Original subtitles

[tense music]

[birds squawking]

[Hope] Claire wanted to travel.

[gentle music]

Claire wanted to see the world.

- She had talked about going to Scotland.

I was like, "Yeah, that'd be fantastic."

- She seemed happy and I get it,

because it's beautiful there.

- Everything was supposed to be fine.

She was a good member of the community.

She had friends.

She was walking dogs.

There was nothing in my mind that something like this would,

would, would happen.

[siren wailing]

- I've been at various serious incidents.

But it's very unusual to have a murderer in Shetland.

Murders don't happen very much here.

[Operator] What's the emergency there?

[Caller] She's desperately, desperately hurt.

She's bleeding -

[Operator] Where is she?

[Caller] ...and dying in a hot tub.

[Clint] I called Scotland police and my first question was,

"Is my daughter alive?"

[Iain] 15 people are picked at random.

- You, as jurors, will decide whether or not their charges

are proved on the evidence presented in the trial.

- The jury has a lot to consider.

I can't guess what that verdict will be.

[Louise] She sold everything she owned to come to Shetland.

[Claire] Crazy.

- She's got a boyfriend, she's got a fast car,

and she's dead in a matter of months.

- It was just another day for her.

She had no idea what was coming.

[Jenny] It is every parent's absolute waking nightmare.

[music intensifies]

[bell tolls]

[tense music]

- Murder is probably the most serious allegation

that anybody can face.

[tense music continues]

- In court number one,

His Majesty's advocate against Aren Bylot Pearson.

- I'm an Advocate Depute in Scotland.

My job is to prove to the jury

that Aren Pearson killed Claire Leveque.

[sombre music]

[Clerk] Court.

[Court official] Call the diet, His Majesty’s Advocate

against Aren Bylot Pearson.

Have a seat, please.

- You are, as jurors,

the judges of the facts of the case.

You must not be swayed by any emotional considerations

or any prejudice or any revulsion which you might have.

- The jury are critical.

The jury decide the evidence.

They decide what is reliable, that is accurate evidence.

That is their function.

- Every accused is presumed innocent until proved guilty.

The crown must establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

[sombre music continues]

- The charges against Aren Bylot Pearson

are that, one...

- In order to prove murder,

the Crown has to prove that Aren Pearson

either intended to kill Claire Leveque,

or what he did was so wickedly reckless

that he had no care for the consequences of his actions.

- Whereby she was so severely injured

that she died there and he did murder her.

- I represent Aren Pearson at his trial.

The point of a trial is that the Crown

lay before a jury an allegation,

and that allegation in this case is murder.

There is no onus on an accused person to disprove the case.

The Crown have to prove the case.

- I now invite the Advocate Depute

to open the Crown case.

Advocate Depute.

- Thank you, my Lord.

The first witness for the Crown is number 38 on the Crown list.

Dana Jamieson, my Lord.

[Judge] Thank you.

- Would you please raise your right hand and repeat after me?

I swear by Almighty God.

- I swear by Almighty God.

- That I will tell the truth.

- The whole truth.

- And nothing but the truth.

[wind blowing softly]

[birds squawking]

[sombre music]

- Shetland is absolutely beautiful.

There's some sort of magic and mystery.

It's quite a peaceful place.

You might not bump into someone

for a whole day walking in Shetland.

- When Claire graduated,

she wanted to go be a psychologist,

so she wanted to take the time off

and just kind of grow as a person.

- She was excited.

When she first got there

she was sending videos and pictures, and...

[indistinct chatter]

I had always dreamed of going there myself,

so it was kind of fun

to vicariously live through her and her adventure.

- Claire arrives in Shetland

with a man that she has fallen in love with.

But it's about to end in terrible, terrible tragedy.

[sombre music]

- Good afternoon, Miss Jamieson.

I'm going to ask you some questions today.

Now, on the 11th of February of 2024,

at around 5-to-5 that evening,

were you made aware that a 999 telephone call

had been received in respect of an incident

at Sandness in Shetland

- Yes. Yeah.

