If the knife was actually tested - what about the other samples?

 

To be clear, the point of this blog is not to suggest that the other samples have indeed been tested, or that there is any deceit at play. I do however, think it's completely reasonable to ask these questions after some of the information that has recently come to light. 

In November 2022, the story broke that Police had been in the process of destroying the productions from Luke Mitchell's case.  

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/9846975/cops-destroyed-evidence-jodi-jones-luke-mitchell/

It was claimed that 300 samples remained - including untested semen samples taken from Jodi's body.

https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/midlothian-prisoner-luke-mitchells-lawyer-27593040

"After the show aired, Mr Forbes applied for access to evidence and material gathered by police ahead only to learn it was in the process of being destroyed. It was halted by the Lord Advocate, but only 300 samples are said to remain.

Private Eye states that these include 10 samples taken from Jodi's body containing semen deposits, which the report claims were not tested for DNA at the time of Mitchell's trial in 2005.

Mr Forbes told the magazine: "Over 3,000 items were destroyed. You must ask, what did the police so suddenly want to hide? I have no doubt Luke is innocent – failed by the police, a hostile press and a poor defence at the time."

The Scottish Sun also reported on the untested samples:

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/9846975/cops-destroyed-evidence-jodi-jones-luke-mitchell/

According to Mr Forbes on Twitter, included in the list of untested productions, were swabs from a knife found in a skip, close to the murder site - but the swabs from the knife had never been tested. 

On YouTube channel Premeditated patter on 01/01/23, Mr Forbes states:

"Recently we've found that they took swabs from that knife, but never tested it":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_Qkg7e7Noo&t=284s

A freedom of information request however, confirmed that the knife had been tested:

https://lmtranscriptdiscussion.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-knife-in-skip-at-home-farm-was.html

Now that we know the knife was tested after being told otherwise - how do we know that the other 'untested' productions, are actually really untested? To reiterate - I am not suggesting that this is the case, but how do we really know? 

There has been no professional acknowledgement from campaign leaders, of the freedom of information response, despite the original story of the hidden and and untested skip knife being considered big enough to break in a national newspaper. 

How can we trust the people providing the information, when some of it is provably incorrect - and furthermore, it's just swept under the carpet?

With fundraising in place - and talk of fundraising seeming to pertain to securing money for the testing of the samples - how do we know that 1. The samples are untested and 2. The samples will be released?