This s the trial. It necessarily rehashes a lot of the unpleasantness of earlier chapters, but it is drier, less direct. Please read with caution, though.
CHAPTER 24
That was the start of a clean up, as the Met took over from the local Yokel Cumbrian police and started to kick doors in and make more arrests. The attempts to get rid of witnesses simply drew another group of people into the net, and as well as the Castle Keep Three there were nine others, so far. Four of them were Council employees, three worked at the Approved School, one was a school governor, and the last a copper. They truly had been deep into the local government.
The trial was soon on us, and due to the entrenched corruption beginning to show out in Cumbria, it was to be held in the Central Criminal Court in London. We made our way down in a little convoy of cars, and Brian found us rather a nice hotel where our little party of, er, eight were well settled, and I looked forward to at least some time off with Iain to trawl the sports shops, and with Sid to give the Charing Cross Road bookshops a hammering. The Toffs were waiting, and they insisted on taking us to “a sweet little place in Kensington, darlings” where we ate well, only slightly spoilt by Nana's reaction to the menu prices.
“HOW bloody much?”
And then...then it was into the suit we had had made to fit me, to show my breasts and make it bloody obvious what had been done to me, and after Aidan and Dave had given their evidence Karen went in, short and sweet, and I heard later how she had described my face, how sick I looked, and the shock when she realised who I was. Then it was my turn.
Roger had drilled me in the way to behave, and I clung to his words as I walked the gauntlet to the witness box. Charlie sat with his head bowed, but while Raynor Cunningham pretended nonchalance, the hellbitch locked her gaze on me. Just get through this, Stevie, just do it, do it for fourteen poor dead boys.
Short answers. Give them to the jury, not the wig. Do not, ever, get into a discussion with a barrister, and certainly never argue with one. Pick a juror that looks interested and catch their eye; talk to them.
“Above all, Steve, remember that you are not alone. There were witnesses before you, there are more to come”
I took the oath, and our barrister led me through my evidence, beginning with our days in Singapore, my operation, the move 'home' to Anthorn, and then the appearance of Mitchell. Where the fuck was he? On to the second operation.
“So, the result of that operation, Stephen, was your castration. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir, but I didn't know that till years later”
“Did you give your consent to this procedure?”
“OBJECTION!” One of the defence silks was on his feet. “The child would have been too young to have been able to give informed consent”
The judge looked at me, then over her glasses at the wig in question.
“I rather think that Mr Jones' consent is germane to the bulk of his evidence. Overruled. Proceed”
We carried on through the death of my father, and my mother's close relationship with Gilbey and Gordon, and Mitchell's close attention to my 'wellbeing'.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please turn in your bundles to folder eighteen which holds some facsimile documents. Number five, the one that appears half burned, there is a signature in the bottom right corner. Stephen, do you recognise that signature?”
“It's Mitchell's. Same as the ones on my prescriptions”
"Thank you”
“Who did you meet on your arrival at Castle Keep residential home?”
“Elsie Cunningham”
“Can you see her in this courtroom?”
“Yes. She's the grey-haired bitch in the dock”
The judge turned to me
“Mr Jones, Stephen, you will please respect this court even if you cannot respect those brought to it. Continue”
“What happened when you entered?”
“She told me I had no kin, and I mentioned Nana, and she said she didn't exist. I said she did”
“What happened then, Stephen?”
“She called a big fat man, Alf, and got him to hold me down while she caned me”
“Is Alf here?”
“No, he killed himself in prison”
I had the eye contact, a well-made black woman in her forties on the front bench.
“What happened then, Stephen?”
“I got two days in Thirlmere.”
“Please explain what that means”
“It's a cell, no light, no bedding”
“What did they feed you?”
“No food, nothing to drink”
“For two days?”
“Yes”
What happened when you came out?”
“I was taken to the dining room and sat at a table with three boys. One of them collected up all the butter from the table”
“Why would he do that?”
“Well, when we went to the dorm, and the three of them beat the shit...sorry, beat me up, they used it as a lubricant when they took turns to rape me”
My woman's mouth was moving like that of a fish. There were gasps from the public gallery, and I fastened on my lady for help.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please turn to the bundle of photographs introduced by the previous witness. Numbers sixteen to twenty seven. Stephen, who is the girl in those photographs?”
