Prosecutor Stuart Trimmer is now starting his closing speech to jurors. Addressing jurors, he says: Were very close to the point when it really is up to you. Stewarts guilt or innocence is determined by you. You will judge what is true. You have it all in terms of the material that both sides take the view you need to make a decision.
In very short terms the Crown say there is overwhelming evidence on which the Crown say, you must find Stewart guilty. If you were to think to yourself I am sure this defendant is a liar, an actor, and is telling us something that is simply not true then the next stage of that logic would be why is he lying to us? Why is he behaving like an actor? The only answer to that is probably because he is guilty of these offences.
I would say his account is absurd. You have the narrow choice to choose whether it was this defendant who killed Helen Bailey, or Nick and Joe. Its not the whole world to choose from, its this defendant, or Nick and Joe. Or if the Crown suggest you take the view that Nick and Joe are imaginary, who dont have proper names, who dont exist, and have been imagined to pull the wool over your eyes. If Nick and Joe dont exist, then it is this defendant who killed Helen Bailey.
Mr Trimmer adds: The Crown say one thing you will have understood is that whoever did this, and the Crown say there is no doubt it was Ian Stewart, it was a wicked thing. The killing was wicked, the disposal of the body is wicked, the way in which it was done and planned was wicked. But you have to get past that notion and consider the facts.
The Crown say this was a wicked action. It was a long plan. This defendant planned and set about the beginning, the middle, and the end of his plan. This was a long plan involving poisoning. With it in mind that killing would follow, and with it in mind that he would get away with it. Why he did it, we will never know. He planned the beginning (the poisoning), the middle (the killing) and the end (the disposal). It was not a coincidence that they stood by the cess pit and someone said that would be a good place to hide a body.
The notion of Joe and Nick putting them in that cess pit is quite absurd. Why would the kidnapper bring the uninjured, drugged body of Helen Bailey back and put her in the pit? Why would all the places in the world would they choose that place? They had no beef with Ian Stewart, they had no reason to frame him or to make his life difficult. Why put the dog in that pit? Why would Nick and Joe want to go to the trouble of taking that dog, killing it, taking it back and putting it in that pit. Why would they bother to take the dogs toy back to that pit? Nonsense isnt it. Why would they want to put to put the pillow slip, the bin bags in that pit?
Why would Nick and Joe want to go back there at all? They know police are involved. Why go back to the place where police might turn up at any time, with presumably the body and the dog in the car? Why take the risk?
Nick and Joe dont exist and didnt do it. However, Ian Stewart on the other hand, what better place? And shortly he very nearly got away with it. A little while longer, had the police not on July 15 made that final search of that cess pit, her body may have remained in that pit, sunk to the bottom and decomposed. In a few years they might have found some bones. Stewarts acting, his sadness, his insistence she had gone away, his electronic records he left behind, all showed Helen had just run away. Showed a riff between lovers.
His voice is surprisingly high - which might be another clue he's the missing BeeGee.
