John Avery (L) and Mike Willesee (R) conferring about the video of Martin Bryant
By Dee McLachlan
Once again “investigative” journalist Mike Willesee covered Martin Bryant — briefly — on Channel 7 this past Sunday night (13 March 2016). We were given some more scenes from the valuable police interview conducted on July 4, 1996.
To my eyes, even the bits we have “been permitted” to see are persuasive as to his innocence. (Never mind that the narrator puts a different spin on it.) But I’m left wondering: what are we being prevented from seeing? And who is Willesee to do this cherry-picking?
Gumshoe will pursue a complete copy of the video.
Bryant’s own lawyer, John Avery, admits on camera, shockingly, that he did not provide Bryant any defense at all. He did everything in his power to help the prosecution’s story.
In a normal world that would be cause for an immediate mistrial. Oh sorry, I forgot — there was never any trial for Martin Bryant.
I provide below an extract of the March 13th program. It adds more video footage of the police interview (done in hospital). Last week when we saw excerpts of this on Mike Willesee’s show, it was, I believe, the first time in 20 years that any laypersons got to see it!
From last night’s bit:
Willisee Narration: “Bryant denied he killed 35 people…”
Interrogator: “You took one of the guns out of the bag and opened fire in the cafe”
Bryant “Why would I do that?”
Interrogator: “I don’t know, you tell me.”
Bryant: “Why would anyone do a thing like that?… I wouldn’t hurt a person in my life.”
Willisee Narration: “The internet is riddled with conspiracy theories questioning Bryant’s guilt. But he eventually told the truth to his lawyer John Avery” [my emphasis]
Avery: “After he gave this cock and bull story about going surfing… and I pooh poohed that… he then readily went through the events that were consistent with the facts.”
I wonder what we can expect on the 20th Anniversary?
The shooter (L) and Martin Bryant (R) after the Seascape fire
10th Anniversary
Perhaps we are permitted a few tidbits each decade. Ten years after the massacre, we were also given a depressing report on the prisoner’s condition, and a few “insightful” words from lawyer Avery. I quote now from the Sydney Morning Herald, March 28, 2006:
Australia’s worst mass murderer has become an overweight “zombie” who refuses to speak, his mother and doctors say. It has been nearly 10 years since Martin Bryant killed 35 people and seriously injured many more … In a rare interview before the anniversary of the April 28, 1996 killings, Bryant’s mother Carleen says her son won’t speak to her.
“Martin is like a zombie,” she told The Bulletin magazine.
“He won’t speak; he just stares into the middle distance. I can sit in front of him for 15 minutes and he says nothing.”
A doctor who has seen Bryant recently told the magazine: “He is an overweight, shambolic wreck”. The unnamed doctor says “What he has now is far worse than the death penalty.”
Bryant, who turns 39 on May 7, has been held in the hospital ward at Hobart’s Risdon Prison since he was jailed in 1996.
Initially, he made some effort to interact with other prisoners but all attempts to integrate him with the general prison population have failed. According to The Bulletin, Bryant spends most days alone inside his cell.
He no longer reads or watches television, has no friends, and although he is said to receive large numbers of letters, mostly from women, he never opens them. Mrs Bryant, who lives in southern Tasmania, says one of her deepest regrets is agreeing to persuade her son to plead guilty. “My poor Martin,” she says. “He couldn’t have shot all those people down at Port Arthur. He didn’t have the brains to do it.” Forensic psychologist Ian Joblin examined Bryant after the massacre and concluded he was borderline intellectually disabled, his IQ equivalent to an 11-year-old. He also found Bryant was sane at the time of the massacre — a conclusion he now doubts….
Bryant’s former defence lawyer John Avery paints a different picture. “His only regret afterwards was that he didn’t shoot more [people],” he told The Bulletin. “This was not a situation that got out of hand. It went as he pretty much intended.”
A memorial service and community concert will mark the 10th anniversary of the killings. Prime Minister John Howard and Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon are expected to attend. AAP
Quel juxtaposition:
Bryant: “Why would anyone do a thing like that?… I wouldn’t hurt a person in my life.”
Willesee Narration: “The Internet is riddled with conspiracy theories questioning Bryant’s guilt.
Which mad scene is madder? La Stupenda in Lucia de Lamamoor or the Police interview?
It’s a hard call.
