THE SILENCER WAS RE-CREATED AND WHY PART 4
On the 06/09/85 a meeting was held between RWB and Peter Simpson Jeremy was charged 23 days later. We will never know what they discussed no matter how much we speculate.
The case took a huge turn and a new impetus was injected. On 07/09/85 Simpson asked Keneally to review the case. (he confirmed it was probably Sheila). Ainsley was promoted to SIO and TJ went on gardening leave.
I propose that Ainsley was to co-operate with and listen to the Family.
Coincidently on 07/09/85 Julie comes forward. (Was she spooked as previously outlined). Any case against Jeremy which only involved the SM irrespective of when discovered would be more suspicious. Julies testimony would add weight to the accuracy and soundness of the Crown case.
The plan was devised by the family and or the police. They would use the silencer as the fulcrum of the case.
They set about this by making September statements which detailed the finding of the silencer, the various interpersonal interactions, its various movements and finely detailed descriptions including a hair, paint and a jam type blob. It was placed in a cardboard tube with the ends sealed. Many believe these statements relating to the silencer were constructed at a later date as part of the framing. I do too, the simple answer is that the SM an important case exhibit was not mentioned at the outset.
They did not even say (of course if they had it would be edited out) if the police had taken AP’s SM.
The police had sent the first SM (SM1) to the lab (13/08/85) so they had to have found it before this date. They settled on 10/08/85. This also meant that they could use the original documentation, activities etc. to form that part of the chain of custody.
They had two significant problems. SM1 was at the lab (30/08/85). * and had been rendered useless as an exhibit because of finger printing, superglue fuming and dismantling (21/08/85).
It is possible that TJ saw which way the wind was blowing and sent SM1 to the lab so it was out of reach. After all he had tested it to destruction and found nothing that questioned his case analysis. Further, it is not clear what further tests were planned/intended and MF did nothing with it until 12/09/85.
Is there a confirmatory lab document to prove this and what tests were requested?
A much more serious and bigger problem was that SM1 belonged to AP. (Why would Jeremy shoot Sheila using AP’s SM on the Anschutz). An educated guess would be that he was told that it might be implicated in the tragedy and required a number of vigorous tests to be performed before it could be eliminated. If not implicated it would be returned in due course.
The silencer SM1 had 17 baffle plates. Close scrutiny of the dismantled SM photographs shows this. If you count the plates using the reflected light on each plate you can see that there are 17 plates and the washer. The spring is not shown. MT says that it was not known whether the Bamber SM had 15 or 17 because at the time it was bought there was a mixture of old and new stock in the market.
However, anyone who has taken part in some sports will know that even if an opponent or team mate uses an identical piece of equipment that you can recognise your own because of unique identifiers such as scratches, smears, maybe dents as well as wear and tear. AP’s silencer was quite old and I am sure he could recognise it. They had to swap it somehow. JB would not recognise it as his.
The guiding principle behind this plan was to ensure that there was no way SM2 could have been used to interfere with the finding of the flake and its testing. They needed to coordinate dates to ensure a clean timeline. We know they are good at timelines.
They used SM2 (Bamber) to scratch the mantle to create the ingrained paint on the knurled end. When this was carried out is open to question since it is likely that evidence around this would be doctored to fit. It may have been prepped in August but more likely in September since Eastwood said at trial that he obtained a paint sample from Cook on 14/09/85. Evidence I recall, says AE pointed this out in August thus indicating these marks at this stage were strongly and more likely related to SM1 and not SM2.
It might be useful if David1819 could add his thorough analysis of the scratches to this thread.
They discovered SM2 (so they say) on the 11/09/85 and it was collected the next day. Dating was crucial since the flake discovery 12/09/85 was before it reached the lab and the police did not have SM1 in their custody. I will have more to say on this aspect later as there is no evidence SM1 was at the lab.
It was fingerprinted by Eastwood and Davidson on 13/09/85. It was also fumed on this date and it is this fuming of SM2 that Cook told Ainsley about. Again putting this activity after the flake was found.
On 12/09/85 MF presented Hayward with the flake and SM1. He began testing on the day.
They had by 13/09/85 created a duplicate of SM1 called SM2 both had been treated to the same testing regime apart from the original tests performed by GH.
SM2 was sent to the lab on the 20/09/85 but this would almost break the guiding principle. On one document I have seen an obvious stroke has been added changing it to 26/09/85. If you study MT’s posts you will see he uses these two dates interchangeably.
As a result of all these efforts they had two SM’s at the lab. Police could then collect these. AP’s could be returned on the basis it was not required. It played no part. SM2 could then be used as the major exhibit it was meant to be. However, since it had never contained a flake it would be unlikely to show Sheila’s DNA.
It could be seen by fair minded folk that the silencer submitted on 11/09/85 was not in play and had yielded no evidence of note.
Either Cook or MF could have rebuilt SM1 incorrectly before it was sent to Hayward,
If SM2 had only 15 baffles when scrutinised by the defence and other evidence they had showed 17 baffles they could rumble the switch and the case would be lost.
I doubt the defence had any knowledge about SM2 at the time of the trial and many of the documents could be said to have no bearing on the case and could therefore legally withheld i.e. not disclosed.
At the time of charging AP would most likely have no idea about the evidence that was to be used in the charges Jeremy would face. The relatives could even say we found Jeremy’s SM and handed it in etc., etc.
* It is possible that SM2 was created extremely quickly but 5 days max looks tricky. In this scenario MF presents Hayward with SM2 and the flake. I believe it less likely and how did he get it into the lab?
Jeremey’s Tumbler article is spot on even if he had not at that time connected all the dots.
Once again I invite you to pick this to pieces. Critique is a useful tool in understanding issues of all varieties.