“That's no girl, that is me. Charlie liked to dress me up as a schoolgirl when he raped me”
“Yes, the dark haired man with the tache, and the blonde woman next to him. He liked me in a ball gown and lacy underwear when he raped me, and lots of make up. She used to sit and wank–er, masturbate while he buggered me”
The judge did the glasses thing again. “Let the record show that the witness has indicated Mrs Marjorie Allison and Police Inspector Peter Allison”
“Yes, the bald bloke with the glasses, he was a screw, a warder, in the Approved School, he would buy me from the boys for an hour with cigarettes. When Alf gave me the clap, he was the first to catch it”
“Yes, I think she did get a sexual thrill out of hitting me, she used to stink just like that woman who used to wank over me”
“More times than I could count.”
“What was the longest you were left in there?”
“Four days, I think. That was the time I tried drinking my own pee”
That, I think, was what nearly broke my lady juror, and the judge had to call for silence. Two days, it took me, two days explaining how I still had to take the hormones because otherwise I wouldn't survive to live anything like a normal life, and then I had two days of the cross-examinations, from a series of barristers. Ask any woman who went through it, back then, what a rape trial was like, and how it was more like the woman was on trial than the culprit. Except, of course, that back then there was no such thing as rape of a man, just 'indecent assault', but I was given the works, oh yes. I was a violent little monster, who destroyed the comfortable furnishings of the last-resort restraining room I claimed was a cell. I was a cock-hungry pederast, preying on the other boys and flaunting the attributes I had grown with illegally-obtained hormones I extorted from poor warders with my evil sexual wiles. And so on, and so on, and I kept my gaze on my lady, and she wept regularly, and all I felt coming off her was the deep love of an obvious mother.
Half an hour after I finally stood down and was discharged, Charlie turned Queen's Evidence. Brian went to the box.
“You spent time at the Approved School in question, Mr Dennahy?”
“Yes, but my wife does not know what happened to me in there, and I would rather she did not find out”
Once more, the judge. “Mr Dennahy's experiences are not an issue here, and they will not be an issue in this Court”
With those limitations, Brian told his own story of small boys, predatory warders, sudden and permanent disappearances....and then Charlie, now as a prosecution witness, came up. Oh god...
Raynor's thrill was the hammer. Except when Elsie got Alf and Don to hold a boy down so that she could get some good swings in, it was Raynor's passion for a good, solid thwack. Alf and Don were there of course, and they were the ones with the saws and the axe, but Charlie...no, not Charlie. He just liked pretty boys, and was that so wrong?
I had to leave the gallery to be sick.
We left the place in the Jag, and were soon on the M1, then peeling off on the M6 as Brian drove smoothly and not too fast for home. Tom took the front seat, and Em and Karen squeezed in with me in the back, in that age before seatbelts. Karen was twitchy.
“Stevie...there's something I want to ask you. It's just that, well, if anything happens to Ada, you've got no protection from them, and Brian, well...”
She was pink. “Look, you never really got anywhere having me as a girlfriend, so would you accept me as a mam?”
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Comments
I'm confused by the last line.
She's a man? Huh?
The rest of the story-fantastic! You have a truly great, powerful story here. I know, I got angry and disgusted and sad, but more than anything, I am amazed. You have dragged me, kicking and screaming through a story that is extremely intense. As awful as the subject matter is, the writing is wonderful. I know it isn't over yet (thank you!), but I had to say how impressed I am. More, more, please!
Wren
Thank you
Karen, of the amazing body and the tumbling red surls and the enormous heart is going to be a M A M.....
Do you mean
Mother?
. . . .
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until they speak.
I went outside once. The graphics weren' that great.
I broke my glasses
I thought I could see just fine without them. Ah, well.
Wren
Last line
‘mam’ means mother, mum, or mom. I think Karen is suggesting that she and Brian adopt Stevie, in case something happens to his grandmother.
I know I don't comment much, but I have been following this story with interest, Cyclist. I just hope you've got something really appropriate in mind for Mitchell when and if he's caught.
Parental Support
Bike Resources
Bike Resources
Mam ...
