WHO KILLED SIR THOMAS DRAVISTON?

Lord Mulberry stared gloomily at the papers that his personal secretary had set out so neatly on his desk. For reason of a strong sense of public duty and a not inconsiderable fee he had agreed to head up the inquiry into the death of Sir Thomas Draviston. He had met Draviston only twice and only once been invited to dinner, but he had known of the judge’s international reputation, his work for the UN Human Rights Commission, his brief period with the European Commission, his membership of the European Court of Human Rights and of course his consultancies with the International Criminal Court. There should be a ban on public men having private life. It would be cheaper that way.
Unfortunately the circumstances of Draviston’s death were such that press attention could not be avoided and the open verdict of the inquest had hardly dampened speculation. In this context the ‘public’, more specifically of course the press apparently had a right to know to search with forensic detail into the family life of one of the most remarkable legal minds in England. Mulberry’s task would be to make sure that the terms of that inquiry were strictly confined within a ‘need to know’ frame of reference. It was therefore essential to know what might have happened in order to decide what, if anything, the public needed to know. This included for example verifying if possible his alleged death-bed acceptance of a rather unlikely proposal of matrimony made to him by his Estonian/Russian ‘pupil’, a mere sixty years his junior.
On Lord Mulberry’s desk were eleven folders each folder enclosing a short statement. These were headed as follows;
1. THE OBITUARY OF SIR THOMAS DRAVISTON – WRITTEN BY HIS FRIEND JOHN SMITH
2. STATEMENT OF MARGARET DUBOIS
3. STATEMENT OF KATRINA DE WITTE
4. STATEMENT OF PAUL DRAVISTON
5. STATEMENT OF JOSEPH EMBULI
6. STATEMENT OF MARIA DRAVISTON
7. STATEMENT OF DOCTOR BLACK
8. STATEMENT OF MARCUS BECK ANGLICAN PRIEST ATTACHED TO THE CHURCH OF BLESSED SAINTS HIGHGATE
9. STATEMENT OF JEROME WHITE
10. FINAL WILL AND TESTAMENT OF SIR THOMAS DRAVISTON (SUMMARY)
11. STATEMENT OF INSPECTOR GOLLUM FORMERLY OF LONDON METROPOLITAN POLICE (PARTS 1 & 2)
With some foreboding Mulberry turned to the obituary.

1. THE OBITUARY OF SIR THOMAS DRAVISTON (1932-2012) THE TIMES MARCH 4 2012
‘Sir Thomas was born in impoverished circumstances in Middlesbrough. His father was an out of work shipbuilder, one of the many victims of the depression. His mother a trained primary school teacher, a victim of love and downward mobility, was under the terms of pre-war teacher’s contracts obliged to give up her career following her marriage. For the Dravistons the war brought brief new opportunity and ultimate tragedy. His father became a tank driver for the Royal Engineers until fatally wounded in the final advance into Germany. His mother was a member of the Women’s Royal Army Corps working as a driver for what remained of the civilian police force. She died in 1948 victim of an undiscovered bomb. Almost certainly the young death of his parents sharpened Sir Thomas’ loathing for conflict. The war left him nothing but his intelligence.
By 1949 his early educational promise led to a scholarship to New College Oxford where he obtained a first in law. This was quickly followed by success at the Bar, appointment within the highly rated Macmillan chambers (specialists in Human Rights), appointment as QC, appointment as a High Court judge and then transfer to a series of international legal posts. Amongst the many highlights of his career was his early work with the European Commission in 1986 on the Single European Act. Despite his social-democratic tendencies he had been influential in persuading Margaret Thatcher to sign up to the SEA therefore paving the way for the European Union Treaty of Maastricht. He was less successful in convincing her or the other leaders of ‘New Europe’ that the new EU needed an explicit human rights legal competence. In the 1990s his interest shifted to Strasburg. In that role as member of the ECHR he guided the new Labour administration of Tony Blair towards introduction of the Human Rights Act in 1998.
What arguably was his most controversial work was still to come. His publication, ‘Rwanda, the International Community’s Disgrace’ (1996) and his later sadly now incomplete trilogy, ‘The Death of Human Rights’ (2000), ‘The Death of International Law’ (2007) and ‘The Death of Law’ (2012 forthcoming) have generated considerable professional and academic debate. His consistent theme was that ‘humanitarian intervention’ was an ethically reasonable response by the international community to the problem of institutional evil and state-based terrorism, but that it was also legally impossible to justify. This effectively meant that ‘international law’ was dead.
In 1998 he was the UK government adviser on the setting up of the International Criminal Court and was also the special adviser for Tony Blair on the subject of European security policy. His theories on ‘just war’ were rumoured to be highly influential upon the Labour leadership consistent with the Blair brand of religion. His peerage was his reward. He fell out with Tony Blair following 9/11 but he was one of the few ‘special advisers’ to retain respect. Almost certainly he would have been consulted by the present Attorney General on Libya and but for his illness probably on Syria and Iran. Most recently he was understood to have acted as an adviser on the internet film ‘Kony’ (2012) concerning the activities of the Lord’s Resistance Army.
I was fortunate to visit Sir Thomas in his the last weeks of his life. I met with Margaret Dubois, Katrina de Witte and Joseph Draviston. His life was made more beautiful by the love of Margaret, Katrina and Joseph. They made his final private year fun and romantic, an Indian summer to end a golden life of public service. As some of his very few long standing close friends knew Sir Thomas’ defence of human rights was practical as well as professional. He pushed for ICC arrest warrants to be issued against the LRA leaders. Joseph who lived with him at the end was a child soldier adopted by Sir Thomas following a fact finding visit to Uganda ten years ago.
Sir Thomas died peacefully in his beloved Hampstead home. He is succeeded by his sons Paul Draviston and Joseph Draviston. He will be mourned and missed by many.’
————————————
Lord Mulberry looked up from his reading and stared out of the French window. His ground floor study opened to a patio and then a slightly chaotic wild garden where a mulberry tree grew amongst a confused mix of onion plants, thyme and gathering weed of ill-defined parentage. He recalled his only visit to Draviston’s place. Sir Thomas’ home was more extensive, a Victorian six storey detached house, pride of place a library with first editions of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and more surprisingly the collected works of the controversial German legal theorist Carl Schmitt. To the back a long walled garden distinguished by trained lines of ordered roses led down to a dry streambed and beyond to the orchard where Thomas’ well-fed fit aristocratic cats roamed imperiously and chased down rabbits on to Hampstead Heath. Guiltily Mulberry ate a raw onion. His wife disapproved and there were tacit agreements and consequences regarding bad breath. He turned to the other folders

