53
“Call the defendant….Mr Leonard Odysseus Bloom to take the stand.” Onward I go. Up before the Beak. Onward and upward. LOB to the fray. Into the arena to face the fuzzy fat-faced champion of the Underworld. ‘Come on, bring it on, rotunda!’ I thought. Those evil eyes can’t cut me. His nor theirs. No more laments. ‘ Do or die’ I told myself. I take that long, silent walk to the stand. My ordeal begins and McNutt plays his words with cuts and thrusts.
I was duly sworn and fighting back to quell a hyperventilating fit I gave my rendition of the catechism.
Q. Who made the world?
A. God made the world.
Q. Who is God?
A. God is the Creator of heaven and earth, and of all things.
Q. What is a man?
A.Man is a creature composed of body and soul, and made to the image and likeness of God.
To be repeated and over and over never to forget the words in my bestest enunciation.. The words I needed him to hear. The words I needed the Divine Judge to hear come Judgement Day.Here I sat in this interrogation bubble sliced and prodded and mocked and chewed. I was gristle in McNutt’s mouth and he wanted to crush the life from me and spit me out with his diction.
(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((9
54
Post-acquittal Bloom taunting Godbolt and the police as Bloom leaves the courtroom. taunting of the Citizen, unwise as his escape was by no means assured and the taunting of Odysseus as Polyphemus rages on the shore. That the normally mild mannered Bloom can be seen to be sharing some of the attributes of the Sacker of Cities; is strange, and it is perhaps important to note that it is Blooms heritage that causes him to shout out; Your God was a Jew. Christ was a Jew like me. The Citizens poorly chosen words-By Jesus, I’ll crucify him so I will (both p.445) serve to yet again emphasise his foolishness. Is he the ‘Citizen’? He has been cloaked in a pseudonym that I have graciously afforded him for too long. You see, reader, he is real, he is not a fictional character in a potboiler novel you can pick up off the shelf of Woolworth’s at 50% off the recommended price, and He is real. A serving police officer-no less a full inspector of Her Majesty’s Constabulary in this fine fair eastern county north east of London where the tractors rake the fields for turnips and turnip-headed Troy Boy ploughs the highways for more victims to make criminals for his statistics to look stacked up nice and crime solved. He is the man of the pen-pushing bureaucracy that sees ‘clear up rates’ and ‘targets’ and this season’s ‘big initiative’ is that we are all ‘one’ in fighting crime. But he is the criminal not me. He makes false criminals of victims and true victims of ‘criminals.’ Damn him the self-made man-god. I shall shame he like he had them shame me. I shall get my revenge on my nemesis: get the Police Federation on the case. You know you want to! Tell them what happened on that fateful day I took my stepdaughter to confess her crimes to you. Tell us all! What did you say? ‘You are banned from this station-the investigation is closed!’ I know the law on defamation. I’ve studied it most assiduously and had the best advice my wife’s money could illicit from those London barristers. The rules of ‘absolute immunity’? Go hang! I name and shame you. I have the proof, Inspector. The proof I got, as is my right from your own police records. Bestowed upon me as a great gift from the gods into my hands courtesy of the Freedom of Information Act. I clasp it in my sweaty paw and thrust it skyward to the blueness of the heavens and the glory of the gods. See Zeus; see Athena, my sweet beauty (don’t forsake me now and let me lie at your knees and kiss tenderly your fine regal hand in deference). I hold the documents to prove you denied a confession-you denied the evidence as the stain upon your sworn attestation. You took the office in vain. You swore to seek the truth without favour or bias, to admit evidence whether it pointed away from an accused or toward him, but it was all one-way by your book. I saw you smirk as you had me stripped then stowed for hours in a stinking, fetid cell, cuffed, too and then posed like meat for the indignity of the mug shot snaps, the inky fingers and palms, the DNA swab from my gums. Then the court appearances, the run around of clerks, lawyers, witnesses, court expenses, forensics, clerical filings, barristers fees, travel costs, plane tickets, on and on pissing money down the drain. But it wasn’t your money, though, was it? Just a catalogue of unnecessary waste of public funds and how much did Kearney say again? I hear it was over £65,000 you’ve cost the taxpayer in your little games. Having me tried for nothing to humiliate me in your own sick and tawdry revenge to suckle sexual favours from my bitch of an ex wife. Another low-life uniformed troll of your despicable ilk. Feel my fury, smell the vitriol and acid bile spat at you now. I am coming.
55
MARCH 2004: Post Trial Fallout." The alleged ‘unconvicted paedophile’, Leo Bloom has been run out of town just one week after returning to his North Haven home at Eccles Drive. The local community became concerned after it was revealed Mr Bloom was living within 200 metres of a well-used children’s playground. A group of residents has been protesting outside the house for much of the day. North Haven Mayor, Lester Burnham, says Mr Bloom is not welcome in the town. "The community wanted him out of his premises and there was a raucous group gathering on the footpath outside," he said.
"Police escorted him out of those premises and he's at the police station at the present time. I believe the gentlemen is now making arrangements for accommodation outside of the town."
Mr Burnham says the community was not willing to put out the welcome mat.
"The place where he has residence was a just a very short walk from where young children regularly gather, which I believe was totally inappropriate," he said.
I threw down the newspaper in disgust. It’s never going to stop haunting me. These moronic imbeciles outside are weak-minded. I sent my final letter of formal complaint to police headquarters yesterday for whatever good it will do. I demanded they root out the rotten apples in their barrel. I expected little, as these were corrupt and incompetent trolls. Maybe we are just plain too nice? Boylan has a lot to answer for. He, Godbolt, Cilla, Gadd and the rest are all in on it fuelling an indignant moral panic. If I haven’t got the religious-right reactionaries ranting and raving on my doorstep I’ve got them crying their shrill screeds in newspaper columns. You would think I had been into every imaginable evil up to and including drinking the blood of babies. I don’t get my voice-they won’t print my rebuttals. The press ignore me and give me no right of reply. Well, it’s soon going to be time to take cover, you drooling Neanderthals. Prepare yourselves for what's coming.
I’ve endured rocks thrown at my car, a biscuit tin, yes, a biscuit tin of all things aimed at me as I left the house leaving scratches down the blue paint of the front door. I am not safe here. I would be far better off far, far away encamped in lemon territory in Ithaca so all those unthinking knee-jerkers can go and spin.
56
OFF TO ITHACA. I followed Barb and pregnant Lita back to New York. It wasn’t a bad flight. Delayed due to a bomb hoax it took over eleven hours before landing at Newark. But I kept myself busy by reading the papers. A good article on positivism in the Times and the American newspapers was full of woes of how the Baghdad Museum had been pillaged of priceless artefacts and tens of thousands of rare manuscripts. “Iraq is the birthplace of civilization, the civilization of the Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians and others” was how the cultural editor led the story. We all sojourned at the family residence out in the country away from prying eyes. Here my wife always treated me like a king.