- What I'd like to do now is to introduce

the 999 telephone call into evidence.

- Thank you.

- In this case, I think the most impactful piece of evidence

is the 999 call made by Janet Pearson.

Aren Pearson's mother.

[telephone rings]

[Operator] Police. What's the address of the emergency?

[Janet] Ringville.

[Operator] Ringville?

[Jenny] Yes. Sandness, Shetland.

[Operator] What's the emergency there?

[Janet] It's my son.

[Janet sobs]

He's just...

...he's hurt his girlfriend.

Um...

she's desperately, desperately hurt...

...she's bleeding.

[Operator] Where is the girlfriend at the moment?

[Janet] She's bleeding -

[Operator] Where is she?

[Janet] ...and dying in a hot tub in the shed.

[Operator] Hot tub.

Right, the line's going to go silent, do not hang up.

I will be back to you, do not hang up.

[Janet breathing heavily]

[bell tolls]

- In the summer of 23, Claire met Aren Pearson.

[sombre music]

The connection was her previous boyfriend.

It was one of his friends.

But we never met him.

- Claire didn't tell me that she was seeing this guy

until she was already in Scotland.

Probably because I would not have encouraged her

to go to Scotland with a man she had just recently met.

Especially given the age range.

He's 15 years older.

It's pretty freaking weird.

[Jenny] I love this one.

- Yeah, that's in the backyard at grandma's.

The only thing I was told is, "I'm moving to Scotland."

and it all happened so quick

and I thought everything was fine.

[sombre music continues]

- The couple arrive in the small village of Sandness

and they move into the house with Aren's elderly mum.

[telephone rings]

[Operator] Hi there.

[Janet] Hi.

[Operator] Tell me what's happened, please.

[Aren] She's dead. The car's in the ocean.

[Janet] He says he's killed his girlfriend...

...and he drove his car into the ocean.

He's had some kind of a...

...an attack.

A psychotic -

[Operator] I thought you said she was in the hot tub?

[Janet] Hot tub is full of blood.

And I don't recognise her, she's so badly beaten up.

[Operator] So she is in the hot tub?

[Janet] She was alive at the time, she was moaning.

[Operator] Are you able to go and check if she's alive?

[Janet] I don't want to...

...I don't want to go.

- Now, whilst you were en route,

were you made aware that the person who called 999

was still on the phone to the operator?

- I think there was more information coming in

as we were going along.

[siren wailing]

[traffic rumbling]

When the call initially came in,

it was still relatively light outside.

[melancholic music]

But during our drive out to Sandness, it got really dark.

We were aware of a call coming in

about a male having stabbed a female.

It was a pretty unusual job.

We don't often get incidents like this here.

When something's happening, it's a live situation.

You just kick into gear and deal with it.

I mean, where's the knife at?

Where's he at?

Is he still alive?

[siren wailing]

[Aren] Hello?

[Operator] Hello?

[Aren] Hi, my name is Aren Pearson.

[Operator] And who are you?

[Aren] I just killed my girlfriend

in a hot tub in the garage...

at Ringville the Annexe, Sandness.

[Operator] What's your girlfriend's name?

[Aren] Claire Leveque.

I stabbed her about forty times.

Uh, in the heart and in the stomach.

and in the face and in the neck and in the back...

...and, uh, I'm covered in blood.

[sombre music continues]

- It was horrific.

I remember sitting there thinking,

"It can't get any worse than this."

And it got so much worse.

[Aren] I stabbed myself in the neck four times...

...I don't know why I'm still alive,

I should be dead.

I'll go and stab myself.

[Operator] Don't do that.

[Aren] No, no, no.

Like I can't live with the fact...

...I just killed my stupid [beep] of a girlfriend.

She drank too much and acted like an idiot and pissed me off.

I drove my Porsche right into the ocean...

...it's gone.

Er...

...I've got not much blood left.

Yeah, she is dead. I definitely killed her.

Bye-bye, have a good day. Bye.

