The Proof The Prosecutors: Real Crime and Punishment

This programme contains some strong language and scenes which some viewers may find upsetting

In 2014, there were over 500,000

criminal prosecutions in England and Wales.

Each one was prosecuted not by the police,

but by the lawyers of the Crown Prosecution Service.

My job is about applying the law to other people's lives

and, hopefully, for the public good.

The defendant is found locked inside the house,

with his mother dead downstairs.

In every serious criminal case, the Crown Prosecution Service

must decide who to charge and what to charge them with.

I think that this will come down to, I suppose, is he bad or is he mad?

Sometimes the difficult decisions are unpopular decisions,

but they are the right decisions.

It's their job to build the case and battle to secure a conviction.

All the defence have to do is just pick at things.

They just have to go like that,

and say, "Well, you're not right about that."

Now, for the very first time, the Crown Prosecution Service

has let cameras in to film this unseen world

between the police and the courts.

These are real people, they're real people's lives

and real emotions involved.

We may have our suspicions but if the evidence isn't there,

the evidence isn't there.

For them it's evidence.

It's my life.

At 7.26 on the morning of the 8th of June 2014,

Cheshire police receive a phone call.

The emergency services find 42-year-old mother

Rebecca Bamber in her back garden.

She's been stabbed 13 times and is pronounced dead at 8.07am.

After a police chase, the man seen leaving the scene,

39-year-old carpet fitter David Hoyle,

is arrested and charged with murder.

The prosecution of David Hoyle will be overseen

by the Mersey Cheshire Chief Crown Prosecutor, Claire Lindley.

Morning.

And it's not the only murder she has to deal with today.

In my absence there's been two new murders.

-Right, OK.

-They're both of a domestic nature, so...

So we need to check for any previous incident.

Yes, if we've been involved in any way previously.

Claire is in charge of a team of 100 prosecutors.

Morning.

Both of the murders have ended up on the desk of Richard Riley.

-Richard, morning.

-Good morning.

I've been away two days and I've come back and there's two murders.

Yes, great.

And you've got them both. Can we talk about Hoyle first, then?

I did wonder slightly about the relationship,

because he doesn't seem to have lived there or...

They had a relationship about 15 years ago.

That sort of fizzled out

and they sort of got together again on Facebook a few weeks ago.

Right.

He came over Saturday night for the first time.

Bit hard to second-guess where this is going at the moment

because he's made no comment.

Yes, but given the fact that when he's arrested

-he's covered in blood...

-He's covered in the blood.

..I suspect we may be looking at something like loss of control.

-I don't...

-Anything could happen.

Anything could happen on that.

That's trickier than the other murder.

Yes.

That's the case of Fox, son on mum.

He leaves a message saying,

-"Warning, there are dead bodies inside."

-Yes.

This is a hammer, hammer attack.

Hammer and knife.

Oh, it's a terrible thing. Honestly, Rachael.

She's an old lady.

-Oh, I thought you were talking about the other one.

-Oh, we've moved on now.

I thought you were talking about the DV one.

Well, they're both DV, but this one,

she's, what, 80 or something, Richard?

-She's 83.

-83.

And he's 59... No.

And he lives with his mum and he's murdered his mum.

No, he's a year younger than me.

But they found him in the middle of slitting his wrists, apparently,

and the mother dead.

"I'm sorry to put you through this, it can't be pleasant."

That's what he says to the officer when she goes to the house.

"There's nobody else in the house, just me and my mother, who I have murdered."

It's quite a formal statement that, isn't it? "Who I have murdered."

It's not as good as the one we had last year.

And the officer said, "I cautioned and arrested him on suspicion of murder,"

to which he said, "There's no suspicion about it."

-CLAIRE LAUGHS

-Oh, it's not funny.

Because both of the suspects are being held in custody,

Richard will now have six months to build a case

to prove them each guilty of murder.

Five days after Rebecca Bamber was stabbed to death

and her new boyfriend David Hoyle arrested, Richard is meeting

the investigating police team to find out what they've uncovered.

Among the statements so far taken

is one from Rebecca Bamber's 25-year-old daughter.

Richard Riley from the CPS to see DS Currie and DI Spooner.

When we're looking at murder, we're looking to see

whether that person did the act.

-Mr Currie, how are we?

-Good, mate. How are you?

-I'm fine, thanks.

-Come on in.

Did that person have any mental health issues such that they

didn't intend to kill the person?

Did they intend to kill the person, or did

they intend to just hit them in the face as some form of punishment,

something like that, but not intend to kill them?

And, of course, in a murder, we've got a scenario usually where

there's two people in a room - one person is dead

at the end of the incident and the other person is obviously

going to try and say something

that might constitute a defence in law.

So what we've got to try and do is work out what happened in that home.

We understand that they have only actually met three times.

-And one time, obviously, he's killed her.

-Yeah.

I mean, my understanding is that Rebecca was lonely.

She was looking to rekindle friendships

and she's gone on Facebook and found David Hoyle.

So we've got quite a bit of phone data

that we're working on and, interestingly, some of the

text messages between the two in the build-up.

And she's saying to him,

"I don't want to see you until you get off the drugs."

You know, we can't, you know,

we can't be in a relationship.

And all these sorts of things.

