The incessant ‘in your face’ harassment of victims and their private lives, to me, was sickening and I felt nothing but anger every time I saw another camera being shoved into the face of another distressed victim of the massacre.

It was just too obvious that people’s emotions were being exploited and sacrificed for the absence of reporting issues about what caused the incident and the killer’s motives. It was obvious that the media was not interested in why these people died, they only wanted to cash in on their grief and to sensationalise the events. When the gun laws debate fired up again it was not hard to see why everyone was being stirred up.

I was browsing in a furniture store in Moss Street Springwood, a family business where they built beautiful unique pieces of the best quality furniture. As I admired a magnificent gun cabinet on the floor I remarked to the salesman that he might have trouble selling it if John Howard got his way. We engaged in conversation and he asked me if I was on the net and when I told him I wasn’t he offered to print out some pages for me that he said I might be interested in. That’s where my journey into the mystery surrounding the Port Arthur massacre began. I was so annoyed about what I read that I wrote to Joe Vialls who gave me permission to publish his pages on the net and for almost ten years I have uncovered other investigators and like minded people who have contributed to these pages.

Early this year of 2006, almost ten years on from the Port Arthur massacre, I decided to take a little trip down to Tassy and get some idea of the present atmosphere regarding the events of that fateful day of July 28th 1996 at Port Arthur Tasmania.

For ten years hardly a word in the papers, nothing on the radio and unusual silence on television where doco hounds and current affair programs will dig up stories from just about anywhere to get ratings. For months after the massacre television presenters, like predators, descended on the grieving survivors and the victim's families like vultures with a tirade of emotional and in your face dramatic interviews to wring every last drop of sensationalism from them. Then, when finally they had milked the last "how do you feel?" out of these devastated people and shown every last tear they could squeeze into their news and current affairs programs, they curiously went quiet on the subject for almost ten years.

Most of the public were respectful of the victims privacy and it was many months before people began to ask questions only to be shunned and ridiculed as being insensitive. If you dared to mention anything on the radio talk-back programs you were ridiculed or cut off, implying that you were being inconsiderate and thoughtless. Suggest anything but the official line about the murders and you were dubbed with the badge of crackpot or conspiracy theorist. Usually nothing is sacred on TV current affair programs. They love to dramatise with their often graphic and over-acted portrayals in detail of horrible events, but nothing about the after-effects of the Port Arthur massacre.

Many investigators and people, who have trouble believing the official report on the killings, have aired their concerns on the internet because they just can't get a fair hearing in the usual channels. While ever our media is monopolized by so few owners we are limited to the news that they want us to see read and hear. There is no such thing as free speech in the media. They decide what they will print and air. Even if they ask you a question your answer can be edited in so many different ways that they can make you look like a saint or a fool. They can interview you and concoct any slant on the story they like, editing your responses to make black white and white black. With hardly any opposition they can ignore anything they want and create sensation out of the most mundane events to hide the important issues. Go to my Gun Laws in Australia page to see heaps of evidence of this. If it does not suit the few owners of these monopolies to report a story including these investigations, which have uncovered some very serious anomalies in the official Port Arthur story, then it just doesn't get reported or the coverage given does not reflect the importance of the event.

Of course there are supposed to be safeguards in place to ensure our freedom of speech is protected but if they can get away with attempting to pervert the course of justice by identifying Bryant and corrupting any police identification process, such as a line-up, then they can get away with a lot more. Were it not for our underground investigators, writers, editors and, so far, free medium the internet, few people would be aware of the deceit and blatant untruths told by the media and the government to avoid a Coronial Inquiry into these murders.

Roland Browne, then co-chair of the National Coalition for Gun Control (NCGC), who, with astonishing accuracy, predicted the Port Arthur Massacre when he stated, "We are going to see a mass shooting in Tasmania...unless we get national gun control laws." - (ACA ,with Ray Martin, March 1996)

The Sun Herald reported May 5 1996 that ex-Premier of NSW, Barry Unsworth made this prediction in 1987 - Before Uniform Gun Laws become possible in all States there will have to be a massacre in Tasmania.

Can politicians and people for gun control really see into the future?

Yes, it's true that this dreadful crime has not, to this day, been subjected to a Coronial Inquiry, an inquest, that is by law, essentially held for all suspicious deaths including suicide and some accidental deaths. All deaths by homicide are subjected to the highest scrutiny by a coroner for evidence at any trial. None was done for the Port Arthur victims. Certainly the crime would have warranted an investigation so why didn't these innocent people, murdered at Port Arthur, deserve an inquiry into their deaths as citizens and visitors to Australia?

The official answer was that the government had no wish to inflict further pain on the victim's friends and family by subjecting them to a trial. Furthermore, the authorities decided, before the hearing to convict the alleged killer, that they had their man, who was, supposedly, caught red handed, despite the fact that there is no forensic evidence to place Martin Bryant at the Broad Arrow crime scene. They could save the taxpayers a costly drawn-out trial by just sentencing Martin Bryant so they decided before the hearing that he was guilty on all accounts and a coronial inquiry would be withheld in this case. Never been done before! The most hororific crime in Australain history and no Coronial Inquiry!The pity being that, regardless of the pain of having to relive the events of that day, many victims would have gladly endured a trial to get a conviction of the real killer and not some patsy used to appease the anger of the public. Furthermore a trial could have revealed reasons for the deaths of loved ones which would have given these grieving people some kind of closure. To this day the secrecy continues and no one is any the wiser.

By avoiding a trial the prosecution effectively also avoided the summoning of witnesses who might be required to give evidence and possibly identify the shooter. If a witness who happened to have talked to, been shot by or clearly saw the shooter could not identify Martin Bryant on the stand there was nowhere for the prosecution to go and all hell would break loose all over again. This was a problem since there were witnesses who were eager to testify that Bryant was not the shooter but were never put on the witness list.

The media accepted the official explanation for not having a jury trial and again got everyone feeling very emotional about the victims by poking cameras into their faces to film their private pain, anger and shattered lives - inciting hatred against a man who was not yet found guilty of anything at that time. Their vendetta was incessant to railroad the alleged killer, illegally disregarding the lawful path of justice in order to get quick results.

It is almost beyond belief that, in this day and age, a trial and sentence by media, breaking all the rules of fair play and justice, could brainwash the Australian public into blindly believing the official report and the media's propaganda but it happened.

