Without me searching pages of posts, can any of my fellow WSs point me in the direction of Lucy Braithwaites testimony and what evidence she gave please?
The first prosecution witness today is Zoe Braithwaite.
She is giving evidence in the witness box from behind a screen.
Her Honour Mrs Justice Yip has told the jury that it is no reflection on the witness or the defendant and it is to put the witness at ease.
Zoe Braithwaite on CCTV heading towards the Coppice
Zoe Braithwaite is being asked about events on August 12, 2019 - the day of Lindsay Birbeck’s disappearance.
The jury is being shown CCTV of the witness on Elmwood Close walking towards the Coppice in Accrington at 3.44pm and then walking back at around 4.04pm near to the Peel Park Hotel.
Zoe Braithwaite said: “I looked to my left and saw a lone male figure on a a path that runs parallel to the path that I’m on. “There was a lot of foliage. I didn’t have a clear view of him at that point.”
Zoe Braithwaite told the jury that as the paths got closer together she had a clearer view of the male.
The jury heard that she could see him at a distance of 15m through the trees.
She described the male from a side view as between 20 and 25 years old, around 6ft to 6ft 2ins, of slim build and that he had his hands in his pocket.
She said: “I decided whatever route he went I would take another route.
“From the first time I saw him I was wary of him.
“He looked out of place in the woods.
“He was in front of me. He was walking very slowly.
“I didn’t want to be in front of him.
“I wanted to be able to see him at all times. I slowed down so I could be behind him
Zoe Braithwaite told the jury that at one point the male was about 120m away.
She said he then joined her path and was about 50m away and ‘pulled up as if he had been running’.
She said: “That’s when I became concerned. I picked up my pace and down the descent as quickly as I could.
“I didn’t look back again. I just daren’t. I never saw him again.
Zoe Braithwaite said there was a ‘mass search’ at the Coppice on August 19 and she went there hoping to find a police officer but couldn’t.
She then contacted 101 but couldn’t get through because it was busy.
Mrs Braithwaite told the jury that she then started to fill in a form on the Lancashire Constabulary website but her session ‘timed out’.
The next day (August 20) she completed the website form and included a ‘basic description of what I could see’.
Zoe Braithwaite is now being cross examined by defence barrister Mark Fenhalls QC.
The witness said the closest she got to the male on the Coppice was 3m (10ft) and the furthest away was around 150ft.
Mr Fernhall then refers the jury to her statement where she describes her eye sight.
Mrs Braithwaite said she wears varifocal glasses for driving.
In her statement, she said: “My sight from anything beyond 15ft can be affected if I don’t wear my glasses.
“I’m not sure I did have them on that day.”
Defence barrister Mr Fenhalls then asks Mrs Braithwaite about the part on the police form where she was asked if she ‘felt vulnerable’.
Mrs Braithwaite replied on the form saying “don’t know”.
The witness then explains she did not feel vulnerable at the time filling out the form on August 20.
Zoe Braithwaite is asked about her description of the male as 20 to 25 years old and between 6ft and 6ft 2ins.
Mr Fenhalls said: “What was it about the figure that made you think he was 20 to 25?”
She replied: “His height, the way he was dressed.”
Police visited Mrs Braithwaite on August 27, 2019 to have a face to face conversation.
The jury were told that in her statement she said the male’s trainers had an ‘upside down V’ and were blue
Defence barrister Mr Fenhalls refers Zoe Braithwaite to her earlier description to the jury of the male ‘pulling up as if he had been running’.
This was from the time when he was around 120m away to around 50m away on the Coppice path.
He then refers to her police statement where she says: “So while I can’t say what his original pace was at that point, what I can say for sure is that as I turned my head to glance at him he pulled up short, almost startled when I turned to look.”
When asked about the difference in her description and no mention of the male running in her statement, Mrs Braithwaite said: “He pulled up as if he had been running. He couldn’t have covered that ground unless he had run.”
Mr Fenhalls asked if she then saw anyone else apart from ‘two Asian lads’ and she said ‘no’.
Zoe Braithwaite said she did not see anybody else on the Coppice apart from the male.
When asked by the prosecutor about her pace during the latter part of the walk, she said ‘really fast’.
The evidence from the witness and cross-examination has now ended.
