Murder: Joint Enterprise (2012) Movie Script
This programme contains some violent scenes, very strong language from the start
and scenes which some viewers may find disturbing.
He would never have come to Nottingham if it had been up to him. You get that a lot.
"Fate fucked me over."
CAR HORN BEEPS
INDICATOR CLICKS
SIREN BLARES
We were like sisters should be.
We were like the sisters people mean when they say two people are like sisters.
He bought us drinks. Um, he was wearing a denim jacket.
I said "Ignore him," but she said, "Why?"
- POOL BALLS RATTLE
- We were playing pool. He came over.
He said "Don't worry, I'm a priest."
She thought that was funny.
He said, um, the drinks were for two nuns who hadn't turned up.
She laughed. She said, "Would WE do?"
He wanted to put his name down.
Erin picked up the drink and drank it in a way that meant, yeah, he could.
Stefan. S-T-E-F-A-N.
I mean, I have done stuff.
Just cos I've done stuff, that don't mean... My nephew's getting christened today.
I'm supposed to be his godfather.
He'll have no godfather now.
We had the same tattoos. We were getting another one.
"When the sun shines, we shine together,
"told you I'll be here for ever."
She had sensitive skin.
She needed a couple of drinks first, and that's why we were in The Royal.
Look, I HAVE done stuff. I never said that I haven't done stuff.
- I'll fucking show you, then, you fucking prick!
- Argh!
But that does not mean that I did this.
She lent me her purse to buy pizza.
No comment.
No comment.
Look, they asked me over to play pool!
I-I was minding my own business!
I shouldn't even have fucking been there.
I said, "Just ignore him." She should've ignored him, like I said.
You know, my mum warned me about Nottingham.
"Always grief," she said, "Nottingham."
She said, "It's there, look, right there, start of the word - 'Not'."
I remember that.
Grief.
Grief.
We lived together. Always.
Almost always.
Flat 4/5, Caxton House, Vernon Road, Basford, Nottingham.
- Since we were kids.
- CHILDREN GIGGLE
'Since we were kids.'
Stefan!
The chalk squeaked when he wrote his name.
I said it was "winner stays on".
Erin's the dead one.
She was looking at me.
Yeah, she'd look down the pool cue, and then just before she potted the ball,
there'd be a little look up at me. WOMAN LAUGHS
And they could play, both of them.
He was just minding his business at the bar.
And this pretty girl playing pool kept giving him the eye.
So he gets them a couple of drinks and he goes over.
'The youngest one, Coleen, she didn't want me there.'
He thought he was funny. A "priest."
"Very dry," he kept saying.
Everything that Erin said, he said it was "very dry."
I said, "Don't forget we're going for these tattoos."
The younger one wanted to go,
the older one didn't fancy it, the tattoo.
So, you know, he was being gentlemanly.
He kept on buying her drinks. Us.
So then Erin says, "Let's go and get some pizza."
It must have been, I don't know, 7pm?
Erin said, "Anything, as long as it's not pizza."
She didn't like going in there cos the bloke was a knob.
But Stefan grabbed her bag and went in.
- Didn't want to go in. "Would
- I
- go in?" Gives me her purse, right?
POLICE RADIO DISPATCH
So, when he came out, she said, "Give it back."
And he said, "I'll give it back at the flat."
So he knew our address cos he'd seen it on her licence.
She said, "Let's sit here, at the bus stop."
He said, "No, the flat."
He walked off with her bag and the pizzas.
I had a really bad feeling.
They weren't laughing now.
LIFT WHIRRS
In the lift, it all went quiet.
Except, it was in the air, I'll be honest with you.
Coleen hadn't said a word for about an hour cos of missing the tattoo.
Then, erm, she cheered up all of a sudden.
Said, had I ever played spin the bottle?
He said, did we know spin the bottle?
- I said it was a game for kids. And he said, "Not the way
- I
- play it."
PHONE RINGS
- 'Emergency. What service do you require?'
- You've got to come now, please.
- POLICE SIRENS BLARE
- 'Can you give me the address?'
I'm scared he's still here. He's hurt my sister.
- He's hurt my sister...
- 'Just stay calm.'
- He's hurt my sister!
He was arrested at 22:47
during a high-speed chase, driving the victim's car.
He wasn't from Nottingham, and he was driving away.
He said that a lot. For a while, it was either that or "No comment."
No comment.
No comment.
"I shouldn't have been in Nottingham," he said.
"I shouldn't have been in Nottingham."
Something his mother had told him.
If he hadn't been in Nottingham, none of this would've happened.
By which I took him to mean the murder.
Yeah, "Strip spin the bottle," she said.
"If it points to me, I take something off."
She was bollock-naked inside of 15 minutes.
She says, "If it points to me again, I start putting stuff on now."
This is Coleen I'm talking about.
Putting other people's stuff on.
He took the washing line off the balcony
and tied it round the bathroom door handle,
and pushed me in there and tied it somewhere so I couldn't get out.
He would never have come to Nottingham if it had been up to him.
You get that a lot. "Fate fucked me over!"
She had my jacket on with my wallet in it,
and she went to the bathroom and locked the door and started singing.
So she couldn't hear me.
That's why I'm kicking the door.
And I could hear him... And I could hear her,
and I was shouting "What's he doing to you, what's he doing?"
And, yeah, I might have pushed her, but that was it.
I was shouting, "What's he done to you?
"What's he done?"
And I was shaking the door and shaking it,
and the washing line came off and I fell back.
He'd been to see a friend of his in Doncaster where he lives.
And this pal was just off to watch the Rovers away.
He said, "Why didn't Stefan get on the coach, and that way,
"he'd be out of the way of these young lads he was hiding from."
The Coppett brothers.
'She tried to open a can of lager, but the opener with the tab bit had snapped off,'
so she tried to push it in with her finger. She cut it, it bled like fuck,
and that's how I've got her blood all over my fingernails and everywhere.
But I just fucking left them to it. They're fucking crazy women!
I thought he was going to come in.
And I was scared to go out.
I was...calling, "Erin...
"Erin."
Like a whisper.
It was only after they were well on their way that he asked who Rovers were playing,
and his pal said, "Nottingham Forest."
"Erin. Erin."
Shame for me they weren't playing Derby County. Her too.
Yeah, I might have pushed her but that was it.
"Fate fucked me over."
I asked him if he had a thing about sisters.
Some men do.
Look, someone else killed her. I didn't kill her.
Someone broke in and killed her, but not me.
Someone got into their flat after I left and killed her.
Robbery gone wrong. Nothing more than that.
He went there for anything he could get and it blew up in his face.
I've not done anything I've not been fucking caught for.
"Fate fucked me over."
She lent me her purse to buy the pizza.
If someone lends you something, they lend you what's in it, don't they?
They lend you their purse, and that purse has a key in it,
and that key opens a car, and then starts a car,
then, you haven't stolen a car.
Look, I HAD been drinking, I'm not denying that.
Look, my hands are up to that.
Cause of death was blows to the head with a blunt instrument or instruments.
One to the left at the front, three or four more to the back at the right.
The indentation to the front is semi-spherical in shape and less injurious.
The fractures to the back of the skull are penetrative and V-shaped.
There were other blows and kicks and a bite to the arm,
but it was the blows to the head that killed her.
Scene-of-crime investigation suggests the murder weapon
was a rectangular Amaretto bottle found at the scene,
and this tallies with the V-shape of some of the indentations,
presumably caused by the bottle's corners.
We had her blood on his jacket and shoes.
Her blood on the steering wheel. His prints on the bottle.
We had an eyewitness statement from the sister.
We had him.
PHONE RINGS
I've got two brothers and they're both every bit as bad as me.
And I've got two sisters who are angels.
They're nurses, both of them.
And I've got another brother who's learning difficulties.
He wasn't born right, wouldn't hurt a fly.
So how does that one turn out, then?
Half of us bad, half of us good?
PHONE RINGS
- WOMAN:
- I couldn't believe it when they arrested Coleen, but then I could.
CAR ALARM BLASTS
That's Coleen on the left, and Erin, the one who got killed.
They were arguing because Coleen wanted to get this tattoo,
and Erin wanted to stay in the pub.
I feel bad, because I told Erin that Coleen's boyfriend had a love-bite from his ex.
That's what he told me. Next to his nipple.
And then Erin was like, "Well, wait to see him and have it out,"
and Coleen was like, "No, we're going to get this tattoo."