There's obviously a change in heart,

we think following a phone call that he has later on in the day

with Rebecca, cos the next messages are that

he's on his way and, you know,

she's saying, "Well, looking forward to seeing..." That type of thing.

-Yeah.

-We know certainly from CCTV etc that he arrives

just before 11.20 at night

and we can certainly say that he stays there, it would appear, all night.

I guess we've got to cover all angles, because

we don't know what this defence statement will say

in terms of an explanation to the injuries that Rebecca sustained.

David Hoyle was caught after police chased the van

he left the scene in and forced it to stop.

In the five days since his arrest, he's refused to make any comment

on what happened in Rebecca Bamber's house.

In some scenarios a defendant might say nothing,

but if he's making no comment, until the case gets into the

court process, we have no idea whether he'll say, "It wasn't me.

"There was somebody else there.

"I was acting in self-defence.

"I've got diminished responsibility,

"because I have a mental health issue."

All manner of different defences that the defendant could say.

So there's no point us just assuming he will plead guilty,

we've got to actually have all our bases covered.

-He has an injury to the back of his head...

-Yeah.

-..which I want to try and negate.

-I agree with you.

-I mean, what are the defence going to come up with?

-Yes.

Are they going to say that this injury...

Yes, exactly, to the back of his head.

..was caused by her?

He was provoked.

Or is it merely her putting up a fight, you know?

His main difficulty will be the number of injuries that have been inflicted.

Oh, absolutely.

That's.... I won't say that's his problem,

but from a defence point of view...

Yes, absolutely.

-It's savage.

-It is.

It is, as Steve quite rightly says, it's a savage attack.

I'm at a loss, to be honest, what defence.

Well, we'll...we'll have to wait and see.

Prosecuting violence against women and girls

is now stated as a CPS priority.

In 2014, the police brought them

over 100,000 cases to consider.

The reviewing lawyer must decide whether there's

sufficient evidence to prosecute

and if it is in the public interest.

In a quarter of the cases considered,

they decided a prosecution could not go ahead.

Here we go.

"Following your report, the attacker was charged with assault

"occasioning actual bodily harm.

"The CPS is responsible for deciding

"whether or not the charges should be prosecuted.

"In your case, I've taken the decision to stop the charge.

"This is because there is insufficient evidence to

"provide a realistic prospect of conviction for the charge."

I got so angry inside.

At first I thought, "Leave it."

And then I looked at it again and I thought,

"No. No. This is wrong."

I was nearly dead.

My children said to me,

"Mum you were nearly... We nearly lost our mother."

That is wrong.

Viv has written to the CPS to appeal their decision not to prosecute

under a new initiative, the Victims' Right to Review.

This is a letter that I've just received now.

It's...

..12 pages long, the letter.

And this particular offence is a Section 47 assault against this lady

who, according to the letter here, was knocked unconscious.

And we've told her that there's not sufficient evidence to prosecute.

She starts off by saying...

"Luckily for me I can remember things from that night,

"seconds before I was knocked out.

"I had not informed the police, as I thought I was going to Crown Court

"where I then could have my say.

"I remember my hair being pulled hard and a blow to my face.

"I was then knocked out. Only remembered being in an ambulance

"and a CID lady saying, 'Viv, you have no hair left.'"

-Oh.

-She lost a huge piece of her hair.

-During the assault?

-Pulled it out, yeah.

-So you can see there, you get a fair idea there.

-Oh.

And then you get a fair idea of the bruising,

so it's quite a nasty assault.

If it's domestic, the defendant is her husband or boyfriend or...?

She was having an affair with him.

-Right. And it's over now, is it, their relationship?

-Yes.

"At the end of the day, I am mentally scarred for life

"and living a life sentence.

"I am scared to go out on my own.

"He should be looking at an attempted murder charge.

"This is not good enough.

"I don't care what it takes, I want this turned over."

I wonder whether Jo Lazzari might be best placed to look at it...

Yes, she might.

..as the domestic violence specialist.

If a victim is really unhappy, then they have a right to review.

Quite tricky because a victim might think there's evidence that there isn't,

or perhaps, understandably, won't understand the law.

But the bottom line is the evidence is the evidence

and if there isn't enough evidence,

then irrespective of the victim's views,

which I've got full sympathy with,

if there isn't the evidence there, then we can't prosecute.

Do they think I'm lying?

It makes it sound as though I've made it up, I'm lying.

Well, I'm not going to sit there and pull me own hair out

and smash myself in the face.

The CPS need to get their act together.

Whoever deals...

is dealing with this case in the first place definitely got it wrong.

We've dropped the case

because although we can prove the defendant was at the scene,

-we don't know that it was him that assaulted her.

-OK.

But Claire's quite concerned because the injuries are quite bad.

But you can see, she's lost quite a...quite a big chunk of her hair.

According to CMS, there was a taxi driver and a friend

who won't give statements.

So obviously that's caused an issue somewhere along the way.

But we have her presumably?

Well, at first she refused to accept it was him that did it,

because she says, "He loves me too much to have hurt me in that way

"and it can't possibly have been him."

OK. It looks like it needs a careful looking at really then,

in terms of what we do have evidentially.

Now, what's happened to my tea?

-I do need my tea before we start.

-Yeah.

David Hoyle is still refusing to give any comment

about the events that led up to Rebecca Bamber being killed.

The police team are continuing to gather evidence.

