PC John Manners statement - 23/09/1985

[bob]

Manners and Woodcock were both in the firearms team and went up the main stairs..Both mention Collins using a mirror to check the bedroom out before proceeding up to it.
Neither Manners nor Woodcock report seeing any bloodstained wallpaper in the stairs/hallway area.
This may lead to the suggestion that no bloodstains were on the wallpaper when they were there.

Perhaps they had more important concerns than checking out the state of the decor - like avoiding the possibility of being shot in the head while climbing the stairs?

[smiffy]

talking of Ralphs blood around the coal scuttle.
It is obviously still wet at the time of taking photographs (10.00 am approx according to Bird) for it to produce a clear detailed  reflection of the coal scuttle.
Dried blood would not do this ...the pool of blood would soon skin over at the surface and lose reflective properties. It is not feasible that the blood should still be wet over 6 and a half hours after death unless it had only recently exited the body due to significant movement of the body to enable previously contained blood to escape.
The warmth given off by the still lit aga nearby would speed up blood drying.

[smiffy]

Manners on seeing Ralph claims to see damage to his head but only refers to blood splashes..he refers to other stuff on the floor.
What is odd is that he does not mention a huge pool of blood having come from Ralph or that some effort had been made to contain it by somebody.
This is an error that is significant as the later picture of Ralph shows a substantial amount of blood that had to have been deposited fairly close to when the pictures were taken.

Ralphs body looks very much staged and gives all the signs of rigor mortis having set in prior to the body being put into the position shown in the photographs.

Now if killed about 3.30 am then by 7.30 am or shortly afterwards when viewed by Manners , Woodcock etc then that only leaves 4 hours for rigor mortis to have set in.  Thats very tight and it would not be expected at 4 hours for it to be well set in. The pictures show a body with it fairly well established.
The argument runs that at shortly after 7.30 there may not have been enough rigor mortis set in to position Ralph as depicted. He could well have been left sitting longer in his chair. By leaving his body in the chair for 2 further hours then a greater level of rigor mortis would be set in to allow for his body to be posed as shown and this ties up with freshly leaked blood in photographes taken at about 10.00am.

The body does look staged but if certain things could be viewed then it would be even more obvious that it was staged. For instance the angle of his feet to his legs will reflect the position he was in when rigor mortis set in . If seated as contended then these will be conversant with his sat in a chair with feet most likely flat to the floor. In the posed position in the photographs the rigor mortis would not allow his feet to be correctly orientated to match his position giving away that rigor mortis was set in prior to his body being positioned. The strange feature of Ralph's pyjama bottoms being round his ankles hides the angles of his feet to his legs and thus hides the fact of rigor mortis and staging. It is quite likely that the pyjamas were deliberately moved to conceal his body being staged.

Ralphs right pyjama sleeve is drawn up excessively high for him to have naturally have fell in the position shown in the picture. This may well have occured when he was moved into position and not put back in place by those moving him. His right arm is also not naturally positioned for the position he was placed in. Again its orientation is conversant with rigot mortis from when seated and the arm on his map or the arm of the chair he had been on or a mix of both.

[smiffy]

Manners and Woodcock were both in the firearms team and went up the main stairs..Both mention Collins using a mirror to check the bedroom out before proceeding up to it.
Neither Manners nor Woodcock report seeing any bloodstained wallpaper in the stairs/hallway area.
This may lead to the suggestion that no bloodstains were on the wallpaper when they were there.

Perhaps they had more important concerns than checking out the state of the decor - like avoiding the possibility of being shot in the head while climbing the stairs?

rubbish as usual in my opinion.
Sighting blood on the wallpaper would be a significant indicator of what they may find ahead so it would have been of paramount importance and noted  if it was there.

[smiffy]

Woodcok in his statement does claim to see a pool of blood near the coal scuttle ...but then undermines himself creating big doubt about his claim by stating
"I was aware there were further blood splashes on the floor and on the kitchen units."

