Trials and Tribulations

Finally, I’m able to tell you all about one story that has plagued me for the past 6 months.

Source

Last year, Tammy, my son’s fiancée took ill. She was taken to hospital with chronic stomach pains. We had no idea what was wrong and we went to see her. She was writhing on the hospital bed with no doctor around. She had no idea what was going on, just that she was in indescribably pain. At last, a doctor came to see her. She had a large cyst and a twisted ovary (three times twisted).

She had an op and came home to recover.

Obviously, she couldn’t go out much, she could hardly walk and so, she couldn’t fetch my granddaughter from school. Friends and family rallied and there were enough people to cover the week that she would be incapacitated – and probably a little more, just in case.

Tammy’s friend took my granddaughter, Mia to school and fetched her home, but that caused a problem for one of the other mums in the village. Tammy’s friend was in the throes of conflict with the other mum’s brother… (I know, complicated and unnecessary). The other mum had a word with my son in the school yard and told him, in no uncertain terms, that he had to find someone else to fetch his daughter from school as she didn’t like Tammy’s friend.

Can I get a “What on earth is it to do with her?”

My daughter, Dani has to go to hospital every 6 weeks for an infusion of Chemo drugs to suppress her immune system. I fetched her back from her appointment that day and we decided to go and visit Tammy.

Dani phoned her brother Haydn and asked if we could visit Tammy.

“Yes, she’s ok today, but on your way round, could you pick me up from school?”

So we diverted from the direct route to Tammy and Haydn’s house and we went to pick them up.

I parked close to the top of the street to wait. Mia, not expecting Grandma and Auntie Dani to be there, ran off up the street as usual. Haydn, walking and chatting with his friend, called her back. Dani clicked her into the car seat as Haydn stood chatting.

A woman walked up the street, talking to her friend. She saw Mia waiting to get into my car and she nudged her friend and drew her finger across her throat in a ‘cut-throat’ gesture. She pointed at Mia and both women laughed.

I have no doubt that neither women saw me or realised I had anything to do with Haydn or Mia.

Me being me, I opened the car door and asked, “What was all that about?”

The women turned toward me - obviously sheepish that they had been called out on their shenanigans - and a stream of obscenities came forth at me. I’m no stranger to street slanging-matches and the language didn’t surprise me. I’m fluent in their preferred language of ‘gutter-snipe’ and I returned it. The women then took to throwing ‘gangsta gestures’ at me, possibly in the hope that I’d recognise how ‘street’ and gangsta they were and back off with an apology.

Nope, I’m afraid I went against Dani’s advice and didn’t “leave it, they’re not worth it.” I wanted to know why they thought it amusing to threaten a six-year-old.

Because I had a frozen shoulder at that time, I kept to the right side of the path, keeping my right side away from them. At the top of the street, the friend stepped between me and the other mum and tried to grab my arm. I pulled it back, the other mum stood behind her and they both yelled at me.

Someone ran up the street with a buggy containing a child and rammed into my leg. Haydn saw him do that and decided three to one was a little more than I needed and he came and told me to go back to the car.

End of story – or so you’d think, but no.

August came and went, as did September and our visit to Canada to see friends. October brought an illness that laid me low and I’m only just getting over it now, in February. Also in October, came the police.

One evening, a knock came to the door. Trev answered it and came to fetch me. Two police women stood waiting to speak to me. One asked me to come to the police station for an informal interview about the incident in July.

Source

I’d been accused of assault and I was bemused as I knew I couldn’t have assaulted anyone because of the shoulder injury.

“Why has it taken so long to come to see me?” I asked.

“We didn’t know who you were or where you lived,” she said. – Remember this, it’s important later on.

It took a couple of weeks to get to the police station because the officer cancelled the appointment and rearranged, and she couldn’t get a duty solicitor for me. I explained that I couldn’t drive and she said she’d send a car if I couldn’t get a lift. I’m pleased to say I didn’t need a ride in a police car (again, more of that later).

I went to the police station to give my statement.

I was taken into an interview room, introduced to another officer and the solicitor. They taped my statement and then read the accusations and the complainants’ statements.

They were a real eye-opener.

I was accused of hitting a child. That was the most upsetting thing about all of this. I don’t hit anyone, especially children.

A few things in the statements didn’t make sense to me and I pointed them out to the officer.

The man that ran into me with the child in the buggy said in his statement that I had grappled with him, almost throwing the child into the road.

The mother of the assaulted child said that she came to confront me about hitting her child. I pointed out that any mother would comfort the child, not confront a ‘crazy woman’. (Remember this too…)

I asked (again) why it had taken so long to find me.

“We didn’t know your name or address.”

The officer asked if I went to school the next day. I said I had not.

The officer then said the taped statement would be transcribed and sent to the Chief of Police for him to decide if it was worth pursuing.

Later that day, I remembered I had gone to school the next day to pick up Mia again. Trev came with me because of the previous trouble and nothing happened. I emailed the officer and told her that I’d remembered we went to school the next day.

The next communication from the officer was that the case was going to court.

Source

When the case came to court, a week before Christmas, I had a Solicitor in place and though I was worried, I believed it would all be over by the end of that day.

How wrong was I?

The Prosecutor wouldn’t negotiate. My Solicitor, after speaking with me, asked if I could plead guilty to a lesser charge (a section 5 – which amounts to swearing in the street). “Not a chance she’ll get that,” was the reply.

We went into the court room and I stood where I was told to stand. It’s an imposing sight. The Magistrates are elevated high so they are already daunting to behold.

The charges were read and I was asked for my plea. “Not guilty.”

The Magistrate in the middle of the three presiding, spoke. He told the court the date, how long the trial was expected to last (a full day) and that ALL reporting restrictions on the name of the child would be imposed until the child's 18th birthday.

A date was set to try to miss the appointment for the MRI appointment I was expecting.

First Monday in February was the furthest they could go and there it was. My court date.

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[Source}(https://www.creationsandcollections.com/p/blind-justice-us101)

We had a few problems, my Solicitor and I.

#1
The Prosecutor didn’t provide the statements from the witnesses for the prosecution.

He said, “It doesn’t seem like there are any other statements apart from the complainant’s.”

Yes, there are other statements, I’ve seen them. They were read out to me at my interview,” I said.

“Oh,” he said. “That’s naughty of them to not get all the statements to me before court.”

#2
The police had done nothing to investigate the matter past listening to the complainants. They had the three friends’ statements and one independent witness.

#3
The police didn’t make any effort to speak with people mentioned by both sides if they seemed that they would corroborate my version of the incident.

#4
The thing that niggled at me most was the fact that the incident happened in July, yet it was the end of October before they found me.

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Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about the day in court, how that went down and the things you’ve been asked to remember… how they panned out.