11: What happens at murder trials?

For this episode, former Scotland Yard detective inspector, Steve Keogh, explains how investigations get to court and what to expect during the trial.

You can learn more about all of Steve's work at https://stevekeogh.com/ and find out about the two books Steve has published and his TV series, Secrets of a Murder Detective.

Episode Transcript

Steve Keogh (00:02):
Welcome to murder investigation for crime Writers, the podcast where we delve
into the dark world of murder to help bringauthenticity to your stories.
I'm your host, Steve Keogh, a former ScotlandYard detective inspector.
So grab your notebook, sharpen your pencilsand prepare to embark on a journey into a
world few get to see.
This is murder investigation for crime

(00:23):
writers.
Hello and welcome to episode eleven of murder
investigation for crime writers.
I'm your host, Steve Keogh, former police
officer and spent twelve years investigatingmurder.
And now I talk an awful lot about murder.

(00:44):
Since doing this podcast, I've been approached
by some people for some one to one advice.
So I've decided to add that as a service to my
website.
So if you do want to have a one to one session
with me, go to stevekeh.com and you'll finddetails of how to go about that there.
So today's episode, I'm going to be talkingabout court, the trials that happen at the end

(01:07):
of a murder investigation.
I have to say, this is the most important
element of any murder investigation.
If you just think about what you're doing it
for, why is your detective out there runningaround trying to solve this murder?
Ultimately, it's to convict the killer.
That's why you do the job, that's why you're

(01:27):
doing your investigations.
It's to get justice for the victim, justice
for the family, and justice if served atcourt.
The detectives you're writing about, I wouldsuggest, are good detectives.
And if they are a good detective, they willhave courts at the forefront of their mind
throughout their investigation.
From the very first moment they get a call,

(01:50):
whether consciously or subconsciously, theywill be thinking about court.
Every decision they make, every line ofinquiry, they follow how they do those lines
of inquiry.
They follow the rules, the procedures, they do
things properly.
And that's all.
Because when they get to court, if they don'tdo that, some clever lawyers will start to

(02:12):
pick up on their mistakes, pick up where theydidn't follow the correct procedures.
And once that starts to happen, your case willstart to unravel.
The defence will start to put doubt into thejury's mind, and as soon as jurors have doubt,
they have to find a person not guilty.
So if your detective isn't doing things
correctly when it comes to court, it could allblow up in their face.

(02:35):
But that doesn't mean that everything you'rewriting about should be caught this and caught
that.
It's just that in your minds, your detectives
will be thinking about how will this play outin court.
It's a line that you'll probably say toyourselves dozens of times in a murder
investigation.
How will this play out in court?
This decision I'm making?How will this play out in court?

(02:56):
And if you don't think like that, if you thinkabout it later on, you make a decision, you
choose to take a course of action, and thenlater on you think, how will this play out in
court?It's probably too late by then.
You've gone too far.
You're not going to be able to get it back.
So court is hugely important, and then it'sthe reason for all the work you're doing as a
detective.
It's your job to collect the evidence, to put

(03:19):
in front of the court so that those there canmake the decision, so the judge and the jury
and the advocates can all do their jobs.
And ultimately, the jury can come to what
should be the right decision, based on theevidence that you as a detective have
collected.
And something that often gets missed is you're
not just collecting evidence that's going tobe in favour of the prosecution, you have to

(03:42):
collect all the evidence there is.
And sometimes the evidence will not be in your
favour.
Sometimes it will help the defence.
That doesn't mean you ignore it.
You can't say to yourself, it'd be better for
me if I didn't let people know that thisevidence exists.
But you can't do that.
You have to collect all the evidence,
regardless of whether it's for or against yourcase.
So we're going to break this episode intodifferent parts.

(04:03):
And the first part, I'm going to look at how acase comes to court, the processes that the
police need to go to to get it to court, thenat trial.
Now, all trials are different, but they allfollow the same pattern.
There will be steps that each trial will gothrough, the nuances in them will all change,
but the process and the steps that go throughwill all be the same.

(04:26):
And then we'll look at a few differentelements at court, types of evidence and a few
other little bits, just to reinforce for youwhat's likely to happen at court and the
things that go on.
So, firstly, how does an investigation end up
at a trial?The first stage will always be a suspect is
arrested for murder and they will beinterviewed and they'll be at the police

(04:47):
station, etcetera, and we'll cover theprocesses around that in a different episode.
For this, we're going to concentrate on thecourt.
What will happen is detectives will get to astage where they believe that there is enough
evidence that this person can be charged.
But that decision to charge won't be with the
police, it will be with the Crown ProsecutionService.
It's the CPS that make decisions as to whethermurderers are charged and trials happen.

(05:13):
And the way that happens is you've probablyheard this phrase, the police have submitted a
file to the CPS.
Essentially, that's what it is.
I mean, it's changed slightly in modern timesin terms of how that file is delivered.
It's no longer on paper, it's all on acomputer system.
But this principle's the same.
I don't think we need to get bogged down in

(05:35):
the nitty gritty of how that file is puttogether, etcetera.
I think all we need to really concentrate onis the fact that police will put together a
report to the Crown Prosecution Service and inthat they will outline the circumstances of
the investigation and the evidence that theybelieve points towards this person being

(05:55):
guilty and should be used when the CPSconsider whether or not the person should be
charged.
When the CPS look at the report from the
police, they'll be looking at two things.
First off, they must be satisfied there is
sufficient evidence to provide a realisticprospect of a conviction.
So is the evidence strong enough that a jurycan make their minds up that this person is

(06:17):
guilty and they must also decide thatprosecuting is in the public interest.
Now, you might think, well, it's a murder, itmust be in the public interest.
But there are incidents where the CPS wouldn'tprosecute a murderer, even though the evidence
points to them having done it.
Imagine if an informant happened to be a
witness to a murder.