Before he can describe "further blood splashes" he must tell us of the first blood splashes and a pool of blood is no blood splash at all. It is very different.
This strongly suggests deception and that in the back of his mind he is thinking or splashes yet writes of a pool knowing it to be false and part of the cover up that was the staging of Ralph's body. Hence he writes further blood splashes.
Alternatively it also suggests some alteration and editing of his account has taken place.

[bob]

Manners and Woodcock were both in the firearms team and went up the main stairs..Both mention Collins using a mirror to check the bedroom out before proceeding up to it.
Neither Manners nor Woodcock report seeing any bloodstained wallpaper in the stairs/hallway area.
This may lead to the suggestion that no bloodstains were on the wallpaper when they were there.

Perhaps they had more important concerns than checking out the state of the decor - like avoiding the possibility of being shot in the head while climbing the stairs?

rubbish as usual in my opinion.
Sighting blood on the wallpaper would be a significant indicator of what they may find ahead so it would have been of paramount importance and noted  if it was there.

What part of "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" don't you understand?

I must be the tenth person to have had to say this to you. It's just rediculous. You spew out thousands of posts, most of which are baseless conjecture, with no logical analysis of any actual facts. What do you think you are achieving? Nine times out of ten you just seem to be talking to yourself.

All this rambling just fills the forum with noise and makes it more difficult for people to catch up on stuff that might actually be worth reading.

(in my opinion of course)

[smiffy]

Manners and Woodcock were both in the firearms team and went up the main stairs..Both mention Collins using a mirror to check the bedroom out before proceeding up to it.
Neither Manners nor Woodcock report seeing any bloodstained wallpaper in the stairs/hallway area.
This may lead to the suggestion that no bloodstains were on the wallpaper when they were there.

Perhaps they had more important concerns than checking out the state of the decor - like avoiding the possibility of being shot in the head while climbing the stairs?

rubbish as usual in my opinion.
Sighting blood on the wallpaper would be a significant indicator of what they may find ahead so it would have been of paramount importance and noted  if it was there.

What part of "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" don't you understand?

I must be the tenth person to have had to say this to you. It's just rediculous. You spew out thousands of posts, most of which are baseless conjecture, with no logical analysis of any actual facts. What do you think you are achieving? Nine times out of ten you just seem to be talking to yourself.

All this rambling just fills the forum with noise and makes it more difficult for people to catch up on stuff that might actually be worth reading.

(in my opinion of course)

troll behaviour...from bob again
are you a mistaken idiot or a liar bob...you have not had the decency to explain yourself over previous matters so butt out

as usual bob cant discuss reasonably so just trys to rubbish decent posters and the credible posts from them...

[shonapugs]

Manners and Woodcock were both in the firearms team and went up the main stairs..Both mention Collins using a mirror to check the bedroom out before proceeding up to it.
Neither Manners nor Woodcock report seeing any bloodstained wallpaper in the stairs/hallway area.
This may lead to the suggestion that no bloodstains were on the wallpaper when they were there.

Perhaps they had more important concerns than checking out the state of the decor - like avoiding the possibility of being shot in the head while climbing the stairs?

rubbish as usual in my opinion.
Sighting blood on the wallpaper would be a significant indicator of what they may find ahead so it would have been of paramount importance and noted  if it was there.

What part of "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" don't you understand?

I must be the tenth person to have had to say this to you. It's just rediculous. You spew out thousands of posts, most of which are baseless conjecture, with no logical analysis of any actual facts. What do you think you are achieving? Nine times out of ten you just seem to be talking to yourself.

All this rambling just fills the forum with noise and makes it more difficult for people to catch up on stuff that might actually be worth reading.

(in my opinion of course)

troll behaviour...from bob again
are you a mistaken idiot or a liar bob...you have not had the decency to explain yourself over previous matters so butt out

as usual bob cant discuss reasonably so just trys to rubbish decent posters and the credible posts from them...

Remember the disgusting comments you made about Ralph's body yesterday, smiffy? By no stretch of the imagination could you ever be described as a decent poster.

IMO.

