The following day, to save overwhelming the trial with multiple unnecessary witnesses, the prosecution’s junior counsel, Alison Morgan, read out a series of statements and facts that had been agreed between the prosecution and defence. There would be a series of these throughout the trial but to keep the chronology clear in the jury’s mind, this batch just covered the girls’ last movements and some uncontentious meetings they had on the way.
The prosecution had long ago rejected the notion that the girls were dead by 6.30 p.m. and so called Mrs ‘White’, who in 1987 had been a defence witness. This time there was no suggestion she wanted anonymity so, when she answered the first question of ‘Can you tell the court your name?’ with ‘I don’t want to say,’ eyebrows were raised.
In the interests of expediency and in the absence of any objections from either side, she was allowed to continue in this vein. However, she was to prove more troublesome to the prosecution.
Throughout the investigation and the first trial, she had been crystal clear that she had seen the girls across Lewes Road waving in her direction at 6.30 p.m.
However, the day before giving evidence this time – thirty-two years later – she suddenly remembered that it was more like 8.20 p.m. She put this down to the fact that she was waving her dad off as he left her house for his own to watch a film – The Runaway Train – that started at 9 p.m.
Why she changed her mind, why she remembered the film and why so much later, neither prosecution nor defence could fathom. She did say she had been harassed after giving evidence at the last trial, but her new timings stretched all credibility and other than bemusing the court and angering the judge, her impact on the trial was negligible.
However, after a few more agreed facts, this time regarding sightings of Bishop, the real drama was waiting in the wings. Whichever version of events Bishop was opting for this time, he needed to explain his DNA on Karen’s arm. Despite ‘failing to mention when questioned . . .’ there were two witnesses his barrister needed to destroy.
And they knew it.