| Dr Thomas Hayes |
Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s Hayes progressed to Head of Department at the British Royal Armaments Research Establishment at Fort Halstead, in the United Kingdom. His testimony was central to the conclusions of the Lockerbie trial judges. Yet abundant evidence was available at the time of the trial to show that Hayes' credibility was in serious doubt. Only a weak and at times incompetent defence allowed Hayes to play word games with the court, and to hide from the judges the true extent of his dissembling in another major criminal case. In the Lockerbie trial Hayes claimed he was, on 12th May 1989, the first person to discover the 4 mm square fragment of a bomb timer mechanism which pointed to Libya, and only Libya. His report, confirmed and presented by his colleague Alan Feraday, stated that this was the one single piece of the bomb ever recovered. Hayes' notes about its recovery were written on an apparently later inserted loose-leaf page in his notebook. The next and subsequent six pages were re-numbered by hand. The index number Hayes gave to the bomb fragment was higher than another item which, in that same notebook, he discovered and reported on some three months later. Yet Hayes was allowed by a weak defence to maintain that the insertion of the page was for an entirely innocent reason, which he could not at all remember. Twice Hayes was asked: Why was the change in pagination carried out? Answer: "I have no idea." Only under friendly and lengthy steering by prosecution advocate Campbell, and towards the end of his evidence, did Hayes suddenly recall what had happened. "It has helped me, sir, in attempting to explain what appears a rather unfathomable mystery. And I think the solution is very straightforward. And it is this: When I wrote these notes, I initially did not number the pages... I then set about numbering them... So whereas the page numbers may be in sequential order, the dates would not be." A somewhat suspicious return of memory? And yet Hayes produced no explanation for the higher index number. And he was allowed to claim without challenge that his analysis of the bomb fragment had been totally contemporaneous. Indeed, he was permitted, again without challenge, to announce to the world a re-definition of the word "contemporaneous". Finally, in spite of his recording the fragment as part of a bomb timer mechanism, he carried out not a single chemical analysis to ensure that it had been close to the centre of the explosion. This was contrary to standard practice, and contrary to similar checks he carried out on other evidence from the centre of the explosion. In that sense, therefore, his report to the court was seriously deficient. The only fragment which the prosecution claimed as proof of Libyan guilt has not, over nineteen years, a trial, an appeal, and two SCCRC hearings, been subject to a single explosives trace analysis. This fact of itself is quite extraordinary. Shortly after discovering the bomb fragment, Hayes, at the early age of forty three, resigned his highly paid and honoured head of department post. In the Lockerbie witness box he could not quite remember when he resigned, nor why. Did he fear an imminent inquiry into his forensic reporting on Lockerbie? For even as he examined the Lockerbie fragment, he knew that a campaign was under way, with contributions by people such as Cardinal Hume, to free the Maguire Seven . Parliament was also about to ask Sir John May to investigate his forensic reporting in the case. The Maguire family were convicted in March 1976 on evidence supplied by Hayes and two of his colleagues. Sir John May would be formally appointed in October 1989 to investigate the forensic evidence and other matters connected with the case. The Sir John May reports would lead to a successful appeal in 1992. Sir John May characterised Hayes and two of his colleagues thus: On the basis of the evidence provided by Hayes and two others, "the whole scientific basis on which the prosecution in [the trial of the alleged IRA Maguire Seven] was founded was in truth so vitiated that on this basis alone, the Court of Appeal should be invited to set aside the conviction." Apart from a short and weak exchange on this issue, the defence made little of it. Hayes was allowed by poor cross examination to play word games. The judges would, in their conclusions, accept without question his written report and testimony. Why? They each understood, and we may speculate, that if they had disbelieved even a single aspect of his testimony, then the world would conclude that the fragment was a plant. The implications for the US/UK Transatlantic relationship would have been disastrous. Many believe that that has been behind the Lockerbie story since those first tragic moments. Home... |
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