into the light ministry

STEPPING OUT OF THE BOAT in the name OF

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Chapter 5

2015 THE LAST COURT CASE, COULD I SURRENDER?

Siana was 7 months pregnant by now, and my new business thamesvalleyadvans.com was up and running, I had to stay out to support siana and our new baby, I wanted to be there for Siana to support her through the birth and raising our baby girl, I had lived the past 7 months as a good member of society and got used to this way of life, to say I didn’t want to go back to prison was a big understatement! The thought of jail kept me up at night, I would have done almost anything to stay out, and all I had to do was put some pressure on the witness! My old criminal mind was battling within me, all sorts of things were going through my head, being the planner that I am, one could only imagine the things that were going round in my mind, some of the witnesses except Roland who was completely lying had told only a few white lies although they was telling the ultimate truth but still they was witnesses against me and the ways I could make sure they didn’t come to court were flooding my mind, the “messages” I was capable of sending were no less than stuff you see in Hollywood films! Everything imaginable was easily doable, I had their addresses and the manpower to cause these witnesses big financial problems, the kind of things my old criminal mind was thinking about are the things that would have made sure the witnesses would have had to of moved home and business, do you understand? everything was on the table!, except from committing murder or physical harm!, one example I can give is, the Ferrari garage that 2 of the witnesses worked at, one being the owner, they have about 20 cars on the front of their forecourt, total value about 4-5 million! I could have sent the boys there regularly to smash the whole lot up! I could have shut them down! What a sad and evil way of thinking, but sadly that was the way I used to be!

I often said that the witnesses were LUCKY I was a Christian! But Who did I think I was!? I battled with the thoughts of revenge even up till the day of trial, “ill show them who their messing with” I used to think! “I will destroy them!” All these thoughts were there even though I had been baptised with siana just weeks before on 19 April 2015 by Ron Sims! Then as I was praying God spoke to my heart, the fear of God came into me, the message I got was this:

It was I that had to fear God and be lucky that I was a Christian not the witnesses! Why? Well the thought that I had was that God had told me that he would protect theses law abiding witnesses and it was I that should be grateful that God had forgiven me and not taken me out! All the times God saved my life flashed through my mind, what was I thinking? How dare I think that I could do such horrible things to people, and to say that they were lucky that I was a Christian was just being dumb and arrogant! How immature I was to think these things, as I write this I am on my belly to the Lord in shame, I beg for his forgiveness I thank God for his mercy and grace and for his son Jesus, and for speaking to me that day. God’s love and mercy was upon me and for the first time in my life I was starting to make sensible decisions and acting like a follower of Jesus. (“Starting”...)

Having sacked my last 2 solicitors I now had a great new solicitor, this time a Christian man, Andrew Torch, I trusted this man 100% and he worked very hard for me, the barrister he instructed was a top man too, however I didn’t trust him, not being a Christian I thought he was a Free mason, my guard went up and I made sure I kept an eye on him, months of rigorous preparation the day came to go and face the judge.

The whole case rested on the main witness, the owner of the body repair garage. I had done some research on the barrister and the Judge and discovered they were both from the same chambers! I thought I had a hand up as John my barrister knew the judge very well having spent time together on holidays!

Day 1

Ron, Maureen, Siana and my step dad Mick, all with me in the waiting room at court, Andrew came over with a big smile on his face pulling me to one side, “the witness is not here he is in America!” Andrew said, WOW the case has got to be thrown out now! A sense of relief went over me, I felt a million tons lighter, without Roland here the case will be thrown out! Andrew, John and I all agreed, it was just a matter of approaching the judge, however...this judge used to be a top prosecutor for the CPS crown prosecution service up until just one year ago! He weren’t going to let this case go that easy, the hearing started and the judge wanted to know why the witness was not here, “get the officer in the case in here” he said, but the officer in the case was on holiday too! The judge was not happy and said he was very reluctant to let the case continue! Once again I thought id won, but being a ex prosecutor this judge was very prosecution bias, had I had any other judge this case was most certainly have been dismissed, but as it stood the judge ordered Roland to give evidence via a video link, they who case rested on weather Roland would appear on the TV screen all the way from the USA.....