CLICK HERE FOR MAPS AND SEQUENCE OF EVENTS IN THE BROAD ARROW CAFE

In the beginning it was not hard to believe that the reporting was accurate. To make sure that Martin Bryant became the most hated man in the country the newspapers went to the trouble of enhancing his photographs to make his eyes look Manson-like crazy. The same original photos show a quite, shy looking, ordinary sort of a man of insignificance. When I first saw the enhanced photo of Bryant on the cover of The Australian he certainly looked like a crazy man to me. But at the time I wondered how they could be allowed to print his photo before him being formally identified. He was not at large or on the run and when I saw the original untouched photo on the net I began to feel very uncomfortable about the way the media was telling this story, especially the way they hounded the victims to add sensationalism to their sickening over dramatic stories. It was obvious that they were setting us all up for something.

GO HERE TO READ A CONDENSED VERSION OF THE OFFICIAL STORY FROM THE BOOK SUDDENLY ONE SUNDAY

Guilty or not guilty people just wanted Martin Bryant to "rot in hell" because they read it in the paper and saw it in the news that he was the killer and that was that. I would not be surprised that, if asked, most people at that time couldn't have cared less if he had a trial or not, they just wanted him dead or behind bars for the rest of his life.

The expression "innocent until proven guilty" never applied to Martin Bryant at any time. He was never "the alleged killer" but instead, as every Murdock and Packer medium in the country described him before his hearing, "the killer", "the murderer", "the sadistic slayer of 35 people". Only one day after Bryant was captured his face was on all the major newspaper front pages in the country in every state under the headings "FACE OF A KILLER" and "THIS IS THE MAN". These accusations were virtually defamation of his character, no matter how guilty he might be, because he was in custody at the time but not found guilty by any court of law.

The television news and current affairs programs blatantly displayed props which were supposedly at the murder scene and items carried by the killer when in actual fact the film was shot in the café either before the massacre or after everything had been cleaned up because the dining room looked as if it was open for business. The weapons they showed us on TV that were supposed to be the murder weapons were in pristine condition. Then we were told that they were destroyed in the Seascape fire but then they later turned up again deliberately damaged and with missing parts, outside the Seascape Inn. One on the roof of a nearby shed and the other in nearby bush, after the Seascape burned down. How the killer managed to dispose of these weapons while exiting the burning building unarmed and on fire himself is hard to explain and never has been. Probably because the real killer had already left the building leaving the patsy to take the rap.

A mediocre lawyer could have done an investigation and come up with a very good case for this man already condemned of perhaps the worst crime in Australian history? It was obvious that he could have afforded the best defence since he was left a small fortune by a benefactor who thought highly of him in the past. But the authorities fixed his wagon there again by another unprecedented move of taking away his earthly possessions. Reason being, to compensate his victims, even before his trial and being found guilty. To this day there is only very vague information as to what happened to the $3.5 million dollars donated by the Australian public coupled with at least another $1.5 million from Bryant's estate. Many people were compensated for the victims funerals (and rightly so), some medical expenses and grief counselling but it was argued that the bulk of the money went to business people in the area who suffered revenue loss due to the bad publicity of the massacre. Many of the families of the dead received little more than $1000.

Being rendered destitute by the authorities who confiscated everything he owned Bryant was appointed a lawyer by the court whose sole mission was to get him to plead guilty. Not an easy task since Martin was addiment that he had never been to Port Arthur on that day. Both the prosecutor and the defendant's lawyer just wanted the whole damn thing over with. There was never any question of a defence, only preparation for a guilty plea.

Now, as described on other pages on this site, Martin Bryant is not very bright. He has an IQ of 66 and the mind of an 11 year old. A major factor in his defence should have been that the Port Arthur shooter far surpassed any ability Martin could ever possess even if he had been trained in combat shooting, which he certainly was not. Another factor would have been the incessant defamation of his character by the media, including the malicious altering of his photographs to incite hatred of him. No DNA was taken from the Broad Arrow Cafe where the killer ate a meal and handled several items left on the table. One would think that with so many people shot he would have sustained some blood splatter on his clothing that could be matched with any one of the victims and would have proved his guilt beyond doubt.

With all of the evidence that could have been collected to incriminate Martin Bryant only this vague video emerged from America at the eleventh hour before the hearing and was claimed to be the killer running from the Broad Arrow Cafe. I don't even know what this is supposed to prove because it's impossible to identify the man anyway. The same man was filmed at the same time from another angle which showed amused onlookers in the backgound lounging on the veranda of the Broad Arrow where the murders happened just inside the door. It is clear that the DNA evidence would have cleared Martin. So would blood splatter tests on his clothing and not wanting to call witnesses who could not identify Bryant the DPP had to rely on this rediculous video that proves nothing. The only thing that convicted Martin Bryant was his coerced "guilty" plea. Yet none of this was entered as evidence that Bryant was at the Broad Arrow Cafe. Instead the only evidence submitted to convict Bryant was a very grainy video film, supposedly taken on the day, of a man (impossible to identify), running down the road away from the cafe. However another video taken at the same time and from a different angle filmed the same man (also impossible to identify) running towards the camera operator and showing the Broad Arrow Cafe in the background where at least three people were standing on the veranda, looking very relaxed, leaning on the veranda posts, apparently undaunted by the gunman running down the road or the 20 bodies lying shot to death just inside the door behind them.

It was from this veranda that people watched the "running man" running down this road away from the Broad Arrow Cafe. There was no explanation or motive for the murders. Bryant had no criminal record and he didn't consort with criminals. He didn't smoke or take drugs of any kind or if he had there were no tests done while he was in hospital to prove that he had taken any drugs. He was very polite and didn't swear. He called men sir. In fact, without the media slander he could not be described as anything else but a fairly uninteresting, clean living man with a bit of a mental problem.

One reporter wrote of his cruelty to animals but others told of his love for them. During a police interrogation where detectives questioned him about his expertise with a rifle, he told of how he used home made cardboard targets and cans for practice on the few occasions that he went shooting but he never hunted animals. He wouldn't even shoot bottles for fear animals might injure themselves on the broken glass. Some of the mis-information about what he kept in his house is pure sensationalism and typical of media exaggeration to embellish a story.

