At the trial, Beth is prepared with the witness list from the defense barrister, Robert Miles, but she is still shocked when Alison Jacobs is called to testify. Seeing Alison on the stand immediately unsettles Beth, who views her as outwardly timid but inwardly cruel.

Under questioning from Crown prosecutor Donald Glossop, Alison explains that she delayed coming forward because she was unsure whether to speak, then claims that conversations in the village convinced her she had useful evidence about the people at Blakely Farm. Alison frames her testimony as help for the jury, but Beth believes Alison is motivated by malice rather than truth.

Alison then gives an exaggerated, hostile account of the Johnson family. She says parents were always wary of the farm and describes the family as abnormal and reckless. To support that image, Alison tells the court that Bobby witnessed a newborn calf being shot when he was five and repeated the story at school, allegedly disturbing the other children.

Alison continues by attacking the family’s standards and even invokes Sonia Johnson’s death, suggesting it resulted from carelessness. Although Glossop seems to ask whether that is all, Alison presses on, determined to make her point more damaging.

She recounts the school-holiday visit to Blakely Farm as a disaster and says her son William was lucky to leave alive. Finally, looking toward the dock, Alison says the village had long believed there would one day be a fatality at the farm, and that it happened sooner than expected. Her testimony turns old gossip and prejudice into courtroom evidence, deepening the sense that the family’s history is being used against them.