Find Them Dead

25 Thursday 9 May

When people encountered Richard Jupp for the first time, away from his work environment, most of them assumed the tall, thick-set, teddy bear of a man in his late sixties, with thinning grey hair and a beard verging on the straggly, was a teacher or perhaps an environmentalist, or maybe even some kind of local politician. No one would have put him down as the country’s longest-serving Crown Court judge.

But beneath his cuddly exterior was a man who could, when needed, be as hard as nails or as kind and humane as your favourite uncle. He was one of three judges in Sussex who were ‘ticketed’ — as it was called in legal parlance — to sit on murder trials.

He liked to be in very early on the morning of a major new trial, to review the key documentation and be fully prepped. At 7.45 a.m. he sat in his chambers adjoining Court 3 of Lewes Crown Court. He loved this Victorian building — the four law courts it housed had a grandeur and sense of occasion that he felt was missing in most modern courts. And compared to modern judge’s chambers, this room was wonderfully old-fashioned and spacious, with more the feel of a suite in a grand but tired hotel, rather than an office.

Its ochre walls were relieved by uninspired framed prints of Lewes landscapes; there was a patterned lavender carpet and imposing drapes hung from an elaborate pelmet atop an almost impossibly tall window. The furniture was just old, rather than antique. A spacious L-shaped desk was cluttered with a photocopier, conferencing laptop, box of tissues and a row of legal tomes, with a short meeting table attached. There was a wardrobe, a pastel armchair, a handful of purple-upholstered conference chairs and some desultory potted plants. On a shelf sat a black-and-gold tin with a brass handle, containing his wig. He had forgotten it on a couple of occasions when he had been distracted by something on a case and had sent his clerk scuttling out of court to fetch it. But in all other respects, he was sharp as a tack.

Jupp stroked his black-and-white spaniel, Biscuit, comfortably seated on his lap, whilst his other dog, Charlie, snored in his basket on the floor. ‘Lock-’em-up Jupp’ was the moniker that His Honour Judge Richard Jupp had long been given by his colleagues and by all the barristers, local and from afar, who had ever come before him, whether prosecuting or defending. He liked it, well aware his reputation was as a judge to be feared, but one who was fair.

In the courts over which he presided, the accused, their briefs and the jury would always know where they stood when they were in front of him. If clearly guilty, in his view, from all the evidence presented, he’d always done his best to get that message across to even the most dim-witted of juries in his summings-up and directions. And, boy, while many were good, he’d had more than his share of seriously dim-witted ones! And if there was proper doubt about the person in the dock’s culpability, he would try equally hard to direct the jury towards that coveted two-word verdict:

Not guilty.

The problem was, in his long experience, that whilst many juries were highly competent, the jury system itself had flaws. It was a lottery what jury you got.

Frustratingly, on a few occasions juries got it very wrong. So much could sway a bunch of inexperienced people, of mixed backgrounds and views, to go either way. And occasionally they made a totally incomprehensible decision. All it took was a group of malleable jurors and a passionate — but misguided — one to sway them.

In Richard Jupp’s view, formed after forty years of appearing in court, on both sides of the bench, juries often convicted or acquitted on emotions rather than on facts. He likened juries to a lucky dip — you never knew quite what you were going to get.

The system wasn’t as bad as portrayed in a television show many years ago, with the late comedy genius Tony Hancock, whom he had loved. One episode featured an unemployed Hancock doing jury service. Hancock had discovered that jurors got paid a daily rate equal to an entire week’s dole money, so every time the rest of the jury reached a verdict, one way or the other, he would convince them to reverse it in order to prolong the trial and increase the meagre amount of his earnings.

Although a fiction, there had been genuine instances of bizarre behaviour in jury rooms which made it seem not so far-fetched. For example, after the trial of a double murderer, here in Sussex, had ended, it was revealed that drunk members of the jury had resorted to consulting a Ouija board in the hotel where they were sequestered, to communicate with the spirits of the murder victims, to help them with their verdict.

It was not surprising there were occasional instances of odd behaviour when a group of total strangers, generally lay people, were put into a daunting environment and had to reach decisions that would make or destroy many people’s lives — the lives of both the accused and of the victims or their loved ones.

