In a murder trial

something that means their loved ones spend time behind bars.

The defendants are in the dock, which amounts to a large glass fish tank behind the lawyers. It may be just me but I couldn’t help but make eye contact with them. It is such a strange dynamic. I am not there to say they are guilty. I haven’t a clue if they committed the crimes they are accused of.

All I can say is exactly what I heard. This may add to the body of evidence proving their guilt or it may completely absolve them – I have no idea. There is something comforting about that fact. I know what I heard and remember. All I do is honestly recount that.

I walk up these creaking wooden steps and I am about two feet above everyone else in the courtroom. The 12 members of the jury are looking at me.

One of the prosecution barristers, mouth mercifully free of ink, asks me questions about the night – essentially guiding me to recount my statement to the jury. He concludes his questions and then the two defence barristers get to work.

The first clarifies one point before sitting down. No such luck with the second. A blonde woman of about 40, she put me at ease with a smile and some basic questions. Then she asks about a line in my statement, saying: “Why, when you called the police, did you say something different?”.

I immediately panic. I have no recollection at all about having called the police! Am I literally committing perjury right now?

I answered that I didn’t and she goes back to her notes. It transpires she thought my chat with the PCSO was a call and there was a discrepancy. Apparently I said I heard “two or three voices” and in my official statement I said I heard “at least three”. This made me panic a bit. I felt like I was being deceitful when I really wasn’t.

Luckily the prosecution barrister spoke up saying my conversation with a PCSO was just that, I had never seen notes, and it did not amount to a statement. He then made me read my proper statement out in full which was one of the more unpleasant moments of my life. After about 15 minutes I was told there were no more questions, was thanked by the judge, and I left, sweating horrifically.

So that was what it was like to be a witness in a murder trial. I would like to add just two observations.

First, this has totally changed how I see our legal system – I now have a level of sympathy with victims of crime I had never had before. In this case I had no emotional investment. What I had heard was not traumatic for me (after all I went straight back to sleep).

I have experience of courts and it was within the past six months. Despite this I panicked on the stand. Imagine if I had been a victim of a sexual assault. Imagine if I was a child. Imagine if this crime had happened 10 years ago.

I was doubting myself about something that happened six months ago and of which I had made notes. Imagine if I had had to describe a crime while watched by the alleged perpetrator and their family. No wonder people fall apart on the stand.

My second observation is how I felt looking at the jury. When I was a kid I always felt like the courts, judges and the legal system were infallible.

However, looking across at the people on the jury they were just normal people. The sort of people you may see on the train, walking their dog, or in the gym.

They were just normal, fallible people, using their normal fallible opinions to assess my fallible memories. They held the future of two men (one only 18) in their hands. Beyond the silly wigs, the odd normality of the process is both comforting and terrifying.

Aaron Bingham, 18, of Tweedsmuir Road, Cardiff, was found guilty of murdering Sean Kelly, while Nicholas Saleh, 46, of Adamsdown Lane, was convicted of manslaughter following a trial at Cardiff Crown Court. They have not yet been sentenced.