Fit Up by Faith Clifford Page B

this.
    Hamilton contacted Jeremy to say that he was waiting for the CPS to provide a complete bundle of evidence and then he would want to see him to discuss further case preparations. This was likely to be near the date for committal, although he should start looking for a computer forensic expert to support him. Hamilton had not yet instructed an expert as they would need to see the evidence to assess the accuracy of any conclusions drawn by the police forensic expert and to review methodology. Jeremy and I had seen names of various experts throughout our internet searches for information about Operation Ore but now we would start to actively look around.
    A couple of weeks after this hearing Hopkins emailed me to say thatwe could collect the rest of our possessions from Hoddesdon Police Station. Another afternoon off work for us both, I thought, especially as he had asked if we could be there before 6 p.m. This would be the fourth property return and I still had the list that WPC Holder had supplied to me back in February. We could see what was due to us from this list, although she had put it together after our property was looked through at the police station rather than as an inventory taken at the house. This was the best we were going to get, however.
    I hated every moment with Hopkins, listening to his little jokes. As we went through the listings, it appeared that we had the balance of our property, including the last two computers, with the exception of the one sold to Gerard of course. We signed off the property sheet, filled up the car with our goods and went home. The computers and various boxes filled with our stuff had to sit in the lounge until we either sorted through them or just put them into storage.
    We thought it would be handy to fire up the returned computers as there might be items on them that would be needed for the business. One of them, however, would not work. Whatever had been done to it in scanning the hard drive had certainly broken it and this was confirmed later by our computer forensic expert. Whether on purpose or through bad practice, we didn’t know, but it was another business loss. We would have to claim for it at the end of these proceedings.
    From that point on it was a round of meetings and phone calls with Hamilton in order to prepare for a trial. The CPS’s case, with what they had left, was at best shaky and every person involved in law or who had had dealings with such cases said it would be thrown out eventually. However, we still had to be prepared for the worst and Jeremy would call me at work with questions from Hamilton that he could not answer, which, in turn, made me a nervous wreck.
    On one such occasion, Jeremy called with a question about the Tinycomputer. He was with Hamilton preparing for a court hearing coming up on 4 October, and needed to know when we’d bought it. I was at home at the time and could not remember off the top of my head. He said not to worry for the moment but we would need the information. Once Jeremy was off the phone I immediately went up to the loft to look through the company books, invoices and receipts, anxious to get back with the answers that were needed. For some idiotic reason I thought that if I could field each answer successfully it would erode the police case and we wouldn’t need to go to court.
    Sitting in the cold, damp loft, I ignored the stiffening ache in my fingers as I sifted through the pages and then, suddenly, there it was. In the dim lamplight I was able to make out the purchase receipt for the Tiny computer which confirmed that we had purchased it on 30 March 2001 and sold it to Gerard on 21 June 2002. There was also the accountant’s ledger, which also showed the transactions. I had no idea at this stage how crucially significant these dates would be in the future.
    Excitedly I phoned Jeremy to give him the information, but he didn’t sound as excited as I had hoped. Instead, he said that we had homework to do.