“Even fits with AO saying Jodi had just left during the call made from Luke around 5.40”
…..IF the couple seen by AB was Luke and Jodi and if she was right how can Luke have been on the Newbattle Road at around the same time to be seen by Andrew Holborn et al? Of course it would also mean that the Walsh/Fleming sighting could never have happened.
Of course we’ve discussed the contention that the first statement taken from a witness is almost always the most reliable…why is discussed in the link below.
14. Moreover, developing statements through numerous drafts, getting the witness to retell the story over and over, is a process which may corrupt memory and render the final product less reliable than the first “unvarnished” recollection.
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Witness-statement-working-group-Final-Report-1-1.pdf
The timings in AB’s first statement were determined by fixed points in her day..picking up her children from school, the supermarket receipt etc. Everything fitted, nothing was forced and of course the statement was taken when AB’s recall was at its sharpest. How the time supplied by the bank for AB’s supermarket checkout was accepted over her supermarket receipt has never been satisfactorily explained or indeed how thoroughly the discrepancy in time was investigated. How readily the defence appear to have simply accepted the prosecution’s explanation for this time anomaly, for me, is one of the most frustrating elements of a desperately frustrating case.
Another anomaly directly related to AB’s sighting is the lack of a police appeal for the couple seen by her to come forward and eliminate themselves. While the police made many appeals for other individuals to come forward including the moped boys, the lady with the pram and even stocky man no appeal was ever made for the young couple seen at RDP. If Luke was not, as some contend, a suspect at the time the lack of an appeal is puzzling. The couple could have eliminated themselves but more importantly may have seen something pertinent to the investigation. Could it be that the time of the sighting in AB’s first statement was thought by the police to be just too late to be relevant? That would certainly be the logical conclusion.
Of course the lack of an identity parade in relation to AB’s identification of Luke, in contravention of all police guidelines, was nothing short of mystifying. The white background on the photograph of Luke picked out by AB has been discussed infinitum but what is discussed less is Luke’s hair in the photograph….bear with me. AB, in her first statement could not describe any of the facial features of the male youth she saw. She described the clothes he wore and his hair “ sandy brown sticking up in a clump at the back”. The polaroid that was shown to AB showed Luke with obviously blonde hair with wispy hair at the nape of his neck..some think this is the ‘clump’ described by AB…but the photograph was taken at least six weeks after the murder. As already posted she couldn’t describe his face and in the photograph his clothes were different so there was only one way she could have identified him, his hair. In the six weeks between sighting and identification what had happened to that hair? Had it been longer in June and cut shorter by August? Had it been short in June and was longer by August? Was it ever established if it was in a different style in June? Was his hair blonder at the start of the summer? For an identification that seemed to rely solely on the style of the sighting’s hair the questions above seem to have been the minimum that should have been asked. Why weren’t they?
Meanwhile in reality - First statements, best recall. Love it.
CM we had no shopping, had missed out that she had been shopping. Her best recall of driving down the "Beeches" home. her usual time stepping indoors.
LM, best recall, mum arrived home her usual time, we had burnt pies, no shopping, no mum with any shopping when she arrived home at her usual time.
Both, best recall, it was a very relaxed affair, mother and son together helping sort the rest of dinner, mother outback in the dreich weather enjoying the sunshine, Luke in front of the TV, no indigestion - Lovely recall. first statements.
SM I went home, Luke was not there, I did not see him because he was still at school. Luke spoken about, no memory, no recall of talking with Luke on the phone, the claim that it was to say he would be late home. - Best recall, memory, accuracy, hours from that murder taken place.
Three days later with massive discussion going on in that house, no memory, no recall, the same story, that winging it. Two people to back the other up, all that they thought was needed. The heat is on, SM this time a formal interview within those station walls. Still the same, straight home, no call, no Luke. Dinner? Dam, what dinner and the "I cannot remember" card it played.
Not good, mother has now included him, she is going to be exposed for lying, help me please Shane, for you mother, anything? - Innocence would have been waiting, not rushing to change a statement by request of his mother, to lie to the police for his mother. By phoning the police to change his account. his mother had told him exactly what had taken place - Memory, best recall.
Friday and bang, the computer is taken, shit! Did not bank on that, dam, why the hell have they taken my computer, now they are going to know I was on the internet and not in the kitchen with any brother mashing totties!
Three people from the same household, who had no best memory, no recall, who gave no truth in those first statements, who stuck at those first statements until bang again - CCTV footage and those phone logs produced. - That which was clearly winging it came crashing down about them. - Luke Mitchell was not home.
This best memory, first recall, that very relaxed dinner tale, nicely spread out to cover, right up to and inclusive of that sighting by F&W. 35mins down to just 13mins.
Luke Mitchell I went out to meet with Jodi walking down, I waited a short while, yes he did indeed wait a short while, truth at last, that intentional window of opportunity to be seen on that road around the estate entrance. But dam it turned into 90mins, with around 70mins unaccounted for around the estate entrance - But he was seen elsewhere, by F&W at the wooden gate, by that lovely couple as he tried to exit back on to Newbattle Road, to make his way down to the entrance of that estate, to place himself in that, intentional window of opportunity.
But dam, it was massive police manipulation of witnesses, who were all out to get that boy, that child, to fit him up, for all the police cared about was a hit! No thought for that young girl who had been brutally murdered. - Have a word!
AB - Told exactly what she had been doing, told of seeing that couple with guesstimates, not clock watching and no reason to be. The Jones family, the exact same, a series of events, those guesstimates, there was no clock watching, no concoction of events put in place. And on it goes, checked up on and checked out - Telling the truth.
So spare us this bollocks trying to evade that stark reality - Three people, same household, best memory recall, first statements, exposed and blown wide open.