My brother-in-law, Steve came up from the city for the weekend and wanted to hear the scoop. He was downright shocked. Acquitted you say? So the much-vaunted British "sense of fair play" was nothing more than self-congratulating rhetoric. Hounded out of town by a vigilante mob? Do they still have lynchings in Merry Old England? Maybe it’s just an aberration? Maybe you upset someone on the payroll of some Mafia drugs lord? Is it because you are from Irish stock? That’s it plain, got it now- simple old-fashioned racism. Steve Limoncello was a great one for bigging up the underdog. Did I know that when the Irish first came to the US they got the dirtiest, most dangerous jobs and an Irishman was held to have less economic value than a black or Chinese man? He knew his local history did our Steve or it was something he just read in the papers. The date was the clue March 17th 2004. He then told me the first St. Patrick's day parades in New York were anti-Irish affairs held by Anglo-Saxons who taunted the Irish and burnt St. Patrick in effigy. I told him my effing effigy was probably being burnt in the Havens as he spoke. Now do shut up old chap, I wished but to no avail.
”Leo, the Irish had to fight to be white. Since then other groups have "become white", or more precisely "become American". My advice to you is go back home and show them you’ve become not only white but whiter than white!”
I thanked Steve for that and quietly in his ear asked if he felt perhaps the time to let all the family in on our embarrassing little secret about that escapade in that New Jersey bordello three years back? Steve withdrew his counsel advisedly.
I should have sensed right then and there the portents were not good. My recuperation was not to be an untroubled affair. I had persuaded my hirsute Italian yellow fruit that a wise course of action was to refurbish my unwelcome abode at Eccles Close and let it out. She thought it wise and no less apposite that we entrust the letting to Hector Goodman. His greater knowledge of these matters would ensure a stress free and more profitable venture. Best wait a week or two and we can the plans underway. Or so we thought.
The devastating news was a crushing blow when it came. I don’t really think anyone believed it at first. It was just too surreal and struck me to the core. Denise called on that snowy early March night. She broke the news over the phone to Lita on a break from her bedside vigil. Hector had been attacked as he left my place yesterday evening. He was jumped before he could get to his car. The immediate fear was possible long-term brain damage. He has had extensive contusions and lacerations to frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex. Prognosis -vegetative state. That was meant to be me. That was certain. Not immediately life threatening-but he will have no quality of life- brains like mush. Lita quivered, set down the telephone receiver and collapsed back into her armchair. My wife ran to her aid. We had the unborn to consider. Naturally, we were all disgusted, worried, sickened and angry. What was it all for? Where was it all leading and when would it end?
“Granted we all know paedophilia is sick, and, of course, I’m all for paedophiles being locked away indefinitely. But what is just as sick is that media hype; it’s all down to that if-it-sells-papers-it-must-be-good rubbish. Naming and Shaming they call it over there. It’s the kind of trash that makes paediatricians have to watch themselves…oh poor, poor old Hector!”
I decided the right thing to do was to fly back immediately. Guilt enveloped me and became suffocating. I had to see the man before he goes. It was a show of friendship and support. But, wouldn’t you know it, within three-or was it four (?) days he was sitting up in bed.
I brought the obligatory bowl of fruit and listened to a rendition of his crepitating rale as he struggled with tubes and wires and analgesics to communicate anything much discernable. Still poor Hector. He looked like a tired old dog or a glum puppet figure, lying in that bed like some useless old rag. Look at him, poor soul. Hector the Dog and Zaza? Yes! That was it! A cat wasn’t she? Didn’t they have a nice house in the centre of a lovely garden full of flowers? On just before the news! Wasn’t there a frog called Kiki? I think she lived next door. Or was kinky? I know they spent a lot of time spying over the garden wall, or sneaking through her access hole for some excitement. Kiki and Zaza often played tricks on Hector to teach him a lesson, leading him to say "I'm a Great Big (whatever he was) Old Hector".
I opened the door to my old haunt at Eccles Drive. The blue door still bore the marks of the biscuit tin attack. On the coconut matting just inside the battered door sat an assortment of letters-mostly junk male, some post Mr Nakamura, my old tenant and a crisp large manila job from the East Mercia Department of Education. It was grim reading. My services were no longer required. I had been formally removed from the supply teachers’ register. I was barred from making any direct approach to all of the Authorities maintained schools. There was no prospect of an appeal. No formal panel would be convened to discuss the matter. I was over and out, done and dusted.
My wife was in lah-la land. Her grandaughter was born five minutes past midnight on March 26th 2004weighing in at six pounds and for ounces. All services to my place were off and I only found out when I met Denise at the hospital and she told me. Hector was doing fine. He should be out for rehabilitation in early April and the doctor says the prognosis just gets better and better. What a relief. Shame my life is in shreds. A cold mattress to sleep on, no furniture and the fear that at any time the North Haven Posse might regroup and resume their Bloom baiting. The Limoncellos weren’t rushing to my aid. I felt a spare part in their equations right now. I had to think of another new strategy.
57
Wherever you go, there you are as they say in the home country. Belatedly, back in England and some time after my acquittal I was able to kept my word to my faithful darling blonde. So it I was back to Charlotte’s welcome embraces to see if she could withstand another pie hop deal. I tried to finally cement her place by my side. It was such a relief to be with her again. I felt lucky to have met someone like her-someone very special: someone who wouldn’t press charges. I revelled in the security she gave me. So much so I decided to take her to my post-trial confabulation at Punch, Deenan & Flynn.
Brigid Kearney greeted me like a long lost friend; ”My dear, Leo, so glad to see you again-you’re looking really well with all things begin considered and nice to meet you, too, Ms Mayes. Everyone here at the firm is so delighted for you! What a marvellous job Mr Shaffernacker did. Please take a seat….coffee anyone? So what is it I can do for you today?”
“ Let me cut to the chase Ms Kearney….I don’t want to beat around the bush…but frankly I’m really gutted with how it all turned out.”
“Gutted? Why gutted? You do surprise me….what can possibly be ailing you?”
“Well… the negative press coverage for a start… and I’m getting into an horrific battle to get re-instatement from my employers…it’s looking really bad! They’ve banned me permanently.”
“Oh, come… I’m sure it will all die down. The press are the press….we all know how they work! Of course, I did speak with them myself when they telephoned the firm for a quote…but .as always more interested in a hot scandal…..you see they’d gone along with the girl’s story from the outset…. seemed so compelling what with the tape recording …looked like an open and shut case to an outsider, of course, people do tend to think in simplistic terms in these sex attack cases…too quick to side with the alleged victim. So…..I’m afraid… their big sex story went a bit flat.”
“A bit flat! Jesus, I’ve lost my teaching career because of the garbage that’s been written about me and now I’m forever painted as the paedo teacher who got away with it ‘cos some kid flew 4,000 miles from nowhere to bail me out…you’ve seen all the headlines…..it looks like a stitch up by me!….’Leo Bloom, teacher gets young girl in from the States to ambush trial….victim distraught and prosecutor screams foul!’”