(06:38):
The circumstances around it meant that the
prosecutors would have to disclose to thedefence that this witness is a police
informant, and if that disclosure took place,that informant's life was put in danger.
Under those circumstances, the CPS may decide,actually, it's not in the public interest to

(06:58):
prosecute this murder.
Now, that's rare, but I've seen it, it does
happen.
So the two tests that CPS will be running are,
is there sufficient evidence to provide arealistic prospect of conviction?
And is prosecuting this person in the publicinterest?
If they agree, yes.
Then they will authorise a charge.
Once charged, a person at the police stationwill have that charge read to them and they

(07:21):
will remain at the police station in order togo to court.
Sometimes at a police station, police have theability to be able to bow someone to court and
say, you've got to be at court the next dayyou've got to be at court the month or
whatever.
In murder, they don't have that discretion.
If somebody's charged with murder, they haveto go to court.
The next day they'll go to a magistrate'scourt and at the magistrate's court again,

(07:43):
under normal circumstances, the magistrate canbail the person out or they can remind them
into prison.
But for murder, they don't have that
discretion.
The only place in which a person charged for
murder can get bail is from a crown court.
So at this first hearing at the magistrate's
court, they will set a date in two or threedays time where this person will appear at a

(08:06):
crown court.
It's only there that this person's lawyers can
apply for bail.
Most murderers, that's not going to happen.
Most murderers don't get bail.
They wait in prison on remand until the date
of their trial.
So that's a process of how a person would end
up standing trial for murder.
They're arrested.
The police then go to the CPS.

(08:27):
If they think there's sufficient evidence to
charge.
The CPS will review the evidence.
If they believe there's sufficient evidence toprovide a realistic prospect of conviction and
it's in the public interest, they willauthorise a charge.
The person will go to the magistrate's court,from the magistrate's court, go to the crown
court, and from the Crown court either givethem bail or go into prison on remand awaiting

(08:48):
trial.
So that's the processes of how they get there.
It's quite simple, really.
It's quite simple, although in reality it's
not simple because you've obviously got to getthe sufficient evidence to persuade the CPS in
the first place.
But the processes are simple, the steps to get
there are pretty straightforward.
So then we're going to have a trial and the
trial can take some time.
It will vary from court to court.

(09:09):
Around the country, you're probably looking ataround six to twelve months if someone's on
remand for murder before the trial starts, andthen we get to the trial date.
This is what we've all been building up to,this is what all the work has been happening
for, and then we'll get a court trial.
But in reality, now, this isn't going to be
flat in your books, I would suggest, becauseit's a bit boring, but in reality, there's

(09:31):
loads and loads of work that will go on inbetween when a person's charged and when the
trial starts.
Loads of work.
And do you know what?Even amongst the police senior officers don't
get this.
It used to be one of the biggest frustrations
for the teams I worked on, where we chargesomeone with murder and those high above

(09:51):
superintendents and above think, oh, great,they've charged them.
We can give them some more work to do becausethey're now free, not really realising,
because they've probably not investigatedmurders themselves, that actually there's lots
more work.
And it's probably one of the hardest parts.
It's probably one of the toughest times, whereyou're gathering the evidence, knowing
everything has to be done properly, theevidence and all the information that needs to

(10:16):
be disclosed to the defence.
There's a huge process around that.
There's a lot of work goes on, but I'm notsuggesting you write all about that because
it's really quite boring.
And I don't think your readers are going to
want to sit and read about the ups and downsand the processes the police go to in order to
get their case file ready at court.
But we're going to turn up on the first day of
the trial, we're going to turn up andessentially, there are ten steps during any

(10:40):
trial and I'll go through those.
I won't go into massive detail because it
would be all day going into it, but I'll justtouch on each as we go through.
But first off, I just want to paint a pictureof what it's like for the detectives when a
trial starts.
It's quite a nervous time, because this is the
test for you, isn't it?You've done all that work, you've gathered all

(11:02):
the evidence, you've gone through all the upsand downs of an investigation and often there
are more downs and ups.
You've been on that journey with the family,
really importantly, and this is.
Why are you doing it?
This is what motivates you.
It's certainly what motivated me as a
detective.
It's certainly what motivated me as a murder
detective.
It's getting justice for the victim and

(11:23):
getting justice for the family.
So this is a really nervous time.
And you've been through the whole of the buildup with the family and you've seen their pain,
you've seen their trauma and you're with themnow, you're with them at court and they will
turn up.
Most times they will turn up, there will be a
family member there and they will be lookedafter by the family liaison officer, who will

(11:45):
remain with them throughout the trial as theirpoint of contact in terms of explaining the
processes and just being there as support forthem because it's a really, really difficult
time for families.
It's a horrible time for families at court.
The likelihood of what's going to happen isthey're going to hear details of the murder
that probably going to be upsetting.

(12:06):
They're also going to have to witness quite
often, the defence using a tactic of trying toalmost demonise the victim in the eyes of the
jury.
So they remove the sympathy from them, making
it more difficult for them to come to a guiltyverdict and easier to come to a not guilty

(12:27):
verdict.
So this is one of the tactics the defence will
often use by bringing up the past and tryingto paint the victim in a light that doesn't
look good in front of a jury.
And that can be really, really difficult for a
family.
I mean, you can imagine if you've lost a loved
one, that's bad enough as it is, but then haveto go to court and see their reputation

(12:48):
absolutely ruined in front of you when theycan't answer is really, really hard.
It's really difficult.
And it's probably one of the most unpleasant
experiences of being a murder detective, ishaving to witness this and just feeling for
family that they have to go through thisordeal.
So you're there and you're nervous and whatyou're worried about as much as anything is

(13:11):
that you've done everything.
Have I made a mistake?
Is there something I've forgotten?Because if you have, what defence are more
likely to do than not is not tell you untilit's too late, until they can bring it up in
the box when you're given evidence, or bringit up in front of your witness, or bring it up
at a time when there's nothing you can doabout it, suck it up and hope it doesn't deral

(13:33):
your trial.
But.
So it's a really nervous time.
You're just hoping and praying, you know, in
your mind, you think you've done everything,you think you've crossed every t, dotted every
I, but you never be sure.
And also, at this early stage, one of the
biggest stresses you're going to have isgetting your witnesses to court now, giving

(13:53):
evidence out of murder trial.
Just think about how.
How you would like it.
It would be terrifying, wouldn't it?
Not only have you maybe been witness tosomething horrific that's going to probably
live with you for the rest of your life,you're now going to have to go into court
where some lawyers are going to try and makeyou look.

