There is indeed. I have now received a reply from CAL in respect to PC Bird and his experience as a scenes of crime photographer. The Bamber case was indeed only the second major incident he had attended after having taken the Scenes of Crime course when he joined Chelmsford. I have sent the proof of contact to NGB but have copied her response below,
"Dave Bird; he joined the police in 1976 (Canvey Island) but it wasn’t until he joined the Chelmsford lot that he decided to specialise in crime scene photography and took the required course. Bamber was his second major assignment in that capacity".
After nearly a year and a half this response is even worse than I predicted. It is abundantly clear that the poor state of the photographic record is because of EP malfeasance. It is the tampering with and withholding of this photographic evidence that is the issue at hand. The lack of experience of Bird was just some nonsense put forward by you in order to divert from the main issues of misconduct by the prosecution.
This latest attempt to insert the, "Bird was inexperienced" canard demonstrates even more clearly than ever that it has zero basis in fact. CAL and her publisher can't even agree on PC Bird's experience or lack of. According to CAL it was only Bird's second time acting as crime scene photographer. According to the publisher, it was Bird's second major assignment (his first major assignment being the Coggeshall murder some four months previously). Both CAL and the publisher hedged their statements by claiming it was his second job/major assignment since either "starting work on the lab treatments", (CAL) or after joining the Chelmsford lot and specialising in crime scene photography.
As an aside here it is worth pointing out that you spent quite some time arguing that Bird was not a specialist. You claimed that the COLP interview showed this by posting out of context quotes and also stated that Bird himself did not claim to be a specialist. When I posted the full COLP interview and it was clear that Bird was referred to throughout the interview by himself and the interviewer(Supt. Mckay) numerous times as a specialist crime scene photographer you fell back on "Bird's interview" in the CAL book to "prove" he wasn't a specialist.
Needless to say this interview turned out to be nothing of the sort and in fact was some badly paraphrased claim made on Bird's behalf by CAL. Basically, a worthless piece of hearsay. You even spent pages arguing ridiculously that CAL's words weren't hearsay. Only when NGB intervened at your request did you agree what everybody else already knew but then tried to sweeten the pill of being wrong by convincing yourself that hearsay has a different meaning in English Law than it does in the English language(it doesn't by the way, obviously). It is now clear that CAL and her publisher cannot even agree on the details themselves. However the publisher now agrees that Bird was a specialist.
I said earlier in the thread when this issue arose that CAL's publisher would, if replying at all, only confirm CAL's words rather than clear up the question of how many times Bird had acted as photographer. I myself wrote, as you know, but got no reply and left it as unimportant. You have obviously prompted for a reply desperate to be proven right and fail to comprehend that it weakens rather than strengthens your case.
Your question to the publisher posted earlier in the thread, similarly to my own question, made this distinction clear. How many times has Bird acted as a police photographer? Not since some arbitrary event occurred, Just, quite simply, how many times has Bird acted as police photographer?
Neither of them have clarified the question asked and in fact have muddied the waters even further leading to the obvious conclusion that Bird had way more experience than they are attempting to imply.
The publisher has in fact backed off from claiming that it was only Bird's second assignment since arbitrary event A as a photographer which was CAL's claim. The publisher claims a different arbitrary event, B, to avoid the direct question and now adds "major" to the claim, leaving the obvious possibility of an untold number of non major incidents that Bird has previously worked on. It's not even hearsay now, it's just gossip and chinese whispers and this is the entirety of your evidence to show Bird's inexperience.
I would suggest that the COLP interview(transcript not hearsay) and the court transcript of PC Bird's evidence(again transcript earlier in this thread) along with the commonly agreed fact that EP malfeasance with the photographic record has been ongoing for years are stronger evidence of Bird's professionalism than your hearsay from CAL which only appears to claim otherwise by making equivocal statements which are not even confirmed by her own publisher.
