Til Death We Do Part by Bruno Beaches

Author:Bruno Beaches
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
Published: 2021-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Early May and Roger invited him to a meeting at the Federation offices again. He was informed that the case had been adjourned yet again, and he was introduced to a barrister, Nigel Caruthers, who would be representing him when the case eventually came to court. Apparently it was really good news that the Federation had agreed to finance his defence with a full-blown barrister. Roger hadn’t been sure that they would go that far for him. Nigel was quite a large man in his mid-thirties. He exuded an air of confidence befitting a man of his profession, and Pablo was immediately far much more confident in him than young Kevin. Rather alarmingly though, Nigel asked him what his line of defence should be.

“Isn’t that for you to work out?” Pablo replied rather surprised at being asked.

“Well we can’t just pluck any old thing out of the air. We need to focus on something realistic.”

Pablo felt obliged to offer something.

“I think they’re making a big deal out of the fact that I still monitored my old clients after I moved to the POU. I think we just have to emphasise the close connection with the druggies I was dealing with for two years as the harm reduction officer, and the motley mob I inherited on the POU. There was a lot of crossover, and besides that, when is a police officer not allowed to interrogate police intelligence?”

“I see” Nigel said rather unconvincingly. Roger and Kevin were both present too, but they were quietly deferring to the big man. Pablo was beginning to feel rather exposed and unsupported. Nigel carried on.

“They’re saying that you were monitoring subjects not within your jurisdiction.”

“In that case the whole police intelligence dissemination machinery is illegal.”

“Explain.”

“The first thing every officer does when coming on duty is to familiarise himself with the latest intel. The system constantly spews out blanket information concerning all and sundry. There is no sifting of any kind. It could be to do with absolutely anyone, but it is cascaded to each and every officer. That is the intelligence environment. It’s huge, and it’s not officer or role specific. The more you know, the better prepared you are. That’s the theory. So how could it possibly be wrong for me to be interrogating intel on drug addicts in my area, who are either on the POU list, or who are their associates?”

“I see” he added in a muted pondering voice.

Pablo’s initial confidence in the man was wavering fast. He had been involved in so many cases where the defence had got their client off on a technicality, or some spurious argument, yet all he was asking for was a reasonable interpretation of the use of comprehensively disseminated police intel. Was that so hard? Nigel continued.

“I think they are going to challenge your motivation. Specifically, Why did you carry on checking the records of people not on the POU and in particular, one Cassie Woolridge?”

“Professional interest. Human interest. I had been working closely

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