Still plodding on with the telecoms.

The interesting thing is the web history indicates that

he's been desperately trying to find out where Becky lives.

There's a number of hits for sites like White Pages, 192,

electoral roll, all with searches for Becky Bamber.

Cos the interesting thing could be, could it not,

on that Saturday night, when all the time she is saying, you know,

"You're not coming to the house. I don't want to see you until you're off the drugs."

And there seems to be a complete U-turn

and he's coming to the house.

Perhaps we'll never know, but is it a question of he's said to her,

"Look, I know where you live.

"I don't care what you say, I'm coming, I'm coming"?

As Richard tries to make sure he gets enough evidence to prove

David Hoyle guilty of murder,

he's also having to prepare for the second murder trial.

It's now just over a week since the body of 83-year-old widow

Mrs Yvonne Fox was found in the house in Alsager, Cheshire,

she'd shared for the past 30 years with her only son Paul,

and where Paul left a note saying he'd killed his mother.

Today, Richard has his first meeting with the lead investigator.

We need to make sure that we have enough evidence irrespective

of what the defendant may or may not have said at the time,

because we can't necessarily believe what the defendant is saying.

So we can't just rely on a note left by the defendant and send him

straight to prison without passing go.

There's a whole court process that we have to go through

and a huge investigation.

I'll show you Paul Fox first, so you get a flavour for him.

Right, so that's him. The scene is more important, I would suggest.

Let's have a look.

There's three bedrooms upstairs.

There's his mum's room at the back, which is quite clean and tidy,

as expected of a proud 83-year-old female, who's still got her marbles.

-This is his mum's room. This is her bed.

-Yeah.

Blood there.

There's the front bedroom, which is quite clean as well.

-This is where he was found, at the top.

-Yeah.

-Sat on his bed.

Then, at the back, there's a box room. That's where he lives.

And you can hardly open the door for all the cider cans, bottles, beer.

That's his cider from his room,

cans from his room,

wine and spirits.

It's horrendous in there.

You know, for example, we've got 813 drinking vessels from this address

and we're talking three-litre cider Zeppelin bottles.

240 of them had urine in, so that's strange sort of behaviour.

What we're starting to see, Richard,

-is an emerging picture of - he's a mummy's boy.

-Yeah.

He's been brought up with a mum who loves him,

but he's not lived up to her expectations.

Now this incident has happened.

He's been working the week before the murder, newish job,

he's doing well there, staff say he's good,

he was in line for promotion.

On the Saturday, he takes her shopping, as normal.

-So we're going to get evidence from CCTV of his interaction with his mum.

-Yeah.

On the Saturday night, she thinks he's gone out for chips,

but he's in the pub at the Alsager Arms.

He has a couple of pints or so there and then bumps his car.

And obviously the bobbies, they go and get him locked up

-for the drink drive Saturday night.

-Yeah.

His mum's upset on the doorstep about, you know,

he's getting locked up and he's going to lose his job.

He goes into custody, presents as a normal drink driver.

-Mr Fox. How are you?

-OK.

But he says on interview that he hatched his plan in custody,

whilst there stewing, to murder his mum.

His world's going to fall apart with this ban.

He's going to lose his job and he doesn't want to live,

so he's going to take her with him,

because, potentially, she wouldn't live or be able to live without him.

That's at the back. Mum was found in here.

Right, she's been moved, but I'll show you where she was before.

She was found here.

Tea, beans, head lying there.

The knife was here, the hammer's there.

I think we're all fairly on the same page that this will come down to

is he, I suppose, is he bad or is he mad?

-Good luck to you.

-OK, thank you.

-Yes, is it possible to ring a taxi from here?

-Yes.

I mean, he's obviously going to go down the psychiatric route,

I would've thought,

and we'll just have to wait and see what comes up.

I think the key one is to show that he knew intently

-what he was going to do and he wasn't mad when he did it.

-Yeah.

The decision not to charge Viv's attacker

means it's now over a year since she was assaulted.

So when I went to see a hair technologist,

they said because of the trauma of it being pulled,

you've got trauma under the scalp

that will take it a long time to grow back,

plus, a lot of stress as well can stop your hair from growing.

Following Viv's request for a Victim's Right to Review,

Jo, a domestic abuse specialist, is looking at the case to decide

if her attacker should now be prosecuted.

So what I'm looking at first is the

level of injury this lady has sustained.

And you can see on this photograph,

pieces of her hair have been ripped from her head.

She says, "Since being released from hospital, I've been informed

"by the doctor that my injuries consisted of a fractured cheekbone."

She's got problems with her eye socket,

she's got blurred vision, she's got a fracture to her tooth.

You don't really need a medical degree to say that

that's something that has been sustained in an assault.

I just think, no matter what happens, Jeanette,

if a woman loses her hair, there's nothing worse.

-Nothing.

-I don't care...

-That's right.

..if you break every bone in your body,

-if you lose your hair, it's the most horrible thing going.

-Definitely.

The reason this case is a bit unusual is that the victim

doesn't actually recall what happened to her.

She can recall the immediate aftermath,

but she can't remember actually being assaulted.

When I was, like, in hospital, the police,

he brought me this hair in a bag,

cos I couldn't remember anything.

And he just said, "Does that bring back any memories?"

And I just... I was nearly sick.

He must have really took a yank at that?