And Erin's got this temper... Well, they both have.
And, well, watch.
Look, catfight!
And that's the guy that got arrested.
He comes in and pulls them apart.
That was those two laughing. and then just scratching eyes out.
I do love a development.
We enhanced the video taken off the mobile phone.
It looks like nothing, but then you see it.
Look...
Look, there.
It's a bloody pool ball!
I didn't really think I was neutral
but the police said you didn't have to be neutral to be a witness.
They'd seen it on YouTube.
'They said they wished I filmed all the trouble round here.'
Would have taken Ricky Hatton down, that.
I was a friend of Coleen's boyfriend, that's why I filmed it.
Thought he'd think it was funny.
Now I just don't know.
She calls me "H".
She said I don't deserve my full name.
That's how she treats me.
One day I'm, like, outcast - the next she can't get enough.
She must have phoned me 25 times that day.
- Texts?
- I stopped counting.
I never even looked at the texts, or the voicemail.
I know what she's like when she's drinking...
..but then I did have a look.
And I just thought it was more of her bullshit.
Yeah, we did have arguments - we're sisters.
Like the washing up, tattoos, love bites.
Sometimes, Erin, she needs a slap and she knows it herself.
Stuff builds up in her. It's for her own good.
She thought it was funny that H had a love-bite.
And he gives them to himself. He gives them to himself
and then says that his ex-girlfriend did them, and she knows that.
'Fresh thinking.'
One of those injuries wasn't Stefan...
at least one. Maybe even the fatal one.
Like, erm, she worked in Watermeadow Place...
..in the show home, showing people round.
She put a deposit on one of the flats there.
Like we were just going to go and move there.
- I said, "No way am
- I
- moving."
She said, "Why?", I said, "You know why...Mum."
She said, "Mum'll find us if she comes," but I just said, "No way...
"No. No way, no way, no way."
Yeah, she was a rubbish mum but I loved her.
She couldn't handle us.
She'd put me in the bathroom and tie the door shut till I calmed down.
And one day she just left.
Erin would never go without me.
And I said to them...
"If you look at that,
"it looks as though you're pulling her towards the flat
"against her will.
"Like you're doing what he's telling you."
She didn't answer that.
I said, "So, you have arguments, and we know you hit her in the pub.
"What about later on? What about at the flat?
"Did you hit her there...
"with the Amaretto bottle? Did you both hit her?"
No reply.
I said, "Just say no if you didn't.
"Otherwise I'll infer that you did."
No reply.
I said, "So, I'll infer that you did."
No reply. I repeated,
"I'm entitled to infer that you did if you won't say you didn't."
Silence.
Long silence.
I can handle silence...
she can't outdo me on silence.
You're looking at the bloke who sits by a river with a rod in his hand
saying nothing to no-one for days on end.
Then she just says...
"I did."
Two things she could've meant by that...
first, "I did say that I didn't."
Second, "I did hit my sister with the bottle later in the flat."
"Which of those two do you mean?" I said.
'We're sisters. We argue...'
'He killed her.'
Closed up. Moment was gone.
WOMAN: The pool-ball injury wasn't fatal
but we found traces of Coleen Lowell's skin
under Erin's fingernails...
and traces of Erin's under Coleen's.
No scratching on the footage taken by the barmaid
and no scratches visible on either of them here. So...?
I was arrested at 11 at night...
I was drunk, I was speeding.
If I hadn't been doing those things
then maybe I'd still be a free man now
cos she never knew my second name or where I was from.
But the clincher, right? You'll like this - look.
You spin a bottle, you hold it like this.
We had both the suspects' prints
on the Amaretto bottle in this sort of area -
and the deceased's.
But if you want to kill someone with it, this is how you hold it.
Big heavy thing, that Amaretto bottle.
Whose fingerprints you think we found round this section?
Both of them.
Oh, yeah, we upset her, me and Coleen.
We had sex and she didn't like it.
She hit the fucking roof - thought me and her should be doing it.
Well, that was the way they'd fucking worked it anyway.
So, she lost the plot completely -
started screaming, shouting, scratching out
but we never fucking killed her!
She was a virgin and she thought her moment had come,
but he couldn't keep his hands off me.
- MAN:
- Joint enterprise - R v Swindall and Osborne, 1846.
Two cart drivers were racing, pedestrian got killed.
They wouldn't say which hit him.
Since both were "equally encouraging the other in the race"
it was deemed irrelevant which of them had actually struck the man.
Joint enterprise.
Joint enterprise?
Till they get to court, that is. Then it's cut-throat.
What, I encouraged her and she encouraged me
and together we killed her sister?!
Fuck me.
He'll have no godfather now.
Stefan Hollick, 25, of Springhill, Doncaster.
All this, it could bring her back.
Coleen Lowell, 23,
Flat 4/5, Caxton House, Vernon Road, Basford, Nottingham.
So this is the story of what's just happened.
I said, "When the Detective Inspector asked you
"if you'd hit your sister at the flat,
"why did you make no clear reply?"
I said, "Stefan Hollick is a man of violence."
I showed her the documents. She could be in no doubt.
I said, "It was you that said not to accept the drinks from him.
"It was you that wanted to leave the pub and go and get the tattoo.
"It was you that said to ignore him.
"On all counts your instincts were proved right
"and tragedy followed because your instincts were overruled.
"It's an absurdity that they've got you here.
"Why did you make no clear reply to DI Sheehy's question?"
She said, "Because I hit her." I said "Yes, you did..."
I said, "We've all seen that.
"We've all seen that on the video footage from the pub,
"on Deena Pritchard's camera phone.
"It forms part of the evidence against you.
"She said, "No," but I said, "Yes, I'm afraid so.
"It's there for all to see on the camera phone.
"There's no getting away from it."
Oh.
I said, "The boyfriend, H...
"..another man of violence -
"are you protecting him?"
She looked at me then.
I said, "The bite mark, the bite mark on your sister's arm...
"..not a playful bite. A deep bite.
"A bloody bite...
"Two men of violence...
"Two men who like to hurt women."
I said, "Should I get that bite mark forensically examined?"
She had a tear in the corner of each eye,
she didn't trust herself to speak, but she nodded.
I said, "In that case, I will."
I never bit no-one.
There's no way they can make me take that test.
Tooth's broke anyhow.
The bite mark is hers.
HE WHISPERS
"I have a confession to make...
"I have a confession to make... I have a confession to make, my Lord.
"I have a confession to make, my Lord.
"I bit my wife...
"I have a confession to make, my Lord.
"I bit my wife last night...
"I have a confession to make, my Lord. I bit my wife last night...
"..but I can assure you my intention was very far from murderous."
It'll make the jury uncomfortable but they won't forget it.
"The prosecution are going to worm things out of you in court
"and you're going to look like a nasty liar, so tell me them now."
That's my brief.
Aka, he already thinks I look like a nasty little liar
and he doesn't want me living up to appearances.
I'm a decorated fucking war hero.
He says, "Yeah, yeah, no, we'll make sure they're aware of that."
Coleen wanted me to have sex with her sister.
She was a virgin.
So I said, "I will if I can have you first."
"Yeah, that's in your statement to the police," he said.
I said, "Patience...
"After Erin caught us at it, she went and fetched a kitchen knife,
"chased Coleen into the bathroom
"and then tied the washing line round the door handle.
I tried to get her to do it then, but she'd changed her mind..."
"Are you saying you tried to rape Erin Lowell?"
"Well, I was pretty far past fucking base camp with her sister
"when all hell broke loose. How would YOU feel?"
"Are you saying you tried to rape Erin Lowell...?"
"She wanted to have sex with me...
"They both wanted that."
"But did you try and rape her?"
"Well, I won't be making that mistake again.
"She'd kept that knife nice and handy."
"And what did you do to her...?"
He said, "Do you really think they're not going to ask you this in court?"
Right, "I pushed her on the bed."
He's like, "The bed where she was found dead?"
I felt like saying, "Whose fucking side are you on?
"I don't know where she was found dead
"cos she was live and kicking when I left that flat."
"Anything else...?"
"Yeah, I might have given her a slap or two."
"Now when you say, 'a slap'..."
I said, "I mean a slap.
"She tried to fucking stab me with that knife..."
"And what did you do...?"
"I ran...and I stole Erin Lowell's handbag from the hallway..."
"But you didn't kill her?" he says.
"No, I didn't kill her."
"You've told me everything?"