“ Well…of course, it does all look a tad shabby put that way but that’s the rules- the press can’t disclose names or personal details about minors. I’m sure you understand that. Of course, in this case….what with all the bizarre circumstances….I do see your point, too. It should have been put down as a simple family bust up between your stepdaughter and foster child-much simpler-but rules are rules. But I’m sure you’ll get it straightened out with your employers…they’ll see through it all and you’ll be back in business once the dust settles.”
“I’m being constantly hounded to death! A family friend has been nearly kicked to death- mistaken for me by rent a mob! I can’t walk through town without some arsehole recognising me from the papers and giving me a verbal battering….and look…look at this!”
I thrust the letters toward her.
“ I’ve now got this from the Secretary of State for Education. I’ve brought it today to show you……and then this one…. another from the local education authority....you see! If I insist on appealing all that nonsense I’m set for two and may be three more trials.”
“What do you mean three more trials?”
Exactly that…..this time by my the Department for Education, then after that the General Teaching Council…if I win through them then it’s back to my employers!”
With a pensive face she pauses and eyes my concern. Theatrically she puts on her reading spectacles then begins to study them and scribbles some notes on her pad.
“ Ok…I understand this now…If it’s alright with you I’d like to make copies of these letters for our employment specialists…as you know….I’m a criminal lawyer…..this merits some scrutiny from someone with more expertise in these matters. ….Are you currently unemployed?”
“Yes…haven’t worked since I got suspended last year. As they say, the best things in life are free or is it nail-biting refreshes the feet.”
“Oh my dear Leo…I see…well we try to get you on legal aid for this as before ….no different from the criminal matter really…some investigative help…leave it with me and I’ll get the ball rolling…I’ll be in touch.” Her hand busily scratched at her pad.
“Oh…one other thing….I was wondering if I could sue the CPS and the police over what they did….for defamation or something…..what with the fabricated transcript and the them refusing to examine my phone records and computer….for the proof….and then there was Lita’s confession they refused to take….”
“Ah…yes…I remember….you sent the Crown Prosecution Service a letter before your trial…..er…yes…I remember we disagreed on the approach at the time…..might be some mileage in it….but again….I will need to pass that query onto someone else…not sure who we’ve got in the firm who does actions against the police. It’s not something there’s much call for in these parts ordinarily…you may find you need to go see a firm in London, Leo, but again, leave all this with me and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
I fix my gaze directly into her eyes and daringly make my final point,” “ Just before I go… Frankly, Ms Kearney I need to say this… I felt when you got me to do all that work on the transcript…. from the tape ….that you then .... .after….when I sent my letter to the CPS against your wishes…I’ve done a lot on my own and I just wondered how committed you really were to helping.”
Her head jerked up from scribbling her notes and she suddenly fixed me with daggers. “Mmmm….well…Frankly, Mr Bloom ….when I first read your file I didn’t think you had a prayer…. But then two things transpired to save you…. Firstly, fair play to you for discerning that the complainant’s own tape recording helped discredit the prosecution witnesses…I pointed that out to you that may be something on there we could work with. I was proved right when you followed up with your own analysis of it for me. But it was your stepdaughter’s confession that really saved your bacon…without a shadow of a doubt. And you and I both know you were lucky to get that from her…and of course, there were those photos on the mobile phone…a very big lucky break for you, don’t you think? Thank goodness no one ever looked deeper into the photos question. …..Now…..I really have do to get on…another client is waiting….. Good day, Mr Bloom…Ms Mayes. I’ll be in touch.”
She stood and raised her arm toward the door. Her face said enough-to her I was guilty-I had got off too lightly. We left quickly.
Charlotte took my arm and pulled herself tightly to my chest. I smiled back at her. She read my anxiety and tried her best to motivate me, “ Leo, you’re a free man now. I am not going to let you stew in that armchair, curtains half-drawn, unshaven, and unkempt. Get rid of that self-piteous stupefied look on your face! Be a man!”
Grinding poverty did have that effect and he more than conjectured that, high educational abilities though he possessed, he experienced no little difficulty in making both ends meet.
“ All well and good you saying that, Charlotte, but I need to think about putting a crust in my mouth now. They’ll be no ‘hail, Ed Pope!’ I don’t think you’re father is going to let you support an acquitted paedophile! More like pail Ed Hope!”
“ Stop that now, Leo, I know…but County Hall are just doing their jobs protecting the kids in their care…they don’t know you like I do!”
“ But…it’s not just them….I’ve also got the police sending my file to the Secretary of State. They’re attacking me on two fronts now: the Department of Education as well as the General Teaching Council. It’s going to be ground hog day all over…. facing one trial after another trial after another!”
“Leo…I was really upset you kept me out of the trial….maybe if you’d let me get more involved I could have helped in some way…but you chose your wife over me…our love was sacrificed and I trusted you to see it through with some kind of honour…if you love me then please let me be part of it….I will show you. Didn’t I say I would be there in court if that…that… wife her charm less daughter let you down? Didn’t I prove to you I would put our love before my father’s wishes? I’ve done my part…you’re wife has gone back to New York…running away again to be with her grandchild….She’s deserted you yet again. She’s totally unreliable. Is that the kind of life you want? Is that what your future is going to be? Nothing to hold on to? Nothing permanent? No commitment to you to make a proper life here. She will have you taking care of that as if it were yours and hers….I know how it is…women see things men don’t….it’s all about her big lawsuit and what you can do for her when she needs you. And you, being you, you hold on hoping she’ll give you the crusts from the table. You always told me you would never give her a child. But she beat you-she got her way by default. She’s off now making sure she has her own daughter’s bundle for herself. You watch. She’s manipulated and controlled you and you did her bidding and look where it got you…you lost the thing you had…your teaching….what can you do now at your age? Retrain? I don’t see it, Leo. Please see the sense. I read the letters you got you’re your employers. They will never let you work here ever again. Let’s go to Lincolnshire. Let’s start a new life somewhere where no one know you….we can be a family…you, me, my kids….yours, too…. whenever they want they can be with us.”
“that’s some speech, babe…I’m touched…don’t know what to say.”
Leo, say nothing for now-just think. Think how I’ve played my part….. I’ve been patient…keeping to the background. No woman would do that for any man unless her whole heart and soul was in her dreams to be one united in love.”
I felt a tear in my eye but turned my head away from her in shame. I wiped my face and turned to her, taking her by her shoulders and bring her face close within my breath. I sucked in her perfume like a drug and breathed her life into me. I drew from her strength.
