit to Rettendon was his only visit and it was done in darkness. The directions came from the passenger. He was finding his way by way of lights at night. It was daylight on the 15th January and it is easier with daylight than dark. When he spoke to the police in January he did name some people

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