2. TRANSCRIPT OF STATEMENT OF MARGARET DUBOIS (made to Inspector Gollum March 1st 2012)
‘I’m twenty five years old and have worked as Sir Thomas Draviston’s full time paid nurse for the last year. I was educated in Sierra Leone and completed my nursing training in Paris where my parents were living. I moved to England about three years ago. When I first arrived in London I worked in care homes for eighteen months, but everyone there was so miserable. The old people were left alone and unwashed for hours on end. Their underwear got mixed up in the wash. I was working long twelve hour shifts often on my own and expected to look after twenty men and women over-night. The pay was £6 per hour and you were expected to buy your own uniform from the care home. Sometimes I even had to provide towels and soap for cleaning the patients, the ones the home provided were gross. It wasn’t surprising that the carers were so fed up. Black staff like me also had to put up with the racist abuse from some of the old women. I knew that some of them just didn’t know any better. They hadn’t been educated, but it didn’t make me feel great.
I put up with everything for a whole year, a lot longer than most. But then one of the patients ‘wet’ the bed and ‘to serve him right’ was left there for a day. He was normally a nice old man and he couldn’t help it. At the time management trusted me to update the addresses of families and friends. I sent an email contacting his daughter. But she didn’t reply for a week and then when she did reply it was to tell us off for bothering her. She ‘paid good money, a hell of a lot, not to be bothered by that sort of worry’. I was sacked the next day without notice or reference.
It should have been my manager who was thrown out. He told me he would have kept me on if I agreed in future ‘to be nicer to him’. He was a horrible man and he smelt. I preferred to leave. It’s people like him that the police should be investigating. Not me. That man had a duty of care to the old people and a duty of care to me and he abused both me and them. Is it illegal to wish someone dead?
The night I left was also the night I saw Katrina in Hampstead Heath in the moonlight just standing alone in a clearing still almost in meditation. She was so beautiful. Is it illegal to wish someone dead?
I watched her for ages. She was tall with flaming red hair, but then she saw me. I wouldn’t have gone up to her otherwise. I’m generally very shy and I value people’s right to be alone. But Katrina wanted to talk. Katrina can talk. She told me about Sir Thomas, about how much she respected him, about his life and work. She told me about Joseph. She told me about how he (Sir Thomas) was ill and might soon be confined to bed. He would need a full time nurse, but that was something she just couldn’t do. She just couldn’t. I believe in fate. Our meeting was just good fortune for everyone. I am very well paid, was well paid by Sir Thomas, but the job is worth more than money. I am so unhappy that he is dead.
Sir Thomas gave me such a warm welcome even though he was ill. He didn’t ask for a reference. But I told him anyway about the care home. Katrina told me he was a famous lawyer. I asked him if anyone had a duty to care for the old people. Couldn’t the law do anything? Surely the old people had rights? Surely the state had a duty of care? He told me ‘I was very sweet’. But the care home did close a month later. I never heard what happened to the manager. I hope he’s dead.
I did know that Nembutal was stored in the house. Sir Thomas told me. I did not buy it for him. I know that it is a barbiturate and that it is used in assisted suicide. I don’t know why he bought it. Thomas was religious and opposed publically to euthanasia, but what you say in public is not always what you need to do in private. We all understand that, don’t we?
I think Thomas knew he was going to die long before the tumour was discovered, but it was only when the doctors told him about the tumour that he told me about the Nembutal. He said he bought it during his last trip abroad in Mexico three years ago. He said it was illegal in Europe or at least that it was illegal to buy it in Europe and that NICE and the NHS Trusts would never supply it. He kept it under lock and key. He would never abuse my trust by asking me to give it to him. It was ironic. He considered that he had a duty of care to me. He would not put me in an impossible position. If anyone was to administer the drug it would be someone older and who could claim some form of professional indemnity. I think that was how he put it. I was not to be responsible for his death.’

