‘BEING A WITNESS
LAST summer 37-year-old father of two Sean Kelly was murdered in my street. I woke up at about 3am to what sounded like a car wing mirror being smashed off. I was awake immediately.
Having had my car vandalised twice in the past three years I was alert to any noise similar to that.
I could hear what sounded like a fight involving multiple people and a voice shout, “I am going to slice you up.”
I didn’t get out of the bed to look out of the window. I am not really sure why but I think it is a combination of two things.
First, the area of Cardiff where I live is not always the nicest, and hearing stuff on the street is not that uncommon. If I got up every time a drunk bloke shouted or a boy racer revved his naff Vauxhall Corsa with a big exhaust I would never sleep.
Second, the voices sounded like they were right outside my house. I didn’t want to be seen looking out and face a torrent of abuse.
Anyway the voices had gone after about 40 seconds and I went back to sleep.
The next morning I walked out of my front door to find my street covered in blood, with police everywhere.
Mr Kelly had collapsed at the end of the road and later died from blood loss.
Aaron Bingham and Nicholas Saleh were later charged with his murder. Despite not having seen the incident, in the early hours of July 13, I was called to give evidence at Cardiff Crown Court.
I am quite used to attending court. I have covered cases at both crown and magistrates’ court as part of my job – some of them quite harrowing.
With that in mind I thought myself better equipped than most of the general public to do this.
After all, I knew how court procedures worked, how barristers were likely to behave, and generally what to expect.
With that in mind I was surprised at how daunting, confusing and intimidating I found the whole process. I have therefore decided to put together an account of my experiences so that other members of the public can go in with their eyes open.
Please bear in mind that these are my experiences and observations in one court, in one case, on one day. On the day of the murder I gave my details to the PSCO I had spoken to on my doorstep. It wasn’t a statement, just a chat about what I had heard, but little did I know that this conversation would be mentioned in court.
After a week I got a call from the police asking if I would give a formal statement to a detective. I was really surprised they wanted me to give a statement. After all, I hadn’t seen anything – there was no way I could point at someone and say: “They did it”.
Like the consumer-driven millennial that I am, I met the detective in the Starbucks in St Mary Street. I would encourage anyone who witnessed, or thinks they witnessed, a crime, to write down as much as they can while it is still fresh in their minds.
The officer pushed me for every detail – was I sure? How sure? What happened then?
Ultimately this is a good thing. A man is dead and his family deserves the very best possible evidence in trying to get justice. In the same respect, the people who are standing trial deserve the very best evidence. They are innocent until proven guilty.
Luckily I had made notes but I realised it was so easy for the story to warp with each telling.
A murder on your street is (thankfully) a rare occurrence. You are clearly going to speak to family and friends about it. Chances are you are going to recount your experience several times and, after a while, you are going to autopilot the telling of your story. Making notes mean you have something concrete to refer to.
The detective then goes away and writes up your statement. That then gets emailed over and you read it, sign it, and send it back.
I then got a letter about two months later to say I had been called to be a witness in crown court. I also got a call from a witness care officer. She was friendly and explained on the phone a few of the details and said I would be getting a letter to confirm the court date but it was likely to be in the new year.
She also made a request. They wanted to identify where different witnesses lived on my street. This would enable the jury to get a better picture of who heard what and where.
I must admit I was a bit nervous about this – did I really want everyone to know where my home was? After thinking about it I agreed for three reasons.
First, a man had been stabbed in my local area. In those situations I think it is important to do whatever you can to see justice done.
If the police thought this would help then I should do it.
Second (and less altruistically), I figured that anyone with half a brain could work out where I lived anyway. My name would be said in open court. The three streets where the murder occurred was widely publicised and I obviously lived on one of them (or at least within hearing distance).
Third, there was not really any reason for anyone to be unhappy with me. I couldn’t identify anyone. I could only say, “I heard this.” I wasn’t pointing the finger at someone and saying, “He/she did it.”
So I agreed. On the day itself I was told to get to the court in the afternoon. When I arrived I didn’t go through the front door as I had done dozens of times before.
Prosecution witnesses enter through a side door. This means we don’t have to sit in the waiting area with the families of the defendant and victim. For this I was very relieved.
I walked up to the side door and a few of the other very nervouslooking witnesses were about to go in. It looked like the scene in Harry Potter where he is trying to get on to platform nine and three-quarters.
After knocking we were hurried in, after going through a metal detector. We were then led into a large area that is quite like a posh doctors’ waiting room.
It had the usual things you would expect: incredibly old magazines like Good Housekeeping that were so out of date that instead of an email address the “contact us” section had a fax instead.
We were then approached by a kindly woman who, it seemed likely, had bought those magazine copies when they were new. She offered us a cup of tea or coffee before heading off to get them.
I say she was kindly, even though she clearly had a ferocity bubbling below the surface that might emerge if she was trifled with.
When she returned she gathered us all together. There were six of us in total and she showed us a model of the courtroom, explaining where we had to walk.
“Remember you are not on trial and if you do not understand a question ask them to repeat it,” she instructed.
She then asked: “Who has requested a screen so they can’t be seen from the public gallery?”
Somewhat disconcertingly, of the six people, only myself and one person had not requested a screen. This made me more nervous.
The kindly but stern woman then explained that we would all be given a copy of our statements and that we should read them thoroughly and become as familiar as possible with them before we were called in.
They were handed out to us and what followed must have looked like a group of GCSE students before an exam – all meticulously revising before a terrifying ordeal.
This was even more the case because we were (very firmly) told by the woman that we must NOT look at other people’s statements and they must be placed face down if we went to the loo.
Next we were all called into another room one at a time to meet the prosecution barrister. He was supposed to explain the procedures again and answer any questions we may have.
Unfortunately this didn’t go entirely to plan. While he was talking me through everything I couldn’t help but notice he seemed to have some kind of infection in his mouth. It wasn’t until I shook his hand that I realised his pen had leaked and he hadn’t noticed.
I then spent the next four hours in the waiting room. In an odd way it was almost pleasant.
I have lived on the street for almost three years and this was the first time I had properly spoken to my neighbours. It was so surreal, while waiting to give evidence in a murder trial, to be talking to people you had been on nodding terms with for years but had never spoken to.
It would have been nice if we hadn’t all been so nervous and dealing with something so serious.
If there were two bits of advice I could give any prospective witness