YOU’RE A MAGICIAN!
Euphoria for some as the four defendants are acquitted, but the trial – which has since launched a massive public debate on rape – was an ugly and unedifying spectacle that took its toll on all involved...
EMOTIONS were running high. ‘You’re a magician!’ said a male relative of Rory Harrison, as he walked with his arms outstretched towards the young man’s barrister, Gavan Duffy.
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ said the man.
Just moments earlier, the defendants in the Belfast trial, Ireland and Ulster rugby players Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding, as well as their friends Blane McIlroy and Rory Harrison, had been told that they were free to go.
It was the day of the verdicts at the rape trial that has sparked huge public debate, and that the presiding Judge Patricia Smyth had described as the ‘most difficult ever heard in Northern Ireland’.
Meanwhile, outside courtroom number 12 on the fourth floor of the Laganside Crown Courts building, the four men, their families and legal teams shook hands, hugged and sometimes cried, as the notguilty verdicts delivered by the eight-man and three-woman jury just before lunchtime last Wednesday, began to sink in.
Their jubilation was in stark contrast to the tension in the courtroom just 15 minutes earlier when all four men stood as requested in the dock, finally to hear their fate.
Then, Rory Harrison stood staring determinedly straight ahead in the same stoical fashion he had done throughout the 42-day trial which started last January.
In sharp contrast to the imposing and bulky frame of the 25-year-old, his friend Blane McIlroy appeared to struggle to get his breathing under control as he visibly inhaled and exhaled.
Next to 26-year-old Blane in the glass and wooden dock stood a redfaced and clearly emotional Stuart Olding. And as the jury forewoman prepared to stand up in the packed and strained courtroom to tell the young men their fate, Ireland and Ulster teammate Paddy Jackson caught his teammate’s eye and gave a slight shrug of his shoulders.
The four men had waited nine weeks to hear whether their version of what happened in Paddy Jackson’s Belfast home on June 28, 2016 would be believed over the evidence given by a 21-year-old woman.
She was questioned and crossexamined for eight days by four accomplished male barristers representing each of the defendants, about claims she had been raped by two men at an after-party at Paddy Jackson’s, while on a night out to celebrate finishing her exams. She was 19 at the time of the alleged rapes.
And when they came, the verdicts came quickly. The six verdicts were reached after the 11-member jury deliberated for only three hours and 45 minutes.
Standing up in the jury box the forewoman did not hesitate or dillydally as she delivered the not-guilty verdicts one after another. Paddy Jackson, not guilty of rape and sexual assault. Stuart Olding, not guilty of rape. Their friend Blane McIlroy was found not guilty of exposure and Rory Harrison was found not guilty of perverting the course of justice and of withholding information.
Of the four young men before the court, it was only Stuart Olding who allowed himself a quick beaming smile as he looked over at the press gallery.
Before the verdicts were read out to the courtroom – where both the prosecution and defence legal teams sat along three lengthy benches, separated by a wall of bullet-proof glass from the public gallery in which family and supporters of the young men sat – Judge Patricia Smyth issued a stern warning that she would not tolerate any vocal reactions in the courtroom.
In between the courtroom and the public gallery was the rectangular glass and wooden dock where Mr Jackson, Mr Olding, Mr McIlroy and Mr Harrison stood.
Throughout the course of the 42day trial they sat there, shoulder to shoulder, on the violet-coloured seats. But, as the trial progressed, they seemed to inch away from one another as they physically put a slight distance between themselves.
During the early weeks of the trial they had spoken casually to each other, their friends, and supporters, as they waited each morning on the fourth-floor corridor of the Laganside court building for court porters to open the double doors to the public gallery. The top storeys of this modern steel-and-glass building have sweeping views of the distinctive yellow Harland and Wolff shipyard crane. And each morning Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding ran or walked up the four flights of stairs, sometimes taking two steps at a time, that wound up to Court Room 12. There, they and their friends Blane McIlroy and Rory Harrison, were greeted each day by a steady stream of well-wishers to shake their hands and pat them on their backs. On several mornings just before they went into Court Room 12 a tall brown-haired man, clearly well known to the four young men and their families, tapped Jackson and Olding once on each shoulder, as if he were their coach giving them a lastminute good luck blessing before marching onto a field of play.