3. TRANSCRIPT OF STATEMENT OF KATRINA DE WITTE (made to Inspector Gollum March 1st 2012)
‘I love, loved Tom. I really, really cannot believe that he’s gone, really. He is my ‘everything’, my world, my all. He is, was the most marvellous man in the world. Age does not matter. How did I know him? I knew him as my hero, my professor, my guide, my saviour, Joe’s saviour. Oh you mean, where did we meet? I wrote to him. I wanted to work with him. I was in my final year as a law student at London Met. He was my placement. This is my place. It should be my place – my place is by his side. I really can’t believe he is dead.
How did I know about him? My parents wrote to me from Russia. I mean Estonia. They told me to read The Death of International Law. It had just been translated into Russian. Putin apparently loved it. Oh, my parents were going to come to stay and my aunt and uncle. Just for the wedding you understand. Well maybe they would have stayed a little longer. I’m sure that Tom would not have minded. What am I going to do now?
Do I know why those bloody, bloody pills were there? No of course I don’t. You’ve only just told me that’s how he died. I knew he had pain. I wanted to take that pain from him, but I didn’t kill him. I didn’t ‘assist in his death’. Is that what you want me to say? I was going to marry him. It was February 29. It is a tradition that a girl can ask the man she loves to marry her on leap years. I did ask him. It was a beautiful morning. Neither of us could sleep. The gardens of London are so, so lovely as dawn rises. Why would I kill him on the same day? Why would I marry someone so old? You think I was after his money? I am married to him before God. He understands. Tom is with Him now. Sorry I am too upset to continue. You cannot ask any more of me? I want a lawyer. England is full of lawyers unlike Russia, or Estonia.’
——————————————————
Mulberry read quickly the other transcripts of later interviews with Katrina that Inspector Gollum had recorded over the following two weeks. In summary these added little. Katrina stuck to her story that she was marrying a man she respected and loved. She claimed that her ‘Tom’ had agreed to marry her, that love was extraordinary and that there was no law against love.
She claimed to know nothing about the contents of any will or any statement that Tom had written prior to his death. For the record Inspector Gollum had noted that Katrina’s parents were Russian nationals but Katrina had been educated in Estonia. Mulberry turned to the fourth folder.’