(14:14):
Either that you don't know what you're talkingabout or that you're a liar or sometimes they
just out and out try and make witnesses looklike complete idiots is not a nice time.
And there are very few protections ofwitnesses at trials.
The court system is set up primarily to lookafter the person that's on trial.
It's an awful time, I'm not going to sugarcoatit.

(14:36):
It's not a nice time for witnesses and I thinka lot of people appreciate that.
They're probably imagining that it's going tobe really, really awful.
So a lot of them will change their mind.
They won't want to go to court.
Yes.
When they made the statement, when they were
sitting in their front room and the idea ofgoing to court was very distant and didn't
seem real at that time, but now it's real.

(14:57):
You've had a phone call, you've had a letter
telling you you have to be at court on thisdate at this time.
And it's at this point where some witnesseswill go, I don't want to do this, I don't like
it and I get it, I get it completely.
But they've made a statement, they're a
witness, they have to go, it's important.
It's a murder trial, they have to go.
So getting your witnesses to court can bereally, really stressful.

(15:18):
Some will make their own way, others, becauseof various reasons, you will want your
colleagues to go and pick them up in a car andbring them to court.
That could be because travelling on their ownis too difficult for them, or it also could be
that you want to make sure they're there, youdon't want any excuse for them not to be
there.
So for me, as a detective, I didn't enjoy this

(15:40):
first bit of the trial because you really.
You're worrying about what could go wrong and
you're worrying about, are all our witnessesgoing to get there?
And then also you've got to worry about iseven when, if you do get a witness to court,
you're not guaranteed they're going to sayexactly in the witness box that they said in
this statement.
Witnesses often go off pieced, they will say

(16:00):
things that they never mentioned before orthey'll change their story slightly.
Now, that doesn't mean they're beingdishonest, it's just.
It might just be that they've rememberedsomething they forgot to say for their
statement or they've re remembered it orthey've had flashbacks.
And think of it in a different way doesn'tmean they're lying.
While some witnesses do come and lie.
But most times when a witness changes what

(16:21):
they say in the witness box, it's doneinnocently.
But when you put witness in, you've really gotno idea what they're going to say.
So it's quite a test in time and you sit therewatching them and it's a relief when they get
through their evidence, or it's a relief thatthey haven't changed their story.
And then some witnesses are brilliant, somewitnesses are brilliant, others really, really

(16:42):
struggle.
So it's a really stressful time at this point,
you're not going to know what's going tohappen.
The first day of a trial is often an admintype day, where there will be legal arguments
between the prosecution and defence lawyersand all sorts of applications might be made
and they'll make disclosure requests.
So the defence will come to you and say, can

(17:03):
we have a copy of this bit of paperwork, orcan you tell us about this person's
background, or can we clarify this?There'll be all sorts of questions that they
are asked, which, to be honest, they couldhave asked earlier, but they leave it for the
first day of the trial.
So you're running around, you're doing all
this.
So the first day or two isn't much fun.
But then the trial begins and it always willstart with the selection and swearing in of

(17:26):
the jury.
And this is quite an amusing part.
As a police officer, you're sat there becausewhen a juror is warned for jury service,
they're told that they will serve for twoweeks.
Murder trials rarely, I mean, really rarely,will last for two weeks.
You're probably looking a minimum of three.
I've had.
I've had one where it was three months.

(17:48):
The chances are that any jury member is going
to be staying for a lot longer than theythought.
And imagine it.
You turn up, you're told you're going to spend
two weeks doing your jury service, you'redoing your bit.
It's a good thing.
You're pleased.
You're told you're going to be doing two weeksof jury service, and then what happens is
there will be a pool of jurors in the juryroom and a number of them, their names will be

(18:12):
called out and they'll be brought to thecourtroom.
And depending on the length of the trial, willdepend on how many jurors are brought down.
All jurors in the UK will have twelve memberson it.
They'll start with twelve members, so you'llhave something like 20, maybe even up to 30,
maybe even 40 jurors depending on the lengthof the trial.
And they will be told that this is a murdertrial and the anticipated length of the trial.

(18:37):
And it's amusing.
I feel sorry for him at this point when you
see their faces, when the judge will say, weanticipate that this trial will last four to
six weeks.
Hold on a minute.
You've just warned me for two weeks.
Four to six weeks.
No one said no. Mention this and you can seethe panic on some people's faces.
Then what will happen is the court clerk willhave a each jury member's name on a piece of

(19:00):
paper.
They'll shuffle the, shuffle them up like
you're shuffling a pack of playing cards andthey will start to read out the names.
But what the judge will say is if they haveany reason why they can't be on a jury for
four to six weeks before they go and sit downin the jury box, come and see the judge and
explain to them why it would be a problem forthem being on a jury for this long.

(19:21):
And.
Yeah, so, so you sit in there, the first name
gets called out and I think we're all doingthe same thing.
Are they going to take their seat or are theygoing to go to the judge and one might take
their seat, then the next one will go to thejudge as fast as they can and they'll be
whispering something in the judge's ear andthe judge will then make a decision.
Yes, I agree.

