For the record, stenographers put down their pens at the Old Bailey
Paul Cheston
Evening Standard online
23 March 2012
OLD BAILEY SHORTHAND WRITERS ( SHW ) WILL BE MISSED BY BUILDING’S STAFF. Leave a comment
BED IN OLD BAILEY COURT Leave a comment
HOSPITAL BED BROUGHT TO COURT SO SICK MAN CAN FACE MURDER TRIAL
Paul Cheston
Evening Standard online
19th march , 2012.
A double murder suspect has faced trial from his hospital bed, installed in the centre of an Old Bailey courtroom especially for the purpose. In what is believed to be the first time such arrangements have been made, Sergei Zolotovsky was brought to court in an ambulance and wheeled into the room on a trolley before being lifted into the hospital bed, which was put in place on Friday. The bed was positioned in front of the dock, facing the judge and barristers and only feet away from the jury box. The court was cleared as Zolotovsky was moved from the trolley to the bed. Judge Stephen Kramer QC was due to tell the jury about the circumstances before the trial, expected to begin today. Latvian plumber Zolotovsky, 44, is accused of killing his estranged wife and his mother-in-law in August last year. He is alleged to have stabbed 40-year-old Svetlana at a bus stop in Beckton before going back to the family home and killing Antonia Belska. Ms Belska’s body was discovered by firefighters called to the semi-detached house when neighbours spotted flames. Zolotovsky is said to have been found by police in the loft at the house, having apparently tried to cut his own throat. He underwent emergency surgery and recovered but then suffered further injuries which led to him becoming bedridden. Zolotovsky, of Edmonton Green, has pleaded not guilty to two charges of murder. He lay propped up in the bed today, fully clothed and wearing black with a white shirt, his arms folded across his chest. Asked to confirm his name by the court clerk, he replied: “Yes.” Svetlana Zolotovsky worked as a pharmacy technician in the private Wellington Hospital in St John’s Wood. Preparations for the historic case began when cleaners were brought in last week to make the 50-year-old courtroom as hygienic as possible. Court 16 was chosen as the biggest and most accessible courtroom in the more modern half of the Old Bailey building. The trial of three men accused of shooting five-year-old Thusha Kamaleswaran, who was left paralysed as the innocent victim of alleged gang warfare in Stockwell in March last year, was moved next door to accommodate the Zolotovsky case. The ambulance bringing Zolotovsky to court arrived at the judge’s entrance in Warwick Square, which is located away from the public entrance to the courts complex. The case continues.
A MEMORABLE EXCHANGE BETWEEN COUNSEL AND WITNESS. Leave a comment
FROM AN OLD BAILEY TRIAL……..
COUNSEL . Q : When you were sitting outside Kerry’s mother’s house , what were you thinking about ?
WITNESS “W” . A : Thinking about ?
Q : Yes.
A : Kerry
Q : Fondly ?
A : Pardon ?
Q : Fondly.
A : Are you taking the piss ?
Q : No , I am not. Mr. W***** , I am asking you a question and I expect the courtesy of an answer.
A : What do you mean , fondling ?
Q : Fondly.
A : Exactly . Elaborate on it . What do you mean ?
Q : Affectionately.
A : Playing with myself in the car ?
Q : Mr. W****** , please !!
A : what do you mean , fondling ?
Q : I am sorry ,…..FOND-LY !!
A : I thought you said fondling mate.
Q : There we are.
( MUCH LAUGHTER AND THE JUDGE EVEN BREAKS OUT INTO A SMILE )
PERVERT STOLE CHILD PORN PHOTOS Leave a comment
*****Perv stole child porn evidence******
By SIMON HUGHES ( The Sun ):
06 Oct 2007
A PERVERT who worked at the Old Bailey stole child porn photos used in a trial. Barry Dryer, 57, – known to colleagues as Dirty Barry – snatched the 54 images as he moved evidence files. He also took pictures of a woman murder victim. The admin assistant was later sacked for looking at porn websites while working at London’s Central Criminal Court. The thefts were uncovered when a woman was awarded his East London flat as compensation in a civil court case. She called cops after finding the sick pictures. Prosecutor Kate Ryle told Snaresbrook Crown Court: “The woman alleged he abused her throughout childhood.” She added: “The photos stolen were of an adult lady who had been murdered and a booklet of photographs of children.” Dryer admitted theft and child porn charges. But he was spared jail after his lawyer pleaded he was unwell. The court sentenced him to three years’ supervision. Last night charity Kidscape blasted the “lenient” sentence.
