HUSH - Book - Page 22
HUSH – Breaking the Silence | Victim Support Scotland
‘They painted this picture of my
brother; about the way he was
dressed and how that meant he
should have been killed.’
It was horrible at the funeral, because of COVID we
weren't even allowed to lay him to rest. We weren't aware of
that though, so when we turned up to the graveyard, we just
saw gravediggers lowering my brother down really quickly.
We were all like, “What? What are you doing?”. It was so
quick, and we never got a chance to do anything. He was
there at the top, the co n on the grass, and then the next
minute down into the grave.
After the funeral the police handed us over to the court
staff. It went from the everyday support of the police to
nothing. No one knew about anything. There were random
phone calls to say when preliminary hearings would be, but
we were just in the dark for so long waiting around.
Finally, court came along. It was the fear of seeing the
accused for the first time since the night he killed my
brother and the unknown of everything. We had never been
in a court in our lives. We had never been in police trouble.
We didn't know anything. We got the brief on how to
behave, how to act and all the rules. We were terrified of
the consequences of misbehaving, doing something
wrong, even coughing in the wrong way or making a noise.
It felt like we were on trial, it was so strict. They kept on
checking our private room and reminding us of these rules.
The room was supposed to be private for us to understand
what was going on. It was enough to deal with listening to
what happened for the first time without them doing that
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to us. It was the most behaved I've ever been in my life.
There were only six people in the gallery, so all eyes were on
us, including the judge. We got told, “You can't make an
expression.” We actually had to sit on our hands to make
sure we didn't react…
The jury was in Braehead Cinema and there were a lot
of technical issues. One Jury member got put out for being
on their phone. At one point, I pointed at the screen to say a
juror was sleeping. I don't know how long for. The jury also
couldn't hear the accused speaking, they were giving loads
of signs out to say they couldn't understand what he was
saying. We were there to listen because my brother wasn't
here to defend himself. We were the ears he had. But all
that vital evidence was cut out.
That's why I say we were hushed. It was nothing about
the victim, nothing about the victim's family. It was all to do
with the defendant and that's it. Court was all for them.
During the trial the defence said, “The dead man” about my
brother. He said it. He said “The dead man.” He even called
him by the wrong name. There was no respect.
They painted this picture of my brother; about the way
he was dressed and how that meant he should have been
killed. My brother always wore a tracksuit, but he was
always immaculately clean. But because he was wearing
that, they were painting him out to be a thug.
It was very cruel how in the depth of grief the victim's
family have to deal with him being blamed for his own murder- “That's what you get.” It's the manipulation. He's not
here to tell his account and that's why they can create reasonable doubt. That little bit of doubt will make it that you
can't decide either way, so if you don't know, the easy way
out is to pick Not Proven. The police o cers promised us
all these answers, we'd get them at court, but we still don't
know what happened. We are still left in the dark today. We
are left with nothing.