Fit Up (7 page)

A
lthough the months since Jeremy’s arrest had been painful and difficult to get through, there was always hope that it would have all gone away by the return to bail interview. We had both been pinning so much on it as, by this time, not many people knew what had happened and there was a chance we could have returned to our normal, carefree lives. These charges were a stunning blow and I am not ashamed to say that the thought of all this coming out in the public domain, and the damage it could do to our reputations, was quite terrifying. Child pornography is such an abhorrent subject that I felt convinced that no one would believe our story, and Jeremy’s innocence.

The day after Jeremy was charged, he was fired up and said he had to see Hamilton the following week. They were both confident that the police evidence was weak and that the case would be thrown out quite early on. It was a glimmer of hope to grasp on to and we relayed this to our families. Our parents looked as petrified as we did and although we were not feeling confident ourselves, we had to keep up their spirits. We had distractions in our daily lives but they, being retired, had time to mull over every detail.

Jeremy had been given a date for his first court appearance, which would be on 9 August at Watford Magistrates’ Court. I asked Jeremy if
this was a hearing to get the case dismissed, but he said it was just a hearing for his pleadings, which was obviously going to be ‘not guilty’. He said it was just a formality and that, if Hamilton was to be believed, this would be over shortly after. Well, we knew Jeremy was innocent, but we had to put our faith in the justice system.

I was really worried about Jeremy. He was putting on a confident front and trying to sort out the business, but I could see all this was taking its toll. Neither of us slept much. He was comfort eating and I continued to bite my nails until it hurt, which I came to see as a form of self-harm. This infuriated Jeremy but by this point I wasn’t even aware that I was doing it.

I tried to carry on bravely with my work, my mouth was constantly dry and my body racked with nerves. I talked to John from time to time to update him and he tried his best to help me be optimistic. What was worrying was he would often say that, in his opinion, the police couldn’t be trusted. I put on a cheerful front which was an act for everyone else to treat me normally. I could not cope with sympathy as it just made me emotional and I was afraid that if I started to cry, I would never stop. The threat of tears was always there and it was exhausting.

On the day of the hearing, Jeremy called me to say that he had met with the barrister, Mr Akin-Olugbade, and had pleaded not guilty to the magistrates. It had been ordered that the case should be dealt with at the Crown Court because of its serious nature. Jeremy continued to say that the hearing was short and when the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) read out the charges, he was surprised to hear that they were dropping the incitement charge involving the credit card transactions. This was confusing because it was on the evidence of the credit card transactions that a judge signed a search warrant to get into our home and shop, and now all of a sudden it did not matter. I remembered that during the raid Patel and Burn had been adamant that this incitement charge was the ‘substantial evidence’ that they had on Jeremy. We then wondered where
the police were going to go with their case with the remaining charges of making the images that were found on the Tiny computer.

Jeremy had said that there were press there as well as some members of the public and he thought everyone looked at him as though he was the vilest person on the planet.

I asked Jeremy if he wanted me to come home but he said no, he would see me later as he wanted to get back to the shop to get some editing done. Before he hung up he said that he had seen Hopkins at the court and approached him. Astonished, I shouted at him for his stupidity and said that I wouldn’t have given him the time of day. ‘Why, oh why did you want to speak to him?’ I asked. He explained that it was because he wanted to see if he could glean any information from him. Jeremy had asked Hopkins if his name would appear in the papers and he said he did not know but that members of the press and general public were allowed to sit in on most court hearings.

The barrister who was representing Jeremy told him that the charges wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny and the case would more than likely be thrown out. This was encouraging because, after all, they were in the know about how the law and the courts worked, and we hung on to any morsel of comfort like this.

Hamilton contacted Jeremy to say that he was waiting for the CPS to provide a complete bundle of evidence and then he would want to see him to discuss further case preparations. This was likely to be near the date for committal, although he should start looking for a computer forensic expert to support him. Hamilton had not yet instructed an expert as they would need to see the evidence to assess the accuracy of any conclusions drawn by the police forensic expert and to review methodology. Jeremy and I had seen names of various experts throughout our internet searches for information about Operation Ore but now we would start to actively look around.