I was on the driver's side

and I was dragged from the passenger side

-with my seatbelt on, by my hair.

-Shocking.

I'm just going to have a look at what he said to the police.

And what he's actually said...is nothing at all.

Why would you make no comment in these circumstances?

If he's there, he's seen somebody else do this,

why not give that name?

Why not give some sort of account?

And this person's still walking free?

Oh, the attacker is still walking free, yeah.

My daughter went out the other night and he was chatting a girl up.

And my daughter felt like saying,

"Please, don't go there in case it happens."

But she kept out of it. Anyway, the girl told him where to go.

This has happened outside in the street,

so there are people that have seen and heard bits and pieces.

PC Riley's come to the scene and she's spoken to the taxi driver,

and he said the person in his taxi has got out,

approached a female, which is our victim,

he's dragged her out of the car and repeatedly punched her to the head,

but he won't give the police a statement.

I'm not content that necessarily we're going to leave it at that.

We could look to potentially having those witnesses

compelled into court and asked to tell us what's happened.

And if they don't do that, the judge can have them arrested

and he can have them locked up for a month in contempt of court.

Me and this machine, we don't get on.

The decision not to charge a case can only be overturned with

the approval of the Chief Crown Prosecutor.

I've been right through the letter and through the case itself.

There's actually two live witnesses.

This is the thing that I don't understand why it's just been let go.

There's a taxi driver and another person at the scene

who directly witnessed what he's done.

One of them is her friend and he's just said he won't co-operate.

I'm thinking either we're going out

and trying a bit harder to get some actual statements off them,

or compelling them on what they've already said.

I have to decide whether the decision was wrong

or whether there's new evidence

and, actually, what we'd be better doing is getting

all the evidence that we're going to get,

trying to get the statements from those witnesses, for example.

Let's do that first.

But it sounds like we have to be transparent and say it was wrong,

-you know, and that's fine...

-Yeah.

..if that's what it is.

-Well, we make mistakes, don't we, sometimes?

-Yeah, exactly.

You know, it isn't an obvious case.

There is nobody at the moment with a witness statement saying, "That man did it."

Following the killing of Rebecca Bamber, David Hoyle

was seen leaving the scene.

He has now sacked his original legal team

and his new legal team have broken the silence.

In a case such as murder, the defendant must inform

the court the nature of his defence.

We sit and we wait.

We have our case prepared,

we think we've covered all our bases

and then we wait for this defence to come in.

Then we get that

and we go scurrying back to our file and make sure

that everything the defendant is now saying happened, we can disprove.

Is this it?

This is it.

You'll find it interesting, to say the least.

"The defendant denies that any of his actions were undertaken with

"the intent to cause death or grievous bodily harm."

That's his defence.

Well, that's wild really, when you look at the facts of the case.

-Read on.

-Anyway.

"He was a habitual drug user.

"He'd purchased crack cocaine and heroin,

"and had used some of the crack and all of the heroin."

Goodness me.

Does that... Did we have access to the sort of his pathology, if you like?

No. He didn't have any veins to take any blood from.

So much drug use that all his veins have collapsed,

so they couldn't take a blood sample.

-But as I say...

-Sorry, read on.

"After sleeping with her in her bed,

"the defendant was confronted by a sudden change of mood on her part.

"She picked up a wine bottle,

"striking herself over the head with it."

So he's sort of saying some of those injuries are caused, self-inflicted.

Eight fractures to the skull.

My God. Again...

You couldn't possibly fracture your own skull, could you?

The pathologist is being asked to comment on that...

-On that possibility.

-..on that possibility.

The prosecution have been working on ways of making

the evidence they do have easily understandable in a trial.

The police have produced these,

which I think are absolutely fantastic,

which are going to be for the jury and the judge.

This is what they found - spatter on the bed.

So the bottle attack really took place upstairs.

But I guess he is saying that?

-I'm not buying into the defence, don't get me wrong...

-No, no.

..but he does say that.

I'll show you downstairs.

There's blood by the door and this is all the blood that leads out.

That's the knife drawer.

Ah-ha. Yeah, go on.

Her footprints are in blue and his footprints are the black trainers.

What we say is she's tried to go to the door, he's come.

She's then gone to the window,

where she's been, he's been seen by the witness. He's come...

He's come to there.

We've then gone back there.

Look whose footprints go to the cutlery drawer.

-Mm.

-Not hers.

No. I mean, that's a brilliant description there, isn't it?

To help the presentation of the case,

the police have combined the CCTV footage from the shop

opposite Rebecca's house with the 999 call they received.

That's the witness trying to get a response from the door.

Kind of turning up as a concerned neighbour.

He then comes to the window, as we say he does.

He sees that.

-And he's run off to ring 999.

-He's rung and phoned up.

This is him.

Look, he's just put something in. That's the defendant.

-Oh, he thinks the daughter's there.

-Yes.

-Oh, God.

Poor man.

-That's it.

-Oh, God.

Not good.

It got to me as well.

It's...dreadful.

And we didn't even know her.

-Yeah, exactly.

-You know?

That just... Quite often you're doing things on paper and doing

a legal job, and then you actually listen to something like that.

-That's it, isn't it?

-It just really hits home.

Although the CPS lawyers prepare the file of evidence,

the prosecution of a murder case in court is generally

carried out by the most senior of barristers - a Queen's Counsel.