Where could Bryant have gained the expertise of a talented combat shooter? The Port Arthur shooter brought attention to himself by displaying an amazing ability for handling a long rifle with incredible accuracy that far surpasses the average shooter. A performance, so far, unmatched by anyone else in the world apparently since I have had my site up for almost ten years now and no one has come forward to say that they know of anyone who can match this killer's unbelievable expertise. His performance displayed a talent that could only have been performed by someone who was top of the class in his field and obviously had more training than popping off cans in the bush on a couple of weekends.

From the book Deadly Deception at Port Arthur by the late Joe Vialls. "Brigadier Ted Sarong DSO OBE, the former head of Australian Forces in Vietnam and one of the world's leading experts on counter-terrorist techniques and their application. In an interview with Frank Robson in the Sydney Morning Herald on 10 April 1999, Brigadier Serong makes it plain that Martin Bryant could not have been responsible for the mass murder at Port Arthur. "There was an almost satanic accuracy to that shooting performance" he says. "Whoever did it is better than I am, and there are not too many people around here better than I am". He continues "Whoever did it had skills way beyond anything that could reasonably be expected of this chap Bryant ... if it was someone of only average skills, there would have been many less killed and many more wounded. It was the astonishing proportion of killed to wounded that made me open my eyes first off." Brigadier Serong believes more than one person was involved and directly infers that the mass murder at Port Arthur was a terrorist action designed to undermine Australian national security. "It was part of a deliberate attempt to disarm the population, but I don't believe John Howard or his Government were involved. Howard is being led down a track. He doesn't know where it's leading, and he doesn't much care...""

PORT ARTHUR V2

After reading Mullen's psychiatric evaluation, one of Australia's senior counter-terror experts, who had himself investigated the case, observed to this news service on the subject of Bryant ostensibly having learned all he knew about weaponry and tactics from "survival magazines":

"If this guy had weapons and survival skills from magazines, then that conflicts with his learning difficulties--how could he understand the books in the first place? Any decent lawyer would have a field day with this report. They could pick it to pieces. For a start, Bryant worked out the military aspects of the shooting. Most soldiers couldn't do that on their own, but Bryant did. What's more, he outsmarted the police by doubling back to the Seascape--that's not a low IQ.

"Then, look at the planning of the assault, the equipment required, the weapons stash, the most effective weapons to use, how much ammunition to take with him, how to use the weaponry, planning an escape route, creating havoc in multiple areas to keep the authorities guessing, and so on. Now, how could he have learned all that from books, with such a low IQ and poor reading skills? This guy had military training."

Tasmanian Deputy Commissioner Lupo Prins, who directed the overall police operation at Port Arthur on April 28, 1996, observed drily to {The New Citizen} in mid-April 1997, that Bryant had "set up six different areas of activity--he had police running in circles. That's pretty good for a guy who's a slow learner."

These murders were accomplished by a right handed shooter - Martin Bryant was left handed. The shooter shot 18 of the twenty people killed, in the Broad Arrow Café, with head shots from a semi-automatic rifle (not a fully automatic assault weapon), fired methodically (one squeeze of the trigger per shot), from the right hip. The prosecution accused Bryant of performing this amazing feat is less than 90 seconds although independent investigators have interviewed witnesses who claim the time taken was longer and up to five minutes. It seems ironic that the prosecution told the court that the killer performed this amazing feat in 90 seconds because this statement alone should have logically paved the way for an examination of Bryant's expertise with a rifle immediately.

The problem is that people who know nothing about guns would not know the significance of that point. There are people so ignorant of guns that they think anyone can point one, pull the trigger and kill someone, even at close range, every time. These people need to spend a day at the pistol or rifle range before they profess to be experts on what it takes to hit a target in the way this gunman did. His confident, methodical and deliberate actions revealed a man who had killed many times before and knew how to do it well. Only a seasoned and professional soldier could have performed in a manner similar to the way most people do when they are busy at work.

There is no doubt that, for whatever reason, Martin was lured to the Seascape Inn but he was reported to have fired over 200 shots from that building and hit no one or anything at all. The real shooter was gone and the patsy remained to act out the final scene. It would not have been very hard to have talked Martin into an adventure at the Seascape Inn by anyone who acted kindly towards him but it would have been impossible for anyone to turn him into a combat killer.

There was no defence for mentally retarded Martin Bryant. No one to point out that he was incapable of learning to shoot that accurately without some kind of military training. Although he hadn't been driving long he didn't even get a licence because in his own words he stated at the police interview with Inspectors Paine and Warren

Q. Hey Martin, how come you never got about, got around to getting a driver's licence?
A. Ahh, I didn't think I'd ever pass or get through the courses 'cos I'm not that bright.

Anyone who knows anything about guns and rifles knows that one has to learn to shoot over a period of time to hone skills. Rarely does any talent come naturally. It would have been far easier, for most people, to have used a pistol in the confined and crowded area of the Broad Arrow Cafe but there was a reason the AR15 was chosen. This weapon has a large magazine capacity, it’s light, reasonable stable and its high powered killing ability in the hands of an expert was an intelligent choice. In the hands of Martin Bryant it would have been a joke. In most massacres where a nut goes berserk with a gun, as was supposed to be the case at Port Arthur, there are always far more wounded than killed. The killed to wounded ratio is explained in more detail here. The killed to wounded ratio would have been a totally different matter even if Martin did have the fortitude to do the crime, which I don't believe he did. Certainly if he had there would have been a lot less dead on that day if any at all because anyone not as confident and proficient with a high powered weapon, as this gunman was, would have displayed an entirely different demeanour. His lack of judgement and probable display of anxiety could have caused him to make mistakes that would have left him vulnerable to being overpowered during the confusion.

But this guy was so good, he exuded complete control of the situation in a way that scared the hell out of everyone and professionally he executed the murders as would a man who had had experience with weapons for most of his life. Martin Bryant's experience consisted of, as he put it to Inspectors Warren and Paine:-

Q. How many rounds do you reckon you would've practised, you know, any idea?

A. Altogether, probably, probably twenty or thirty rounds out of that AR10 and probably twenty rounds out of that AR15 and that's about it, mmm.

***********************

There is no evidence of Martin having ever killed anyone or anything in his life.