(19:42):
That's a good enough reason for you not to sit
on this jury.
Or actually, no, it's not go and sit down that
you're on the jury and the judge will makethat decision more times than not, as long as
it's a good excuse.
They will probably say, okay, on this
occasion, you're excused from this jury andyou'll go back to the jury room for another
trial.
And depending on the length of the trial, this

(20:04):
can take some time.
People coming up and telling about holidays
they've got or the fact they've got childcareissues, or they run a business and they
couldn't be away from it on their own.
All sorts of reasons why somebody quite
reasonably, I think, can't just put their lifeon hold for four to six weeks or longer.
Eventually you'll get there and you'll gettwelve members of the jury and they all then

(20:26):
will take an oath to try the defendant andgive a true verdict according to the evidence.
So we now have our jury.
So they will then go off and there'll be some
more admin paperwork probably until the nextstage, stage number two, and that's a
prosecution opening.
And this is basically the prosecution
barrister will open the trial by explaining tothe jury the details of the case.

(20:50):
This could be done verbally, or they couldshow video, CCTV, etcetera, but they're
essentially, they're outlining the case forthe prosecution.
And then we'll move on to stage three, whichis a presentation of the prosecution case.
And this could be in the form of witnessesplaying CCtv, showing various exhibits, going
through phone records.

(21:11):
There's lots of different types of evidence
that they will go through.
And of all the sections of a trial, this is
probably the lengthiest.
And as one of the officers in the case, it's
the most stressful.
This is where you're being tested, where your
witnesses are being tested, where you're goingin the box and having to answer questions, and
you're just hoping that when you get throughit, the evidence that the prosecutor presented

(21:35):
in their opening is the same level as when youfinished a prosecution case, that you haven't
lost any of the evidence by the defence makingapplications, that it should be excluded for
whatever reason.
So you'll get through that.
The prosecution case is finished, and this isknown as half time.
And at half time, it's possible for thedefence to make an application that the

(22:00):
defendant should be discharged, becausethere's insufficient evidence for a jury to
make an informed decision.
Now, that sometimes happens.
Not all the time, but it sometimes doeshappen.
And there will be arguments between theprosecuting barrister, the defence barrister,
and the judge will make that decision.
Now, assuming the judge hasn't made a decision

(22:20):
that the defendant should be discharged, thenext stage of the trial will take place.
Stage number four, and that's the presentationof the defence case or cases.
If there's more than one defendant, and thiscould be in the form of witnesses, they may
recall some of the evidence that the defencehad put, the CCTV, etcetera.
And it will also be a decision as to whetheror not the defendant gives evidence

(22:44):
themselves.
Under the law in England and Wales, a
defendant doesn't have to give evidence intheir own trial.
And I'll go into a little bit more detailabout that later on.
Then once that stage is finished, that's allthe evidence the prosecution have put their
case across, defence have put theirs.
And then we move on to what's known as the
speeches.
And the first of those will be the prosecution

(23:05):
speech.
That's stage number five, the prosecution
closing speech.
And they will highlight to the jury the
evidence that they believe points to the guiltof the defendant or defendants.
And after they've finished their speech, itwill then be the defence's speech.
Stage number six, their closing speeches, andthey'll be doing the opposite.
They'll be highlighting to the jury why theyshould find their defendant not guilty.

(23:32):
And then stage number six, once the speechesare finished, we then move on to stage number
seven.
And that's the judge's summing up.
And they have two main tasks in this.
One is to advise the jury around the law, and
what they will often do in this is give aroute to verdict.
Essentially, it's like a flow chart.

(23:54):
And the jury will follow that flowchart,
answering questions as they go.
Yes, no, yes, no. And at the end of that, it
will say whether or not that person should befound guilty or not guilty.
So, just as a very, very quick example, two ofthe questions a jury will have to ask
themselves in relation to the guilt of adefendant.

(24:15):
Did the defendant unlawfully kill the victim?If the answer is yes, they move on to the next
question.
If the answer is no, then they'll find the
defendant not guilty.
Yes.
Moving on to the next question, did thedefendant intend to kill or seriously injure
the victim?Again, if the answer is no, then they'll be
found not guilty of murder, potentially guiltyof manslaughter.

(24:36):
But we won't get into that.
But if the answer is yes, then they'll be
found guilty of murder.
So it's a simple flowchart that will be agreed
between the defence, the prosecution and thejudge in order to assist the jury.
So they're not getting confused about the law,they're not there to decide on the facts of
the law.
Their job is to decide on the facts of the

(24:56):
case.
And then the second part of the judge's
summing up will be that, summing up theevidence, highlighting to them what each of
the witnesses have said, what the evidencesays in order to help them reach their
verdict.
And then we'll reach part eight, which is the
jury deliberations, and that's the jury goingout and deciding amongst themselves, is the

(25:18):
defendant guilty or not guilty?And that can take a number of hours, it can
take a number of days, it could take a coupleof weeks, all depending on how much evidence
that they have to consider.
And this is a part of a trial.
I didn't really enjoy the sitting aroundwaiting for the jury.
In reality, what you'll be doing, you'll besitting a canteen, you'll be reading a

(25:39):
newspaper, logging onto computer, doing a bitof work, chatting amongst yourselves, having a
bit of food.
And it is quite boring.
The way the courts work is, in order to geteverybody back into the courtroom when they're
needed, a tanoi will be put out.
Can all parties in the case of Smith please
return to court six?So you'll all go back and you don't know what

(26:01):
you're going back for.
Is it the verdict?
Have the jury come back to the verdict, butmore often than not, it won't be.
It will be a question that the jury haveraised in relation to the evidence, or could
be anything, or they might want to look atsome CCTV again.
Could be anything.
And so you walk in and you go, okay, we'll sit
and we'll listen and we'll listen to thediscussions about it.
And then we go back out and you get calledback in again.

