Nexus - 1305 - New Times Magazine-pages

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Warren: As I said, sorry, as I've said, we have, there are lots of people saying that they saw you in the Port Arthur site and your car in the Port Arthur site. Bryant: Mmn, I can't recall that. Warren: I don't know, you tell me. Bryant: Why, why would anyone do a thing like that, what? Warren: Well, you tell us. Bryant: [inaudible] Warren: That's what we want to know Martin, why. Bryant: What, what, would, I wouldn't hurt a person in my life. That Inspector Warren twice told Bryant that "lots of people" had seen him at Port Arthur is a clear-cut case of police mendacity. Police witness statements show that the eyewitnesses had seen a Inspector Warren then reminded Bryant that he had already man with long blond hair—who, on account of numerous admitted having done someone some harm that day: discrepancies, could not have been Bryant. Furthermore, as we Warren: Well, you've already said you'd put the man in your saw in the previous article, only one person who actually knew boot of the car. Bryant observed the Port Arthur shooter in action. That person, Bryant: Only, yes, yes. Jim Laycock, got a good enough look at the gunman to estimate Warren: Then you've set fire to the car and you thought that he his age but told police that he "did not recognise the male as was in the boot. Martin Bryant". Another witness, Michael Copping, who knew Bryant: [inaudible] Bryant "by casual contact", saw the gunman driving the Volvo but Warren: So how do you explain that? did not indicate in his police statement that the man had been Bryant: It was a bad thing... Bryant. Bryant: Well, I shouldn't've gone and kidnapped him and the In addition, it should be noted that Warren claimed that "Bryant" BMW. It's the wrong thing. That and, that, and in the, being had complained about the price of admission to the PAHS. caught with not having a driver's licence. So they're the two things Although he made this statement twice during the interview, both I've done wrong. I don't know why I stole the BMW in the first PAHS employees who said that they lace. I wish I'd [inaudible]. accepted the money from the Volvo driver, Aileen Kingston and Steven Bryant found himself checkmated. Howard, stated the exact opposite in By having him admit that he had done their respective witness statements. . . one bad deed that day, Inspector Kingston related: "I was expecting an His low 1Q, Ina nutshell, Warren effectively deprived him of a argument about the entrance fee from i case for asserting that he would not be the Volvo driver as he looked to me Is the real reason why he the kind of person who would murder that he didn't have a lot of money. This seems destined to spend the 35 people! Although the taking of a didn't eventuate, and the driver ic lifa tT H hostage is clearly not a crime of the produced $50.00 and I gave him the rest of his life in prison. same magnitude as mass murder, most change with the tickets as well as a readers will think that Bryant has been briefing, and he then drove off towards caught up in his own lies and that the the site." Inspector Warren seems to truth will unravel, inch by inch. have been so determined to stick to a The problem with the case Inspectors prefabricated script that he felt free to Paine and Warren presented to Bryant, disregard information supplied by actual eyewitnesses. owever, is that it relied upon assertions, not evidence. Apart from And what about the Port Arthur massacre itself? Towards the the aforementioned image of a yellow Volvo—not necessarily end of the interrogation, Inspectors Warren and Paine finally is—parked at the Port Arthur toll gate, they showed Bryant no broached the subject for which they had spent several hours laying visual evidence—no photographs, not even the video allegedly the groundwork. After again denying that he had even been at Port = made by American tourist James Balasko which purports to show Arthur on 28 April, Bryant reacted as any reasonable person would the gunman at the scene—that would decide the matter. What's when charged with crimes as heinous as the Broad Arrow Café more, they showed the accused man nothing of a forensic nature— shootings: fingerprints or DNA—that could substantiate their extraordinary Warren: We believe you went into Port Arthur. Had a slight allegations. argument with the toll gate person about the price on entry. We In other words, when it came to convincing Bryant that he had believe you then went to park your car and an attendant or een responsible for the most appalling crime in recent Australian someone... istory, as late as 4 July 1996 Inspectors Paine and Warren still Bryant: Park the car. had nothing to fall back on except the distinctiveness of his Warren: ...said you couldn't park in a certain spot, so you didn't —_ appearance and that of his car. However, it is not hard to see that and sometime later you did move your car to that spot. We believe oth are things that could easily have been imitated by someone you went to the Broad Arrow Café with that bag over there, involved in a plot to set up Bryant; indeed, the conspicuous containing some guns and your video camera. You purchased a absence of any other kind of evidence against him renders such a meal, you went outside, sat down, and then went back into the scenario a virtual certainty. Unfortunately, Bryant's intellectual café. Took one. imitations are such that he was incapable of graduating to the Bryant: But you might've. That's like me saying to you, that relatively complex idea that someone had emulated his appearance you were down there. in order to set him up. His low IQ, in a nutshell, is the real reason Warren: But the difference is, Martin, my car wasn't down why he seems destined to spend the rest of his life in prison. there and I haven't been identified as being down there and I wasn't down there. And then you took one of the guns out of your bag Continued next issue... and opened fire in the café. Bryant: Why would I do that? I mean... Continued on page 76 His low IQ, in a nutshell, is the real reason why he seems destined to spend the rest of his life in prison. 18 = NEXUS Continued next issue... Continued on page 76 www.nexusmagazine.com AUGUST — SEPTEMBER 2006