12:42JONATHAN HUMPHRIES
Ashley Dale 'was shot in the kitchen' of her home
Mr Greaney says: “You expressed the view that the gunman seemed to have been moving between shots. You tell us please why you have formed that view?”
Mr Horne replies: “We have shot A against the wall. If we assume the gunman adopted a normal shooting stance with his armed stretched out. That means he would have to be at least, and probably further, an arm’s length away from the mark against the wall labelled A. We have a shot that struck the ceiling in the kitchen, shot H. Then it ricocheted onto the wall at H1. I used equipment to determine what is the position that shooter would have to stand in order to point his arm at the ricochet mark. It was further forward than the mark A at the wall. There had clearly been movement.
PG: “Your view, based in part upon testing carried out at the scene, was that it was not possible for the gunman when he was in the position to cause the damage at A to also have caused the damage at H and H1?”
AH: “H and H1 would not have been visible. They would have been obscured by the top of the doorway.”
PG: “There has been movement between those two positions by the gunman so as to cause that damage?”
AH: “That is correct yes.”
PG: “You explained to us earlier why you considered the mechanism of the shooting was not random but targeted. Have you been able to form any view where the target was or where the target was moving?”
AH: “In my view the target would have been moving towards the kitchen and into the kitchen.”
PG: “Have you been able to form any view about where Ashley Dale appears to have been when she was shot?”
AH: “Ashley Dale had two gunshot wounds. She had an entry wound to the right side of her abdomen and an exit wound at her left lower back. During the post mortem, those wounds were documented and distances were measured. The exit wound was 170cm above her heel. The bullet hole in the bar stool that I’ve marked N, the entry hole was at the same height as the exit hole in Ashley Dale’s left lower back. It is entirely consistent with her standing next to that bar stool when the shot struck her. We also have a trajectory going through Ashley’s body and a trajectory inside the chair. The bullet entered the back of the seat rest and came to rest inside the wooden furniture in that chair. I was able to insert a trajectory probe.”
Mr Greaney asks him to pause so he can ensure everyone has understood.
PG: “The exit wound on Ashley’s body was at a similar height to the damage to the chair?”
AH: “Yes.”
PG: “And is consistent with her having been in that area at the time she is struck by the bullet?”
AH: “Yeah.”
PG: “You use the word trajectory. You’ve made an assessment of the trajectory as to whether this all fitted together. Obviously there is a tripod within the dining room which is nearer the door into the kitchen than the mark A.”
AH: “I have a tripod and on that tripod, the height of the top of that tripod is one and a half metres, the average shoulder point we use for the purposes of reconstruction.Of course we don’t know the shoulder height of the shooter. We use an average height of 1.5m. I attach a laser pointer to the tip of the trajectory probe. A trajectory is the flightpath of the bullet between being discharged and where it struck something. I directed my laser to be pointing exactly at the ricochet mark on the ceiling. I moved my tripod back and forwards until my laser cleared under the top of the doorframe to illuminate the ricochet mark on the ceiling. That told me that is the approximate position the shooter had been standing when he fired the shot which hit the ceiling.”
PG: “You helped us with where the shooter was at the time damage A was caused. We see where you believed the shooter was when the damage to the roof was caused, nearer to the door. We now see the tripod yet nearer to the door into the kitchen. Is this why your view is there had been movement by the shooter?”
AH: “Yes. We have two holes in the barstool. If I link the two holes I get a straight line. If I extend that straight line back towards the shooter and extend that line until it reaches a height of 1.5m I know where the shooter would have had to stand in order to reach that trajectory. I have it located in the position where I believed the shooter had been standing, assuming a shoulder height of 1.5m. If his height had been more, it could have been a few metres back. If he was shorter, it could have been a few inches forward. It was in that area.”
PG: “That is the area you believe the gunman, Mr Witham, was when he fired the shot that struck and killed Ashley?”
AH: “Yes. You can see the tripod. I have switched the laser round, pointing from the tripod towards the mark on that bar stool. They aligned.”
A piece of string was used to demonstrate the trajectory of the laser for the purposes of a photograph.
