5 Order in court
Q. You fabricated these entries at a time when you contemplated being tried in relation to Mrs. Grundy only?
A. No I didn’t.
Q. And if you had been tried in relation Mrs. Grundy only your defence would have been that she died from drugs she took herself because she had a habit?
A. I am sorry again, no.
(Shipman Trial, Day 33) This cross-examination of the evidence already given in examination-in-chief, casts doubt on the veracity and reliability of the defence story that the possible drug habit had not been recorded in the normal way, in order to preserve confi dentiality.
It counter-proposes the prosecution version: that records were fabricated as part of a defence against a charge of murder. As Heffer (2005: 135) notes in relation to negative judgements in cross-examination, at such points ‘the counsel’s subjectivity begins to appear’, reinforced by the use of fi rst-person pronouns. He looks at the ‘I-clusters’ produced by cross-examiners (2005: 136), noting that the two verbs suggest and going to suggest are the most distinctive collocates. In extract 5.5 suggest and tell also collocate with the object pronoun me, tell me, let me suggest.
Heffer (2005: 137) characterizes these clusters as ‘spotlights’ that ‘throw light on the lawyer’s subjective intentions’, which in extract 5.5 are to attack the defence account and suggest an alternative. Heffer tentatively, but convincingly, argues that, when counsel use suggest with the witness, they are also indirectly addressing the jury and offering them this version of events. Deictic markers such as the inclusive second-person pronoun we/us (let us look at them please; we have read that), also explicitly draw the jury into the dialogue and into a jointly produced negative assessment of the evidence. This continually competing and contested evidential perspective epitomises the nature of the adversarial system.
Questions are highly constrained and constraining in courtroom interaction.
Lawyers are constrained by the genre and prior texts in terms of what and how they can elicit, while witnesses are doubly constrained: fi rst, by the inbuilt constraints
of the lawyer’s framing and second, by how the questions are designed to constrain their answers to produce a particular kind of evidence.
As we saw earlier, each witness appearance has a generic structure and the styles and goals of the interaction within the different activities of examination and cross-examination will determine the kind of questioning – straightforward versus contest – and fi nally the pre-trial statement(s) of the witness will determine what the friendly lawyer asks and what the cross-examining lawyer deconstructs.
In extract 5.6 from a statement given to the police by one of the witnesses in the Shipman trial, we read his evidence about what he saw, heard and did in Shipman’s surgery while witnessing Mrs Grundy’s signature:
Extract 5.6
I am a single man and live at the address shown overleaf with my family. I have been a patient of Dr. H.F. Shipman, 21 Market Street, Hyde, throughout my entire life. On the 9th June 1998 (090698) I had an appointment at 4.10 p.m.
(16.10 hrs) with Dr. Shipman. I attended the surgery about that time and to the best of my recollection there was only one other woman in the waiting room. Dr. Shipman then came out of his surgery and asked me and the other woman if we wouldn’t mind witnessing a signature. The woman and I then followed Dr. Shipman into his surgery. Sat down in the room already was an elderly lady. I did not really see her as she had her back to me. Dr. Shipman then spoke to the elderly lady. I cannot remember what he said, but I recall that whatever it was, it was to suggest to me that the old lady was aware of what was happening. The old lady replied, ‘YES’. I was then shown a piece of paper that was folded over so that only the bottom couple of inches were showing. The only thing I saw on the form was K. GRUNDY. I had not seen this being written.
Extract 5.7 comes from the examination of the same witness in court and we notice how closely the prosecution lawyer follows the script of the statement when posing his questions:
Extract 5.7
ANTHONY PAUL SPENCER, sworn Examined by MR. WRIGHT
(The six opening introductory questions and answers have been omitted)
Q. And on the 9th June 1998 did you have an appointment at Dr. Shipman’s surgery?
A. Yes.
Q. Ladies and gentlemen, if you turn to page 73 which is in fact 2 pages towards the front of your bundle, you see the surgery appointments diary there. … did you go to the surgery that day Mr. Spencer?
A. Yes.
Q. And did you go into the waiting area?
A. I did.
Q. And did you see Dr. Shipman that day?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you have any sort of conversation with Dr. Shipman in the waiting room area at any time that day?
A. In the waiting room area, Dr. Shipman came out of his surgery and asked me if I would not mind witnessing a signature.
Q. And so what happened then?
A. I obliged.
Q. So where did you go?
A. Into his surgery room.
Q. Did you go in alone or in company with anyone?
A. In company with the person who was in after me.
Q. In company with the person that was in after you?
A. Yes.
Q. You mean after you as far as any appointment is concerned?
A. Yes.
Q. When you got into his room was there anyone else in the room?
A. Yes.
Q. First of all, male or female?
A. Female.
Q. What sort of age, any idea? Young, middle aged, elderly or what?
A. Old.
Q. Pardon?
A. Elderly.
Q. Did you have much of an opportunity of looking at this lady?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you have much of an opportunity of looking at her face at all?
A. Not really, no.
Q. What were the seating arrangements like?
A. She was sat with her, I was looking at this side of her, at the left-hand side of her.
Q. And by that do you mean the profi le?
A. Yes.
Q. A little like the way that I am looking at you now, you mean, that way round?
A. Yes.
Q. Was she introduced to you at all?
A. No.
Q. Did you ever get to discover at that time what she was called, at that time, that afternoon?
A. Until I saw the signature, no.
Q. What then happened?
A. Dr. Shipman folded over a piece of paper with a couple of spare lines on it and asked me if I wouldn’t mind writing my name and my address and putting my signature and my occupation on the piece of paper.
Q. So was the paper handed over to you?
A. No, it was kept on the desk.
Q. It was kept on the desk. Did you see anything on the piece of paper?
A. K. Grundy as a signature.
Q. Could you see anything else on the paper at all?
A. Dotted lines.
Q. So far as that name or signature K. Grundy on that piece of paper, had you seen that being entered on to that particular piece of paper?
A. No.
Q. So you had not seen who had written that?
A. No.
(Shipman Trial, Day 6) Extract 5.8 is from the cross-examination of the same witness about the same events. Note how the defence lawyer summarizes and offers simply for agreement those aspects of the story that she takes as unproblematic and then produces information-seeking questions for the parts that she disputes. She also switches from collaborative narration to challenging questioning (indicated in bold).
Extract 5.8
Cross-examined by MISS DAVIES
Q. Mr. Spencer you were waiting in Dr. Shipman’s surgery, he came out and asked if you would witness a signature?
A. Yes.
Q. You went into his consulting room. There was a lady who you described as elderly. She was sitting at the side of his desk and you went in with another lady who was also a patient?
A. Yes.
Q. When you went into the surgery was there a short conversation between Dr.
Shipman and the lady sitting at the desk?
A. Yes.
Q. Was it in terms that Dr. Shipman was telling the lady that yourself and in fact Claire Hutchinson as we now know, were going to witness the signature?
A. No.
Q. What was the conversation?
A. Something along the lines of, ‘Is this okay,’ or, ‘Are you sure about this?’
Q. I am sorry?
A. ‘Is this okay,’ or ‘Are you sure about this?’
Q. And she agreed all was well?
A. Yes.
Q. And went ahead?
A. Yes.
Q. On the desk was a document?
A. Yes.
Q. Was a document that was folded?
A. Yes.
Q. Because it was folded you could not actually see what was on the document itself, could you?
A. No.
Q. That document was already folded when you went into the surgery, was it