"As time went by", said Jenny, somewhat hesitantly, "he became . . . well, different . . ."
"In what way?", inquired Humphrey gently.
Jenny sighed deeply, striving her hardest not to cry.
"Well, as I said, he had always been very polite and helpful, but suddenly, he . . . he seemed to . . . well he started talking about some rebellion or other, he seemed to be on about men rebelling against women, and kept himself to himself all the time, always seemed to be on his phone or his laptop, said some really horrible stuff about Amy and Will, and regularly insulted me as well . . . I mean, it made no sense to me then, and it still doesn't, when I asked him why he wouldn't . . ."
Her voice tailed off, and she took several sharp breaths.
"I always thought we'd brought him up well", said Anthony, "but then all of a sudden he started being rude towards Jenny, Amy and Will, he seemed jealous of Amy and Will's relationship, said some very spiteful things to them. From what I was told later, maybe we should have been a bit tougher on his Internet use."
Amy shuddered.
"I couldn't believe it then, and still can't. That wasn't him, it just can't have been . . ."
"Are you suggesting that your brother had been replaced by an impostor, Miss Richards?", demanded Dame Marilyn, a discernable note of contempt in her voice.
"No", said Amy, "it's just, that wasn't the Erwin I knew, those . . . incels, or whatever they call themselves . . . they did this to him, they made him say those things, that was them talking, it can't have been him."
"And what sort of things did he say to you?", asked Humphrey. His voice with sympathetic, but there was also a condescending undertone.
Amy hung her head: when she spoke, it was as slowly as possible.
He kept calling me 'Becky', and when I told him that wasn't my name, he kept on saying it, more aggressively each time", she remembered. "Why he called me that when he knew perfectly well that . . . and he was calling me a 'roasty' or a 'femoid', saying how unfair it was that I had a partner and he didn't, saying that I only liked Will for his money, when I told him Will's father was a teacher and his mother was a secretary he wouldn't listen, kept going on about how women will only sleep with rich men. And . . ."
She suddenly broke off.
"What?", Humphrey asked.
Amy did not answer the question.
"Answer the question, Miss Richards", ordered Dame Marilyn.
Amy momentarily glared at her (Dame Marilyn did not appear to notice this as her gaze was once again fixed on the courtroom in front of her), then replied:
"One evening, when I came home from a night out with Will, he said to me, 'You're a race traitor, fucking an inferior ugly black boy.'"
Amy gasped, as though she had been punched in the face.
"I was shocked at first when she told me about it", said Will.
"Had no one ever referred to you in such terms before?", inquired Humphrey.
"It had happened a few times", said Will, almost casually, "but, from my girlfriend's brother, man . . . Then she told me about the other things he had been saying to her, and I got really worried, told her it sounded like he would do something bad."
"And how did Miss Richards respond to this?"
"I told him that could never happen", said Amy, once again looking at the floor. "I told him he was being silly, Erwin would never do anything bad, he was my brother."
"One day", said Kate, "me and Dan were in the library together, studying, but holding hands at the same time, when he came along . . ."
" 'He' being Mr. Richards?", inquired Humphrey.
"Yes", said Kate. "I didn't see him coming, but Dan happened to look up one moment and whispered to me . . ."
"I said to her, 'it's your admirer' ", said Dan, wincing. "She wasn't amused and deep down, I knew he hadn't come along to say hello, there had to be something more to it."
"I looked up", remembered Kate, "and I was shocked when I saw his expression. Up to that point he'd always seemed so quiet and shy, but now he was looking like he might throttle us. I nervously asked him if he was all right, and he shouted at me, 'Shut your mouth, Stacy' ".
"I felt annoyed", said Dan, "and I asked him why he had called her Stacy when he knew what her real name was, and he then spat at me, and said 'And you too, Chad' ".
"I asked him if there was anything wrong", said Kate, and he said, 'The whole world is wrong, I've been oppressed for far too long' ".
" 'What do you mean, oppressed?', I asked him", said Dan. "I remember thinking, what rubbish he's talking."
"And then", said Kate, once again breathing heavily, "he pointed his finger at me and said 'It's reverse rape, what you did to me, that's what it is, reverse rape."
"And what was your response?", asked Humphrey.
"I just said 'What?' ", answered Kate, and then he said, "You robbed me of my rights, my most basic human rights, you never gave me what I wanted."
"I remember getting angry", said Dan, "and told him flat out that she did not owe him anything, it was her choice, and he then said, 'I should have known it, that she would go for a handsome rich guy like you."
"I then told him that Dan isn't rich,", said Kate, "I tried to say that Dan's father is a court usher and his mother works in retail, but he cut me off, saying, 'Yes he is, that's the type you femoids go for, good looks and money, that's all you care about."
"What did you then say?", Humphrey asked.
"I tried to say that I didn't like Dan just for his looks, but . . ."
