by Cliff Todd
I’m not sure why this little vignette should stick so clearly in my mind – but I look back on it, strangely, as a rather fond memory. Perhaps because it was a significant enough piece of everyday life, even if a little sad, to tear my mind away from the all-consuming concentration on all things 21/7, and to remind me, if only briefly, that real life could matter more than work.
The Trial – continued…
The trial went on for several months in total, of which the scientific evidence was maybe only two or three weeks, which I say only to make the point again that there was a great deal of evidence, of which the science was only one part, but this is a personal account from memory, not a trial log, and these are just the bits that I remember which involved me. But I had invested a great deal of time and effort in getting to this point, so I (along with all others involved) naturally had a great deal of interest in the outcome.
The outcome was that the four main bombers were convicted and sentenced to life terms, with a minimum of forty years before they would be eligible for parole. Which to my mind was a good outcome, since it meant that the FEL’s and my evidence (amongst others), to the effect that the devices were designed and intended to kill, had been accepted by the jury. The other two defendants the jury could not agree on, but they were always going to be more contentious, since one had abandoned his device, and the other wasn’t actually there at the time. But since the jury could not agree, as opposed to them being acquitted, a retrial for them was ordered.
The retrial was scheduled for later that year, but in the event it wasn’t actually held because both defendants pleaded guilty shortly before it was due to start. This was a good thing, meaning no one had to go and give evidence again, but in any case, the build-up had been much less frenetic than for the original trial, since most of the evidence was exactly the same. The only extra work I can remember for the retrial (for me anyway), was that I had to examine a sideboard taken from the main bomb-making premises, which the defendant who had abandoned his device claimed had been booby-trapped, but which he had disarmed after the others had gone. At the end of my examination, I concluded that there was some evidence to suggest that this might have happened, but I couldn’t be sure. Whether this had any effect I have no idea, but the final outcome was that, having pleaded guilty, they both received several years’ sentences, however, much less than the four main bombers. Which seemed like a pretty uncontroversial result to me.
So that’s the end of the saga then? No, of course not. It seems like it’s in the nature of major trials to almost inevitably be appealed at some point – and this case was no exception, which I will come to shortly. But first, for the sake of keeping it chronological, I will round this part off by returning to what started it all – 7/7.
Although that took a back seat while 21/7 was dealt with, there was still a legal process to go through and, for the FEL staff, all the evidence collected from those incidents still had to be examined, written up and reported, though clearly not under the same pressure as for 21/7. Eventually there was a trial, but this was of a number of alleged helpers, since the main perpetrators were dead. My only involvement with this trial was to provide evidence of how the devices were constructed, and to offer my opinion that it was very unlikely that the four bombers could have designed and produced their devices completely in isolation – they would have had to at least been given some advice and information to have produced such effective devices from scratch. All of which was pretty uncontroversial, since it didn’t relate directly to these specific defendants, merely that someone must have helped. Anyway, this trial ended with the jury unable to agree about any of the defendants – so a retrial was ordered! And at the end of that, I think two were found guilty of having attended terrorist training camps in the Middle East, and the rest were acquitted.
And finally there was an inquest for the 7/7 incidents. For which I gave pretty much the same evidence as for the trial. In this case it was perhaps slightly more significant because I was also asked to address some conspiracy theories (of which many abounded), and specifically one which held that the bombs were placed underneath the trains, and hence not by the identified bombers but by – state agents? – other shadowy organisations? – space aliens? – who knows?… Well they weren’t. Placed underneath the trains that is. And I could give very definite evidence on that.
And so, by sometime in 2008, the saga was over. Or so I thought. And it was for a while, but then came the application to appeal which, while not directly relating to FEL evidence, did involve the FEL indirectly.
