Defense accepted use of silencer in some of the shootings, when trial took place
At the time of Jeremy's trial, October 1986, Jeremy's defense accepted the possible use of the silencer in some of the shootings, albeit they challenged the interpretation of the blood group evidence linked to the silencer, by declaring that the blood could be a mixture of the parents blood, rather than be blood which was unique and exclusive to Sheila? That argument was explored by the court which tried the case, and rejected...
It was tested again, as part of the 2002 failed appeal, with the introduction of new DNA evidence...
In 2004, I received information that there was a mark which had the same general characteristics as the silencers end cap, around the lower non fatal entry wound on Sheila's neck - I brought these details to the attention of Ewen Smith (then Jeremy's solicitor) and I also brought this information to Jeremy's attention. Ewen Smith, upon being told this information, and after examining the said photograph which shows the corresponding mark, commented that if this was the mark from the end of the silencer that it looked bad for Jeremy's prospects of winning his appeal. I told him, and Jeremy, that I didn't take the view that it had the same impact as that expressed by Ewen, but before we got time to look at the matter in more detail, and for one reason or another, Jeremy sacked Ewen, or he disposed of his services...
To me...
The silencer mark around the lower entry wound, and an absence of a similar mark around the upper fatal entry wound was significant, since it suggested that a silencer was fitted to the gun or weapon which had fired the lower non fatal shot, but absent at the time when the upper fatal wound was inflicted...
This was important to my way of thinking because at the time of the trial, it was the prosecutions case that the silencer had been fitted to the guns barrel at the time Sheila was killed when the upper fatal entry wound was inflicted, and that someone had removed the silencer from the gun after Sheila was dead and taken it all the way downstairs to hide it inside the gun cupboard - where later, David Boutflour discovered it?
It was important to me, to note that the ballistic expert, Malcolm Fletcher, had concluded that the upper fatal wound was contact in nature, whilst the lower wound to the side of the neck had been inflicted when the muzzle of the weapon was within 3 inches of the surface of the neck? How could these conclusions be correct, if there was a mark with the corresponding characteristics of the silencers end cap around the lower entry wound, and non around the upper entry wound?
To my mind and to my way of thinking, these discrepancies were/are significant and serve to undermine a crucial part of the prosecutions case...
For example...
If the upper entry wound contained evidence that it was contact in nature, how come there was not a mark or impression which showed the characteristics of the silencers end cap upon the skin around the upper entry wound? An absence of such a mark around the upper fatal entry wound beneath the chin, demonstrates in my view that a silencer was not fitted to the guns barrel at the time Sheila was killed by the bullet fired under her chin, and as such all the prosecutions arguments about the silencer, and the blood/paint which they relied upon to help secure the convictions for murder are irrelevant in that respect...
The silencer mark around the lower non fatal wound was/is important because it produces an explanation for how Sheila's blood could have got into the silencer, without the need to argue that the blood experts evidence that it was blood found inside the silencer which was exclusive to Sheila, was actually an intimate mixture of the parents blood types (an argument which the jury rejected)...
Considering that the defense accepted a general proposition that a silencer could have been used at some stage in the shootings, since they were prepared to argue that the blood was an intimate mixture of the parents blood, rather than Sheila's, it does not require a leap of faith for them to accept that Sheila's blood could have got into the silencer at the time the non fatal wound to the side of Sheila's neck occurred, but that the silencer was not fitted to the guns barrel at the time she was killed by the shot under the chin...
The presence of a mark which matches the characteristics of the silencers end cap, around the lower non fatal entry wound, and an absence of the same around the upper fatal wound, does not require any in depth explanation to persuade anyone that a silencer was fitted during only one of the two shots...
If accepted...
It provides an explanation to help account for the presence of Sheila's blood found inside the silencer, with no requirement to explain how someone would have needed to remove the silencer from the guns barrel and take it all the way downstairs to hide it inside the gun cupboard, after Sheila was killed by the shot under the chin...
To me, that would have been the best way way forward, to account for the presence of Sheila's blood inside the silencer...