ILLEGAL WORKER IN OLD BAILEY Leave a comment
Illegal rumbled at Old Bailey
By SIMON HUGHES
09 Sep 2006( The Sun online)
COPS swooped to arrest a crooked illegal immigrant after discovering him working at the Old Bailey as a security guard. Nigerian Layi Bamidele, 56 previously booted out of Britain TWICE was given the job by bungling officials despite having a criminal record. Detectives seized him at Britain’s most famous court home to major terrorist trials following a tip-off he had used a false name. Last night a huge investigation was launched into the security scandal after it was revealed Bamidele had been working there for 2½ years. An Old Bailey insider said: “Bearing in mind what goes on here, it’s terrifying. He could have let virtually anyone in.” Anti-terror expert Chris Dobson said: “If a terrorist had exploited a woeful shortcoming of this kind, the results don’t bear thinking about. It’s hard to imagine a more high-profile target apparently so accessible.
OLD BAILEY SECURITY OFFICER JAILED FOR THEFT Leave a comment
Old Bailey security guard jailed for robbing lawyers
By MIKE SULLIVAN
Published: 16 Jun 2011 THE SUN
AN Old Bailey security guard was jailed for stealing phones, cash and WIGS from lawyers.
Police launched an undercover operation after QCs reported a series of thefts from their private robing room — one of the few areas of the famous court not covered by CCTV. Hidden cameras were installed and Ifamuyiwa Callisto was caught sneaking in during court sessions and rifling through lawyers’ lockers and jackets — 30 minutes after he called in sick. He also took a wallet that had been deliberately planted by cops and stuffed with dummy cash. Dad-of-three Callisto, 52, was arrested moments later. Police caught him with the photocopied banknotes and another wallet belonging to a leading lawyer. A search of the guard’s home in Tower Hamlets, East London, uncovered £1,900 of designer pens belonging to another leading QC. Nigerian Callisto, an ex-nurse who worked on the front desk monitoring staff and visitors at the Old Bailey, told cops: “It was easy pickings.” Callisto, who admitted three theft charges, was jailed for six months by Westminster Magistrates’ Court.
OBITUARY for Her Honour Judge Ann Goddard , QC. Leave a comment
Exemplary lawyer regarded as the shrewdest of opponents who was for many years the only woman judge at the Old Bailey
Ann Goddard was seen by many as the perfect tribunal. Courteous, firm, well prepared and conscious of her duty to all before her, an enviable calm temperament added dignity to anything she did, ideal in a trial judge. She saw herself as the holder of an office, and when she walked into the court she sought to leave Ann Goddard outside.
She need not have done — her personality could have been the template for even-handed justice. She came up through the ranks of the profession with stars against her name, one of the best lawyers of her generation, and a quiet, unfussy, compelling advocate. No fireworks, no grandstanding, simply talent, well applied.
Ann Felicity Goddard was born in London in 1936, the only child of Graham Elliott Goddard and Margaret Louise Hambrook Goddard, née Clark. Her father was a senior officer in the Metropolitan Police and in 1973 suffered a debilitating stroke. Ann and her mother cared for him for his remaining 11 years. Thereafter Goddard made sure her mother’s life lacked nothing she could supply — a generous standard of living, holidays, entertainment, and most tellingly her own company. By her mother’s death in 1995 Ann had surrendered her chances of marriage and children, had never lived in privacy, and had never complained.
After the Grey Coat Hospital School in Westminster and her undergraduate law degree at the University of Birmingham she read an LLM and secured a diploma in comparative legal studies at Newnham College, Cambridge. She was joint seventh in her Bar finals and was called in 1960 by Gray’s Inn, where she was a Holker scholar. The chronicle of achievement was under way.
After pupillage with Terry Gibbens in the then 4 now 6 King’s Bench Walk, the chambers of John Buzzard, QC, she secured a tenancy in 3 Temple Gardens where she remained for the rest of her life at the Bar. As a senior junior she was the advocate of choice for the highly discriminating Metropolitan Police Solicitor, representing him in the Divisional Court where her scholarship and “feel” for the criminal law allowed her to shine. Admitted to silk in 1982, Ann Goddard, QC, went on her inexorable way up the ladder of success. She never spoke badly of colleagues, she never set out to score dubious points, she never compromised her own quiet dignity, but she was the shrewdest of opponents and the most demanding of leaders.