[eerie music]

- Admissions can be made

when an individual is under the influence of something,

drink, drugs,

they've been involved in a traumatic event,

they're upset.

So these admissions can be challenged in the court.

Now, Mr. Pearson's position is that he had been involved

what he said was a traumatic event.

And, explained that he can't recollect that 999 call.

- Now, Miss Jamieson, when you arrived,

what did you see?

[camera shutter snapping]

- Well, the hot tub was on my left hand side.

Um, the male was in the hot tub,

and I could see that there was another body in the tub.

- How did that person present?

- Lifeless.

I think she was floating on her back.

I could see, like, cuts on her face.

[siren wailing]

I just thought she had passed away.

There wasn't any movement or anything.

She was floating in the water,

the water being this horrible black looking colour.

I think I was just dealing with the matter at hand.

We had to get him under control

and preserve life if we could.

[tense music]

- Now, did your colleague, PC Simpson,

did he ask the male to come out of the hot tub?

- Yes.

[Margaret] Thank you very much.

[tense music continues]

Good afternoon,

are you Police Constable Kevin Simpson?

- Yes I am.

[Margaret] What did you say to this individual?

- I told him to stand up and show me his hands.

- And when you got a better view,

what could you see in the hot tub?

- I could see that the hot tub waters were dark, nearly black,

and there was a female figure, clothed,

er, nearly fully submerged within the waters.

- Did the man remain in the hot tub?

- Yes, I had had my taser aimed at him

with the red dots now on his chest,

and I was instructing him to stand up and get out.

[suspenseful music]

- He sat there in the hot tub for God knows how long,

holding her in her own blood.

Just sitting there, with her corpse.

[Court official] Mr. Patterson has some questions.

- Now, officer,

would you agree that he was asked to get out of the hot tub

and he did so?

- Not immediately.

- Would you agree that when he was asked to go onto his knees,

he did that?

- At this point, once he's stood up to get out,

he's showed positive behaviour change

and was following what PC Glendenning

and myself would have been telling him.

- Right.

It's important if an individual who is being detained

or arrested by the police is compliant,

and he may have been swearing a little bit at you

and your colleagues at times.

Would you accept that?

- Yes.

But we'd have to accept that he fully complied

with you and your colleagues.

Correct?

- Uh, after the initial, yes, he has.

- Thank you.

Mr. Pearson complied,

so it is very important to give a view to the jury about his

state of mind at the time.

[gentle music]

- There's things that I see that remind me of her

every day.

This building right here,

that's where my daughter was born,

and my wife and I brought her to our little apartment here

where we first lived.

Little two-bedroom place in here.

In the top corner we had a little balcony.

[Kathleen] Hey, is Claire going home?

[giggles]

First day home.

- Where did the time go?

[Kathleen] There's Claire and her daddy.

Oh. She's tired.

Time for a nap.

[gentle music continues]

- Claire was my big sister.

Yeah, there was no one like Claire.

She gave me a bit of a path to follow as a young child,

and her and my mother,

we shared a lot of fond memories together.

- Her smile was captivating.

She would just bring light into the room that she was in.

I could see a lot of her,

her mother in her.

Her mother had unconditional love for her.

She was always there for her, always someone to talk to.

[applause]

[Woman] Mr. and Mrs. Leveque.

[laughter and applause]

- My wife was very close to both my kids.

My wife was excellent.

- Claire's mom, Kathleen,

was like a second mom to me growing up.

It was really special.

But when Claire and I were in high school,

her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer.

[indistinct chatter]

- One of the biggest things that impacted Claire

was back in 2019

when her mom passed away with breast cancer.

[sombre music]

- She did struggle.

Claire was very broken for a very long period of time.

I know, after high school her mental health got worse.

- She was a big part of Claire's life,

and it was a terrible, terrible loss

the way that, that, that she passed away.

It was, uh, I would say, quite traumatic for her.

[sombre music continues]

- Claire was mentally strong,

but she's been through a lot losing mother to cancer,

so she went to Scotland to get away and clear her mind, maybe.