His responsibility is to stand up in court and present the case,

and...

I do all the running around, in effect.

Not that I mind that.

That's my job.

Richard's just given the Fox file to the QC who's been hired

to prove in court that Paul Fox murdered his mother.

Now, I know a little about the case

from what the Crown Prosecution Service lawyers have told me.

I know that it involves the alleged murder of an elderly lady

by her middle-aged son.

A very brutal murder, allegedly involving a lump hammer and a knife.

So what I'll do now is have a look at the main issues,

consider what further evidence we might need, perhaps pre-empt

what points of law might arise, things the defence might say.

The issue of his state of mental health

and whether or not his state of mental health has any effect

upon his responsibility for what he has done may well be a real issue.

Whether it gives him a partial defence

like diminished responsibility, which reduces

murder to manslaughter, if the defence establish that.

The type of issues also arising in this are linked to

the relationship between Paul Fox and his mother.

I have to bear that in mind, both in terms of presenting,

dealing with the case for the prosecution,

and taking into account the defendant's position too.

My job is to prosecute the case,

but it's to do it fairly and to bear in mind the whole picture.

But, yeah, a very serious case, and undoubtedly a very sad case.

In Alsager, Mrs Fox was a regular at the weekly church coffee morning.

DI Simon Blackwell has gone to meet her friends.

There will be in court clear discussion on what happened.

I can't go into full details, but it wasn't a pleasant thing for Yvonne.

It was an attack of some force and gravity,

so I just wanted to prepare you.

I wouldn't want you to be having your cornflakes,

pick up the paper and read about what happened to Yvonne.

A lot of you round this table are as good as family to her.

Generally, how are people in the village? How's it going?

Well, we've discussed it at almost every meeting, really, you know.

We just wondered what has happened.

One minute we think, you know, it's sad for Paul, the next minute,

we think it's sad for Yvonne.

But, you know, with a son and a mother involved,

it's even worse somehow, isn't it?

We were very shocked.

But Paul, yes, he was a loner,

but, you know, Yvonne thought the world of him.

And, to be quite honest, I don't think it was done on purpose.

I think it's, you know, it's been...

spur of the moment,

and he's not been in the right frame of mind.

This is how we've discussed it.

It's gone from one to blame to the other to blame.

The more you discuss it, the more complicated it gets, basically, doesn't it?

I think that he is going to try and say that it is his alcohol misuse

that has led him to have some form of mental illness that

so affected his judgment that he, that he killed his mother.

The fact, "I was drinking at the time," isn't a defence.

You can't just drink alcohol and murder somebody.

That would be silly.

Of course that's not a defence.

But if somebody is to such an extent high on drugs and alcohol

that they couldn't possibly have the capacity to intend

to do something, then that possibly could be a defence.

-Can you see us?

-Yeah, perfectly, thank you.

-Unfortunately.

-HE LAUGHS

The prosecution team is still working on gathering enough evidence

to counter any defence Paul Fox may put forward.

There may be a defence case around personality disorder

of some level for Mr Fox,

and also the alcohol dependency syndrome elements.

I clearly outlined the fact that he was rational over

the weekend of his custody arrest for drink-drive.

He was sober when he left custody.

He's then gone out and took that pre-meditated decision to buy

his alcohol, a shift in change of drinking by buying the hard spirits,

and then the obviously pre-meditated two attacks on his mother.

The other thing I picked up on the report,

which is of interest for us generally,

the bag found on the seat of his car,

which had a blood smear on it, is her blood.

It's quite important that, because that night he goes out to Bargain Booze

and he hasn't been in the car when he's gone the Sunday before.

So the Monday night, he's already clearly done some sort of assault

on his mum, cos there's blood on the bag that he gets from the shop.

So he's part way through his assault process and he's still decided

to go out and eat, get munchies and get his ale and his vodka.

So again, it paints that picture for the jury of he was

compos mentis enough to go out and do that.

Following Viv's request for the CPS to review her case,

the police have re-interviewed the two witnesses to her assault.

Both have now provided statements.

In a way, it doesn't matter now

whether the earlier decision was wrong or not.

-We've actually got new evidence.

-Yes.

So that's that. That's a done deal as far as I'm concerned.

The only thing that worries me about the earlier decision

in some respects is why didn't we ask

and push the police at that point to get these two statements?

Because you pushed, so the police did.

Perhaps we could have done that before we discontinued it,

I think is the lesson really.

Yeah, I mean, that's what we say we will do in domestic violence cases, isn't it?

Yes, to go that extra mile.

The prosecution can't prove the extent of Viv's injuries,

but the hair loss and photos are enough to charge Ian Hickman

with assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

He will be allowed to remain on bail until the trial takes place.

In the case involving the Victims' Right to Review, for example,

I've never met that victim and yet we've been integral

in making sure that that case is properly prosecuted.

And so, hopefully, she will feel as if we've cared about her

when we've made that decision, and yet we've never even met her.

So we're kind of the silent partners

in the criminal justice system, to an extent,

cos we are making decisions about people

and for people without ever even meeting them.

Almost six months after Rebecca Bamber was attacked and killed,

David Hoyle is due to go on trial for her murder.

This prosecution team has also now been completed with

the addition of the QC who will present the case.

