JUDGE HIDDEN: We come to the forensic scientist John Burns. He has been a forensic scientist since 1966 and has worked exclusively in that time in examination of firearms since 1977. He works at the laboratory at Huntingdon and is an (inaudible) chemist. He did a threefold examination: the scene first, then the garage at South Woodham Ferrers police station and then the post-mortem. The scene is shown in photograph 7 of two that you have seen already and in 7(a) which was the corrected sketch which I asked you to look at just now. He examined the scene with Inspector Hughes and Dr Lannas who you remember was the lady pathologist who attended who I will remind you of in a moment.
The Range Rover was at the end of the farm track, as Mr Burns described it, it was fringed by bushes and small trees. Blood had dripped from the vehicle particularly on the nearside and run downwards in puddles of water towards the farm gate. There were five 12-bore cartridges on the ground by the vehicle - one near the front off-side wheel, two some three feet from the vehicle's mid-point on the off-side and two in the region of the nearside rear corner. So that is the position which is in fact shown on Exhibit 7 (a) which I am just holding up so you can see it. The dots are there. The three deceased were in the positions that he described. The rear nearside window of the door had the rear portion fallen out. The vehicle was taken to the police garage for further examination. Removal of the bodies revealed they had all three suffered head injuries consistent with being caused by a shotgun. Those are the head injuries that he mentioned, the further shotgun wound observed in the right side of Tate's torso. He spoke of blood splattering on the inside of the vehicle and of close range shotgun damage from within 2 feet, he put it, caused to the front off-side edge of the driver's head rest. You remember seeing that in a photograph. It was consistent, that damage, with the pellets continuing on their course and causing injury to the driver, Rolfe's, head or face. There were two fired shotgun cases in the vehicle - one on the floor near the rear off-side door, and the other in the front off-side door pocket. You saw a photograph of a little earlier.
There were fragments of plastic cartridge wadding present and several pellets in various areas of the front of the vehicle. He spoke of the gun shot wounds to each of the passengers saying those to Tucker were at close range from 18 inches to 2 foot 6. The cartridge cases all came from seven 12-bore vantage cartridges with a loading of seven and a half size shot lead shot. Then importantly he examined the firing marks on all of those cartridges microscopically and was satisfied that all seven were fired using the same firearm which he said was almost certainly a pump-action or self- loading 12-bore shotgun. The wads and pieces of wadding were derived from 7 plastic wads of the type that is loaded into 12 bore vantage shotgun cartridges and thus could have emanated from those 7 cases.
The sample of hair from Tate, the back seat passenger, indicated that the shot which caused the injury to his head, the actual injury, had actually passed through glass prior to causing the injury. The only broken glass was of course on the nearside.
He concluded that 8 shots from a 12-bore shotgun appeared to have been fired at the scene: 2 into the right hand side of Tucker, the front passenger, 1 into the back of his head; 2 into the right side of the head and face of Rolfe, the driver; and 3 at the rear passenger Tate - 1 into the right torso, 1 across back of the head and 1 into the left side of the head. He thought that most of the shots appeared to have been fired from close range through the open rear off-side door of the vehicle. One of the shots to the head and face of Rolfe having first passed through the right hand corner of the driver's head rest as you see in the photograph. The shot fired across the head of Tate appeared to have passed through the glass on the rear nearside door. The shot into his head appeared to be fired from the nearside of the vehicle through the same glass. The angle of the shot into his right torso suggested that he was in a position similar to where he was found when the shot was fired. All 7 cartridge cases had been fired using the same weapon; probably a pump or self-loading gun having a large capacity magazine. He could not discount the use of a gun with a lesser magazine capacity, that that would have required reloading. The likelihood of a large capacity magazine and the appearance of the fired wads suggested the use of a gun with a full length barrel. It was not possible to state with any certainty what order the shots were fired in, but then he made an assumption -- not particularly scientific you may think, and he said that later -- it was a reasonable assumption that one shot was fired at each victim in turn before the other shots were fired. He said from the relaxed positions of the deceased three it appeared to have happened very rapidly. There was not time for special movement or something to move them from their comfortable positions. He told you a bit more about the positions later on.
Then he moved to tell you about how a shotgun is fired. Some of you may have known already and some may not. He said a shotgun cartridge is fired by the bottom half inch of the cartridge containing the propellant and the base being fitted with a primer in the centre which was of soft metal. If the primer was struck a very sharp blow the chemicals ignite and those chemicals in the primer ignite the main propellant. It is the firing pin that causes the sharp blow. Different weapons leave different marks. The pump action has a single barrel with a magazine below it and a wooden (inaudible). The mechanism of an ordinary shotgun as opposed to a self-loading or pump was that you loaded a cartridge from a magazine into the chamber by pulling to the rear and then back to the front. The self-loading was very similar but this time with a tubular magazine. He said in this case of a self loading gun or a pump gun the energy from the discharge was used to transfer the cartridge into the chamber - one was ejected and one was transferred.
As to the ejection of a cartridge in each case he said for a pump-action you get quite a variable distance. That is a variable distance on how far the ejected case is thrown. The longest being between 5 and 6 feet, but sometimes the cartridge would just drop out of the gun. In the self-loading gun there would be a little difference but there is a tendency for the cartridges to eject somewhat further.