"I've told you everything." "Do you feel better?"
I said, "What kind of a cunt steals a woman's handbag
"after trying to rape her?"
He says, "A thief and a rapist."
She came to me in a dream and said, "Scatter my ashes there."
Mum, not Erin.
I got a visiting order.
I thought it was someone's sick joke at first.
It said, "Ms E Lowell."
All I could think was Erin...
Erin coming to visit me.
The girl in the next cell did my hair and nails, erm,
and lent me these trousers.
The top, my friend from work brought in, shoes I had.
Didn't know if she'd want to see me.
I haven't been in contact.
Very often I was about to, but...
She might only want to see me to tell me to go to hell!
The mother and child reunion.
You know, I said to Erin,
I said and I said, and I said, "She'll be back.
"She'll be back..."
And now here she is!
Coleen hasn't seen her mother since she was 14...
..but every time she mentioned her she just glowed -
she was 14 again.
I'm thinking, "I need this woman in the public gallery."
Oh, yeah, we could all get our fucking mothers in!
You think that's justice?
"My mum says I didn't do it"?!
Fuck off.
No, actually, knowing my mum, she would probably say,
"Yeah, well, he might have done, yeah."
I was a fuck-up as a mum...
I don't know if she'll want to see me.
I've thought about this day a million times...
What would I say? At first I had loads of questions but not now.
I know what I'm going to say.
I'm just going to say, "Don't ever go away again."
They were cruel to each other.
They said cruel things ABOUT each other.
"You're fat." "You look like a man."
"You look like a lesbian."
"Your skin looks like meat," Erin said once...to her sister.
Whatever they could think of to hurt the other one the most.
I didn't know what to do.
Always fighting.
What should a mother do?
I'd been diagnosed with cancer. I needed to tell them.
When I came home from work, they were pulling each other's hair out.
Great clumps of hair. Fighting.
Biting. Kicking. There was blood.
I told Erin I'd started my period and she didn't believe me.
I showed her the pad, and she said that weren't menstrual blood,
that I'd cut myself and put it on there.
They didn't hear me shouting, so I thought,
"Well, I'll go round the park for ten minutes." That was all.
"And then when I come back home they'll be calm,
"and I'll be able to tell them what I need to tell them."
So I said, "Where have I cut myself then? Where, where?"
I was pulling my clothes off. "Where?"
So I did go round the park.
And then I went in The Royal.
And when I came out of The Royal...
I got on a bus.
It's not like I stood there waiting at the bus stop.
It was there already when I came out.
A bus looks cheerful in the dark, lit up inside.
But when I got off the bus,
I got on another one that went to Derby.
And that one I DID wait for.
I was walking along the Ashbourne Road, and I was thinking,
"Ashbourne Road begins with an A.
"I'll just keep walking until I see a road that begins with a Z."
I stuck out my thumb.
A lorry driver came. Straight away.
Just like how the bus was right there.
He was going to Carlisle.
It was very quiet after.
We slept in Mum's bed that night.
We got taken into care. Fostered.
Apart.
I ran away back to the flat to see if Mum had come back.
But I didn't have a key. I could see in.
All our things were still in there.
The woman who was fostering me,
she said they'd have given the flat to another family, but they hadn't.
That's how I knew she was coming home.
We did get back to the flat. Erin got to 17. They said she could look after me.
It's high-risk, having them meet.
Not that I could prevent it.
Coleen's waited nine years for this, and she's never given up hope.
Her mother's like the Virgin Mary and Cheryl Cole rolled into one for her.
Things go well, she'll glow with 100 watts of innocence right through the trial,
and we'll blow everyone else out of the water.
Things go badly, I'm not sure she'll even care if they send her down.
COLEEN SOBS
There is something about being locked out of your own flat and looking in.
It's like being dead.
COLEEN WHIMPERS
'I talked to her. She's amazing. She's beautiful. Like Erin.
'I said, "I knew you were coming back."
'Erin said you were dead, but I knew you weren't.
'I knew you loved us and you wanted to come back,
'but something meant that you couldn't.
'And everything I said, she was just like,
' "Yeah, that's it, that's it." '
She understood. She could see it.
I knew everything there was to know about her. And she understood me.
I told her everything that happened -
Erin wanting to go and live at Watermeadow Place
and the day it all happened,
and me thinking,
"If she just wasn't a virgin, she wouldn't be wanting to go.
"She'd have moved on in herself and she'd be happy where she was."
And everything that happened because of that. And she understood me.
I'm not saying she's faultless. She made a mistake, and it was this -
she allowed her resentment at Erin's refusal to take her advice
to get the better of her and she sided - briefly but significantly -
with Hollick, and she goaded her sister.
If there was joint enterprise of any kind between Stefan and Coleen,
it was to that end and that end only.
Relieving her 27-year-old sister of her burdensome virginity.
She said it wasn't my fault, it was HER fault.
She said it couldn't be helped.
It...it COULDN'T be helped.
We cried together for Erin.
First time I've cried since that night.
When she was going, she held my hand.
She smells the same.
She's going to pray for me. Pray they let me go.
Sisters don't kill sisters.
Google it - "sister killing sister".
You get Cleopatra, Roman legends, some Icelandic rock band.
Sisters don't kill sisters. Sororicide, it happens. Their brothers kill them.
Sometimes they kill their brothers. But sisters? Google it.
Actually, don't Google it till after the trial.
My mum, right... My brother, OK, fair enough,
deep down he's not as much of a cunt as I am,
but with her, it's like we're Cain and Abel and I'm the...
You know, which one's the bad motherfucker?
Well, that's how she sees it.
And what fucks me off the most, right, is that I'm the one who tries.
He doesn't give a shit, him. Like, Mother's Day. "What? What's that?"
Yeah? I'm sending her flowers from Afghani-fucking-stan,
and he lives three streets away poncing off her wage packet
but he's the one with the sunshiny arsehole.
Not when I got my leg blown off. She says to me,
' "Well, they're not going to want you now, are they?" '
HELICOPTER WHIRRS AND SOLDIERS SHOUT
Would you catch me saying something like that to my godson?
'Move back, move back!'
'Fuck off.'
Bring it on.
Murder stops time. It's like musical chairs.
One minute there's music and running around, and the next - bang -
there's not enough room for someone, they're gone.
Everything that was going on before, all that merry dance,
all that fiasco we call life, now you have to make sense of it.
At least, that's the job of the prosecution.
I won't see my godson just yet.
They don't want him in a place like this. I can see that.
Not that he IS my godson yet. He's not even been christened yet.
Not even welcomed into the family of Christ until I'm out of here.
In limbo is what he is.
Waiting.
'Every day she sat there. Every day.'
Stayed right to the end, right till the judge sent the jury out.
She'll be there now.
Not in the public gallery, they empty that,
but maybe in, like, a caff round the corner.
Waiting for the jury to come out.
Waiting for the verdict, same as me.
Wondering what it's going to be.
Wondering what she'll say to me.
Wondering if we'll live together again.
I saw once, er, where a tennis player won a match
and he climbed up through the crowd to his dad, right up in the stand.
That's what I'll be like.
If the jury comes back in and the judge asks their decision
and they say, "Coleen Lowell - not guilty," that's what I'll be like.
Straight to Mum.
I plotted a simple line. I held to it. I stayed above the fray.
She was glowing, I was glowing.
All the time, above my head, like a banner, "Sisters don't kill sisters."
'She's nailed-on guilty.'
I don't care what Arlo fucking-Raglin says.
I saw him in the gents'.
When I was at school, there was a kid.
When you were having a piss, he'd walk along the line at the urinal -
five, six, seven of you taking a leak -
give each of you a push.
Just a little push, but you'd be covered in piss.
That's what came back to me when I saw him in the gents.
'What I keep thinking about, erm, I was in a band once.
'You know, for about two weeks.'
And, erm, anyway when you go on stage in a pub or whatever and they dim the lights down,
just for a minute, people shut up and they look at you.
Right, and you plug your guitar in and you get this...
All of a sudden, this quite loud, kind of buzz and crackle and clunk.
You know, you're wired up.
And you're stood there and you're thinking,
"Fucking hell! The possibilities."
Yeah, so that's what I keep thinking about.
- HE SPITS
- Who puts pips in grapes now?
BELL CHIMES
A great leveller - piss in your pants.
My wife gives me these, otherwise I eat Pringles.
"Sisters don't kill sisters," he says.