***********************

A. I had a couple of targets on boards.

Q. Did you.

A. Cardboard usually.

Q. And how many times would you have shot 'em?

A. Ohh four or five times, then I used to put the gun back in the car and used to leave and go home.

Q. Did you always maintain a full ahh, full lot of rounds or not?

A. No because I never, I didn't want to disturb the peace with having a gun, a gun, 'cos they make quite a big bang.

Q. Mmm.

A. Jump around a bit.

Q. The gun jumps around a bit does it?

A. They kick a bit. It's the sound that's worse, it's pretty loud.

Q. Mmm.

A. Didn't want to get in trouble with the neighbours because I didn't have a licence you see when I was target practising.

Is this an example of the confidence and audacity of a seasoned killer? 35 kills nineteen with head shots from the hip, 22 injured, and 2 cars crippled in less than 20 minutes with only 64 shots?

At 12.40AM on the 4th Feb 1999 in New York City, four plain clothes police officers accidentally shot an unarmed black man on the stoop of his building as he reached for his wallet. The police mistook the man's action as reaching for a gun and fired 41 shots from a distance of about 12 ft (3 meters) with 9mm semiautomatic pistols each holding 16 bullets in the magazine. The man, Amadou Diallo, died from gunshot wounds after being hit only 19 times.

This scenario should easily demonstrate how easy it is for trained shooters to miss even from close range. It also serves to show that you don't have to be mentally retarded to be a lousy shot. These guys probably shot at the same range together every weekend and probably demonstrated far better accuracy on those occasions. However, with adrenalin running high under the pressure of an apparant attack mixed in with panic and loss of cool these officers were way off their mark. The Port Arthur shooter displayed no such fear. He didn't run. He cooly strode about in full control of himself and his mission apparantly under no stress. Certianly he was not worried about disturbing the neighbours or apparantly being arrested by the police. That's because the local police had already been taken care of. They were off on a some wild goose drug bust that turned out to be a phony.

In 1996 a trained Israeli soldier went berserk in Hebron and fired a complete thirty-shot magazine of ammunition from an identical Colt AR15 (as used at Port Arthur) into a crowd of Palestinians at the same range. His thirty high velocity bullets injured nine and killed no-one at all.

A witness, who eye-balled the Port Arthur shooter as he was shot in the neck was willing to identify the man while they were both in the Royal Hobart Hospital. Bryant was not far away in another ward recovering from burn wounds suffered at the Seascape Inn where he was taken prisoner yet the witness was never given the opportunity to identify him. This 5 minute exercise could have cleared Bryant of being the shooter at Port Arthur even though he would still have to explain what he was doing at the Seascape Inn. It never happened.

TO THIS DAY NO ONE HAS EVER FORMALLY IDENTIFIED THE PORT ARTHUR SHOOTER

A solid lawyer for Martin Bryant could also have, at the very least, pleaded diminished responsibility for his client since Bryant had previously been found incompetent to administer his own estate and had been awarded a guardianship by the State to take care of his financial situation.

In 1993 a case was heard in the Hobart Supreme Court under the Mental Health Act which resulted in Martin Bryant being found not competent to administer his own affairs and consequently unable to make any plea in any court due to his mental inability. How could Bryant's lawyer not be aware of that? With that information Bryant could not be convicted of anything. He would have been sent to a psychiatric institution where he could have been rehabilitated and maybe eventually set free. Well, they couldn't have that now, could they? That would not appease the lynch mobs and beside if he ever got out he might divulge what happened at the Seascape Inn and reveal the existence of an accomplice who lured him there to have some “fun”.

Clearly Bryant had to be locked up in solitary confinement and have the key thrown away. He would become our very own Man In The Iron Mask.

Bryant was a very lonely boy because of his annoying personality. He got teased and liked to get revenge on those who poked fun at him by doing all the kinds of silly things like chucking rocks and disrupting class. The kinds of things that modern day ADD children do except he was raised in a time when the government was closing down opportunity schools and mental institutions. The civil libertarians had an idea that people like Martin, who had disabilities detrimental to the other children in class, should be integrated into society to fend for themselves. To the detriment of other students he was forced into the same classrooms and the other children suffered torment and loss of concentration because of his behaviour. Today we see the results of these disastrous experiments all the time and, of course, it was not only our mentally ill who suffered the consequences of these do gooder's fanciful ideas.

Martin desperately sought friends but besides several girlfriends, who incidentally had never suffered any kind of violance from him, his father was perhaps the greatest influence in his life. He loved the boy and tried very hard to change Martin's mental capacity so that he would become a useful citizen but Martin's inability to learn impeded any hope of him becoming capable of taking care of himself. Martin was devastated when his father committed suicide and it is possible that he blamed himself for not being able to live up to his father's expectations as much as he wanted to.

In an interview with Inspectors Warren and Paine, Martin relates how his father took him diving and fishing. He bought a Zodiac inflatable boat which he eventually sold to buy two weapons only a few months before the massacre. One was a Colt AR15 more commonly called an Armalite which was identified by a Victorian gun collector who recognised it as one that he had handed in at a previous amnesty and was paid $1700 for.

He told police that a mark on the barrel of the Port Arthur weapon described to him by Inspector Maxwell, matched a mark on his rifle made by his gunsmith. "My rifle also had a collapsible stock and a Colt sight, just as the massacre weapon has," he said. "I did the right thing and handed the weapon in and if the police put it back into the Australian community I would be disgusted. "They told me it would be sent overseas and used for military purposes." See STORY OF A RIFLE USED IN A MASSACRE

There are conflicting identifications of the weapons used that I will not go into because it’s very in depth but suffice to say that there were far too many guns floating around that day which could only have been planted to muddy the waters. There are other sites which delve deeper into this subject and my links refer to these experts for more information on this matter. However be prepared to discover the irrefutable and almost unbelievable proof of evidence interference at the crime scenes.

Martin didn't grow up with guns and rifles. His parents would not have approved. He was 23 when he bought a Daiwoo 12 guage shotgun but he was so afraid of it's recoil that he never even fired it.

"A. I never, the funny thing is, I never umm, got round to using it. Even though I bought it, but it scared me the thought of it not working, and probably ricocheting out." He was afraid of the recoil.