“ Darling Charlotte. I will fight for us. I will be free of it all…I can’t live a lie any longer. I will get justice and I am going to prove myself you, my family, my so-called friends and colleagues that I am not a child-molesting pervert. I lost my identity in a sham marriage. I took a soft option….she bought me-you’re right. She paid to have on her arm a man she could pass off as something fine and well bred. I gave that illusion for her New York socialite gaggle. I walked and talked, ate drank and slept her Hugh Grant-Cary Grant fantasy-me of all people! A navvy ditch-digger’s son and the product of a shabby inner- city sink school. I took my chance and grabbed it. My only gift is my brass neck. “
I had been the possessor of an entrée into fashionable houses in the best residential quarters of financial magnates in a large way of business and titled people where with my university degree of B.A. (a huge ad in its way) and gentleman bearing to all the more influence the good impression I would infallibly score a distinct success, being blessed with brains which also could be utilised for the purpose and other requisites, if my clothes were properly attended to so as to the better worm my way into their good Charlottes as I, once a youthful tyro in- society's sartorial niceties, hardly understood how a little thing like that could militate against you. It was in fact only a matter of months and I could easily foresee me participating in their musical and artistic conversaziones during the festivities of the Christmas season, for choice, causing a slight flutter in the dovecotes of the fair sex and being made a lot of by ladies out for sensation, cases of which, as he happened to know, were on record - in fact, without giving the show away, I, myself once upon a time, if I cared to, could easily have. Added to which of course would be the pecuniary emolument by no means to be sneezed at, going hand in hand with my tuition fees. Not, I parenthesise, that for the sake of filthy lucre I need necessarily embrace the lyric platform as a walk in life for any lengthy space of time. But a step in the required direction it was beyond yea or nay and both monetarily and mentally it contained no reflection on my dignity in the smallest and it often turned in uncommonly handy to be handed a cheque at a much needed moment when every little helped.’
“ Please, Leo….think it over….this could be our last chance…we still have some youth in us…some get up and go….if we want to make a fresh start.”
“ Babe….listen to me…I have nothing…if I divorce my wife I will get nothing of hers…she’s shrewd….she’s put none of her money in anything in England….she’s got all her assets in New York….if I divorce her now I will lose my house. My life is as fragile as glass right now. I’ve got a tenant living in my house on which I have a mortgage to pay…you know it will be the first casualty of a divorce war. You don’t know her…she will finish me financially…I’ve got to use my head….Stick by me a bit longer…let me fight an action for compensation first…these bastards have lost their day in court…let me have mine revenge…please…”
“But why? I can take care of us both…I have money”
“No! No…you don’t understand! That’s where I am now…a hipped ole….in the pocket of a woman and I hate it! I must fight my own corner…be my own man….I…I’ve been reading…I got some books. I think I have a case…..There are laws….it’s called malicious prosecution and misfeasance. Let me do this, babe. Let me use my brains. Now I’m hounded by those shouts behind my back in the street…..‘ hey paedo! ….a hopped lie!’ I need to stop feeling like a victim and feel like a fighter. It’s Troy Boylan and Goldbolt….Karibdis and van Hiller…..they haunt me…I hate them ….I want some payback”!”
“If you do this, Leo then I don’t know how long I can hold out…I really don’t. Promise me one thing….just one…follow through with what Kearney said….see a lawyer first about this….if they say you have little chance or it’s too expensive…please let it go.”
“Babe…I promise……if I get told it won’t stand up then I’ll let it go. But come on. You know the whole story….it can’t be right….the police won’t want the bad publicity….fixing up a teacher with false evidence? Refusing a confession just to try to fit me up? Come on, babe…..this is big…we both know it….if my employers won’t let me back then that’s the rest of my working life they’ve killed off…that’s got to be big compensation…..hundreds of thousands!”
“Alright, Leo, but please…don’t lose your head on this. Just one other thing. What did Mrs Kearney when she said about some photos not coming out? Were there photos?”
I tried to reassure her that was nothing. Just something I had found on some computer files and kept for a rainy day.
I finally got a response from the Police HQ re: my official complaint. A sergeant was sent to interview me. He came to meet me. Took it all down. Was very interested in to hear about Boylan-apparently it was a name well known to him. I guessed he had done this before.
58
MAY 12th 2004: THE PHONEY WAR. I walked jauntily on this fine, bright day. Onward I strode to meet my accomplice of old. Along that familiar path down toward the quayside I passed by an unfamiliar scene, a group of presumably Italian merchant seamen off some sail boat or trawler on the spree and walking by in the midst of a heated altercation. They were howling out voluble expressions in their vivacious language in a particularly animated way, there being some little differences between the parties.
Puttana Madonna….. che ci dia i quattrini…. Ho ragione? Mezzo più…. Dice lui…, però! Mezzo…. Farabutto! Ma ascolta!…. Cinque più.
Oh, how it soothed me to see others worse off than myself. Often in my life, in my hour of need, I call on Mr Johns: the purveyor of truisms and bringer of wisdom and fleeting inebriate joy. Or was that just my Irish roots calling me back-give me a ripe bottle of Shiraz. I auto-dialled his number and speedy came he on the line. We arranged to meet for a drink one afternoon at the Siduri. It was the final week before closing down. Gil was off to pastures new so I wanted one last hurrah.
I walked into the fine establishment at a touch after three and emptied of its lunchtime crew. I found myself a small corner table and sat perusing the menu. Sitting innocently contemplating the lambasting wit that should soon befall me I noted proprietor Gilgamesh lovingly polishing an imperfect wine glass in what I determined was an unconvincing imitation of a finicky waiter. Another resolute loner?
I pondered how Mr Johns would greet me. Still the loyal friend? He was such an odd mix-kind of car salesman meets errant archdeacon: always chastising his wayward parishioners and always with something dodgy to sell. He was a man who loved the sound of his own voice more than I did. A truer sophist than me. Soon would come redemption in a rendition of his slick revivalist-style monologues.
I caught my alter ego bounding oafishly through the door. Telemachus Johns closed his long daybook and glanced with his drooping eye at a pine naked statuette sentried in a corner. He pulled himself erect, and went to it and, spinning it on his axle, viewed about this Aladdin’s cave of bric- a brac, exotic flotsam and jetsum, onjet d’art shapes and brasses, some real and some purloined fakes. Chewing the limb of his black sunglasses he poked and prodded the silent wooden maiden about the face. He was stopped in his fumblings at the doorway when he was met by a swarthier face. The two seemed to chat about something for a time. There good old TJ genuflected his hatbrim giving shade to his eyes from the sunlit doorway and ambled his portly frame my way and waved his perfunctory greeting.
“ Hello my old telemarketer, how’s it going, you old faker?” But this is how it always begins. In comes the long-suffering, long-winded friend cum work colleague who I had neglected for such a while.
“I’m well- in fact I am as perky as ever. Life’s good, always good- you know me.”
I signalled to Gil for two red wines and with the slightest genuflection it was as good as done.
“ Cool, I had been thinking what you said before about having a chat- since I said I was going to ask your advice about my intended civil action-might take a punt at getting some compo from the police or the education authorities.” I hear a sigh then a momentary pause.