Jean Charles de Menezes
To my mind, the one physical casualty of the 21/7 bombers was Jean Charles de Menezes. My limited involvement was to be asked a few questions, both by the police and by counsel for the family in connection with the inquest. The questions were around the briefing given to the police, prior to the shooting, basically the same from both parties, and boiled down to: “Was the briefing given to the police correct to say that the devices could be easily hidden around the body and easily triggered?” This was particularly thinking about the smaller devices found in the Luton car, and the answer was – yes. “Could the larger devices have been reconfigured as a suicide vest, and hidden that way?” The answer was – possible in principle but complicated and unlikely in the time available.
And then the really tricky one: “Could they have been briefed thus?” –“If you have clear sight of his open hands, they are empty, and he does not move them, then no shot need be made.” Aaaargh. Well… in a comfortable debate somewhere, I might agree with that, but the atmosphere at the time was anything but, so would I have dared to brief that (or advised anyone else to)? I truly couldn’t say. But looking at it purely personally, and bearing in mind they were given a positive identification, is it even humanly possible to be so self-possessed in such an extreme situation, where the slightest twitch by the target might be leading to death or injury to you and those around you, that you could comply with that?
So, anyway, my overall take on the whole episode was that the key mistake was that he was wrongly identified to the police as one of the bombers, which I have nothing to say about. Except that I do know what the atmosphere was like at the time, for all involved, which was one of barely controlled panic as to where and what the next attack might be. And in situations like that, mistakes very easily happen. And who caused that situation? (That’s rhetorical!)
Application to Appeal
After SO15 had gone off and got themselves someone to test for hydrogen peroxide concentration using IRMS, they had asked me if the FEL wanted to have a copy of his report. After some thought, I said OK, it might be interesting for our research team to see, since they were also researching the technique, albeit for different uses. Maybe discussions between them might be mutually beneficial in a research sense. But I was very clear to the police, this was specifically for research information – we were absolutely not doing any form of peer review! We had ruled ourselves out of this endeavour right at the start so we were, by definition, not expert enough to peer review any IRMS work.
My mistake here, was assuming that this was also fully understood by our research team. So I was first taken aback, and then utterly pissed off, when I was presented, out of the blue, with a written report by our research team on the IRMS report – which picked out some significant flaws. I don’t do apoplectic, but if I did, this would certainly have triggered it. This is still quite difficult for me write about because I liked and respected the people in our research team, but for me this smacked of normally professional people indulging in a bit of schoolboy playground one-upmanship. Admittedly, the IRMS guy was not the easiest person to work with, possibly because he didn’t regard the FEL research team as peers – see my previous and following comments about academics and forensic scientists – but I thought our research team should have been a bit more grown up about this, and simply had a discussion with him, along the lines of – “We’r
e not sure about that bit,” and “Can you explain this bit here?” And then left him to do whatever he chose with his report.
Now this is just a personal (and no doubt controversial) view, but I think academics can be somewhat egocentric compared to forensic scientists – not because they are more subject to such character traits, but because forensic scientists are severely constrained by the environment they work in. All reputable forensic science labs have a hugely detailed quality system, which closely defines how every aspect of their work should be done; the methods, the processes, the management policies, the training and accreditation of the staff, everything. And this is born of bitter experience over many years of presenting evidence in court, and constantly trying not to repeat mistakes, many caused by the human foibles that we are all subject to. This was not the background that the IRMS expert came from. He was an academic, and academics do not generally work like this – indeed it could be argued that such constraints are counter-productive to good academic work, at least in its early stages.
Anyway, I now had a problem I really didn’t need, just before the trial! The fact that the FEL had produced a written document, on a piece of work to be produced in court, even though it was not FEL work, meant that this had to be treated as a potentially disclosable document for the trial. And on a subject I had been determined we would have nothing to do with! So, through gritted teeth, I arranged for a meeting to be held at the FEL, between our research team, me, the IRMS guy, and SO15. It was SO15 who were responsible for collating all the evidence for the prosecution, and they had disclosure officers specifically responsible for ensuring that all disclosure requirements in the case were fully met. So we had what I remember was a, perhaps unsurprisingly, somewhat tense meeting. But all the points in our research team’s document were raised, notes were made by all concerned – and that, as far as I was concerned, was my job done. SO15 could report back to their management and disclosure team, the IRMS guy could take away our observations and amend his report, or not, as he saw fit. And produce an amended report he did.
