January 31, 2010
It’s murder every day in the Old Bailey
Gang violence, terrorism, honour killings… it’s all in a day’s work at the Old Bailey. We’re given unprecedented access to the hallowed halls of the criminal courts.
There is a place in my heart for the Old Bailey. One afternoon, 18 years ago, I went along to the Central Criminal Court and took a seat at random. I thought I was going to research a satirical drama about the judiciary, and I suppose I was hoping to hear a judge comment on the fragrance of a Tory wife or ask who the Beatles were. Instead, I found a well-off teenager in the dock alongside a wild, older Glaswegian. Together, as I discovered that afternoon, they had got drunk, taken drugs, tormented and finally killed a vulnerable local man in his own flat. The middle-class youngster described how he had pressed his palms against the wall for leverage as he had jumped up and down on his victim’s prostrate body. He recalled how he had listened to the sound of the ribs cracking…
