Margaret McCooey speaks about Stephen Owen case

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Transcript

00:00 This was at the beginning and we were buying all our furniture from Mr. Owen's furniture shop in East Street.

00:06 And we wanted, well some of it's still here. This is Mr. Owen's furniture.

00:14 And we were just doing, we were doing mainly conveyancing at that time, buying and selling houses for people.

00:23 And suddenly this distraught Mr. Owen rang and came and said, "My son's been run over by a lorry driver and he's dead."

00:34 And then we didn't hear from him until he'd actually gone out with a shotgun, hadn't he, when shot him at almost point blank range.

00:46 He was wounded, not killed. And Mr. Owen ran away and all the police were looking for him.

00:56 And he rang Andrew from a remote place and Andrew persuaded him to come back and give himself up.

01:04 So he came to our house and came back and they went to the police station the next morning.

01:11 And then he was remanded in custody, of course. And then you prepare the defence.

01:19 And they wanted him to plead guilty to a lesser charge. But that would still, and he said, "I'm not pleading guilty to anything."

01:27 He said, he just, and Andrew said, "Well, please don't say you shot him and meant to shoot him."

01:33 But at the trial, the lawyers, his defence barrister said, "You know, we shouldn't really put him on the stand.

01:43 He should just plead guilty to something small and maybe they'll be merciful."

01:49 And I said, I remember saying to Andrew, "You've got to let him speak. You've got to let this man say how he feels."

01:58 And it may be, it's a gamble. He may get a life sentence or someone will see he's suffered so much and they might be merciful.

02:09 And of course, that was the outcome, wasn't it? That decision allowed him to pour his heart out.

02:17 And the jury, of course, were overwhelmed with pity and compassion and came back with a not guilty verdict.

02:26 Even though the judge instructed them he was guilty on this and guilty on that, that wasn't, anyway.

02:33 But that was amazing. It was illogical, wasn't it?