Behind the scenes, Fox was preparing for the fight of his life. He fired the court-appointed lawyer and engaged the services of two of his former pupils. Then, he went to court and argued his right to defend himself. That was initially denied by the lower court and subsequently, the court of appeal.
Fox went straight to the Supreme Court. He argued his case by video link from Belmarsh. To the surprise of almost everyone in the legal profession, he won the right to be in the well of the court for the duration of his trial, subject to a long list of restrictions, including one that prohibited him from going within 2m of the witness box. Failure to comply would see him in the ‘dock’, which is located at the rear of the court behind a plexiglass screen. That delayed the case by one month and was now due to start in the 3rd week of July.
Dido and Trish ignored his legal pleadings, which became more and more outrageous by the week. None of them served to delay his case by even one more day.
[Mid July]
“Have you decided what you are going to wear when you get called to testify?” asked Trish.
She knew that Dido had been procrastinating over this for days. The end of their exams had allowed her the freedom to go shopping.
“I have decided. I visited a few charity shops in Chelsea and Kensington and picked up a few items after my last exam last Friday.”
Trish shook her head. When it came to clothes, Dido was still something of a mystery to her. Getting her to wear anything even remotely trendy was a lost cause… so far.
“So? Are you going to show me?”
“Why? It is not as if you are going to be called as a witness, is it?”
The colour drained from Trish’s face.
“Has Fox had the balls to call you?” asked a surprised Dido.
“Afraid so… At least I was served with a notice to appear by e-mail last week. It went to my spam folder. Then I got a phone call from them asking why I had not responded. They didn’t believe me, so I sent them a screenshot showing their email sitting in the junk folder unread.”
“When I told them in no uncertain terms that I did not have any dirt to dish on you, they told me not to bother. He was trying to scare me into telling tales, the bastard. I insisted that they send me another email confirming that I need not bother with preparing to be a witness. It came that night. Those lawyers of his are complete bastards. He trained them after all, so why would we expect anything else?”
“Agreed, he is a bastard. Does he know how low he gets with tricks like this?”
Before Trish could answer, Dido held up her hand.
“Second thoughts don’t answer that. What I don’t know can’t be used against you.”
Trish smiled, so Dido changed the subject.
“For day one, I’m wearing an ankle-length pleated skirt. The skirt is subtly done in the LGBT rainbow. A white silk blouse and black flats with a rainbow silk scarf. We know how he hates ‘Pride Month’.”
Fox had vocally derided a move by the University to put on a PRIDE event the previous year.
“That’s the Dido I know and love. Goading him into a potential hate crime in court.”
“We learned from a master, didn’t we?”
They both laughed.
“How much did that set you back? A silk blouse can’t be cheap if it is pure silk?”
Dido grinned. “Total cost thirty-five quid at the Hospice Shop, and the blouse is 100% pure silk.”
“And for day 2?”
“A Black Dior skirt from their ready-to-wear collection of four years ago. Black heeled boots, a different style of white silk blouse and the rainbow scarf. I couldn’t decide on which of the blouses to buy, so I ended up with both. I already had the boots. The cost this time was twenty-two for the skirt and fifteen for the top. Thirty-seven quid for the lot.”
“What will you wear if you have to go back for a third day?”
“Panic and hit M&S at Westfield,” joked Dido.
They both laughed at the thought of Dido panicking over what to wear.
Everyone sat back and waited for the court case to start. There was none of the fanfare that high-profile cases in the USA get. Most media channels just reported the facts: ‘the trial of Professor Fox and his son at the Old Bailey is due to start next week’.
The opening statements were due in three days. That would signal that the phoney war was well and truly over. Then the Fox ‘Blitzkrieg’ would begin in earnest.
“Do you think that Fox will take your life apart on the stand when it is time for him to cross?”
“What do you think? Is the Pope a Catholic? That is his trademark. We witnessed him doing just that, not long before he was arrested. It was an impressive piece of work, even if you hate his guts. I will just have to be wary of digging myself into a corner.”
“There are things in your life that you have never told anyone, even John or me, about, aren’t there?”
“There is, and they are not relevant to the trial.”
“Girl! You know that won’t wash. He’ll make it relevant. Your whole life is on the chopping block. He knows it and will go for your jugular. He has good reason to. To be exposed as a child trafficker and paedophile by a student of his is a double whammy gut punch, the ultimate insult to a bastard like him.
“I know all that.”
Trish knew the expression that had appeared on Dido’s face.
“Is this what you have been cooking up with the CPS team?”
“Sort of. We brainstormed a lot of different options when I met with them last week. At least I get to tell my story in full and in my own words before he will do his best to demolish me in front of the media and the jury. Their legal people coached me on the right and wrong way to answer some of the nastier questions without giving him the keys to Pandora’s box. We saw how effective he was at that when we watched him demolish that witness in the Boxall case.”
Trish smiled.
“And… you don’t want to spill the beans before the day?”
Dido took Trish’s hands in hers.