We have to establish from the evidence that which he did,

he did with the intention of either killing

or inflicting really serious harm.

An important part of any case is the pathological evidence.

It deals with the force that's very often used when somebody uses

a knife, dependent on the extent of those injuries, which can help

in making an assessment as to that question of intention.

What I'm not going to do is show the jury photographs of injuries.

So what we'll do is I will ask the pathologist to prepare a sketch.

It avoids the jury having to see photographs,

which are particularly unpleasant,

but does allow them to see the position

and extent of those injuries.

In a case such as this, there are also a number of injuries

here which amount to defensive-type injuries.

So this lady, when she was being stabbed, was making attempts to

fend off the blows, the repeated blows that were coming her way.

Sometimes the photographs are particularly unpleasant.

And whilst you can speed over the ones that are

particularly unpleasant, that process has to be done.

And ultimately it's my decision to say to the police

and the prosecution service, "These are the photographs

"I want in a bundle for the jury to see."

So I have to go through it.

With the trials approaching,

Richard has a final meeting with his other QC.

The prosecution team that are trying to prove Paul Fox

guilty of murdering his elderly mother are still worried about the

implications of a written confession Paul Fox left at the scene.

At the moment, we have his explanation, which is that,

"I decided I couldn't go on,

"I decided I couldn't leave her

"and so I decided I'd take her and then do myself in."

That's what he SAYS, OK?

But if you actually look at what's HAPPENED,

there are some questions over some of that stuff, I think.

The type of stuff that he buys when he's going to and from the shops,

including the food that he buys.

It's a strange choice of food if you're about to finish everything.

He doesn't actually take his own life, or try to do so,

does he, until really near to the end.

And it has to be said, for reasons that are still not entirely clear,

decided she can't carry on without me,

when she plainly is physically able.

I'm not trying to conjure up phantoms at this point,

but there's a background here of a very claustrophobic

relationship in that house with his mother, and there's alcohol

and his drinking has plainly been a flashpoint before.

I mean, it could be that this suicide business is an afterthought.

That, in fact, they've had the row and he's lost his temper,

and bang, bang, bang.

Now what am I going to do?

You see, that's what I'm wondering.

Yeah, but either he's telling us the truth

and, in fact, on that basis,

it's still difficult to see how he has got any defence,

partial or otherwise, on his account at the moment on the evidence.

Fine. Or the truth is something different.

Paul Fox's lawyer has hired a psychiatrist to write

a report on his state of mind.

It will form part of his defence in court.

I feel a bit nervous actually. Don't know why.

I'm not normally nervous.

Today, Ian Hickman is due in Chester Crown Court.

This will be a plea and case management hearing,

where the trial date can be set and he can enter his plea

to the charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

The CPS is being represented by one of their in-house advocates.

I don't know whether the defendant's going to plead guilty or not guilty

today when he appears for his plea and case management hearing.

So what I'm going to do is complete the questionnaire, which just

basically indicates how we intend to put our case,

which witnesses we're going to call,

and the defence fill their part in as well.

I'm content that there is a case there that does have

a realistic prospect of conviction.

But then we do take cases to court

and they're acquitted.

And it's a very fine-balanced judgment.

Because obviously if we stand in a courtroom with hopeless cases,

we as a service have no credibility.

We want to be able to stand there and say, "We believe in this case."

That's what it means when we prosecute something.

We're saying, "We believe you.

"This has happened the way you've said it's happened

"and we're going to do something about it."

That's what a prosecution is.

I've been very, very stressed out today waiting to see

whether he's pleaded guilty or not.

So I'm just still waiting on that phone call now to see

what's going on, you know?

But, obviously, if he's not pleaded guilty,

it's going to be a long, stressful time.

After consultation with his advocate,

the defendant enters his plea.

He pleaded guilty to all the offences

and his advocate then asked for the case

to be adjourned for pre-sentence report.

And because it's a case of domestic violence, that report will deal with

obviously his background and his attitude towards the offence.

I'm just ringing to ask if you would phone Mrs Driver-Hart

to just let her know what happened in court this morning?

I've just had a call from court to say that he has pleaded guilty.

What they've done is adjourned it now to prepare pre-sentence report.

So what's... I don't understand what that means now.

I thought if he pleaded guilty,

I thought that that would be the end of it now.

Yes, it will be,

but before the judge can sentence him, he'll need a report.

He's still got bail conditions, as before,

not to come within a 100 metres of your home address.

I feel as though it's him that's getting all the pampering

and special measures made for him and this, that and the other.

I just feel as though I've been shoved to one side.

I know you have been helpful to me,

but that's how I feel inside.

A week before Paul Fox is due to go on trial

for the murder of his mother,

the prosecution have been called to court.

The defence have asked for a hearing with the judge.

Quite an impactive for the judge, won't it?

These are the two from the kitchen, aren't they?

It's a massive blade that, actually.

The defence instructed their own psychiatrist.

We've never had a report from them,

because it wasn't particularly favourable from their point of view.

We instructed our own psychiatrist

and he concluded that there are no mental health issues

as far as the defendant is concerned.

He may be alcohol-dependent, but he has no alternative now

but to plead guilty to murder.

I still find it a very sad case.

It is sad.

-I mean, it's sad that a number of lives have been affected.

-Yeah.

Obviously, she's gone and her friends and family are still there mourning.