4. TRANSCRIPT OF STATEMENT OF PAUL DRAVISTON (made to Inspector Gollum March 3 2012)
‘My father was a shit, a complete shit and only I know it. Yes. I was there the day he died. No, I don’t know how the damn drugs got there. No I didn’t know my father had a tumour. No I didn’t know he was in pain, but you know what? I’m glad. I’m glad that my father died in pain and I’m glad that he lived the last year of his life in pain if that’s what you’re telling me. Is that what you are telling me? I don’t know. When I got to the house he was sleeping. So no last fatherly advice!
He was a great man. So everyone says. Everyone except me and mum! Did you know he whipped me as a child with his belt? Told me it was for my own good, that it would make me ‘more reasonable’. He sent me away to boarding school when I was ten. Mum cried. She said it was inhuman to treat a young boy like that, but she said I had to go. I didn’t mind but I hated school as well and I hated holidays and him. I was bullied continually but the teachers didn’t take any notice.
I ran home once when I was twelve. He was in Brussels. Mum let me stay at home, but when he found out he was furious and sent me back. Next time I ran away I was fourteen. I didn’t run home. I did run to London. You can live in London as a kid at a price. What price a young fair-haired public school boy in London? Quite a high price! I survived. I didn’t get AIDs.
How old do you think I am? I’m forty. I know. I look older. I’ve had twenty jobs and lost them all. I can’t take orders. The most regular job I’ve had was as a park gardener at Kew, just clearing leaves, nothing requiring botany, though I can recite the name of every tree in the park. I used to draw perfect maps for the visitors. I worked at Kew for four summers, but then last year they said they couldn’t afford me and that in any case I annoyed the visitors by my praying. It was noisy and some people had complained. I was discriminated against, but they told me at the Citizen’s Advice Bureau that it would be too expensive to represent me. I went to the Law Centre as well but they said that I didn’t qualify for legal aid. I think the woman there found me disturbing.
I found religion when I was twenty. I became an Islam convert. Not the sham high-Anglicanism my father protests. A real religion with real ethics and real laws, that’s what I discovered. Do you understand? Do you respect me? Do I command respect like my father? He wanted respect. That is all he ever wanted from me, wanted from the world. It was the one thing he gave me; the power to deny him respect.
Do I get the house now or does it go to mum? It should. She paid for it literally and in blood. Can I go now? I can’t stand confined spaces. I spent a week in prison once just for denouncing my father as a Christian criminal bastard, just for exercising my freedom. I guess you know that. They said I was a terrorist just because I’m a white man who attends a mosque and protests outside London cathedrals. I know my rights and their limitations. It was the same time as he became a judge at the European Court. He managed to keep it out of the press. The ‘right to privacy’, what a joke? Nothing should be private. He would not have been where he was but for privacy and neither would I.
I did see him the day you tell me he died. He sent for me. How did he send for me? I knew. I knew it was time. No I don’t know exactly what time I was at the house. I don’t have a sense of time not in that way. I didn’t get to speak to him. I did see him but he was asleep. At least that was what his nurse said. He looked peaceful. I’ve got nothing else to say now. I’ve got the right to silence. The ‘arrest is silence’, doesn’t somebody say that somewhere?
Do you want a forwarding address? I suppose you will want to speak to me again. I live in Regent’s Park, several benches close to the zoo. The park keepers know me. So do the guys who work at the zoo. One of the zookeepers says he has the same duty of care to me as to the bears and fish! I’m Paul Draviston of Regent’s Park (and occasionally in the summer to be found in Richmond Park). I know my rights and I command respect.’
———————————————————
Mulberry noted with not much surprise that in fact there had been no more interviews with Paul. The police presumably had decided that he had little else to contribute. There was however a note stating that Paul had left London for an undisclosed destination elsewhere within the UK. Apparently someone from News International had attempted to ‘get his story’. Paul had found her intrusive and the interview had ended up in a police station with different perspectives being aired and recorded. No one had been charged.
5. TRANSCRIPT OF STATEMENT OF JOSEPH DRAVISTON (made to Inspector Gollum March 2 2012)
‘He was the greatest man I’ve ever known and ever could know. When he came to the children’s home those of us who could speak some English were invited to meet him. He was so tall and so fit yet he was over seventy even then. He didn’t ask us what happened, didn’t ask us all the questions that European and American people tend to ask about. How many times did you kill? Did you kill other boys? When did you first shoot someone? Would you do it again? Do you have nightmares? You know what. There were journalists who came to the home to get that story and make money in glossy magazines. Those guys and women were actually just as exploitative as the people who took away my childhood and who only I have the right to forget.
Tom just wanted to play football and for an old white man he was quite good. Later we talked about whether Ryan Giggs was better than Drogba and about whether David Beckham was ever any good at all. Then we talked about what I wanted to do and my ambition to be a lawyer if I couldn’t be a footballer. I said I had a duty towards my people and my parents who were dead to do my best and make the best of myself. He stayed several hours, but when he left I just assumed that was it. So many people just passed through.
But this time was different. Tom came back the next day. He said that he wanted to adopt me and that he wanted to put something right that he couldn’t put right and that this was the best he could do. The adoption procedure took two years. I was ten then. I’m eighteen now and next year I’m going to university to study law at New College Oxford where my father went. I’ve had a private education. He said it was my right. I owe everything to him.
I did know he was in pain. I could see it in his eyes. I don’t know anything about the Nembutal. If I had known about it when I was ill I would have done whatever he wanted me to do. But if I had known about it before then I would have got rid of it. I loved him.
We both still love football. They record ‘assists’ as well as goals in the records. So they should do. The ‘assists’ are as important as the goal. I would have assisted his death, but he did not make that request. Have you interviewed Katrina yet? She is very distressed. I have a duty of care towards her and must comfort her unless you require anything further of me.
Inspector Gollum you are clearly an experienced police officer. You have a duty of care to protect the public, but you also have a duty of care to respect the privacy of a family in mourning. My father was very powerful and I intend to live up to his reputation. I trust we understand each other?’
—————————————————–
Mulberry saw that Inspector Gollum had added a number of comments but at first sight they seemed opaque. ‘Charity begins at home.’ ‘Human beings are not experiments.’ ‘We are the sum of all our experiences (‘Draviston’, The Death of Human Right, p200 [on Locke and Social Contract], OUP 2000).’
6. TRANSCRIPT OF STATEMENT OF MARIE DRAVISTON (made to Inspector Gollum March 4 2012)
‘What do you want to know from me inspector? I met Thomas when he was already a successful man and I never knew a more moral one. I lived with Thomas for twenty years. I have been on my own now for ten. I had his child. I know he was a great lawyer and that he could be a weak man and that at times he was a bastard. These qualities are not mutually exclusive and are often to be discovered amongst the upper-middle-class professions.
Thomas and I bought the house (the house in Hampstead you understand where he died) when we first lived together. I was only twenty when we met but I had family money. My guardian paid the deposit (roughly 10% of the purchase price as the solicitor put it). I also paid the mortgage for the first years of our ‘cohabitation’ and most of the bills. I don’t think Thomas was ever deliberately mean. He just didn’t ‘do’ money.
‘Cohabitation’, is that what you would call it? I can’t think of another word for it. Neither of us believed in marriage or religion then. I know Thomas has changed now. Even if we could have registered a relationship like the gays now do, we wouldn’t have done so. That is we wouldn’t have done so even if it was possible and it wasn’t then! Although there was nothing formally written, there was an understanding that we both owned the house. That I regret was about the only understanding left between us by the end. It was probably that that he wanted to talk about before he died. We’ll never know now.
I left him because he was so certain that he was right about everything, because he was angry, because he expected my son, his son to treat him like a God. Have you spoken to Paul? I guess you probably have. I left Thomas after a row one night when he sent Paul to return to boarding school. The bastard ordered a taxi and instructed the driver to deliver Paul to the head master’s house. He told Paul that ‘he was now beyond his control’. Paul was just twelve, I think.
I bought a small flat outside of London and quite close to Paul’s boarding school. I hoped that Paul would come to see me during holidays or even permanently if I could find another school. Perhaps we could start again. Unfortunately it was too late. Paul was too hurt by what his father did to him and from everything that I did not protect him against.
When the school told me he had run away again I was devastated. For a year I didn’t know where he was at all. Then the police got in touch after he was arrested in London. Even now I don’t want to think about what for. I had to collect him from a police station in Aldgate. He didn’t want to tell them his name or address, but the police told him they had a duty of care to return him to his parents whether he liked it or not. He wouldn’t speak to me in the station or afterwards back at the house. By that time he was fifteen.
As soon as he was sixteen he went back to London and stayed there. I don’t know whether he saw his father. I doubt it. I saw Paul occasionally and sent money more often when I knew his address. Why am I talking about Paul? It is because I have nothing to say on the subject of Thomas.
Yes I did visit Thomas on the afternoon of February 29. He emailed me to say we had ‘unfinished business’. I suppose that the house was the ‘unfinished business.’ For the first year after I left Hampstead I didn’t want to have anything to do with it or Thomas. He was abroad a lot of the time. Paul was still nominally at boarding school. I wanted a new life and very fortunately for me I could just about afford one. Finally a year after breaking up, sometime in the 1980s, a long time ago now, we did get in touch. We agreed not to discuss Paul. We did discuss the house. We agreed that he would continue to live in Hampstead. We reaffirmed in a written statement (I have it still) that the house was shared equally. We agreed that this would remain the case until either of us decided that the situation needed to change.
I assume that when he asked to see me it was because he had decided that the situation had changed. I understand that Paul was there at Hampstead that day. I suppose it was for the same reason. But was that definitely the reason? I’m afraid I cannot tell you. When I got there he was sleeping or sedated. I understand that he died very soon after that.
Inspector I am sixty five this year and intend to go abroad to Madagascar. This country is finished. My sole purpose in agreeing to visit Thomas last week was to inform him of this and ask him to release my equity in the London property. If the only way he could do this was by sale of that property then so be it. To be honest given his personal wealth I doubt whether he would have needed to do so.
I want to say a little more. You must understand how claustrophobic it is to live with a man of conviction and what a liberty it is when he’s gone. Thomas believed that without rules there was only chaos. That is really the purpose of his trilogy. Yes, I’ve read it. I actually do read academic papers. I have the time and leisure to do so. Of course it is one of the many advantages of the academic profession that very few people are in my position.
Have you read my husband’s work Inspector Gollum? Yes. You have, haven’t you? I can tell. You come from that generation. Unfortunately rules are only artificial and if you have not the artifice to maintain the pretence of rules then you must surrender authority to those who do. Our son had ‘Asperger Syndrome’ or at least I now believe that must be the case. We did not understand that term when he was with us. I doubt if Thomas would have accepted it even if he had, not certainly without clear scientific proof. That is why he sent him to public school and why we couldn’t live as a family and why he got so angry.
I know nothing of Nembutal. I did meet Margaret, Katrina and Joseph last week. I thought they were great and I’m sure that even Thomas understood finally that the young make their own morals. I’d guess he encouraged it. Good luck to them. No doubt we can deal with the estate in time and I do need some money. Paul should get some inheritance, though he probably won’t accept it. I don’t have a view on assisted suicide, if that is what happened. Inspector Gollum I can understand the public interest in Tom’s death. You are the law and the law must be seen to be done. That is what Thomas would have said. Otherwise it is anarchy.’