A couple of weeks after this hearing Hopkins emailed me to say that
we could collect the rest of our possessions from Hoddesdon Police Station. Another afternoon off work for us both, I thought, especially as he had asked if we could be there before 6 p.m. This would be the fourth property return and I still had the list that WPC Holder had supplied to me back in February. We could see what was due to us from this list, although she had put it together after our property was looked through at the police station rather than as an inventory taken at the house. This was the best we were going to get, however.

I hated every moment with Hopkins, listening to his little jokes. As we went through the listings, it appeared that we had the balance of our property, including the last two computers, with the exception of the one sold to Gerard of course. We signed off the property sheet, filled up the car with our goods and went home. The computers and various boxes filled with our stuff had to sit in the lounge until we either sorted through them or just put them into storage.

We thought it would be handy to fire up the returned computers as there might be items on them that would be needed for the business. One of them, however, would not work. Whatever had been done to it in scanning the hard drive had certainly broken it and this was confirmed later by our computer forensic expert. Whether on purpose or through bad practice, we didn’t know, but it was another business loss. We would have to claim for it at the end of these proceedings.

From that point on it was a round of meetings and phone calls with Hamilton in order to prepare for a trial. The CPS’s case, with what they had left, was at best shaky and every person involved in law or who had had dealings with such cases said it would be thrown out eventually. However, we still had to be prepared for the worst and Jeremy would call me at work with questions from Hamilton that he could not answer, which, in turn, made me a nervous wreck.

On one such occasion, Jeremy called with a question about the Tiny
computer. He was with Hamilton preparing for a court hearing coming up on 4 October, and needed to know when we’d bought it. I was at home at the time and could not remember off the top of my head. He said not to worry for the moment but we would need the information. Once Jeremy was off the phone I immediately went up to the loft to look through the company books, invoices and receipts, anxious to get back with the answers that were needed. For some idiotic reason I thought that if I could field each answer successfully it would erode the police case and we wouldn’t need to go to court.

Sitting in the cold, damp loft, I ignored the stiffening ache in my fingers as I sifted through the pages and then, suddenly, there it was. In the dim lamplight I was able to make out the purchase receipt for the Tiny computer which confirmed that we had purchased it on 30 March 2001 and sold it to Gerard on 21 June 2002. There was also the accountant’s ledger, which also showed the transactions. I had no idea at this stage how crucially significant these dates would be in the future.

Excitedly I phoned Jeremy to give him the information, but he didn’t sound as excited as I had hoped. Instead, he said that we had homework to do. While I had spent ages searching for the answer to that one question, Hamilton had more questions that needed to be answered. On top of that, there had been disclosure from the CPS in the form of various statements from Hopkins, the police forensic experts and, most horrifying of all, a statement from Gerard. He was going to be their main independent witness and his statement was one giant evil lie. Yes, there was no doubt that his testimony could be disproved once forensics had been done on our side, but his comments were surely damaging and it was no wonder that the CPS were pressing on.

I noted from the statement that Gerard had made it on 19 July, which was the very day that Jeremy was charged. We were shocked to see that Gerard had stated within his witness statement for the police:

Whenever Jeremy had been in conversation with Hamilton or at meetings with anybody to do with this case, I found that he would become quickly irritated from having to constantly defend himself, and he would then lose confidence. We were caught in a process that was going to be difficult to stop. Once independent and strong, always the protector of me, Jeremy was weakening. It was going to be down to me to get us out of this mess and I felt the full weight of this responsibility.

Jeremy had been saying for a while that he was not happy with his relationship with Hamilton but I wanted him to stick with him as he had already got rid of Stephen Bennett. It wasn’t until I saw an email on Jeremy’s PC that I began to understand what was happening. It read:

It was a cry for help for someone to save him.

