Members of the Jury,

I will keep this speech brief because you have an easy decision to make. My client is obviously guilty, and I would ask that you convict him. That may sound a strange plea for an advocate to make, and I can see the judge frowning now, but I have to be honest with you, I have never seen a more convincing case. How do I know my client is guilty? Has he confessed to me? No. Every time I have met Michael Stone he has protested his innocence to the Chillenden murders. Every time he has met his solicitor he has protested his innocence. And every time he has been questioned by the police he has protested his innocence.

When he was on remand and indeed all throughout his sentence prior to this retrial, he has protested his innocence. It is now accepted that the confession he is alleged to have made to Barry Thompson was a pack of lies; Thompson made it up. It never happened.

So what is the compelling evidence against Michael Stone? Why am I so convinced that he is guilty? Is it because he was identified by eyewitnesses? No. The surviving victim of this terrible crime, Josie Russell, failed to identify him, nor did any other eyewitness place him at the scene of the crime.

Is it because of the alleged motive, a botched robbery? No. I know my client isn’t too bright, but he isn’t so dumb as to rob a woman on her way home from a swimming gala with her two young daughters. No rich pickings there.

Is it because of the forensic evidence against him? What forensic evidence? Although he was arrested a year after the attack, the police made a thorough inventory of my client’s vehicles, clothing and property, and subjected them all to meticulous forensic testing. The result in every case was negative. Nor did my client leave any trace of forensic evidence at the crime scene, not a fingerprint, not a hair off his head, not a bead of sweat.

Why then am I so convinced that he is guilty? Because Damien Daley has told us so, that is why. What could be more convincing than the testimony of a man like Damien Daley? When Daley tells us that after denying, denying, denying to all and sundry his responsibility for the murders, Stone was so overcome with gratitude for Daley’s defending him against the charge that he shouted a confession to him through the cell wall, how can anyone not believe him? Did a more convincing, unbiased, reliable witness ever give such compelling testimony in the entirety of English criminal history? How can I, how could anyone reject the testimony of Damien Daley?

Members of the Jury, it is your duty to convict Michael Stone. It saddens me only that murder is no longer capital in Britain, because if it were, no one would lose any sleep over the execution of such an obviously guilty man.

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