Heavy Duty Trouble (The Brethren Trilogy) (39 page)

I
s
n’t
that about the size of it?

It
i
s
therefore
the
D
efence’s
contention that there
is actually,
quite simply
no case to answer.

The
P
rosecution have described to you what they think happened on
the
road that night. They have made it all
sound
very dramatic. They have described to you a dastardly ambush
in which modern
automatic weapons
were used to eliminate
three unarmed men who never stood a chance. Men who, the Crown argues, were first cut down in a hail of automatic fire, and the
n
c
old-
bloodedly finished off at point blank range with a military pistol, presumably just to make sure
,
in case a full magazine from an AK47 hadn’t been enough.

But thinking isn’t evidence
,
ladies and gentlemen.

What the
P
rosecution thinks happened isn’t proving a case beyond reasonable doubt, which is the test the
Judge
will ask you to apply when you retire to consider your verdicts.

So let’s take a look at what we definitely do know, beyond reasonable doubt, about the scene
on
the road that night, and
just
as importantly, what we don’t.

As you have seen from the maps and photographs show
n
to you, t
he incident took place on a deserted country road, about three miles from the nearest village and about
three-quarter
s of a mile from the nearest house.
So the spot was well chosen for any activity where you didn’t want to have any witnesses
to give evidence, as is the case here
.

You have heard how Mr and Mrs Walton at Netherston Farm
, Enderdale,
were the first to call the authorities at
6.56
that evening
. They did so
on seeing the light of the fire on the road
and so
this was
obviously after the time of the shooting
.

As a result, the alarm was raised at the fire station in the village which is manned by retained fire officers, civilian volunteers who are on call to respond when required
,
and so it wasn’t until
7.12pm
that the crew having rushed to the station, arrived at the scene with their appliance.
When they did so, t
hey found the car
still
burning strongly and it took the crew a
number of
minutes to extinguish the blaze.

Meanwhile the police, and an ambulance
,
which had been dispatched
in case there were any casualties
in what was initially assumed to be a road traffic accident,
had both been
sent
to the scene
. S
ince these each had a longer distance to travel from their respective bases in town, they did not reach the s
ite
until
7.1
9
pm
and
7.24
pm
respectively.

At that stage it was immediately evident to the police that something untoward had occurred as the bullet holes in the car could clearly be seen.

As a result, the police attending the incident called for backup and secured the
area
as best they coul
d
,
bearing in mind that the
fire fighters
had obviously been working extensively to put out the blaze and had used high pressure hoses with which to do so.

The road was closed off and remained
shut
for some
thirty-six
hours thereafter as police forensic teams
conducted a painstaking fingertip search of
the area before then removing the car for further examination.

So, what
then
did the police find
, both
at the scene and later back at the laboratory?

Well, obviously enou
gh, the police found the bullet-
riddled and burnt out car that the men had been driving.

Behind the spot where the car was standing, they found
the
short pair of skid marks on the road
which have been described to you
.

Behind a low dry stone wall
on the
left hand
side of the road
,
and broadly parallel with
the site
of the car,
they found
thirty
empty cartridges from the ammunition for a Russian made AK47 assault rifle.

Next to the car they found
nine
empty cartridges from a Russian made
9.22mm Makarov
pistol.

Inside the car they found the burnt remains of what appear to have been police peaked caps.

And finally,
late in the evening of
Sunday
7t
h
Ma
rch
2010
,
fifteen miles away on some rough ground
,
they found the burnt out remains of a stolen white transit van
,
which they allege may have been linked to this incident
,
as it may have been used as the getaway vehicle.

And out of these limited number of facts ladies and gentlemen, the
P
rosecution have told you their story, the one which they think accounts for the items found by the police.

Now, on behalf of the
D
efence
, I have to say to you that we do not want to
waste your time by
challeng
ing
or disput
ing
any of the facts
presented by the Crown
.
For the purpose of this trial we are therefore prepared to accept all the physical evidence the police claim to have found at the scene
and later in their laboratory.

But
there are things that
the
P
rosecution haven’t discussed with you
;
significant
things they haven’t woven into the story they’ve told you
here in this
c
ourt
room
about what they think happened
.

And these things
are what the police didn’t find, what wasn’t there at this scene of apparent devastation they found that night.

So what was missing?

Well, firstly,
while bullets from the AK 47 were identified,
no bullets from the pistol were ever found at the scene. The cartridge cases it would have ejected, yes, but bullets, no.

So w
hat happened to them? The
Crown alleges the
y were fired a
t
point blank range, so you would think that all of them would have hit their intended targets, but even so it seems odd. This is a military pistol, a powerful gun. Out of nine bullets fired you might expect at least one, and probably quite a few more
,
to have passed through the victims’ bodies and to be lodged somewhere in the car wouldn’t you? But no, the police never found a single one.

And
on a technical point,
nine cartridge cases is
actually
a
very
odd number to find for this particular type of pistol which as standard comes with an eight bullet magazine. So did our killer stop to reload? Or did he have one of the very limited number of Makarov
s made with a ten shot magazine?

So perhaps all the bullets did lodge in the victims’ bodies.
The o
nly
problem is that
this brings us on to our second curiously missing element from the scene.

Because as you will have seen from all the evidence presented to you so far, there were no bodies
found
.

Not
in
or around
the car.

Not
in
or around
the so called getaway van.

Nowhere.

Please just think about that for a moment.
Please put yourselves
,
if you will
,
in the shoes of our alleged killers that evening.

You have
just
ambushed and assassinated three people using automatic weapons on a public road.

You have no idea who will be along that road next
.
Y
ou have no idea how much time you may or may not have.

You toss some of your disguise into the car
.
You are planning to set fire to
it
, something that will undoubtedly bring it to the attention of the authorities extremely quickly
,
so you know that you will only have a short
time span
within which to get clear of the scene once you have done so.

So why
on earth
, ladies and gentlemen, in these circumstances, would you
stop to
do what the Crown alleges you actually did next
?

Because to explain the lack of any bodies at the scene, the Crown has
had
to ask you to make some assumptions.
It’s the only way that they can make their case and t
he
P
rosecution has
again had
to tell you what it thinks
–
not know
s
–
thinks
,
happened.

The Crown says that having committed such a brutally efficient and professionally staged ambush, what
they
actually
did next was this.

Rather than immediately making a swift getaway, secure in the knowledge that
they
we
r
e
leaving behind
their
dead
victims
;
instead
they
stopped to pull the bloody bodies from the car
and loaded them into
the
getaway vehicle
. Only then did
they
drive off,
making
their
escape with the corpses piled in the back of
the
van.

But why
take them with
you
?
Why take the risk?
Does this make any sense to you?
If you were the killers, why would you do it?

To hide the fact that there were murders? Hardly, after all,
you are leaving behind a bullet-
riddled car.

Why risk being caught with th
re
e
m
urder victims
if you are stopped heading away from the scene?
Why contaminate yourselves and your getaway vehicle with blood, fibres,
or
DNA,
any one of which
might link you back to the shooting? Why then present yourself with the risks involved in then trying to dispose of the bodies separately?

No,
ladies and gentlemen of the jury,
i
t just doesn’t make
any
sense
at all
,
does it?

You have just carried out what the Crown alleges was a carefully planned, military styled ambush, with lethal precision and efficiency. Wouldn’t you have been at least as careful in thinking about, planning and executing your getaway?

Why not just leave the bodies
where they fell, in the bullet-
riddled car?

W
hy take what seem
s to be
such
a
stupid
and
unnecessary risk?

I
t just doesn’t ring true
,
does it?

So I
’d like to
ask you to think about one thing.