In my late teens I lived in Somerville, a gentrifying suburb of Boston. I had a speed freak for a neighbour called Billy, who was irrationally protective of his car. If you walked near it, he'd run out shouting, "Don't fuck with the car." One day there was a commotion at Billy's. I went to investigate. Billy was naked and running around his house breaking all the windows. Later, as Billy was being pushed to the ambulance strapped to a trolley, he lifted his head, stopped gibbering and, in a moment of earnest clarity said to his wife, "Look after my car."
Many would agree with Billy's priorities. They see the car as the one thing that represents their identity and status—a constant in a demoralising world. A shiny new car is a symbol of success and prowess. Only the reckless mess with someone's motor.
The problem facing me in court was to show that Hassan hadn't been reckless with an electric blue Volkswagen Golf. On the way to a suburban train station, a drunk befriended Hassan and then tried to rob him. As he was escaping down the street, Hassan saw a woman standing in front of a house. "Call the police!" he shouted and raced behind the Volkswagen Golf parked in her driveway. It was so shiny his worried face reflected in the bonnet. Seeing Hassan near the car provoked the woman. "Get away from the car," she shouted.
She was even less happy when the drunk arrived with a bump on the other side of the car. Hassan asked for the police more insistently. She suggested he use the payphone on the corner. The drunk started to chase Hassan around the car, first one way and then the other. Round and round they went, banging the sides of the car as they ran. The woman kept shouting. From time to time the drunk got tired and collapsed on the car to get his breath back.
The facts at this point are disputed. The woman thinks Hassan said, "Call the police or I'll do your car." In criminal law this is known as a "verbal." Hassan, having noticed she was more worried about the car than about him, claims that he said, "Call the police or your car will get damaged."
When the police arrived, the drunk was arrested. Hassan was too magnanimous to press charges, so the drunk was released. The woman and her husband were not magnanimous. There was damage to their car, or, as she put it, to his pride and joy. Hassan was charged with criminal damage.
Criminal damage is not usually a serious matter, but in this case it led to a magistrates' court trial costing thousands of pounds. In his evidence, Hassan accepted that he may have scratched the car, but claimed that any damage caused was accidental. The prosecution relied on Hassan's alleged verbal of how he was going "to do" the car to show intention. The law hedges its bets: Hassan would be guilty if he was found to have damaged the car intentionally. He would also be guilty if it was found that his actions were reckless, that is, if he had been aware that he might damage the car and yet had continued to act as he did.
In 2003, the House of Lords clarified the law on recklessness in criminal damage by adding an extra element. If a person is judged to have acted recklessly, the court must then consider whether in the circumstances that the person found himself it was reasonable to take that risk even though he was aware of it. The question the magistrates had to consider was whether Hassan's actions in the circumstances at the time were reasonable even if they were strictly speaking reckless. After a long retirement, they found that although Hassan's actions had caused the damage, he had not acted recklessly.
"What does that mean?" whispered Hassan. "It means you've won," I whispered back. Hassan was delighted. He floated out of the courtroom. As he was tripping up the stairs to the main exit, the car owner confronted him. The man was insensible with rage, jabbing his finger at Hassan and screaming, "You said you scratched my car." He couldn't understand how Hassan had been acquitted. I stepped between them expecting to be punched. The man was like crazy Billy back in Boston.
I bellowed for security. They dragged him away long enough for me to get Hassan back into the courtroom, past the startled magistrates and out through a side entrance.
In the car park Hassan pointed to a blue Volkswagen Golf. "That's his car," he said cheerfully. There it was—the object of all the trouble. Hassan went to examine the Golf's paintwork. I remembered Billy. He'd know what to say in a situation like this. "Hassan," I called, "don't fuck with the car."
