Find Them Dead

106 Friday 31 May

The clerk told the defendants to sit down. The judge then entered into a lengthy discussion with both defence barristers about the sentencing guidelines.

Meg was surprised, she had thought it would all be over in minutes. Instead, the barristers and judge engaged in what sounded like a cross between a verbal sparring match and a horse trade, as each referred to past cases and judgements, citing varying lengths of sentences. Reference books were produced, with Jupp thumbing for some minutes through one before he found what Brown had asked him to read.

All the time, Meg was distracted by the Latino who still seemed to be playing games with her. Watching her, looking away, watching her.

Who the hell are you, damn you? Are you signalling to me — telling me something about Laura? Telling me I had my chance and I blew it?

‘The starting tariff for that would be fourteen years,’ she heard Jupp say. ‘But that is just the starting tariff, and the scale of this particular offence warrants a sentence towards the higher end on that particular charge. You are aware the maximum sentence I could impose on this charge is life, aren’t you?’

Meg felt the silent vibration of her phone, in her jeans pocket. Laura? At last? God, please, please, please. She pulled it out quickly, scared it would ring off, and glanced down surreptitiously. To her disappointment, it was only a message from the recruitment agency she had joined. She would read it later.

As she slipped the phone back, she heard Jupp say to both barristers, ‘Before I make my final decision, are there any mitigating circumstances you wish me to be aware of?’

Starr’s barrister, Michael Footitt QC, a striking-looking man in his late forties who kept nodding his head, replied, ‘Your Honour, my client promised to take care of his younger brother, Stuie. Mr Starr has fulfilled this promise in an exemplary manner, by having Stuie live with him ever since his mother died, until his incarceration. Mr Starr has been in a state of deep anxiety for many months now, ever since being remanded, because Stuie, right up until his dreadful murder, had difficulty understanding why his brother could not come home.’

‘Well, Mr Footitt,’ interrupted Jupp, ‘perhaps your client might have considered the risks of going to prison and the impact it would have on his promise before committing the crimes he did.’

More frantic nodding by the barrister. ‘Yes, of course, Your Honour, my client does realize that and wishes to apologize to the court for his misdemeanours.’

Jupp frowned. ‘Misdemeanours? You are calling the importation and supplying of drugs, to the value of many tens of millions of pounds, misdemeanours? How many people have died from overdoses or other conditions resulting from taking drugs imported and supplied by your client? How many families have been destroyed, how many lives ruined? How many innocent people have been the victims of crime, from drug users needing cash for their next fix breaking into their cars, their homes, and taking things or mugging them on the streets for their phones or handbags? Misdemeanours? Your client is not a schoolboy who has nicked a few chocolate bars from a corner shop.’ The judge was now glaring at him in undisguised fury. ‘Mr Footitt, I’m not at all clear on the point you are making, regarding mitigation. The length of sentence I impose will make no difference at all to the care of the defendant’s brother, since he is tragically deceased.’

‘No, Your Honour, the point I wanted to make is to show aspects of my client’s good character that have perhaps not been brought to your attention.’ He then pointed out that Starr had pleaded guilty at the first opportunity and that he had given evidence for the prosecution which had helped convict his co-defendant. At the conclusion of his mitigation Jupp responded with a terse, ‘Thank you.’

The judge then turned to Primrose Brown. ‘Do you have anything you want to say on behalf of your client that I should take into account before I pass sentence?’

‘I would like to call a character witness,’ Brown replied.

‘Go ahead.’

The Reverend Ish Smale, vicar of the Good Shepherd, Hove, entered the box.

With his silver, shoulder-length hair, the vicar looked more like an old rocker than a member of the clergy. But he delivered to the court a portrait of a man deserving of a royal gong. He talked about Terence and Barbara Gready’s devout Christianity, evidenced through their regular attendance in church. As well as their ceaseless work for Brighton and Hove charities and their generosity to them. The couple were, in his eyes, examples to the community, examples which, if we all followed, would truly make the world a better place.

The judge thanked him for attending court.

Brown then spoke briefly, accepting that, as he had been found guilty after a trial, her client could not expect his sentence to be reduced. However, she once again stressed his good character and standing in the local community.

The judge pondered for a few moments and then looked at the dock and the men sitting there. ‘Stand up, please,’ he said authoritatively. ‘Michael Starr, you are an evil drug dealer who has made millions of pounds over many years peddling death. I take into account that you pleaded guilty at the first opportunity and that you assisted the prosecution by giving evidence against your co-defendant. For those factors I will give you credit. My normal starting point for these offences would be to send you down for twenty-seven years, but the appropriate sentence, I believe, is a term of imprisonment on each of the counts of twelve years, to run concurrently. You will, of course, be subject to the Proceeds of Crimes Act procedures.’

He then turned to Starr’s co-defendant. ‘Terence Gready, you have brought shame on the legal profession with your drug-dealing activities and by exploiting your knowledge and position as a person of trust. Your conduct is abhorrent. You’ve thought you are above the law, despite being one of its practitioners. You’ve let your family down with your tissue of lies that you even convince yourself with. You have maintained the facade of being a pillar of the community whilst profiting from poisoning vast numbers of it. You only had one motivation. Greed. You have contested these matters since the day of your arrest, never having the courage to accept your criminal conduct. Now you will suffer the consequences of that. I can give you no credit for pleading guilty and therefore my sentence will be severe. I would normally be looking as the appropriate sentence for these matters to be one of life imprisonment, but having heard about your charitable work, which I am taking into account, I have decided the correct sentence is one of twenty-seven years’ imprisonment, concurrent for each charge.’

Meg was about to glance up again at the Latino, when she saw a strange movement in the dock. With his left hand, Michael Starr appeared to be pulling hard at his right hand. An instant later his prosthetic right forearm came free of his jacket sleeve. She just had time to notice the spike protruding several inches from its base, before Starr shouted, ‘You might not be giving him life, your nibs, but I will! He fucking killed my brother!’

As he shouted, he plunged the spike twice into Gready’s chest and then several more times, in a frenzy, into his neck, before the dock officers realized what was happening and lunged forward. Blood jetted onto the dock glass and onto the security guards. People were screaming. Pandemonium. Everyone in the court staggered to their feet. More security people came rushing in.

A klaxon began ringing outside.

Jupp was staring, frozen in utter disbelief.

Gready’s hand, covered in blood, was clutching at his throat as blood spurted from it in uneven squirts. He was making gurgling noises, as if struggling to breathe and pleading for help at the same time. The guards wrestled with Starr. Two more rushed into the dock as well as a police officer, the detective Glenn Branson.

The last thing Meg saw of Gready, as he sank down and became blocked from her view by the guards and police officer, was the look of utter helplessness and terror in his eyes.