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‘You don’t think they deserved an opportunity?’ he asked.
‘Quite the backtrack from what you were saying earlier. You gave us the impression that they were all beyond hope and that they’d sucked the blood from your body and ruined your life.’
‘I only recommended early release to the boys I felt genuinely deserved it,’ he said, shifting in his seat.
‘Okay, let’s play along with the bullshit you’re trying to feed me. You’re saying you felt that Eric had learned his lesson about hitting girls who didn’t do what they were told?’
‘I felt he’d made progress.’
‘And you believed that Paul Brooks deserved special treatment after a sexual assault?’
‘He was genuinely remorseful.’
‘Was Nathan Yates equally as remorseful about sexually assaulting a minor?’
‘He really thought she was older.’
‘She was eight. Did he think she was ten?’
His lips thinned.
‘And Dean Newton…’
‘Inspector, you can ask me about all of them if you want to waste your time, but I can tell you that I had valid reasons for recommending leniency for every boy I put my name behind.’
‘Even Ian Perkins, who killed his brother either because of sexual abuse or a PlayStation game. Who knows?’
His face crumpled in confusion. He was obviously one of the many plebs Dean Newton had been referring to when saying everyone had swallowed Ian’s story.
‘I don’t know anything about a PlayStation game, but I did feel that Ian’s violence was a one-time thing. I didn’t feel he was a danger to anyone.’
‘Even though he was the ringleader of that band of merry little men?’
He opened his hands. ‘My job was to form an opinion after spending time with them. Mine wasn’t the only judgement considered when making final decisions on early release dates.’
‘So you took each case on its own merit?’
‘Of course.’
‘And you stand by that?’
‘I do.’
‘So why, in the five years from the start to the end of your time assessing these boys, did no other prisoner receive a positive recommendation from you?’
Colour began to drain from his face. ‘I don’t think that’s correct.’
‘It is. We checked. Not one other boy had an early release recommended.’
He shook his head.
She stood. ‘Okay, we’ll show the records to your old supervisor, see if they can explain.’
‘Wait, wait, let me think,’ he said, motioning for her to retake her seat.
As she’d suspected, he’d retired with his good name intact. He wouldn’t want that tarnished now.
‘Why were no other boys granted leniency?’ she asked, sitting back down. ‘Just give us the truth, Mr Baldwin, or I guarantee there’s going to be a leak and you’re going to be reading about this in the press.’
