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1996. Wendy Scurr has changed her mind on the subject; she no Hobart Hospital on the day his witness statement was taken, was longer believes that Bryant was the man she saw that day. never given the opportunity to look at him. On this occasion, a So when people tell me that everyone knows that Bryant "did it" _ positive ID could have been obtained in a matter of minutes, if the because people saw him doing it, I tend to wonder which witnesses police officers taking his statement had really wanted one. they can possibly be referring to. To my knowledge, the only In this regard, it is striking that none of the witnesses who witnesses who positively identified Bryant as the gunman were showed a tendency not to identify Bryant as the gunman was given Linda White and Michael Wanders, both persons whose statements the opportunity to pick him out from the police identity board—not were taken a full month after the shooting, after they had been even NSW police officer Justin Noble, who said that he thought he exposed to plenty of media coverage about the case. could identify the man if shown a photo of him taken from the On 27 May 1996, White viewed the 14 May police photoboard appropriate angle. The fact that Noble was never asked to view the and decided: "Photograph no. 5 in this folder [i.e., Bryant] is the police photoboard implies that Tasmania police anticipated a male who shot us near Port Arthur." However, White's only reason negative response. for selecting photo no. 5 seems to have been because of the fact A related issue is the uncertainty that surrounds the matter of the that, in this photo, Bryant appeared to be wearing a top that was gunman's clothing. In no context of which I am aware did the "very similar" to that worn by the gunman. "It could even be the allegations against Bryant ever raise the matter of the items of same top," she said. clothing that the gunman had been seen wearing. It is striking that Unfortunately, White's statement is of no value whatsoever. An there is no consistent evidence as to the colour of the gunman's identification can scarcely be based upon an item of clothing, clothing; one can only wonder whether witness statements were which can obviously be worn by another tampered with to prevent a clear picture from person. (Indeed, someone seeking to emerging, for fear that it would raise the impersonate Bryant would have taken care to question of whether there was any proof that acquire an item of his clothing, or at least a Bryant had ever owned the items. very similar item.) What's more, no previous It is only when one realises that Bryant has witness recalled the gunman wearing the same iti iki never been positively identified as the PAHS ; a -uit is striking top as that worn by Bryant in photo no. five. shooter that one begins to understand why a White was clearly basing her identification that hone of the court trial was never held. If a trial had been media ee BE Senn OS) witnesses who showed |r rciy awkward postion itsome witnese As for Michael Wanders, in his statement a tendency not to had either denied that Bryant was the man or taken the same day as White's, he picked H H expressed serious doubts about the Bryant out from the police photoboard as "the identify Bryant identification. That a trial was avoided means person who shot at Linda and I on 28/4/96". as the gunman that such problems were never permitted to Unfortunately, Wanders's identification is also of no value. On 28 April 1996, he told the police: "I would not be able to identify the person who shot at us." In his statement a month later, he admitted that he hadn't been able to "get a good enough look at the male to see how old he was or what he was wearing". His statement suggests that, really, all he had seen was a male with long blond hair. Yet, somehow, his original statement did not deter him from picking Bryant out from the police photoboard a month later arise. It is hard not to see why the legal strategy took the form of coercing Bryant into pleading guilty to all 72 charges against him—a process that took seven months—rather than risk the case going to trial. was given the opportunity to pick him out from the police identity board. Lack of Bryant's fingerprints or DNA at Port Arthur Martin Bryant is adamant that he never visited the PAHS on the day of the massacre. Most Australians—if they knew of this denial at all—would as the man who had shot at him. It is probably dismiss it as a lie. A fact that hard to credit the positive identification should deeply unsettle them is that of Bryant a month after the attack by a witness who, on the day of _ neither Bryant's fingerprints nor his DNA has ever been found at the attack itself, told the police explicitly that he would not be able — the PAHS. This much has effectively been conceded by Sergeant to identify the gunman. Gerard Dutton, officer in charge of the Ballistics Section of White's and Wanders's statements prove one thing: not that Tasmania Police, in an article he wrote about the case which was Bryant perpetrated the shootings, but that the laws prohibiting _ published in the December 1998 Australian Police Journal. media organisations from publishing photos of accused persons There is no good reason why no evidence of this kind exists. An before they have been tried are sensible ones which ought always obvious source of fingerprints and DNA would have been the food to be rigorously enforced. tray (with a can of Solo soft drink, a plastic Schweppes cup, food In view of the fact that no serious efforts were ever made to items and eating utensils) that Rebecca McKenna saw the gunman prevent the media from publishing photos of Bryant, the question eating from immediately prior to the shooting. We know that the has to be asked whether the police ever wanted the gunman tray was recovered by the police, because it is shown in a police properly identified, or whether they colluded with the media in the training video that turned up in a second-hand shop in September release of these photos in a deliberate effort to taint the pool of | 2004. Although the tray would have contained fingerprints, thumb witness testimony. Certainly, they seem to have done their best to _ prints, palm prints, saliva, sweat, skin and possibly hair from the avoid placing Bryant together with eyewitnesses in the same room. shooter, there is no evidence that it yielded anything that came Graham Collyer, who was on the same floor as Bryant in the Royal from Martin Bryant. The only reason we have heard nothing about -uit is striking _ that none of the a tendency not to identify Bryant ar as the gunman was given the opportunity to pick him out from the police identity board. 14 = NEXUS JUNE — JULY 2006 www.nexusmagazine.com