- It was hard to see how much she was hurting

and like it was something Claire never truly,

truly, ever really recovered from.

- When she did leave to Scotland,

it was very sudden.

I didn't even really get a chance to say goodbye to her

when she left.

And I was frustrated with her.

I was frustrated with her to not...

to not say goodbye.

[sombre music continues]

- Well, you obviously want to preserve the scene.

It was kind of a mess.

Kind of stuff everywhere.

- It was a difficult place to live.

It wasn't a place that was well ordered.

- There was bottles of alcohol in there, too.

Aren had said he'd drunken a bottle of brake fluid

and stabbed himself.

We did see marks on his chest area and neck area,

but it didn't look like they were serious wounds.

[gentle music]

Me and a colleague transferred Mr. Pearson in the ambulance

to the Gilbert Bain Hospital in Lerwick.

[Margaret] Roughly what time did you get to the hospital?

- About 20:20 hours that evening.

- Did he say anything to you?

- Yes, he made, um, several, several comments.

- Um, what did he say?

- "I know exactly what I did.

I said it on the phone call to police, I'm fucked."

- An admission is very helpful evidence,

however, it's not enough.

I have to be able to establish beyond a reasonable doubt

that Aren Pearson not only killed Claire Leveque

but that he murdered her.

[suspenseful music]

- In the dock, Aren Pearson wept

as he listened to the recording of his mother,

who died earlier this year.

At one point, Aren Pearson's voice can be heard

saying that he'd stabbed Claire Leveque about 40 times.

- In order to prove this case, I need to build up a narrative.

What was happening in the daily lives

of Aren Pearson and Claire Leveque?

[suspenseful music continues]

[intriguing music]

My Lord, I intend to, to play the CCTV.

In this case, we have CCTV showing the accused

and Claire Leveque prior to the incident on 11th February.

At the time you can see them in the CCTV.

Neither one is injured.

[Hope] Him and Claire ended up going out and going to the store

to grab a couple things and a bottle of alcohol.

[Margaret] A white bottle with a gold coloured top.

[gentle music]

- When I first see the footage,

it was so hard to keep it together in the courtroom,

but it was kind of nice because, like,

I got to see Claire again.

[Margaret] I just continue to play that.

- It was just another day for her, you know.

And you can see the little pep in the step in the one clip.

And I'm sitting here and it's like

she had no idea what was coming.

[gentle music continues]

[soft music]

- Every day there's something that triggers my mind.

I was robbed.

Everybody was.

- Claire was funny.

She was an adventurer.

She was never wanting to sit still.

[soft music continues]

- I had the privilege of knowing Claire and being friends with

and even being part of her family,

since we were about four years old.

Hi.

- Good to see you.

- Good to see you as well.

Her family did wonderful things for me,

and our friendship never ended after we finished school.

It's hard, it still feels fresh

and... they say time heals but I feel this one...

- I know.

[soft music continues]

- I, I can't begin to comprehend

what Clint must be going through.

But he is a very strong man

and he is going to fight for his daughter

tooth and nail, as he has been.

- What makes me most angry is that I didn’t see any signs.

I thought things were fine.

- Mr. Leveque, how did Claire feel about going to Scotland?

- Very, very excited and adventurous.

[gentle music]

- Did she tell you about any injuries or anything like that

- that she may have sustained? [Clint] Nothing at all.

- Otherwise, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.

- Now I want to move on now, Mr Leveque,

to the 11th of February of 2024.

- Okay.

- Did you receive any messages?

- I did.

- And who were the messages from?

- From Aren.

- And at this time,

did you have any concerns about Claire?

- Absolutely.

[gentle music continues]

- We were heading back from the city,

and I was driving and he started getting these texts

stating that Claire was intoxicated

and his mom was, you know, getting annoyed with her.

[message chimes]

[Clint] He says he's sending her back in business class

with $250,000.

- Aren Pearson would tell anyone who wanted to listen

that he was a Bitcoin millionaire,

that he had so much money that life was going to be no problem.

