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New tests are to be carried out using the sound moderator (silencer) subject of DNA profiling in 2000. It is understood that part of the proposed tests, will include work which will establish that rounds fired through rifle 18 with and without a sound moderator fitted to the barrel of the rifle, produce significantly different features present upon bullet cases, fired and ejected via the rifle when configured differently. These features are linked to the differing amounts of back pressure present inside the breach of the weapon when a silencer is fitted and in use, as opposed to when one is not fitted. The additional level of back pressure produced when a silencer is in use, creates bulging at the base of cartridge cases ejected after firing, that are noticeably different to similar cartridge cases ejected when no silencer is fitted at the time of use...
Prosecution ballistic expert, Malcolm Fletcher, has already gone on record as saying that he was unable to tell if any of the 25 bullets had been fired through a silencer, but the new work is expected to show that if any bullets had been fired through the silencer that it would have been noticeable...
Since, no differences were detected or present upon any of the crime scene cartridge cases, it strongly suggests that a silencer could not have been used in the shootings, and doubt is cast upon the presence of blood found on, and inside the silencer. Key examination of bullet cases, DRH/1 and DRH/2 and a failure to detect any additional bulging on either of these, when examined by Fletcher in September 1985, will be relied upon to suggest that neither of the two bullet cases found on the bedroom floor next to Sheila's body had been fired and ejected through the rifle with a silencer fitted to its barrel...