Newt put the statement down and exhaled.
“I know it possibly won’t mean much but he was so sorry, Newt.”
Newt nodded.
“The hospice told me you went to see him before he died.”
“Twice. We took him out to look at the sea the first time. He ate a few chips and a bit of fish.” He looked directly at the lawyer and let out a shaky breath. “I forgave him.”
The lawyer nodded. “That was very kind.”
“It meant a lot to him and it helped me too.” He swallowed hard. “We went again on the day he died. I had a call from the hospice. No one in the family would go. The fucking bas…sorry. I held him as he passed away.”
“I am very sorry for your loss.”
“He was a good brother until…” Newt blinked the tears from his eyes. “What now? Does the confession make any difference to me?”
“It’s new evidence. Lawyers can act on your behalf to petition for an appeal. The grounds being that the original conviction was unsafe due to this new information. They’d have to argue for the document’s admissibility in court but it was drawn up with that possibility in mind. It might be argued that Phelan knew he was dying and lied to try and help you get your criminal record expunged.”
Newt sucked in his cheeks. He hadn’t thought about that. The brief hope he’d felt as he’d read the confession began to disintegrate. His parents and Sean would deny everything.
“Don’t lose hope. Your age when this happened, your refusal to let any of your family visit while you were inside, your rejection of any correspondence they sent you, your insistence on changing your name, your reaction to your brother and father when they tried to collect you the day of your release…”
“You know about that?”
“I made enquiries. It all goes in your favour. The police clearly didn’t investigate thoroughly enough. Why would you jeopardise A levels you’d studied so hard for? There were comments made about you being mistreated by your father. Your pastoral teacher spoke out on your behalf. What doesn’t work so well for you is that although you mostly stayed silent, you did plead guilty. Did your family or the police coerce or threaten you?”
“The police were convinced I’d done it. I didn’t talk and they kept pushing me to tell them everything. The evidence was all against me. My family wanted to save Phelan. They chose him over me. He’d have been in prison for a long time and they thought I’d only serve three years in a young offenders’ institute. That was the assumption before the victim had the fatal heart attack.”
“I’m trying to see a reason why you’d sacrifice yourself.”
Newt sagged. “In part, because I’d been so completely set up. Even to the point of gunshot residue on my hands. I looked guilty. I couldn’t see a way out. But I also did it for Phelan. He was everything to me. I was the son my mother didn’t want. She was desperate for a daughter. She neglectedme and Phelan looked after me. I was very unlike my brothers. They were loud and boisterous, really into cars. I liked reading and music. Phelan was kind. The only person in my family who was.”
His eyes filled with tears and he brushed them away.
“The report from your school was excellent. Your teachers couldn’t believe it of you. You were clever, hardworking, trustworthy, respectful, and just about to take your A levels for which you were projected to get top grades.”
Newt huffed. “I was going to run away on my birthday. I had a place at York Uni, if my exams went well. A future planned. Everything stopped that night.”
He took a deep breath. “I wanted to be a child psychologist. I had this idea about helping kids who had crap lives. I didn’t know that a criminal record would destroy my dreams. I can’t ever work with children. I can’t go abroad without permission—for the next seven years anyway, and some countries would never allow me entry. No one wanted to give me a job. It was a miracle I found the one I have. The guy who offered me work was the first person not to ask if I had a criminal record.”
“I don’t know many young men who would have done what you did.” The lawyer’s voice was kind but it made Newt feel even more pathetic.
“I was weak and stupid.” The breath caught in his throat.
“A little foolish, but it was a brave thing to do. And now you’ve been recalled because you were involved in a shooting incident. Something that most likely wouldn’t have led to you being in here had you not gone to prison in place of your brother.”
Newt nodded. “I thought you were my lawyer come to talk about that.”
“I’ll give her a call. She could follow through with all of this. You’re the sole beneficiary in your brother’s will. Witnessed by two employees of my firm. It can take three to six months to be settled and Phelan wanted you have money sooner than that. As executor, I can give you an interim payment. Do you have a bank account?”
“Yes, but I can’t remember my account number. My card is in my wallet. The prison took that.”
The lawyer showed him a cheque. “I’ll ask that this is put with your things.”
Newt gasped. “Ten thousand pounds?”
“There will be more, but this is to help you out immediately. In addition, Phelan set aside a sum of thirty thousand for me to handle your appeal and find a lawyer to act on your behalf.”
