ELAINE HARDCASTLE

Yes.

ROGER SUMPTION QC

Can you elaborate? Tell us about it for the benefit of the jury.

ELAINE HARDCASTLE

It was last August. I remember because we were planning our annual sunshine holiday. It’s a little treat we give the children at the end of every summer, sort of to make up for them not going away like they might if they were with family. I was sad Elliot was leaving us and missing it, but pleased he had a new home. Well, an old home.

ROGER SUMPTION QC

Can you explain?

ELAINE HARDCASTLE

David and Elizabeth Asha had made Mr Elmys trustee of their estate and Elliot’s guardian. Elliot was going back to the family home to live with Mr Elmys.

ROGER SUMPTION QC

And how did he seem to you that day?

ELAINE HARDCASTLE

Elliot? He was sad. At least to begin with.

ROGER SUMPTION QC

And Mr Elmys?

ELAINE HARDCASTLE

I, well, we met in my office. I like to give new guardians the opportunity to ask questions while I’m doing final checks.

ROGER SUMPTION QC

Did Mr Elmys ask any questions?

ELAINE HARDCASTLE

No. He just watched me going over the paperwork. He seemed distracted.

GRACE OYEWOLE QC for the defendant

My Lord, as someone might be if they were suddenly responsible for a child.

HIS HONOUR JUDGE THOMAS

Indeed.

ELAINE HARDCASTLE

That’s true. A lot of people who adopt struggle with the responsibility. But this was different. Am I, I mean, I hope it’s not untoward or anything, but Mr Elmys seemed troubled.

GRACE OYEWOLE QC for the defendant

My Lord.

JUDGE THOMAS

Please keep to your recollection of events, Mrs Hardcastle. You’re not qualified to give opinions on Mr Elmys’s frame of mind.

ROGER SUMPTION QC

What happened then?

ELAINE HARDCASTLE

I asked Mr Elmys to stay in the welcome room. It’s a play space we use to acclimatize children to their new families. I left him there and went to fetch Elliot, who was with Stephanie Cliffe, one of our counsellors. She was observing him interact with other children. Or rather, not interact. His parents’ deaths had hit him hard. Is it OK to say that? I mean it’s my opinion, but it’s based on decades of working with children.

He was sitting apart, like he did every day, staring out of the window at the old oak tree that grows just beside the residential wing. Whenever I’d ask him what he was doing, why he was daydreaming rather than playing, he’d say he was counting souls. Each leaf was a person. One day they’d start to fall, and by winter they’d all be gone. I thought it was a very strange way for a ten-year-old child to look at the world.

Anyway, I found him by the window, and Steph and I took him to the welcome room. It was very distressing.

ROGER SUMPTION QC

Why?

ELAINE HARDCASTLE

He was crying. Fighting with us both. We don’t use physical restraint at Sunshine, but this was as close as I’d ever come to having to do so.