The parlance used by Bryant when he talks about guns clearly shows that he is not very familiar with weaponry terms. It also shows that he was a bit of a wimp when it came to handling guns because although he enjoyed the feeling of owning one, as many people do, I think they scared the hell out of him.

Only months before the Port Arthur massacre Martin acquired two more rifles including the AR15 and for the first time in his life took weapons out into the forest near Mundunna to practice. He had purchased another rifle six years earlier but had never fired it because he couldn't get it to work. A gunsmith told him that he was using the wrong ammo and he had to be shown how to use this weapon. However he still couldn't get the knack of it so it remained at the gunsmiths.

WARREN
Q. You went, you used to go down in that area a fair bit then?
A. Mmm.
Q. Would it be fair to say you go down there mare than ahh, you know other parts of the State?
A. With the guns?
Q. Mmm.
A. That's the only place I used to take the guns.
Q. Right.
A. Nowhere else and it's only been the past six, seven months that I've actually used the guns. Before that I'd never used them, before in my life.

***************
A. That's, it's only been seven months that I've been firing 'em. Mmm

***************
PAINE
Q. Did you think that, did you think it was safe to have the ahh, firearms loaded in your car?

A. Umm, well they've got a safety catch thing.
A safety catch thing? Thank God for that. Six or seven months practice on his own shooting cans in the bush and he becomes one of the most impressive shots in the world. He should have been recruited for the Olympics.

*****************
It should be noted that during the interview with Martin and Inspectors Warren and Paine, Bryant's legal representative at the time gave permission for him to be interrogated without counsel being present. There are several pages and portions missing in the transcript especially after Martin talks about the hostage and the BMW. Did he say something that might have incriminated an accomplice? Most investigators agree that besides the Martins and the hostage handcuffed to the staircase there was at least one other person in the Inn during the siege. Did Martin say something that could have given up the plan?

There was no way Martin wanted to plead guilty because in his simple mind he insisted that he had not even been to the Port Arthur historical site on that day and why should he plead guilty to something that he didn't do?

At his hospital bed he was charged with only one murder that being of Kate Scott. He was confused and denied the charges. However in a strange twist, during the interview with Paine and Warren, he believed that he had used a gun to stop a Gold BMW at the corner of Fortesque Bay and Palmers Lookout. He said he wanted to go for a joy ride in the car and told the woman and a child to get into his yellow Volvo and the male driver to get into the boot of the BMW. He said he needed a hostage in case he got into trouble for not having a driver's licence and he was worried about the man driving off in his car and going to the police. Then he said he drove to the Seascape Inn to visit the Martins because he missed them when he visited them earlier in the day. However his knock on the door was unanswered yet again. For some reason, he says he can't explain, he said he took petrol out of the BMW (that he kept in his Volvo because the gauge didn't work) and he poured the petrol all over the BMW. He said he wasn't sure whether he set the car on fire or not but there was a huge explosion and that's how he thinks he got burnt. He said that he thought the reason he was being charged with murder was because of the man in the boot of the BMW who must have died in there, and he thought he was responsible for this man's death.

Now what really happened was that the gunman stopped the BMW at the toll-booth of the Port Arthur convict site (klms away from Palmers Lookout) as he was exiting the site and he shot the four occupants in the car. Then he dragged out their bodies and drove off in their Gold BMW. When he came upon the white Carolla he slowed down and shot the woman driver and kidnapped the male passenger putting him in the boot of the BMW and then drove on to the Seascape Inn. When he got there he took the hostage out of the boot and into the Inn where he handcuffed him to the staircase rail and that's where he was burnt to death in the house fire and not in the car.

Why would Bryant make up this story of taking the BMW for a joy ride and burning his hostage in the car fire where he believes he also got burnt? If he gave himself up for what he thought was a murder, then why didn't he admit to other murders? Or at the very least tell some equally fanciful story about that part of the day? He couldn't have been in any more trouble. However, no matter how hard they tried to get him to say something about Port Arthur he adamantly insisted that he was never at the convict settlement on that day. He said he only had $15 and couldn't afford it. When asked how his Yellow Volvo got there he said that he didn’t know and that perhaps the woman he let go from the BMW must have drove it there. He showed genuine remorse for what happened to the man in the boot of the BMW but he also thought that this was the reason he had been arrested and was facing jail. He was clearly very worried about this incident. Far more than any of the accusations against him for the murder of another 35 people because he believed he had killed his hostage in the boot of the car and would go to jail for it. However all of the other instances were non events to him because, as he said, "I didn't shoot anyone".

There were other occasions when he was said to have uttered strange things that would have incriminated him but if he did say any of the horrible things that his lawyer John Avery told the press he had, then it is obvious to any reasonable person who knows anyone like Martin that he would say anything to keep a conversation going. He was a lonely person and an attention seeker. After months of solitary confinement it's more than likely that Martin would have said anything at all just to keep someone interested in him enough to keep him company. He could also have used this childish ploy to be aggravating and annoying. He was obviously being pressured into admitting to something that he didn't do and could have lashed out with things that he thought Avery wanted to hear. The shock value would have been entertainment for him as prison confinement would not have been easy for him to endure without psychiatric help.

In an interview with Avery for the Bulletin by Julie-Anne Davies she wrote that, quote "Avery also needed to persuade Bryant not to press with his not guilty plea." unquote. Avery told her, quote "I had very little I could offer him in terms of legal solutions." unquote. That's probably because he didn't even try to build a case for Martin. Even with all of the evidence he should have had at his disposal to prove Martin innocent his only plan was to get him to plead guilty so everyone could go home and forget about him.

Ten years later Avery discredited himself and was disbarred after revealing confidential interview tapes between himself and Bryant which he said he believed the public should be made aware of. However although, on the face of it, Bryant admits to the killings on the Avery Tapes, it is blatantly obvious by the way he has to be led into each admission and by the contradictions that Avery helps him 'get it right' for the records, that Bryant does not have a grasp on what he thinks he's supposed to say. His eagerness to please and do whatever was required of him only serves to further empathise his ignorance and absence of intellect. On several occasions Avery was on one train of thought while Bryant was on another and Avery took advantage of Martins ineptness. He admitted to things that didn't happen such as shooting Mrs. Martin who was bludgeoned to death or knocking on the Martin's door when he was supposed to have already shot them previously or not knowing the magazine capacity of the rifle he was supposed to be so expert with.

