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what he had done to cause it? If he was suffering from post- individual disguised as Bryant—presumably the Port Arthur traumatic amnesia, how is it that he was able to recall everything gunman himself—perpetrated the Fortescue Bay turnoff clearly enough that had happened prior to the carjacking? carjacking, but that the episode was a mere charade performed for Between his arrest on 29 April and his interrogation on 4 July, the benefit of a video camera. therefore, Bryant seems to have performed mental cartwheels in an The entire sequence of events would have been filmed for the effort to devise a scenario that would explain how his misfortunes purpose of brainwashing Bryant into believing that he had been the had come about. By this date, he had confabulated a scenario in actual perpetrator, that he was the man shown in the film. The which he had commandeered a BMW and set it alight. As we saw, video camera was then taken by the gunman to the PAHS, where it the scenario bears only superficial similarities to the gunman's was abandoned in the Broad Arrow Café as a means of ensuring actual capture of the Nixons' vehicle—an event that was viewed by that it reached the police. several witnesses including Jim Laycock, who knew Bryant but If Bryant was subjected to repeated viewings of such footage did not recognise the gunman as Bryant. while under the influence of the appropriate psychoactive drugs, he Although the real gunman seized the Nixons' BMW near the would have wound up believing quite sincerely that what he had PAHS tollbooth, Bryant believes he hijacked a BMW at the seen portrayed so vividly on the screen had in fact been his own Fortescue Bay turnoff. Since he cannot even get the location right, memories. his confession to having captured the vehicle and taken a hostage This theory helps explain a hitherto obscure circumstance: the has to be dismissed as sheer fantasy. fact that the Port Arthur gunman, despite However, on account of its resemblance to being sufficiently burdened already with a the scenario recounted to Sgt McCarthy by heavily stuffed sports bag, was also lugging "Jamie", its key elements (the BMW, the around with him a large black video camera. hostage, the petrol drums, the explosion) had Although the camera was discarded at the to have been suggested to him somehow. café and is known to have been recovered by The question is: how? police, it has not been heard of since. What I propose is that, once they were in 7 As it is most unlikely that the gunman total control of Bryant's environment —_and The best explanation, would have encumbered himself with this after his arrest, Bryant was subjected to therefore, 1s that object for no reason, the camera had to have weeks on end of virtual solitar . layed a role in the drama. confinement—government agents we are looking at , Although I cannot prove that the camera speciallsing in mind control convinced a case of artificially Contained footage Ore eeseus Bay ryant that, due to the traumatic nature of the . . turnoff incident, it might well have containe events in which they alleged he had been induced memories. footage of some kind. If it didn't, it's hard to involved, he was suffering from psychogenic Bryant would have see why the official narrative of the case amnesia (memory blockages). They would have offered to help him "recover" his lost memories. Psychiatrists known to have worked with Bryant who may have been involved in such a memory recovery program would include Dr Fred E. Emery, of the notorious brainwashing specialists the Tavistock Institute, who died on 10 April 1997, that is, only a year after Port Arthur—a fact that might well be regarded as suspicious— and Emeritus Professor Ivor Jones of the University of Hobart, who headed the two floors of Royal Hobart Hospital which were devoted to psychiatric entirely glosses over the matter of whether there was anything on the camera.’ Although Bryant's confabulated scenario failed to match the official account of his alleged deeds, it was serviceable enough for the purpose of forging a link with the sinister activities of the real gunman. Inspectors Paine and Warren would have felt gratified that, for all its logical problems, Bryant's scenario contained four episodes that feature in the official account of the Port Arthur massacre: (i) arriving at Seascape (ii) in a stolen BMW (iii) with a male hostage in the been subjected to the whole arsenal of coercive psychological techniques... studies at the time Bryant was being detained there. boot and (iv) setting the BMW alight. Nonetheless, Bryant's The best explanation, therefore, is that we are looking at a case scenario can be rejected as false because at least three known facts of artificially induced memories. Bryant would have been about the case directly contradict it. subjected to the whole arsenal of coercive psychological First, the BMW was actually set on fire by Constable Andrew techniques that are used to break down resistance and enhance M. Fogarty of the Special Operations Group (SOG), who was the suggestibility. Techniques likely to have been employed for the first police officer to arrive at Seascape. According to a police purpose of making him receptive to pseudo-memories would insider—apparently Superintendent Bob Fielding, who arrived at include sleep deprivation, electric shock treatment, hypnosis, "deep _ the police operations centre at Taranna about half an hour after the sleep" therapy, torture and the administration of beta-blockers like incident occurred—Fogarty had fired a phosphorus grenade at the Propranolol. vehicle in order to prevent it from being used as an escape vehicle. By such methods, Bryant's suggestibility would have been (The drums of petrol which Bryant had allegedly brought with him elevated to the point that he was fully capable of mistaking a mere from Hobart that morning, but which no eyewitness actually narrative for authentic memories. reported seeing, may therefore be completely fictitious.) Such a program would probably have been supplemented by a Second, while Bryant believes that the BMW driver was still in short video portraying the events themselves. I conjecture that an the boot when the explosion occurred, the body of the hostage— The best explanation, therefore, is that we are looking at a case of artificially induced memories. Bryant would have been subjected to the whole arsenal of coercive psychological techniques... 16 = NEXUS www.nexusmagazi ne.com AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2006