One Mile Away Page #4

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sometimes even defending counsel.

You're not allowed

to ask another witness

if the anonymous witness

was even present at the scene.

You can't check.

What I've got is the prison records

that were made available to the court

of Mark Brown,

who is the anonymous witness.

He's at Brinsford

at the detention centre.

You're saying in June

that the Johnson boys are after you.

They've attacked you.

You were seen

wandering out of some toilets,

dazed and bleeding

with your clothes torn.

"Does that ring a bell?"

And he says, "Yes. "

So then Nigel Rumfitt says,

"Cooperating with the police

started to become attractive to you. "

Yeah, of course.

As soon as he started cooperating,

he was moved from Brinsford

to a different prison.

Vulnerable people,

in them situations,

do anything they can do

to get out of that situation.

Jail is not a nice place.

You understand what I'm sayin'?

You give your life away to the place.

You know, it's not nice.

When you visit the scene,

you begin to appreciate

how unbelievable the evidence

that that witness gave is.

The party was here at these premises.

Mark Brown, the anonymous witness,

claimed that he came out

for fresh air

and the vehicle

drove along the service road,

with tinted windows,

discharged a firearm,

sadly killing the two young girls.

This was round about 4:00am...

.. at the very beginning of January,

so it would still

have been intensely dark.

So Mark Brown claimed

that he could clearly identify

four men wearing masks

in a moving car

with heavily tinted windows

in the middle of the night.

It's a matter of a split second

for the vehicle to go

past the relevant positions.

It would have been quite impossible

to identify anyone in that vehicle.

He then refuses

to attend an identity parade.

It's the same guy saying

that he can't point these people out

in an ID parade,

that's saying that he could see

these people in a tinted-out car,

with masks on,

in the middle of the night.

But he can't go into a room,

bright as f***! You understand it?

You can see their whole face,

and he can't pick them out there?

I don't know how people

feel about it. It's wrong, innit?

Okay, it's wrong, innit?

it's just blatantly wrong.

Because my friend

had the gang marker,

he was stitched up in a way

that wouldn't happen to anybody else

who didn't have this gang marker.

So, your car is gang affiliated.

Your house,

gang members go to this house.

Everything becomes gang affiliated.

When you go to the court of law now

and that word "gang" comes up,

it gives them powers

to use acts that they've created

to go against gang members.

It started because there is

a great deal of witness intimidation.

And there's no doubt about that.

It does go on.

There are gangs

in our inner cities now,

gangs with access to firearms,

which is not something that used

to be as widespread as it is,

and there is a genuine problem.

But, in my view, it's a problem

primarily for the police,

whose relationship with certain

minorities of the inner cities

has broken down in recent years.

And it's a problem for politicians

to sort out questions

of social cohesion,

which make it so difficult for people

to give evidence.

What you can't do is address

a social problem like that

by throwing away

the thousand years of legal history

and the protection

of the rights of the accused

and by having unfair trials

to combat social problems.

It's not a remedy.

Marcus gave me that first phone call

and said, "Mum... "

He said,

"Mum... they've found me guilty. "

And we both cried together.

He says, "Mum, sometimes

when you're in the cell,

"the realisation

just hits you right in your face...

".. that you're here. "

And he even said to me

that he visualised himself

in nursery and then school...

.. primary school

and then secondary school,

and then he said to this.

And it just kind of

just knocked him for six.

On the... on...

on the streets of Birmingham.

Zilla was cool that we agreed

to highlight the case

and used his influence

to bring cameras

into the hood for the first time.

Cameras are a no-go in my community,

especially when we are

talking about gangs and whatnot,

so today's

kind of monumental, really.

What about one of these guys?

You're 17.

He's 16.

What are you, 15 today? 16 today?

You're 17 today?

God, you're getting old, man.

Big-arse youths, as well, man.

You're 17.

Stand up next to me, bruv.

He's 17, bruv.

What are you eating round here, bruv?

The other side of town

that ain't from here,

are they seen as, like, enemies

or just like..?

What's your take on it?

Now it's that bad, half of the men

can't even go to town.

You have to go to town in a group.

And the police don't like that.

And if you go to town in a group,

police are looking to draw you.

You're drawing

more attention to yourself.

You don't want that.

You're going to buy some clothes.

Once you reach a certain age,

you ain't going to Newtown.

They don't know you. When they see

you, they think, "Who's this?"

You could be on it,

but they just don't know this.

Yeah, like I said,

everybody's defensive.

All that postcode sh*t

is a bag of bullshit to me.

I don't rep nothin' that owns

to the government. Me, myself and I.

You understand it, rude boy,

and it's the truth, huh?

I helped start all of this sh*t, man.

Started all of this sh*t.

You understand what I'm sayin'?

So it's my job

to try and fix it, innit?

I won't feel right

in myself otherwise.

We're bringing the hood together.

Stopping the f***ing hood.

Say it like this,

say 50 men say, "Yeah, forget it,"

but one man out of 50 men,

something happens from the past.

Everyone's going back to what

they was doing before, innit?

No one's not sticking

to what they was doing.

Just go back

to what it was before, blood.

If a man thinks

he can push my button,

that's a reason to f*** up, cos I'm

gonna make an example out of him.

I ain't allowing for anyone

to think that I'm a chump,

cos it can't work like that, blood.

It just don't make no sense, blood.

A man violates you.

That's one nil to him.

You go and lick down. You think

it's one nil to you cos he's dead.

Well, at the end of the day,

you're on the run.

Eventually, when you get caught

with the thing, you're f***ed.

Then you're sitting down.

How have you won?

Your life's f***ed, you know.

There's no winners.

That's what men need to understand.

We're not meant

to be warring like this, bruv.

Forget Birmingham and anything.

We're young men. Black brothers.

Fair enough, but when they see you,

even so you wanna stop whatever...

- Yeah, bruv.

- You know what's gonna happen.

lm gonna have to be a man.

That's what I'm sayin'.

So what, you're supposed

to get beat up?

No, this what I'm showing ya.

I'm not sayin' that.

Us elders, we have

to link up with their elders

and talk to our youths and

they have to talk to their youths.

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