FACE TO FACE WITH FORREST

While the process of adding the charge of sexual activity with a minor was still being argued over at the European Court of Justice, things were moving on with the abduction charge over here.

On Friday, 25 January, Forrest went before the court again, this time for a plea and case management hearing at Lewes Crown Court in front of Judge Mr Justice Singh. At this hearing, he would have to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty rather than just keep silent when asked.

I had never been able to understand why he had not already pleaded guilty at his previous court appearances. There was so much overwhelming evidence of an abduction. No way would he be able to get away with his crime, so what would have been the point of him pleading not guilty?

I couldn’t see how he could be anything other than guilty. The police told me the definition of child abduction is the unauthorised removal of a minor from the custody of the child’s natural parents or legally appointed guardians. Had I given Forrest permission to take Gemma to France, he would have had no crime to answer to but I was 100 per cent certain that I had never signed any kind of permission slip and, given Gemma’s biological father refused to have his name on her birth certificate, I am the only person who would have been able to sign anything like that to allow her to go.

I had racked my brains trying to work out if there was any way that a permission form could have slipped through without me remembering. Over and over I replayed events in my mind, wondering if maybe this was the key defence that Forrest’s legal team would eventually pull out of the bag.

While I had not been in court on the previous occasions when Forrest had been called to enter a plea, I decided to go along to this hearing. By this point, I had become increasingly obsessed with what kind of man he was and so I wanted to see him for myself. At the earlier court sessions, Forrest had appeared via videolink, but DI Neil Ralph told me that he expected him to attend the Lewes Crown Court session in person.

Naturally I was incredibly nervous about seeing him in the flesh. I wasn’t intending to go to the court to make a scene or anything, I just wanted to see the creature who had taken my daughter. It would have destroyed Gemma if I’d been unable to control my feelings in court and ‘kicked off’, as she put it, and behaving in that way would have put me in contempt of court. There was no way that I was going to let that happen.

Out of courtesy, Neil Ralph let Judge Mr Justice Singh know that I was going to be attending court that day. I was legally entitled to be there, but he wanted him to know anyway.

Neil also briefed me about some of the other people who might be in the public gallery for the hearing. With so much publicity about the case, Forrest had attracted a weird fanbase of supporters and very likely some of them would be there for him. Several ‘followers’ claiming to be in love with Forrest had attended his last court session. They didn’t have any connection with him, they were just swept up in the ‘romance’ of the story.

Gemma wasn’t allowed to attend court because she was the victim of the crime, but I promised her that I would get in touch with her as soon as the session had come to an end and tell her all about it.

Before we went into court, Paul, my friend Chloe and I went for a coffee. I was shaking like a leaf. It was such a surreal experience that I would be coming face to face with my daughter’s abductor any minute now. It was incredibly frightening.

I then met up with the prosecution barrister, Richard Barton, and he was lovely with me. I know I say that about almost everyone connected to the case, but I really have been so very lucky with the teams of people who have worked on it. Richard took me to one side and reassured me that everything was going to be fine and said that if there was anything that I didn’t understand, he would be more than happy to explain any details. I knew we were very lucky to have him on our side, as there seemed to be nothing he didn’t know about the law. I had every faith in him that he would do his utmost for us.

There was so much going on. People seemed to be rushing from one office to another and pieces of paper were being handed round as the legal teams got everything in order before the session began.

It was then that Mark Ling dropped the bombshell that he had heard that Forrest was likely to be entering a plea of not guilty. My heart sank to the pit of my stomach. In pleading not guilty, there would have to be a trial and that would mean that Gemma would be forced to give evidence in court.

Completely thrown, I couldn’t take in what Mark was saying. There was going to be a trial – and what’s more, in all likelihood it would be smack-bang in the middle of Gemma’s final GCSE exams. I was told that the Crown Prosecution Service would be calling 14 witnesses at the trial, and I could only guess that these were likely to be police officers, teachers, other pupils, Forrest’s wife and, of course, Gemma and myself.