“It is not as if I don’t want to, but I’m still trying to work on the details myself. It all depends upon any openings he gives me during his cross-examination. I can guess at several. Each will require a different response and challenge to his follow-up questions. I have to make my answer appear to be all my own work and not a coached one. If he smells a rat, he’ll object and try to get my entire testimony stricken. If the judge agrees, that will put a big hole in the CPS case. Don’t get me wrong, he’ll go down for life for the attempted murder charges. If that gets thrown out, he can’t explain the gun with his prints all over it. Then there are the kidnapping and illegal imprisonment charges to consider. I’d love to see him try to weasel his way out of them. Being arrested with two mutilated… well, he is effectively, a dead man walking.”
Trish shook her head.
“Don’t tell me that you are still going to fight him head-on. I thought that you had decided on a different plan?”
“I did think about attacking him differently, but after reviewing most of those transcripts of his old cases that I got from John, I decided to go head-on and take him down. I need to do this for me. He had his evil way with me for far too long. I want to be able to walk out of that court with my head held high and knowing very well that the jury has more than enough dirt on him to make their verdict beyond all reasonable doubt: guilty of all charges. Only then can I be free of him.”
Trish shook her head.
“That sounds like a prepared closing statement to me!”
Dido laughed.
“I won’t say it like that. I’ll gently remind him of the hundreds of times that he called me unclean and that he had to fuck my ass to make me clean again.”
“Besides, I made it clear to the CPS last week that I was good and ready to slug it out with him in court. At first, they didn’t believe me, so they got one of their Barristers to play ‘Fox’ and try to take me to task. He was a former pupil of Fox, so he knows firsthand how he operates in court and especially with awkward sods like me on the stand. It was hard and lasted for almost four hours without a break. Thankfully, I passed with flying colours. Once I’d done that, they bought into my plan to sock it to his face-to-face in court.”
Dido took a deep breath.
“Once the CPS people accepted that he abused me so badly and for so long, and that I deserve the chance to sock it to him. Besides, there is so much other evidence that I know dooms him that does not even relate to me, like the explosives. Even if I come out of this badly, he and his son are going down. I want to be the final nail in their respective coffins. If I do that, then my job will be done. They have been giving me all sorts of counters to his ‘gotcha’ questions. My only hope is that I can remember them in time. What I do know is that just delaying my answer by a second makes him very angry. Let him blow his top and attack one of his victims. I can fight that because he won’t be in control.”
Trish nodded her head.
“Yeah. His last attempt to get the search warrant declared invalid went right to the Supreme Court. He wanted the two children who were rescued to be removed from the case, along with the bomb and all the other stuff. His reasoning was, from what the CPS told me, very weak. That didn’t wash one little bit with the court. For starters, he could not provide a decent explanation about why the two girls both fingered him and his son in their statements. Thankfully, the Supreme Court told him to shut the hell up unless he had irrefutable evidence of wrongdoing by the Police or the CPS.”
“That he could not do even if he tried to make out that I was an agent of the Police when I broke the law and went inside his home. He demanded that the photos I took be thrown out, and that would make the search warrant invalid. The court of appeal would have none of it.”
“Your photos?” asked Trish.
Dido smiled and whispered in her ear,
“Just in case someone is listening in on our conversation.”
Trish kissed Dido to say, ‘I understand’.
“He had to try. If he had succeeded, then it would have been my word against his.”
“What about Chrissy? Could his side call her as a witness?”
Dido shook her head.
“Her therapy has been going badly. The closer we get to the trial, and with the spectre of having to give evidence directly to him, is proving too much for her. John has been sitting by her bed until she falls asleep. She’s having some terrible nightmares again. The CPS is trying to make sure that her doctors are ready to testify that she is not fit to take the stand.”
“Does John need help?”
“He has it under control. Two ex-army nurses who are experienced with severe cases of PTSD are starting tomorrow. They will be there for as long as it takes. John has a shrink lined up to give evidence that she is too fragile for even half a Fox broadside. A former Chief Constable friend of his is footing the bill.”
Neither of them said a word for nearly a minute before Dido said,
“It is up to me to spike his guns at the first opportunity, then?”
“Be careful, Dido. That man does not know how to give mercy.”
“I know… Remember?”
Trish did not need reminding about Dido’s term of captivity. Having seen the cells for herself, albeit only briefly, she knew the torment that Dido had been through for all those years.
“Just stay safe mentally. That man… He is evil beyond contempt.”
“I hope that what I have asked the CPS Barrister not to do is true. I’m hoping to use his getting at my sexuality as an opening for me to tell the jury a few things about his sexuality. One of those is probably not in evidence but will be after I have told the world about it.”
“You are playing with fire, aren’t you?”
“It is the only way. It is his way, isn’t it? Besides, I have the proof to back it up, but that is between us.”
Trish didn’t have an answer to that.
