CHAPTER 10

I sat at my desk in chambers reading through the paperwork for an upcoming disciplinary hearing at which I would be representing one of a group of senior doctors who had been accused of professional misconduct over the untimely death of a patient in their hospital.

The phone on my desk rang. It was Arthur.

‘Mr Mason,’ he said ‘There’s someone here to see you. He’s in the clerks’ room.’

‘Who is it?’ I asked.

‘He won’t say,’ said Arthur, clearly disapproving. ‘He just insists on talking to you, and only you.’

How odd, I thought.

‘Shall I bring him along?’ Arthur asked.

‘Yes please,’ I said. ‘But will you stay here until I ask you to leave?’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘But why?’

‘Just in case I need a witness,’ I said. But I hoped I wouldn’t. Surely Julian Trent wouldn’t show up and demand to see me in my room.

I put the phone down. It was a general rule hereabouts that members of chambers met with clients and visitors only in one of the conference rooms on the lower ground floor but, since I had returned to work after Cheltenham, Arthur had been kind enough to grant me special dispensation to meet people in my room. Climbing up and down even just a few stairs on crutches wasn’t easy, particularly as the stairs in question were narrow and turning.

There was a brief knock on the door and Arthur entered, followed by a nervous looking man with white hair wearing the same light coloured tweed jacket and blue and white striped shirt that I had seen before in court number 3 at the Old Bailey. However, his shirt had then been open at the collar whereas now a neat red and gold tie completed his ensemble. It was the schoolmasterly foreman of the jury whom I had last glimpsed when I’d had my foot in his front door in Hendon.

‘Hello, Mr Barnett,’ I said to him. ‘Come on in. Thank you, Arthur, that will be all.’

Arthur looked at me with a questioning expression and I smiled back at him. Eventually, he turned on his heel and left me alone with my visitor. I stood up clumsily and held out my hand. George Barnett approached cautiously and briefly shook it.

‘Please sit down,’ I said to him, indicating the chair in front of my desk.

‘Did Trent do that?’ he asked, pointing at the cast that stretched from my left foot to my upper thigh.

‘No,’ I replied. ‘I had a fall.’

‘I had one of those last June,’ he said. ‘In my bathroom. Cracked my pelvis.’

‘Mine was from a horse,’ I said. ‘In a race.’

‘Oh,’ he said.

‘Smashed my knee,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ he said again.

I didn’t bother telling him about the cracked vertebrae, the broken ribs and the collapsed lung. Or the concussion that, seven weeks later, still plagued me with headaches.

We sat for a moment in silence while he looked around at the mass of papers and boxes that filled almost every available inch of space in my room.

‘Mr Barnett,’ I said, bringing his attention back to my face. ‘How can I help you?’

‘I thought it was me who needed to help you,’ he said.

‘Yes, indeed,’ I said, slightly surprised. ‘Yes, please. Would you like some coffee or tea?’

‘Tea would be lovely,’ he said. ‘Milk and one sugar.’

I lifted the phone on my desk and asked one of the junior clerks if he would be kind enough to fix it.

‘Now, Mr Barnett,’ I said. ‘Tell me everything.’

He was reluctant at first but he relaxed when the tea arrived, and the whole sorry story was spilled out.

‘I was initially pleased when I received the summons for jury service,’ he said. ‘I had been retired for about four years and I thought it would be interesting, you know, stimulating for the mind.’

‘What had you retired from?’ I asked him.

‘I was in the Civil Service,’ he said. I had been wrong about him having been a schoolmaster. ‘I was a permanent undersecretary in the Lord Chancellor’s Department, but it’s called something else now, Constitutional Affairs or something. They change everything, this government.’ It didn’t sound like he approved.

‘Had you done jury service before?’ I asked.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I was called once, years ago, but I was exempt through my work in the administration of justice. But they’ve changed the law on that now too. Even judges and the police now have to serve on juries if they are summoned.’

I knew. Lawyers used to be excluded too, but not any more.

‘So tell me what happened,’ I encouraged.

He looked around him as if about to tell a big secret that he didn’t want anyone else to overhear. ‘I turned up at the Old Bailey as I had been asked to and there were a whole load of us. We sat around for ages in the jury area. Then we were given a talk about being a juror and it was all rather exciting. We were made to feel important, if you know what I mean.’

I nodded. I suspected that, as a permanent under-secretary, he had indeed been quite important in the Civil Service but retirement had brought a return to anonymity. Like the headmasters of the great British public schools who may have princes and lords hanging on their every word while they are in post, only to be turned out to fairly low-paid pasture and obscurity on the day they depart. George Barnett would have enjoyed once again being made to feel important, as we all would.

‘In the end,’ he said. ‘I spent the whole of the first day sitting in the jury collection area reading the newspapers. When I was told I could go home, I was rather disappointed. But the following day I was selected for a trial. I remember being so excited by the prospect.’ He paused. ‘That was a mistake.’ He smiled ruefully at me.

‘The Trent trial?’ I said.

He nodded. ‘It was all right for a while,’ he said. ‘Then during the first weekend a man came to see me at home.’ He paused again. ‘He said he was from the jury service so I let him in.’

‘Did he give a name?’ I asked him.

‘Not at first,’ he said. ‘But then he said he was Julian Trent’s father, but I don’t think he actually was.’

‘Why not?’ I said.

‘I called him Mr Trent a couple of times and I didn’t think he realized I was talking to him.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Well, when he gave me that name I immediately told him to leave,’ he said. ‘I knew that we shouldn’t talk to anyone about the case, especially notto the defendant’s family. But he wouldn’t go away. Instead, he offered me money to vote not guilty.’

I sat quietly, waiting for him to continue.

‘I told him to go to hell,’ he said. ‘But…’ He tailed off, clearly distressed by the memory. I waited some more.

‘But he just sat there on a chair in my living room and looked around him. He said that I had a nice place and it would be a shame if I lost it all, or if my wife was injured in an accident.’ He stopped again. ‘I asked him what he meant. He just smiled and said to work it out.’

‘So did you vote not guilty?’ I asked.

‘My wife has Parkinson’s disease,’ he said. ‘And a bad heart.’ I assumed that meant yes, he had. ‘I knew that you only need ten of the twelve people on the jury to vote guilty in England to convict, so my vote wouldn’t really matter.’ I suppose he was trying to justify himself, and to excuse his behaviour. But he must surely have realized that the man would approach other jurors too.

‘So what happened in the jury room?’ I asked him. It was against the law for him to tell me and I could quite likely get disbarred for even just asking him, but what difference did one more misdemeanour matter, I thought. I could have been disbarred for lots of things I had done, or not done, recently.

‘There was a terrific row,’ he said. ‘Nine of them said straight away that they thought he was guilty as hell. There were three of us who didn’t.’ He stopped and looked up at the ceiling. ‘I think now that the man must have been to see all three of us. None of us could give any reason for saying he was not guilty. We just did. The others thought we were mad. One or two of them got really angry as the time dragged on and on.’