AH: “During our reconstruction I used a colleague and aligned the locations of entry and exit wounds on Ashley’s body with that trajectory. She would have been facing the kitchen door. She was on her way from inside the kitchen towards the kitchen door when that shot was fired. She had gone out that door and was found in the back garden.”
PG: “She has thereafter moved from that position towards the back yard and into the back yard?”
AH: “Yes, where I believe she was found. If I take all of this into consideration and interpret what I see, in my view that is the most likely position A had been standing when she was shot and the shooter was standing. I would expect the bullet to cause more damage to the barstool if it had not gone through an intermediate target first. Something must have reduced the velocity of the bullet. It is much more likely that is where Ashley had stood when the shot was discharged as opposed to anywhere else.”
Mr Horne, referring to the floor plan, explains that the door to the back yard was sideways on to the entrance of the dining room to the kitchen, meaning Ashley’s right side was facing towards the gunman and her back was facing the bar-stool at the time he believes she was shot.
12:48JONATHAN HUMPHRIES
Gunman likely to have 'moved towards Ashley', says expert
Mr Greaney says: “This afternoon we’re going to hear evidence from a forensic scientist about DNA findings in relation to that bullet in the back of the chair. You’ve obviously examined many bullets that have struck people in the past. Have you dealt with situations before when bullets have passed all the way through people?”
Mr Horne replies: “Yes I have.”
PG: “Have you come across cases when a person passes through a person and no DNA has been found on that bullet?”
Mr Horne says he has seen instances such as this.
AH: “It is not always the case that DNA from a victim is found on a bullet. What the exact reason is, I don’t know. I’m not a DNA scientist.”
PG: “In your opinion, Ashley is shot by the stool. Because she is discovered outside, injured, that would mean between being shot and being outside she has moved in that direction?”
AH: “Yes.”
PG: “That is Ashley’s direction of movement. In relation to the gunman, we know that if your opinion is correct there has been movement between the dining room near to the hallway and the kitchen doorway?”
AH: “That is physical evidence you can’t ignore.”
PG: “As a matter of theory, that bears two possibilities. One, the gunman is moving forward towards the doorway in the kitchen. The other is that he’s moving backwards. Both are theoretical possibilities. When you draw all of the evidence together, what is your expert opinion about what was happening?”
AH: “We know the gunman came through the front door because it had been bashed in and was lying in the hallway. The only escape route for Ashley, the only other door she could have exited the house, was the rear door. My explanation is she was moving towards the rear door. That was her only route of escape. If someone has bashed down your door and is firing you are not going to move towards them. I cannot exclude that possibility but I’m applying some logic. It is my view that Ashley’s movement was from wherever she was, most likely the living room where the television was on, she moved towards her only escape, which was the rear door, and the shooter had been following the same route. He had been firing the shots in the direction that Ashley was attempting to escape.”
PG: “The gunman is following the route she’s taking and discharging that machine pistol as he does so?”
AH: “In my view that is the most likely explanation yes.”
Mr Greaney says he has no further questions.
13:01JONATHAN HUMPHRIES
Possibility gunman could have been aiming to hit building 'cannot be excluded'
Richard Pratt, KC, will now cross examine Mr Horne on behalf of James Witham.
RP: “As a firearms expert, can you say in which order shots were fired from the impact damage?”
AH: “No I can’t.”
RP: “Here we have apparently two episodes of shooting, upstairs and downstairs. You cannot say which came first.”
AH: “No. Theoretically, the shooter could have gone upstairs, fired one shot, gone back downstairs fired two shots.”
RP: “I’m not asking for ridiculous explanations. I’m not asking you for going up and downstairs. There is nothing from firearms expertise to counter the proposition that the gunman first went upstairs and fired the shots upstairs is there?”
AH: “No.”
RP: “Equally, when you find cartridge cases there is nothing to enable you to say that cartridge aligns with that impact damage?”
AH: “No.”
RP: “Or [that cartidge] to a bullet if you find a bullet?”
AH: “I cannot link cartridge cases to bullets, however when bullets sustain damage I can in a lot of cases link a specific bullet to a specific impact.”
RP: “You told us something about this firearm. It has dual mechanism. It can either be semi or fully automatic. Can you from looking at bullet impact damage say in which mode the firearm was.”