Well, this one did.
The next best thing to pissing his pants...
boyfriend of the accused, Heskett Jupp.
That took the smile off his face.
It was like I blocked it out of my mind.
He saw the two of them together. The sisters, on the bed.
After Stefan had fled, you know, the co-accused.
Like they were waiting.
He'd never told anyone. Not even Coleen.
Blurted out of him in court.
One alive, one dead on the mother's bed.
Court went quiet.
Raglin, face like a smacked arse.
There it was, out there like someone else had said it. DOG BARKS
Stefan Hollick's lawyer says, "When was the last time you saw Erin Lowell alive?"
And I just... I said, "She was on the bed, but she was dead then."
"What bed, where?"
"In Coleen's mum's room, lying there with Coleen." "When was this?"
"The night she died." "What time?" "About ten."
Just... Just like they were waiting.
Everything went quiet.
And then they just started tearing through those pages in them binders what they have.
"You were there at the flat on the night," he said.
Just a LITTLE push.
"Was I? Yeah, yeah, I was. Yeah, I WAS there."
Then I looked at Coleen.
"Heskett Jupp." I thought, "Heskett Jupp, not H."
CHILDREN SHOUT IN BACKGROUND
- I'm going!
- Stefan's brief asked me what I said to that.
I said, "I don't say anything to that."
He kept on.
"What's your reaction to what the witness said?"
Nothing. Nothing.
Silence.
Then she said, "It's true."
Nothing quite like the sight of a highly paid QC
with a dead sheep on his head trying to summon up a shit-eating smile.
Rethink.
Raglin gets his wits about him.
He starts trying to unsettle the whole thing to suit him.
Crown seems very surprised by this.
Perhaps they'd like to take some time to consider developments.
Fuck you, Raglin.
Answer the fucking question.
Why was she cowering in the bathroom when PC Sinton arrived
if she was lying on the bed 20 minutes before?
The Crown couldn't give too much credence to what he said or it would
look like a most catastrophic oversight on their part.
Did he answer the question?
There was a lot of... hurried scrabbling back
through witness statements and the interviews.
- Did he fuck!
- His honour suggested a short recess.
He asked for a recess.
Rethink. Regroup.
Give the man credit - he knows a turning point.
I think of something untouched by this.
Like stinking cells, the shit people do to each other, lies they tell.
What is it?
A baby.
A newborn baby, think of that.
One, right, I'm a man of violence.
How many times have I heard that in the last three weeks?
I was a soldier for eight years,
you don't get the medals I've got frothing milk.
Two, the leg.
I'm sensitive about the leg, I've got a short fuse.
You know, I am sensitive about the fucking leg, as it happens.
But it wasn't Erin who called me a cripple, it was my "co-defendant".
So what does that prove?
Three, my so-called brief.
Right, having him defending me and Raglin defending her,
that's like putting pea-shooters up against fucking Iron Man.
Yeah, sisters don't kill sisters.
It might not be true, but at least it's fucking memorable.
Rethink. Regroup. Return. Here are some questions.
H said he peeped in at the bedroom door
and saw Erin dead on the bed, with Coleen beside her.
How could he tell she was dead? He peeped in and ran away.
How could he tell that Stefan Hollick had already departed?
Good questions. Did I ask them? I did not.
I asked a different question, and then I answered it.
Why was Coleen in the bathroom when the police arrived?
Finally.
Because, when Coleen broke out of the bathroom where Stefan Hollick
had imprisoned her, she found her sister dead on the floor.
Naked. Dead.
I thought of Mum.
She thought of her mum.
Her mum, who's here today - as she is every day -
standing by her wrongly accused daughter.
The dead woman's naked body -
what they always say, in newspapers, on the radio.
I used to think that about Mum.
I didn't want that to be her.
I did not want that to be Erin, either.
Incredulous, and inconsolable...
I bit her to wake her up.
Bit her hard.
My client put a dress on her sister and laid her on their mother's bed.
I thought I heard him.
And then she heard a sound, the sound of the door.
Perhaps it was the sound of H scuttling off into the night.
Coming back.
Or perhaps it was the sound of someone coming back?
Stefan Hollick, coming back.
For his jacket, for his wallet, for who knows what else?
Beside herself with fear,
Coleen did something that she is deeply ashamed of.
She abandoned her dead sister.
I left her on the bed.
I hid in the bathroom.
I thought he was coming, I called the police.
You may think that's forgivable.
Coleen Lowell doesn't.
Give the man credit, that was class.
And that, right there, that's where I won the case.
When they arrived, the police had to break down the bathroom door.
We could have done without the fucking mother.
He's not my nephew.
He's my son.
My brother was away on a job when he was conceived,
but he hadn't worked that out.
She didn't want him to.
She told him the baby was premature, but it wasn't.
He came in here, actually, came to break it to me
that they were going ahead with the christening.
That they couldn't wait now. You know, not now.
She wrote to me, begging me not to tell him.
I just showed him the letter.
Yeah, that was a short visit. Won't be repeated.
He'll never be able to look at that boy
without seeing me shagging his wife.
The man she was living with died and left her some money.
I said, "This is where Erin wanted to live.
"This is where you told me in a dream to scatter Erin's ashes."
And she said, "This is where we'll live.
"There's two flats left, we're going to look round them both."
And we're getting the tattoos -
the one me and Erin were going to get.
She wanted to take one last look around the flat on her own.
I've arranged everything here.
In court they wanted to know why his fingerprints
were on the neck of the bottle.
He said he'd used it to batter at the bathroom door.
He wanted his jacket back, the photos of his godson.
I'm one of those people that other people like kicking.
I'm talking about my old man, teachers at school,
coppers, obviously,
officers in the army, the fucking Taliban,
Coleen Lowell and her smartarse lawyer.
And my brother, now that he's found out,
and his slapper of a fucking so-called wife.
I started thinking, do you know what?
I am sick of getting up just to get kicked back down again.
And in here, right, there's loads of people like me.
People who've taken a kicking.
And not just one kicking - I'm talking about a lifetime of kicking.
They've got someone else now, doing the showing-round. She knew Erin.
She's going to show us round.
Whether he did it or not, I'm not really sure any more.
But SHE did.
But then, who am I to judge?
SCREAMING AND GIGGLING
Bitch!
Open the door!
Right...
You can stay in there, you cow!
- Grow up, Erin.
- Fucking slag.
Open the door.
What were you doing?!
LAUGHING: Shit.
You're joking.
RATTLING THE DOOR
- What were you doing with her?
- What you got a knife for?
- Eh?!
- All right, fucking calm down.
- Why didn't you wait for me?
- Have you gone fucking mad?
- What's he doing to you?!
- Put the knife down.
Why didn't you wait for me?
Come in here, come on, we'll talk about it.
Open the fuck... Open the door!
Let me out!
You like messing about with knives, do you?
Erin!
I'll show you how to fucking play!
Open it! Open the door!
Stefan!
Erin!
Leave her alone.
Coleen?
What are you doing? What's going on?
Coleen, will you give me my jacket back?
Give me my fucking jacket back, you little slag!
You think I'm fucking pissing about?!
I'm not scared of you! You can piss off home!
- Go!
- You fucking stay there!
- Get out or I'll fucking kill you!
You want me to do some damage, I'll do you some fucking damage!
GET OUT!
Erin, get him out!
I'm going.
Fuck off, you're fucking mad, you are!
I haven't forgotten about that fucking jacket!
Get out!
Let me out.
You can rot in there waiting for Mum...
who's dead, by the way!
- You don't know that!
- You ruined it!
You ruined everything - you always fucking do!
- No, YOU'VE ruined everything!
- I fucking hate you!
- She's dead!
- You don't know that!
I'm never looking at you, never!
Not dead!
That's our mother!
You don't know anything!
She's not, she's not fucking dead!
Erin?
She's dead, she's dead, she's dead!
You take that back, what you said about Mum.
She's dead!
She's dead! She's dead! She's DEAD!
SCREAMING
Erin...?
Did I want to appeal?
There were grounds for it, they said.
I felt like saying, "Do you know what?
"People don't seem to find me that fucking appealing."
I can see why Erin liked showing people round here.
I can see why she wanted to live here.
I never wanted to come see it.
I'm with me own kind in here.
I think I might just stay.
I knew this is where she wanted us to be,
but I knew we couldn't be here. Not till Mum came back.
Erin would have tied the washing line round the bathroom door.
