Jason in Gethsemane

 

It is 23 May 2019, a day for which we have waited a long, long time. Comprehensive and unchallenged affidavits from Tom Burke, John Comber and Philip O'Farrell are turning proceedings on their head. Now the three men are here to be cross examined by John Paul Shortt SC and it is hard to know how Shortt can extricate his client David Dully from beneath the mountain of truth. 

But there is a new script. The tables have been turned and instead truth finds itself under the mountain. It is not subtle. Burke, Comber and O'Farrell have all failed to turn up and this means - though the lawyers do not couch it in this way - that we will need to settle the case, and settle on terms which will be written by the opposition.

There is a lot of acting going on. Urgency and concern are everywhere, lots of scampering and furrowed brows. The acting is mostly left to the barristers, who fancy themselves as thespians but fall some way short of the RSC.

My counsel gets angry when I tell him that we came here to get justice. ''You're not going to get it'', he thunders. That should be inscribed on one side of the plinth beneath Lady Justice (it is actually far from clear that there is a Justice statue on top of the Four Courts at all - the smirking biddy above stands over Dublin Castle), '6oK NQA - cash' on the other side.

                                                                     *****

I am told that club chairman John Hayden has been informed about all the morning's entirely unforeseen events and is getting ready to leave work in Athlone to drive to Dublin to help Michael O'Connor with the negotiations. At least that gives me a couple of hours to get away from the stench and steel myself for Act Two. 

I head out into the sweet, polluted Dublin air to grab a shepherd's pie in a cafe on the quays. I am ambling back with loads of time to kill when a tall young man calls out from across the quiet side street to me, ''Isn't it terrible, those two guys that were shot?'' I haven't heard the news, so I cross over to hear what's going on.

My new friend is Jason, a plumber from Tallaght. He is homeless, but you wouldn't know it. He has a very controlled anger and looks me right in the eye. He carries a copy of Time magazine and talks a bit about climate change, but I'm not really into that. He says about my suit, that it looks kind of cheap. Which knocks me back, because it is the only one I own and I thought I was being the big shot, all suited up for cross examination. 

We chat for twenty minutes or so, about life and hope and betrayal. He knocks me back a second time, says maybe the kindest thing that has ever been said to me and gives me a hug. I have two E20 notes and I ask him about them. I'm afraid that he'll be offended and he is, very offended. He is on the verge of tears and I feel rotten again. But I tell him that I don't need the money to get home but he might, and if he doesn't take it then ''those bastards (gesturing in the direction of the courts, though we can't see them from where we are) will definitely take it''. We enter into negotiations and eventually agree a settlement, the only settlement to be agreed that day. 

I don't feel so alone in the fight as I head back to the theatre. It is a much smaller challenge than I had realised, everything is easier with friends. Things will go well for once. Even if the lawyers will change the history of their unmasking, like they always do, it will still feel good to watch them squirm. 

I am drinking Jason's can of Red Bull when I see John Hayden heading in, full of purposeful intent, less than an hour after I was told he'd be coming. That was some driving.

                                                                     *****

Today is another May 23rd. Six years have passed. The battle lines have been drawn and there is no middle ground. I will never collaborate with a rigged case and the barristers will never concede one. Prison might work for them, plant something (else) maybe ... they can surely come up with something, but they don't seem so sure of themselves anymore. 

I used to believe that once we got the truth out there, everything else would fall into place. The honest lawyers and judges would step up to protect the integrity of their profession and something like this would happen. Or at least one of them might have the self-awareness and grace to be embarrassed about it. Not a bit of it.

What baffles me most is the continuing loyalty of solicitors to barristers. The latter do not hesitate to throw rogue solicitors  - even a solicitor judge - under the bus. But as long as the barristers get a piece of the action, the solicitors then get the same protection they give themselves. There is no sign of resentment at this double standard.

I had come to believe that there are no honest lawyers or judges, but that is not necessarily true either. Plata o plomo applies. There is usually a nice little reward for going along with a scam, and a hell of a whack for not going along with it. Plata wins every time. Nobody has to feel dirty about it, as long as nobody talks about it. Which has become my job. Not a nice job, but it is an important one.

                                                                    *****

Another posting of 'A' was removed last week, this one very different to the original and carefully kept within the website's community guidelines. It is depressing that the same people who assume the right to control our courts and media accounts of what happens in those courts now apparently have the right to take down an independent source of information. But it is heartening that they feel sufficiently threatened to want to do so. 

All I can innocently say at the moment is that I am very fond of numbers. And my favourites today are 369,414 ... 462,462 ... 17,385 and 112,914. These are fine numbers, but down 1,200,000 on last week when added together. 

When I'm not trainspotting, I enjoy reading company constitutions. These are two of the best reads going and it seems I am not the only one to have taken an interest in them.