'Structural Doubt' in the Case

[Erik Narramore]

On the other side of the ledger, some of the firearms officers - apparently - did express concerns about the conclusion of murder/suicide, and the meeting later that day between the firearms officers and the investigating team was partly to address those concerns.

A facet of this was that some of the firearms officers wondered why there was no silencer at the crime scene or near the body.  I suppose a firearms officer would easily spot this because of the threads visible at the end of the rifle.  However, that does make me all the more confused about what they were doing when other officers checked the gun cupboard.  Why would you check a gun cupboard except to check for weapons, ammunition and paraphernalia?  The police want us to buy into the idea that it was just a cursory check. They saw a few cardboard boxes, and ignored it, but is that a plausible account?

One school of thought says this is a firearms incident, so you would check what was in the boxes, and four police officers did look in the gun cupboard, and it seems rather unlikely they would not check the contents of the boxes.

The failure to do so created 'structural doubt' in the case because:

(i). it opened the way for an incriminating article to be entered into evidence under highly questionable circumstances; and,

(ii). anybody who chooses to believe Jeremy is guilty then has to put complete faith and trust in the relatives, who had a direct financial interest in Jeremy's conviction and openly admitted their dislike of him (even hatred, in the case of Robert Boutflour).

The other point-of-view is that Jeremy had already told them where he left the rifle and the magazine, which was loaded, and they could see more ammunition on the kitchen worktop.  If they assumed a conclusion of murder/suicide, then why be concerned with what was in the gun cupboard?  It is therefore understandable that the silencer was missed in the initial searches and only found later by relatives who were concerned with disposing of certain house contents, including firearms.

I think the answer to this crux is in the mundanities.  We need to know what was exactly in there and ideally see a photograph.