Slightly off topic but related. “Terrorism is the symptom of imperial violence. It is how the defenceless fight back when .their societies are destroyed . Syria is not about terrorism. It’s about who rules the world “. Jason Hirthler.
Dear 56, I don’t expect anyone to agree with me, but I say there isn’t any terrorism coming up from below. I don’t think people band together or express their personal anger in public violence. The episodes of it that we see are organized from the top. There is actually much proof of that, re the Middle East over the last 40 years, but I think it may be a universal fact.
I have not studied the peasant’s revolt of the 14th century (other than I know that the peasants lost). But I have tried to look into the Nat Turner revolt in the American south — a slave who lashed out at his owner. (Imagine: “owner.”) I suspect it is a false story.
I believe the brain has a mechanism to calculate subconsciously whether it’s worth fighting. Animals must have such a mechanism as you can always see that the weaker animal knows when to give up. Humans, on the whole, give up easily and in fact don’t fight at all when their situation is really awful.
My last few months have been spent preparing the book “Port Arthur: Enough Is Enough” (of which Dee McLachlan is co-author). But can we get Aussies to be angry that their government conducted a massacre (imagine: a massacre)?
I rephrase the question: Is it possible for people to focus anger on someone who has done them wrong? I wrote a whole series for Gumshoe to say No, we can’t do it when the wrongdoer is “Daddy.” Our genes did not furnish the needful.
(Why? because in evolutionary times the guys that were hurting us were foreigners – whom we are happily prepared to slay in defense of our tribe. Daddy was not harming us. We had no Murdochs.)
We can overcome the gene thing. All we need is to recognize that we DO HAVE this genetic barrier. Hey, Everybody, apply some conscious logic. “Murdoch” says we should screw Bryant. What do you say we should do to “Murdoch”?
Fine. Now do it.
Over a million people in Brazil came together the other day to protest government corruption, I wonder if they would do it because some people ( aka conspiracy theorists ) on the internet say it is not unreasonable to suggest an innocent person is rotting in gaol because 20 years ago their government used him as a patsy when they massacred innocent people in order justify new gun laws, or if it doesnt directly affect them or their day to day lives, they are just too apathetic, and just happy enough it isn’t them.
Apparently, Aussies used to raise their voices against tyranny and injustice in the past, a petition for a reprieve for Ned Kelly raised ~ 30,000 signatures.. still not enough to save him. That was over 130 years ago. Maybe after all this time, people have come to accept the abuse, the lies, learnt to tune out to the horrors, in fear that if they acknowledge the truth, someone might come after them, and if that were to happen, they know too well that the only thing their neighbour will say as they are dragged away, is, “I’m alright Jack, so up yours!”
Cherri’s petition for Martin has 2121 sigs today. I did not realize she was so far behind Ned Kelly. But just you wait and see, we gonna win.
Umbrellas are at the ready.
“Gumshoe will pursue a complete copy of the video.”
Uh, better make that VIEDOS. I noticed one of the clips had a blue screen backdrop and a woman he called “Mrs. Jones” interviewing him.
I wonder how many takes it took before they thought they had something to work with.
OK, I didn’t want to watch the BS program, but I at least I watched ‘Part 1’. As far as the video scenes – I have no idea how many times Bryant was lead into the ‘interrogation’ for another run before the cameras. Perhaps someone with a bigger stomach than me can go back through all the clips.
There are some clips using the grey curtain, then there are others using the blue curtain, there are other clips where the brick work between the curtains is visible, Bryant is sitting in a wheelchair in some and in a lawn chair in others, the one at 18:40 in Part 1 has some woman he called Mrs. Jones trying to strongarm him (she doesn’t feature in the alleged written transcript).
This whole stage managed interview is such an obvious set-up – and NOW I know why they said the video equipment failed 20 years ago – the alleged ‘interview’ it is a composite of multiple interviews. Just a cut and splice – and they still couldn’t get a decent interview.
Here’s the video that I looked at – https://au.news.yahoo.com/sunday-night/features/a/31014769/martin-bryant-the-hidden-videos-of-a-killer/
See if you can see the variations in the scenes.
Video is unavailable.
Avery should take his place in prison for his horrendous lies about an innocent boy. He is no defense lawyer. He’s a lying monster!
