I was watching a true crime programme on TV last night in which a police investigator said that he and his colleagues ‘rely on human nature more than forensics, because sooner or later people start talking’. He seemed to be referring to the way information spreads within a community, which then ends up in the hands of the police. In this programme, a witness came forward, unable to keep a secret about a murder, one which was presumably burning him up inside, and I thought: good for him. Bravo.
I am very proud to live in a society in which ordinary people are brave enough to do the right thing, albeit that this may come at a high personal cost to them (i.e. fear of reprisals, the anticipation of a trial, the waiting for a trial – which, in the current climate in the UK, could be years, not months). As a criminal defence lawyer, when reading witness statements in a case, I never fail to notice the immense moral courage of my fellow humans. I often reflect on what good people they must be, and how much easier it would have been to look the other way.
But do humans always get it right? Can we trust our memories and perceptions? Can we trust our instincts about a person?
And what happens if we get it wrong?
These are the questions at the heart of my new thriller, which sees a man released from prison on licence for a crime he insists he didn’t commit. Twenty years ago, Jamie Clarke was convicted of the rape and murder of Christy Nicholls in south London, on the evidence of her seven-year-old daughter, Bella, who identified him as the man she had seen in the house that night. Now in her twenties, she is unsure if she identified the right man, and both Sarah (Jamie’s lawyer) and Eve, who meets Jamie by chance in a bookshop, are equally unsure. If it wasn’t Jamie, who was it?
The Stranger on the Stairs is a work of fiction, but it was inspired by a real life miscarriage of justice case (one that has been in the news recently), as well as by a number of others that have similar issues at their core. I was inspired to write the story for the same reasons I became a criminal defence lawyer: I was deeply concerned about all the times we’ve got it wrong, about the inequality of arms between the defence and prosecution, and about how many defendants in criminal proceedings are unable to express their truth in a compelling and convincing way.
I have spent the past twenty plus years in and out of courts and police stations, living and breathing the harsh realities of the criminal justice system. I still practise, but I mostly leave that to Sarah Kellerman, my recurring lawyer character. We are both now in the very fortunate position of being able to take on the cases that inspire us most.
The Stranger on the Stairs is published by Century
