Andrew Simmons lived across the road from Seascape in Tasmania. After the Port Arthur massacre, he was interviewed by the police and his witness statement is linked here:
Here's the essentials:
I know it was prior to 11am, I was in my front yard with my wife. It was very still on the day. I heard very clearly two shots ring out. They sounded as though it may have come from a rifle about the calibre of .22. The direction it came from was from the area of Seascape.
Police say that was Martin Bryant committing his first murders of the day. Here's what the prosecution said in the "trial" of Martin Bryant, Page 64 of the court transcript:
The Crown case is that in that intervening time, that is, between 11.45 and 12.40, Martin Bryant shot and killed Mr. & Mrs. Martin.
See, the problem with the whole case is that Martin has an alibi for his travels on the day. He was served $15 petrol about 10.45am by Chris Hammond at Taranna. His witness statement:
At around 10.30 am to 10.45 am a yellowy coloured Volvo came into the store car park for fuel. This vehicle was being driven by a male person. There were no other occupants in the vehicle. I did notice that the vehicle had a surf board on the roof. I would describe the male driving the vehicle as having long hair, as far as the colour of his hair goes I didn’t take any notice of what he was wearing, however he appeared to be quite tall and slim. This male got out of the Volvo and asked me for fifteen dollars worth of petrol. I put the petrol in and he paid me with a ten and five dollar note, after which he headed off in the direction of Port Arthur. I don’t think he had a wallet as all I saw was him pulling out the fifteen dollars from his trouser pocket.
Now, while Chris says the man (most likely to be Martin Bryant and not a body double, since this statement confirms Martin’s own testimony in the prison interview) drove off in the direction of Port Arthur, this is simply indicating South on the Arthur Highway. If Martin soon afterwards turned right onto Nubeena Road (as he said in his testimony), then Chris would not have seen that part of the journey - particularly if he was busy serving other customers. Hammond’s witness statement does not conclusively support the crown case.
So by 11am, Martin was nowhere near Seascape. He couldn’t possibly have shot David & Sally Martin as alleged by the prosecution. He continued his counter-clockwise journey to Nubeena, Roaring Beach, then past Port Arthur. Taranna to Roaring Beach is about 30 minutes drive.
After swimming nude for a short time in the cold water at Roaring Beach, Martin says he went back to Nubeena and got a coffee and toasted sandwich at the shop near the school. It’s gone now, and my queries to the Historical society haven’t revealed anything about the operators. If they can confirm Martin was there about 12.15pm that Sunday, it proves Martin has an alibi.
Anyway, the above maps prove that Martin was nowhere near Seascape between 11.45 and 12.40pm. If Martin had retained a decent defence lawyer, Simmons’ testimony and the coffee/sandwich vendor would have proved that the Police had accused the wrong man.
The witness statements demand a Royal Commission into justice in Tasmania. Sue Neill Fraser’s case is the same - a tragic miscarriage of justice that deserves scrutiny.
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The 2nd Empty Chair is a fiction novel, based on the witness statements and court documents. Using poetic licence, it links the facts that we know into a plausible, possible narrative that 'pokes more holes in the official story than a Pastafarian's colander.'
It seems to me that Bryant had a police handler who convinced him that he would play a crucial part in a special forces training exercise that would take place at the Port Arthur historical site. This is borne out by some of Bryant's odd responses to questions during a police interview, footage of which appeared in a 2016 edition of Channel 7's "Sunday Night" program. For example, he says he knows he's done the wrong thing (as if he were guilty of nothing more than petty theft) but could be trained to do better. Trained not to mass shoot people?
ReplyDeleteAlso, he giggles at pictures of the victims of the massacre. The viewer's immediate reaction is that he's a nutcase; however, he probably thought the victims were just actors made up to look dead. Hence, his levity.