Russ had to arrange for the voices heard through the surveillance bugs to be forensically compared with samples of the defendants’ voices. They even had to prove that a dustcart that coincidentally arrived at one of the places being watched wasn’t staffed by undercover cops.
The days in court were the easy bit. However, once the judge rose, Russ and the team would burn the midnight oil dealing with the multitude of bizarre defence requests. He recalls, to this day, sitting at his dining-room table late into one evening, using his daughter’s crayons to create multicoloured analytical charts showing the defendants’ phone calls, to head off another off-the-wall demand.
Finally, a full two years after the arrests and with all the legal issues settled, Bloomstein and Aldridge unexpectedly pleaded guilty and, after a trial, Barratt and Bishop were found guilty by a jury at Lewes Crown Court.
Don and Russ finally felt vindicated. Their hard work had paid off. Their professionalism had defeated the shenanigans the defence had engaged in. Despite those attacks on police integrity, justice had prevailed. Now they waited to revel in the length of the sentences.
It was a stunning victory when the judge sent the four to prison for a total of forty-three years. No-one had expected them to get this long. Nigel couldn’t resist the temptation to turn to the dock to savour the moment the defendants were led away to serve their time. Barratt, Bishop and Aldridge had been through it before but Charlie Bloomstein looked devastated that his charmed life had come to this.
However, the last words the court heard were yelled by Barratt as the length of his sentence sunk in.
‘Fourteen years, fourteen fucking years! You’re having a fucking laugh!’
His Honour Judge Coltart wasn’t but, despite not seeing justice for herself, when that nice Mr Welch popped round to break the good news Alice managed a wry smile. A very wry smile indeed.
9: Death Comes Knocking
The one good thing about a belly punch from Mike Tyson is that eventually you recover. Two solemn cops, however, wearing white hats, and one gleaming, chequered BMW blocking your drive and you just know it’s not going to end well. After this, nothing will ever be the same again; there will be no recovery. We call it delivering the death message.
Few people like late-night callers. Someone raps on the door the wrong side of midnight disturbing your deepest sleep. It takes some moments to become compos mentis. The kids are in bed; the last thing they need is to be woken. You grab a dressing gown, hoping it’s yours. Anger mellows to curiosity then ferments to trepidation. The hazy silhouette of those figures through the glass will sap any remaining hope as your realization of their terrible task overwhelms you.
Thank goodness for police training, you think. For the hours they must spend rehearsing for this most dreadful duty. For all the scenarios they are taught: kids, mums, granddads, crashes, murders, suicides. Thank goodness too for the counselling they get, for this must be awful for them. Thank goodness.
Thank goodness, then, that you don’t know they aren’t trained in this at all, and counselling? Forget it. We just have to get on with it, learning as we go along, and we all do it differently. And none of us has ever found the perfect way, because that does not exist. Why? Because no death is the same, no family like another.
I remember hearing of a lady who lived in a basement flat in central Brighton. Her son was in the Army in Afghanistan and she knew that the strict military protocol following the death or injury of a soldier was that a senior officer would deliver the terrible news. She was petrified that each day death would come knocking. Therefore she developed the habit, whenever she saw a pair of shiny shoes descending the steps to her front door, of rushing to the back of the flat and refusing to come out of hiding in case it was the Casualty Notification Officer with the news she dreaded. She did this for months and missed many a caller as a consequence. Eventually her son returned unharmed.
As a fresh-faced eighteen-year-old recruit I remember a wily old training sergeant drumming into me and my fellow rookies that, where possible, when making an unannounced visit the first sentence must go something like, ‘Hello, it’s the police, there’s nothing to worry about.’ Privately, and definitely out of the fearsome trainer’s earshot, we used to scoff at this advice. It seemed so unnecessary.
Once out on the streets and assuming that nothing we learned about street craft at training college would survive contact with the public, I spurned that nonsense.
Not long after being unleashed on the public of Bognor Regis, I attended a burglary and needed to search the neighbours’ gardens for the fleeing offender. It was around midnight and I thought it would only be polite to knock and ask permission to check the back of one particular house. There were lights on, what could go wrong?
My sharp rap on the door while updating the control room through the ancient Burndept personal radio affixed to my lapel launched a lifelong lesson for me.
‘Who is it?’ a croaky voice demanded.
‘It’s the police,’ I proudly announced.
‘What do you want?’ — the voice now quiet and shaky.
‘Please open the door, madam. I need to speak to you,’ I said.
The door rattled as the locks and chains were released. The shard of light between door and frame slowly widened to reveal a very frightened-looking middle-aged lady.
She was tiny. A pink candlewick dressing gown enveloped her pencil-thin frame. Her eyes were bloodshot and her straggly blonde and grey hair was matted to her scalp. Her cheeks were rosy, not through drink or healthy glow but worry and dread.
‘No. Oh God, please no!’ she cried.
Baffled, I spun around to see what had provoked this outburst.
‘No, oh God, I knew when he didn’t phone something had happened. Oh no, what am I going to do? How am I going to carry on?’
By now curtains were twitching, lights were coming on and an impromptu drama was unfolding in which I was the villain.
‘I’m sorry, madam,’ I blurted out, raising my hand to try and quieten her. ‘What are you saying? What’s happened?’ Not realizing that it was me who had lit her fuse.
‘My husband said he’d call when he got to Manchester. That should have been hours ago. What’s happened to him? Is he dead? Please say he’s not. Please say he’s alive,’ she begged.
‘I am sure he is, madam — alive that is,’ was my attempt at reassurance. ‘I just want to look in your garden if that’s OK.’
‘You bastard!’ Her worry and angst had morphed into rage and was aimed squarely at me. ‘Why didn’t you say? Have you no idea? I was convinced you’d come about Doug. Don’t they teach you anything at training school?’ she yelled.
All I could mutter as I made my exit was a pathetic ‘Sorry’, omitting to add that they actually did teach me lots but this one lesson I chose to ignore. We never did find the burglar, and from that day the phrase ‘there’s nothing to worry about’ never left my lexicon.
As I matured I realized that telling people of the demise of their loved one is a huge responsibility. Of all the tasks that befall the police this one just had to be done right. No second chances, no retakes. Every word mattered, every gesture counted. The grieving process could hinge on how well or clumsily that dreadful message was delivered.
There is something very sobering in standing outside someone’s house late at night, seeing their shadow behind the curtains, knowing you are just about to rip the heart out of their lives forever.