AH: “I would have to qualify my answer. If you have a gun firing in full auto mode at a rate of 15 shots per second, my expectation would be that the shots would be grouped fairly close together during a discharge. If one is firing the shots in single mode, my expectation would be they would be spread apart a lot further because there is time for the shooter to adjust the direction in which he is shooting.”
RP: “One of the neighbours described hearing two separate what she described as drilling sounds. Would a drilling sound be consistent with the weapon being in automatic mode.”
AH: “That’s difficult for me to judge that. Possibly, yes.”
RP: “To a lay person, if it was in semi automatic mode would somebody be expected to hear 14 shots?”
AH: “Yes I would expect a person listening to shots fired in single action mode to be able to discriminate between shots.”
RP: “If you had two episodes separated by seconds, drilling sounds, that would be indicative the firearm was in automatic mode?”
AH: “Yes I agree.”
RP: “Looking at the spread of bullets in the downstairs area, you’ve described these as being in the same general compass direction. If one looks at the position of the muzzle at that time, the muzzle must be moving from different locations.”
AH: “We definitely had the muzzle pointing to the floor in the dining room. We have ricochet marks against the wall between the dining room and stairwell. Then we have a shot against the ceiling in the kitchen. That spans a range of directions the muzzle was pointing.”
RP: “The muzzle is moving in a sort of an archway move potentially isn’t it?”
AH: “We’ve got two shots to the right hand side of the doorway, one on the floor and one on the doorway itself I can’t say in which order they went. Then we have shots that went through the kitchen doorway. One of them struck the ceiling, one of them struck the tiled surface, one of them struck the floor. In the kitchen we have floor, barstool, tiles, ceiling. I can’t really understand how you would form the view that is an arch.”
RP: “A swinging movement with a muzzle. Maybe not a perfect arch, but a swinging movement with the weapon in the hand.”
AH: “I could accept there was movement of the muzzle during the discharge of the shots.”
RP: “That would be a swift, a very swift movement, of the muzzle over that period of time.”
AH: “Yes, we have 15 shots per seconds.”
RP: “These are nine shots in the downstairs area.”
AH: “We are talking two thirds of a second.”
RP: “Somebody who is moving at the time, it’s a very quick movement indeed isn’t it?”
AH: “We have movement of the firearm. We also have forward movement by the shooter.
“You’ve consistently used the word target. If this is a target, if the shooter is aiming at the target, the target is moving around a lot. The muzzle is moving around all over the place. If that’s in automatic mode, the target can’t be up at the ceiling can it?”
AH: “No, but I need to qualify that as well. You cannot assume that where bullets went during discharge is where the shooter was aiming the gun. In addition to my qualifications,I’m also a qualified firearms instructor. I’ve trained a lot of people how to shoot. My experience is that unskilled shooters who don’t practice a lot quite often unintentionally move the muzzle of the gun quite a lot. The shots may go all over the place if they are not familiar with the gun and they don’t practice a lot.”
RP: “I think we can all understand. You have good shots and you have bad shots?”
AH: “You have shots that practice and shots that don’t.”
RP: “Upstairs, the shots were fired, we’ve seen, into that wall. The prosecution case as we understand it, is that was deliberately done by the shooter in order to send a message to the partner of Ashley Dale. From a ballistics point of view, is it possible to exclude the possibility that the shooter is firing at the building as opposed to an individual target, just as he was apparently doing upstairs?”
AH: “I can’t exclude that possibility.”
RP: “In other words, the shooter upon entering the property could have gone upstairs first and discharged the five bullets in that upstairs room. Did you ever go into the front bedroom?”
AH: “Yes I did.”
RP: “There was no evidence of any shots being fired in there was there?”
AH: “No there was no evidence the bed had been slept in or there were any shots fired.”
RP: “There was no evidence to suggest the gunman ever went into that front bedroom?”
AH: “No.”
RP: “The gunman comes down, and then goes partially into that dining room area with the weapon in automatic mode and fires a spray of shots while he is intending to hit the building. Can you exclude that proposition?”
AH: “I can’t exclude that possibility, no.”
The court will now break for lunch, resuming at 2.10pm.
The 28-year-old was shot dead at her home on Leinster Road in Old Swan
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