[smiffy]

not relevant pugs and not disgusting either.
Ralphs nether regions would have been on display and thats a fact...and if having nether regions exposed to view is disgusting or even mentioning it is disgusting then its you and the rest of the Mary Whitehouse brigade that should act a bit more adult about it.
Mens nether regions when viewed from the rear are obviously different from females and if some outstanding features are there they need to be presented as part of the point made.

As the issue was about supposedly mistaking a male for a female and the males lower half was exposed then such considerations as the differences highlights how ridiculous the argument by Hartley was to make the point firmly.
backside and dangly bits are quite fair terms to use and far better than many other terms that could be used that many see as swear words.

do you shonapugs think the police may have pulled Ralphs pyjama bottoms down to conceal his feet betrayed rigor mortis as part of the staging of his body?
His pyjama bottoms are down round his ankles so either that occurred accidentally in the course of what led to his death or they were pulled down deliberately for some reason either before or after death.

Oddly we seem to have no reports on how bloodstained or not and the patters of blood on his pyjama bottoms that may help in establishing the course of events. It could be taken that such stains /patterns or lack of stains may indicate that his body was staged and hence the information has been concealed as part of the cover up.

[smiffy]

Still thinking on the pyjama bottoms round Ralph's ankles and whether they also may conceal slippers or similar if worn.

[HMEssex]

not relevant pugs and not disgusting either.
Ralphs nether regions would have been on display and thats a fact...and if having nether regions exposed to view is disgusting or even mentioning it is disgusting then its you and the rest of the Mary Whitehouse brigade that should act a bit more adult about it.
Mens nether regions when viewed from the rear are obviously different from females and if some outstanding features are there they need to be presented as part of the point made.

As the issue was about supposedly mistaking a male for a female and the males lower half was exposed then such considerations as the differences highlights how ridiculous the argument by Hartley was to make the point firmly.
backside and dangly bits are quite fair terms to use and far better than many other terms that could be used that many see as swear words.

do you shonapugs think the police may have pulled Ralphs pyjama bottoms down to conceal his feet betrayed rigor mortis as part of the staging of his body?
His pyjama bottoms are down round his ankles so either that occurred accidentally in the course of what led to his death or they were pulled down deliberately for some reason either before or after death.

Oddly we seem to have no reports on how bloodstained or not and the patters of blood on his pyjama bottoms that may help in establishing the course of events. It could be taken that such stains /patterns or lack of stains may indicate that his body was staged and hence the information has been concealed as part of the cover up.

We are not the Mary Whitehouse brigade. 

We are adults and are fully aware of the bizarre state in which Ralph was found and photographed, we are just more respectful when discussing it.

One of the main questions is how Ralph came to be in the toppled-over position, and if the view of him through the window was not clear because he was originally further back then not much could have been seen of him anyway.

Mike has always asked how could a male body be mistaken for a female without resorting to offending anyone and we are completely aware of what he means.

[smiffy]

Not offending anyone is brilliant in principle but impossible in practise.
There will as well be those who claim offence when in reality they are not offended but claim to be so purely to persue an agenda.

Some may find a theory of some person pulling down pyjama bottoms down in order to conceal vital evidence being depicted is a disgusting proposition. However if the primary exercise is to conceal critical evidence then any means will do and be used by those in desperation.

[Reader]

I read the crossed out paragraph as:

"The Kitchen was in general disarray, chairs (upturned?) and breakfast dishes and food stuffs on the floor. There were also bloodstains on the floor."

In a separate post, it's not highlighted. It reads:
The kitchen itself was in general disarray, chairs
over-turned, broken crockery and food stuffs on the floor. There were
also blood stains on the floor.

[lookout]

If I can find where I read that there was even a bigger " blood stain ",amounting to a pool by the dresser in the kitchen,I'll find it if it kills me. It was pointed out to Jeremy by one of the officers.

[No-Bits]

If I can find where I read that there was even a bigger " blood stain ",amounting to a pool by the dresser in the kitchen,I'll find it if it kills me. It was pointed out to Jeremy by one of the officers.

I'm guessing that either you have misread something, or the person providing the information has made an error.

If you find it, it may be interesting to see.