‘What the hell is this?’ he boomed at the guards. ‘Uncuff those children at once!’ His eyes raked the room, stopping at the prosecution table. ‘Mr Vela’ – the assistant DA who’d drawn Joshua Bonder – ‘what is the meaning of this?’

Vela, too, was on his feet, stammering. ‘Your honor, you yourself issued the body attachments for these children as witnesses. We were afraid they would flee. They wouldn’t testify against their father – he’s their only guardian. So we have been holding them in youth guidance.’

‘For how long?’

Vela clearly wished the floor would open up and swallow him. ‘Two weeks, your honor. You must remember…’

Li listened, then went back to shouting. ‘I remember the case, but I didn’t order them shackled, for God’s sake!’

Vela the bureaucrat had an answer for that, too. ‘That’s the mandated procedure, your honor. When we transfer inmates from juvenile hall and we think there’s a flight risk, we shackle them.’

Judge Li was almost stammering in his rage. ‘But look at these people, Mr Vela. They’re children, not even teenage-’

The father’s attorney, a woman named Gina Roake, decided to put in her two cents worth. ‘Your honor, am I to understand that these children have been at the YGC for two weeks?’

Vela mumbled something about how Ms Roake shouldn’t get on her high horse; it was standard procedure. But Roake was by now truly exercised, her voice hoarse with disgust. ‘You locked up these innocent children in the company of serious juvenile offenders? Is that what you’re telling me, Mr Vela?’

‘They are not innocent-’

‘No? What was their crime? Reluctance to testify against their father? That’s all? And for this they’re shackled?’

Vela tried again. ‘The judge ordered-’