“ Yes, Leo, I kind of knew that things hadn’t been going well for you- you haven’t been back to me for quite some time and I tend to know when you’re not doing so well, old soldier. So you not coming back to the fold on the chalk face then?”
Maybe- but no time soon-maybe ever. We spoke first about this messy police business.
“ Leo, when we were kids back in the day. Like a lot of Irish immigrant kids growing you were that good church boy and you made your mother proud…”
Thus he did begin.
“ But how you have changed! I don’t want to come across as your mother or anything. But Leo, if you get caught with a perpetual rod on for the nubiles then the law of averages will snare you on legal barbwire sooner or later!”
I thought, bolted horse and stable door and counted to ten then spat back a niggardly riposte to the reasonist’s fallacy while he sniffed at the redness that span about his wine glass.
“Now climb down off that high one, TJ! Now you’re a fine one to preach! Mister oh-so-pure of the Phys. Ed. Department don’t try and pull the wool over my eyes….I vividly remember…the other year…summer term…as should half the giggling girlies of Bishop Thomas Duprés…when you personal fouled Luscious Laura-of the gaping gymslip-umpteen times and your throbbing tackle was raised as a matter of concern….a high hard lob on showing in your silk shorts and giving the giggles to the girls- the pair of you entwined ball clutching on the floor!” I stifled my retort as a matter of courtesy while our shadowy waiter had decided to edge gently over to strain an ear and Johns threw back another glass glistening gob full with glee.
For the difference between Mr Johns and Mr Bloom is that the former elicits his classroom and extra-curricular gratifications from prepubescents much like the wretched character from that polylingual Russian’s book. However, while the latter, my less scurrilous self chooses to savour the elegant beauty of a female who actually looks like a woman. My sensibilities are far less contemptible and are rooted in biological triggers and not deviancy. For let it be said while, the legal age of consent in England is sixteen years of age every one of us knows someone, be it themselves, a family member or whatever who has broken that particular arbitrary law. Statutes cannot constrain biology. Those wide-hipped, pendulous breasted, fine-skinned young women would populate my own version of an enchanted island. While Mr Johns would be sat on his own paradise beach clapping and cheering alongside a certain Mr HH ogling and salivating over gawky, lank and rather androgynous waifs as they innocently skip on by. That I would find wholly repulsive. I take a cautious sip of my wine.
But Jesting Johns persists, “ Come, come, still the trick is never get caught beyond a certain point where I invariably drew the line as it simply led to trouble all round to say nothing of your being at the tender mercy of others practically. You behold in me, Leo, I say with grim displeasure, a horrible example of free thought. Most of all I should comment adversely on the desertion of Boobing Bloomer by all our pub hunting confreres but one, a most glaring piece of ratting on the part of our brother pendants under the circs. And all one to a man and all Judases, you say, who up to then had said nothing whatsoever of any kind.”
“Well, my machus mate I can do without them all now- and this is no longer about your lascivious fumbles and hand fouls. It’s about legal retribution. The police brazenly faked a record in transcription and they were out to crucify me…it still persists! I will get my day in court and grass them all up and let the press expose all their corrupt practices.”
My friend would not have it. He threw back another swig from his glass and again insisted I was going off totally in the wrong direction.
“ Leo, you need to realise is this is England where the police forces are shaped from toughened Teflon. They can do no wrong and so says the law. Wholly bullet proofed against litigation…you haven’t got a prayer. Don’t you watch the news? The Silcotts of this world get nothing from them….you’re pissing in the wind, old chum…take my advice and leave your money in your wife’s pocket. Move on with your life. You’ve had your ‘get out of jail free’ card from your stepdaughter and I’ll bet, as sure as hell you won’t get another.”
“Thanks, chum. That is my ultimate dilemma-so which way shall I go? Thorn, Shout, Seat or Stew? Move abroad? Grow a beard? Start a commune?”
My do-gooding friend went on about ‘Finding another way of looking at it, be objective, consider other viewpoints’ and ‘often from adversity can come hope, but nothing out of an empty glass. The fine weather friends may be gone now but one or two of us are left.’
The lispy lush was getting pickled on Gils’ generous free house wine. In his rambunctious way he was telling me I still have a rallying point. He stopped to refill his own glass to inspire his oratory and scoffed from the courtesy bowl some carrot sticks and vinaigrette left by our attentive host.
Growing steadily more exasperated by the batty boy’s flippancies I sideswiped back with my own les crudités. “ Telemachus Johns: black belt third Dan in the ignoble arts of upskirting and downblousing. Never knowingly caught surreptitiously spotting the tumescent dog. ”
Telemachus’ voice softens as he peruses his favourite subject, ‘Do you ever think of the person who designed the sports skirt? Someone sat down drew a fantasy and made it compulsory. ‘I can’t watch Wimbledon without thanking him. My teacher friend preferred the taste of breast man while I liked a fine bit of rump or leg. During many a dull lesson where the opportunity presented itself, he’d be up and down the aisles from desk to desk checking over every daisy doe in pigtails to crane a gander. Twitching like he’d found that elusive and rare red breast he would love to have a good gawp. On the upward flight where he strode tall, undetected eyes supposedly shoe gazing he would, in fact be blouse bobbing the little darlings as their eyes, too, were cast downwards. While at other less promising times, now leg-smitten, he might determine there were better pickings over a gaggle of short-skirted storks craving crotch inspection. Then he would employ the chair crescent manoeuvre. The chair cresecent manoeuvre was a favoured ploy of old school pedants. Here the class formed their chairs in a semi-circle about teacher’s desk. Thereupon the aforesaid member would inspect those cross-legged, open –legged thigh and panty flashers to his heart’s content with the benefit of his prop to hide his predicament while he pretended to lecture intently on some dull topic or other. Perks of the job. What of the boys, you ask? Oblivious.
I opined, “Mister Johns you have an anvil for a soul! McNutt made me the ‘ambusher’ of his case and so it was told. He scowled that my ‘false’ witness perjured herself on pain of prison for me at the eleventh hour! Thereafter I was skewered up on Golgotha for the pleasures of the cackling hacks of paparazzi town. Slants were penned then printed then from the gutter rags they flew into to the hands of those education mill masters who pay us our corn. “
He felt it incumbent on him to say a few words. But one should be charitable. Invincible ignorance. They acted according to their lights. They say justice must not only be seen to be done but has to be seen to be believed. Was I the ringmaster of the North Haven Chapter of East Mercia’s long-established ‘pay-to-feel’ ring of the ineffable ‘P’ word? The Tommy Titter’s and Malcolm Tent’s will always want to read juicy lasciviousness over their Sunday breakfast tables whether real or imagined.