The majority of the first twelve days of the trial were given over to forensic evidence, especially around the viability of the bomb. A Colonel who was second in command of the Army Bomb Disposal Squad spent almost a day giving evidence about the device and the explosive. That was traced to a batch that had been stolen from the US Army in Iraq. The phone that would have triggered the detonation was from that era as well. The colonel testified that the device had all the hallmarks of being constructed by a former IRA bomb maker who went rogue in 1990 and had been on the run since then, and was linked to bombs in Germany, France and the USA. He also testified that warrants were out for his arrest in Europe and the USA. Fox tried to get his whole evidence thrown out and failed miserably. The colonel produced a copy of the FBI's Most Wanted Bomb Makers’ list, and the suspect bomb maker was right there at number 3. Fox shut up when he was reminded that the bureau chief of the FBI in London was available to give evidence about the bomb.
When Fox came to cross-examine the Colonel, he was given a lesson in courteous takedowns. Nothing that Fox could do could dent the evidence against him. A very thorough forensic accountant had traced the payments for the phone SIM card to Fox, even though they came from an offshore account. That account had been subpoenaed by the FBI for another case that only incidentally involved Mr Fox. A couple of friendly judges in Washington, DC, had signed off on the orders giving the UK NCA access to the data. Once that happened, it was a simple matter of connecting the dots. If Fox escaped justice in the UK, the US DOJ was ready to try to extradite him on charges of distributing Child Pornography. A statement to that effect was read into evidence after Fox objected and was overruled.
Ironically, the CPS had decided that the issue of Child Porn was not needed to bolster their case once Dido had proved herself capable of being a solid witness. It was there to create a vivid picture of his ‘other life’ and general wrongdoing.
Mr Fox had tried his hardest to destroy the accountant’s credibility but had failed miserably. The man was about to retire with a spotless record and impeccable finances. Fox hinted at but stopped just short of implying that the accountant had a male lover in the Police. The Judge soon put a stop to that little game when the prosecution presented evidence showing that he was a widower and most certainly not gay. The Judge added to Fox’s woes by saying that the sexuality of the witness was not on trial; Fox was, and he would not tolerate any more WMDs [1] being presented to the jury.
The accountant was defiant and told Fox to prove that he was gay, and besides, if it didn’t matter to his employers, then why should it matter to the court? Fox’s gambit had failed spectacularly.
Next up was the doctor who certified that Child 3 (aka Chrissy) was in no mental state to testify. Her video statement went unchallenged, much to the annoyance of Fox, but in the main, it would merely serve to corroborate what Dido would already say in her statements when they were shown as part of her testimony. To fight the words of someone whom the court has accepted as not medically fit to testify would be a PR disaster for Fox.
The next two witnesses were the medical representatives of the two children who had been found locked in the cells during the execution of the search warrant. They made it clear that they would not be testifying in open court. The barrister for Fox Jnr protested, but as they were not making a statement to the court other than to identify Fox Senior and Fox Junior as people who had abused and imprisoned them, there was no evidence other than the video of them being found locked in the cells for them to argue over. That objection was overruled. The Judge then called a halt to proceedings, with Dido next in line for the next morning.
The Media were reporting that it looked grim for Fox after the evidence of the two girls locked in a cell was ruled admissible. Social media was swinging against him, although he still had some fans getting themselves tied in knots trying to defend him. Interestingly, there was very little discussion about Dido and what evidence she would give to the court.
Dido spent much of that evening locked in conversation with the prosecution barristers, going over her evidence one more time. Dido made it clear once again that certain topics were off-limits for the prosecution. Only if they did not come up during cross-examination were they to be introduced as supporting evidence. Both sides had the evidence, but Dido wanted to use it against Fox when he inevitably tried to make out that Dido was telling a pack of lies about being imprisoned. Her video testimony statements would be played during her questioning by the CPS barrister. Until then, Mr Fox had not questioned the validity of the tapes. The CPS was pretty sure that he would try to get all of them removed from the record as soon as the first one was played.
The CPS was pretty certain that Mr Fox would try to paint her, John Proudfoot and the Notary, who had signed and sealed the evidence bags soon after they had been recorded as being in collusion with the CPS and that all the evidence was fabricated. This was all despite ample evidence, with the dates of the recordings predating any involvement of the Police or CPS in the case.
Both Dido and the CPS hoped that the changing appearance of Dido between the tapes would stop the challenges dead in the water. The CPS had the Notary, Mr Forbes, on standby to testify to the authenticity of the packages that contained the evidence.
Trish didn’t see anything of Dido between Friday and just before she went into court to give evidence. The CPS had put her in a safe house because of intelligence that indicated that an attempt would be made on her life before she could give evidence. The house was more than two hours away from London and was protected by armed officers from Special Branch.
Dido and Trish had just a few minutes together before it was time for Dido to go into the witness box.
“Nervous?” asked Trish.
“Apprehensive, more like. Being in the public spotlight is one thing, but…”
Trish held Dido tight.
“Good luck, darling.”
They didn’t have time to kiss as Dido’s name was being called.
Trish didn’t try to get into the public gallery. It had been full of bursting with the media since the day that the trial started. Instead, she went home and did some cleaning. The place didn’t need it, but it was her way of doing something while her mind was right there in the Old Bailey with Dido.
[1] WMD – Weapons of Mass Distraction.
[to be continued]