The temperature at 9am was already approaching 35°C. Outside the Old Bailey, a Serco van was glowing white-hot in the glare.
From 200 yards away, you could already hear the banging. Inside, someone was hollering. I could not make out their words, but it wasn’t hard to imagine them. I could not think of a worse place to be stuck on the street today.
Fists hit the inner wall and reverberated down the busy street. People passed, going about their days, paying no attention to the sounds of distress. The driver of the oven picked his teeth nonplussed in a wing mirror.
Inside, the prosecution was running through its evidence in the second group trial of the Filton 25, tracking their movements over three or four days in August 2024.
Every time their repurposed prison van was mentioned, I smiled.