(26:23):
You go back out, you get called back in andover the course of two, three, four days a
week, you could go back in and out about sixor seven times.
But then there will be that one time.
There'll be that one time and you go back in
and you immediately.
In actual fact, no one has to tell you because
you just notice a different change, thissubtle change that you recognise in the

(26:44):
courtroom.
There's a tension.
Like, even amongst the staff that have beendoing this job for years and years and years,
you still get to see that tension.
And someone there, probably the carcass court,
will say, we have a verdict.
So you make sure the family liaison officer
knows, bring the family in.
Everybody will shuffle back into the court and
they'll be sitting there waiting and then thejury walk in.

(27:07):
During the course of a trial, the jury membersall sit in the same seats throughout because
of the paperwork's in front of them.
So you get used to where each juror sits.
But when they come back for the verdict, it'snot like that.
They all sit in different seats.
And one of the things you always do, we always
did amongst us detectives, is we try and guesswho the jury foreperson is.

(27:27):
So when the jury go out to do thedeliberation, someone is elected as the
foreperson.
They're essentially there to chair the
discussions.
When it comes to the verdict, it's they who
will say yes or no, we've reached a verdict.
And whether it's guilty or not guilty, and you
all try and guess who it is.
I reckon it's the lady with the blonde hair,
or I reckon it's a man with a grey beard.

(27:49):
Whatever it is, you all try and guess.
Most of the times you're wrong, someone like,well, I never expected that person to be it.
But anyway, they'd come back in and they'llsit down, and then the clerk of the court or
the usher, one of them will go over to thejury and say, members of the jury, have you
reached a verdict on which you all agree?And they will say, yes.

(28:10):
And the tension is really racked up now.
I mean, me personally, my insides are like a
washing machine.
I'm so nervous at this point.
I'm nervous for me.
I'm nervous for the family.
I'm nervous that all the work we've put intothis, have we got the verdict that we believe
is the right verdict?And that's just me.
So imagining what the family members arefeeling, imagine what the defendants are

(28:33):
feeling, knowing that the next words are goingto be the difference between them maybe
walking out of the court free or maybe goingto prison for the next 30 years.
I mean, the tension in that room.
I mean, it's an old cliche, but you literally
could cut the atmosphere with a knife.
So you're then sitting there waiting on the
next words to come from the jury member,guilty or not guilty?

(28:53):
What's it gonna be?What's it gonna be?
Please be guilty.
Please be guilty.
And you're sitting there.
On count one of murder, do you find the
defendant guilty or not guilty?Guilty.
Honestly, that feeling, the relief,everything.
And the first thing I always did was look overto the family to see the reaction.
And virtually every time, it'll be the samething.
Just a. A look of sense of relief on theirface.

(29:16):
No joy, no gloating, no getting up and punchin the air.
Just literally.
Just relief.
And then quickly, you then look over to thedefendant to see how they react.
And more often than not, it is not really thekind of reaction you might expect.
It's almost like a resignation to it.
Sometimes they get really upset, and
occasionally they get really angry.
But that's on a guilty verdict.

(29:37):
More times than not, it will be guilty, butsometimes there will be a not guilty verdict.
And that's obviously the complete opposite.
The relief is on the defendant's face and the
anguish is on the family's face.
And I've got to be honest, as an investigator,
it's not a nice feeling.
And you just got to say to yourself, it's just
that the evidence wasn't there for the jury tobe able to find the defendant guilty, and you

(30:01):
just got to live with it, essentially.
But the next task is obviously to go outside
and deal with a family.
And that's not nice.
It's the complete opposite feeling to what youwant to have.
When you go outside and the family arethanking you and they're giving you a cuddle
and saying thank you, we feel we can move on.
When it's a not guilty verdict, it's the
complete opposite.
And then the 10th and final part of the

(30:23):
process is the sentencing.
If a person's been found guilty of an offence,
they will be sentenced.
Now, in cases of murder, sometimes that's
straight away.
More often than not, there will be a date
given later on where everyone will come backand the judge will have considered the
sentence that's applicable.
As I say, sometimes that will be straight
away.
It could be done that afternoon, for instance.

(30:44):
Other times it will be a week, two weeks, amonth later.
And they're the steps that every trial will gothrough.
No matter what kind of case it is, no matterhow strong the evidence is, no matter how much
evidence there is, it will follow those tensteps.
So now there's just a couple of areas that I'dlike to cover.
The first one being plea bargaining.

(31:04):
Plea bargaining in the UK, it does not exist.
So I know in the United States there can bediscussions between the prosecution and the
defence as to whether or not the prosecutionwould accept a plea to a lower charge.
For instance, second degree murder instead offirst degree murder in the UK, that doesn't
happen.
There is no negotiation between the defence

(31:26):
and the prosecution.
I also wanted to just touch on the different
types of evidence.
You probably hear each of these phrases, so I
just want to clarify exactly what each means.
The three areas of evidence I want to cover
are direct evidence, circumstantial evidenceand hearsay evidence.
So direct evidence, that's essentiallyevidence that goes directly to the indictment.

