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A much quoted eye-witness to the police murder of innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes may have a little more depth of character than just someone who happened to be there.
A Mr Anthony Larkin, allegedly "a care assistant, from Hartlepool, Teesside" is cited in a large number of stories about the murder of de Menezes saying, "bomb belt with wires coming out", presumably about de Menezes who wasn't wearing a bulky jacket that immediately turns the wearer into a terrorist, nor did he jump ticket barriers as was widely reported at the time.
Larkin's quote is listed elsewhere as:
"I saw the police officers shouting, 'Get down, get down!', and I saw this guy who appears to have a bomb belt and wires coming out."and,Source: CBS News
“The officers were shouting, ‘Get down, get down’. I immediately hit the ground. I saw the man fall over and then I heard two shots that I believe went into his back.
“There was lots of panicking, people ran screaming out of the station and they were keeping their heads down. I just got up and joined them, running as fast as I could.”Source: Times Online
and,
"I saw these police officers in uniform and out of uniform shouting 'get down, get down', and I saw this guy who appeared to have a bomb belt and wires coming out and people were panicking and I heard two shots being fired."Source: BBC News
As we all know, Larkin's account transpired to be completely false, a fact supported by other eye-witnesses quoted at the time [BBC, Sierra Times, CBS, Fox] and the total lack of anything vaguely suspicious found on de Menezes dead body after it had been pumped full of bullets at close range.
What is especially interesting is that an Anthony Larkin has been quoted by the BBC and other news sources before. Last time round was in relation to the murder of Louise Tiffney where, at the time, Anthony Larkin was working on behalf of a private company, Forensic Alliance Ltd and is reported to have worked on "400 crime scene investigations".
Might these two Anthony Larkins happen to be one and the same Anthony Larkin?
Might these two Anthony Larkins quoted from separate crime scenes also happen to be one and the same Anthony Larkin as that of Lead Scientist, Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Department fame, and who is listed as such at Queen Mary University of London?
If so, this would explain why the Anthony Larkin at the scene of de Menezes murder was responsible for the oft-quoted and entirely misleading eye-witness account of the unfortunate victim's appearance.
There is no question that Larkin's account lends at least a little to the illusion that there might have been some justification for plain clothes police officers to murder an innocent, unarmed and defenceless man, but only if Larkin's statement is accepted at face value, without question, and without fully validating the source of the information.
Oh, just for the record, Larkin's words are sourced from an interview given to Radio 5 Live, the same radio station via which Peter Power added his two-penneth worth to the day's events.
5 comments:
Great site - I notice Anthony Larkin's entry on the QMC site has vanished. Probably just a coincidence.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
Interestingly, a Google search for "Anthony Larkin" no longer even throws back links to the Queen Mary University profile pages which, originally, were the among the first few results to appear on the day this article was penned.
Larkin's QMU profile, linked from the old, working version of the Google search for Larkin, is back online, along with his VCard which temporarily disappeared from the QMU site.
The BBC are at it too.
Oh, and reporters at 60 weekly Trinity Mirror Southern titles were all told to go home on July 7.
Why? And at the request of whom?
I also noticed this false witness, and came across your blog whilst researching it.
But I think it unlikely that the police forensic scientist Anthony Larkin was the planted witness, if it where he would not have used his real name. But a person inventing a false name is likely to give one he has heard before.
I wonder when the statement on five live was made, did they have enough time to organise this, or was it an excuse on stand by in advance of the shooting.
What ever is true I suspect to get to the bottom of this incident the person who gave the name Anthony Larkin must be found? and the met police seem to be a good place to look for him.
Anonymous - What's interesting to note from the ITV reconstructions of what happened on the morning of 22 July is quite how many operatives were a) already present on the train and b) following de Menezes.
From the ITV reconstruction, it would appear that nearly all of the passengers in de Menezes carriage were in fact operatives, bar whoever was sat directly opposite him.
I heard this on the radio at the time and tried to get the BBC to source the quote for me. I got very offhand and unhelpful responses from them Recently I know that Michael Mansfield QC was given the information about this person. Mr Mansfield is acting for the de Menezes family.
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