A jury in an Old Bailey murder trial was told not
A jury in an Old Bailey murder trial was told not to treat their deliberations as if they were evicting a housemate on TV’s Big Brother.
Top QC Edward Jenkins told the jury today not to reach verdicts based on his client’s ‘unattractive and chauvinistic’ personality.
The QC is defending James Garside, 54, who allegedly paid pal Richard Bates, 50, to have his wife Marilyn stabbed to death on her mother’s doorstep in Romford, Essex.
The two men, who deny murder, claim they had nothing to do with the killing on October 2, 2001 and blame each other in a cut-throat defence.
In his closing speech Mr Jenkins compared reaching verdicts to reality TV gameshow.
‘You don’t decide the case like eviction night on Big Brother and as to who should go tonight.
‘You don’t just think, ”Who do I like, who don’t I like – who do I want for eviction”.
‘You have to decide in a slightly different way.
‘
The QC even mentioned housemate Federico who is up for eviction on tonight’s programme.
He said: ‘It’s not a case of, ”I don’t like that Glaswegian lad”.
‘That is not the way to approach it at all.
‘
Mr Jenkins told jurors to put aside their feelings towards his client and concentrate on the evidence.
Describing Garside as a ‘serial misbehaviour’, the QC said: ‘My client is possible the most politically incorrect man you have ever come across in your life – a dinosaur.
‘He would win the male chauvinist of the year award.
A serial adulterer.
A man who boasts.
‘A man who undoubtedly has assaulted his wife which he accepts is totally inexcusable.
Inexcusable and he wouldn’t pretend otherwise.
‘But does that assist you to decide if someone might murder?
‘It doesn’t make him a killer.
‘
Mr Jenkins went on: ‘He is not on trial for being a serial adulterer, for mistreating women, for deceiving them and making their lives a misery.
‘He spoke about his wife in derogatory terms.
Were that to be a criminal offence our jails would have far more prisoners than they do already.
‘
Mrs Garside, 54, and her husband had run the Cross Keys pub in Redgrave, Suffolk for four years before selling up when their marriage hit the rocks in June 2001.
It is alleged Garside paid mechanic Bates pnds stlg 4,000 to carry out the killing while he was miles away in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, with a younger lover.
He then planned to use the money he would inherit to live abroad with one of his lovers, jurors have heard.
Relatives of mother-of-two Mrs Garside have sat in court throughout the six week trial.
Mr Jenkins told the jury to put aside feelings of sympathy for the grieving family.
‘One can only have the greatest respect for the family of Marilyn who have acted with the greatest dignity listening to the evidence in a brutal murder.
‘We would be inhuman if we didn’t feel outrage, but that is not the point.
You don’t concentrate on that, you put it to one side and concentrate on the evidence.
‘
On the day of the killing Mrs Garside was at her mother’s home at [217] Rose Lane, Marks Gate, Chadwell Heath, watching television.
She was stabbed repeatedly when she went to the door and found by her mother in a pool of blood.
Garside, of Ullswater Avenue, South Wootton, and Bates, of Castle Acre Road, Great Massingham, both King’s Lynn, Norfolk, both deny murder.
The trial continues.
ends
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