The communication levels continuously moved in only one direction and that was to get Martin to plead guilty. It was also obvious that Martin's coercion had begun long before Avery had got to him. He had already been instructed on what he must say and why. As the tapes show Bryant's main concern was how long the court case was going to take and anything that he could say to get it over with sooner. He was convinced that if he said and did the right things that there might not even be a court case.

Martin Bryant should have received professional help years before he was incarcerated. He saw his first psychiatrist when he was only six and it was obvious from that time that he had a problem. The authorities were aware of his inability to take care of himself but they didn't have a place for him to go where he could get specialised care. His father retired early to look after him but when he died the only other person who befriended him was the woman who took him on as a gardener and left him her fortune when she died. He lived alone to fend for himself in a huge mansion with a generous income. His mother and sister loved him dearly but they were not as able to "put up with him" as his dad did and they suffered the indignity of his imperfections as much as anyone else who had anything to do with him.

People in the mental medical profession see this kind of condition all the time. I know at least 2 people with varying degrees of the same characteristics but because someone is a little weird, stupid or attention seeking does not predispose them to commintting mass murderer. In fact the very reason Martin can't be the Port Arthur shooter is because he's all of the above and it would have been impossible for anyone to have trained a man with his lack of intelligence to be a combat shooter.

Who ever planned the Port Arthur massacre did not make a good choice when they selected Martin for the patsy. If the real killer wasn't such a show-off and Martin's IQ was at least double, the differences between the two might have been less obvious. It would have been easy for the gunman to portray Martin by donning a blond wig and acting a bit peculiar but for Martin to be mistaken for a combat shooter is ludicrous.

Obviously the authority's plan to put Martin away with a minimum of fuss would not work unless Bryant pleaded guilty because a jury trial was the only other option. It was also apparent that the authorities were nervous about witnesses not being able to identify Martin seeing him up close in the witness stand so they must have put a lot of work into getting him to change his mind. They could have used torture of some kind (some investigators refered to his solitary confinement as torture) but bribery is most likely since his child-like mind-set would be easily enticed by offers of fair play and a comfortable confinement.

Whatever they did it worked to a certain extent since his lawyer was convinced that he had talked him into pleading guilty and they went to a sentencing hearing with this in mind.

However, surprise, surprise. When the judge finally asked Martin how did he plead? He replied "not guilty".

I would love to have seen the look on the prosecutors face, or, for that matter, even the lawyer's face, since he was the one who would have worked so hard on that answer to be "guilty".

The 'not guilty' plea was not accepted. The hearing was suspended. Everyone packed up and went home to start all over again. A 'not guilty' plea was not part of the plan and Martin Bryant was sent to solitary confinement until he agreed to co-operate. Finally, in another hearing, he did plead guilty as would a little boy playing a game. He knew it was silly for him to be doing this and he laughed and snickered though all 35 counts of guilty, probably because he felt foolish telling lies.

This action was reported by the ever ravenous press as being insensitive and cruel, something that I didn't believe for an instant. I remember when I was 11 and I can only imagine how ridiculous all of this must have appeared to him. He had no one to defend him or listen to his side. His lawyer didn't make any attempt to investigate a case for him and didn’t appear to be helping him. From a humane point of view he shouldn't have been subjected to a hearing in the first place because of his legal mental status. The whole thing was a sham designed to quell the anger of a nation stirred up by the press doing their dirty work for the anti-gun nuts who couldn't even find a very convincing patsy, or maybe they didn’t know how good their shooter was going to be.

What did they offer him that was so attractive? There was no way that he was going to go free and they must have told him this. So, what do you offer a man condemned to prison for the rest of his life?

Anyone can judge Martin's mental ability by reading his "psychiatric report on this site" and having done so you can deduce that the simplest of pleasures might have appealed to Martin. Things such as a colour TV in a very comfortable cell where he could play computer games and order any videos he liked. What else is there in the life of a simpleton but endless entertainment in your own little realm rather than have a very bad accident and perhaps not survive.

Despite media generated hatred which would have had the public approving of his death, attempts on his life would have shone a light on him and reminded the public of the massacre they were determined to forget. They may even have uncovered some of the truth about his inability to have committed the crimes he was accused of. Much safer to let sleeping dogs lie and keep Bryant silent in his "Iron Mask" behind closed doors forever.

It is especially easy to keep things quiet in the present climate since the public seem to accept the silence generated by the media on this subject. Absence of any updates and ongoing hush hush about the subject keeps the peace and life goes on. Nothing is said "out of respect for the dead" and Martin Bryant's name is never mentioned. The authorities and the media have convinced the general public to forget the man accused of Australia's worst crime. He is behind bars and that is the end of that.

Those of us who take everything the media tells us with a grain of salt have heard a different story to the official one. So many blatant anomalies should aggravate even the most sceptic of us and anyone who has read the unofficial versions on the Port Arthur massacre can't help but be curious about questions that the government won't answer and the media refuses to report.

So what do the people of Tasmania think? In particular those who live and work in the Port Arthur region and may even have been there on the day?

PORT ARTHUR REVISITED

The park must attract a larger amount of people these days since the four plus car-parks indicated the expectation of enormous crowds. A huge and very modern administration block complete with dining area and gift shop also houses miniatures of the site and interesting informative entertainment areas to inform the visitor of the original penal settlement. The lives and woes of the tortured souls who did their time at Port Arthur are depicted in print, video and mannequins throughout the centre ensuring that the visitor is informed of our early past and our early inhabitants to this area.

At night there is a ghost tour that takes visitors on a somewhat eerie exploration of the site and the guides joke about the spirits of the dead convicts that presumably still inhabit these ruins.

At the end of this tour I thought that this might be the perfect time to ask if there might be some “ghosts” remaining after the 1996 massacre and my question was met with astonishment. However, more than half of the tour stayed behind to hear the answer.

"No, there are no ghosts of the massacre," I was told.
"Why do you think that is?" I asked
"I don't know," was the reply.
"Do you think it's because the people who died in the massacre might be from a more enlightened age and have moved on?" I asked.
"It's because we had a cleansing ceremony to give the massacre victims closure," someone else answered me.
"And you didn't have a ceremony for all those poor tortured convicts?" Someone snickered with amusement behind me and I knew I was being pedantic but I was annoyed by the hypocrisy of the pretence to have respect for one kind of spirit and not another. These convict ghosts were raking in millions for the Tasmanian government and the more recently murdered were not even given a mention.

