HUSH - Book - Page 72
HUSH – Breaking the Silence | Victim Support Scotland
o ce would phone me when there were any developments.
We had a good relationship. I would phone her every few
months just to see if there was an update, but usually there
wasn't. He was formally charged in the summer of 2020.
They called it a homicide because he did supply and recklessly kill her, and that he supplied a Class A, I don't think
they had charged anybody like this before, because Grace
was the youngest person in Scotland to die and a person to
be charged with a homicide of the person, so it was a risk.
I mean, the time delay from 29th June 2018 right
through to 11th September 2020, that's far too long. That's
gained the accused too much upper hand there because
the longer the length of time it is the better chance you've
got of somebody saying, "Oh, I don't remember." And that's a
strategy that, one they used.
When the trial came, I was extremely apprehensive. We
had no real communication with the Fiscal before that. You
are just given a letter to be there, be square. My wife was to
be a witness, my daughter Dani was too. We had never been
to the High Court in our lives. You don't know what to
expect. But we got there. We were taken into a wee room,
and we were told what was going to happen. We weren't
going into the court because this was the first case that
had been done during COVID. We were told, “You go into a
room. We'll wear our masks. We'll tell you where to sit. The
accused family will be sat in first before you lot.”
‘We had never been to the High
Court in our lives. You don’t know
what to expect. But we got there.’
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You just tried your best. You prayed to God and he just
gave me the strength basically. I didn't go on the
Wednesday morning because that was the forensic evidence. We didn't want to. The advice was “Once you see
something, you can't unsee it.”
On the final day, the Defence's summing up was about
an hour and five minutes. Lecture, lecture, lecture. Talking
about the law and the charge and what the word reckless
means. Reiterating that Grace knew the risks. How condescending can you get? A child like Grace, don't say that a
child knew the risks that they were taking, because they
don't. I actually lost him, there was probably about 20 or 30
minutes where I don't know what he said because it was
just so unbelievably mind-numbingly un-credibly boring.
But it obviously worked. He guided that jury in. He ground
them down by putting doubt. If there is any doubt, doubt,
doubt. They were told that if they couldn't get the full
charge that he did, recklessly supply and kill Grace, if they
couldn't get the three things they had to say not guilty. Or if
they had any less than all three components, even having
one or two components, it was to be not proven. They were
led to give that charge They were led to give a Not Proven.
You try and listen objectively. The defence put a spin
on things and used adversary tactics. He actually referred
to her as having an alcohol and drug problem, which is
totally unfounded. You are thinking, “You are a lying b-, you
know. You are dressing this up. You are making my daughter look horrendous.” But all that, see all the doubt that he
put into the juries' mind worked. It was incredible to watch
it. He'd put a brick down, he'd do his mortar, put another
brick down, more mortar and he built up this picture of
Grace that she knew fine well what she was doing, and it
was her own fault that she died. That's his case, very tragic,
but it's not my client's fault. It is insulting to say the least.
We know where the blame is. He is an older boy. He has the