She became head of chambers in 1985 and shouldered that demanding burden, without complaint, until 1993. No member of 3 Temple Gardens turned to her in a quandary, confusion, distress or anxiety professional or personal, and left feeling unsupported. Chambers was the first of two professional families she loved and which loved her.
Made a Bencher of Gray’s Inn in 1990, in 1993 she accepted an invitation to join the Circuit Bench and in 1997 became a Senior Circuit Judge within her second and final family, the Old Bailey. For a few years she was one of only two and for many years the only woman judge. She became a liveryman of the Worshipful Companies of Clockmakers and of Gardeners.
It was at the Old Bailey that from 2004-2005 she tried the Jubilee Line fraud, six men accused of corruption over the building of the extension to the Tube. The hearing was dogged by problems, including sickness, jury difficulties, and lengthy delays such that after nearly two years the Crown with the approval of the Director of Public Prosecutions concluded that a fair trial was no longer possible and sought the discharge of the jury. All six were formally cleared. Goddard was much affected by it. She felt, with some justification, that she had incurred criticism for the way she had performed a difficult balancing act. One simple solution, suggested to her but rejected, was to change the sitting times of the court to “Maxwell hours”, beginning not at 10.30 but at 09.30, with no luncheon adjournment and the end of the jury’s day at 13.30. Submissions on the law could be heard during the afternoon without disruption to the trial and the jurors could couple their civic duty with continuing their own lives. It was undoubtedly a bad mistake and may well have cost her the control of a difficult trial.
In 2001 she suffered an attack by a defendant accused of murder. He vaulted the open dock, ran on to the Bench, threw a glass carafe at her but missed, and punched her to the head and face several times. She was treated in hospital for a gash to her forehead. It was entirely in character that, as one member of the Bar present in court said: “Judge Goddard was more worried about the safety of everyone else rather than herself.” Docks were subsequently glassed in.
Her range of skill and experience made her a natural choice as director of the induction course at the Judicial Studies Board, the training ground for Recorders (members of the profession sitting part-time as judges) where she taught and supervised the teaching of courtcraft and the development of a judicial cast of mind. She was an outstanding success.
She retired from the Bench, as her age made compulsory, in 2008, and with reluctance. But she had begun to reconfigure her life, with plans for yet more foreign travel. She especially loved South Africa where she had cousins.
Though appropriately distant on the Bench and not beguiled into humour, which she thought unseemly in the setting of serious crime, she had a wonderful dry wit and matching deadpan delivery in private. In the past decade she was part of a theatre group, made up of a number of friends and colleagues but including all walks of life and all ages. She sparkled at the pre-theatre suppers, at ease seated next to an ambassador, a greengrocer, a music student, or a Justice of the Supreme Court, to whom she would offer a few tips over the salmon fishcakes.
Nine years ago her friend Ann Denison, the distinguished QC Ann Curnow, persuaded her, against her better judgment, to have a kitten. D’Israeli arrived and transformed her life. A Burmese aristocrat, Dizzy had, she assumed, rather modified his social milieu to come and live with her in South London. Some years ago he required special food whose packaging read “for the obese pet”. She remarked: “Thank goodness he can’t read.”
Goddard was, unsurprisingly, the perfect godmother to several godchildren, two of whom were with her in the hours before her death.
The legal profession began its mourning in its traditional way, with a brief tribute to her in Court One at the Old Bailey. Hundreds packed the court to mark the loss of a woman who gave much, asked little, and was loved and respected in equal proportion.
Her Honour Ann Goddard, QC, Senior Circuit Judge, was born on January 22, 1936. She died of cancer on March 23, 2011, aged 75
timesonline.
Stephen Jones , Keeper/Building Manager, retires. Leave a comment
“ For the trial of Huntley and Carr , they queued at 4 in the morning.”
by Frances Gibb
6th January , 2011.
It has its own ghosts, as befits the most famous court in the world. It even has its bodies. And after being in charge of the Old Bailey for nearly 20 years, naturally Stephen Jones knows where they are buried.
There is little, in fact, he does not know about the Central Criminal Court, from boiler room and heating to gutters and drains — and, of course, its history, whether public hangings and condemned cells or modern-day trials with technology and witness protection. Jones puts it rather more prosaically: “It’s total facility management. Lighting, ventilation, hot and cold water, security, cleaning, telephone services, catering … everything you need to run a building.”