7. TRANSCRIPT OF STATEMENT OF DR BLACK OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON HOSPITAL (made to Inspector Gollum March 5 2012)
‘Sir Thomas Draviston died from an over-dose of the drug Nembutal whilst suffering what might have been the final stages of an irremovable and potentially malignant tumour. I cannot answer the question as to how long his life might have continued had Nembutal not been administered. Patients in a similar condition have lived on for several years, but they are probably exceptional. The condition is painful but there are now many palliative forms of relief, though these can be debilitating.
Sir Thomas was fully aware of his condition and the likely outcome. In my presence he appeared simply to accept the diagnosis. He did not comment on his feelings.
The dosage was made available to him by person or persons unknown in circumstances that remain undetermined. I should add that despite my position as Sir Thomas’s private consultant I had no knowledge that Nembutal was accessible to my patient. I should further add that I am opposed to assisted suicide. My view is that a doctor has a duty to maintain life in all circumstances.’

8. TRANSCRIPT OF STATEMENT OF MARCUS BECK ANGLICAN PRIEST ATTACHED TO THE CHURCH OF BLESSED SAINTS HIGHGATE (made to Inspector Gollum March 5 2012)
‘Sir Thomas Draviston entered into a state of grace at 8.00pm on February 29th 2012. I took his confession at 9.00am that morning. It was a regular duty of love that I had been carrying out for some six months. That morning Sir Thomas did mention the tumour, but I told him that Christ’s grace was bountiful and that he might still expect to enjoy a long life. He did ask me to sign a will and I did so, though I confess I did not read it. I’m afraid I’m long sighted and my reading sight is very poor.
I’m afraid that is all I can say. Inspector Gollum I know that there is much that you might wish to ask me. In conscience I cannot say more. My duty to God and to Sir Thomas comes before that of the law. You would not of course ask me if I administered Nembutal. That would be outside my calling.
Yes. I did know all the family. Joe, Katrina and Margaret were regular communicants at my church.’