... is, or certainly was then and when I was a child, the most common northern England term of endearment for a mother. I don't think it's used in the south of England but I think it is in Wales, as Steph may confirm. It's heart warming that Karen is prepared to take steps (presumably) to adopt Steve for his own protection. He gets close to his dream-girl at last :)
This episode illustrates most effectively the stress a trial like this has on the witnesses. Quite apart from the trauma of having to live through and be reminded of the events all over again, there are the ridiculous implications from the defence lawyers that it was you who were guilty of seducing the innocent defendants.
I thought the writing method of only reporting Steve's replies without the (obvious) questions most effective. In fact the whole chapter is most effective and I particularly appreciated Nan's comment about London restaurant prices as they closely resemble my own. In fact I recently read a review about a so-called gastro pub just south of Penrith with equally ridiculous prices, so it's not just London.
Robi
Oh I do hope that they catch
'Beyond the law' Mitchell - or prefeferably someone else makes him disappear - slowly.
S.
Reply to both
Obviously, I know exactly where he is. All shall become clear.
I'm wary now
of saying what I'm about to say.
At this juncture, a criminal trial, proper investigation, witnesses, jury, verdicts, conclusions and sentences, Stevie seems temporarily lucky. He's got what appears to be requittal. That is important to the story because many readers might be left angry and hanging if there hadn't been a trial and some degree of closure.
Sadly, real life is not always, - indeed, - not often like that. Even in the story that is made clear, think of the fourteen dead boys.
I say temporarily lucky because what went before was wicked and what is to accompany him for the rest of his life is tragic but that brief moment in court, or rather after the verdict is at least some small compensation. He has at least got requittal.
Steph tells a wonderful story and she writes with a real passion. That's why I read her material and try to comment after every post. She deserves encouragement as all writers on BC do.
Beverly.
Growing old disgracefully.
But more importantly growing old.
Remember Karen's advice to Stevie. LIVE!
Now that's important! My plan was to live and bear witness. All I've managed is to do is live.
Beverly.
Bev....
There is a lot more to come. I don't mean in number of chapters, as that is not important. Those of us with monkeys on our backs know that it never goes away. That is Steve's curse; the chance to slap the bitch down in court gives some surcease, but all the time Mitchell's handiwork stares at him from the mirror. Em is there, and, yes, his goddess is talking of adoption, but the queen of hell is still pulling strings and the corruption festers at the heart of his community. There wll be redemptiion, that's what I write, but....
Understood Steph
I understand exactly where your coming from and why, you've explained in detail before.
The story is bloody good in how you present the brutality that surrounds the truth as it would relate to enforced feminisation.
I've absolutely no objections to what you're writing. It must be writ for the abuses you've documented are are based on real cases.
Once again.
Thanks.
Beverly.
Growing old disgracefully.
I'm glad that you're commenting...
...Steph does write with a real passion. And you provide real life perspective in your commentary. I am glad for your courage in surviving, Beth. Thank you. And thank you, Steph, for this continuing brilliant and compelling saga.
Dio vi benedica tutti
Con grande amore e di affetto
Andrea Lena
Love, Andrea Lena
a trail, in more ways than one
But he held his own. i just hope they find Mitchel, as long as he is out there, no one is safe.
"Treat everyone you meet as though they had a sign on them that said "Fragile, under construction"
dorothycolleen
Sweat and Tears 24
Karen would make a most beautiful and caring mam.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
I Have Been A Witness Many Times
Believe me, it is no fun, and I've only appeared in civil cases, not criminal ones. That injunction not to get into discussions with the briefs on the other side is almost impossible to adhere to.
No matter how well you are coached you are facing people who do this every day of their working life and they are good at it. The first thing they do is question your credentials, to present you as a fool to the judge. You cannot just answer yes or no. You have to explain and you'd better not slip or they're on to you like barracudas. In these cases there are no juries, so they don't have to be even a modicum of nice. Give 'em a chance and they'll tear you to pieces.
You either develop a skin like a rhinoceros or you don't do it. My former business partner, a very clever man, just could not hack it. He would turn into jelly at the very thought of going on the stand, so we had to engineer it that I did it.
I don't like it....I really don't like it ...but I can do it.
For Steve to survive and testify so well was marvellous. Mind you, defending fourteen murders is also hard work,
Joanne