Private Lives

34



The courtroom was packed; Helen looked around with satisfaction. It had been her idea to push for a jury trial, and so far it had all gone exactly as she had planned. She wanted – needed – the case to be high-profile to maximise the effect when her client won: Jonathon Balon’s reputation would be restored and Donovan Pierce would once again be the top media law firm in the country. Helen sat next to Balon; to his left was their QC, Nicholas Collins. Behind them were Anna Kennedy and her team, and the rest of the pews were packed with reporters and that weird breed of judicial groupies who brought their own sandwiches and seemed to relish a juicy trial. They were certainly getting their money’s worth this time. Libel jury trials were rare enough, but the Balon trial had extra glamour in the form of the defendant, the glossy society magazine Stateside, and the claimant himself, Jonathon Balon.

Helen watched as Balon stood and walked to the witness box, where he would be cross-examined by Jasper Jenkins, the barrister for Stateside. Balon was the ideal claimant; good-looking but sober, intelligent; jury-friendly. Still, it was hard to read the jury in civil cases of this nature. It was not like a criminal trial, where you could see the horror on the jurors’ faces as they looked at grim photographs of abuse, or listened to the testimony of a battered teenager. But Helen was confident they would win. Stateside were not trying to prove that Balon took money from mobsters. Instead, their lawyers were arguing the ‘Reynolds defence’; that the media could publish information that turned out to be false, so long as it was in the public interest and written in a responsible, balanced manner.

Nicholas Collins had done a fantastic job of pulling Stateside’s case to pieces. Over the past week he had presented a persuasive argument that while Jonathon Balon denied taking money from a powerful London crime family, whether he had or not was irrelevant. Balon was a private businessman who had no dealings with the general public, and therefore it was not in the public interest to expose him. The Stateside piece was just a hatchet job; a scurrilous story for their readers. And that was against the law.

Helen glanced at her watch. It was almost 3 p.m., Friday afternoon. They’d been at it since 10 a.m. this morning and the judge was showing signs of weariness. She hoped that would spur him to cut proceedings short, as she was planning to retreat to Seaways, the Devon home she had bought five years earlier. Graham had been pestering her to go since the trial began: ‘You need a break, darling,’ he’d said. ‘Even you need to relax sometimes.’ He was right, of course; she just hoped he wouldn’t suggest coming along too.

Jasper Jenkins rose to his feet, fluttering through the stack of case notes in front of him.

‘Your honour,’ he said, ‘we request permission to submit additional evidence we did not provide in discovery.’

Helen’s eyes opened wide. What? She immediately sensed danger and her eyes flicked to the judge. Mr Justice Lazner frowned.

‘We have allowed plenty of time for discovery on this case,’ Lazner stated coldly.

Jenkins was undeterred. ‘M’lord, as you are aware, this trial was brought forward by almost one month. We conducted the most thorough discovery exercise we could in the time allotted and thought we had supplied all the relevant documentation. But we can’t let this trial be hampered because of things found out after the expedited timeline.’

Nicholas Collins immediately jumped to his feet in reply.

‘Your honour, last-minute disclosure is both highly unusual and extremely detrimental to the fairness of this trial.’

The judge held up a hand.

‘In view of this trial being brought forward, I’ll allow it.’

Dammit, thought Helen as the court usher took a sheaf of documents from Jenkins and handed them to the judge.

‘I would like to submit into evidence documents obtained from domain registration agency Netstuff.com,’ said Jenkins.

This definitely wasn’t good. Surprise witnesses and evidence were very unusual in any trial, let alone a libel trial. How many times had Helen told her team in the discovery process: ‘Don’t find out everything we need to know. Find out everything.’ Worse, she didn’t like the self-satisfied look on Jasper Jenkins’s face. She’d seen that confident, cocksure expression in QCs before. It meant they were going for the sucker punch.

‘Your honour, we have always contested that the Stateside story on Jonathon Balon was a fair reporting of facts in the public interest.’

Mr Justice Lazner looked unimpressed. ‘I’m aware of what the Reynolds defence is, Mr Jenkins.’

‘Mr Balon’s defence team have spent an entire week attempting to prove that the Stateside story is not in the public interest. They argue that Mr Balon is not a public figure.’

Get on with it, thought Helen with a grimace. Barristers were like actors with a law degree, and this smug bastard was enjoying himself on his little personal stage.

‘But our evidence will show that Mr Balon is about to run for political position.’

Helen glanced across at Balon – had she seen him flinch?

‘I contend therefore,’ said Jenkins, ‘that Mr Balon’s business integrity and the origins of his considerable fortune are very much something the voters need to know about.’

Helen could only look on in dismay as Jenkins turned to Jonathon.

‘Mr Balon,’ he said, ‘is it correct to say that steps have been taken to prepare for a campaign for a future London mayoral election?’

Balon looked over at Helen. Helen had met with him dozens of times over the past year and he had never seemed anything other than powerful and in control, but now? Now his dark eyes betrayed panic.

Oh God, thought Helen.

‘I don’t have any political ambitions, no,’ said Balon cautiously. ‘I’m a very busy businessman and right now all my time is taken up with growing that business.’

‘So how can you explain the registration of an internet domain name’ – Jenkins looked down at his notes – ‘Balon4Mayor.com?’

