Reporting from the trial

There has been mild excitement in London today as the artist Geraldinium Holmes entered court to stand trial. At least part of the excitement stems from the fact that few people seem to know what she's on trial for, despite the terms of her arrest and the charges being laid out in uncharacteristically clear fashion by the prosecution (Charmley and Inte-State, whose last case presentation confused the presiding Judge so badly that he finally sentenced their attending clerks to a six week intensive English course. This appears to have produced welcome improvements). Outside the court a small crowd had gathered, some artists, many purchasers of paintings by Geraldinium, and a small contingent of protestors for animal rights. The artists appeared to believe that Geraldinium was representing Art and that somehow they were all on trial with her as their proxy. The purchasers had a number of different opinions, ranging from this being a publicity stunt to the wild claim that she was on trial for actually being Muammar Ghaddafi (the person making this claim, an obese elderly woman smelling of turpentine, also appeared to think that Geraldinium was a man). The protestors were adamant that the trail should be about her dedication to the cause of animal cruelty and showed little interest in what the trial was actually about.
Inside the court, the trial was sparsely attended, with a few scattered journalists and some law students.  At the back of the room was a man who smelled and looked homeless, but who managed to persuade the court stewards that he should be allowed to stay.
After the initial statements of what the trial was about (the claim that Geraldinium Holmes either caused her assistant orphan-girl to kill herself, or was aware that she would make the attempt and did nothing to stop her, electing instead to photograph it for the purposes of creating commercial work from it), Geraldinium was called to the stand, and Mr. Charmley questioned her.
After twenty minutes, he gave up attempting to find out what her name was and why it was so unusual, and moved on to the details of the case.
"Miss Holmes," he said in an operatic baritone, "How did you come to take this photograph?" (Exhibit A, currently on display at the Walham Road Art Gallery, E1).
"I didn't," said Miss Holmes.  "It was taken by a motion-sensing camera that's set-up in a room on the third floor of my house."
"The picture is surely too well-focused and clear for that to be true!"  Mr. Charmley looked a little non-plussed but rallied well.
"It's one of seventy-six that were taken in the space of a single second," replied Miss Holmes.  "The others are not such good quality.  Which is why this one was chosen."
"And where are the other photographs, to substantiate your claim?"  Mr. Charmley was smiling at this point, in a way which, in other cases, has indicated that he is about to reveal a devastating truth.
"The police took them away," said Miss Holmes.  "I have a receipt, see?"  At this point she produced a receipt from her handbag, and Mr. Charmley looked as though he were about to kill someone.  His clerks edged away from him.
"Actually," he said, his words leaden and precise, "you send them out to seventy-five other people, didn't you?  With the message printed on the bottom, 'it could be you next'.  Didn't you?"
"No," said Geraldinium, yawning.  "I have the receipt here that shows the police took them away from me.  I don't know what happened to them after that."
There was much discussion and shouting at this point, until the Judge restored order and requested a viewing of the receipt.  He then retired for thirty minutes, and upon his return dismissed the case on the grounds that the prosecution had inadequate evidence to pursue it.  Mr. Charmley appeared apoplectic, and Miss Holmes had to be woken up from where she was sleeping on the floor in the ante-chamber to the court.
Outside the court there was a mixed reaction to the verdict, not helped by the artists and protestors both having gotten drunk and having a small battle involving the throwing of paint over each other.