It's the DPP who claimed he used a route to avoid the main roads ergo the sea wall.
De'ath claims she has knowledge of the vicinity and the route he would have took. She describes it as being " overnightly populated which means it's not feasible as he would have been seen.
From my personal perspective the sea wall has always been a none starter, cumbersome, unpractical, time consuming, no lighting. Absolutely ridiculous.
De'ath has just simply strengthened that belief of mine.
Well, we might be edging closer to singing of the same page, here!
From my own perspective, I don't actually give two figs about the sea wall as a possibility. It was claimed, by a poster, several years back, that such wasn't possible because at a strategic point, it was undergoing repairs, but there has been no verification one way or another.
Had I been making such a journey, a car would have been my transport of choice. However, I'm not, nor ever have been, JB.
It seems to me that, on which ever side of the fence one sits, BD's claim, unless it's taken on face value, without questioning, doesn't stand up to scrutiny. She buffers what little she has to say about JB -basically that he was shy and well mannered- by giving a history of Maldon going back to the Middle Ages, and ending with a diatribe of grudges about how the family were trying to "gentrify" the site, resulting in them either having to move their van to the back, or remove it completely. Every camp site I've looked at, does the same. It's called progress.