The judge got the murmurs to subside, so the lawyer could continue.

"All of this is proof of the crimes committed by Eliza Pratt. She pushed Linda Pratt down the stairs because the Pratt family had planned to expose her tyranny, and ended up taking the life of an innocent child…"

"Objection! Counsel should be well aware of the law that my client is innocent until found guilty."

"Sustained. We're here to determine the validity of the lawsuit, please refrain from direct accusations, Mr Thran." The judge said, and the Pratt family lawyer nodded.

But he had already gotten what he wanted. His plan to stir up the crowd was working, and he knew that online, people were most likely cursing Eliza, and calling for her head.

"With all the proof submitted, what more could we need to be convinced that a great wrong has been done against the Pratt family, and those responsible should be punished accordingly."

After he was finished, Koen stood and adjusted his suit. "Your proof of guilt would be valid if it weren't falsified."

"Objection! The documents brought forward were submitted, and have already been verified by the court and proven to be legitimate." Lawyer Thran said.

"Sustained. The documents were verified. Refrain from accusations of falsification." The judge said and Koen smirked.

"I have proof of the falsifications. First, the so called emails exchanged between my client and the members of the Pratt family, where they claim she admitted guilt. The exchange in those emails are true, but it wasn't my client that sent or replied to those messages. This is just a cleverly played trick. The email address was deliberately made to look like my client's personal email address. That email address is ElizaP360, but my client's actual email address is ElizaP36O. 0 is a number and 0 is a number. If you don't look closely enough, it's easy to miss."

"Objection!" Thran said, and Koen scoffed.

"On what grounds? Everyone in the twenty first century knows that just one different letter or number means both emails are not the same. As further proof, here is the meta data from the company that built the email app detailing the history of Eliza Crest's messaging. With her permission, even deleted messages and spams were recovered to prove that she never received or responded to any of these messages."

"The court has already validated the legitimacy of the messages and…"

"We'll get to how that was possible in a minute. But first, we'll address the financial records. Those are also falsified, and before you say they were validated by the court, we have proof. While it is true that those accounts were frozen or emptied, the dates are wrong. Those accounts were frozen after the lawsuit was filed, unlike the dates say in your submitted documents. Ironically, the proof is in your own evidence. Your honour, may we approach the bench?"

The judge nodded and Koen came forward with a magnifying glass to use on the physical documents while he gave instructions to the court clerk to zoom in on the copy being displayed on the screen.

"Your honour, please compare the dates, and read them out." Koen said.

The judge knew he had been backed into a tight corner. He had already been paid to make sure the Pratt family won this case, but there was little he could do with such an obvious situation. He hoped the Pratt family had more evidence to use, because this one was a lost cause.

"The dates are different."

"Objection! This must have been a basic error by the bank. There is no way to prove this was falsified." Lawyer Thran said.

"Your honour. If the document was legitimate, and this was just an honest error, wouldn't the stamp carry a past date? That would mean that maybe the date on the machine wasn't changed from the previous day before being used. Why would it carry a future date? No bank operator tests a stamp machine with a future date further from the day the document was stamped. The error here is that whoever tried to falsify this was not meticulous enough to notice this mistake."

The judge sighed. "Objection overruled, Mr Thran. Mr Koen is right, so this bank document will not be used as evidence."

"Not just the bank documents. Also the messages."

"You may have proven that the bank documents are not legitimate, but it's still not determined for the emails. It was validated by the court as legitimate evidence and until you prove otherwise, it remains on the record."

"We would like to call our first witness. Mr Forrester. He works at the Duke Royale Hotel. And he has proof that the official in charge of the evidence validation was bribed to approve the Pratt family's falsified evidence."

The murmurs in court began again, and the judge banged the gavel again to silence the crowd.

"Mr Koen, your witness may be on the list for testimony, but there was no evidence submitted on his behalf. So whatever he has is inadmissible." The judge said and Koen nodded.

"We know. But we would like to question him regardless."

Handel Forrester was shaky as he was put in the spotlight. Koen questioned him, and he admitted to working in the hotel as part of the cleaning staff. He had hidden cameras in a few rooms, and that was how he got the evidence. He had initially tried to blackmail Alrik to pay him for the video, but Gaya quickly handled it. Now Forrester had no choice but to testify.

The video was played to show Francis in a room with the official, and several scantily dressed females. Soft music played while the girls danced and touched the men. Then the discussion regarding the documents and money being exchanged.

The Pratt family's lawyer, Thran, stood up to object, but Koen stopped him.

"No need to object. I have already accepted that the video is inadmissible as evidence."

"I know what I did was wrong, but I couldn't stand by and let an innocent woman go to jail for a crime she didn't commit. That's why I took this risk." Mr Forrester sighed before he continued speaking.

"And to prevent further tampering, this video was already uploaded to the internet shortly before I stepped up to testify. Along with that is also video evidence of the Duke Royale Hotel manager tapering with the CCTV footage to make sure any proof of that bribery exchange was removed."

Thran knew that their case was in trouble now, so he quickly called on Linda to testify. As Eliza expected, she put on a spectacular show. Weeping about her lost child while the lawyer encouraged her by asking her questions about her trauma.

"I haven't really been focused on the details of the case, so I don't have much knowledge regarding all the documents. But I expected this to happen. I knew this battle would be tough. Eliza has made it known that she would use her husband's influence to make sure we're discredited at every turn. But I believe justice will prevail. I hope this court will give me closure by punishing my baby's murderer. I may not be sure of anything else, but I know this for sure. Eliza killed my baby."

When Thran was done questioning her, Koen stepped up to continue.

"Mrs Pratt, your lawyer and the evidence he submitted proves that you indeed had a miscarriage on the day that you say you did."

"That's more than enough proof then. What more do you need? The CCTC confirmed Eliza's presence in our house that day, at the time of the miscarriage. Who else could have pushed me down the stairs and caused my miscarriage?" Linda snapped, but Koen just smirked.

"I have to say, you all did well trying to cover your tracks. But the time is wrong. We tried to get proof from the hospital, but conveniently, no footage is available to prove what time you got there for treatment. But you all forgot yet another important detail. You got to the hospital in an ambulance. Most of them nowadays have cams to make sure medical personnel aren't cutting corners. Unfortunately for you, yours also had a camera. And we also retrieved records from the EMT's that attended to you that day."

As he spoke, Linda's face began to go pale. She was caught in a trap and she knew it.

"It clearly shows that you were taken to the hospital for bleeding and later miscarried but it happened an hour before Eliza set foot near your house. There's footage from her office and traffic cams to prove this. You also had no bruises according to the EMT report, which would be impossible if you had actually taken a tumble down the stairs hard enough to cause a miscarriage. So I'll ask again, and remember that lying under oath can get you convicted of perjury."

"Was Eliza Crest responsible for your miscarriage? Did she push you down the stairs or hurt you in any physical way?"

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