“ Give it up Bloom boy. So it might rankle that the bad boys in blue pooh-poohed Lita’s confession from the start without so much as a sniff. Of course it was biased-they were out to fix you, we all know it. But can you persuade a jury of that? Will anyone give you compensation? I doubt it but I’m no lawyer, my friend. Is there ever any real redress for over-zealous licensed executioners who character assassinate while hiding behind a uniform? But these are just words. Think of those other cases-some far, far worse than yours. Those shootings, strange deaths in custody-count yourself lucky you’ve still got the breath to speak!”
And I will speak. Unfortunate people do die like that, so unprepared.
Still an act of perfect contrition. There will be no free cottage pies or ex gratis tromboning from me to Pearl Nicklaus and Beau Khaki. Ace Rimmer and Bud Plugge may still get their kicks as Ché Spitzer-Swallows who suffers oral blowback when Rector Prospects meets Hank E. Steyne and Bud Plugge. Peter File’s ring of Mo Leicester’s went to ‘Fizz’ Dyng and Doug Gingg. So wipe it all up Fran E. Badder because Blooming Leo proved to the court that George Harrison was George and Harrison and ‘Get off me’ never in a million years could be contrived from a tape recording that any fool with a hearing aid could tell was ‘You can’t force me!’ Forensics? What forensics? For the defence we submit four plain and unequivocal English syllables and not three, my Lord.
Telemachus tries to salve my evident discomfort, “ Leo, in this life we are all limited by our own personal 'horizons of understanding'. Those hob gobs have only their own myopic vantage point. But you’ve also been ensconced in your own blinkerdom, too, my friend. You’re a clever sod, but you don't say the right thing to the right people and never will."
No retractions, no apologies, no balance. Your Honour Justice Tobias Mahony says ‘You are free to go without a stain on your character.’ Well take off that pompous wig you old fool and live in the real world. Many column inches read by my family, my children, my friends and colleagues, my neighbours and my laughing enemies who shall gloat because it is not what is real but what is perceived to be real that counts. Any child, any woman can cry wolf and if they are believed and the vested interests of justice deem it so then boils down there must be ‘ a case to answer’ because the prosecutor refuses to contemplate the defence before the stark and cruel day in court arrives. We shall make an example of them all because so few sexual assaults ever conclude with a criminal conviction then at least you can ‘name and shame’ them even if they are acquitted. We are guilty until proven innocent but still tarred in public and thus guilty by default.’ No smoke with fire.’ Perjuring accusers walk away laughing for a celebratory drink at the ‘Sunken Ship’ while slings and arrows slice ‘poor paedo’. Open quotation marks ‘lewd teacher cleared of tormenting schoolgirl’ close quotation marks. All because of open quotation marks ‘second unknown girl ambushes Crown’s case’ close quotation marks.
I sighed mournfully then came his lament.
“ Leo, Leo, oh ale piped Leo. I totally relate to how you feel. I’m sure we both would agree, real justice is being allowed to do whatever we like. Injustice is whatever prevents us doing it. Don’t let the evil drink make matters worse. Let it lay for now as soft solace for your sorrows. Police Complaints: freer and easier route to catharsis. Give it one more try.”
Telemarketer his telemetry gone, made sentimental by the drink, reflects on our father’s crosses that they were forced to bear in the Troubles of our long forgotten homeland.
“ Of Dublin Post Office, of Belfast, Derry Boys, Provos! Guildford and Birmingham four, five, six and counting. Oh, hope, dip ale! Where is our ale pope- hid?”
The clichéd and customary vernacular of the courtroom echoed in my ears and smiled wryly as I contemplated those comical words “without a stain on your character". No job ever to go to never. Thereafter cast out like a wandering rock.
59
Melancholic minds are often tortured by the recurring dread they will remain alone in perpetuity. For us soul-beaten sailors cast adrift in becalmed solitude not even a"dame de voyage" or a "dama de viaje" to give us joy. Unloved, misunderstood and set apart from the smiley-faced crowds we call normal we find that ubiquitous vision of life is but an astigmatism uneasily filling our line of vision. We disdain the chirp of back slapping jovial optimists whose focus is constrained by what their betters delineate as the boundaries of their banal firmament. But us questioning, fretting souls who by virtue of our dissatisfaction with being spoon fed feeble sound bite truisms and blatant unappetising untruths about right and wrong, social duty, moral imperatives will not lie down, we will not be trampled on and we shall fight on until the bitter end. I am not a child molester and I refuse to wear the gloats and the brickbats. I will never covet or despoil my neighbours’ precious offspring under a shabby raincoat to conceal the crime, the deflowering of innocence for any sordid, secret corrupt denigration. I hear them say ‘move on, Leo’ get over it-don’t keep playing the victim.’ Absurd fools-don’t they know everything is now changed. I have lost my reputation; I have no career, no respect, no love, and not a jot of self-esteem left. All I have is my anger and my bottle of pills and the siren call of the drinks cabinet or my faithful love pillow, my 'dakimakura.' Nothing can be as it was. There is no putting the clock back. Only that anger raises me from my pathetic pit each day.
I am left with but a few scant memories of a love affair that never was or would never in my rational, clear thinking, every day sensibilities even remotely have existed. It’s a sad and sorrowful palliative to my plight the manic extremes of my desires and the depths of that tortuous Hades I fought brilliantly to not succumb. With her I might have flown like and eagle in a sun-filled sky and soar feather-light and fanciful so free and thankful for a fleeting few moments of ecstasy. But my contrary vacillations wore away in the raw, repetitive fibrillations those incessant oscillating chemical pulses discharging positive then negative synaptic switches that somehow I finally steered away from the doors of purgatory, or so I thought, but in the simplest of metaphors I merely jumped from her frying pan into the torrent of fires of Boylan and stoked by his ilk.
That black man angel of death was sent to slay me but for what purpose I cannot rightly define. Was it for love of Molly? Was she the true nemesis who sought my destruction? Oh, why do I have these trials and such enemies? Never in my life have I felt the awful but exquisite spectrum of emotions from total despair to utter elation then right down again to the gamut of revulsion, nauseating self-pity. My crime was to dare to bond. To be as one with another hapless gamester and to shop and show off, to read books and ride aimlessly about and taunt and tease phantom admirers, slap and tickle a little privately and sometimes publicly and dare to invoke the wrath of the lesser folk. Those irrelevant legions milling or wandering in their own pointless interconnected blandness while us maniacs played the psychopath meets neurotic manic depressive, on a roller coaster ride skirting heaven and hell. She once asked me about my views on death.
“ Leo, what I really dread is the thought of dying alone. Do we all really die feeling completely on our own?”
Then and there crystallized in a single ontological query she had me hooked in a place where she transcended her petty juvenile clichés and when I fused with another hapless wretch. Oh, my sweet precocious iceberg of a vanilla girl you then warmed my heart. In that poignant moment I took you in my arms and held you tight and told you I loved you. I saw the light glisten with a hint of a tear in those clear, deep ebony eyes and you smiled in an unspoken communication of empathic union. She was my 'datch waifu' as they say in Tokyo, Doru no Mori.