The four young men would then lean against the back wall of the public gallery casually chatting to one another as they waited for a court clerk to call them forward.
And when the official – whose striking high-heeled shoe collection became a talking point in itself during the trial – summoned the four young men, Paddy Jackson marched forward into the dock leading in his three friends as if he were their team captain.
At the start of the trial supporters of Mr Jackson, Mr Olding, Mr McIlroy and Mr Harrison, openly laughed and sniggered as evidence was given which reflected badly on the young men. They did so behind the protection of the almost sound-
‘They shook hands, hugged and cried’
proof glass wall which separated the public gallery from the courtroom.
And when the well-spoken freshfaced young woman to whom the complainant first confided about the alleged rapes recalled how her friend had told her that her memory was sketchy, there was a loud guffaw from those sitting among the families of the four defendants.
It was ugly, defiant, inappropriate. But as the trial – which initially was expected to last only five weeks – ground forward slowly but inexorably, the young men and their families became noticeably more worried.
And it seemed too as if the groundswell of support, so clearly evident at the start, seemed to wane to a trickle.
Nevertheless throughout the trial, the young mens’ mothers were ever present. They may have become more pale-faced and tired, but they continued to bustle around their sons, carrying their jackets by times, feeding them, bringing them coffee from the downstairs canteen and glaring at anyone who looked too long at their offspring.
On the day Stuart Olding finally took the stand, his mother was there with a family-size bag of wine gums, one of which he was still chewing when he took his place in the dock.
In contrast, their fathers became ever more grim-faced and ashen-looking.
Paddy Jackson himself became paler and the dark circles under his eyes darkened. There were days when Stuart Olding seemed to fight to keep his eyes open as he clearly hadn’t slept much the night before.
And on the day his taped interview with police was played in the courtroom it seemed as if he just wanted the ground to open up as he shamefacedly bowed his head for several minutes.
The swagger with which they and their families had breezed into the Laganside court building back in January seemed to be replaced by hunched shoulders, and pale faces drained white with exhaustion.
Meanwhile, except for the eight days she sat in the witness stand giving evidence, it was as if the young woman at the centre of the trial was of no consequence.
Like all rape victims she did not have any legal representation. And, unlike each of the four defendants, who were allowed to call people to attest to their good character, she was not given the same opportunity to do so.
To the outside world, she was always referred to as the ‘complainant’ or the ‘alleged victim’.
But inside court number 12, her name was used repeatedly during the course of the trial.
Both the prosecuting and defence counsels usually called her by both her first and surname when referring to her. And when the defendants were giving evidence, they called her by just her first name.
All the while, members of the public were coming and going in the gallery, some of them aware of who she was, where she went to school, and where she now studied. And many among those in the public gallery seemed to take delight trading and swapping ever-more-hurtful gossip about the young woman.
Amid this toxic cauldron of spite, back-biting, families fighting to protect their offspring, and tarnished reputations, sat a man on the top step of the stairs as the jury continued with their deliberations. He was praying for the four young men at the centre of the case. He was shocked at some of the evidence revealed at the trial, but nevertheless still standing by them.
His prayers were answered. Less than 24 hours later they walked out of Laganside court building free men.
And as they did so, one middleaged woman shouted: ‘Good man Paddy, justice was done,’ as the Ulster rugby star walked quickly towards a nearby car park.
‘She should be ashamed,’ shouted another middle-aged woman at no one in particular. ‘She’s devastated the lives of four young men. She made up a story.’
Meanwhile, back inside the bynow almost deserted courtroom, five members of the prosecuting team, including QC Toby Hedworth, stood around not talking, appearing shell-shocked at the turn of events.
‘Supporters of the defendants sniggered’