As to the damage to Tate's head he said he thought the offside shot struck Tate's head first before striking the window, but the other nearside shot into the head was fired through some of the glass in the window.
Then he moved entirely from everything he had been saying before, and I cannot make that distinction more clear, onto the shotgun found at Meadow Cottage, Exhibit 1O3. He said that was a Mossberg New Haven 600 18, 12-bore pump-action shotgun in working order subject to the requirements of Section 1 of the Firearms Act 1968. You have heard the admission that it is a firearm governed by the Act.
Cross-examined by Mr Parkins Mr Burn said this: he agreed that a defence expert, a doctor at Remshore, was experienced in the field of firearms and had attended at Mr Burn's laboratory on 19th August 1997 being afforded all facilities there, and there was nothing between the two experts except for one or two details. Having heard anything about those details they clearly are not important. Mr Burns said that whoever carried out the killing it was a reasonable assumption that they were well versed in the use of such a shotgun. It happened very quickly, probably so quickly the two in front did not have time to appreciate what was going on. The suggestion he had made that each deceased received a disabling shot before the other shot was his opinion based on the findings of the scene. There would be a very loud noise and a total of 8 shots. He would expect a rapid succession and anyone hearing the shots would hear a quick succession of discharges. They could be heard for a distance certainly greater than a mile. Whether someone would hear any whimpering would depend on how quickly the shots came. There would be a gap between the shots.
He had arrived at the scene at five minutes to midday. He went into the field and there was some tyre marks which had led through the gate at some time, but all he could say was there was some tyre marks there. He never saw a spent cartridge in the position on the nearside in diagram 7. He turned to diagram 7(a), the diagram that Mr Bettis had remarked from Mr Hughes' diagram, and he said 7 (a) was in general the position where he himself had found the cases. There was a foot mark visible possibly at the open door. Most shots were discharged from the rear off-side door. Hughes' diagram correctly shows Tate's position. Rolfe had a wound at the side of his face. Then he was asked about the possibility of Tate's head being turned to his right and he said this: Mr Burns could not exclude that Tate's head was turned to the right as the shot was fired and he tended to support the view that his head was somewhat to the right. He was asked about the grazes on Tate's head and he said this: he did not think he could entirely exclude the possibility that that round then went on to hurt Tucker, but having said that he said (although he could not entirely exclude the possibility) the three injuries to the head of Tucker did not show any dispersion of elements which he would expect if one shot had first gone across Tate's head, nor any deposits of blood and hair which he would expect. He said, "It is less likely, but I cannot exclude it." A pump-action gun ejects to the right.
He conducted an examination with scenes of crime officers who were present both before, during and after the removal of the bodies. Somebody had found a cartridge case in the floor well. He considered how it was found there. He excluded the shot from the nearside as getting there because that was very unlikely. If it ejected normally he could not explain the two cartridges found in the car. Hughes cannot agree entirely with the deposit of cartridges. He would normally only expect one cartridge case at the nearside. The angle of discharge to the right varies, and it just failed to go out through the opened rear door and fell into the front door pocket. He said if the gun is sufficiently far into the car the cartridge case would end up in the vehicle.
Turning to a different topic he said the seven and a half size is popular in clay pigeon shooting. He had examined a number of other weapons that had been brought in, several shot guns, none of which fired those cartridges. He examined a revolver and ammunition found at Tate's home address at Gordon Road, Basildon. The revolver was in working order and well capable of firing ammunition. There was also a machine gun from an address at Mill Green (?) Basildon -- you will remember that is the one in connection with Donna Evans that we shall hear about later -- and other weapons which he mentioned having examined. None of those other guns had fired the cartridges he examined.
He was at the post-mortem which was full and comprehensive. He was asked about the time of death. Again he did not come to getting any evidence of it. He said his own explanation would not indicate the time of death conclusively.
He would expect it to be the invariable practice for doctors to attempt to estimate the time of death. Tucker had 3 fatal wounds; Rolfe 2, certainly 1, maybe 2; and Tate 2 fatal wounds and 1 superficial. He could not discount the possibility that one of Tate's wounds went on after hitting him to hit Tucker. All the cartridge cases had got the same marks and they came from the same gun.
In re-examination he said there was no way for him to distinguish from the wounds themselves whether a long barrel or a short barrelled gun was used. That was being asked about wounds themselves could you tell, he had of course already said that the likelihood of a large capacity magazine and the appearance of the fired (inaudible) suggested the use of a gun with a full length barrel.
He said the car door would be open when the majority of the shots were fired and the door would be an obstruction to the right. But the shot that grazed Tate's head to have gone on to hit Tucker, Tate's head would have had to be between the open door and Tucker. If a shot strikes a glancing blow the pellets would be disrupted. At close range the body of the shot goes in the same direction. If there is a glancing impact the pellet ceased to remain as a closed mass and become disturbed and there is no sign in the wound to Tucker of that. There is nothing to indicate any material from Tate's head in relation to what was found in Tucker's head. So that was his evidence in relation to the ballistics of wounds and the shots fired in and about in, that is the Range Rover. The cartridge case is found in and about the Range Rover.
