Friday 17 August 2012

Louise Holmes - returning to the car

At the end of my last post we arrived at the point where it was agreed that the searchers would go back down the track to their car.  This is the ensuing testimony from Louise Holmes:

Q. And what did you then do?
A. We walked back towards the car. On the way to the car we met three police officers and Paul took them back to show them where the body was, and I went back to the car.
Q. Did you meet the police officers in the woods or after you got out of the woods?
A. No, on the track, just between the woods and the car.
Q. What did you tell the police officers?
A. They identified to us who they were. We said who we were and we were involved in the search and we had found the body, and they went with Paul to see.
Q. So in other words, Paul Chapman goes back with the police to show them where the body is?
A. Yes.
Q. What did you do?
A. I went back to the car to sort the dog out and then when I got to the car further police officers and personnel
came up to the car to take over, take over the scene.
Q. Did you then go back to the scene at all?
A. No.


Signicantly, as will be see later, she is very clear that the three police officers go back with Paul to see the body.  As she didn't go with them she wouldn't have known whether or not all three would have continued into the wood.

Q. So you presumably drove back?
A. Yes, I was around about my car and car area for a while; and then I was taken back to Abingdon police station to give a statement.
Q. Did you have to wear any special clothes or special shoes or anything?
A. I just wore my normal walking shoes, trousers.
Q. Did you hand in any of your clothes or shoes?
A. A print was taken of my shoes but they did not retain my shoes, they just took a copy of the soles.
Q. The print was taken by the police, I take it?
A. Yes.
Q. Is there anything else you would like to tell this Inquiry about the circumstances of Dr Kelly's death or indeed the circumstances in which you found his body?
A. No, I do not think so. 

It's not known just when she went back to Abingdon police station but we do know from the testimony of ambulanceman Dave Bartlett that he was asked to check whether Ms Holmes was all right, no delayed shock for instance.  From the known timings of various events it would seem that he would have checked that she was OK at about 10.30 am.  

2 comments:

  1. I didn't see any point in her returning with the dog to the car. Why didn't the searchers stay together?
    The evidence of Chapman is quite strange, in contrast.
    She came back towards me.
    Q. What did she say?
    A. Yes, she told me we had found the missing person...

    Chapman: I probably reached about 15 to 20 metres from it. [the body]
    How close did Holmes get?
    Within sort of a few feet of the body.

    Yet Chapman gives a description - so he was quite capable of deducing it was the missing person himself. And from 15-20 metres, allegedly, he spies a [left] arm all covered in blood.
    One imagines the two sarchers were in view of each other.

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  2. I shall be looking at Paul Chapman's evidence next. Suffice to say at the moment that I believe that the revealed parts of the police witness statements are hugely important as these statements were much more proximate to the event. It has to be remembered too that there are penalties for making false statements in a police witness statement whereas at the Inquiry anybody could effectively say anything!

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