He paused again. ‘I do also want to emphasize that, as jurors, you are forbidden to talk about this case to anyone other than your fellow jurors. You must not say a word to your wives, husbands, partners, friends or business colleagues. And you must not attempt to google the defendant. If any of you have any concerns about the trial, if you realize you know the defendant personally, or have had any professional dealings with him, please send me a note via the clerk of the court.’

He stopped to sip a glass of water. ‘The most important thing for you as jurors is your eyes and ears. You must watch and assess for yourselves each person giving evidence for or against the defendant. I want to remind you that under English law this man standing before you, accused of these crimes, is currently innocent until – and unless – proved guilty. That is the question for you alone. It is not a question of maybe he did it, or even that he probably did it. You need to be sure that he committed these offences, in order to convict. So, your role, as fellow human beings, is to assess both the credibility of the defendant and the witnesses both for and against him. I hope that is clear.’

30

Thursday 9 May

‘Very clear, Your Honour!’ Rio Zambrano said loudly, with a grin.

Sixty miles away from Lewes Crown Court, on the tenth floor of a high-rise office building in Hoxton in East London, Zambrano, a thirty-eight-year-old computer programmer, originally from Quito in Ecuador, sat in front of his large computer screen. He was listening intently to the court proceedings being relayed to him through his headphones by Jeff Pringle’s concealed video camera. He had pulled off stills of each of the faces of the twelve jurors, which he saved into individual files.

Beside him sat Paul Constantinidi, a private investigator and disgruntled former Met Police detective who had been forced into early retirement following an accusation – not for the first time – of excessive violence during an arrest. He had been for some months in the lucrative pay of Mickey Starr and, as it appeared now, ultimately the top boss, Terence Gready. Paul Constantinidi had retained many friends within the Met, one of whom was proving particularly helpful in checking the backgrounds of each of the jurors as he relayed them to him, whilst at the same time – along with two techies who ran the county lines network for Starr – doing a google search on each of them.

Juries, if they could not agree a unanimous verdict, could reach a majority verdict as directed by the judge either on an 11–1 or 10–2 basis. If a jury could not agree then they would be discharged by the judge and, in normal circumstances, there would be a retrial. But the clear plan, outlined by Gready’s solicitor, Nick Fox, was to do better than that. Much better.