9. TRANSCRIPT OF STATEMENT OF JEROME WHITE (made to Inspector Gollum March 5 2012)
‘I don’t know what I can tell you. Sir Thomas was my friend and my employer. What he demanded of me was a well ordered ‘all year round’ garden. Yes I do have a prison record. Ok, my last stretch was seven years in Wandsworth for grievous bodily harm during armed robbery. It was a reduced sentence for reason of age and I got out after four years. I’m sixty. NACRO told me I’d got no chance of getting a job at my age and history. I knew Sir Thomas from way back when I was younger. He was my brief. I liked him. He always managed to argue for a reduced sentence. I think he felt quite sorry for me because I was a war orphan. My parents had been Catholics. I grew up in the fifties in a series of London children’s homes. I don’t need to tell you.
Anyway I got in touch with Sir Thomas again. His previous gardener had just retired and he took me on. I learnt gardening in prison, the only useful legal thing to learn in prison. I’ve been here for two years. I like all the young people who live with Sir Thomas. Well almost. There is something about Joe. I know that he is very, very clever.
Yes. I did sign the paper that morning. Sir Thomas called me in. He told me it was something very important. I guessed it was a will, but I can’t tell you much else about it. Apart from my name I can’t write or read very well. Education wasn’t a priority where I grew up and schooling was regarded as a privilege not a right. I’m not sure what I’m going to do now. I suppose I’ll need to find another job. It isn’t going to be very easy.’

10. FINAL WILL AND TESTAMENT OF SIR THOMAS DRAVISTON (SUMMARY) – AS RECORDED FEBUARY 29, 2012.
‘I leave my house to my son Joseph Draviston. I leave £1,000,000 [ONE MILLION] to my future wife Katrina de Witte. I make a gift of £200,000 to my nurse and friend Margaret Dubois. The remainder of my estate I leave to the trustees of the Church of the Blessed Saints Highgate.
I certify that this is my true intent and that any outstanding formalities were not completed for reason of time.’
The document was signed as witnesses by Marcus Beck and Jerome White.
Lord Mulberry noted that a police analyst recorded that the document was word processed on the laptop accessible from Sir Thomas Draviston’s bed at 10.00am

11. TRANSCRIPT OF STATEMENT OF INSPECTOR GOLLUM (FORMERLY OF LONDON METROPOLITAN POLICE) PART 1 – AS RECORDED APRIL 1 2012
Let’s dispose of the law. It will not take long. ‘Suicide is painless, it brings on many changes’, so said Hawkeye in Mash. As a serving police officer I did know that suicide was legal. I was well aware of the law on assisted suicide. I did know that I was investigating a potential murder. There were in effect four possibilities;
(a) The Case for Suicide –
Sir Thomas had bought Nembutal illegally abroad and in anticipation of later illness and use. Why else buy it? There was the statement from Dr Black that Sir Thomas was suffering from a potentially terminal illness, but little medical consensus about the probable length of illness or degree of suffering likely to be experienced or the impact of any palliative treatment. Marcus Beck said that Sir Thomas had mentioned the tumour that morning and of course there was the will. That might indicate that he had decided the end was coming. But the will could be explained by Katrina De Witte’s proposal. On the other hand why also had Sir Thomas arranged to see his ex-wife and his estranged wife that same day? It could have been to see them one last time before he killed himself. But it could have been to tell them that he was getting married or at least that he was thinking about it. It could have been to deal with unfinished business both of the estate and family. But the ‘unfinished business’ could simply relate to his decision to marry.
Could Sir Thomas have killed himself without assistance? Only Sir Thomas’ family reported him entirely confined to bed? We have the statement from Margaret Dubois that the drugs were under lock and key but Dr Black’s report of his illness did not rule out the possibility that he could have fetched the drug himself, though this was unlikely.
In conclusion suicide is unlikely, but cannot be ruled out.
(b) The case for accidental death –
It is certainly possible to consume Nembutal by accident. 100ml is considered lethal. The reports from pathology indicate 150ml had been consumed in a liquid mixture including traces of more immediately lethal barbiturates. But accidental death could only be assumed or only be credible if the Nembutal had been accessible to the patient and therefore could have been confused with the other palliative drugs taken in regular dosage by Sir Thomas. This would only be as a result of human agency and this meant of course that the death was not accidental.
(c) The case for assisted suicide (murder?)
Perhaps, but assisted suicide is only sought by those who both need and want assistance? Did Sir Thomas? A beautiful girl had just proposed to him, why should he choose this moment to die? Perhaps Sir Thomas did know his own mind and body and perhaps this was the poetic moment to go? But surely if that was the case, Sir Thomas’ character was such that pending absolute infirmity he would not have sought help in killing himself.
In conclusion assisted suicide is unlikely but cannot entirely be ruled out.
(d) The case for murder
Virtually everyone who had access to Sir Thomas Draviston on the day of his death had motive and opportunity for murder. His ex-wife and his natural son certainly had good cause to feel sharp anger if he told them about the will. Cases against Margaret, Katrina and Joseph could not be ruled out. Had there been a proposal at all? Katrina, Joseph and Margaret all said there had been, but where was the evidence of such unlikely an event? Marcus Beck said that ‘the Lord moved in mysterious ways his wonders to perform’. Even Marcus Beck had motive. There was reasonable suspicion against everyone, but no one could be assumed to be guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
Of course if the police could use lie detectors, if the privacy of these people wasn’t so zealously guarded, it would be possible to know the truth. The truth is out there.
(e) The conclusion
My professional conclusion is that the death of Sir Thomas Draviston was by persons or persons unknown in circumstances that remain unknown.

