In some instances is seems Special Branch officers end up in charge of evidence, particuarly older evidence. They for some reason had the Jack the Ripper files for instance.
That doesn't demonstrate Special Branch was at any time involve din the prosecution aspect of the case though jsut that files coudl have ended up in an area under their control or perhaps they wanted room made for evidence of htier own and ordered old evidenc ethey thought worthless gone to make room for such.
It is unclear whether the CCRC got an answer. The Appeal Court didn't explore it because the destruction of June and Nevill's blood samples ended up not mattering. Relatives of each provided samples and the court concluded that close matches their blood would be construed as definite matches. That is why at the end of the day the destruction of such evidence didn't matter anyway.
I still have not seen any evidence that the items referenced in that letter as having been destroyed were anything other than blood samples of the victims.
"It is, however, against this background that ground 15 is raised by the appellant and reads:
"Fresh DNA evidence, not available at trial, and now available supports the contention that blood in the silencer, said to be that of Sheila Caffell was in fact a mixture of the blood of Ralph and June Bamber. The appellant has been denied the opportunity of strengthening this ground by the deliberate destruction of exhibits by the police in February 1996 in breach of their own guidelines as to the destruction of such exhibits."
A part of this ground of appeal relates to the destruction of June Bamber's blood sample. It is not suggested that that can be used as a free standing ground of appeal but it is combined with the DNA evidence to suggest that the appellant may have been deprived of the chance of advancing even stronger evidence that the DNA was from June Bamber. On the evidence of the two scientists, we would feel that the only safe course for us to take is to conclude that the major component of the DNA on the baffles did originate from June Bamber. When we made clear to Mr Turner that this would be our approach and queried whether in such circumstances the destruction of the samples from June Bamber could be said to prejudice the appellant, Mr Turner recognised the force in the point and after taking specific instructions from the appellant decided not to pursue that aspect further. We have therefore not considered the circumstances in which the blood samples were destroyed since they have no bearing upon any other aspect of this case."
For all we know the CCRC fund out more about the destruction but Jerey's advocates don't want to release such because it would reveal their conspiracy claims to be bunk. Instead we jsut seem to get documents tha timply there is more out there and they fill in the blanks themselves trather than filling in the blanks with the follow up letters the CCRC should have received.