In essence, it is ensuring that the 18 courts run each day. With a staff of 130 he has to liaise with the many organisations that use them, from the City of London Corporation, which owns the court, to the Prison Service, Witness Service, security, contract caterers and shorthand writers, judges, lawyers, police and press. In all, some 2,000 people a day pass through the doors.
The court is like no other. It consists of three buildings, including the 1907 Grade II* old courthouse that was built on the site of Newgate prison as well as the 1972 extension. It is the only Crown Court owned by a local authority and up to four times a year the Lord Mayor visits formally, in his role as Chief Magistrate of the City of London. “The central seat in every one of our 18 courts is reserved for the Lord Mayor.”
But what Jones calls its “iconic” status springs mainly from the unrivalled list of the criminals who have stood in its docks — usually Court 1. “I escorted a visiting judge once who said: ‘I don’t know what it does to defendants but it frightens the life out of me.’
“In Court 1 you are talking Crippen, Christie, Lord Haw-Haw, the Kray twins, Sutcliffe, Neilson [Black Panther]; Dennis Nilsen, Sonnex [killer of two French students] … the list goes on and on of names known across the country for their particular nastiness.
” Jones cuts an imposing figure, in morning suit (as required by the job) and bearing a huge bunch of keys. “Most people know who I am.” The vast boiler room below the courts bears a sign barring entry save by permission of the Keeper. He also wears safety shoes to prevent slipping or conduction of electricity.
The job has greatly changed in 20 years, chiefly because of the onerous demands of health and safety laws, including fire regulations. “I agree with Lord Young [his recent report on the compensation culture] — you need a bit of common sense.”
Jones is also one of the few people with access to the roofs, nestling below the famous figure of Lady Justice. One midnight emergency entailed tackling water cascading into Court 1: “You go up to the roof, climb all over the slopes, find the drain, remove dead pigeon … water clears. That day Court 1 sat. But it can be a bit cold and wet up there.”
Then there is dealing with judges, lawyers and police. “Case officers always think their case is unique.” In the trial of Paul Burrell, butler to Diana, Princess of Wales, the case officer was worried about his valuable exhibits, wanting special arrangements.
“I took him to another court and showed him £4 million worth of drugs on the table — and about £2 million worth of [criminal] proceedings. I said, ‘Now tell me again about the value of exhibits.’ They realise we do have experience and know what we’re talking about.”
He arranges witness protection, such as a portable witness box that can be placed under the public gallery, or curtains for vulnerable witnesses. Sometimes the Crown or defence object and Jones has to explain the reasons for the measures to the judge.
Jones, who joined after a career in the Royal Navy as “writer”, in charge of pay, cash accounting, records, manuals, advising on the law as well as arranging some courts martial, came after the IRA car bombing of the Old Bailey. But in his time a defendant leapt from the dock, striking Judge Ann Goddard and prompting dock barriers to be raised.
The empanelling of the jury in the Maxwell trial and the screening of 750 potential witnesses with questionnaires was also memorable. And all the while there is intense public interest in trials: “For Huntley and Carr they queued at 4 in the morning. And there were huge queues for Lord Archer.”
Jones loves the building’s history and in his own time conducts guided tours — relishing tales of Dead Man’s Walk, a reconstructed corridor of narrowing arches down which the condemned would walk to their execution in the Old Bailey, the name of the street outside; and of the bodies of the hanged, buried in the walk itself; the public spectacle of executions (“days of feasting and bingeing”) and ghosts such as the Lady in the White.
As Keeper he lives on the job and he admits it can be “spooky”. “It’s not a great place to live; the clock flies off the wall, the pictures turn 90 degrees. Some of it is unexplained.”
But it is all now coming to an end. Jones, 65 this month, is off with his wife to Merseyside to retire. What will he take away? “I shall miss the people here — it’s a team. I have a very loyal staff. But I think it is time to go.”
OLD BAILEY FACTS
*It stands on site of West Gate of the Roman City of London and medieval gate on which Newgate Prison was later built
*The architect was Edward Mountford, who chose his baroque design to complement the nearby dome of St Paul’s
* The statute of Justice crowning the court stands 60m above the steet and is 3.7m high, is cast in bronze and covered in gold leaf. The arm span is 2.4m. The right hand carries the sword of retribution and the left the scales of justice. Unlike most statues of justice, she is not blindfolded.