He's wrecked his life, in essence.

He's made that call, made that judgment,

and he'll have to live with that, won't he?

Yeah, sad.

-'Can we have all parties in Fox, Court One, please?'

-There we go.

'All parties in Fox, Court One.'

Paul Fox pleads guilty to the murder of his mother.

The judge describes it as

"a sustained and vicious attack that deprived her of her last years in the world".

He sentences him to life imprisonment,

stating he must serve a minimum of 16 years and nine months

before he can be considered for parole.

Paul formed that judgment he was going to take his mum's life

and potentially harm himself.

So he rationalized that, justified that, and the attack to do it,

he was making sure that she wouldn't have survived.

That was an excuse, because he knew she'd got such a lot of friends

and we'd have, you know... If he'd have...

Something had happened to him, she wouldn't have been left.

We were all there, we were all friends,

we looked after one another.

But, yeah, I mean, clearly it wasn't pleasant.

It wasn't nice what went on, and you know about the facts now

and they are in the public domain.

But, you know, it is extremely rare.

It's just, you know, how often does this happen?

It's out of the blue, isn't it?

I'm very sorry for yourselves

that you actually knew the parties involved.

Right. Well, that's good. Really good, actually.

Everything done exactly as it should have been.

-The right result.

-Yeah.

And how are the friends? Are they all right?

-Yeah, they seem to be.

-Yeah, it's good that they were here.

It's very kind the judge made the comments that he did, I think.

So...the end of a very sad chapter.

Two weeks later, Richard is back at Chester Crown Court.

David Hoyle is going on trial for the murder of Rebecca Bamber.

Here comes the second lot of CPS evidence. There we are.

Jury bundles, files.

There's an awful lot of work goes into it.

And if you believe in justice that's what you want...

bring the right man for the crime.

That's the defence statement.

Yeah. Thank you.

He basically says that Rebecca, the deceased,

started to cause herself serious injury.

He went to assist her, but then says that she came

towards him with a knife.

And his account is proven to be wrong

when you look at the footprints and this overlay.

You can see that what she's actually trying to do is escape.

'All parties for the case of David Hoyle to Court One.

'That's all parties for David Hoyle to Court One, please.'

David Hoyle enters his plea to the charge of murder -

not guilty.

He does, however, admit his actions caused Rebecca Bamber to die.

But he says that was not his intention.

A jury could, dependent on the circumstances,

acquit of murder and convict of manslaughter

and he's saying, "I am guilty of manslaughter."

So that's what happened.

Not acceptable, of course, to the Crown.

But I suppose if he says, "I'm not going to plead,"

or, "I'm having a trial," then, what can you do?

All this nonsense about lack of intent

is just precisely that - it's nonsense.

So anyway. There we go.

He didn't rush to go and get an ambulance, did he?

He rushed to escape though, didn't he?

Tomorrow, the prosecution will start to try

and prove to the jury that David Hoyle is guilty of murder.

Rio! Rio!

There you are!

Viv is also going to court.

Having already pleaded guilty to assaulting her,

Ian Hickman is due to be sentenced.

I'll get you some clean water.

I just feel as though he needs to be given the punishment that is

required for the injuries that I sustained.

And it's a simple as that.

It's not going to be a nice feeling, I know it's not.

There you go, Rio.

Because no-one wants to see anyone go to prison.

But there again, my daughter wouldn't have liked

to see me six foot under.

So what will happen is I basically outline the facts to the judge

and then we deal with the defendant's antecedent history.

That is, whether he's been in trouble before.

The starting point for a category one offence is one year six months,

with a range between one to three years.

But clearly in this case there are aggravating features,

namely his previous convictions for assaulting females

with whom he's been in a relationship.

I would be very surprised if it wasn't custody,

and I would be very surprised if it wasn't a lengthy custodial sentence.

After this morning, that should be an end to it for you.

Yeah.

And then, hopefully, you can try and maybe put it behind you

a little bit more, because at least

you'll know that he's been dealt with.

-All right?

-Thank you.

Before Ian Hickman is sentenced,

Jayne has two other cases to deal with.

I lay awake last night.

I was thinking, "How is he going to cope in prison?"

Cos he's been there before.

'Will Ian Hickman come to reception, please? Ian Hickman to reception.'

(That's twice they've called him. He's still not there.)

Oh, God.

Some Jaffa cakes there, isn't there?

Go on, you can have some. She sent them in for us.

Oh, brilliant.

-Is he there?

-Sorry?

-Is he there?

-I haven't seen him.

-Just called him twice now.

-Probably...

-Called him half an hour ago and again now.

Might just be waiting to...

You know, he could have problems getting here. You don't know.

-KNOCK ON DOOR

-It's not good news, I'm afraid.

-Why, what's happened?

-At present, he isn't here.

I'm going to go and check again.

If it's still the case that he isn't here and there is no medical evidence

with a reason why he's not here which...

There can't be surely. I've got a chest infection.

..I don't think there is.

I'm going to be applying for a warrant without bail,

which means that he will be arrested.

-If I was a judge, I wouldn't be very happy.

-No.

He's making a mockery of the justice system.

All right, then. So... Sorry. The warrant's been issued.

So, hopefully, now he'll be arrested in the near future, really,

and then brought to court for his sentence.

How long is the near future?