Earlier I had asked one of the staff behind the ticket counter as I was buying tour tickets for the day if there was a tour conducted about the Port Arthur massacre and I got much the same response. They acted as if the question was insensitive and inappropriate.

A very rude and obviously annoyed man listening in on what I had to say told me, with attitude, that "people down here don't talk about the massacre,"
"Why not?" I asked, "the massacre is as much a part of our history as the convict settlement and to try and hide the facts of what happened only makes the event even more sinister. And why are you all so angry about predictable curiosity"
"We’re not angry, just don't talk about it and we never mention the killer's name."
"Some of the staff here are still very sensitive about what happened and out of respect for them we don't mention the murders."
Same old story, even after ten years. Don't mention the massacre and no lies can be told.

Regardless of who I spoke to I was put off with statements such as, "we don't talk about what happened because some of the staff who were there on that day are still upset about it," or “Why would we want to talk about something so upsetting to most people?"
"Most people are interested in what happened here." I told her, "and the Port Arthur massacre is an important event that should be told because to this day it has not been fully explained and we're being told that no one wants to talk about it out of respect for the dead or the sensitivity of the survivors. I would have thought that the loved ones of those who died here would be, at the very least, eager to have a proper trial to reveal what really happened to their friends and family"

"Have you ever has a tragedy in your life?" was put to me. If they only knew that in my business the amount of people you get to know are so many and dear that almost every month we celebrate another funeral. Celebrate? Yes, because only those who don't believe in a soul that lives forever mourn someone who has done their time and gone home. No one ever really dies but sooner or later we all have to discard the shell we came here in and if our tiny brains are not enlightened enough to understand this then we haven't lived long enough to experience this knowledge. Most people accept tragedy and get on with their lives because grief is a personal pain, not something to be used as an excuse to keep quite. We learn by our history and we require that the truth be told so that we are not doomed to repeat it.

We can't suppress what happened at Port Arthur for fear someone doesn't have a grip on their own feelings. We can't think about upsetting people by telling the truth. That's what happened in the first place and grief was used as an excuse not to pursue a trial with all of the explanations that could have alleviated a lot of pain and made closure for the victims left behind.

"But, it was the way they died." the attendant said sadly.

Most of the victims were killed instantly with shots to the head. I should be so lucky to die so quickly. These people were not mutilated, tortured, hacked up, buried alive, stabbed or beaten to death. They were not raped or humiliated in any way. They were executed by a professional killer who knew what he was doing and had the expertise to accomplish his mission with the maximum amount of terror. His aim was to put fear into the hearts of ordinary people and make way for an even more sinister plan.

As an example I went on to tell them about the two little girls on the Gold Coast sand dunes who were raped and tortured for hours before being clubbed to death with a lump of wood about the same time as the massacre and didn't even make front page news because the weapon used to kill them was not a gun. I found myself being ignored.

To believe that the way these people died is any worse than the way other people die is what I call insensitive. It's not the way they died that makes me angry. It's the fact that they had to die at all. These lives were taken needlessly but not thoughtlessly or in vain. They died so that Australians can now live without the fear of all those other non existent mass murders we have never suffered in this land of terror. Without the deaths of these innocent men women and children this country would be over-run with rednecks and gun nuts going on endless killing sprees. I'm not trying to be funny here. I'm trying to empathise the audacity of these slimes to use the lives of so many to save no one because the homicides in Australia have only gone up since the gun confiscation. Why? The bad guys didn't hand in their guns and most murders are committed with fists, knives, lumps of wood and anything else handy at the time. So the whole exercise was just a horrible waste.

Finally, I asked one of the Port Arthur staff if she felt comfortable with Martin Bryant being convicted without a trial and the response tone was again one of annoyance.
"He has had a trial; they found him guilty here in Hobart."
"Actually he had a sentencing hearing not a trial as is the right of every Australian citizen," I tried to inform her but she wasn’t listening to me.
"He did so get a trial, he's as guilty as sin and he can rot in hell."

Almost word for word what the Mercury had published in bold headlines to convince people that justice had been done and to this day these people were sticking to the printed word of the media. As far as anyone I tried to talk to was concerned the deed was done the killer is in jail and we don't want to talk about it any more.

The people of Port Arthur, choose to ignore further investigations in order to forget. Ignorant of the facts, the hint of suspicion does not prompt them to take a second look and make sure that those they mourn get the justice they deserve. One would think that out of respect for the dead that they should want to make sure that an innocent man did not take the fall and do the time for the real killer. But it's as if they are not really interested.

Hours later it occurred to me that the Port Arthur staff might not talk about what happened because they really don't know. They may have been there and some may have seen dead bodies, bandaged and comfort the wounded and perhaps cleaned up the crime scenes afterwards but because no proper enquiry has yet pieced together all the clusters of confusion on that day I think it would be hard to make sense of it all.

The gunman did his job well. He fulfilled his mission to inflict the maximum amount of fear and confusion so that no one person would ever really know what went down that day. The fact that these people had to wait over 6 hours for the police to arrive would be terrifying enough because no one knew where the gunman was or if he was coming back. Hundreds of statements were taken and yet to this day no one, not even the people who were there, know what, why or even how this terrible thing occurred, especially at a place like beautiful Port Arthur.

The shooter's brazen, deliberate and quick execution of his assignment had the desired affect on the public and that was to incite hatred of the weapons used in the killings.

However, I'd like to make it clear that, as with most parts of Australia, the further away from the big cities you get the more genuine people become. In the back blocks of this beautiful state and at places where fewer tourists find their way we met some really wonderful people who took us in like family and didn’t mind talking about Port Arthur at all. Trouble was I couldn’t tell these guys anything. They’d had it all figured out years ago and for a while we relaxed in the company of real Australians who are used to helping out one another and standing by their mates. They told us of dramas that would curl your hair but the difference was that these people knew how to cope with the hard times without complaint or expectations of sympathy. The best part about their company was the way they told of their misfortunes with jokes and laughter as if to spit in the eye of tragedy. What I felt for these people brought a tear to my eye as happens when you are so proud of someone. So to all those fabulous “devils” we met here and there, especially the Lake Leake Fly Fishing Club at the Lake Leake Chalet – thanks for the free camp and outstanding laughs fellows.

