For the record, Richard Carvath has never been a resident of Royal Wootton Bassett. He did have a base south of Bassett at the time of the December 2019 trial at Swindon Crown Court.
Back in 2019, Richard was banned from not one but two counties – Devon and Nottinghamshire.
(That Devon ban made Cornwall rather challenging too.)
It was barrister Frances Pencheon who succeeded in having the trial switched from Exeter to Swindon.
An amusing incident happened during the trial.
On Friday the 13th of December, after Richard had finished in the witness box, everybody went home.
Can you guess what happened next?
Well, Devon detective DC Kate Poole (the OIC) found herself stuck in a lift with some of the jurors.
The jurors and the detective were stuck in the lift for several minutes.
(One had to pity Poole that week. She had already had to endure David Madge and his sister self-destructing in the witness box, followed by her boss DI Sally Wootton making a complete fool of herself, followed by having to admit to the jury that David Madge had been arrested on suspicion of rape of a child under 13, that one boy was found to have had molluscum contagiosum on his bum, and that another boy told police that Mr Madge would “wee-wee” in his mouth.)
This could have led to the judge ordering a re-trial, but Richard – a good judge of character – knew that Kate wasn’t the type to be naughty in the lift . . . and so the trial proceeded to Richard’s acquittal.
Richard Carvath 