(31:48):
So, for instance, if I witness somebodycarrying out a murder, that's direct evidence.
I've witnessed them.
I've witnessed them actually carrying out the
crime that they've been indicted for.
Direct evidence, circumstantial evidence is
the opposite to that.
So it's evidence that doesn't go directly to

(32:10):
the defendant's guilt.
So, for instance, if I walked into a room and
I saw somebody standing over a dead body witha knife in their hand, that's not direct
evidence, it's circumstantial evidence.
The reason being there are different
circumstances as to what may have happened.
So, for instance, that person may have just
walked into the room just before me,discovered the dead body, saw a knife on the

(32:34):
floor, picked it up, and at that moment, I'vewalked in.
They're not killer, I've just seen them.
In those circumstances, DNA would be
circumstantial evidence.
If I've been arrested for a murder and I have
the victim's blood on me.
Well, there are different circumstances as to
how that blood got there.
It doesn't directly go to the murder.
It can't, can it?For instance, it may be someone else's jumper

(32:57):
I've put on and I just happen to be wearingtheir jumper with blood on me.
Or it could be that I came across the victimhaving been murdered.
I gave him a cuddle and then I walked away.
I've got the blood on me.
So DNA is circumstantial evidence.
Telephone evidence is circumstantial.
Cell site analysis of my phone placed it at ornear the crime scene.

(33:21):
Well, that's my phone.
It's not necessarily me, is it?
I may have lent my phone to somebody else or,yes, my phone placed me there, but I wasn't
the killer.
I just happened to be in the area at that
time.
I'm not going to go through all the different
types of it, but hopefully you get the ideathat if evidence can be explained in some
other way, it is circumstantial.

(33:42):
Now, that doesn't mean that circumstantial
evidence can't be impactful.
Quite often you will have murders prosecuted
and people found guilty just on circumstantialevidence, because nobody directly witnessed
the murder by phone evidence, CCTV, DNA,whatever it was, they built up a

(34:02):
circumstantial case which was strong and leftthe jury in no doubt as to that person's
guilt.
And thirdly, hearsay evidence.
In english law, hearsay is something said byperson who is not testifying to it themselves.
If I was to go into a witness box and say, myfriend told me that the defendant stabbed the

(34:25):
victim, well, I'm not testifying to the factthat he stabbed the victim.
It's hearsay because somebody else has toldme.
And generally, hearsay evidence wouldn't beallowed.
But applications can be made by either theprosecution or the defence for hearsay
evidence to be admitted and it will be down tothe judge to decide whether or not that

(34:47):
happens.
In terms of a murder investigation, one type
of hearsay evidence that can be used and canbe quite powerful is what's known as a dying
declaration.
When the police turn up at a crime scene and
somebody is injured, seriously injured, and istaken to hospital, a police officer will
escort them there and one of their tasks willbe to record anything said by the victim.

(35:11):
And if they were later to go on and die, whatis said would be known as a dying declaration.
So think of a scenario where somebody's beenstabbed.
They're in an ambulance going to hospital anda police officer is going with them.
And in the ambulance the victim says it wasDave that stabbed me.
That victim then goes on to die.
Now if this officer were to go to court and

(35:33):
give evidence saying that the victim told meit was Dave, that's hearsay.
And it's just the same as the example I justgave.
But because it's a dying declaration from thevictim, it will be admitted.
It's almost as if the victim were there givingthe evidence themselves, but it's via the
police officer.
Now what I want to look at is just very
quickly, are the words used by witnesses whenthey give evidence at court, the oath they

(35:59):
give.
Now, when a witness goes into a witness box,
they're given to two choices.
They can give an oath swearing on a religious
book of their choice, or they can affirm,which is a non religious way of swearing in.
If someone were to take the oath on areligious book, they would be given that book
to hold in their hand and they will say thesewords, I swear by and then they would use the

(36:25):
name of the God that they swear by.
So if they were christian, it would be by
almighty God.
I swear by almighty God that the evidence I
give shall be the truth, the whole truth andnothing but the truth.
Words we've heard a lot.
If they were a Muslim and they were swearing
on the Quran, they would say, I swear by Allahand their God will change depending on the

(36:47):
book they're swearing on.
That's the religious oath.
But not everyone's religious, are they?Some people might not want to, for whatever
reason, swear on a religious book, in whichcase they would affirm, they would take the
affirmation, which would be these words, I dosolemnly, sincerely and truly declare and
affirm that the evidence I give shall be thetruth, the whole truth and nothing but the

(37:07):
truth.
So essentially saying the same thing, but just
without the religious connotations.
And then when a witness gives evidence, it
will be in three parts.
It will be their evidence in chief, which they
will be led through.
If it's a prosecution witness, if they will be
led through that by the prosecution barrister,then they will be cross examined again.

(37:28):
If it's a prosecution witness, they will becross examined by the defence barrister and
then there'll be a re examination, which willbe the prosecution barrister, which will be
just clarifying some things that may have comeup during the cross examination.
Now, earlier on, I talked about how difficultit is given evidence, particularly in a murder
trial.

(37:48):
And the courts do recognise this and they have
what's known as special measures that can beput in place.
Now, these are measures that can be used inorder to make it easier for the witness to
give evidence.
Some of the special measures available include
screens, but in reality, they're justcurtains.
They get pulled around the witness box.

(38:10):
The only people in court that can see them
when they're given evidence is the jury, thejudge and the barristers.
Evidence could be given via a live link, whichmeans they're somewhere else, maybe in the
courtroom or not, but they'll give theirevidence via television screen so they
physically aren't in court.
In some cases, their evidence can be visually

(38:30):
recorded so that they don't have to give theirevidence in chief.
And in some circumstances, the crossexamination can also take place away from the
court and that can be played later on.
And when children are involved, what can
happen is the court staff that wear the wigsand the gowns, they may be removed to make it
more comfortable for a child witness, andthere may also be occasions where anonymity is

(38:56):
used.
Now, this isn't a special measure, so all
these special measures are designed to makethe process of giving evidence easier on the
witness.
They're not designed to hide their identity
from the people that are on trial.
If that's going to happen, that will be on the
back of an anonymity order, which iscompletely different.
And there are only certain circumstances inwhich that can happen.

