Kaldin - two silencers were handed back to the Boutflours under signature. If the Police didn't have these in their possession then how could they hand them back in this official capacity. I have no idea what a Boutflour silencer had to do with the investigation or why they gave it to Police - don't think any other local farmers handed theirs in for testing (that's just how absurd it is)
Sadly i think the sorry story of the silencers is true. What was David Boutflour doing scraping blood off a silencer anyway - that is tampering with evidence (apart from it being very weird indeed).
There won't be any prizes for guessing who were the likely candidates for the paint scrapes on mantlepiece and Aga.
I just can't understand why the Boutflours would hand in their own silencer. Is it possible that the two silencers handed back to them were found at the farm and the police gave them back to the Boutflours because there was no one else to give them to?
That business about scraping paint off is absurd I agree. It's also absurd that the silencer was taken to Ann's house. I can understand them taking it out of the gun cupboard, but they said they saw something on it so they should have put it down and called the police immediately - after all, it sounds like they had a hotline to the police from the start. They had no business taking any evidence away with them and then fiddling with it.
I wonder if anyone told them off for doing that. The judge should have said something to them.