Well, as soon as the police can find out where he is.

He's not going to be bothered at all now about what he does.

So I've got to watch me back as well now.

Yes, yes. Well, if you have any concerns whatsoever, if you have any

-contact from him whatsoever, you need to phone the police immediately.

-Right.

Immediately.

It is now 15 months since Viv was assaulted.

The sentencing of her attacker has to be postponed

until the police can find and arrest him.

It's just killing me inside now, it really is.

But you've got to be strong and you've got to keep on going

and let them know that they're not going to beat you.

I'm the stronger person than he is.

I'm not the coward that hasn't turned up for court.

I'm the stronger one that's sat here waiting,

and I will wait and wait until his day comes.

The trial of David Hoyle is entering its fourth day.

The defendant will spend this afternoon in the witness box giving

his version of the events that led to the death of Rebecca Bamber.

Tomorrow, the prosecution will be able to cross-examine.

I think what we'll do tomorrow is we'll have a little look about

-what he's actually saying and go through it piece by piece.

-Yes.

So when you come downstairs,

-where was Rebecca when you came downstairs?

-Yes.

Why did you not just walk out of the house?

I think if you're being cross-examined by somebody

extremely intelligent, who's forensically cross-examining you,

and you're not telling the truth, I think that shines through.

And I don't think this defendant is telling the truth

as to what happened in this house.

So I think there is quite a lot of ground

for the cross-examination being quite a key point of the case.

Gordon Cole's cross-examination of David Hoyle takes three hours.

The jury retires to consider their verdict.

First question, "Why did you murder Rebecca Bamber?"

And he went to town on him.

This is the worst part now. It's the waiting game.

There's nothing more you can do.

It's what this system is all about is the jury system.

That's what they're there for.

All we can do is wait.

And we don't know how long.

It could be a week, could be half an hour.

'All parties in the matter of Hoyle to Court One.'

'All parties in the matter of Hoyle to Court One, please.'

-OK. Well, here we go.

-Here we go.

After one hour of deliberation,

the jury return their verdict.

They find David Hoyle guilty of murder.

He is sentenced to life imprisonment

and must serve at least 25 years before being considered for parole.

-It's not about winning. It isn't, is it?

-No.

It's a feeling that when you've got to the end of it,

it almost is deflation,

because you've lived on the adrenaline,

and you've worked and we all work hard,

and the preparation of getting it to trial.

And when it's finished, there's no energy left.

It is a deflated feeling,

-because it does come to a shuddering halt.

-It does, it does.

-Everything ends. That's it.

-That's finished with now.

Finished. Finished with.

Never easy, but we've got the right result

and so I feel pretty good at the moment.

Seems quite a long time ago that you were sat at your desk

and you'd had two murders in.

And we've done both, and both are finished.

And both ended in convictions.

Oh, were it all like that.

It would be a lie to say that cases don't have an impact

on me or on our prosecutors.

We wouldn't be human if they didn't.

You have to, though, remain objective,

however upsetting something is.

Because if you lose it,

then you're not objectively dealing with the case as a lawyer.

Very, very difficult

when you then meet victims or the families of deceased.

And I remember someone's grandfather holding my hand

when I was talking about his grandson who'd been murdered.

Terribly upsetting, but there's no point in me crying.

That would look unprofessional and ridiculous.

You can't sit weeping.

You never knew the person and it would just look wrong.

So you have to keep yourself professional and objective,

but with empathy,

and then cry in the car going home.

It takes the police two months to catch up with Ian Hickman.

He's arrested and returned to court for sentencing.

Right, I've just checked. He's here now

and it's going into Court Three.

It's quite a small court,

so you will be in quite close proximity to him.

OK, thanks.

All right. Don't worry.

OK. I'll be back in a minute to let you know.

It's the thought of seeing him,

cos I've not seen him proper since that night.

And it's the thought of...

how much I thought of him.

And then many a person would say, "Hang on a minute, you were

"nearly murdered. What you crying for?

"Why are you bothered?"

Because I have feelings, that's why.

I have a heart and I care for people.

The judge decides that Ian Hickman needs to be

sentenced at the top end of the range.

His guilty plea earns him a 25% discount,

but with several other offences to be taken into account,

he ends up with four years and three months imprisonment.

The three months added on for his failure

to appear at the original hearing.

-Four years, three months.

-Four years, three months.

Which is a hefty sentence.

It is, yeah.

But quite right.

I mean, he's clearly not happy about the sentence, but...

Was it him that banged my door?

-I think possibly it was him, yeah.

-Yeah.

But it is such a big sentence though.

I don't think he would've thought he would've had that length of time.

Yeah, yeah.

-I think it sunk in the amount of damage he has done to me.

-Yeah.

And that's it for you now.

Thank you. And I'm very grateful to you.

I'm glad it's all sorted for you.

Oh, thanks so much.

-And I don't wish to see you again.

-Oh!

-Not in a nasty way.

-That's all right.

That's in a nice way.

When you've been attacked like that, I think you need

to face the person and that's what I've done.

I just wanted to look at him just to see if he had any remorse,

and he did.

And now it's been laid to rest.

Rest in peace.

If you're interested in finding out more about the justice system,

you can join in a simulated court case

from The Open University and reach your own verdict.

Go to bbc.co.uk/prosecutors

and follow the links to The Open University.