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- 08/08/2021
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Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
The World Out There - 10. Ten
The first morning of his trial seemed to be taken up with Mrs Stewart-Graham, the prosecution barrister, Mr Justin Spencer, and the judge arguing.
The first thing that happened was the judge sent the jury out of the courtroom. The twelve people had walked out of there, one following after the other, many of them wearing obvious disappointed expressions on their faces. Liam had watched them in surprise: weren’t the jury there to hear his trial and find him guilty? But they were being sent straight out of the courtroom. He’d thought his trial would start with witnesses giving evidence and being quizzed back and forth by the barristers there, like he had seen on every courtroom drama he’d ever watched on television. Instead, his trial had started with the barristers arguing with each other and judge, and the arguments had all been started by his own barrister, Mrs Stewart-Graham, as she wanted to “argue a point of law”.
The first argument seemed to be about his age. Mrs Stewart-Graham called it "mischievous discretion", and from what he could understand, which seemed very little, it was whether he was old enough to understand what he did was a crime. If he wasn’t old enough to stand trial, did that mean he would just go free, his trial would just end there? This was all so confusing. Mark Hiller had prepared him for his trial and now Mrs Stewart-Graham was trying to get it stopped. He barely understood any of the arguments he heard there: both barristers were using legal terms and words he hadn’t a clue as to what they meant, and the judge talked like he was some really posh politician and Liam understood less of what he said. He just stared at the courtroom in front of him.
But he had killed Rhys Clarke. He was guilty - he knew that. Mrs Stewart-Graham, though, argued that he hadn’t understood where his actions would lead, that Duncan Loughton’s assessment of Liam bore this out. Mr Spencer argued just as intensely that Mrs Stewart-Graham was wrong. He had Dr Harvey’s report that stated Liam knew exactly what he was doing and had taken the knife to school deliberately. Their arguments bounced back and forth like a verbal tennis match. He liked Mrs Stewart-Graham’s arguments the most: she was his barrister, and he was so in awe of her that he knew it coloured his judgement, but she did command the courtroom when she spoke. In the end, the judge ruled in Mr Spencer’s favour though, and disappointment swept over Liam as he heard the man’s words. He didn’t understand the argument, but he knew it was important to Mrs Stewart-Graham, and therefore, it must be important. The judge told the court, in his hard and very posh sounding voice, that Liam was old enough to stand trial: at twelve he was two years past the age of “criminal responsibility”, whatever that really meant, because Liam didn’t, and in the judge’s view, Dr Harvey’s report outranked Duncan Loughton’s because she was a doctor and psychiatrist, and he was only a psychologist. Liam had spoken far more to Duncan Loughton than he ever did to Dr Harvey, even though she had visited him more often, but he also knew that his sole job there was to keep quiet in court. No one was paying him any attention, not even Mrs Stewart-Graham.
Their second argument, which had taken place after lunch, was about his defence, or the defence Mrs Stewart-Graham wanted to use. She wanted to talk about Rhys Clarke bullying him, but the Mr Spencer claimed that that would prejudice the jury against the victim. The two barristers argued back and forth, but the judge finally sided with Mr Spencer again, and Mrs Stewart-Graham couldn’t claim that Rhys Clarke was a bully. As he heard that, Liam stared down at his feet. That was the truth: that’s what had happened. What else was left to say?
Liam stared out at the courtroom as he heard that. How could the jury know the truth now? What was the point of this trial now? Rhys Clarke had made his life a nightmare: by the end, he was feeling physically sick before going to school, and he’d just wanted the bullying to stop. The jury had to know that - they had to know why he took that knife to school; they had to know that he wasn’t one of those kids who used Knife Crime. Now the jury wouldn’t hear any of this. What was the point? No one would hear him and the truth. What was the point of his trial? They would send him straight to prison, and the mere thought of prison made him run cold with fear. School had been bad enough, but he knew that prison was a hundred times worse.
He looked around himself, as the judge announced his decision, and he quickly saw that no one was looking at him, they were all staring at the judge as the judge announced they couldn’t hear the truth of what had happened. No one seemed interested in him. What was the point of his even being there? They wouldn’t hear the truth about him. He stared down at his feet. He was wearing his black trainers: they were so old that you could see the shape of his toes through them, and there was a small rip appearing in the side of the right one through which he could see his grey sock. Mark Hiller had bought him a new suit and shirt to wear to court, but his old black trainers were the only shoes he had he could wear with them. He only had three pairs of shoes and they were all trainers.
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Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
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