Day 2

They had secured a video link but John my barrister put up two great legal arguments saying we needed the witness to be here so we can cross examine him properly and show him papers, and officers statement stating that I had made admissions to him on the phone not being admissible...not surprising we lost both arguments and the video link and statement was allowed in...

By now it was lunch time and John and I had a meeting, we agreed the only way to win now was to postpone the video link to the next day as the witness was reluctant to appear twice as he was moving locations, the video link was set for 2pm and john told me he would not be able to cross-examine Roland long enough to mean he would have to come back and give more evidence the next day, we agreed I would have to try and get the video link postponed by the only way left to me, that was to fire John! He was my best change in wining this case but know I had to fire him, this being the third barrister I fired! By firing him I should have been allowed time to prepare my own cross-examination of the witness, this would have meant the witness having to come back the next day via video link to carry on with his evidence...I played my hand...The judge went ballistic!!

It was 2pm I stood in court in the area right at the front reserved for barristers! Previously I had made a joke about pulling out a black cape and mop head to where to imitate a barrister, but this was no time to joke! I made my application to the judge for more time to prepare, “you have 5 minutes!” he said

Ron and Maureen had walked out of court now disgusted and let down by my behaviour in court, how could a Christian act like this? Why wouldn’t I just surrender and admit what I done

wrong? Years of hate for the justice system and authority had programmed my brain to fight them all the way, although I had Jesus in my heart he was not yet in my mind...

With only my girlfriend Siana left sat at the back of court I went on with my cross-examination...one last fight still remained, one last chance to manipulate the system, advice Andrew had given me 2 minutes before I started my questions, “don’t concede to end cross examination” Andrew told me, the method behind this approach was if the judge forced me to end my questioning I could then appeal if convicted to the court of appeal, I knew this made sense and I started with my questions, my head was like fog, hundreds of questions going round and round in my head, I could have finished them all in 2 hours but I knew I had to long it out to force the witness to come back the next day, this was my only chance of winning, my only chance of escaping jail..

Mr LONG!! His Honour Judge Lucas Shouted!

Judge Lucas had had enough of me, he could see straight through my plan and was having none of it, raising to his feet screaming out in rage as he chastised me for my method of questioning, I was up against a hard man but I continued to fight, at one point I used the fact that I have learning difficulties as my reasons behind why I was taking so long, that was when a member of the jury said something out loud.. ”you shouldn’t have sacked your barrister then!” the large lady who worked in Tesco’s Said! “your honour this lady is bias” I said the judge continued to ask the lady not to shout things out, that lady was the only jury member that came back to watch the judge sentence me, I’ll tell you about that in a bit, the judge rebuked my assertion of suffering from learning difficulties, going on to say that he has read my

legal applications and in 20 years has never seen a case prepared so meticulously!

By 6:40pm the judge and jury looked tired out, I was still not ready to stop my questioning when the judge stood up and stopped me! That’s it I thought, I can appeal now! I warned the judge that his stopping me could result in my being able to appeal his decision, he didn’t care and stopped anyhow, the jury the court to go home, looking around to Siana she looked exhausted too, what was I doing? I thought, I had made a mistake by sacking my barrister and I had lost the jury too by my arrogance, I was going get convicted! I prayed for Gods help...