T
he strain had been getting too much for both of us with Jeremy keeping the business going under the constant pressure of hiding our secret from his bookkeeper, Julie, and any suppliers. Although the court appearances had not generated any news in the local press, Gerard’s knowledge was our biggest worry. What had he been saying? we wondered. We knew there would be no stopping him; the knowledge would have been a gift for him.

Jeremy was confident, just from her general manner, that Julie knew nothing, and they continued to work well together. She had a young son and he was sure that she would have resigned by this time had she known. On this subject he knew she would be the type to decide he was guilty before hearing the evidence and it was for this reason he could not confide in her.

We needed a break from all this and I persuaded Jeremy to have a long weekend in Spain. We had an apartment in Estepona, bought a couple of years before with his mother and her partner. We had not made much use of it recently for obvious reasons and thought that a change of scenery and nice weather would do us good.

We took an early flight on Friday 10 September from Luton airport and were excited by the prospect of a nice romantic weekend on our own.

Landing in brilliant sunshine, high blue skies and bathed in warmth, we picked up our hire car and made our way to Estepona. It was a half-hour drive with mountainous scenery and panoramic sea views most of the way. With each mile travelled, we felt the strain of the last few months lifting and allowed ourselves to relax.

After stopping off at a supermarket for some supplies we parked up and made our way to the door of our apartment. Inside it was shrouded in darkness and we walked around each room opening up the shutters to let the sunshine in. The same could be said of our troubled minds.

Quickly settling in, we had a light lunch and then changed into our bathing suits to catch the afternoon sun on the balcony, which overlooked beautiful gardens and an inviting swimming pool. This was where I had planned to spend the whole afternoon, just relaxing. We had already agreed that conversation about the police case was off limits and surprisingly quickly our hearts and minds were back to where they had been before it had all begun. For Jeremy’s sake, I was glad that his furrowed brow had smoothed out, and the dark circles around his eyes seemed to be disappearing by the minute. We were like a couple of honeymooners again, just enjoying being together, having a bit of a laugh and a feeling of peace.

We had both been dozing on the sunbeds when, later in the afternoon, Jeremy’s mobile phone rang. He said it was Julie, who was covering at the shop, and stepped into the lounge to take the call.

After about ten minutes, Jeremy returned and sat on the sunbed next to me. He was looking down at his feet and I could see that he was seriously troubled by the phone call. I waited for him to find the words – it seemed like an eternity, and my heart pounded hard in anticipation. Finally, he said that Julie had received a call from a customer calling himself Geoff Goldie.

She had said that this man had engaged her in conversation regarding
video equipment and that she had helped with the technical information as best she could without having to resort to calling Jeremy. ‘Jeremy,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, but Mr Goldie has said that you are not in Spain today but in court as a paedophile.’

Jeremy said that he felt like the wind had been knocked out of him as he tried to take it all in but worse was when she added that Geoff Goldie had said that he knew it was true because he had got the information from a DC Brian Hopkins of Hertfordshire Police.

Jeremy put his head in his shaking hands and then got up to walk around, thinking about what to do. He was wobbly on his feet and his face was flushed red. ‘Do you think we missed something in the papers?’ I said. I didn’t know what else to say and that cold fear was back.

‘What did you say to Julie?’ I asked. Jeremy said he had tried to reassure her that this was probably a business rival, but he felt that her voice gave away a feeling of mistrust and doubt. However, the one thing we were sure about was there was one person who would do such a thing, and that was Gerard.

Jeremy was pacing around, nervous and irritated, wondering what to do. I told him that he had Hopkins’s mobile number and that he should call him to tell him what had happened, and that he thought Gerard might be responsible for the call. Is that how their witness should be behaving? he should ask.

Jeremy called Hopkins and firstly apologised for calling him direct as he knew this was a breach of protocol, but he didn’t know what else to do. Jeremy filled him in on the details of Julie’s phone call and Hopkins became flustered and agitated. He made an attempt at an apology and said he would deal with it and get back to him. A little while later Hopkins called to say that the matter had been dealt with and that Jeremy should not be troubled any further.