Almost immediately after the killings semi-automatic rifles were banned in Tasmania, the most peaceful and safest state in Australia with the lowest crime rate. Influenced by the Liberal government and the media push to have guns banned ordinary Australians were branded rednecks and gun-nuts and forced to hand in their weapons all over the country. It was Nazi Germany all over again. Prime Minister Howard dramatised the event even further by wearing a flack jacket in public because he was afraid that these gun nuts might try to shoot him. Hundreds of thousands of people, not only gun owners, marched in protest all around the country against the introduction of the laws but because the media gave them little or no coverage the public outcry was largely ignored and the gun laws were passed without a referendum. Full story on disarmament of Australia

I took the tour of the convict settlement grounds which did not include a visit to the Broad Arrow café or any mention of the massacre. Having previously been these 15 years earlier I knew the general position of it but nothing could have prepared me for what they did to the building in an effort to obliterate all evidence of the shootings. The remains are now little more than a few stripped walls exposing brickwork reminiscent of the convict era. Were it not for a small plague in the garden surrounding these remains visitors would be unaware of what happened at this and other sites in the area.

A wooden cross overlooks a remembrance pool at the back of the building out of sight until you walk towards the cliffs in the background and the remains of the Broad Arrow is insignificant in it's present appearance. The area where so many innocent people lost their lives is not part of the regular tour and easily missed behind a garden obviously planted to keep the area remote and isolated so as not to bring attention to it.

I spent some time in this area and listened to the conversations of those who had found the ruins and knew what had happened here. Their tones were solemn but so many questions asked that were not answered because unlike the other buildings where attendants greeted visitors and explained the history within the walls, there were no guides at the old Broad Arrow. For many visitors a short inscription on a lonely plague was the only clue to explain the awful events of that fateful day in April 1996.

Ask why the building was pulled down and you get the same response. Why were any of the buildings pulled down? To hide the shame of the events that took place there. As the convict buildings were once demolished to erase the events of that day so too was the Broad Arrow Café torn down in a futile effort to eradicate history and hide forever the evidence.

The cover-up continues even as new evidence peels back the tarnish of deception. I have read the evidence that has since been raised in at least two independent investigations and I have asked the authorities to prove this evidence wrong. We have been pushing for a Coronial Enquiry now for over 9 years and we get nothing. As time goes by, witnesses die, buildings are torn down and people are fed the same emotional drama designed to take attention away from the real story.

A man is locked up for the rest of his life for something that he didn't do. Well, believe it or not, it happens all the time. But there are some people who don't even want to know whether Bryant is innocent or not. They hate him so much they won't even speak his name. Despite the more recent investigations they prefer to believe the media? Afraid to speak out they silently convince themselves the media must be right. Perhaps the fear of the truth is more terrible than they can bear because if Bryant didn't kill all of those people that means that the killer is still out there and that is something to be afraid of.

Our legal system can hardly be a system of integrity if our courts sacrifice justice for fear of upsetting witness's feelings? Where is the fairness in that?

There were witnesses eager to see justice done and the law shunned them. These brave people are the real heroes of the Port Arthur massacre because they risked their lives to be willing to tell the truth. They took the trouble to make waves so that their loved ones did not die in vain. There has been no explanation of 'why' to those who suffered the aftermath and if anything this must be the most heart wrenching pain of all to bear.

It is clear that the DNA evidence would have cleared Martin. So would blood splatter tests on his clothing. Witness identification of Bryant would have convinced me but the DPP used none of this evidence and instead relied on this rediculous video that proves nothing. The only thing that convicted Martin Bryant was his coerced "guilty" plea.

Somewhere there are people who planned a massacre and blamed an unfortunate half wit for the terrible crimes that took place in one of the most beautiful and peaceful places on earth.

I have gathered innumerable pieces of information and facts which substantiate a cover-up of immense proportions over the past ten years and I am even now still uncovering more and more information. The frustration of rejection is a hard pill to swallow and the willingness to stand up and be counted is becoming a more and more thorny path to walk. One day it will be too late. People will forget and move on but worst of all history will be written with the lies and deception of the winners as it usually is.

In a way I understand the apathy, after all, what is the point of complaining if the people you're complaining about are the ones you must complain to. It seems that it is just so much easier to let Bryant rot in jail and forget about what is right because the real killers will never be brought to justice and the truth will never be admitted. It's too hard.

However I know that, as naïve as some people may appear to be, there are still some with a bent for fair-play who surface now and then to give me hope. I heard a radio talk-back host recently interview a correspondent who rubbished Oliver Stone's movie JFK. The guest insisted that the movie was not about what happened in Dallas that day but instead was just a conspiracy story made up by Oliver Stone and made into a movie for entertainment purposes.

Not what really happened? I was flabbergasted and angry that this usually intelligent person had the nerve to dismiss the investigations of one of America's bravest men, Jim Garrison, who as Attorney General of Mississippi put his career on the line to bring the truth to the American people in the same way many people are doing now for the victims of the Port Arthur massacre.

However, the host came back with an awesome comment when he asked his guest if the official story, that came from the government, could not also be regarded as a conspiracy considering the lies that can come from even the highest echelons of government using George Bush as an example. Are not these people also capable of creating conspiracies? Are they not in a better position to tell lies than most and follow them through? They have endless departments on their pay-role to cover for them and their greatest asset is the fact that most people are reluctant to accuse their leaders of any wrong-doing. It is much easier to accuse a lone nutter than an organisation of people who are powerful and capable of orchestrating events to make sure that things go their way.

Anyone who believes that the patsy did it in both of these murders is not living in the real world. When you can't get your head around the idea that a terrorist attack happened on our own soil and our own countrymen were influenced into giving up the very weapons that could have defended the innocent on that day, then you're in denial.

Thirty five people were killed at one of the most beautiful historic sites in our country and only a few weeks later the Howard government pushed through draconian gun laws that had no hope in hell of getting passed without the emotional turmoil that followed the Port Arthur Massacre.

Explains reasons how Bryant could have been lured to the Seascape Inn to take the fall for the real shooter.