Chapter Forty-Eight
The first they saw of Meier was when he was brought into the dock at Bristol Crown Court wearing a smart grey suit, white shirt and sombre tie.
He was pale, clean-shaven, clearly as anxious as anyone could be in his position; yet at the same time, he seemed calm, almost resolute as he searched around for Nicole.
Cristy knew the moment he’d found her in the public gallery simply by the increased intensity in his eyes.
She looked up and saw Nicole sitting with Maeve and Julien, her own gaze fixed on Meier.
Profoundly relieved that her fears of a suicide pact had not come to pass, Cristy shifted closer to Connor to make room for someone squeezing into the far end of the press bench.
They’d turned up at the Crown Court about an hour ago, minutes before Nicole and Meier had arrived at the back door, driven by his lawyer, unseen by the press.
Maeve, Maggi and Johan had apparently been in the car behind; everyone else – more staff from Bryn Helyg, Meier’s brother and sister-in-law, Maeve’s sister Bridget and Meier’s barrister – had appeared soon after.
Though there was a heavy media turnout, there was no sign of the Terrier, although it was certain she’d have sent someone to cover the sentencing for her.
The room fell silent as everyone stood for the judge, solemn and forbidding in his purple robe and horsehair wig. After speaking quietly with an usher, he wasted no more time in getting proceedings underway.
The next half an hour passed so swiftly that Cristy barely had time to look up as she noted down the salient points of how the judge had come to his conclusions. Beside her, Connor was doing the same, quickly flicking over pages to keep up with the lengthy and detailed summary.
The next thing they knew, they were outside on Small Street, hugging a stunned, and tearful Nicole before she was swept away by Honey and other lawyers.
Breaking free of the crowd to start heading back to the office, Cristy took the mic Connor was passing her, and they recorded as they walked.
CRISTY: ‘Connor and I have just left the court, and I think we’re both still in a state of … Confusion? Shock? How are you feeling about what just happened?’
CONNOR: ‘I guess same as you. I really thought, with the way the judge went on about the cover up, the loss of two children’s lives, the failure to name accomplices, the burial and everything around that, that Meier was going down for at least ten – didn’t you?’
CRISTY: ‘If not fifteen. The summation was brutal. It can’t be described any other way, and you could tell that everyone in the courtroom was expecting the harshest sentence possible. I could feel myself bracing for it, so God knows what it was like for Meier.’
CONNOR: ‘His eyes were closed for most of it, so no idea if he was shutting it out, or taking it in. I just know I’d never want to be in his place, having my crimes, my failings, my whole damned character shredded like that.’
CRISTY: ‘Then suddenly everything changed. It was as if another judge took over right in front of our eyes. If Meier didn’t believe in miracles before, he must be questioning that now, because the tone, the whole proceedings went onto another plane.
The judge was suddenly parroting the defence’s remarks about Meier presenting no risk to the public, praising the good work he was doing in mental health on his farm in Mid Wales … ’
CONNOR: ‘How he was now helping Nicole to rehabilitate after the trauma of her own ordeal … His deep regret for everything he’d done … It was like Meier had managed to morph into some sort of saint, and you could see that even he didn’t believe what he was hearing.’
CRISTY: ‘I think we were all so taken aback by it that the sentence, when it came … Well, I’m still trying to process it, so I want you to confirm now Con, that I really did hear correctly when the judge said that, if Meier was not still holding back on the names of his accomplices, his sentence for the other offences might have been suspended. Suspended!’
CONNOR: ‘That’s definitely what I heard.
As it stands, he received a three-year custodial term for Perverting the Course of Justice.
So he is going to prison – in fact, he could already be on his way there – but from what we were able to make of the consensus before we left the court, he’ll probably only serve half of it, and there’s a good chance he’ll find himself somewhere like HMP Leyhill, a Cat D facility in South Gloucestershire, for the last part. ’
CRISTY: ‘So not too far for Nicole to go to visit him, if that is where he ends up. Meanwhile, he’ll probably be held in Bristol Prison – Cat B, so not the absolute worst, but still pretty grim from everything we hear.
He could be there for a while before being transferred to somewhere hopefully less crowded when a place becomes available. ’
CONNOR: ‘You’ll be interested to know that as soon as the sentencing was over, the judge called for an inquiry into the initial police investigation.
He had some seriously strong words for those involved who, he said, had allowed the atrocity of a terrorist attack – shocking and terrible though it had been – to distract them from the duty of care owed to Noah and Abigail Meier. ’
With that awful truth still resonating in their minds, they crossed the city centre, dropped down to the waterfront and headed towards the ferry. The only sounds being recorded as they walked were of them breathing, their hurried footsteps and the screech of gulls swooping around the harbour.
It wasn’t until they reached the crossing point that Connor began again.
CONNOR: ‘Clearly, a three-year prison sentence wasn’t the outcome Meier and Nicole had hoped for, and yet it was so much better than they’d feared.’
CRISTY: ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m finding it almost impossible to imagine Meier in prison. Maybe because I don’t want to.’
CONNOR: ‘Can’t get my head round it either, but obviously it’s going to happen, so I’m trying to project to one day in the future, hopefully sooner rather than later, when he’ll be back at Bryn Helyg with Nicole, amongst friends and close to their children.’
CRISTY: ‘Unless he decides to name his accomplices. He might get out sooner if he did, but I can’t see him doing that, can you?’
CONNOR: ‘No, which makes him both crazy and I guess, honourable, the way he’s accepting full responsibility for what he got someone else to do on his behalf. Amazing to me that they did it, but we’ve met the bloke, so perhaps it’s not so amazing at all.’