Some of the petition signers at Change.org offer comments about Martin Bryant. This one came in yesterday from Tayla Cochrane in Australia:
“If I had the chance to visit this man I’d give him the biggest hug and say I’m on his side so he knows a lot of people know it wasn’t him. I’m a 15 year old and have more common sense than the government.”
Way to go, Talya!
The best thing that happened at the Marathon trial in Boston occurred when Elena Teyer stood up (just after Judge O’Toole left the room) and shouted to Jahar “We love you, we know you are innocent, and people all over the world support you.” Jahar smiled.
Way to go, Elena! (She is the mother-in-law of Ibraghim Todashev.) Cherri Bonney’s sigs now total 2110. Yay.
Did the Judge in this case have the evidence “sealed” or does Chanel seven and its producer have their own very “special evidence” gift wrapped and tied with bow and ribbon….?
Good question! But Dee is going to see if she can get the gift-wrapped one also.
Hi Mary, you are absolutely 100% correct. The fish always stinks from the head. Victims can never be terrorists.
We live in a system where the insane are viewed as sane and the sane as insane. Everything has been inverted for the nwo agenda.
Channel 7 put the transcript online. “D” means Detective:
D: Now this is a .223 Remington
BRYANT: It’s a mess isn’t it?
D: Or a Colt AR-15
D: Do you remember how much you paid for that one?
BRYANT: Ah, five grand with the scope. $5,000 with the scope.
D: Seen that before? Well I believe you bought that in Myers or Fitzgeralds or somewhere in town accompanied with a, a young woman
DETECTIVE JONES: What would you think about a person who has killed 35 people? What would be your opinion of that person?
BRYANT: That’s a wicked, awful, horrendous thing… I don’t know
DETECTIVE JONES: And you won’t-
BRYANT: And they reckon others were injured?
DETECTIVE JONES: There were many injured. There was two little babies. Killed. Shot. There have been many witnesses who have given very graphic descriptions of you being responsible for killing those people.
BRYANT: It is sad isn’t it? It’s horrendous. Horrific. For anyone to go down there and do a thing like that, Mrs Jones?
PART 2
MARTIN BRYANT: I wish I had that AR-15 in here. Then I would probably get out. Jump out the window. I would probably jump through the window and escape because I don’t like being locked up. It’s not very nice
D: You set the alarm clock when you went to bed?
BRYANT: Um, no, I never usually set the alarm
BRYANT: We had breakfast like we usually do. Oh, had a shower together. Had breakfast, and I said Petra, “Well, see you on Monday”
D: And what’d you do?
BRYANT: I went surfing, got me surfboard out and went surfing
D: Stop anywhere on the way?
BRYANT: I think I stopped and got a cappuccino. Yes, at Sorell
D: Buy any tomato sauce on the way down?
BRYANT: No, no tomato sauce.
D: Oh?
BRYANT: Why would I want tomato sauce for?
D: Well I don’t know
BRYANT: I saw this car I liked and held up the person and kidnapped him
D: Kidnapped him?
D: How did this guy get to get in the boot?
BRYANT: I put him in the boot because I had the gun
D: Which gun did you have?
BRYANT: I had the umm
D: Can Mr Warren hold it up?
BRYANT: AR-15. You see if people didn’t do these unfortunate things, you guys wouldn’t have a job
D: Well there’s a lot of truth in that Martin, let me tell you
D: That one there?
BRYANT: Yes, that was the one
D: This is the one
BRYANT: It’s a sweet little gun because it’s so light. How light is it?
D: Can you remember what you said to ah, this fellow?
BRYANT: “Hey mate, get out of your car please, I’m gonna take your car”
D: And you had this pointed at him did you?
BRYANT: Yeah I had it pointed at him
D: Right
BRYANT: And moving it backwards and forwards with his wife and child too
BRYANT: I’m sure you’ll find the person who caused all this. Me.
D: I don’t find that a very funny statement at all Martin, to be quite honest
BRYANT: You should’ve put that on recording
D: Oh, it’s still recording at this present stage so that is on the recording
D: Now, you want to see these photos? They’re not very pleasant
BRYANT: You can show me if you want
D: Right, there’s the Broad Arrow cafe, OK? You can see a couple of people lying there.
BRYANT: And you reckon I’ve got something to do with this?
D: Seen enough?
BRYANT: What about the dead people? Where does it say, say about them?