Oh, how I still yearn to take you completely for just a sublime worshipful moment to smell the sucrose of your vanilla skin and kiss tenderly your ruby red full lips. My dark nights of desolation where I more vividly in my decrepit mind’s eye might bury my tearful face deep into the silhouetted white mounds below your delicate ivory neck. Only in my dreams do I allow my tortured conscience free reign to savour completely the magic of the pungent mix of scent and sweat secreted damp in the folds of the yielding frailty of your fresh form. Feel my manliness; be enwrapped by my devotion about you.
The uniformed philistine fools knew nothing of the pain I endured to dissimilate from my great love. The sacrifices I made when I heard you cry out for me but I retracted for puritan abstention. I know I should confess to an unhealthy reliance on the perverse and abnormal relations between you and my wacky wife. I exploited my privileges and my position of trust but only in so far as it defiled you only on the painted canvases of my imaginings. As has so often been the case, I have had to make do with crumbs of pleasure from the table of life. But please let no one take one ineluctable truth away from me: in this impassioned defence of my soul, my sordid bestial cohabitation of the mind was offered to you to rescue you from the most miserable of family lives. I presented up to you the only true prospect in a parody of happiness which in the long run of things was the only palatable succour such a twisted waif was ever going to be offered.
I taught you only important things such as about art and culture. I was your king of Cyprus, your Pygmalion and from a stilted ivory figure brought to me by Aphrodite I modelled you as a perfect Galatea. From me you learned of great painters, poets and photographers such as Hans Bellmer, Kishin Shinoyama, Ryoichi Yoshida. I shoed you the Rokeby Venus and you learned that Valezquez, like me, adored your kind of voluptuous womanly beauty and so it should be immortalised. It is as imperative as life itself. I forgive you my sweet white bean. All the sins they had you bring down on me are forgiven. For you I hold no contempt, no hatred, no revulsion. You only became a forlorn passive pawn all too malleable in their twisted game of revenge that began long before you were a twinkle in my eyes. They squeezed you better than I ever did.Bought and sold, pulped and flavoured vanilla was packaged by the exploitative faceless purveyors for a dish of lies served up like a banquet before a fine court all to profit and serve megolomaniac malevolences. But you were always bland, amoral and acquiesecent because you grew that way on the vine and ripened mellifluously by us all.
A phone call came next day from Police HQ- sergeant advised me enquiries were under way. I told him I had seen my solicitors about a civil action. He warned me the police would not entertain a civil claim until after a full internal investigation.
“How long will that take? “ Could be a year or so he replied. Oh, god. I had a choice. Pursue a civil claim or a formal complaint. His advice was to drop the formal complaint if I wanted to expedite a civil matter. I needed to think. I would get back to him after consulting my lawyers. I called Brigid Kearney. She confirmed a formal investigation would tie up any civil claim in the meantime. “ Those things can take an age- law unto themselves.” I decided to go with the civil action. I called the sergeant back he said he would pop a letter of retraction in the post but assured me his investigations would go on although simply as an informal enquiry.
Former Acting Inspector Boylan now permanently ensconced as a uniformed sergeant cast away and forgotten within the bowels of North Haven’s drug and street crime. I was sure he had not the foggiest about the latest trade on the streets. Discreet sale of a rather fetching nude female figurine sought. Probably Early Uruk culture, say about seven to eight thousand years I would guess. Some other small items including a bowl apparently excavated with the statue from the temple precinct at Ur. No provenance, no guarantees. Lebanese antiquities dealers believe this is a good time to consider investing in antiquities. Decide for yourself the legality of it. I doubt very much if the good ex Inspector would know a figurine from a fig let alone what was on the Interpol’s list of loot vanishing out of Baghdad lately.
The ‘Siduru’ had finally closed. But business sure was good for Gilgamesh. He had relocated to prime premises (with complementary rear parking) in the redeveloped bijou retail quarter of South Haven. With a food court and tourist information centre, commitment from major brands and unsurpassed customer flows. No more cuisine capers more antique antics for our Gil. For him it was now ‘Sumertime’ at the swank ‘Babylonia’ and the living was easy.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Leo Bloom BA Hon PGCE,
32 Eccles Drive,
North Haven
Harry Humbert MP,
Constituency Office,
27 Odessa Road,
North Haven
Dear Harry,
In the matter of Regina versus Myself
Thank you for your continued assistance in the above matter.
There was considerable press coverage of my case both in regional and national press. You may be aware that I have been cleared of all criminal charges against me after a fatally flawed police investigation was exposed at North Haven Magistrates Court. But according to prosecutor, McNutt’s ‘spin’ my daughter had certainly ‘ambushed’ his prosecution, or so the ‘ Eastern Echo’ headline had it.
However, the CPS had been fully aware of my defence case since my letter to the Chief Crown Prosecutor of February 6th 2004. Certainly, as you know, East Mercia Police had received numerous letters from me as far back as April 2003 asking them to conduct forensic examination of my computer. I am incredulous as to why they persistently declined that offer.
Sector Commander Bishop even wrote to you in May 2003 labelling me the ‘avid letter writer’ and he said I was attempting to ‘apply undue pressure to the investigation process’ [JA Bishop to Harry Humbert MP; 21.05.03]. In July 2003 my stepdaughter accompanied by other defence witnesses and myself met personally, and pleaded with Inspector Troy Boylan and Sergeant Teucer at North Haven Police Station to listen to and test Lita’s confession to the offences for which I had been charged. But these officers cynically tried to fob us off that the investigations were closed!
But thereafter the ‘closed’ investigation did not stop the taking of further statements to benefit prosecution purposes. Officers had waited four and six months before interviewing such witnesses and thus affording them the opportunity to ‘firm up’ on their conspiracy of lies.
Please detect the obvious frustration in my words. For I have just read the character assassination committed upon me in the Morning Sun and Eastern Echo.
I had been a law-abiding and successful teacher for over fifteen years. As you know, I had written to East Mercia Police ‘Professional and Ethical Standards Department’ as early as 28.04.03 about my concerns over PC Godbolt’s ‘mistakes’ (she confessed to such mistakes under oath when cross-examined by defence counsel).
The crux of my argument is that I was acquitted in large part by the PHYSICAL evidence of the complainant’s own audiotape recording submitted by the prosecution, not my defence, which starkly caste both key Crown witness as abject, cynical liars conspiring and caught in their own perjurous web. Thus I am the true victim of this farce left permanently cast under a cloud of suspicion.
Significantly, PC Godbolt admitted under oath that it was wrong of her to take a witness statement from the complainant in front of another prosecution witness.
Under cross-examination the complainant finally admitted under oath she suspected the actual author to have been my daughter.
