HIGH noon on Friday, and I am on St Giles Street, Edinburgh, at the back of the High Court, waiting for a murderer. Luke Muir Mitchell is taking his time, but has plenty to spare. Earlier this morning, the 19-year-old learned that he had been unsuccessful in appealing against his conviction for murdering his girlfriend Jodi Jones back in 2003, when they were both 14. He will continue his life sentence.
The original court case, a classic tabloid grand guignol full of blood, bonfires and bottles of urine, was the longest murder trial in Scottish history. There is a distinct air, among the waiting media, that today is the predictable finale in a movie
franchise that long ago lost its thrill.
The delivery of Lord Hamilton's ruling did, however, have one original feature: it was filmed by the BBC. This is only the fourth occasion on which cameras have been allowed into Scottish courts.
So far, only the decisions of appeals have been filmed as there is no jury or witnesses, and therefore no worry about them being identified. In this case, a single camera was static in one corner of the jury box. A still photographer had been told he could shoot for the first 10 seconds of the verdict and he would then have to leave the room.
Although a photographer's instinct is to get the reaction of the accused, the agreement was that he would only take pictures of the appeal judges, which some would argue misses the point.
In these appeal hearings the film that eventually appears on the BBC website isn't even necessarily an exact picture of what happens in court. Any interjections from the accused or public are edited out. In the case of Luke Mitchell, however, there would be no need for this. The courtroom was deadly quiet while Lord Hamilton, flanked by Lords Osborne and Kingarth, delivered the decision of the court. Beginning at 10.07am and ending 19 minutes later, he went through the various grounds of appeal raised by Mitchell's defence and dismissed each one. Not once did he glance at the camera, and his delivery throughout remained serious, direct and exact. There was no grandstanding to the audience outwith.
Luke Mitchell, wearing a black suit and purplish shirt, his hair scraped back into a ponytail, did not react to the verdict. Other than an anxious glance at his mother when first led into the courtroom, he displayed no emotion. If he was bothered by the presence of the camera, it did not show.
The cameras have been let in as part of an opening up of the Scottish courts. The idea is that justice should be seen to be done, and that filming allows more people to see it. Earlier this month, the verdict in Nat Fraser's appeal against the conviction for murdering his wife Arlene was viewed online 14,000 times.
There really is nothing like being there in person, though. A murder trial has a unique atmosphere, by turns sombre and sensational. Even at its most brain-numbingly complex or dull, it's a privilege to be a spectator at one of the most tense and important moments in other people's lives.
What you don't get with such restricted filming is any sense of what it's really like in court, in particular any feel for what's at stake for the people involved. Yes, you get the judge's decision, and I suppose that does serve the justice system in that it helps clarify a rather opaque process, similar to what happened when cameras were first allowed into the House of Commons.
However, on screen there's no sense of the drama of the court, and there is a dishonesty about that, as the human scenario could hardly be more dramatic. It's rather like showing someone a small detail from Picasso's Guernica and expecting them to understand the Spanish Civil War.
You don't, for instance, get to see Corinne Mitchell's pink eyes when she hears that her son won't be coming home today. And you don't get to see Judith Jones, accompanied by her surviving daughter Janine, looking nervous and pale at the back of the court. You don't get to hear a court official tell journalists to stop turning round and looking at Judith as it's upsetting her, and so you can't understand fully how hard and cruel these trials can be. Maybe you don't want to see and hear these things, but they are real, and they are a more truthful picture of the courtroom.
I spoke to people in the queue for Courtroom Three and asked them why they'd come. Two young women at the front told me that, as they work for the police, they have a professional interest. They think it's a good idea to let cameras in, and agree that only the judge should be filmed. "I wouldn't like to go down the American route where you see the reactions of the accused," said one. "That's a soap opera."
Michael Gilhooley, a 76-year-old in sports jacket and tie, told me he wanted to see the verdict as Jodi Jones' body had been found just 200 yards from his home in Newtongrange, Midlothian.
Another older man, gaunt with a tartan tie and tan trenchcoat, said that he had been in court every day since the trial began. "I come to a lot of the big trials, and enjoyed this one. They beat the theatre for pure drama. I usually try to get some video of the prisoner coming out the back, just to complete the picture. There's a good few of us retired people who come to court. In fact, we were trying to think what the collective noun for us might be."
The final act in today's drama is the last appearance of the leading man – Luke Mitchell himself. He is led, handcuffed, from the court and into a prison van with a toy pig dangling from the mirror. He looks a bit grey, a bit white, none of the good colours.
"Why did you kill Jodi?" someone shouts. Luke Mitchell, unknowable to the end, does not deign to answer.
The full article contains 1043 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
