The court in Merthyr was packed up high;
it hadn’t had this type of case before.
Prosecuting, Mr Wyn Griffith Price QC, asked for the
maximum sentence, to deter potential future ‘copycats’ - to
much laughter in the gallery - trying the same thing.
Mr Griffith Price Wyn QC, for the defence, said his client had no money,
was full of remorse, a character of no importance, with
no criminal record, here, or in any other country.
The jury were out for two hours, one minute.
‘We find the defendant guilty.’
The judge, Mr Justice Griffith Wyn Price, looked up, and spoke.
‘In my time as a High Court judge,
I haven’t come across a case as bizarre,
as terrible as this. The jury have found you guilty
by a majority of ten to two.
You are to get the maximum sentence I can handout - ten years, without parole,
to be detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure
in an anthology of vanity publishing‘
adding, in a grim tone, ‘I repeat, without parole; take it away.’
‘The rat in a hat hit the cat with a mat’ was taken away
in handcuffs, by two prison officers, one a woman.
The two barristers picked up their paperwork, put pen in pocket,
arranging to meet for dinner in Crickhowell that night in The Bear.
