With regards to where you say the knife wasn’t found in a dry-stone dyke 300yards from the scene by a farmer, why would the media blatantly lie about that? I do get the media massage and manipulate things, but surely such a simple fact, which in itself is really a simple, non-incriminatory statement, would be told truthfully?
I don't know why the media would say that - I haven't actually seen any media coverage of it, so I'd appreciate any links you could provide. The knife in question was found approximately 500 yards from the murder scene
near a drystane dyke (but not
in one) and certainly not by a farmer - I've no idea where that came from.
I suspect this knife is probably not connected to the murder anyway. When I was young, I found a machete behind my house in a bush. There was a lot of gang related violence nearby though, but these sort of finds do happen. Look at how many knives and weapons the police find and confiscate from the public each year.
There are details about where the knife was found and the reaction of police officers when it was handed in that suggested there was a possibility (nothing more) that it
may have been connected but, overall, I agree, knives, etc, turn up in many places without having been connected to anything untoward.
I guess the location makes it look a bit more dubious, but if you’re saying it wasn’t in a dry-stone dyke 300yds from the scene, perhaps it was found 5 miles away? I’m also assuming if anything was to come from this development it would have already.
See my answer above - it was, definitely, around 500m from the murder scene and there was a drystane dyke involved, it's just that the accuracy of the media reports about the relationship to the dyke and the person who found it was off. Unfortunately, those responsible for taking the required action on Luke's behalf, at the time of the find, failed to do so. That information has just begun to break publicly this evening, hence my unwillingness to comment further previously.
Out of curiosity - why have the media just begun to talk about this knife anyway? It was found what, four years ago or something? Why now?
Because Corinne mentioned it in her James English interview. Having only just discovered that those responsible for taking the required action, at the time, had failed to do so, she decided to go public with the information. I was not party to that decision (or the earlier failure to take action).
I’m not forcing you to answer anything about it though, but I suppose the other argument is that your lack of response in relation to this weapon sort of suggests that it will be part of the investigation. I do get this which you did sort of mention. I just don’t get why now, given it was found what, three or four years ago?
As always, I'll answer what I can, when I can; I was aware of developments behind the scenes but was not prepared to comment publicly on them for a number of reasons.
Forgive me for any factual inaccuracies with this post. The only source of information for this is the media at the minute, sadly.
I understand - the problem is that for so long, the only source of much of the misinformation about the case was mainstream media, which is why the facts to counter it remained buried for so long. It would be somewhat counter-productive to give MSM sensitive information about planned next moves - firstly, it would give them an opportunity to distort that information and cause even more confusion and secondly, as anyone working in these circumstances will tell you, there are some things that just cannot go into the public domain in advance for legal reasons.
