Suspect—Simon Sutherland
Lawyer—Kellina Oriol
Interviewing officers—DI Ralph Grant, DC Angela Vicario
18:53
DI Grant—I’m DI Ralph Grant, with me is DC Angela Vicario, interviewing Simon Sutherland, also present is Kellina Oriol, Mr. Sutherland’s lawyer. Do you know why you’re here, Simon?
Simon Sutherland—Because of the bra.
DI Grant—Because of the bra, the one we found in your house. Can you tell me who the bra belongs to?
Simon Sutherland—I don’t know who the bra belongs to. It was left there.
DI Grant—In your house?
Simon Sutherland—Sometime last January. The exact date will be in my diary. One evening it wasn’t there, the next day when I went through the house it was.
DI Grant—It’s a big house, easy to miss it for a few days. Could you be wrong about the day it turned up?
Simon Sutherland—I know the exact date it turned up. I go round the house every single day. If there’s change I see it straightaway.
DI Grant—And is there often a change?
18:54
Simon Sutherland—Never, except the bra.
DC Vicario—Did it upset you, Simon, having that bra there when you didn’t put it there?
Simon Sutherland—Yes, it really did.
DI Grant—So why not get rid of it?
Simon Sutherland—I can’t, I don’t get rid of things.
DI Grant—You keep everything?
Simon Sutherland—Everything I can keep.
DI Grant—Mementos of your entire life, every moment collected in items and preserved in pristine condition in the safety of your house.
Simon Sutherland—I suppose so, yes.
DI Grant—So if you had a girl in the house so you could have fun with her you would want some memento of that, something to remind you of the good time you’d had together.
Simon Sutherland—That’s not what happened. And it wouldn’t be, because that’s not how it works at all. I don’t want to keep any of it, the things I keep. It’s not because I want to have it, it’s because I have to keep it all. I don’t want anything added, any new things. They make it harder. I don’t want that.
18:55
DI Grant—But you must have urges, Simon, every man does.
Kellina Oriol—Be careful, DI Grant.
DI Grant—I’m being exactly as careful as I need to be when investigating a murder, don’t you worry about me. I’m right, though, aren’t I, Simon? You must have some sort of sexual feelings, there are very few people that don’t. You say you don’t leave the house, so what happens to those feelings?
Kellina Oriol—You don’t have to answer that, it’s puerile. He’s trying to embarrass you.
Simon Sutherland—That’s okay, I’ll answer. I don’t go out and I don’t like other people coming in. I’ve learned to accept the many things I can’t have in life.
DI Grant—That must have been a very difficult thing to accept.
Simon Sutherland—It actually wasn’t very. I don’t miss things that haven’t been a part of my life.
DC Vicario—So few people come into your home that you must have some idea of who could have been in last January and left the bra.
Simon Sutherland—I really don’t know who brought it in. I don’t know why anyone would do it.
18:56
Kellina Oriol—It should also be stated that Simon has willingly made all of his security information and footage, as well as his private diary, available to you in an attempt to help in any way possible.
DI Grant—Yes, he’s been very helpful, up to a point. Tell me about Ruby-Mae Short.
Simon Sutherland—I don’t know who that is, I’m sorry.
DI Grant—Ruby-Mae Short.
Simon Sutherland—I’ve never heard that name before, I’m sorry.
DI Grant—It was her bra we found in your house, torn and dirty.
Simon Sutherland—I don’t know her.
DI Grant—We found her body by the railway tracks not too far from here, in the south of Whisper Hill, behind Long Walk Lane. Behind Misgearan, in fact, the bar she had been drinking in on the night she was murdered last January. Then her missing bra shows up in your house and now you claim you’ve never heard of her.
Simon Sutherland—That’s because I haven’t.
DI Grant—But her bra turned up in your house, quite possibly on the night she was killed, your diary and security footage might tell us for sure.
Simon Sutherland—I’ve already told you that I don’t know how it got there.
DI Grant—You need to get real with me, Simon. All those security features in your house and you can’t even take a guess about how the bra got in there?
18:57
Kellina Oriol—My client has already told you that he doesn’t know, DI Grant, he’s not going to magically learn it because you’re sitting there verbally abusing him.
DI Grant—You’d be amazed how many people do.
DC Vicario—William Dent is one of the people who visits you regularly, isn’t he?
Simon Sutherland—He sometimes brings the shopping, sometimes Olinda does.
DC Vicario—And do you talk with him much, discuss things?
Simon Sutherland—Not a lot, really. We talk, but not in any personal detail.
DC Vicario—When he delivers the shopping he has access to the house, though.
Simon Sutherland—Yes, he gets in.
DC Vicario—Who else has that sort of access?
Simon Sutherland—Olinda and Uncle Harold.
DC Vicario—Has William ever spoken to you about women, maybe bragged about girlfriends or offered to set you up with someone?
Simon Sutherland—He’s offered to take me out to parties. He does that often. I think Uncle Harold encourages him to try to help me out. He does it to be polite and he knows I’ll say no.
DC Vicario—You don’t want to go out with him, party a bit?
18:58
Simon Sutherland—I do want to. I’m not able to.
DC Vicario—It must be very hard for you to be here now.
Simon Sutherland—Yes, it is, but I want to help.
DI Grant—Let me ask you something, Simon. A bra shows up in your house, dirty and ripped and even with your lack of experience you know that isn’t how a bra should look, but you still don’t report it to us, or to anyone else as I understand it. You just accepted it being there. If something else was dumped in your house, something that was vital to a murder investigation, would you tell us?
Simon Sutherland—Of course I would. It was just a bra, I thought someone had left it there to tease me with. I thought they were trying to force me to throw it out. My family used to do things like that. They pushed me because they thought it helped. I was just embarrassed by it being there. I really didn’t see any reason to report it to the police.
Kellina Oriol—I take it from this little period of silence that you have nothing left to ask Simon. I’d say you’ve probably tortured him enough already.
END