Fit Up by Faith Clifford Page A

following week. They were both confident that the police evidence was weak and that the case would be thrown out quite early on. It was a glimmer of hope to grasp on to and we relayed this to our families. Our parents looked as petrified as we did and although we were not feeling confident ourselves, we had to keep up their spirits. We had distractions in our daily lives but they, being retired, had time to mull over every detail.
    Jeremy had been given a date for his first court appearance, which would be on 9 August at Watford Magistrates’ Court. I asked Jeremy ifthis was a hearing to get the case dismissed, but he said it was just a hearing for his pleadings, which was obviously going to be ‘not guilty’. He said it was just a formality and that, if Hamilton was to be believed, this would be over shortly after. Well, we knew Jeremy was innocent, but we had to put our faith in the justice system.
    I was really worried about Jeremy. He was putting on a confident front and trying to sort out the business, but I could see all this was taking its toll. Neither of us slept much. He was comfort eating and I continued to bite my nails until it hurt, which I came to see as a form of self-harm. This infuriated Jeremy but by this point I wasn’t even aware that I was doing it.
    I tried to carry on bravely with my work, my mouth was constantly dry and my body racked with nerves. I talked to John from time to time to update him and he tried his best to help me be optimistic. What was worrying was he would often say that, in his opinion, the police couldn’t be trusted. I put on a cheerful front which was an act for everyone else to treat me normally. I could not cope with sympathy as it just made me emotional and I was afraid that if I started to cry, I would never stop. The threat of tears was always there and it was exhausting.
    On the day of the hearing, Jeremy called me to say that he had met with the barrister, Mr Akin-Olugbade, and had pleaded not guilty to the magistrates. It had been ordered that the case should be dealt with at the Crown Court because of its serious nature. Jeremy continued to say that the hearing was short and when the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) read out the charges, he was surprised to hear that they were dropping the incitement charge involving the credit card transactions. This was confusing because it was on the evidence of the credit card transactions that a judge signed a search warrant to get into our home and shop, and now all of a sudden it did not matter. I remembered that during the raid Patel and Burn had been adamant that this incitement charge was the ‘substantial evidence’ that they had on Jeremy. We then wondered wherethe police were going to go with their case with the remaining charges of making the images that were found on the Tiny computer.
    Jeremy had said that there were press there as well as some members of the public and he thought everyone looked at him as though he was the vilest person on the planet.
    I asked Jeremy if he wanted me to come home but he said no, he would see me later as he wanted to get back to the shop to get some editing done. Before he hung up he said that he had seen Hopkins at the court and approached him. Astonished, I shouted at him for his stupidity and said that I wouldn’t have given him the time of day. ‘Why, oh why did you want to speak to him?’ I asked. He explained that it was because he wanted to see if he could glean any information from him. Jeremy had asked Hopkins if his name would appear in the papers and he said he did not know but that members of the press and general public were allowed to sit in on most court hearings.
    The barrister who was representing Jeremy told him that the charges wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny and the case would more than likely be thrown out. This was encouraging because, after all, they were in the know about how the law and the courts worked, and we hung on to any morsel of comfort like