By the way just to paint a picture of what going to this court case is like. Not sure if anybody is familiar with St Albans. The weather has been consistently bleak and grey, and the walk from the station to the court is about ten minutes and mundane, you are *not* walking through the old part of town; you go past an Iceland, a few crappy cafés, and then government admin offices like the CPS, Valuation Office Agency, and then the court is opposite a small car park. Every day there is a news camera trying to catch footage of parties walking into the court, which feels quite non-consensual, but that's the only noticeable camera around. The Court building itself, like its surroundings, appears to have been built in the 1970s or 80s. It is unusually empty, but it is just like an office building and has none of the grandeur, scale or ambience of something like the Old Bailey.
There are no windows or sources of natural light in the courtroom, where in all there are never more than around forty people. There are 12 members of the jury; four counsel; two court staff; one judge; one security guard in with Ian; then about five members of the public including myself, five family/friends, four journalists and sometimes a couple of police officers involved in the case. All seats in the room are on the same level, apart from the judge and the witness, and it seems smaller than I had imagined. The public "gallery" is actually just four rows of seats directly opposite the jury and adjacent to the QCs who are immediately in front of us. Most of the time only two or three rows are in use, depending on how many witnesses are waiting. The public and the family are all sat together; the family tend to sit in the back row and the public in the row in front of them. I'm not sure why, that's just how it seems to pan out in this trial. John Bailey is never itching to sit in front. I'm surprised at how few members of the public actually show up, given how high profile this case is.
Judge Andrew Bright has a very genteel, alert and friendly manner, kind and explanatory to everybody; the jury, witnesses, and on the rare occasion that he has to address IS, to him too. The relationship between prosecution and defence is perfectly reasonable, there's a sense that they are all just doing a job. There is no sense of "competition" between them, defence is not jumping up saying "objection!" all the time or anything like that. The prosecution counsel aren't tenacious or aggressive in their questioning, but I suppose they're just laying out the Crown's case as strong as it has been made by the police and the CPS already. The defence counsel Simon Russell Flint is the one I would say who has "flair" but he's only really getting up at the end of prosecution questioning, to clarify a couple of points, and usually just sits down again.
It is a very bleak undertaking, I think for John Bailey and Fraser Dyer to be going every single day for what I presume is a six week trial. I honestly find St Albans depressing - the trip to/from the train station to the court, and then passing the time over the lunch break, in this bleak weather and this town which HB had nothing to do with, must really compound whatever grief they feel from the horror of her death, although I've been amazed at how they always put on a brave face and manage to have a chuckle with friends and family during the breaks.
There are no windows or sources of natural light in the courtroom, where in all there are never more than around forty people. There are 12 members of the jury; four counsel; two court staff; one judge; one security guard in with Ian; then about five members of the public including myself, five family/friends, four journalists and sometimes a couple of police officers involved in the case. All seats in the room are on the same level, apart from the judge and the witness, and it seems smaller than I had imagined. The public "gallery" is actually just four rows of seats directly opposite the jury and adjacent to the QCs who are immediately in front of us. Most of the time only two or three rows are in use, depending on how many witnesses are waiting. The public and the family are all sat together; the family tend to sit in the back row and the public in the row in front of them. I'm not sure why, that's just how it seems to pan out in this trial. John Bailey is never itching to sit in front. I'm surprised at how few members of the public actually show up, given how high profile this case is.
Judge Andrew Bright has a very genteel, alert and friendly manner, kind and explanatory to everybody; the jury, witnesses, and on the rare occasion that he has to address IS, to him too. The relationship between prosecution and defence is perfectly reasonable, there's a sense that they are all just doing a job. There is no sense of "competition" between them, defence is not jumping up saying "objection!" all the time or anything like that. The prosecution counsel aren't tenacious or aggressive in their questioning, but I suppose they're just laying out the Crown's case as strong as it has been made by the police and the CPS already. The defence counsel Simon Russell Flint is the one I would say who has "flair" but he's only really getting up at the end of prosecution questioning, to clarify a couple of points, and usually just sits down again.
It is a very bleak undertaking, I think for John Bailey and Fraser Dyer to be going every single day for what I presume is a six week trial. I honestly find St Albans depressing - the trip to/from the train station to the court, and then passing the time over the lunch break, in this bleak weather and this town which HB had nothing to do with, must really compound whatever grief they feel from the horror of her death, although I've been amazed at how they always put on a brave face and manage to have a chuckle with friends and family during the breaks.