* The name the Old Bailey comes from name of the street beside which the site stands – and in turn from the name Norman “Baillie” or fortified place
* Early trials included those of the regicidies in the 1660s and the case of the Quakers Penn and Mead in 1670 – establishing the right of jurors to reach a verdict according to conscience
*The courthouse has 18 courts, handles 1,700 cases a year and costs the City of London Corporation £9 million a year to run
* 700,000 people pass through its doors a year
* The Recorder of London is the senior permanent judge and sits daily with 13 other circuit judges and some other High Court judges or circuit judges attached for short periods
* Prisoners who were sentenced to death were taken from Newgate to Tyburn (near the present day Marble Arch) for public execution via horse-drawn cart
* Jailers would stop for a drink and take the prisoner in with them but would declare: “Not for him – he’s on the wagon.”
* Hangings were in the days before the drop, and the prisoner would use his last few coins to pay friends to grab his body to speed his demise – the “hangers on”.
* In 1783 the streets leading to Tyburn became gridlocked and public executions moved to the Old Bailey
* Executions were such popular public events that, in 1807, 29 people were killed in the crush
* The last public execution in the Old Bailey took place in 1868; Michael Barrett, a Fenian, was convicted of a plot to blow up Clerkenwell House of Detention
* Ghosts of the Old Bailey include the Lady in White, seen in the area of the court that now houses the Probation Service. It is said to be that of Elizabeth Dwyer who was a “baby farmer” or foster carer. She drowned her charges in the Thames. She was convicted and hanged in the Old Bailey
* Another ghost is that of a gentleman who was incarcerated in Newgate Prison in the 14th century. Fellow prisoners killed and ate him, describing the meal as “passing fyne meat.” In revenge, legend has it that Scholler came back as a black dog and terrorised Warwick Square (behind the court)
* Information from the City of London Corporation and Stephen Jones, Random Jottings from the Old Bailey, in Criminal Bar Quarterly.
The 10 most shocking jury indiscretions Leave a comment
From The Times
Gary Slapper
June 12, 2008
The 10 most shocking jury indiscretions
The jury that said no to the judge
In 1670, two Quakers, William Mead and William Penn, were facing an unfair charge “seditious assembly” after preaching in London. The jury refused to convict. The judge angrily locked them up for two nights without meat, drink, fire, tobacco or a chamber pot. The jurors were all punished by hefty fine and were imprisoned pending payment. Four, led by John Bushell, refused to pay and spent months in prison. They were eventually released by another judge. The case established the jury’s right to follow its own conscience even if that meant contradicting the opinion of the judge.
Sex and hysterics
In 1987 Cynthia Payne was found not guilty of charges of controlling prostitutes. She organised sex parties for gain in a suburban house in Streatham, southwest London. Some of the clients were senior police officers, former squadron leaders and senior citizens. During the trial the jury had to consider scenes of tumultuous partying recounted by police officers who had attended the parties in disguise. When the uniformed police burst in they found distinguished gentlemen having sex with women on the stairs, in beds and in the bath. The jury repeatedly fell into hysterical laughter. The judge warned them that the case was “a criminal trial, not a form of entertainment”. But they seemed to disagree, acquitting Ms Payne in the teeth of all the evidence.
Not the spirit of the law
In 1993 Stephen Young, 35, was unanimously convicted by a jury at Hove Crown Court in East Sussex of two murders. He was jailed for life. It later came to light, however, that during the time the jury was out, three jurors who were wavering about the best verdict used a Ouija board to consult with one of Mr Young’s alleged victims. They held a séance to ask the victims who killed them. A juror claimed that they conjured up the spirit of Harry Fuller, who was killed with his wife Nicola. The spirit allegedly confirmed that the defendant was their killer. Using the board, the jurors had spelled out the name of the victims, the type of gun referred to in the evidence and the message: “Vote guilty tomorrow.” The Court of Appeal ordered a new trial. Mr Young was again convicted – this time on the basis of terrestrial evidence.
A very criminal court
An Old Bailey judge was forced to order a retrial when two jurors nearly came to blows after one had accused the other of burgling his flat. The row had been simmering from the very start of the burglary trial in 1993 when, during a break for legal submissions, one juror accused the other of smoking in a no-smoking area. Two days later the accuser arrived in court in a foul mood because his home had been burgled. He immediately blamed the other juror calling him a ***** ***** and claiming that he had taken his name and address from a label on his rucksack. As tempers threatened to boil over the two jurors were dismissed.