It was something I did...
to them.
He wouldn't have known about that, would he?
and scenes which some viewers may find disturbing.
He would never have come to Nottingham if it had been up to him. You get that a lot.
"Fate fucked me over."
CAR HORN BEEPS
INDICATOR CLICKS
SIREN BLARES
We were like sisters should be.
We were like the sisters people mean when they say two people are like sisters.
He bought us drinks. Um, he was wearing a denim jacket.
I said "Ignore him," but she said, "Why?"
- POOL BALLS RATTLE
- We were playing pool. He came over.
He said "Don't worry, I'm a priest."
She thought that was funny.
He said, um, the drinks were for two nuns who hadn't turned up.
She laughed. She said, "Would WE do?"
He wanted to put his name down.
Erin picked up the drink and drank it in a way that meant, yeah, he could.
Stefan. S-T-E-F-A-N.
I mean, I have done stuff.
Just cos I've done stuff, that don't mean... My nephew's getting christened today.
I'm supposed to be his godfather.
He'll have no godfather now.
We had the same tattoos. We were getting another one.
"When the sun shines, we shine together,
"told you I'll be here for ever."
She had sensitive skin.
She needed a couple of drinks first, and that's why we were in The Royal.
Look, I HAVE done stuff. I never said that I haven't done stuff.
- I'll fucking show you, then, you fucking prick!
- Argh!
But that does not mean that I did this.
She lent me her purse to buy pizza.
No comment.
No comment.
Look, they asked me over to play pool!
I-I was minding my own business!
I shouldn't even have fucking been there.
I said, "Just ignore him." She should've ignored him, like I said.
You know, my mum warned me about Nottingham.
"Always grief," she said, "Nottingham."
She said, "It's there, look, right there, start of the word - 'Not'."
I remember that.
Grief.
Grief.
We lived together. Always.
Almost always.
Flat 4/5, Caxton House, Vernon Road, Basford, Nottingham.
- Since we were kids.
- CHILDREN GIGGLE
'Since we were kids.'
Stefan!
The chalk squeaked when he wrote his name.
I said it was "winner stays on".
Erin's the dead one.
She was looking at me.
Yeah, she'd look down the pool cue, and then just before she potted the ball,
there'd be a little look up at me. WOMAN LAUGHS
And they could play, both of them.
He was just minding his business at the bar.
And this pretty girl playing pool kept giving him the eye.
So he gets them a couple of drinks and he goes over.
'The youngest one, Coleen, she didn't want me there.'
He thought he was funny. A "priest."
"Very dry," he kept saying.
Everything that Erin said, he said it was "very dry."
I said, "Don't forget we're going for these tattoos."
The younger one wanted to go,
the older one didn't fancy it, the tattoo.
So, you know, he was being gentlemanly.
He kept on buying her drinks. Us.
So then Erin says, "Let's go and get some pizza."
It must have been, I don't know, 7pm?
Erin said, "Anything, as long as it's not pizza."
She didn't like going in there cos the bloke was a knob.
But Stefan grabbed her bag and went in.
- Didn't want to go in. "Would
- I
- go in?" Gives me her purse, right?
POLICE RADIO DISPATCH
So, when he came out, she said, "Give it back."
And he said, "I'll give it back at the flat."
So he knew our address cos he'd seen it on her licence.
She said, "Let's sit here, at the bus stop."
He said, "No, the flat."
He walked off with her bag and the pizzas.
I had a really bad feeling.
They weren't laughing now.
LIFT WHIRRS
In the lift, it all went quiet.
Except, it was in the air, I'll be honest with you.
Coleen hadn't said a word for about an hour cos of missing the tattoo.
Then, erm, she cheered up all of a sudden.
Said, had I ever played spin the bottle?
He said, did we know spin the bottle?
- I said it was a game for kids. And he said, "Not the way
- I
- play it."
PHONE RINGS
- 'Emergency. What service do you require?'
- You've got to come now, please.
- POLICE SIRENS BLARE
- 'Can you give me the address?'
I'm scared he's still here. He's hurt my sister.
- He's hurt my sister...
- 'Just stay calm.'
- He's hurt my sister!
He was arrested at 22:47
during a high-speed chase, driving the victim's car.
He wasn't from Nottingham, and he was driving away.
He said that a lot. For a while, it was either that or "No comment."
No comment.
No comment.
"I shouldn't have been in Nottingham," he said.
"I shouldn't have been in Nottingham."
Something his mother had told him.
If he hadn't been in Nottingham, none of this would've happened.
By which I took him to mean the murder.
Yeah, "Strip spin the bottle," she said.
"If it points to me, I take something off."
She was bollock-naked inside of 15 minutes.
She says, "If it points to me again, I start putting stuff on now."
This is Coleen I'm talking about.
Putting other people's stuff on.
He took the washing line off the balcony
and tied it round the bathroom door handle,
and pushed me in there and tied it somewhere so I couldn't get out.
He would never have come to Nottingham if it had been up to him.
You get that a lot. "Fate fucked me over!"
She had my jacket on with my wallet in it,
and she went to the bathroom and locked the door and started singing.
So she couldn't hear me.
That's why I'm kicking the door.
And I could hear him... And I could hear her,
and I was shouting "What's he doing to you, what's he doing?"
And, yeah, I might have pushed her, but that was it.
I was shouting, "What's he done to you?
"What's he done?"
And I was shaking the door and shaking it,
and the washing line came off and I fell back.
He'd been to see a friend of his in Doncaster where he lives.
And this pal was just off to watch the Rovers away.
He said, "Why didn't Stefan get on the coach, and that way,
"he'd be out of the way of these young lads he was hiding from."
The Coppett brothers.
'She tried to open a can of lager, but the opener with the tab bit had snapped off,'
so she tried to push it in with her finger. She cut it, it bled like fuck,
and that's how I've got her blood all over my fingernails and everywhere.
But I just fucking left them to it. They're fucking crazy women!
I thought he was going to come in.
And I was scared to go out.
I was...calling, "Erin...
"Erin."
Like a whisper.
It was only after they were well on their way that he asked who Rovers were playing,
and his pal said, "Nottingham Forest."
"Erin. Erin."
Shame for me they weren't playing Derby County. Her too.
Yeah, I might have pushed her but that was it.
"Fate fucked me over."
I asked him if he had a thing about sisters.
Some men do.
Look, someone else killed her. I didn't kill her.
Someone broke in and killed her, but not me.
Someone got into their flat after I left and killed her.
Robbery gone wrong. Nothing more than that.
He went there for anything he could get and it blew up in his face.
I've not done anything I've not been fucking caught for.
"Fate fucked me over."
She lent me her purse to buy the pizza.
If someone lends you something, they lend you what's in it, don't they?
They lend you their purse, and that purse has a key in it,
and that key opens a car, and then starts a car,
then, you haven't stolen a car.
Look, I HAD been drinking, I'm not denying that.
Look, my hands are up to that.
Cause of death was blows to the head with a blunt instrument or instruments.
One to the left at the front, three or four more to the back at the right.
The indentation to the front is semi-spherical in shape and less injurious.
The fractures to the back of the skull are penetrative and V-shaped.
There were other blows and kicks and a bite to the arm,
but it was the blows to the head that killed her.
Scene-of-crime investigation suggests the murder weapon
was a rectangular Amaretto bottle found at the scene,
and this tallies with the V-shape of some of the indentations,
presumably caused by the bottle's corners.
We had her blood on his jacket and shoes.
Her blood on the steering wheel. His prints on the bottle.
We had an eyewitness statement from the sister.
We had him.
PHONE RINGS
I've got two brothers and they're both every bit as bad as me.
And I've got two sisters who are angels.
They're nurses, both of them.
And I've got another brother who's learning difficulties.
He wasn't born right, wouldn't hurt a fly.
So how does that one turn out, then?
Half of us bad, half of us good?
PHONE RINGS
- WOMAN:
- I couldn't believe it when they arrested Coleen, but then I could.
CAR ALARM BLASTS
That's Coleen on the left, and Erin, the one who got killed.
They were arguing because Coleen wanted to get this tattoo,
and Erin wanted to stay in the pub.
I feel bad, because I told Erin that Coleen's boyfriend had a love-bite from his ex.
That's what he told me. Next to his nipple.
And then Erin was like, "Well, wait to see him and have it out,"
and Coleen was like, "No, we're going to get this tattoo."
And Erin's got this temper... Well, they both have.