11. TRANSCRIPT OF STATEMENT OF INSPECTOR GOLLUM (FORMERLY OF LONDON METROPOLITAN POLICE) PART 2 – AS RECORDED APRIL 1 2012
I was proceeding down a road that was the wrong road to a place that was the wrong place. I reached the conclusion of my career in the police force on the evening of February 29 2012 when I led the investigation into the death of Sir Thomas Draviston.
I was fast tracked into the police force in 1992. Fast-tracking has now become common but then there were many hurdles. I was a woman and a graduate with a tattoo and I was called Gollum. Yes ‘Gollum’, like Inspector Morse. I have only one name. My natural parents were lovely but careless followers of Tolkien, my spiritual parentage various. I grew up on a kibbutz where everyone thought everything was acceptable and much to me was not. My parents thought that giving me an unusual name was fun. They said it was much more fun for me to be on the side of Mordor than the boring law-abiding hobbits. But Gollum in Jewish tradition derives from ‘the Golem’ the ultimate outsider figure, product of pogrom and detritus. I always felt on the outside. My teenage rebellion was to elect for law at university, my post-LSE rebellion was to join the police.
In my third year Legal Theory module I read the early works of Sir Thomas Draviston. He was not on the syllabus, but he was the personal guru of my teacher. Draviston himself gave a talk on natural law and human rights. It was just before the Maastricht Treaty. Draviston spoke about the ‘New Europe’ and the possibilities of a European Supreme Court modelled on America. His vision was expansive and illustrated with maps. He plotted a new post-Marxist, post-capitalist Europe based not on nation states but on citizenship and the rule of law. It was a vision, a chimera, a fabulous creature that exists only in the imagination. He had authority and I thought he described the future and of course even then he knew that he did not.
This kept me going through Hendon Police College and the sexism and racism and the jokes about my tattoo and the homophobia when I didn’t show any interest. In 1993 I was one of the officers involved in the Stephen Lawrence case. I was there when Norris and his friends turned up every day at court in clean white shirts and looked so cool and it seemed that some of my fellow-officers wanted to be them. Perhaps I’m being unfair. I was probably disaffected even then, though I didn’t want to admit it even to myself.
I’ve been an Inspector for a while now. My ‘fast track’ has got stuck. I read The Death of Human Rights when it first came out in 2000. I was at just the right age and right level of cynicism to get the gist. Civil and political rights were useful fictions for the emancipation of fools; substantive rights were never likely to be legal. What remained was charity and grace. That was the moment Draviston converted to High Anglicanism. I couldn’t follow him down that road.
In 2009 I arrested Paul Draviston. It was at the City of London G20 demonstrations. Paul was in his usual place outside a Cathedral. I don’t think he knew what was going on. He was just demonstrating against God not the IMF. I didn’t know who he was, but I arrested him to get him out of harm’s way. He was going wild. I didn’t then understand why. I do now. Later that same day Ian Tomlinson was killed.
I know who killed Sir Thomas Draviston. I don’t know whether you could call it murder. The law might well do. I would do. But I imagine that isn’t what the report requires. Proof of anything would be difficult though no doubt it could be contrived. Sir Thomas would have died eventually of natural causes; so will we all. My decision to leave the police has been too long delayed. I don’t know what I will do now. I hear the Orcs calling. They are getting restless.
—————————————————
Lord Mulberry had liked Inspector Gollum and he knew that she had grown to be respected in the Met despite her own reservations. He knew, though she did not, that she had finally been recommended for promotion ‘despite rather than because of her strong morality’. She would be missed if this really was her decision. Perhaps she could be dissuaded. But Gollum understood. She’d got it right. Thank God for privacy. Perhaps she should leave. She was young enough to do something else. There were other things that could and should be done. He walked out into the garden. The mulberry tree was beginning to sway. Dark clouds were gathering and he heard thunder from a Hackney direction. Mulberry retreated into his study. He would delay the report ‘to allow the family time’. When the report was published it would be non-controversial. He feared that there was an electric storm breaking, but at least it could be delayed.