‘I’m not aware of any domain name.’

‘So you are telling this court you didn’t register the name Balon4Mayor.com with the web-hosting site Netstuff.com?’

Helen watched the colour drain from her client’s face.

‘No,’ said Balon. ‘I mean, this could easily be someone else called Balon, couldn’t it?’

Jenkins nodded, as if he was considering the point.

‘Yes, but Balon is a very unusual surname, isn’t it? And I doubt there are many – or should I say any – other people with that surname who are qualified to run for the city’s mayor. Wouldn’t you agree?’

Balon opened his mouth as if he were about to deny the fact, then changed his mind. He just sat there, evidently stunned. Helen wondered idly if the judge would understand if she strangled her client there and then.

‘This is a bloody disaster!’ shouted Helen. ‘A total and utter bloody disaster.’

Anna sat silently in Helen’s office, scribbling notes as her boss paced the room. She was certainly glad that it was Jonathon Balon and not her who was currently on the receiving end of Helen’s fury. Not that the legal team had escaped her wrath; far from it. Immediately after the judge had called for an adjournment, Helen had taken everyone back to her office and gone ballistic. ‘Unprofessional’, ‘embarrassing’, ‘criminally unprepared’ were just a few of her more generous observations. None of the team had said a thing: what could they say? They had missed a vital piece of evidence that could potentially undermine the whole trial. No wonder Jasper Jenkins had been looking so pleased with himself.

But in truth, it was Jonathon Balon himself who had scuppered their case. He’d had ample opportunity to tell Helen all about his plans to run for mayor, but he hadn’t. Certainly Helen would have used a completely different strategy in approaching the libel trial had she known, but now it was too late. They could hardly change tack without looking stupid at best, possibly even dishonest. It was indeed a total disaster, and part of Anna was enjoying the fact that Jonathon Balon was getting it in the neck.

‘I can’t believe you didn’t mention this to us,’ said Helen. ‘What possible reason can you have had for keeping it a secret?’

‘I didn’t think it was relevant,’ said Balon, shifting in his seat like a naughty schoolboy.

‘Not relevant?’ snapped Helen. ‘It’s completely bloody relevant, as Stateside’s learned counsel has just ably pointed out. It completely destroys our whole case!’

‘But I’m not running for London mayor,’ said Balon loftily. He clearly wasn’t used to being talked to in such a manner.

‘So explain this domain name.’

‘It was just an idea I had kicking around.’

Helen picked up the evidence file she had been given by the defence team and leafed over a few pages.

‘And who is this “Paul Jones” the site is registered to? Is Paul Jones in any way connected to you? Jenkins and his team clearly haven’t established that he is, otherwise they would have brought it up.’

There was a pause as Balon picked at a piece of fluff on his trousers.

‘Paul is an acquaintance,’ he said finally.

‘Oh shit,’ whispered Helen.

‘He was a freelance business consultant I employed a year or so ago,’ continued Balon. ‘I wanted to look into new projects outside the core areas of Balon Properties.’

‘So less of an acquaintance and more of a close, valued colleague,’ replied Helen tartly. There was no point in mincing words. The defence team would say exactly the same thing.

‘Paul is Australian and he’d worked in corporate PR over there, where industry is more closely aligned with the legislators. He suggested a move into politics might be good for me – good for the business.’

‘And London mayor is perfect for an ambitious businessman like you,’ said Helen. ‘Someone who has no intention of working their way up through the lowly ranks of MPs but who could stand as an independent mayoral candidate and have a good chance of winning one of the most powerful public offices in Europe. Like being PM without any of the hassle.’

Anna couldn’t help admiring her boss. She was talking to Balon as if he was back on the stand. It was the quickest way to break down his defences and get the truth out of him, no matter how uncomfortable the atmosphere in the room, no matter how many millions he was paying her in fees.

‘It was only an idea, for Christ’s sake!’ said Balon. ‘It was just one conversation over a round of golf or drinks, I really don’t remember. Yes, for a minute I was interested in the idea, but then we won the contract for a huge build in Russia and all those plans for diversification were shelved.’

Helen stood looking at him, clearly trying to process the information, trying to get one step ahead.

‘So where’s Paul Jones now?’ she asked.

‘He lives between London and Sydney.’

Helen looked at Anna. ‘Paul Jones,’ she said. ‘Get everything you can on him. Names, dates, inside leg measurement, I want everything: everything.’

‘I’m on it,’ said Anna, with what she hoped sounded like confidence. Helen was already pacing again.

‘Thankfully Paul Jones is a common enough name. If he’s not still on the Balon payroll’ – she looked enquiringly at Jonathon, who shook his head – ‘then maybe the defence team won’t be able to make the connection.’

‘And if they do?’ asked Balon uncomfortably.

‘The fact that you’re a potential mayoral candidate, however vague those ambitions might be, gives Stateside a case for publishing the story in the public interest.’

Anna raised her pencil.

‘Provided they knew about it,’ she said, and was relieved when Helen gave her a thin smile of acknowledgement. The magazine could only claim they were reporting in the public interest if they had known about Balon’s political ambitions when they published the article. In which case, why hadn’t they mentioned it in the feature?

‘Precisely,’ said Helen. ‘And that’s what we’re going to spend the next forty-eight hours working on.’