And, well, watch.
Look, catfight!
And that's the guy that got arrested.
He comes in and pulls them apart.
That was those two laughing. and then just scratching eyes out.
I do love a development.
We enhanced the video taken off the mobile phone.
It looks like nothing, but then you see it.
Look...
Look, there.
It's a bloody pool ball!
I didn't really think I was neutral
but the police said you didn't have to be neutral to be a witness.
They'd seen it on YouTube.
'They said they wished I filmed all the trouble round here.'
Would have taken Ricky Hatton down, that.
I was a friend of Coleen's boyfriend, that's why I filmed it.
Thought he'd think it was funny.
Now I just don't know.
She calls me "H".
She said I don't deserve my full name.
That's how she treats me.
One day I'm, like, outcast - the next she can't get enough.
She must have phoned me 25 times that day.
- Texts?
- I stopped counting.
I never even looked at the texts, or the voicemail.
I know what she's like when she's drinking...
..but then I did have a look.
And I just thought it was more of her bullshit.
Yeah, we did have arguments - we're sisters.
Like the washing up, tattoos, love bites.
Sometimes, Erin, she needs a slap and she knows it herself.
Stuff builds up in her. It's for her own good.
She thought it was funny that H had a love-bite.
And he gives them to himself. He gives them to himself
and then says that his ex-girlfriend did them, and she knows that.
'Fresh thinking.'
One of those injuries wasn't Stefan...
at least one. Maybe even the fatal one.
Like, erm, she worked in Watermeadow Place...
..in the show home, showing people round.
She put a deposit on one of the flats there.
Like we were just going to go and move there.
- I said, "No way am
- I
- moving."
She said, "Why?", I said, "You know why...Mum."
She said, "Mum'll find us if she comes," but I just said, "No way...
"No. No way, no way, no way."
Yeah, she was a rubbish mum but I loved her.
She couldn't handle us.
She'd put me in the bathroom and tie the door shut till I calmed down.
And one day she just left.
Erin would never go without me.
And I said to them...
"If you look at that,
"it looks as though you're pulling her towards the flat
"against her will.
"Like you're doing what he's telling you."
She didn't answer that.
I said, "So, you have arguments, and we know you hit her in the pub.
"What about later on? What about at the flat?
"Did you hit her there...
"with the Amaretto bottle? Did you both hit her?"
No reply.
I said, "Just say no if you didn't.
"Otherwise I'll infer that you did."
No reply.
I said, "So, I'll infer that you did."
No reply. I repeated,
"I'm entitled to infer that you did if you won't say you didn't."
Silence.
Long silence.
I can handle silence...
she can't outdo me on silence.
You're looking at the bloke who sits by a river with a rod in his hand
saying nothing to no-one for days on end.
Then she just says...
"I did."
Two things she could've meant by that...
first, "I did say that I didn't."
Second, "I did hit my sister with the bottle later in the flat."
"Which of those two do you mean?" I said.
'We're sisters. We argue...'
'He killed her.'
Closed up. Moment was gone.
WOMAN: The pool-ball injury wasn't fatal
but we found traces of Coleen Lowell's skin
under Erin's fingernails...
and traces of Erin's under Coleen's.
No scratching on the footage taken by the barmaid
and no scratches visible on either of them here. So...?
I was arrested at 11 at night...
I was drunk, I was speeding.
If I hadn't been doing those things
then maybe I'd still be a free man now
cos she never knew my second name or where I was from.
But the clincher, right? You'll like this - look.
You spin a bottle, you hold it like this.
We had both the suspects' prints
on the Amaretto bottle in this sort of area -
and the deceased's.
But if you want to kill someone with it, this is how you hold it.
Big heavy thing, that Amaretto bottle.
Whose fingerprints you think we found round this section?
Both of them.
Oh, yeah, we upset her, me and Coleen.
We had sex and she didn't like it.
She hit the fucking roof - thought me and her should be doing it.
Well, that was the way they'd fucking worked it anyway.
So, she lost the plot completely -
started screaming, shouting, scratching out
but we never fucking killed her!
She was a virgin and she thought her moment had come,
but he couldn't keep his hands off me.
- MAN:
- Joint enterprise - R v Swindall and Osborne, 1846.
Two cart drivers were racing, pedestrian got killed.
They wouldn't say which hit him.
Since both were "equally encouraging the other in the race"
it was deemed irrelevant which of them had actually struck the man.
Joint enterprise.
Joint enterprise?
Till they get to court, that is. Then it's cut-throat.
What, I encouraged her and she encouraged me
and together we killed her sister?!
Fuck me.
He'll have no godfather now.
Stefan Hollick, 25, of Springhill, Doncaster.
All this, it could bring her back.
Coleen Lowell, 23,
Flat 4/5, Caxton House, Vernon Road, Basford, Nottingham.
So this is the story of what's just happened.
I said, "When the Detective Inspector asked you
"if you'd hit your sister at the flat,
"why did you make no clear reply?"
I said, "Stefan Hollick is a man of violence."
I showed her the documents. She could be in no doubt.
I said, "It was you that said not to accept the drinks from him.
"It was you that wanted to leave the pub and go and get the tattoo.
"It was you that said to ignore him.
"On all counts your instincts were proved right
"and tragedy followed because your instincts were overruled.
"It's an absurdity that they've got you here.
"Why did you make no clear reply to DI Sheehy's question?"
She said, "Because I hit her." I said "Yes, you did..."
I said, "We've all seen that.
"We've all seen that on the video footage from the pub,
"on Deena Pritchard's camera phone.
"It forms part of the evidence against you.
"She said, "No," but I said, "Yes, I'm afraid so.
"It's there for all to see on the camera phone.
"There's no getting away from it."
Oh.
I said, "The boyfriend, H...
"..another man of violence -
"are you protecting him?"
She looked at me then.
I said, "The bite mark, the bite mark on your sister's arm...
"..not a playful bite. A deep bite.
"A bloody bite...
"Two men of violence...
"Two men who like to hurt women."
I said, "Should I get that bite mark forensically examined?"
She had a tear in the corner of each eye,
she didn't trust herself to speak, but she nodded.
I said, "In that case, I will."
I never bit no-one.
There's no way they can make me take that test.
Tooth's broke anyhow.
The bite mark is hers.
HE WHISPERS
"I have a confession to make...
"I have a confession to make... I have a confession to make, my Lord.
"I have a confession to make, my Lord.
"I bit my wife...
"I have a confession to make, my Lord.
"I bit my wife last night...
"I have a confession to make, my Lord. I bit my wife last night...
"..but I can assure you my intention was very far from murderous."
It'll make the jury uncomfortable but they won't forget it.
"The prosecution are going to worm things out of you in court
"and you're going to look like a nasty liar, so tell me them now."
That's my brief.
Aka, he already thinks I look like a nasty little liar
and he doesn't want me living up to appearances.
I'm a decorated fucking war hero.
He says, "Yeah, yeah, no, we'll make sure they're aware of that."
Coleen wanted me to have sex with her sister.
She was a virgin.
So I said, "I will if I can have you first."
"Yeah, that's in your statement to the police," he said.
I said, "Patience...
"After Erin caught us at it, she went and fetched a kitchen knife,
"chased Coleen into the bathroom
"and then tied the washing line round the door handle.
I tried to get her to do it then, but she'd changed her mind..."
"Are you saying you tried to rape Erin Lowell?"
"Well, I was pretty far past fucking base camp with her sister
"when all hell broke loose. How would YOU feel?"
"Are you saying you tried to rape Erin Lowell...?"
"She wanted to have sex with me...
"They both wanted that."
"But did you try and rape her?"
"Well, I won't be making that mistake again.
"She'd kept that knife nice and handy."
"And what did you do to her...?"
He said, "Do you really think they're not going to ask you this in court?"
Right, "I pushed her on the bed."
He's like, "The bed where she was found dead?"
I felt like saying, "Whose fucking side are you on?
"I don't know where she was found dead
"cos she was live and kicking when I left that flat."
"Anything else...?"
"Yeah, I might have given her a slap or two."
"Now when you say, 'a slap'..."
I said, "I mean a slap.
"She tried to fucking stab me with that knife..."
"And what did you do...?"
"I ran...and I stole Erin Lowell's handbag from the hallway..."
"But you didn't kill her?" he says.
"No, I didn't kill her."
"You've told me everything?"
"I've told you everything." "Do you feel better?"
