You Don't Know Me

If I admitted I shot him, would that make it easier for you? Would you be able to walk away from this with a clear conscience and think to yourself, ‘We did the right thing?’ Okay then I did it. I shot him up. He was a waste man. He pissed me off or whatever and I killed him with my Baikal. Shot him dead. On the streets. Wearing my Chinese-writing made-in-Taiwan hoodie. I jumped in a cab. I bought a ticket to Spain and was going to go and fly off. I ain’t sure where I got the thirty gees but who cares about that? And I ain’t sure why I didn’t go to Spain. And I ain’t sure why I didn’t go on the run with my thirty gees instead of waiting there for the police to come arrest me. And I ain’t sure why I left the gun in the flat. But they got me banged to rights.

So now what? Are you happy now? You know I get life for this, is that a fair thing in your mind? Is just the fact that I shot him make it fair to lock me up for the rest of my life? What if it was you? But it wasn’t never going to be you though was it? You was never going to be meeting him on your front door. You don’t have to deal with no drug dealers on your street. You got better things to do. You got jobs and bare opportunities. What do I have?

The only thing I had was Ki and she’s gone. And whether you believe in Ki or not, you can believe that she was a real person. She came into my life on a bus and changed my life. Then she left. Like that. I get what the prosecution is saying. But you can believe that she exists. Or if not, that someone like her does exist whatever her name might be. It’s not impossible is it that I was in love with a girl who changed everything for me?

But it’s the whole MI5 thing. You can’t believe that.

But here’s the thing. You can if you want to.

You do believe that MI5 does exist. You can believe that MI5 can get up to some shady things. You know they are secret but you also know that people have to be working there. You know that there are somewhere in the world some real people who are MI5 and that MI5 does its shit and when it does the shit happens the way it has to – and it’s secret. And you don’t want to know the details. Fuck even I don’t want to know the details. But you still want the shit to be done.

Don’t let him fool you innit. He says them three little letters in a way that makes them so big. ‘M’ – ‘I’ – ‘5’. And the way he says it makes me wonder whether MI5 even exists at all. He makes it sound like he has just said ‘The X-Men’. But you know MI5 is a real thing. So what is so wrong about them putting a bit of quiet pressure on some next girl so they can do their thing? They know her weaknesses. They know about Spooks. They can disappear him. Keep him safe. Keep her safe. Keep them unknown.

And if you stop and think about it, you know this shit happens. I mean actually happens. Just think about that Russian man, Litvinenko. He was poisoned with like a uranium or some shit at the tip of an umbrella. In broad daylight. And we know this happened. We know he was assassinated. And it sounds all James Bond and even though we know it happened and we know it happened probably lots of times before then, we don’t want to believe it. It fucks with our happiness. We would rather believe that some white lady that looks like a teacher runs our country and that only ordinary boring things happen here like NHS or cuts or what have you. But shit is darker than that. Even I don’t want to believe it. I want someone to say that it’s all conspiracy theory and our world isn’t like that. But it is. And it is like that a thousand more times over because most of the shit you can believe is shit we will never know about. Shit that we will never be allowed to know about.

So here we are members of the jury. When I started off this speech I never thought I could do no five-hour speech like Palmerston. But shit, I did ten days. Maybe not as good as he would have. Maybe not with all the smooth words that can make you think of a higher cause like he did. I can’t even match in days what this prosecutor said just now in ten minutes. It’s like he just exploded my whole speech. That is the power of a person who can use his words. But I am glad I did my speech at the end of the day, because I worked something out while I was telling you all this. I worked out what he meant – that guy in the mosque when he said all people ain’t the same but that they could be. I ain’t the same as you, and you ain’t the same as me, but you could be too if you tried.

So try now. Try and be me.

Up to you innit at the end of the day.

Guilty or not guilty?

JURY OUT:

IN THE CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT  T2017229

Before: HIS HONOUR JUDGE SALMON QC

Verdict:

Trial: Day 39

Tuesday 18^thJuly 2017

APPEARANCES

For the Prosecution:      Mr C. Salfred QC

For the Defendant:         In person