But he had tick in the local shop.

You can't be a bitcoin millionaire

and be owing money in your local shop

because you can't afford your milk.

- He's full of shit.

I wasn't buying anything that comes out of his mouth.

- Then we received a message

stating they had put her to sleep

and she had some grilled cheese,

and they were taking care of her.

[message chimes]

Clint was confused.

He was texting back and saying, "Well get her to call me."

[messages chime]

- Something's not right here.

I found that kinda weird because that’s just not my daughter.

If my daughter was coming home, she’d tell me.

- Good afternoon, Mr Leveque.

I just have a couple of questions for you

on the 11th of February of 2024,

did you have a telephone call or a voice call with Aren Pearson?

- No.

- You didn't have a call, a voice call, an audio call?

- No.

[tense music]

- We have some records which suggest

that there was a one minute, 53 second audio call that day.

- Don’t remember it.

And if it did happen, like I said, I was...

I've been in shock for a year and a half.

- Well, the phone call was one minute, 53 seconds.

Mr. Leveque said that he couldn't remember that.

I suppose there's a decision that can be made there,

and of course, remembering that

Mr. Pearson was accused of murdering his daughter,

so I thought it was not necessary to press the point.

I've got no more questions, thank you.

- Thank you.

[tense music continues]

- After Clint was done testifying,

he came back and he was sitting with his family, with us,

and he was like, "Where is he?"

I said, "He's right here."

[tense music continues]

- He wasn't facing me,

he... alls I could see is the ba... back of him.

And then I kinda recognised and put it together

that it really was him.

- Advocate Depute.

- Thank you My Lord.

Next witness is number seven on the crown list,

Ryley LaFrance.

- The reason why I went to Scotland

to give witness testimony,

I thought I could feel a little bit closer to Claire...

- Would you please raise your right hand and repeat after me?

I swear by Almighty God.

- ...one last time.

- I'm going to ask you to look at a document

with us, Mr. LaFrance.

It's a record of the interrogation

of various mobile telephones and messages that were found.

Do you understand that?

- Yes.

- Do you see a date 28th November 2023?

- Yes.

- Thank you.

And do you see that as a contact from Claire Leveque to yourself?

- Correct. Yes.

- And does it say, "We need to talk?"

- Uh, yes it does.

- "Just some shit happened

and I don't know which direction to go.

I feel lost.

I just need some advice.

I'm leaving soon, for sure,

but I don't know if I should stay with him

or go back to Canada or WTF to do."

Is that what that says?

- Yes it does.

- Now, after that message, did you speak with Claire?

- Yes.

She had talked about how

she was being struck by the accused, Aren Pearson,

and, um,

and that she was scared of him.

- Now, in that phone call, do you remember how she sounded?

- She sounded quite, quite, quite scared.

- What do you mean?

- Like, just, just scared for her safety, I would say.

[eerie music]

The next day, she... she said that everything was fine,

that everything was okay,

and that everything was worked out.

"Don't worry about what I said last night.

I thought about what you said, and I'm a little at fault.

We are getting along and sorting things out.

Still unsure how to move forward and have a good future,

but I'm trying to make good choices."

In my gut though, I just knew something wasn't right

and, uh, I was quite concerned with that.

- The rumour that I heard from a few good sources

was that Clare didn't have access to her passport.

She didn't have access to her own money.

So anything she did,

she did because he allowed her to do that.

[eerie music]

- Now I want to turn now to page 31.

- The next piece of evidence that's getting brought up

is a audio recording that Claire had taken

of an argument between her and the accused.

- My lord, it does contain the voice

of the deceased Claire Leveque,

as well as the voice of Aren Pearson.

The recording, made in December of 2023,

is a key piece of evidence

in trying to establish that the incident on 11th of February

was not an isolated incident.

[tense music]

So this is Crown label number 46,

and if that can be started, please.

[Claire] You beat the shit out of me on my 24th birthday.

[Aren] That was the second time.