I said, "What kind of a cunt steals a woman's handbag
"after trying to rape her?"
He says, "A thief and a rapist."
She came to me in a dream and said, "Scatter my ashes there."
Mum, not Erin.
I got a visiting order.
I thought it was someone's sick joke at first.
It said, "Ms E Lowell."
All I could think was Erin...
Erin coming to visit me.
The girl in the next cell did my hair and nails, erm,
and lent me these trousers.
The top, my friend from work brought in, shoes I had.
Didn't know if she'd want to see me.
I haven't been in contact.
Very often I was about to, but...
She might only want to see me to tell me to go to hell!
The mother and child reunion.
You know, I said to Erin,
I said and I said, and I said, "She'll be back.
"She'll be back..."
And now here she is!
Coleen hasn't seen her mother since she was 14...
..but every time she mentioned her she just glowed -
she was 14 again.
I'm thinking, "I need this woman in the public gallery."
Oh, yeah, we could all get our fucking mothers in!
You think that's justice?
"My mum says I didn't do it"?!
Fuck off.
No, actually, knowing my mum, she would probably say,
"Yeah, well, he might have done, yeah."
I was a fuck-up as a mum...
I don't know if she'll want to see me.
I've thought about this day a million times...
What would I say? At first I had loads of questions but not now.
I know what I'm going to say.
I'm just going to say, "Don't ever go away again."
They were cruel to each other.
They said cruel things ABOUT each other.
"You're fat." "You look like a man."
"You look like a lesbian."
"Your skin looks like meat," Erin said once...to her sister.
Whatever they could think of to hurt the other one the most.
I didn't know what to do.
Always fighting.
What should a mother do?
I'd been diagnosed with cancer. I needed to tell them.
When I came home from work, they were pulling each other's hair out.
Great clumps of hair. Fighting.
Biting. Kicking. There was blood.
I told Erin I'd started my period and she didn't believe me.
I showed her the pad, and she said that weren't menstrual blood,
that I'd cut myself and put it on there.
They didn't hear me shouting, so I thought,
"Well, I'll go round the park for ten minutes." That was all.
"And then when I come back home they'll be calm,
"and I'll be able to tell them what I need to tell them."
So I said, "Where have I cut myself then? Where, where?"
I was pulling my clothes off. "Where?"
So I did go round the park.
And then I went in The Royal.
And when I came out of The Royal...
I got on a bus.
It's not like I stood there waiting at the bus stop.
It was there already when I came out.
A bus looks cheerful in the dark, lit up inside.
But when I got off the bus,
I got on another one that went to Derby.
And that one I DID wait for.
I was walking along the Ashbourne Road, and I was thinking,
"Ashbourne Road begins with an A.
"I'll just keep walking until I see a road that begins with a Z."
I stuck out my thumb.
A lorry driver came. Straight away.
Just like how the bus was right there.
He was going to Carlisle.
It was very quiet after.
We slept in Mum's bed that night.
We got taken into care. Fostered.
Apart.
I ran away back to the flat to see if Mum had come back.
But I didn't have a key. I could see in.
All our things were still in there.
The woman who was fostering me,
she said they'd have given the flat to another family, but they hadn't.
That's how I knew she was coming home.
We did get back to the flat. Erin got to 17. They said she could look after me.
It's high-risk, having them meet.
Not that I could prevent it.
Coleen's waited nine years for this, and she's never given up hope.
Her mother's like the Virgin Mary and Cheryl Cole rolled into one for her.
Things go well, she'll glow with 100 watts of innocence right through the trial,
and we'll blow everyone else out of the water.
Things go badly, I'm not sure she'll even care if they send her down.
COLEEN SOBS
There is something about being locked out of your own flat and looking in.
It's like being dead.
COLEEN WHIMPERS
'I talked to her. She's amazing. She's beautiful. Like Erin.
'I said, "I knew you were coming back."
'Erin said you were dead, but I knew you weren't.
'I knew you loved us and you wanted to come back,
'but something meant that you couldn't.
'And everything I said, she was just like,
' "Yeah, that's it, that's it." '
She understood. She could see it.
I knew everything there was to know about her. And she understood me.
I told her everything that happened -
Erin wanting to go and live at Watermeadow Place
and the day it all happened,
and me thinking,
"If she just wasn't a virgin, she wouldn't be wanting to go.
"She'd have moved on in herself and she'd be happy where she was."
And everything that happened because of that. And she understood me.
I'm not saying she's faultless. She made a mistake, and it was this -
she allowed her resentment at Erin's refusal to take her advice
to get the better of her and she sided - briefly but significantly -
with Hollick, and she goaded her sister.
If there was joint enterprise of any kind between Stefan and Coleen,
it was to that end and that end only.
Relieving her 27-year-old sister of her burdensome virginity.
She said it wasn't my fault, it was HER fault.
She said it couldn't be helped.
It...it COULDN'T be helped.
We cried together for Erin.
First time I've cried since that night.
When she was going, she held my hand.
She smells the same.
She's going to pray for me. Pray they let me go.
Sisters don't kill sisters.
Google it - "sister killing sister".
You get Cleopatra, Roman legends, some Icelandic rock band.
Sisters don't kill sisters. Sororicide, it happens. Their brothers kill them.
Sometimes they kill their brothers. But sisters? Google it.
Actually, don't Google it till after the trial.
My mum, right... My brother, OK, fair enough,
deep down he's not as much of a cunt as I am,
but with her, it's like we're Cain and Abel and I'm the...
You know, which one's the bad motherfucker?
Well, that's how she sees it.
And what fucks me off the most, right, is that I'm the one who tries.
He doesn't give a shit, him. Like, Mother's Day. "What? What's that?"
Yeah? I'm sending her flowers from Afghani-fucking-stan,
and he lives three streets away poncing off her wage packet
but he's the one with the sunshiny arsehole.
Not when I got my leg blown off. She says to me,
' "Well, they're not going to want you now, are they?" '
HELICOPTER WHIRRS AND SOLDIERS SHOUT
Would you catch me saying something like that to my godson?
'Move back, move back!'
'Fuck off.'
Bring it on.
Murder stops time. It's like musical chairs.
One minute there's music and running around, and the next - bang -
there's not enough room for someone, they're gone.
Everything that was going on before, all that merry dance,
all that fiasco we call life, now you have to make sense of it.
At least, that's the job of the prosecution.
I won't see my godson just yet.
They don't want him in a place like this. I can see that.
Not that he IS my godson yet. He's not even been christened yet.
Not even welcomed into the family of Christ until I'm out of here.
In limbo is what he is.
Waiting.
'Every day she sat there. Every day.'
Stayed right to the end, right till the judge sent the jury out.
She'll be there now.
Not in the public gallery, they empty that,
but maybe in, like, a caff round the corner.
Waiting for the jury to come out.
Waiting for the verdict, same as me.
Wondering what it's going to be.
Wondering what she'll say to me.
Wondering if we'll live together again.
I saw once, er, where a tennis player won a match
and he climbed up through the crowd to his dad, right up in the stand.
That's what I'll be like.
If the jury comes back in and the judge asks their decision
and they say, "Coleen Lowell - not guilty," that's what I'll be like.
Straight to Mum.
I plotted a simple line. I held to it. I stayed above the fray.
She was glowing, I was glowing.
All the time, above my head, like a banner, "Sisters don't kill sisters."
'She's nailed-on guilty.'
I don't care what Arlo fucking-Raglin says.
I saw him in the gents'.
When I was at school, there was a kid.
When you were having a piss, he'd walk along the line at the urinal -
five, six, seven of you taking a leak -
give each of you a push.
Just a little push, but you'd be covered in piss.
That's what came back to me when I saw him in the gents.
'What I keep thinking about, erm, I was in a band once.
'You know, for about two weeks.'
And, erm, anyway when you go on stage in a pub or whatever and they dim the lights down,
just for a minute, people shut up and they look at you.
Right, and you plug your guitar in and you get this...
All of a sudden, this quite loud, kind of buzz and crackle and clunk.
You know, you're wired up.
And you're stood there and you're thinking,
"Fucking hell! The possibilities."
Yeah, so that's what I keep thinking about.
- HE SPITS
- Who puts pips in grapes now?
BELL CHIMES
A great leveller - piss in your pants.
My wife gives me these, otherwise I eat Pringles.
"Sisters don't kill sisters," he says.
Well, this one did.