(39:18):
I'm not going to go into those.
It gets quite technical.
So they're the measures that can be put inplace to make giving evidence easier for
witness.
As I alluded to earlier, people do change
their mind, and in many of my trials,actually, I'll probably say most of them,
there would be at least one witness who wasadamant that they didn't want to go.

(39:40):
They'd made a statement but later changedtheir mind and they didn't want to give
evidence.
So what do you do in that situation?
The simple fact is, if you've got evidenceabout a murder, it's too serious for you not
to go and give evidence.
So if you've put pen to paper, if you've
signed a statement and it's a murder trial,you're going to have to go.

(40:03):
And that can be difficult sometimes explainingthat to a person, you do feel sorry for them,
but it's important, isn't it?It's a murder trial.
Someone's, someone's killed somebody andyou're seeking justice for that person and
their family.
And if you just said okay to everybody to
change their minds, everybody would changetheir minds.
If you do get wind of the fact that a witnessmay not turn up, what you'll do.

(40:27):
The police will apply for a witness summonsvia the CPS to the judge, and a witness
summons will be served on them that they haveto attend court at a certain date or a certain
time.
And the witness summons will essentially say
that they have to go to court.
And if they don't, they can be held in
contempt to court, which could mean themselvesgetting in trouble.
It could mean them ended up spending some timein custody.

(40:50):
I would say nine times out of ten, whensomebody has served a witness summons, they
tend to go to court.
Now, they might not be happy, but they'll go.
But there may be occasions where even thewitness summons isn't going to get somebody to
court.
And in those instances, a bench warrant will
be issued.
The judge will issue what's known as a bench

(41:11):
warrant.
So essentially it's an arrest warrant, which
means that witness will be arrested andbrought to court in custody and will have to
give evidence that way.
And if they don't, if they still refuse to
give evidence, they say they can be held incontempt of court.
I've had it where witnesses have ended upspending time in prison because they're so
adamant that they won't give evidence.

(41:31):
And it, and it becomes a bit of a mexican
standoff between the judge and the witness,and the witness ends up going, serving time,
which isn't ideal.
It's not what you want, is it?
As a detective, you're not looking to try andput witnesses in prison.
But sometimes it does end up like that andit's completely out of your hands.
But when you do get a witness to court andthey're reluctant, they can become hostile,

(41:54):
become a hostile witness, and that canactually go against you.
You end up in a situation where as theprosecution, you're putting a witness in the
box who you don't know what they're going tosay and they could end up undermining your
case.
So there is a balancing act between asking a
witness to give evidence when they're reallyreluctant and can become hostile.
I had one case, it was a shooting.

(42:17):
A drugs deal was set up and the drug dealer
was robbed.
And he was a bit fed up with this and he
sought revenge.
He knew where these robbers were going to be.
And he and a friend were on a motorbike.
Friend riding a motorbike.
They pulled up at a set of traffic lights nextto the car and the person who was robbed was

(42:38):
on the back of the motorbike and he had a gunand he pointed it into the car and he shot and
he killed the front passenger.
And there were three other people in the car
and they were good friends.
There was a bit of a chase.
It was a bit like a Hollywood film, in fact.
They were driving through traffic lights,
motorbike following them.
They even went past a police van at one point

(42:58):
and you see on the CCTV these, the car and themotorbike going through the red lights.
And the police found out a prisoner in andthey couldn't really respond to it.
It was going through the town centre inCroydon with his motorbike, chasing this car.
And eventually they stopped.
I don't know.
For whatever reason, they stopped chasingthem.
They got to hospital and the person died.
And police were called and all three occupants

(43:19):
in the car were seen and they didn't want tohelp.
They didn't want to help at all.
And the three occupants were seen.
One of them gave a statement there and thenone of them told a few things to the police
but wouldn't give a statement and another onerefused to engage at all.
We eventually got all three to court and oneof them gave evidence and I'd describe him as

(43:42):
neutral.
He wasn't particularly helpful.
The next one gave evidence and he might aswell have been a witness for the defence.
He was useless.
And the third one, we decided, look, we will
give up.
We're not going to put a third one on and
undermine our case even more.
When a witness becomes hostile, they'll say
things and do things that if you're puttingthem up as one of your witnesses and they're

(44:05):
undermining your case, it doesn't go well.
It doesn't look good.
It's not a good look.
So we ended up on the third one just saying,
look, okay, well, we're not going to call himup and we'll leave it at that.
Thankfully, it didn't affect the jury too muchbecause the shooter was convicted, although
the rider of the bike was also on trial.
But he died in prison awaiting the trial.

(44:26):
So it was just a person on the back of thebike that was standing trial.
They'd set up what's known as a voice overInternet protocol phone.
So it's essentially, it's a phone that makescalls over the Internet rather than a normal
mobile phone that would use like, ee or threeor vodaphone, that kind of thing.
And it was.
It was this company that provided the
evidence, all the contact between the killer,his accomplice and the setting up of the

(44:51):
murder, which is what they did.
But the person that owned the company, he
became hostile just completely.
I mean, look, I'm not in the police anymore
because I can say it like it is.
I mean, a man was just a complete idiot.
He decided, for whatever reason, he was goingto be as awkward as he could be.
And we ended up summonsing him.
I mean, he wasn't a criminal, he was just a

(45:12):
person that ran this small business.
But we ended up having to summons him to court
as well.
And when he was given evidence, you could see
the jury looking at him, judging him the sameas I was.
The man was just a complete ****.
Anyway, that's beside the point.
So, yeah, if a witness really doesn't want togive evidence in a murder trial, their chances

(45:33):
are they're going to be summonsed.
And if they refuse to go on the summons, then
a bench warrant will be issued for them.
And as I mentioned earlier, what I want to
just touch on is whether or not defendantsgive evidence.
Under english law, it's for the prosecution toprove a case against the defendant, not for
the defendant to prove they're innocent.
On that basis, they don't have to give

(45:53):
evidence in their trial, but there can be arepercussion if they don't.
In episode six, when I was talking aboutinterviews, I talked about the repercussions
if somebody goes no comment at police station.
And a judge can direct a jury to find an
inference of guilt from the fact that theycame out with something later on at court that
they could have come out with a police stationbut didn't.