A pain, but all sorted then? Well, again, not quite. What I should also have made sure of, was that I gave the actual document to the police, and had them sign for it. But I didn’t. I was too relieved just to have got the whole episode out of the way and get back to whatever I was doing at the time, that I overlooked that small step. They certainly had all the information that was in the document, but did they have the actual document? Probably – it was certainly present at the meeting – but I can’t be certain.
Back to my question above – why does any of this matter? Well, it turns out that the defence did not have sight of this document prior to the trial. Then, in 2010, a member of the FEL research team resigned from the laboratory. Sometime later, he contacted one of the 21/7 trial defence team, and told him about the FEL IRMS document, which then formed the basis of an application to appeal. This caused us a lot of hassle in the lab, going back through meeting notes, emails, documents, letters, etc., then having a mini internal inquiry, ultimately concluding that no one had contravened any mandated processes, only in hindsight could things perhaps have been dealt with better, and we made all this available to anyone who should want it. And moved on.
But what did I actually feel about this? As per usual, I just did what I needed to, and then just packed it all away in some ‘Room 101’ in my brain, not to be looked at again. And this must have been some bloody big room by now, and was bulging at the seams. But looking back, if I’m honest, I was really quite angry. This was all from someone I counted a friend – still would like to. But this felt like a bit of a betrayal really. He didn’t know anything more after he left, than he did before; he had watched the same trial we had, knew all about the report, knew what had (and hadn’t) happened during the trial, everything. Yet it was only after he left, several years after the end of the trial, that he chose to raise it, and even then not with us in the lab. This was raised by him as a potential miscarriage of justice. Cobblers! It was, at worst, a technical discrepancy in procedure, at least as far as the FEL was concerned – I can’t speak for other organisations. As far as a real miscarriage goes, this was nothing of the sort. The IRMS was always a giant red herring, which was always going to be arguable, whatever the result. But there was plenty of good reliable scientific evidence about the viability of the scene material, which was to my mind clear and unarguable. Yes, the document should have been disclosed to the defence. And it wasn’t. I don’t know why. Sometimes non-disclosure can have significant consequences on a trial outcome, so, as a principle, it shouldn’t happen. But in this particular case, the actual consequences, in my opinion, are nil. But he knew all this years before he spoke up, so this all smacked of a bit of self-righteousness to me.
Anyway, I can’t now remember the chronology of all this, I’m fairly sure I knew that the legal process was under way while I was still at the FEL, but I retired in 2013, and I don’t think anything had actually happened in court by then. In any event, it was in 2015 that it finally came before the High Court, where three very senior judges ruled that the appeal would not be allowed on these grounds.
Is that the end of it? Probably not, a paper has recently done another article on it, so I daresay there will be some more legal stuff to come. But it’s been long enough, and now that I’ve decided to write about my whole experience with 7/7 and 21/7, I think it has done some good for my soul, and actually has been illuminating to me in ways I had not expected when I started it. So I no longer care about what anyone else might think I should or shouldn’t say. This is not a technical treatise, this is some reflections on a personal journey through a very intense period of my life. And to continue with the concept of a ‘Room 101’ for a moment, I would say I have tugged on that door a couple of times in the narrative – and then firmly shut it again. I’m not sure what good would come from looking in there again now, but at least I am now aware it’s there – which I wasn’t before I started this. Yes, I learned a lot professionally throughout this period, but now I think I may have paid a higher personal cost than I knew then, or I could maybe have alleviated some of it if I had been more aware of it at the time. Never forgetting that, quite apart from the direct victims, there will be hundreds, maybe thousands, who will have been touched indirectly by those events in their own individual ways. Probably most of them to a far greater extent than me.
