‘He stomped around the room for a time cursing and swearing, mainly about lawyers. He called me a smarmy, smug-faced shitbag. I remember that. I appreciated the alliteration. It didn’t take long for the storm to blow over and he changed yet again. He asked for the statement. I handed it to him and he signed it without even reading it. I asked him to read it but he said he was not interested. I decided to read it over to him. Suddenly he grabbed it out of my hand and tore it to bits. He told me I had made it up – that he had never said any such thing.’

‘What happened then?’

‘The most bizarre event of all. I’m sorry, I keep using the word bizarre, but it is the only way I can describe the whole affair. He asked me for pen and paper and spent the next forty to forty-five minutes, in total silence, writing out the whole story. He handed it to me. Stood up and left.’

‘Did he say anything to you at all?’

‘Nothing about the statement. He did ask if I would write to the Parole Board and tell them of his co-operation.’

‘Did you indicate if you would comply with this request’?

‘At first I was non-committal, but he started shouting and bawling that I was trying to set him up, trying to trick him, so to calm him down, I said I would write.’

‘Did you ever write the letter?’

‘No.’

‘Did the matter ever come before the Court of Appeal?’

‘No. Philippe St André hanged himself in prison. He left a short note protesting his innocence. He could not cope with the prospect of a life sentence. I still have that man’s death on my conscience. I keep thinking I should have proceeded more swiftly.’

‘Did you ever threaten Warwick in any way?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Or offer him any form of inducement?’

‘No.’

‘Mr Tomzack, Warwick has described you in this Court as a crook. Any comment you would care to make on that?’

‘Yes, but I would offend the members of the jury and no doubt find myself in trouble with his Lordship. Warwick will say anything about anyone. You would have thought by now he might have a conscience but I doubt if he can even spell the word.’

As James Muirhead sat down, all eyes turned to Mike Matthews. When he shrugged his shoulders and blandly uttered the words, ‘No questions, my Lord,’ it was followed by an audible sigh of disappointment emanating from the jury box. Clearly, one or two had fancied a bit of a battle between Tomzack and the Crown, but it was not to be. Indeed, there was to be no more.

Muirhead closed the defence case, prompting more debate among the jurors.

‘We are not to hear from your client, Mr Muirhead?’

‘No, my Lord.’