You Do Not Have to Say Anything by Nick Wilson

Author:Nick Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
Published: 2022-01-11T00:00:00+00:00

9

Wednesday 4th March 2015, 9.20am

‘Hell-ooo, my dear!’

Candida Swaffham. Back in 2012, on the day I arrested her for obstructing the highway, I researched her first name on my phone before booking her in. I thought in all the excitement I must have written it down wrong in my notes. It wouldn’t have been right to make my prisoner feel foolish in front of Sergeant Jenner. And highly embarrassing for me if he thought it was one of those psychological slips where you say what’s on your mind, not what you’re supposed to be talking about. But no. Candida. In 1940, if there wasn’t a name of a queen or a Hollywood star that you liked, you christened your daughter in honour of an itch between the legs.

I’m barging my way through the magistrates’ courthouse entrance, exhibit bag in each hand. Candida approaches, arms outstretched. I’m glad of the bags because they will prevent me from hugging her back. Not that I dislike her. I admire people who are prepared to fight for their principles. And I never usually mind hugging anyone who’s got a soft spot for me. But these days it’s a worry, having impulses at the same time as being at work. Especially on a day like today, with Trunky’s people everywhere, with their human rights, and their watchdog lawyers prowling, pens poised, straining at the leash to enforce them. Hug someone else’s witness round here and they’ll probably tell the court. I’ll be bringing my profession into disrepute one way or another, or treating some institution with contempt. And then I’m in for the sack. Prison, for all I know.

‘This has been going on soooo long!’ Candida speaks into my ear, then holds me at arm’s length to examine me. ‘Three adjournments. Two and a half years since the demonstration. So long ago, it’s hard to remember what happened!’ She draws close again. ‘I know that feeling still runs high with some of my associates. But, to tell you the truth, to me it’s water under the bridge. I’ve moved on.’

We’re here for the trial of R v Trunky. It’s the last of six trials spawned in a single afternoon when, after months of rubbing along good-naturedly outside a plant where fracking tests were due to take place, cops and protesters began seriously to get on each other’s nerves. Under the spotlight today is the alleged assault of my colleague, PC Tom Barnard. Other arrests we made that day were for obstructing police, obstructing the highway, common assault, criminal damage, acts of public disorder, and minor road traffic offences. So far, thirty-two days of court time have been spent untangling the momentary feuds and the split-second decisions of that afternoon. Three of the trials have resulted in acquittals. The two convictions earned the offenders, respectively, a conditional discharge and forty hours’ unpaid work. Estimated cost to the public purse – £180,000 (my stats are courtesy of a Vanguard group chat thing that my former colleagues seem not to have noticed I’m still party to, in spite of my two years’ silence).

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