From the Gallery

I sat in the public gallery, high above the courtroom, and held the rail with both hands. I had never watched a trial before.

Below me, a young man stood between two guards. The court heard that he had stolen jewellery worth thousands of pounds from a locked shop. The police had arrested him at his home, three streets away, an hour after the alarm.

The lawyer for the man stood up. He said his client had been at home all night. He said the evidence was weak, and that the broken lock could have been broken by anyone.

The other lawyer disagreed. She told the court that a witness had seen the man near the shop. She said his fingerprints were on the glass. To me, that sounded bad. He must have touched it, I thought. He might have been there after all.

I watched the man's face. He looked calm, but his hands were shaking. He must be frightened, I told myself. Anyone would be.

The judge asked the jury to leave the room and decide. The legal arguments were finished. Now it was their turn.

An hour later, the jury came back. They found him not guilty. The witness, it turned out, had been wrong about the time, and the fingerprints were from a visit to the shop the week before.

The judge ordered his release. The young man closed his eyes. As I left the gallery, I thought about how sure I had been — and how wrong.