Now, before we go any further, I will remind everybody, about the official version of how the blood inside the silencer was supposedly discovered inside it, a silencer which was supposedly at the lab' on 12th September 1985, when the ballistic expert, Malcolm Fletcher took it upon himself to dismantle the same silencer, which David Boutflour had already tampered with, and the same silencer which Cook had already dismantled and found no blood whatsoever on any of the baffle plates he had separated, and so it beggars belief, that no sooner does the silencer allegedly arrive at the lab' by 12th September 1985, there is blood all over it's baffle plates?
Well, first of all I don't think the silencer was ever at the lab' on the 12th September 1985, to enable Fletcher to discover the blood inside it, what I believe took place was that by the 30th August 1985, it had been brought to the attention of Essex police that David Boutflour had scraped the dried flake of blood from off the outside of the silencers metal sleeve, I believe that police took possession of this flake, giving it the exhibit reference of DB/1, and that it was this flake which got sent along to Huntingdon Lab' on 30th August 1985, along with the photographs which Cook had taken covering his dismantling exercise of the silencer. Cook submitted the Boutflour flake (DB/1) which attracted a lab' item number of (23)...
The only time a silencer had ever been to the lab' prior to this had been on 13th August 1985, under an exhibit reference SJ/1, lab' item number 22..
Silencer - SJ/1 , lab' item number (22), 13th August 1985..
Flake - DB/1, lab' item number (23), 30th August 1985..
The flake DB/1 (23) arriving at the lab' on the understanding that it had been scraped from the outside of the silencer SJ/1 (22) by David Boutflour, on some unspecified occasion in-between the date he found the silencer, and the date that Peter Eaton handed over the same silencer to DS Jones! With the benefit of hindsight, we know that Boutflour claims to have found the first of two silencers at whf on the 10th August 1985, and that Peter Eaton handed it over to DS Jones by the end of the evening of 12th August 1985..
We can safely adduce, therefore, that somewhere between the 10th August 1985 and the evening of 12th August 1985, that David Boutflour had tampered with the integrity of the silencer evidence, first of all by trying to physically unscrew the silencers end cap off it, and secondly, not satisfied with rendering the silencer evidence inadmissible, he went further and scraped dried blood from the outside of the silencers metal sleeve using a razor blade! The significance of using a razor blade in which to scrape dried blood from the outside of the silencer quite possibly being the source by why an inch long elongated scratch mark mysteriously appeared on the silencers outer casing!
Not a great deal has been written about this elongated scratch mark, other than the relatives stating that the silencer Peter Eaton handed over had this 1" elongated scratch mark on it! Well, silencers are manufactured using hardened gun metal, and it is rather telling that the police nor any expert from the lab' have commented upon what could have caused this particular scratch mark! But, I can now reveal why the police, the relatives, and the experts at the lab' have tried to play down the existence of the one inch elongated scratch mark on the outer casing of the silencer which was handed over to DS Jones by Peter Eaton on the evening 12th August 1985 - but back in 2003 A test was carried out using a Parker Hale silencer and a razor blade..