What kind of chavery is this?
In 1996 in London a trial took place involving what became known as the Jury from Hell. The jury was trying a man called Ray Lee for the killing of a young police constable, PC Walters, in Ilford, Essex. The jury maddened barristers, caused untold anguish to the deceased’s parents, left an usher in tears and the taxpayer with a £250,000 bill. The jury appeared to be unusually young and immature, squabbled over the issue of smoking, sent notes complaining about each other to the judge, demanded a change of hotel to one with a gym 30 miles away, then turned up late one morning because some of them had been working out. Two jurors spent their breaks passionately connected in the court corridor. Eventually, when they failed to reach a verdict, the judge dismissed them and ordered a retrial.
Today you will meet an angry judge
In July 1998, a juror at Newcastle upon Tyne Crown Court was barred from the trial of a man charged with grievous bodily harm after he requested the defendant’s star sign so he could reach a verdict. The juror, a man in his twenties, had written a note to the judge asking for the accused’s exact time and date of birth so that he could draw up an astrological chart to see what it foretold. Judge Esman Faulks discharged the juror on the ground that consulting such a chart fell outside the terms of his oath to consider only the facts before the court.
An awful cuff-up
A jury at a trial at Lewes Crown Court, East Sussex, had been considering its verdict for four hours in 1998 when the judge was told “the foreman has handcuffed himself”. The trial was of four men accused of planning a jewel robbery. After hearing that the gang planned to use a pair of handcuffs on a Brighton shop assistant before raiding the safe, the foreman of the jury decided to experiment with the evidence while deliberating a verdict. He locked the hand-cuff and ratcheted it tight but then learnt that there was no key to free him. The judge sent for the fire brigade but then remembered that the law prevented outsiders from entering the jury room or speaking to jurors. As the foreman sat grimacing in pain, legal minds wrestled with the tricky issues raised. Finally, barristers agreed that the courtroom should be cleared and the foreman was freed with bolt cutters.
The terrible cost of cough
A defendant at Cardiff Crown Court was mistakenly sentenced to two years in prison in April 1999 all because a juror happened to cough at an inopportune moment. Unable to stifle a tickle at the back of his throat the juror coughed just as the foreman was announcing the verdict of “not guilty” with the result that the noise drowned out the word “not”. Judge Michael Gibbon thinking that the defendant, Alan Rashid, had been found guilty on the charge of making a threat to kill, promptly jailed him for two years, thanked the jury for their efforts during the two-day trial and released them. The puzzled jurors assumed that Mr Rashid was being sentenced for other offences of which they were unaware, until, on the way out of the building, one juror asked an usher why Mr Rashid had been sent down after being found “not guilty”. The official realised there had been a blunder and called everyone back into court. Mr Rashid was freed.
40 per cent proof
At Southwark Crown Court, south east London, in 1999, a juror caught drinking vodka brought to a halt a multimillion-pound trial. The woman started sipping vodka when the jury was sent to a private room to consider its verdicts. She had smuggled the vodka into court hidden in a lemonade bottle and became so tipsy that her fellow jurors wrote a note to the judge. He immediately ordered them into court where he watched in amazement as the juror had to be helped to her seat. He ordered the jury to cease deliberations and go home so the woman could sleep off the drink. He said: “It is plain to those who have dealt with her that she is profoundly drunk and nothing can be achieved without her having a very long sleep.” What was the trial? Of course, it concerned an illegal trade in alcohol.
A private matter
This event, recounted by Sir John Mortimer, QC, concerns an indecency case. A woman witness was giving evidence and was asked what the man in the dock had said to her. She was too embarrassed to repeat it in court, so the judge asked her to write it down. She wrote “would you care for a screw?” This document was passed around the jury until it reached juror No 12, an elderly gentleman who was fast asleep. Sitting next to him was a pretty young lady. She read the note, nudged her neighbour and, when he was awake, handed it to him. He woke with a start, read it and, with apparent satisfaction, folded it and put it carefully away in his wallet. When the judge said: “Let that note be handed up to me”, the juryman shook his head and said: “No need, it’s purely a private matter, My Lord.”
Professor Gary Slapper is Director of the Centre for Law at The Open University
theoldbailey 