[Claire] Yeah, I know it was.

So why?

[Aren] I hardly remember all the details...

...I just know for sure that you were being a fucking -

[Claire] How?

[Aren] ...little brat.

And you were pissing me off.

Just stop it.

[Claire] Whatever.

[Aren] I'll give you $100,000.

[Claire] I'm not allowed to have a say?

[Aren] I'll give you $100,000...

...and send you the fuck out of here. Okay?

- You can imagine that Claire made every excuse under the sun

in the beginning for Aren's behaviour,

until she couldn't take it anymore.

[Claire] I came here, I left everything behind for you.

You pissed my bed, you ruined it!

[Aren] Shut up!

[Claire] I love you.

[Aren] Love you too.

- Him trying to walk out of the courtroom was just unbelievable.

The bailiff grabbed him and sat him back down,

and good, he has to hear it.

[Aren] And you know what else?

[Claire] Would you hit me?

[Aren] Because you were being a total fucking drunk fucking...

You're lucky I didn't gash your fucking head in, okay?

[Claire] You hit me yesterday.

You hit me three times.

You beat the shit out of me twice.

[Aren] Yeah, I did.

And the first two fucking times, you fucking had it coming.

You fucking know you did.

You asked for it.

[Claire] You're gonna kill me.

- In my mind, I'm sitting there and I'm like,

"You had everything you needed to go to the police."

That video made me realise how truly afraid she was out there.

[Claire] You told me you wanted...

...you said you wanted to send me away.

[Aren] I don't want to send you away...

...but I have to send you away.

because you are too fucking [beeps] when you drink...

...that you turn into this complete idiot

that asks for beatings.

- That is so risky,

sitting there and taking a recording that,

and keeping it for as long as she did.

That was so risky, but so brave of her.

[tense music]

- I have heard accounts of women

who tell me that Aren Pearson

had always been violent in relationships,

and in some cases had beaten women up so badly

that they needed hospital treatment.

[Woman] This is Aren, nickname Arnold.

Do you know how to Zoom?

Oh yeah, I know how to Zoom alright.

Oh, look at this eye.

Creepy.

[water running]

- I first met Aren when I was a kid.

He was dating my mom.

[gentle music]

[Woman] Look at that nice kiss.

[laughter]

- Beautiful.

- He was always kind to me.

He was like a father-figure for four years.

[Woman] Alyssa and her stepdaddy, Aren.

- He would help me with my homework.

He would, um, come to all my birthdays,

we would spend Christmases together.

[Woman] Look at the kitty, Alyssa.

[Aren] That little kitty.

[gentle music continues]

Love you, baby.

- Where I remember my mom and Aren breaking up

was very sudden.

While I was up in my room,

my mom and Aren had gotten in an argument.

[water running]

My mom had slapped him,

and then he had said,

"Slap me one more time and you know,

I can legally punch you out" kind of thing.

My mom slapped him again,

and then he had just full-strength,

punched her right in the face,

and she had knocked a tooth out.

[gentle music continues]

And it was supposed to go to court,

but my mom did not follow through with going to court

because she said she just didn't want to deal with the drama.

She just didn't want to deal with all of that stuff.

She was just going to forget about it.

[tense music]

- Aren Pearson had been charged with seven counts

of low level drug use, assault

and of various other misdemeanours in Canada.

Not all of those charges made it to court,

and some of them were withdrawn.

And then here we have Claire,

who’s now moved in to this wee house in Sandness with him.

[tense music continues]

Claire pinned all her dreams on this man,

but Aren Pearson was a liar.

This wonderful life that Claire had been led to believe

that she was going to live

when she moved to Shetland with Aren Pearson

was far from the truth.

[suspenseful music]

- Court!

[Judge] Thank you, Advocate Depute.

- Thank you, my lord.

Doctor Robert Ainsworth is the pathologist, my lord,

and will be speaking to the post-mortem examination

of Clare Leveque.

Now, what I will do is actually have the body map,

um, produced, if I might just step away.