Standing up I said to the Judge, “I give up” “the charge is £239.000 but we have heard from the witness that the parts recovered are valued at £22.000”, (as the witness was involved in the whole thing, he conveniently lost a few of the parts I had dropped off to him in payment for repairing my Ferrari, this meant the parts recovered were valued by him at £22.000, although their real value was around £50.000, but it all helped me get a lesson sentence so I didn’t complain) as I was on trial for handling a whole car valued at £239.000 I expressed my willingness to plead guilty to £22.000 worth of parts, explaining the sentencing guidelines for £239.000 is 4 years upwards and £22.000 is 1-4 years, “ill plead guilty your honour” “Mr. Long (laughing as he spoke) you can’t talk to me like that, you must understand you must only plead guilty if you are guilty!!” “I understand your honour, I can’t do 4 years I have a new baby on its way and I want to be out for my girlfriend Siana, I’m guilty, change the indictment and ill plead now, can I have bail and a good year?” (a good year is an indication on the length of sentence the judge will pass before the defendant pleads guilty). The judge was bemused and I thought in a strange way that he liked and respected me for my cheekiness and valiant attempt to win using the law, he adjourned the case to the following day granting me bail, this was my last night of freedom, for how long rested in the judges and Gods hands.

DAY OF SENTENCING

The night before sentencing I had thoughts of going on the run again to Spain, I told Siana we should go to Spain and have the baby over there and come back in six months, but she gave me the best advice anyone could, she said “we are Christians now and we must live like Christians, trust God everything will be ok” with that I quickly put the thoughts of running to the back of my mind.

Wednesday 29th April 2015, Siana and myself made the drive to the court alone knowing that id be locked up in matter of hours, I stopped at my friends place to print off a letter I wrote to the judge explaining how I was now a Christian and I was sorry for trying to manipulate the court.

Andrew had came to court for the plea and sentence, what a great job he did too, walking over to the dock I knew that was it, I was going jail, the door locking behind me it was time to face my fate..The judge had in his power a range of up to 4 years and because I had breached a previous suspended sentence had had to add that time of 10 months to my sentence, in my mind I was getting 4 years 10 months; because of my messing the court around Andrew agreed with I would be getting the maximum, the feeling I felt in the dock waiting for sentence is a mixture of

fear and excitement, although I wasn’t facing a massive sentence the butterfly’s were still there,

“stand up Mr Long” the judge continued...reading out aloud my long list of previous convictions dating back to 1991 numbering in total some 130 offences! Ranging from thefts to firearms offences,” I look upon your conversion to Christianity with scepticism giving the way you have behaved throughout the trial, you have used every method availed to frustrate the court,” he went on...”3 years for the handling of the Ferrari parts valued at £22.000” 3 years I thought minus a bit of remand time I’ll be out in 12 months, but what about the 10 months suspended sentence? By law it was practice that any breach of a suspended sentence must be added and served consecutively to the new sentence, so 3 years 10 months was on my mind, and then a miracle happened. The judge continued...” I take mercy on your girlfriend Siana who has sat through this trial and unusually I am going to make you serve the 10 months concurrently” God had showed me mercy through this judge, and despite his hard appearance he wasn’t as hard as I had thought, a judge with a heart? Or God working through him? I believe God was in his heart that day.

I thanked God then the judge, smiled and blew Siana a kiss as I was handcuffed and lead down to the court cells, looking over I could see tears in her eyes, once again I thought about all the heartache I put her through during the 3 years I had known her. Regret and sadness filled my heart, at least this was the last time I would go to jail, praise Jesus amen.

Oh the Tesco’s lady, let’s not forget her, bless her, as I said earlier she was the only lady who came back to see the

sentencing...she sat in the jury seats as close to the judge as possible, the seat the foreman had previously sat in. I think she liked being a part of something special.

When I see her there, I shouted over to her, “have you come to see and hanging? What sentence would you be happy for me to get?” she did a half embarrassed smile, the police and court staff laughed, I was still the comedian using humour to cover up my pain, bless her I now regret calling out to her. Back to jail for the final time. Back to hmp highdown I couldn’t believe I was back in jail after I thought I heard god tell me I’d never have a cell door close on me again. HMP Highdown I hated this place! And I had to get a transfer ASAP. One week later May 9th 2015 I got offered a move to HMP Rochester where I started to write this book....