Instantly the room was filled the noise of sirens. The world of expensive suits and measured words receded, replaced by the loud, messy aftermath of the crash, projected onto the pristine white walls. They all watched transfixed as Harry – the driver, the person who had just caused so much damage and pain – swayed in and out of the frame, his face sometimes visible, sometimes not. The officer was moving around a lot as well, the camera picking up the crashed car, the emergency services on the scene, even the shadowy crowd gathered in the distance. But the focus kept returning to Harry. A sweaty-faced, bloodstained, wild-eyed, incoherent Harry. The crackly, discordant audio bounced around the conference room, hurtful to their ears. Harry was rambling – by turns aggressive, then pathetic. A flood of guttural panic gushing out of him, unmoderated, unchecked. The officer kept telling him to stay put, to leave it to the professionals, that there was nothing he could do.
Dom tore his horrified attention away from the screen and looked at his son. Harry was staring at the wall. Catatonic.
On the video the officer asked, ‘Who was driving, Harry?’
‘What?’ Even that small word sounded slurred.
‘I want to know who was driving the car, Harry? Look at me, lad! Was it you who was driving?’
At this point in the footage Harry turned away and started shouting again, a jumble of words, some of which were discernible. ‘Be careful with her. No! Please!’
The officer persisted. ‘Leave them to it, Harry. They know what they’re doing. I want you to answer my question. Were you driving the car, Harry?’
Harry’s face swung back into frame, in close-up. He looked terrified. ‘Yeah. It was me. Me driving. It’s my car. Oh God. Oh God. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’
A click.
The images disappeared from the wall, but not from Dom’s mind. It had been like being there, on the ring road, trapped inside his son’s panic. The footage brought home to Dom just how much of a nightmare the crash had been. He felt a sudden urge to reach out and touch Harry, offer some comfort, but the presence of the lawyers stopped him.
Ross picked up again, smoothly. ‘There’s no need to view any more of the tape, as that’s the salient section they’ll be submitting in court.’ He referred them back to the binder. ‘This is where the toxicology report comes in. Clean for drugs, as we expected. And for alcohol: ninety-eight milligrams per hundred, on the blood sample.’ He tapped the page. ‘Less, or none, detected would obviously have been better, but ninety-eight – that’s not disastrous. The issue for us is Harry’s behaviour on the tape. Unfortunately it plays into the reports of him being drunk on the night, though on this we can show the undue influence of Jake Hammond’s behaviour at the party. There is a case to be made that Jake’s drunkenness had a halo-effect on witness testimony. They tarred Harry with the same brush, et cetera.’
He waved his hand expansively. ‘In fact I’m not overly worried about the party hearsay. Most of the witness statements can be challenged, due to the generally high levels of intoxicants consumed by nearly everyone present. But the tape remains damaging. We need to put it into context, and for that we need to talk about the impact that shock can have on a person, in terms of behaviour, speech and clarity of thought. For this, I’d like to draw your attention to the expert witness statements in Section F, pages twenty-four to thirty-two. We intend to show that what we’re seeing on this video is a young man in profound shock. We need to get the court to realise that Harry’s demeanour is evidence of someone who is acutely distressed about what is happening to his friends, in front of his eyes; not proof of intoxication and guilt. Our expert thinks that isn’t going to be that difficult, given the impact of the crash, Harry’s closeness to the people in the car, the trauma…’
They all looked at Harry. His eyes flicked round the table, settling on no one. His expression was impossible to read.
Ross went on, ‘The second factor the prosecution is relying on, to get the charge to stick, is “excessive speed”. This is where it gets technical. The angle and depth of the skid marks on the road, and the tracks on the grass, are the basis for evidence here; and the good thing is that, with road analysis, there’s always leeway for interpretation. We’re on that, aren’t we, Mia?’
The silent, note-taking assistant nodded. Dom wondered how much of the legwork she was doing, and how many of those long hours were being charged as Ross’s expensive endeavour.
‘There are, as we know, no witnesses from the night, other than passengers in the car.’ This time he referred to his notes. ‘The only person to make any comment about the speed the car was travelling was Leticia Reynolds, and her perception can be presented as unreliable, given her consumption of alcohol and’ – here he actually smiled – ‘cannabis. Apparently she was very forthcoming about smoking a joint before going out that evening, and that she shared another one at the party.’
Dom was impressed with their thoroughness. Ross wasn’t finished.
‘Road conditions are of no help. Too benign. So we’ll leave that alone. There’s no point fighting battles you can’t win. It tends to weaken your case. But there is one other thing I wanted to raise.’ More paper-shuffling and page-turning. When he looked up, Ross focused exclusively on Harry. ‘I want to return to your claim that there was something in the road that caused you to swerve, but that you couldn’t say what it was. I know we’ve raised our concerns that this statement is too vague and unsubstantiated to be helpful. That it is, in fact, harmful, as it feeds into an argument about lack of attention, which, in turn, supports the prosecution’s contention of “dangerous” driving. But I wanted to check: do you have anything more to add, Harry?’
The pressure in the room built. At last Harry responded. ‘Like I said…Jess suddenly shouted to watch out.’
‘And you still have no idea why she shouted?’
They all stared at Harry, waiting for more.
‘She just shouted. I guess I reacted. Pulled the wheel a fraction. I don’t know. Maybe that’s what made us crash. I don’t know.’ He folded his arms.
Ross, suave as ever, made a note on his folder. ‘That’s honest, but doesn’t help us, I’m afraid. No matter. We’ll put a pin in it for now. We can always circle back to that another time.’ He flipped over some more pages in the folder. ‘The last issue we want to discuss today – and it is a critical one, when it comes to mitigating factors – is “character”. It’s an amazingly influential area, when it comes to trials. We need to make sure we maximise the fact that – up until this incident – Harry has been an exemplary young man. Well liked, a good student, hard-working, responsible, trustworthy. As you’ll see, we have ample statements from his tutors, his employers at his holiday job at the showroom, some of your family friends. It builds a solid picture of Harry being “of good character”. All of which will be presented. As you know, the issue of the footage from Mohir Akhtar’s phone has been contentious, in terms of its relevance. Teenage relationships are hardly a matter for the courts to have an opinion on, and we are still challenging its admissibility. Overall I think it’s fair to say that we’re in a strong position when it comes to Harry’s character.’