She sighed, then, after a brief pause, resumed her testimony:
"With hindsight, I can now see that he was beyond reason, but anyway, he went on ranting, paying no attention to what I was saying, 'Yes you do, you would never fuck a normal-looking guy like me, would you? But the day will come, soon, very soon, the rebellion will come, it'll be time to strike back'. And then he wandered off, shouting out loud to the whole room 'Revenge, revenge, revenge' ".
"And what was your reaction?", inquired Humphrey.
"I was shaking", Kate recalled, "and I instinctively snuggled up closer to Dan. For the first time in my life, I knew what it was like to be afraid."
"Did you tell Ms. Mahmood what he had said?"
"Yes", said Kate, somewhat awkwardly.
"And what did she say?"
"She said, 'He sounds like an incel'", said Dan. "We both looked baffled, so she then explained to us what incels are. And after that, she added, 'That's why men shouldn't be allowed into women's spaces.' "
"How did you respond to this?", asked Humphrey.
"I asked her what she meant, and she said, 'All those men who think they're women, the gender ideologues who think that biological sex doesn't matter, that they can just decide one day that they're women, and that we should all just accept their nonsense.' I got quite angry at this, I must admit, and I began to shout, 'How dare you . . .' "
"And then I said, 'Please, Dan, let's not have an argument' ", said Kate, her cheeks flushed, "though deep down I agreed with him."
"So", so said Humphrey hurriedly, "could you now tell us what happened over the next few weeks?"
Kate sighed again, then said:
"Well, Mr. Richards kept coming up to us, sometimes just me and Dan, other times when we were with Samira, and would say really horrible things."
"What sort of things would he say?"
"Once he said, 'The day will come when you roasties will wish you'd let us have what we want.' And on another occasion he told me, 'You won't look so pretty once I've cut your throat, Stacy', and a couple of days after that he said that 'One day I'll fuck you so hard you won't know what day it is, and then I'll kill you.' " Kate's voice was barely audible.
"He once said, 'How I'd love to punch your pretty face in, Chad' ", remembered Dan. "I also recall him saying, 'And when I've killed your roastie, I'll laugh as you cry like a woman, and then kill you too.' "
"Eventually", said Kate, "Samira told me we would have to take it to the vice-chancellor."
"So one day, Ms. Donaldson, Mr. Bassett and Ms. Mahmood all came to your office, is that correct?", asked Humphrey.
"Correct", said Sir Geoffrey Boatman, a balding man with lines on his face who looked rather like an ancient rock formation.
"And what did they say to you?"
"Ms. Mahmood did most of the talking", said Sir Geoffrey nervously. "She told me about Mr. Richards, that he had making threats against Ms. Donaldson and Mr. Bassett, and she recommended that disciplinary proceedings be initiated against him."
"I went into that meeting with a lot of hope", admitted Kate. "I thought, finally, something is going to be done, all these horrible threats are going to stop."
"And were your hopes sustained?", asked Humphrey.
"No", said Kate. For the first time, there was bitterness in her voice. "As Samira told him everything that Mr. Richards was doing, he just sat behind his desk, seeming not to have any reaction to it at all, and when she had finished, he said, in a lofty voice, 'It just seems like he's going through a phase' ".
"I then said, rather sharply, 'What do you mean by that' ", said Dan. "And he said, 'Well, you know, boys will be boys, he'll grow out of it soon."
"Then Samira fixed him with a pretty powerful stare", said Kate, her tone mixing bitterness with affection, "and plainly told him that he didn't seem to realise just how serious the situation was."
"He then suggested that we should stop wasting his time and get back to our work, as we needed to prepare for our exams", said Dan. "And then I stood up, pointed at him and said, 'If it comes to the worst, you will have blood on your hands.' "
"Why didn't you believe them?", asked Humphrey.
Sir Geoffrey shuffled his feet uneasily in the witness box.
"It's . . . well, it's not that I didn't believe them", he said guiltily, "it's just . . ."
"From what Ms. Donaldson and Mr. Bassett have told this court, it sounds like you didn't believe them", admonished Dame Marilyn.
"Well . . .", said Sir Geoffrey again, "Maybe . . . what they said didn't seem . . . real, it was hard to believe?"
"But was it not your duty to investigate all allegations?", Humphrey asked him: there was an edge to this voice for the first time.
"I suppose so", said Sir Geoffrey in a faint voice.
"So why didn't you?", was Humphrey's next question.
"It's just that . . . well, I found hard to believe it . . . I had no idea . . ."
His voice tailed off.
"After that, I became even more afraid", said Kate, "and I kept looking behind me, or around corners, to see if he was there. I also found it hard to sleep."
"As time went by", said DI Alexander, "Mr. Richards began posting ever more violent things on Lonely Men."
"What did he post?"
"In one, he wrote, 'I'll be the man who starts the Incel Rebellion, who starts the slaughter of the femoids', and in another, 'When I've finished, Elliot Rodger and Marc Lepine will have nothing on me.' "
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