After talking most of it through with Catherine, Mary cleared a few hours. She could do the court reports from home tonight. It was the sheriff and the defence lawyers who wanted them a day before session. The sheriffs never read them anyhow, and the lawyers were dicks. Lil offered to see her other punters, bless her.
For a few hours, Macdowall was the priority. Mary pulled information from Google, Facebook, the Scottish Criminal Records Office (SCRO), the Social Work Information Database (SWID), and the Violent and Sex Offenders Register (shouldn’t it be VASOR not VISOR?). She returned calls to Macdowall’s GP (ah, that’s who Dr Shearer was) and Tracy at the alcohol problem clinic, and Macdowall’s ‘friend you talked to last night’, Fiona Bellwood. None of them was there, so she left messages.
She discovered that Macdowall’s probable-shag, Fiona Bellwood, was on the system for destitution (2010), housing issues (2012) and drug counselling (2012/2014, cannabis/amphetamines). Mary emailed a referral to the child-protection first-response team, outlining the potential risk and recommending a visit to Fiona Bellwood and an assessment of the situation.
Mary decided to omit one tiny detail in the breach report, a little personal development no-one needed to know about – that Jack was now involved with the Macdowalls and the Cuck movement. It was her fault. She should have stopped him going into the book launch. No need to mention Jack; definitely no need. She concluded the breach as follows:
Mr Macdowall failed to attend his first appointment with me, orchestrating and prioritising a men’s rights rally at the prison instead. Three people were arrested at this rally, according to BBC News. Mr Macdowall openly consumed alcohol at his book launch the night of his release, and as far as I know he has been drinking heavily since (see photos attached to the Cuck Facebook Page, link below, and the photograph I have attached of the cup he drank from on the evening of his book launch). He failed to attend his second office appointment with me yesterday at 9.00 a.m. Later that night, he found a way to contact me on my private Facebook page. He appeared to be under the influence of alcohol and perhaps other substances and asked me if he could have sex with a Ms Fiona Bellwood, a single mother who he had only just met earlier that day. Ms Bellwood is known to social work for drug misuse issues and reported to me that she has a son, now twelve. I have reason to believe Mr Macdowall ignored my directions and spent the evening with Ms Bellwood anyway.
When I visited Mr Macdowall’s house this morning, there was evidence of Ms Bellwood (she had left her purse in the living room), and of heavy drinking (empty wine and beer bottles) and drug use (distinct smell of cannabis and drug-using paraphernalia).
Mr Macdowall is appearing at a heavily publicised sold-out event at the Edinburgh Book Festival at 2.00 p.m. today, and news feeds are already reporting that angry protestors are gathering at Charlotte Square. Since his third month in custody, Macdowall has become heavily involved with men’s rights movement, in particular with its Scottish leader, Derek McLaverty, who is the publisher of Macdowall’s “book”, Cuck – Letters to My Dead Wife, a publication that highlights the nominal’s narcissism, misogyny and lack of remorse for his actions. McLaverty has seven previous violent convictions for assault/serious assault/assault to permanent disfigurement and endangerment of life, all of which were aggravated by hate crime (domestic, racial, homophobic). Mr McLaverty’s interests appear to extend beyond those related to fair custody rights, to an ideology which supports racial hatred.
I am extremely concerned by Mr Macdowall’s audacious and hostile attitude. He is not attending supervision, he is drinking heavily, and may be having casual relations with an unknown and potentially vulnerable single mother. In my opinion, Mr Macdowall may also be involved in the wider and more sinister interests of the alt-right movement, or he is being used and swept along by its conductors. Either way, I feel that serious harm is imminent and in order to protect the public, I recommend Mr Macdowall be recalled to prison immediately.
Happy with her facts and her writing and her assessment, Mary attached the ‘Macdowall.17’ breach report to the secure email addresses of the parole board, MAPPA, and her boss, Catherine. She marked it ‘urgent’, and almost pressed ‘send’, pausing to reflect that she shouldn’t send it yet. She should read it again, one more time. She should breathe.
Mary longed to stop reflecting. To do a thing and not reflect on it.
Mary reflected that she needed to be one step above ‘defensible’ in court, and so before pressing ‘send’ she dialled Macdowall’s mobile number, the one she had asked him for and had written down and managed to put in her work-issue Blackberry. That’s right, she good old-fashioned dialled it, having decided it was probable her report was fair. On balance. Considering.
She was confident! About the essence. So much so that she would read the report to Macdowall right now, right here, over the phone, totally out loud. That’s what she’d do: read the breach to her nominal.
‘Liam, is that you?’
He sounded happy, like he’d had a drink, and this made Mary relax. She was doing the right thing.
Macdowall said something about a ‘lurt’ and free wine and nosh. Mary could hear the clinking of cutlery. ‘I’m so sorry, can I call back?’
‘No. Stop whatever it is you’re doing. Go somewhere quiet.’
‘What? (Yum, thank you! Yes please.)’
Mary could hear a drink being poured. He was obviously being served, superstar. ‘I’ll take this out to the smoking area, hang on. Okay I’m – I’ll go to the author toilets.’
The author toilets. Fancy.
‘Okay, sorry, Mary. I’m sitting on a Portaloo. What is it?’
‘Liam, you’ve done almost everything wrong since you got out, you do realise that? It can hardly be a shock. You’re breached.’
‘I’m going to read you the conclusion of the report I’m sending to the parole board after this call. Okay?’ Mary found herself revising and deleting as she went along. If she couldn’t say it out loud to Macdowall, she should get rid of it. And she did; bits anyway. ‘This is the conclusion: “I am concerned that Mr Macdowall is not complying with the conditions of his licence. I can confirm that he has not attended two scheduled supervision appointments, I have photographic and physical evidence that he is drinking, and believe he may be having casual relations with a single mother who is known to the social work department.”’
‘Oh God, oh God.’ Macdowall kept saying. ‘Oh God’. A lock slid, which gave Mary time to edit the next bit.
‘“I am also concerned that he may be attracted to, or drawn into, potentially violent situations because of his sudden fame and association with known anti-immigration and anti-feminist activists. To protect the public, I recommend Mr Macdowall be recalled to prison immediately.”’
Mary heard the clinking of cutlery. ‘Liam, I’m heading to Charlotte Square now. I’ll meet you at the signing table around 3.00 p.m., after the event, okay?’
All he said was, ‘Oh God,’ then the phone went dead.