Greetings, websleuthers! I've been away for ten days caring for my mum after she had an operation - catching up on the trial has been a full time job since yesterday! Many thanks to everyone who contributes to this informative, lively and thought provoking page.
I cannot BELIEVE the lies tripping out of this man's mouth. As one simple example, it's worth pointing out that he refers to his supposed "PhD" offer from Cambridge as being a "course" which he regretted not completing due to an unrefusable job offer. A PhD is not a "course" - the whole point is that it is an independently conducted piece of academic research that takes a minimum of three years to carry out (and as others have observed, is invariably prefaced with a Master's degree of some kind.) Many PhD candidates work in related - or indeed non-related - fields whilst carrying out their doctoral research, because funding is never generous and the research can often take a long time. So in his case, the offer of Herts/Cambs based work would have been a boon, not necessarily something that killed off his academic career.
I am hopeful that the prosecution will quiz him about this at some point - e.g. asking him which college he was affiliated with - as he would not be able to blag his way out of it convincingly. Anything that highlights his rewriting of history will draw attention to the fact that he is an extremely unreliable witness.
The other thing that really jumped out at me is his assertion that "Helen googled zopliclone" and told him it did not go with his condition of myasthenia gravis. This is certainly the case if you google the drug, but for that very reason I find it hard to credit that any GP would prescribe this drug for a patient with this condition.
I too have an unusual auto-immune disease, vasculitis (fortunately largely in abeyance these days)and my GP is obviously aware of it. If I am ever prescribed any drug for any other condition, they always do a quick check on line before prescribing. So I am at a loss as to why IS would be prescribed these pills at all, let alone on two separate occasions, if his myasthenia gravis was as persistent and disabling -a d therefire surely known to his primary doctor - as he claims.
I also find it curious that Helen seems to have made no mention either on her blogs or to friends about IS's apparently severe, chronic illness.
Auto-immune disease can ebb and flow over the years (as I have discovered myself) and I find myself wondering whether IS was genuinely diagnosed with MG many years ago, being quite poorly, but then found himself in remission and more or less symptom free for a long period of time. If MG was not in his recent past, and therefore not high up on his notes, it might explain how a GP could prescribe him zopliclone tablets (twice). This however would mean his descriptions of weakness, illness, and the whole general invalid palaver are as fictional as the shadowy "Joe and Nick".
Curiouser and curiouser...
I cannot BELIEVE the lies tripping out of this man's mouth. As one simple example, it's worth pointing out that he refers to his supposed "PhD" offer from Cambridge as being a "course" which he regretted not completing due to an unrefusable job offer. A PhD is not a "course" - the whole point is that it is an independently conducted piece of academic research that takes a minimum of three years to carry out (and as others have observed, is invariably prefaced with a Master's degree of some kind.) Many PhD candidates work in related - or indeed non-related - fields whilst carrying out their doctoral research, because funding is never generous and the research can often take a long time. So in his case, the offer of Herts/Cambs based work would have been a boon, not necessarily something that killed off his academic career.
I am hopeful that the prosecution will quiz him about this at some point - e.g. asking him which college he was affiliated with - as he would not be able to blag his way out of it convincingly. Anything that highlights his rewriting of history will draw attention to the fact that he is an extremely unreliable witness.
The other thing that really jumped out at me is his assertion that "Helen googled zopliclone" and told him it did not go with his condition of myasthenia gravis. This is certainly the case if you google the drug, but for that very reason I find it hard to credit that any GP would prescribe this drug for a patient with this condition.
I too have an unusual auto-immune disease, vasculitis (fortunately largely in abeyance these days)and my GP is obviously aware of it. If I am ever prescribed any drug for any other condition, they always do a quick check on line before prescribing. So I am at a loss as to why IS would be prescribed these pills at all, let alone on two separate occasions, if his myasthenia gravis was as persistent and disabling -a d therefire surely known to his primary doctor - as he claims.
I also find it curious that Helen seems to have made no mention either on her blogs or to friends about IS's apparently severe, chronic illness.
Auto-immune disease can ebb and flow over the years (as I have discovered myself) and I find myself wondering whether IS was genuinely diagnosed with MG many years ago, being quite poorly, but then found himself in remission and more or less symptom free for a long period of time. If MG was not in his recent past, and therefore not high up on his notes, it might explain how a GP could prescribe him zopliclone tablets (twice). This however would mean his descriptions of weakness, illness, and the whole general invalid palaver are as fictional as the shadowy "Joe and Nick".
Curiouser and curiouser...
