BRIAN DEER
on JUSTIN FASHANU Page
4
The
defendant's background might have softened the
judge's heart, but whatever the mitigation that might
lie in the past, if Fashanu had lived to return to
the United States, he would almost certainly have
gone to jail. Maryland shares the obsolete
"sodomy" laws of many Southern states,
under which even oral sex between husband and wife is
technically a felony offence. And Case was preparing
to upgrade the charges to first degree sexual
assault.
But
Fashanu evaded the scruitiny of a trial, such was the
tragic aspect of his death that his reputation has
been subtly enhanced. On Friday May 8, a British
newspaper was leaked an excerpt from his suicide note
and ran a story sympathetically, headlined: "Boy
lover blackmailed me." A month later, a Channel
5 documentary lauded his soccer career. And on
Tuesday June 23 - three months after that fateful
night in the Ashton Woods apartment - gay activists
held a "memorial tribute" in London,
dubbing him "a victim of racism and
homophobia".
His
brother was approached to cast light on his
bereavement, but stood mute in the face of questions.
Rejecting an interview request, John Fashanu's agent
Ian Wilson said: "One, he doesn't particularly
want to do anything at the moment. Two, if he does,
he will do it in his own way, and his own feelings
would be his own property, and he would either have
those within a book, or within a major newspaper
thing which he was in control of. Why give - this is
my view - somebody else all that material? Why?"
Yet
despite his death, Justin Fashanu will get a hearing,
although not on any criminal charge. In the next few
weeks - the date is yet to be fixed - Poplar
Coroner's Court, a redbrick Tudor-style corner house
in east London, will be the scene of a short trial of
his fate. The coroner will probe the circumstances of
his death and of the events which led to the garage.
The only thing so far known about the hours
beforehand was that he was seen at a gay sauna called
Chariot's, near Liverpool Street, almost opposite
where his body was found.
DJ
and his mother will not go to the hearing, but they
anxiously await the results. They suspect the kid was
incapacitated in the apartment with one of a number
of "date rape" drugs which are increasingly
involved in sexual assaults. One candidate is
Rohypnol, another GHB, and there are also sedatives,
such as Valium, under suspicion. Tests on the boy
were delayed at the hospital, so his system would
have cleared any trace. But such were the
circumstances of Fashanu's hanging that they wonder
if he had a supply in London and perhaps consumed
some to steel himself for death.
The
kid's parents also hope that the coroner's hearing
will help DJ reach a sense of closure. For DJ
himself, too much is unresolved. He still wants to
know the reason why. The family have since moved from
Howard County, although he still visits with Laura
and Josh. He says that he's okay, but others don't
think so. They say that something, somewhere, is
wrong.
The
most obvious evidence is that since last spring he
has been stalked by night-time terrors.
In a
Maryland bedroom, untidy with toppled CDs, crumpled
jeans and thrown-down sports gear, a circuit closes,
he sits up in his sleep and he lashes out into the
dark with his fists.
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Brian Deer. All rights reserved. No portion of this
article on Justin Fashanu may be copied,
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