NEW YORK 2042 APRIL 1 – TRUMP TOWER UNITED NATIONS BUILDING – PRIVATE DIARY OF JOSEPH DRAVISTON
I knew Katrina would be brave enough. My wife was intelligent, beautiful and highly strung. She was not made for this world. I have protected her for thirty years. We have been married for twenty. On the night she died February 29 2042 she danced for the last time in the moonlight in Central Park. She then swallowed 200 ml of Nembutal witnessed only by her nurse and friend Margaret who respected her decision. In these enlightened days The New York Times commended her brave decision. I spoke to our son in Eton the next day. He did not cry and appeared to understand why for reason of public security he could not attend the funeral and for reason of public priority I would be unable to free up time to see him until the summer holidays.
It completes the cycle that only Inspector Gollum understood. She knew that I knew that she knew. Of all the politician, lawyers and police that I have met in my crowded and still young life, she was one of the very few people for whom I retain total respect. I respect why she left the police after being promoted and why eventually she went to join my mother in law in Madagascar and why they both prefer wild animals to tame people. I respected her tattoo and the fact that it identified her so closely to the Zulu roots of her grandparents and I respected that she had the tattoo done the day before she joined the Met.
The retroactive legislation of the European Union of 2035 only now allows me to tell the story of my father’s death without fear of criminal prosecution. I could not allow him to become a figure of public ridicule. My ex-wife was beautiful, but she was made mad by her belief and then her inevitable disappointment in others. Her expectations were so great. I could not allow her romantic gesture to compromise my father’s reputation. He was not to be made to look ridiculous and I could not allow Katrina to squander his money or my father’s legacy. My father might not have died in the spring of 2012. He could have lived on a long time, but not with his wits intact. The palliative drugs alone would have seen to that. They’d already begun to take effect. He would hardly have agreed to Katrina’s ridiculous suggestion if he had been in his right wits.
Inspector Gollum knew that I knew about the Nembutal. I saw it in her eyes. I knew where the key was and I knew the dosage to administer. I had already begun to contemplate life without my father’s guidance. When holding hands, his trembling, Katrina and my father told me of their proposal at dawn in the light of a London morning, I did think for a moment that this was beautiful. They both looked so serene. But I could only see disaster ahead. I could only see the house filled with Katrina’s Russian parents and no doubt their many expensive relatives and charity cases who would talk as much as she. I stood at the beginning of a life that would make his reputation great and suddenly he and she were destroying it.
My father insisted on the will. He saw the anger in my eyes when they made their announcement and wrote the will to appease me. I had very little difficulty later in persuading my father to take the Nembutal just after he’d emailed Marie. He just thought it was another palliative drug. He felt no pain and his reputation was intact. I felt no guilt. I think he died a little later after Paul and Marie had visited him. I don’t know why Paul came that day.
I left the will as my father had written it. I’m sure it would not have remained long unaltered if he had lived and married. The terms as they stood were fair. The house was worth well over £10 million when sold. I gave Marie some money. I couldn’t find Paul. Katrina and Margaret got their money. There was a little left over for the church. God knows they needed it. I gave Jerome White some money. He worked hard and it seemed only fair. My father should not have left him out. I paid for Jerome to go to a good care home and visited him quite often. We must care for our old people.
Immediately the police inquiry was complete I set about improving my father’s work. The private reviews of The Death of Law had not been good. My father’s friends had received the idealistic retraction of his previous position that international law was broadly useless and that human rights were at best useful fiction with scepticism. They were even less convinced by his idiosyncratic championship of ‘human flourishing’ as the source of all law. I persuaded them that this work was my father’s ‘joke’. I wrote alternative texts based on the work of Carl Schmitt that I submitted as my father’s real work. That work was much better received and much more successful. I had little problem persuading my father’s academic friends that this was his work. I had even less problems with the Oxford dons who were only concerned that I did not plagiarise my father. Only Marie and now I suspect Gollum would have had doubts assuming either cared. I doubt that they do. The Death of Law is now pride of place here in Trump Tower. As many will know it is my inspiration and is widely read.
Katrina fell apart after my father’s death. She was no threat. Indeed she seemed to have no suspicions. I didn’t marry her because I was afraid of her or of Margaret. I married her because my father would have wanted me to protect her. I have done so. It has not been a charity. I always loved her. She is beautiful. It has been a labour of love. Now it is over and for the best. I expect to marry again quite soon. Marriage is an honourable estate.
I must work now on the draft proposals for the constitutional reform of the Security Council. These have been too long in coming. Every day the storms crash ever stronger waves down the Hudson and soon there must be evacuation. The reforms must be in place before the September imposition of the new international criminal sanctions on environmental protection. These will complete the long term imposition of directly effective and inter-active international criminal law. As most people now know this will be the basis for my manifesto to stand as UN General Secretary in 2043. I am Joseph Draviston. I know your rights and I command your respect.

Assignment 1 – Choose one question from the titles below.
1. What is the challenge posed to traditional understanding of international law by the concept of ‘just war’? In your own words what do you understand to be the argument in Sir Thomas Draviston’s The Death of International Law? Do you agree with it? Give reasons.
2. What position appears to be adopted by Joseph Draviston in 2042 to ‘assisted suicide’? Is that position consistent with the interpretation of the European Convention of Human Rights as it stands in 2013 and could the European Union regulation to which he refers be introduced under the legal powers of the European Union in 2012? Give reasons for your answers by reference to current human rights law and EU law. Taking into account Inspector Gollum’s views as well as Joseph’s, what is your view as to the lawfulness or otherwise of the actions that took place in Hampstead 2012?
3. Paul Draviston believes he knows his rights. Does he know his legal rights? Discuss with reference and example from his life.

4. Explain the current legal interpretation of ‘duty of care’ by reference and illustration from the story. Look particularly (but not exclusively) at the positions adopted by Margaret Dubois.
5. Under current English property law who has a financial claim related to the Hampstead home of Sir Thomas Draviston before his death and who has a financial claim after his death?

Assignment 2 – Choose one question from the titles below.
6. Advise either Margaret Dubois or Paul Draviston on the likely success of any claim for unfair dismissal arising out of their various employments.
7. What abuses of children’s right are illustrated in the story and could constitute violations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child? What are the difficulties with practical enforcement of these rights at either national or international level? Answer the question on international enforcement by reference the International Criminal Court.
8. What route to “access to justice” and claim to violation to human rights might be pursued by the old people at one time under the care of Margaret Dubois and her manager?
9. What issues under equality law might be illustrated critically by either the career of Inspector Gollum or the experiences of Paul Draviston?
10. Could the views of either Thomas Draviston or Paul Draviston be described as most consistent with natural law theory or positive law theory? You can answer with reference to both characters.
11. Which of the philosophers whose books are on Thomas Draviston’s shelves in his study do you consider his adopted son Joseph to be most influenced by?
ORDER THIS ESSAY HERE NOW AND GET A DISCOUNT !!!