I remember reading somewhere that it is permitted to take notes in court. But I can't find that reference now! In any case, I was not at any point told today that I couldn't take notes or share them.
So ... today in court was a continuation of ScW being cross-examined by the prosecution. I now understand why so little new information is being reported. Today only one point was brought up that I hadn't already read about. Otherwise, it was all the same information (about phones and messages and locations and social media, etc.) over and over again. The hearing was all about how ScW responded to the same old information under cross-examination.
The one new piece of information might not have been reported because it might involve a minor (whom I won't name). The prosecutor asked ScW whether the purpose of the trip out to Cowbit was because BW had a friend who lived in the Spalding area and they wanted to make it look like BW had run off to stay with that friend. ScW denied this.
SESSION 1: 10:05am - 11:13am
ScW was led into the court. He was limping in a pronounced manner. One might wonder whether it was exaggerated or entirely put on? His manner on the stand seemed gentle and compliant.
The prosecutor suggested to ScW that he knew full well the power of phone data in a police investigation and that he had deliberately set up a false trail. ScW was struggling to answer the question, claiming he knew little before the investigation, but knows more now.
He was asked if he drove Bernadette from her grandparents' house out of Peterborough to kill her. He kept saying “No.” The prosecutor said that 1 hour and 20 minutes is a long time for his phone to be switched off--long enough to drive out to the Fens and back.
The jurors and ScW were shown onscreen maps of the route ScW was driving according to available phone data timings. He had to admit that this showed that he drove to the Fens. The prosecutor said, “Do you understand, Mr. Walker, that you have never said this before?”
ScW then claimed that he drove out to the Fens with BW and ended up at Skaters Way (where she allegedly jumped out). The prosecutor said, “Mr. Walker, this telephone evidence shows completely--completely--that you were not on Skaters Way.”
ScW turned his phone back on at 12:54pm--some time after he claimed that BW had jumped out of the car. The prosecutor asked whether it had not occurred to him beforehand to ring BW's mother and let her know that her daughter had run off. ScW admitted that it hadn’t occurred to him.
ScW said that he could have been doing anything in that hour and 20 minutes. ... The prosecutor replied, “Exactly so, Mr. Walker. Exactly so.”
When asked about the buying of top-up for BW's phone, ScW admitted to buying time by sending messages as BW so that the police and the social services wouldn’t be involved. The prosecutor pointed out that his sending false messages from BW's phone wouldn’t stop her from making allegations of sexual abuse. She suggested that the purpose had been to give him time to work out what he was going to do with her body and to work out his explanation.
ScW said he went along with SaW’s false text messaging, but he didn’t plan it.
After much questioning about the laying of a false trail via text messages from BW's phone, ScW lost his composure a little, telling the prosecutor, “You’re huffing and puffing ...” He was becoming visibly stressed. So, the judge called a break 11:13am.
SESSION 2: 11:45am - 12:43pm
The prosecutor said, “Bernadette’s phone was a very, very useful tool, wasn’t it?”
“Not useful to me, no.” ScW added that SaW knew what to do with the phone; he wouldn’t have known where to start.
Becoming stressed again, ScW said to the prosecutor, “I’ve had it all my life that everyone thinks I’m stupid. And you’re making those faces at me.”
The prosecutor replied that she was just patiently asking him questions.
Becoming flustered:
“Did you leave Bernadette’s phone at the lock-up?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“You’re the one with all the tech data.”
Re. the late night /early morning (Monday 20 July) trip to Cowbit, the prosecutor suggested they turned off their phones to conceal their trip. ScW said they turned them off to charge them (even though only one could be charged at a time). He added that if they were trying to make it look like they weren’t on that trip, they wouldn’t have taken their phones at all.
This was where the prosecutor said that they were trying to make it look like BW had run off to stay with her friend in the Spalding area.
The prosecutor was suggesting that this trip was to get rid of BW's phone. She further suggested that SaW happened to have the idea that as they were out that way anyway, why don’t they send some messages from BW's phone? ... ScW agreed this was the case--to which the prosecutor replied, “Are you making this up as you go along, Mr. Walker?”
The prosecutor said the messaging around Cowbit was to try and push away the people who loved and cared about BW (her supposedly telling friends to ‘leave me alone') before they discarded BW's phone. ScW claimed he wasn't in control of the phone; that this was all SaW. ScW claimed he didn’t recall where the phone went missing. And he never asked SaW about it? “No.”
“Mr. Walker, the most cunning use of your phone [...] was the night you dealt with Bernadette’s body.”
This exchange sounded like a proper slip-up:
“Did you leave her where you killed her, Mr. Walker?”
“Sorry?”
“Did you leave her where you killed her, Mr. Walker?”
“No. ... Two questions again.”
2:47am to 3am he was at the lock-up. Why? ... He said he tends to work when SaW and the kids are asleep. “My time.”
“Or did you go to get tools to bury Bernadette’s body?”
“No.”
“And then you drove to Uldale way.” The prosecutor pointed out that it's a residential area, with nothing at all but houses, on the edge of town. “Why were you in a residential housing estate at 3 o’clock in the morning?”
ScW answered that there was no specific reason. He'd looked at the racing pages in the newspaper and then fallen asleep.
The prosecutor asked ScW whether he knew, when SaW was reporting BW missing, that SaW was going to tell the police about messages they’d supposedly received from BW, indicating that she was alive and well. She had to ask him this question three times. ScW said he was lost, that the question was too long. After the judge repeated the question, ScW admitted that he had known after the event that SaW had lied to the police.
At this point, ScW said that this prosecution process is a lie, that he needs to speak to his legal team. He asked how it would look if he left the stand. The judge told him that we should take a break now. ScW was repeating that he needed advice. The judge was repeating that he cannot talk to anyone in the middle of giving evidence. ScW said he didn’t know who to turn to.
The judge ended the session early, 12:43pm. Scott sat down, looking nervous and stressed.
SESSION 3: 2:05pm - 2:26pm
ScW was crying in the stand. He said he was OK to continue. The judge disagreed. She told him to sit down. He was crying, shaking, muttering, and incoherently trying to say that he had remembered things to help his defence. One of the lawyers said that ScW was clearly close to an emotional breakdown and needed to be taken back to the dock.
I have to say, the breakdown looked completely genuine to me--especially after he had made such a poor job of defending himself.
After ScW was led out, the judge asked the prosecutor whether she would be able to finish tomorrow. She assured the judge that she would, “even if I have to cut out swathes.” This comment suggested to me that the prosecutor thought that ScW had done a good enough job of incriminating himself, so she wouldn't need to use all her material.