The complainant and her boyfriend lied in their statements then changed their stories yet again and compounded their lies in court. Indeed, under cross-examination Mr Tractabull was warned for contempt of court. These witnesses contradicted each other’s versions of events throughout. How could any police officer or crown prosecutor not identify such a web of deceit as this?
“ I ran into the park then and spoke to Rebecca. She told me to get back into the bushes, which I did.”
A Tractabull, Witness Statement (CJ Act 1967, s.9; MC Act 1980, ss5A(3)(a) and 5B; MC Rules 1981,r.70)
No conversation between them exists at all on the tape recording!
Please examine the issue of the ‘official transcript’ of the audiotape. This CPS version, allegedly ‘professionally-transcribed’ wholly failed to include any identification of the voices of the young males calling to the complainant by name and repeatedly referring to her as ‘Becky’ and ‘prozzy’ (validating my version of events as per my arrest interview). Everyone in the courtroom could here what so-called professional criminal investigators could not. I contend that the CPS knew full well the errors in this transcript. They knew it was wrong to present it to the court as a balanced and accurate record from the moment they were in possession of my defence version of 10.02.04. Yet the prosecutor adamantly stood by his own discredited document. I contend this was wholly malicious, or at the very least, negligent of the rules of evidence.
How on earth could the police and CPS not draw significance from the fact that on the physical evidence of the audiotape I always spoke of the sender of the text messages in the third person and I said clearly to the complainant, when referring to the text messages “ I read them.“ Absolutely no evidence whatsoever on the tape pointed to me as their author in any way at all. Yet the complainant alleged she had taken the recorder with her to secretly entrap the sender of the texts.
During the trial prosecutor McNutt called into the courtroom two uniformed police officers just before my stepdaughter gave her evidence. She was warned she would be arrested immediately if she admitted to those offences under oath. Is this not deliberate intimidation of a witness in a court of law?
Yet Tractabull was warned three times by counsel for contempt of court as he persisted in stating his obvious lies to the magistrates. However, this ‘witness’ was never threatened with arrest. [Perjury is defined as making a statement which the person gives wilfully and “knows to be false or does not believe is true”. See Haze J. in Re v. London and Globe Finance Corporation Ltd [1903]]
Surely there must be a case to put against these prosecution witnesses for conspiracy to pervert justice? What about charges against the complainant for the assault she admitted on me?
Related to this case, but in a separate incident, known associates of the complainant attacked my daughter in South Haven in the summer of 2003 and a formal complaint filed with South Haven Police. My stepdaughter believed she was being intimidated because she was a witness in my case. She subsequently supplied the police with an audio recording of a telephone conversation with one of her attackers in which she obtained evidence of a crime. We were told an investigation would be forthcoming. But no officer ever contacted us since regarding this evidence nor informed us of any outcome of her complaint.
I must ask you: Is justice even-handed in East Mercia?
For the past year I have been suspended from teaching without pay. I have now been forced out of my own home by a vigilante mob looking to lynch a ‘paedophile’ and I have been left with substantial and crippling unpaid debts. I exist on prescription anti-depressants. Although I cleared my name in court the damage done to my reputation by the press means I shall be unlikely ever again to work as a supply teacher in this area. I have discussed my situation with those close to me. I now feel I have nothing else to lose. I have also had conversations with a representative of a quality national newspaper about running my full story.
I am loathe to put my case into the forum of the gutter press without thoroughly exhausting all other options. But I am not prepared to give up my fight for justice. Eventually someone will have to compensate me for ruining my life. I feel so strongly about the injustice that I have suffered and my concomitant loss of faith in the police that I believe a civil action may be my final unavoidable recourse. I have been made fully aware that I will need to prove that the police and CPS knew of my innocence and/or doubted their own case against me if I am to succeed. But there is also an issue of negligence that might also come into play and may ultimately be even more winnable. I humbly plead for your guidance on this.
Yours sincerely,
Leo Bloom BA Hon PGCE
60
Dear Cliff Parks and Geoffrey Monmouth QC,
Although I am deeply disappointed with your conclusions I would like to thank you both for the advice that you have given. However, I am puzzled by what you say in Para 48, “I do not know how much the officers at the police station that day knew about the case.” Inspector Troy Boylan knew everything and I am surprised that nowhere in your Advice do you consider the specific conduct of Acting Inspector Boylan. Boylan was a key figure in every aspect of this complaint including that day. May I ask that you consider the evidence in the following light?
Acting Inspector Boylan was the most senior officer who personally refused to take Lita’s confession at the police station. On two documented occasions (you should have copies of correspondence) he had declined to seek physical examination of my computer to prove what texts I had sent. In our meeting with him of July 17th 2003 my wife and I told him my BT phone records would quickly, cheaply and easily identify that it was impossible for me to have transmitted any but the last three (wholly inoffensive) texts. The times of all the text messages transmissions were clearly printed on the text printouts the police possessed and the complainant had verified such dates and times.
But Troy Boylan was already fully aware of such facts because he was the supervisory officer of PC Godbolt who was on his shift when she informed me the police were going to forensically examine my computer about April 12th 2003. Not only was Troy Boylan always the direct supervisor PC Godbolt he was also appointed by East Mercia Police as their investigator when I made my original complaint against her of April 24th 2003.
Para. 48 continues: “I think the refusal of the police to interview Lita causes some concern and I have already said that they should have accepted the statement from her. But as stated above I do not think Mr Bloom will establish that the refusal was given in bad faith and there is no positive evidence of this.”
The only physical evidence I have is the documentary proof of the letters of that time. In them I ridiculed Troy Boylan to my MP, Harry Humbert, and Sector Commander Bishop. I mocked Boylan for falsely claiming he had personally met with me to resolve my grievances. My letter to Bishop, of May 29th 2003 stated “ Please be so kind as to provide me with the date and time, as I seem to have been absent for the personal visit.” Thereupon, Bishop felt compelled to send me a letter of apology (see copy of his letter of June 9th 2003.
Bishop wrote to my MP to confirm that my relationship with the officer was ‘fraught’ and accused me of being an ‘avid letter writer.’ Thereafter Troy Boylan ‘banned’ me from visiting North Haven Police station again (all such correspondence should be in your possession).
In fact I had actually spoken with Boylan in a prior thirty-minute phone conversation in May in which he made repeated references to another of his colleagues, PC Molly Powers. PC Molly Powers is my ex wife and a serving police officer at North Haven station aside Troy Boylan. He was over-familiar in discussing details of my past marriage. I never told him she was my first wife or that I had a bad relationship with her but he knew all about that.
As the official investigator of my complaint Troy Boylan would have needed to read my initial letter to the police of April 24th 2003 and the points I made in my chronology. On page five of which was written, “ Rebecca made a report to the police on April 12th to complain that I had just sent her several harassing mobile phone texts from my computer. PC Godbolt advised me that once Rebecca comes into the station to make a formal complaint she will arrest me and seize my computer.”
I had written the above because I was the victim of fresh allegations one month after the incident in the park. When