The next best thing to pissing his pants...
boyfriend of the accused, Heskett Jupp.
That took the smile off his face.
It was like I blocked it out of my mind.
He saw the two of them together. The sisters, on the bed.
After Stefan had fled, you know, the co-accused.
Like they were waiting.
He'd never told anyone. Not even Coleen.
Blurted out of him in court.
One alive, one dead on the mother's bed.
Court went quiet.
Raglin, face like a smacked arse.
There it was, out there like someone else had said it. DOG BARKS
Stefan Hollick's lawyer says, "When was the last time you saw Erin Lowell alive?"
And I just... I said, "She was on the bed, but she was dead then."
"What bed, where?"
"In Coleen's mum's room, lying there with Coleen." "When was this?"
"The night she died." "What time?" "About ten."
Just... Just like they were waiting.
Everything went quiet.
And then they just started tearing through those pages in them binders what they have.
"You were there at the flat on the night," he said.
Just a LITTLE push.
"Was I? Yeah, yeah, I was. Yeah, I WAS there."
Then I looked at Coleen.
"Heskett Jupp." I thought, "Heskett Jupp, not H."
CHILDREN SHOUT IN BACKGROUND
- I'm going!
- Stefan's brief asked me what I said to that.
I said, "I don't say anything to that."
He kept on.
"What's your reaction to what the witness said?"
Nothing. Nothing.
Silence.
Then she said, "It's true."
Nothing quite like the sight of a highly paid QC
with a dead sheep on his head trying to summon up a shit-eating smile.
Rethink.
Raglin gets his wits about him.
He starts trying to unsettle the whole thing to suit him.
Crown seems very surprised by this.
Perhaps they'd like to take some time to consider developments.
Fuck you, Raglin.
Answer the fucking question.
Why was she cowering in the bathroom when PC Sinton arrived
if she was lying on the bed 20 minutes before?
The Crown couldn't give too much credence to what he said or it would
look like a most catastrophic oversight on their part.
Did he answer the question?
There was a lot of... hurried scrabbling back
through witness statements and the interviews.
- Did he fuck!
- His honour suggested a short recess.
He asked for a recess.
Rethink. Regroup.
Give the man credit - he knows a turning point.
I think of something untouched by this.
Like stinking cells, the shit people do to each other, lies they tell.
What is it?
A baby.
A newborn baby, think of that.
One, right, I'm a man of violence.
How many times have I heard that in the last three weeks?
I was a soldier for eight years,
you don't get the medals I've got frothing milk.
Two, the leg.
I'm sensitive about the leg, I've got a short fuse.
You know, I am sensitive about the fucking leg, as it happens.
But it wasn't Erin who called me a cripple, it was my "co-defendant".
So what does that prove?
Three, my so-called brief.
Right, having him defending me and Raglin defending her,
that's like putting pea-shooters up against fucking Iron Man.
Yeah, sisters don't kill sisters.
It might not be true, but at least it's fucking memorable.
Rethink. Regroup. Return. Here are some questions.
H said he peeped in at the bedroom door
and saw Erin dead on the bed, with Coleen beside her.
How could he tell she was dead? He peeped in and ran away.
How could he tell that Stefan Hollick had already departed?
Good questions. Did I ask them? I did not.
I asked a different question, and then I answered it.
Why was Coleen in the bathroom when the police arrived?
Finally.
Because, when Coleen broke out of the bathroom where Stefan Hollick
had imprisoned her, she found her sister dead on the floor.
Naked. Dead.
I thought of Mum.
She thought of her mum.
Her mum, who's here today - as she is every day -
standing by her wrongly accused daughter.
The dead woman's naked body -
what they always say, in newspapers, on the radio.
I used to think that about Mum.
I didn't want that to be her.
I did not want that to be Erin, either.
Incredulous, and inconsolable...
I bit her to wake her up.
Bit her hard.
My client put a dress on her sister and laid her on their mother's bed.
I thought I heard him.
And then she heard a sound, the sound of the door.
Perhaps it was the sound of H scuttling off into the night.
Coming back.
Or perhaps it was the sound of someone coming back?
Stefan Hollick, coming back.
For his jacket, for his wallet, for who knows what else?
Beside herself with fear,
Coleen did something that she is deeply ashamed of.
She abandoned her dead sister.
I left her on the bed.
I hid in the bathroom.
I thought he was coming, I called the police.
You may think that's forgivable.
Coleen Lowell doesn't.
Give the man credit, that was class.
And that, right there, that's where I won the case.
When they arrived, the police had to break down the bathroom door.
We could have done without the fucking mother.
He's not my nephew.
He's my son.
My brother was away on a job when he was conceived,
but he hadn't worked that out.
She didn't want him to.
She told him the baby was premature, but it wasn't.
He came in here, actually, came to break it to me
that they were going ahead with the christening.
That they couldn't wait now. You know, not now.
She wrote to me, begging me not to tell him.
I just showed him the letter.
Yeah, that was a short visit. Won't be repeated.
He'll never be able to look at that boy
without seeing me shagging his wife.
The man she was living with died and left her some money.
I said, "This is where Erin wanted to live.
"This is where you told me in a dream to scatter Erin's ashes."
And she said, "This is where we'll live.
"There's two flats left, we're going to look round them both."
And we're getting the tattoos -
the one me and Erin were going to get.
She wanted to take one last look around the flat on her own.
I've arranged everything here.
In court they wanted to know why his fingerprints
were on the neck of the bottle.
He said he'd used it to batter at the bathroom door.
He wanted his jacket back, the photos of his godson.
I'm one of those people that other people like kicking.
I'm talking about my old man, teachers at school,
coppers, obviously,
officers in the army, the fucking Taliban,
Coleen Lowell and her smartarse lawyer.
And my brother, now that he's found out,
and his slapper of a fucking so-called wife.
I started thinking, do you know what?
I am sick of getting up just to get kicked back down again.
And in here, right, there's loads of people like me.
People who've taken a kicking.
And not just one kicking - I'm talking about a lifetime of kicking.
They've got someone else now, doing the showing-round. She knew Erin.
She's going to show us round.
Whether he did it or not, I'm not really sure any more.
But SHE did.
But then, who am I to judge?
SCREAMING AND GIGGLING
Bitch!
Open the door!
Right...
You can stay in there, you cow!
- Grow up, Erin.
- Fucking slag.
Open the door.
What were you doing?!
LAUGHING: Shit.
You're joking.
RATTLING THE DOOR
- What were you doing with her?
- What you got a knife for?
- Eh?!
- All right, fucking calm down.
- Why didn't you wait for me?
- Have you gone fucking mad?
- What's he doing to you?!
- Put the knife down.
Why didn't you wait for me?
Come in here, come on, we'll talk about it.
Open the fuck... Open the door!
Let me out!
You like messing about with knives, do you?
Erin!
I'll show you how to fucking play!
Open it! Open the door!
Stefan!
Erin!
Leave her alone.
Coleen?
What are you doing? What's going on?
Coleen, will you give me my jacket back?
Give me my fucking jacket back, you little slag!
You think I'm fucking pissing about?!
I'm not scared of you! You can piss off home!
- Go!
- You fucking stay there!
- Get out or I'll fucking kill you!
You want me to do some damage, I'll do you some fucking damage!
GET OUT!
Erin, get him out!
I'm going.
Fuck off, you're fucking mad, you are!
I haven't forgotten about that fucking jacket!
Get out!
Let me out.
You can rot in there waiting for Mum...
who's dead, by the way!
- You don't know that!
- You ruined it!
You ruined everything - you always fucking do!
- No, YOU'VE ruined everything!
- I fucking hate you!
- She's dead!
- You don't know that!
I'm never looking at you, never!
Not dead!
That's our mother!
You don't know anything!
She's not, she's not fucking dead!
Erin?
She's dead, she's dead, she's dead!
You take that back, what you said about Mum.
She's dead!
She's dead! She's dead! She's DEAD!
SCREAMING
Erin...?
Did I want to appeal?
There were grounds for it, they said.
I felt like saying, "Do you know what?
"People don't seem to find me that fucking appealing."
I can see why Erin liked showing people round here.
I can see why she wanted to live here.
I never wanted to come see it.
I'm with me own kind in here.
I think I might just stay.
I knew this is where she wanted us to be,
but I knew we couldn't be here. Not till Mum came back.
Erin would have tied the washing line round the bathroom door.
It was something I did...
to them.
He wouldn't have known about that, would he?