Examining rural crime scenes pays no respect to conservation. Awful as it may seem, when murder strikes in a copse or the open countryside, trees, shrubs and bushes that have been there for years are razed to the ground.
Sending lines of booted cops wielding sickles into a wood may seem at odds with the careful, systematic scientific harvest of other evidence but the methods are meticulous. The search for and retrieval of potential evidence that is there, together with proving what is not present, requires trees to be felled, bushes stripped and forest floors raked.
Just one month before the trial, Wild Park and its woodland were devastated by the same storm which unearthed Latifa Lachaal’s skull.
While the landscape may have changed, both sets of counsel argued that seeing the park, its surroundings and topography would be invaluable for the jury to get a real sense of the evidence, enabling them to determine for themselves how credible each version was.
Given that, technically, the court was still in session during the visit, its planning and the security of the judge and jury was a top priority. It was unthinkable for this trial to falter a second time. The entire area had to be prepared, secured by officers and cordons and the whole process recorded. Judge, jury and counsel travelled in a private coach with motorcycle outriders warding off anyone inclined to disrupt their sanctity. The jury needed to see and appreciate, in this barely recognizable wood, exactly where the girls had lain. The simple white cross depicting the fateful spot was a sombre reminder that, amid all the highbrow legal argument and brickbats, this was all about two young girls robbed of their innocence and lives.
Having taken in Wild Park, they moved to the path by Moulsecoomb railway station where the Pinto sweatshirt was dumped. The short distance from the first place to the other, together with its convenience as a thoroughfare to Bishop’s home, would not have been lost on the jurors. Once back in the courtroom, the graphic description of the girls’ injuries moved some jurors to tears, so much so that the judge briefly halted the trial to allow them to regain their composure.
The interactions between Bishop and the police prior to his arrest were critical to defence and prosecution alike. As he had yet to be considered a suspect, there had been no need for him to be read his rights. That was only necessary when the police had enough to think he was the offender. Until then, they could ask him what they liked and his answers could still be used to support a prosecution.
That may seem unfair, but suspicion has to come from somewhere, and the jury needs to know its origins. Crucially, this evidence allowed the jury to hear, in Bishop’s own words, his lies, his changing accounts and his selective amnesia.
Bishop was not the only person to receive extra attention in those early days, one of the investigators, DC Doug Penry, reminded the jury. Dougie Judd, Barrie Fellows, Kevin Rowland and Matthew Marchant had all come under scrutiny. But it seemed that Bishop was the only one paranoid enough to believe that he was going to be put in the frame.
Wisely, the defence chose not to put Bishop on the stand. Without doubt he would have been tied up in knots during cross-examination – the jury would see the real person. Mr Lawrence had excelled in casting doubt over the forensic evidence which purported to nail him. He painted Bishop as a hapless, harmless Walter Mitty, but no killer. Even an incompetent barrister would see the dangers in putting Bishop at the mercy of the prosecutor. Lawrence was the best of the best. He needed his client to stay silent and for doubt to ferment in the jury’s mind.