Well here we go again. If JB’s case does not become the worst miscarriage of justice in British legal history. It will certainly break the record for the most human errors in a criminal case.
Whenever doubt or questions are raised regarding inconsistencies in the evidence many, mostly guilters play the human error card.
Because human error is common. I don't know your occupational background or that of other posters on here, but people who have not worked in technical jobs may have difficulty appreciating how common it is to come across human error and other things for which there is no clear explanation, or how even the tiniest human error can have significant ramifications.
Measuring errors are, by definition, due to human error, and one underlying factor in this is the operator forgetting to calibrate the measuring tool or not understanding how to use it correctly. As a practical exercise, find an old tape measure and try measuring a length of anything from the true zero mark, then measure the same thing from the 10 cm. point. If it's a used tape measure, you'll normally find that the measurements differ - sometimes quite significantly.
Importantly, arguments from mistake do not close the door to Jeremy's pleas of innocence.
As previously outlined we do not have all the documentation or all the facts on the forum so we are forced to speculate.
Of course, but then later in your post you say this:
Because of other evidence I have uncovered like the burning of evidence on the day I am taking the position that it was swapped for the reasons stated. If others wish to be like doubting Thomas from the bible who wanted to put his hand in Christs wounds before he would believe the resurrection that is their prerogative.
This implies that you have gone beyond fact-based speculation and we are now in the realm of dogma.
At the start of this thread I said that MF and Major Mead had questions to answer. That is because the bullet PV20 appears to have been swapped. If you have read my posts on this case, you will know that I have set out good reasons why the police might want it swapped. Principally because the lans and grooves upon it might not have been from the Anschutz.
Were from it or might not have been from it? Earlier you admonished David for not accepting what you say on terms that suggest you are sure the bullet did not come from the Anschutz. If you're sure, then what is your evidence? If you're not sure and you're only speculating based on putting facts together, then fine, but that's a different thing.
Whilst some like QC rightly argue that we do not have all the facts he is right. But there is one fact that we cannot know and that is the weight of the bullet. It was destroyed by the police along with all the other evidence in 1996.
However, I presume Major Mead did his job for the defence correctly. That he checked the calibration on the scales that were used and that he weighed some of the more critical rounds like PV20. Since he photographed it there is a good chance that he verified its weight. Only he knows what he did and his actions should have been recorded in his report for the defence at the original trial. We do not,as far as I know,have access to his report. The current defence may like to question him on aspects that are not included in his report.
We do have a report or memo from Mead. It's on the Forum and I've downloaded it from here in the past, though I don't remember if it's the main one. One issue with this Forum is that the archive is not complete. Somebody - maybe myself - needs to update it with everything. Plus, somebody needs to buy Mike a flatbed scanner.
Readers have to make up their own minds. As far as the original gram and grain weights I can only refer you to my original calculations and the available range produced by Ely at that time. Depending on the amount of fragmentation it could be any of the three.
The position remains confused, though, because your own calculations are wrong as you've not realised that mass ratios of bullets are constant and that Eley were producing rounded-up figures for grain weights. To carry out the comparison you were attempting, it is enough simply to check for other bullets commonly-available at the time (not just Eley) that had the same notional weight.
But this raises a further question: if the police really did shoot Sheila and for some reason decided they needed to cover up the fact, wouldn't they have simply swopped out their own bullet for one of the bullets from a cartridge in the house? If they had time to think about what they were doing, surely that is how they would have gone about it? They could have spent the bullet during forensic examination.