For us, however, the matter was not closed. We could no longer relax
on our break knowing that the conversation between Julie and this ‘Geoff Goldie’ was waiting to be heard back at the shop on our black box telephone recorder.

Although we had only just arrived in Spain, Jeremy’s next call was to book us on the first flight home, which was not until the next day. We tried to enjoy what was left of our break and went for dinner down by the sea front, but we were both lost in our own terrified thoughts. It was another twist of the knife in our continuing nightmare.

We finally arrived back at the shop on Sunday afternoon. We went quietly through the back door and left the shutters closed as we sat down with a cup of coffee, ready to listen to the voice recorder.

Jeremy looked at the menu showing calls in and out on 10 September and noted that there were two incoming calls from the same number. ‘Let’s try this one,’ he said. We sat and listened to the ringing tone, then heard Julie answer with the usual greeting: ‘UK Professional Video.’ There was no mistaking the next voice we heard. We both looked at each other and said in unison, ‘It’s Gerard,’ at which point we both laughed, although it was really no laughing matter. We listened intently to these two conversations.

The first conversation between the two of them began with a man, whom we were sure was Gerard, calling himself Geoff Goldie, pretending to be a potential customer and enquiring about professional camcorders. Julie was fielding the questions very well and holding her own and then suddenly ‘Geoff’ interrupted her.

‘Do you mind if I bring up another topic?’

Julie replied, ‘Yeah?’

‘Geoff’ continued: ‘That might freak you out but I thought I’d mention it. I’m gonna go for it because I think you’re honest and I do genuinely get the impression that you’re operating to instructions if you know what I mean.’

Julie replied, ‘Yeah, I am, yes.’

‘Is this true that actually, that it is a one-man operation and he’s not there because he’s in court as a paedophile?’ ‘Geoff’ asked.

After a sharp intake of breath we heard her say, ‘Sorry?’

‘I know that’s probably freaking you out but is that true or not?’

Julie managed to stutter, ‘Who told you this, the guy at Video Action?’

‘No, I’ve actually heard that through another source.’

Julie, still reeling in shock and taking deep breaths, said, ‘I’m sorry, but you’ve just totally shocked me.’

Gerard, probably relishing the fact that he now knew he had Julie’s full attention, said, ‘I know, I wasn’t going to mention it because I thought it was too sensitive.’

Julie responded, ‘I’ve got a child myself and no, that just wouldn’t … he’s … no, it doesn’t work like that. And he’s not a one-man operation anyway … I don’t understand where you are getting your information from…’

As Julie trailed off ‘Geoff’ interjected, ‘I know it sounds ridiculous, I know it’s an extreme scenario but it didn’t sound like it was untrue.’

‘Geoff’ then reverted back to talking about camcorders and it appeared that Julie was keen to be rid of this caller and the conversation ended with him saying that he would get back to her.

A few minutes later the man called back.

He introduced himself again as Geoff Goldie and mentioned that he had just spoken to her. By this point we could hear that Julie sounded much colder towards him as he mumbled on about purchases he might make.

Then Gerard changed tack again and said, ‘I wanted you to know because I genuinely believe that you work there and you might not know … but we have actually checked with Welwyn Garden City, my colleague did errr … Welwyn Garden City police … and actually that story is true.’

Julie replied in a matter of fact tone, ‘Right, OK, thank you very much for letting me know.’

Gerard, still aching to spill the beans, continued, ‘I’m telling you this, it’s being dealt with by a DC Brian Hopkins at Welwyn Garden City Police Station and he is being investigated as a paedophile. And I’m telling you because it sounded like you genuinely didn’t know and the information was given to us by a company called Top Teks.’

Julie thanked him again for the information, to which he replied, ‘Take care, bye.’

After hearing these two voice recordings Jeremy shouted, ‘I’ll kill that fucking bastard!’

We made up CDs of the conversations as we thought these would be useful in the future. We hoped that after Jeremy’s phone call to Hopkins, Gerard would have been warned off for the time being, but we knew he would continue to be trouble.