Losing Her Wings

Chapter 2

Once they had all taken the time to remind Judge Avril of the facts of the case, with Nelo being arrested for possession with a warrant drawn up for an arrest for dealing, with the shoddy work done in the fingerprint lab, comparing his prints to that in an altogether entire different case, involving a drug induced attack on an eighteen year old girl, his appetite had been wetted and he felt ready to delve in at the deep end. Judge Avril began by asking what the information was on the eighteen year old girl who had been attacked, the look of shame on the sixteen year old boy in front of him, almost convincing him of his guilt. “She was mugged at knife point by three doped up guys, who cut her face when she tried to runaway from them, Judge.” Geoffrey recalled, reading straight from the file in his hand, going on to admit that the girl was terrified they were going to kill her so she gave up her bag and tried to run only for one of the men to grab her and hold a knife to her throat. He explained that the guy had thought she was running because she had something else to hide, but the Judge didn’t find his answer in any of the explanations, having to ask again what it resulted in.

“Nothing your honour.” Angelo interrupted the ridiculous story they had twisted the facts into. “She was half drunk and was falling all over the place. Three witnesses from across the street saw the guy take off her jacket and search it, letting her go.” He explained with a sigh, folding his arms decisively, glad that Nelo had taken his and Jacob’s advice to heart and kept quiet. “She started to run off but fell over and ripped her sleeve on the bench she used to help herself to her feet. She claimed that the three boys had tried it on with her and that she’d only just escaped.” The uninterested tone of his voice suggested to the Judge that the story he had just been told wasn’t quite true, but when he asked, it was Piers who surprised him by admitting that it was a lie. He admitted to speak to Angelo’s witnessed and corroborating the story and after a search of the scene of rime, interviewing two of the three men who the girl had identified as her attackers, leaning forward in his seat as he gave Angelo a discrete glare for bringing up the fact that they’d jumped the gun.

“Mr Josephson here, fitted all the descriptions of the third perpetrator and so when he was arrested, we already had the knife, found on one of the other suspects, which had some unidentified prints on it. We tested Mr Josephson’s prints from those on the knife and were able to rule him out.” Geoffrey waited until Piers had stopped talking before he went on to say anything, explaining they it was precautionary and because of a positive ID from the witnesses in a line up, they were sure they would get a result, even though they could all see that Judge Avril, not usually a patient man, was sitting quietly deliberating over it sceptically. He asked if they still intended to link him to the crime, seeing Mr Morton’s desperation for a closed case bringing too much of a rush to the evidence and the entire investigation, he wasn’t surprised by Piers’s answer, that the line up confirmed the defendant was at the scene.

“We just don’t have any evidence to prove it.” Geoffrey sighed unhappily, shrinking under his boss’ glowering gaze. So maybe he shouldn’t have said it out loud, but it was the truth after all. But when the Judge asked why they weren’t discussing it in front of a jury, it was Angelo’s turn to explain just what a cock up Piers had made out of his case.

“Because we can provide Mr Josephson’s whereabouts on the night of the crime.” Angelo smiled thankfully as he paced the floor again, all too able to see the hope in Nelo’s eyes as he glanced up at him. Placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, he tried to keep that hope alive by continuing. “You see Judge, nobody asked him where he was, or what he was doing at that time. In fact, he hasn’t been questioned as to that crime at all. It was only when the charges were added to his arrest warrant that we were even aware that he was a suspect and had already been forensically tested to items from the scene.” He explained, glad that even if there was no possible way for him to be set free from all the charges, they could at least take away the scariest charge that had the poor kid crying himself to sleep.