Examination of the rifle69. The rifle was a German made Anschutz model 525 .22 self-loading rifle in good working order. Cartridges are loaded into a magazine, which has a capacity of 10. It is, as the jury found when they conducted the exercise themselves, progressively harder to load as the number of cartridges increases. Loading the tenth is exceptionally hard. Assuming a full capacity at the commencement of the shooting at the farm, the discharge of the rifle twenty-five times would require it to be re-loaded a minimum of two more times.
70. The stock was damaged, with a piece of wood missing. The broken piece of wood found on the floor in the kitchen was the missing part of the stock.
71. The rifle bore blood smearing on the barrel in the region of the fore-sight and around the mechanism and there were splashes of blood to the left side of the weapon. The appearance of the blood staining was consistent with it having been used to strike somebody who was already bleeding. On analysis the blood was found to be human blood but tests to determine grouping were unsuccessful. A “pull-through” on the barrel of the rifle was conducted for any traces of blood within the weapon. There were none.
72. The weapon was also examined for fingerprints. A print from the appellant’s right forefinger was found on the breech end of the barrel, above the stock and pointing across the gun and Sheila Caffell’s right ring fingerprint was found on the right side of the butt, pointing downwards. There were three further finger marks on the rifle, each of insufficient detail for identification purposes.