(46:15):
And if a defendant doesn't give evidence in atrial, a judge can give the same direction to
a jury, that is an inference of guilt,although they wouldn't do both if they hadn't
spoken at the police station and they hadn'tgiven evidence.
The judge would only give the direction forthem not given evidence.
You don't get two bites at a cherry, you onlyever get one.

(46:36):
And the final thing I wanted to talk about issentencing.
Now, if somebody's found guilty of murder inEngland and Wales, there is only one sentence,
and that's life imprisonment.
But life doesn't usually mean life.
What will happen is a judge will give aminimum term, a minimum amount of time that
the defendant will have to spend in prison.

(46:57):
Before they can apply for parole.
Now, this does vary.
For instance, I've had trials where somebody's
been found guilty of murder and been sentencedto 17 years.
I've had others where they've been given wholelife tariffs where they will never be released
from prison.
And I've had everything in between.

(47:18):
But in general, sentences will tend to be inthe twenties, into the thirties.
If somebody takes a knife to a scene and usesit and murders someone, it's a minimum of 25
years.
If a robbery is involved in that, that will be
an aggravating factor and another five yearswill be added, making 30 years.
But the sentencing.

(47:39):
But the sentencing in the UK, I don't agree
with.
I've got to be honest.
So just give you a couple of examples of casesI dealt with.
One of the first trials I went to court with,what involved a case where there was this
group, this gang that were going aroundrobbing drug dealers.
They would set up a deal and then they wouldgo back to their house, whatever it was, and

(48:02):
then they would rob them at gunpoint, at knifepoint and steal their drugs.
And in this instance, what happened is thedrug dealer decided to fight back and one of
them stabbed and killed him.
And two people were standing trial for this.
They were found guilty of his murder.
Now, they took a knife to the scene.
25 years it was a robbery, another five.

(48:24):
So they got 30 years.
Two gang members robbing a drug dealer andthey got 30 years imprisonment.
Another trial we had was the murder of a fouryear old boy.
Now, I went to the post mortem for this andwhen I was there, one of my roles when I was
at the post mortem was to explain to thepathologist the circumstances in which the boy

(48:48):
was found.
And I explained that he was found in bed.
An ambulance was called and his uncle and aunthad said he'd become ill during the night.
When the pathologist looked at the boy'sinjuries, he said, well, everything you've
told me just does not add up.
This boy's injuries are consistent with him
having been hit by a car at 30 miles an houror thrown from a first floor window.

(49:12):
Did either of those things happen?So I had to ring back and speak to the
officers at the scene and explain thateverything that we think we know is wrong.
Is there any possibility that he could havebeen thrown out of a window?
No, there's not.
What transpired was that it was the uncle who
was looking after the nephew for the night.
And the little boy, Daniel, wet himself wet at

(49:33):
the bed.
So the uncle got angry and beat Daniel to
death.
He stamped on him.
He stamped on him so hard that the injurieswere literally the worst this really
experienced paediatric pathologist had everseen, as I said, describing him as having been

(49:54):
hit by a car at 30 miles an hour, when thereality was he was beaten to death by his
uncle.
His uncle received a life sentence with a
minimum of 17 years.
A four year old boy beaten to death in these
circumstances, and he gets 17 years.
And a drug dealer who was robbed in

(50:14):
circumstances where he put himself intodanger.
If you get involved in drug dealing, you knowit's a dangerous life.
He chose that life, he put himself in thatdanger.
And the people that killed him both got 30years imprisonment.
Now, to me, those two things don't correlate.
You beat a four year old child to death wet in
the bed.

(50:35):
You should be serving longer than somebody who
robs, somebody who's dealing drugs, knowingwhat they're getting into.
Anyway, that's a side issue.
But occasionally sentences will be whole life
tariff.
I've had two in my career.
One involved a police officer being shot andkilled, and another was where a man brutally
killed his wife and two children and thenburied them in the garden.

(50:59):
But those cases are rare in the UK at themoment.
I think there are about 70 prisoners servingwhole life tariffs.
When you can see there are about 700 murders ayear in the UK, there aren't many of those
that will go on to serve whole life tariffs.
There we go.
So that's how a person will end up facingtrial for murder.

(51:20):
Those are the steps they would go through.
And just a couple of bits about the processes
when you're there.
I hope that's been useful.
This is a huge subject, and I've really had tocut a load out over the course of this.
For instance, mental illness, which I thinkdeserves an episode all on its own.
And we'll look at that another time.

(51:41):
If you are part of the online community, Pop,
look at any question you got in a forum andI'll answer them.
There I've been Steve Keogh, and I'll see youon the next episode of Murder Investigation
for Crime actors.
Thank you for joining me on another episode of
Murder Investigation for crime Writers.
I'm your host, Steve Keough, and it's been a
pleasure delving into the world of murderinvestigation with you.

(52:02):
Authenticity is key for crime writers, and Ihope this podcast has provided you with
valuable insights and inspiration for yourstorytelling journey.
If you found value in what you've heard today,I encourage you to share this podcast with
your fellow authors.
Together we can elevate the standards of crime
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If you have a moment, I'd also appreciate if

(52:23):
you could leave a review on your favouritepodcast platform.
Your feedback helps others discover thepodcast and join our community of passionate
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Thank you for listening.
Until next time, keep writing, keepinvestigating, and keep bringing your stories
to life.
I've been Steve Keogh.