And despite what some tabloids screamed on their front-page splashes, prisons were not holiday camps. In Jupp’s view, most UK prisons were brick shithouses, filled with bullies. Nasty, scary places where you were confined with total strangers, a percentage of whom were likely to be violent. A place where you were not simply deprived of all the liberties and luxuries you’d previously taken for granted, but a horror hotel, where there was no pillow menu, no breakfast list to hang on your door, no privacy — frequently an open toilet where you had to perform your functions behind a plastic curtain, inches from your cellmate’s face — and scant relief from the relentless tedium and the constant threat of being brutalized by other inmates. One wrong look or ill-chosen word and your face could be slashed open, boiling porridge poured on your genitals, or worse.

Sure, there had been inmates who’d boasted how they ruled the roost in luxury, past villains like East End crime overlord Reggie Kray, who’d had his own phone, kettle and toaster in his cell, and the officers in his pocket. But seldom any more. Although, today, plenty of prisoners made big money forcing others to buy drugs. If you were locked up for a long period, even if you’d never before taken a drug in your life, there would be strong pressure from others inside, and in some instances from officers on the take as well, for you to start on the slippery slope.

When Jupp did send a first-timer down, he knew it was likely to be the beginning of a downward-spiralling life. An attempt at prison reform was something he planned to work on in his retirement. And that ominous day was looming faster than he liked.

As he continued stroking Biscuit, whilst reading through today’s very straightforward list of cases in other courtrooms, mostly plea hearings and a couple of sentencings, he was reflecting on just how good life was at this moment. After a divorce, he’d finally found happiness again with his new lady, Frances, twenty years his junior. She shared his love of dogs and his other passion, sailing his 39-foot yacht, Banged Up, out of Brighton Marina whenever the opportunity arose.

He’d actually lived on the boat for three years during the split-up from his wife Madeleine and had enjoyed the somewhat bohemian lifestyle — in total contrast to his outwardly conformist duties as a Crown Court judge. But now he was almost conventional again, living in a barn conversion a few miles outside Brighton.

He was more content than he had felt for a very long time. Perhaps, if he thought about it, more so than at any time before he had become a judge. His early career as a criminal barrister had for a long time been one of low pay and constant stress. Taking any job, going for the pittance legal aid work paid, being given his brief the night before a trial if he was lucky, but more often than not, an hour before it started.

He’d built up a good reputation, and the quality of work that came his way did improve, but after serving the minimum fifteen years as a junior at the Bar he took silk to become a QC, lining himself up for the next stage in his career plan, for what seemed to him the more stable and less stressful life as a judge.

But now there was an issue looming. On his next birthday, in just four months’ time, he would be seventy, which was the compulsory retirement age for a judge, although it was possible to get a one- or two-year extension. He was fit, as alert as ever and had no desire at all to retire. He loved his job. Human nature fascinated him. He was endlessly intrigued by, above all, two things. The first was the legal question of whether the person in the dock had actually done the crime they were being accused of. Followed by the much bigger social, anthropological question after a guilty verdict: why had they done it?

Love. Jealousy. Greed. They were the front-runners.

Behind them came pure, irrational hatred.

During his career, the prison population in the UK had risen by 70 per cent and was still rising, thanks to deeply flawed social welfare and justice systems. But every now and then, along came a total scumbag, to whom none of the mitigating factors could apply. Someone who had decided to take the wrong path to instant riches by whatever means required — even torture and murder.

One such name was today’s headliner. The case had been listed to start two days earlier but, much to his annoyance, as sometimes happened, had to be delayed as the previous case in Court 3 had overrun. The trial was set down to last for two weeks. It might even be his own swansong, Jupp thought, ruefully. His last really big case.

What a swansong. Regina v Terence Arthur Gready. By all accounts, from what he had read so far, Gready appeared to be a bent solicitor. Very seriously bent.

After the previous court hearing several weeks ago, Jupp was still curious as to why Gready wanted to be tried at one of his home Crown Courts — Lewes. Normally his barrister would have applied for the case to be heard elsewhere in order to ensure impartiality. Jupp knew from previous dealings with this sharp solicitor never to underestimate him, but he couldn’t see what advantages for Gready there might be. Regardless, he was confident that he would ensure the whole judicial process would remain scrupulously fair.

But if there was one thing he loathed even more than a bent copper — of which he’d encountered a few in his time — it was a member of his own profession gone rogue.