I got a good solicitor on my case. It cost me an arm and a leg, but it turned out she was worth her weight in gold. It was only just before the hearing that I was told a new witness had come forward. What I didn’t know was that my solicitor had sent her assistant round the neighbourhood, knocking on all the doors to ask for witnesses. ‘Mrs Cheshire. She’s the old lady who lives right opposite, right across the road from you. She sits in the window a lot. She saw everything. She can confirm that you were attacked first. She also saw the wife brandishing the iron bar. What’s more, she’s willing to testify in court.’ Thank God for that. The cavalry was coming to the rescue – the cavalry in a cardigan.
Before we went into court my solicitor said to me, ‘Look. Do you want to make a deal with your neighbours?’
I was aghast. ‘What kind of deal?’
‘Do you want to plead guilty to breach of the peace? If you do that, you don’t get a criminal record. All you get is a slapped wrist, a hefty fine and that’s the last you’ll hear of it.’
I was very tempted. Even though we had a witness, I felt the case could still have gone either way. I didn’t trust the courts one little bit. I didn’t want a record. I didn’t want to lose my SIA licence. So I said to my solicitor, ‘Are you sure I won’t get a criminal record with breach of the peace?’
‘Yes. It’s a much lesser charge than common assault. It’s hardly worth mentioning. It’s just a paperwork exercise. The other advantage is that they can’t pursue you for compensation.’
That’s what did it. That’s what made me swallow my pride. It would have been bad enough being found guilty of something I didn’t do. But to have to pay good money out of my own pocket to those two wastes of space would have really hurt. So I said, ‘Have a word with the scrotes. See what they say.’
She disappeared to speak to the prosecution and came back a few minutes later. ‘They don’t want to deal. They want you in the box for common assault.’
That was it. They wanted compensation.
The hearing lasted all afternoon, nearly five hours. The prosecution was making a real meal of it, but I did have a bit of top cover. Pete Scholey came along to give me a character reference, but somehow they never called him. The magistrates retired for half an hour to discuss the verdict.
Innocent! It turned out the chief magistrate was very fair and the neighbour didn’t have a leg to stand on. The magistrate said, ‘You are a very credible witness, Mrs Cheshire. You stated that this man attacked Mr Winner first. Mr Winner was acting in self-defence.’ She also confirmed that the wife had brandished an iron bar in an aggressive manner. Case dismissed.
It was a huge relief. An amazing stroke of luck to have such a witness. Luck has been with me so many times. I’ve had plenty of knockbacks but I’ve had some huge lucky breaks too. The air support arriving just in time at Mirbat, the Red Crescent ambulance appearing in the middle of the night in Bosnia, just happening to be back in B Squadron when the Iranian Embassy kicked off. And so it goes on.
I soon found out that I didn’t need to beat the neighbour and his like to a pulp, anyway. I was about to find a different and much better way of getting my own back on benefits layabouts. One weekend, as I flicked through the pages of the Sunday Times in the local supermarket, a headline jumped out. ‘SAS versus the Benefit Cheats’. It was a report on a team of ex-SAS soldiers working undercover tracking down and convicting benefits fraudsters. Was that up my street or what? I was so excited I even bought the newspaper.
My luck was back! The security company’s spokesman and director was none other than Alistair Mackenzie –my old B Squadron troop officer from twenty-five years ago. He was a good man, Alistair, a seasoned soldier, a very experienced jungle warfare officer. A New Zealander, he’d seen action in Vietnam. Being a Kiwi, he was very down to earth, a breath of fresh air. He hadn’t been through the brainwashing of the Eton Rifles. He was approachable, friendly, no airs and graces.
I dashed to my office, scrambled about in the bottom drawer of my desk and bingo! dug out his card. He’d given it to me when I’d bumped into him at the SAS Golden Jubilee celebrations in 1991. I never throw any contact away, no matter how old. You can’t afford to in this game. Amazingly, his number hadn’t changed and I got through right away. It was just like the old days. When you’ve done surveillance work together in South Armagh like we had, you’re friends for life. After the mini-Regimental reunion over the phone, we got down to business. He described the work his firm was doing and asked if I was interested.
Do I want to do help in a covert operation to crack down on benefit fraudsters? Is the Pope Catholic? Now it was time to take my revenge.
It seemed at first like just another routine day at work. My job was to train specialist anti-fraud investigation officers of the Benefit Agency in foot and mobile surveillance, so they could track down and prosecute all the bad-back merchants that we find grafting on building sites and pumping iron in gyms. I was standing in an anonymous-looking room in a nondescript building in a suburb of Birmingham. This was the crew room and sat before me was a team of surveillance operators. There was a blonde in the front row. Laura, she was called. Baby-faced, very pretty, she seemed way too young to be doing this kind of work.
I did a last-minute check of my training aids and began my briefing. ‘Exercise Fiddlers on the Hoof. Foot surveillance. Area: Bearwood.’
I placed a magnetic counter on the sketch map indicating the main area of the exercise. ‘Situation and background: members of the Fiddler gang have been visiting post offices and financial institutions in the area.
‘Subject: Pete Fiddler.
‘Age: 45 to 50.
‘Build: stocky, athletic.
‘Clothing: red T-shirt, blue jeans, Nike trainers.
‘Distinguishing marks: broken nose.
‘Height: five foot ten to six foot.
‘Hair: medium brown.’
There were a couple of smirks at the realization that I was describing myself.
‘Execution of task as follows:
‘Team: same as yesterday – eyeball, backup, tail-end Charlie.
‘Timings: on plot for 1300hrs – HSBC Bank, 526 Bearwood Road.
‘Route: as per sketch map.’
I traced the route to the exercise area with my laser spot marker.
‘Emergency rendezvous point: back here in the crew room. Any questions?’ I looked around the room. ‘No questions. I am impressed. You must be good. Remember, you’re only as good as the information you get.’
‘Give me fifteen minutes’ start.’ With that I was out the door, heading for the centre of town to lead them a merry dance up and down the high street.
Twenty minutes later my earpiece crackled into life. ‘Standby–standby–standby. The subject is heading in the general direction of the exit of the bank. Wait. Wait. The subject is out–out–out into the main. Can anyone take?’
‘Roger that. Laura has the eyeball. Subject has gone left–left–left and is walking up Bearwood Road towards the junction with Sandon Road.’
I stopped outside a large shop, using the window as a mirror to see what Laura was up to across the other side of the road. Not good. She was the eyeball, she should have been behind me – not across the road. How could she check what I was up to from that distance? If I was drawing cash from a cash machine how could she shoulder-surf me from thirty metres away? That meant her backup was out of position too. He should have been behind her, on my side of the street too. Only the tail-end Charlie should have been on the other side, so the team could get two angles on the subject. Laura would learn. It was just her lack of experience.