We believe but for Jeremy's decision to dispose of Ewen Smiths services in 2004, that all the good work undertaken by Smith and Mallinson between 2003 and 2004 would have led to his convictions being quashed, and the prosecutions ballistic expert, Fletchers evidence being significantly undermined...
This work was sanctioned by Ewen Smith and with the knowledge of Rivlin QC who had represented Jeremy at the failed 2002 appeal hearing. It was pursued on the basis of what the judges said regarding how they would look favourably upon any argument advanced linked to the ammunition which police had wrongly destroyed in 1996. As I have truthfully stated previously, at the time of the appeal in 2002 the defence did not advance any ballistic argument because no-one by that stage had looked into the matter in the same way that Smith and Mallinson did between 2003 / 2004. There wasn't anything that these two pioneering gun enthusiasts did not look into and consider. One of the issues they dealt with, was the claim that with the sound moderator fitted to the barrel of the gun, the overall length of the weapon would have been too long to enable Sheila to shoot herselfbwith the gun so configured. This was dealt with on the basis that the sound moderator had been fitted to the barrel of the rifle at the time she shot herself, but that the silencer had not been removed by anybody afterwards and taken downstairs to be concealed in the downstairs office gun cupboard. We were aware by this stage that DS Jones had taken possession of a silencer from the scene on the morning of 7th August 1985, thus contradicting the claim that only one silencer had been found at the scene, this being the one found by David Boutflour in the aforementioned gun cupboard on the 10th August 1985. How could Jones have taken possession of a silencer at the scene on the morning of 7th August 1985, and then along came the relatives 3 days later to find the same silencer in the aforementioned gun cupboard? Obviously there were two identical parker game silencers at the scene on the morning of 7th August, but only 1 there by the 10th August 1985. Smith and Mallinson came to that conclusion, based on information that two parker hale sound moderators were normally kept at whf, one belonging to AP, the other to Ralph Bamber. The former being the sole silencer kept at the scene since 1980 when AP purchased it along with his .22 Bruno bolt action rifle, the latter being the second of the two silencers kept at the scene since November 1984, when Ralph Bamber purchased it along with the Anshuzt .22 semi automatic Rifle. Smith and Mallinson set about investigating these matters vigorously and with painstaking diligence. Smith was the owner of the gun club where most of their research into these ballistics issues took place between 2003 and 2004. He had been a probationary police officer who had performed duties during Princess Diana's visit to South Yorkshire, he had been a member of the territorial army based at Catterick, he was a Registered Firearms Dealer, and ran his own fireworks and pyrotechnics business. He and Keith Mallinson both did a marvelous job of looking into all the ballistics matters on behalf of Jeremy Bamber free of charge, and news of everything they did was filtered back and forth to Ewen Smith in his Birmingham office. Now, as I say they set out to try and prove that with the silencer fitted to the rifle barrel that it would not have prevented Sheila from being able to shoot herself using such a configured weapon. The services of Amy Holland were obtained, and with empty rifle and silencer a series of exercises were performed to demonstrate various positions Sheila could have adopted in order to shoot herself twice in the throat at the corresponding angles matching the actual shots had been administered at the time of her shooting (August 1985). These exercises were filmed and photographed, and prove beyond any doubt that the prosecution argument during the trial, that the weapon would have been too long to enable her to shoot herself even if she had wanted to, was in actual fact not true. Sheila could have shot herself with the rifle and silencer attached, as demonstrated by the exercises described. Smith and Mallinson did say, however, that the anshuzt rifle would have been found with the aforementioned silencer fitted to its barrel afterwards. They said that the photographs they had been given access to showed the barrel of the rifle on the body minus a silencer fitted, and that the external screw thread end of the guns barrel appeared to be free from blood. This led them to suspect that somebody may have removed something from the end of the guns barrel prior to the photographs being taken? When enquired into by myself regarding what could possibly have been fitted onto that external thread, they said it might have been one of the silencers, or as the case may be, it could have been the guns metal end cap which fits onto that external thread of the barrel? During debates between Smith, Mallinson, and myself, regarding the cleanliness of the thread on the end of the rifles barrel as shown in various crime scene photographs, it became obvious that if any of the shots inflicted upon Sheila's throat had been contact in nature, that the tip if the rifle barrel and its thread should have got some blood upon it, or as the case may be, inside the rifles barrel? But we could find no references in the case file to any such blood being found or detected in those such locations. From that point onward, we set about approaching the matter of trying to find any supporting evidence for the inclusion of (a) the guns metal end cap, and (b) a silencer? Dealing with (a) firstly, we discovered that police had taken into their possession at an early stage the (a) metal gun cap which was normally fitted to the guns barrel. However, we could find no information at that stage, how it (a) had ended up being in the possession of the police? My own theory regarding this, was that it had been this metal (a) end cap that David Boutflour had found in the gun cupboard at the scene on 10th August 1985, not the silencer. Furthermore, it had been this (a) metal end cap, which Peter Eaton had given to DS Jones on the 12th August 1985, who in turn had shown it (a) to DI Miller, and which ultimately ended up in DI Cooks possession on the following day, to enable him to take it (a) to the lab' to be provisionally examined by Glynis Howard. If true, then Cook did not take a sound moderator to the lab on that date, instead he took along the metal end cap (a), upon which was found human blood. I believe this metal end cap was originally given a lab' item number 22, and that there was some red aga paint ingrained into its knurled pattern around its circumference. I also believe that this is the end of the guns barrel, which prompted DS Davidson to tell the COLP investigators that some paint had been found downstairs on the end of a guns barrel, which had caused Cook to take a paint sample (RC/1) from the kitchen aga on 8th August 1985? This theory was problematic however, because Boutflour did not find (a) the guns metal end cap until 10th August 1985, and thus was not potentially handed over to Jones by Peter Eaton until the evening of 12th August 1985. But it (a) fitted the puzzle of why lab' item numbers 22 and 23 later became interchangeable exhibits...
Perhaps the metal end cap (a) of the anshuzt had been left at the scene, or placed in the gun cupboard by the police, prior to the keys of whf being handed back at the scene on evening of 9th August 1985 by Jones and Jones? Another possibility, which I took into consideration, was the meaning of Ann Eaton's note, where she mentions her husband Peter returning the gun back to whf on the evening of 9th August? What was Ann Eaton talking about, when she mentioned this gun? What gun? Did she mean, (a) part of the guns barrel? If so,then how coincidental that he should replace it (a) in the gun cupboard in the downstairs office (9th August), and along comes David Boutflour on the following day to find it (a), along with the Bamber owned silencer...
One thing which bothered me, was the interchangeable lab' item numbers, 22 and 23, or vice versa, supposedly of the same silencer? Well, to me none of that made much sense, I couldn't see the police or those at the lab' making a pigs ear of the exhibit references to the silencer, or indeed create even more confusion by sometimes referring to the silencer as lab' item number 22, and or 23? I think the (a) metal end cap was (22), and the silencer which was not handed over by Ann Eaton until 11th September 1985, became item number 23, or vice versa...
One thing I am certain about, is that David Boutfloyr took possession of (a) the gun barrels metal end cap from the gun cupboard on 10th August 1985, because he makes mention of having done so in one of his witness statement versions..,