[suspenseful music ends]

The body map shows the position of the injuries

to Clare Leveque's head, her face,

her back and her chest.

And there are severe and significant injuries.

[eerie music]

- I was shocked because I was like,

"That's horrific."

- Now, did you understand that the body map has been produced

following a series of photographs

that had been taken at post mortem.

[Robert] Yes.

- Thank you.

[eerie music continues]

[Aren sobbing]

- Mr Pearson, do you want a break?

It's important the Jury hears this without distraction.

[Man] Correct.

[Clerk] Court!

[eerie music intensifies]

[tense music]

- Doctor Ainsworth, you found on examination

that Claire Leveque had

55 either injuries or sites of injury, is that correct?

- Yes.

And that's included at least 26 stab wounds.

Is that correct?

- Yes, there are at least 19 stab wounds

to the head and neck region.

The final cause of death were stab wounds of neck and chest.

- They found a minimum of 55 injuries to her,

and the tip of the knife had been broken off in her skull.

- There was a very small metallic fragment, um,

in the depths of that wound

within the right frontal bone of the skull.

[tense music continues]

- Erm, I want just to have a look at erm, a photograph.

One of those sites of injury,

um, is not terribly clear from the body map.

And that is what's called a defensive injury

to Claire's hand.

In order to lead that evidence,

I will show a photograph taken at post-mortem.

Now you make reference to a through and through stab wound.

What do you mean by that?

- Yes.

So an injury that has entered on one side,

continues through the soft tissues

and out of the other side of the left index finger.

- If somebody is being assaulted with a knife,

is it the position of the injury

that would indicate that a defensive type of injury?

- Yes.

So an entirely normal reaction

would be to try and deflect it somehow.

Um, and often that would involve the hands or arms

trying to protect the face.

[sombre music]

- When the forensics evidence came up, it was really hard.

and I'm glad that Clint wasn't there for that.

It was rough.

- I spent most of my time outside

because I will not see those kind of photographs.

I will not hear that kind of...

violence that’s done to my daughter.

I don't need to see the...

see that first in my life.

- Yeah.

- Don’t need... don’t need it.

- Okay.

[sombre music continues]

[door closes]

- There can be challenging evidence in any criminal trial,

of course there can be.

But the function of the defence lawyer

is to try and put a different aspect to that evidence,

if they can.

- Doctor Ainsworth,

could any of these injuries have been self-inflicted?

- Um,

could they in principle have been self-inflicted?

Yes.

However, the fact that there were

numerous injuries to the face,

the stab through the finger, um, on the left hand

would be an unusual self-inflicted injury.

The overall pattern here

would not be consistent with self-infliction in my opinion.

- What I took from his testimony was that it was not impossible.

Um, so from that perspective, we have a possibility,

and of course, all that I'm endeavouring to do

is to ask questions of this witness

which may raise doubt in the minds of the jury.

[tense music]

You can't absolutely discount that, though, can you?

- I think it would be unrealistic to suggest

that at least a number of these injuries were self-inflicted.

However, in fairness,

they were at locations that were in principle accessible

and therefore in theory, could be self-inflicted.

[bell tolls]

- Thank you. Good morning, My Lord.

Mr. Pearson is to give evidence.

- You are innocent until you're proven guilty.

[dramatic music]

[Jenny] I guess he thinks he can win over the jury,

- Mr. Pearson. - Yes?

- This is a very tragic set of events.

But what you can't do, members of the jury,

is bring emotions into your decision making.

- We've been through a lot in the last few years

fighting for justice for her.

- She then looked at me,

looked at the knife

and stuck it in her stomach.

- It's clear that the defence position is going to be

that Claire Leveque stabbed herself.

- I saw the jury cry,

I saw the jury in shock.

- If you were to pause or hesitate...

- You murdered Claire Leveque, didn’t you?

- How many times do I need to repeat myself now?

- Your duty is then to acquit.

- Members of the jury,

have you reached your verdict?

- Yes.

[dramatic music ends]

[gentle music]