D: Well, what do you want it, what do you want it to say? I don’t understand what you’re saying.
BRYANT: How many people were killed or…
D: Well why would it have “Port Arthur Massacre”?
BRYANT: Where does it say how many? Does it say… say how many people were killed there – or?
D: Now, you convinced now that there were 35 people dead?
D: I’ve told you what you’ve done.
BRYANT: What have I done?
D: You’ve killed 35 people
D: And injured several others
PART 4
MARTIN BRYANT: I should be out, I should be out. If I could get out on bail tomorrow I’d pay over the money
DETECTIVE: Why do you reckon you should be out Martin?
MARTIN BRYANT: ‘Cause it’s not fair on me, is it? I mean I know I’ve done the wrong thing, but surely they can, um train me for a few months a year for what I’ve done. We can work things out
The transcripts as I mentioned before are suspect. We had noticed apparent ‘gaps’ that we interpreted to be removed material, but now that we know the ‘interrogation’ is a collage of audios from various videos, the apparent gaps are likely the result of the ‘cut and paste’ job they did to splice the various audio tapes together.
I wonder how many times Bryant attended this ‘interrogation’ before they thought they had enough material to string something remotely plausible together. – I’d love to see the ‘out takes’.
Yes, Terry, the outtakes must be fabulous, but would you agree that even the above statements by Bryant are clearly those of someone who has no idea what the cops are going on about?
My theory of the car-boot is that they mind-controlled him to do just that one thing so he would be guilt-feeling and thus accept imprisonment.
Last night I came across an old essay by Carl Wernerhoff who also says that, and more. He thinks they put someone (maybe Martin) in the boot so that if any passerby saw a man being taken out of the boot at Seacape there would be a story to explain it.
Wernerhoff is pretty scathing about the large number of spooks reportedly present at Broad Arrow. And he thinks the “accident of missing the boat to Isle of the Dead” was a cover for the fact that the real place was Broad Arrow with intentional killing of the spooks. Com-pli-ca-ted.
With an IQ of 66 I doubt he understands a lot of what is going on around him.
The car jacking story appears to be something that was told to him at Seascape. He was there when Pears was taken out of the boot of the BMW. He related a botched up story of the car jacking to the Police negotiator. They may have used the tape from Seascape to convince him that he did it. – “Martin, you already admitted to this, you can hear it yourself”
However, the story he tells some two months later is a little bit better, but still far from what happened (I wonder how many ‘takes’ it took to get it that good). As I mentioned in other posts he got the gun wrong, the location wrong, the car wrong, the people wrong and the event wrong. Luckily, Laycock was watching as a credible witness and said that it wasn’t Bryant.
I’m actually surprised they used the videos for the Channel 7 show. Whereas they had previously stated that the video of the ‘interview’ had failed – now they have released excerpts from the various theatrical productions and displayed for the world to see that the original written transcript of the ‘interview’ was not an actual police interview. It was just more fabricated evidence against Bryant.
Your last paragraph. Could you lead me to a stateent by “them” that the video failed?
I think they’s have been wise to let it remain failed! That have really done themselves in with this 20th anniversary show. Surely the Channel 7 house attorneys knew Willesee shouldn’t say what he said.
I guess we will soon find out what all this “fun” is for, Terry.
I don’t have any documents anymore, perhaps Andrew MacGeggor still has a document where they say that the video portion of record of interview failed and they retained the audio for the written record of interview.
As far as them being wise to let it remain failed – I really don’t know what they are trying to do. I come down to two options, either the release to the public was an accident or it was intentional.
As far as the release being done intentionally, don’t discount it. Remember the release of the four clips from the Seascape tape that Munroe and McCarthy released to the public (remember where Bryant is downstairs talking about making sandwiches for everyone while the killer is upstairs shooting out the window)? Perhaps someone also wanted to get the videos out to the public in order to show that the record of interview was a ‘cut and paste’ job. If so, was it someone in the Police force, someone at Channel 7 – or both?
Remember the by-line to this program was now it was time/alright to talk about the massacre. There was also something else that Willisee did, that is, when he talked about the AR-15 and how many people were killed and injured in such a short time. Helloooo, are trying to tell me that mental retard was capable of doing THAT! – Hell, that clown would be lucky not to shoot himself.
Either this was an intentional release of information, or there are some real dumb-asses trying to run the propaganda.