An American in Wonderland

BRIEF HISTORY OF STAFFORD FREEBORN

I was born in England in 1944, my mother was English and my father American. After the war my father returned to America. Shortly thereafter I (aged 3) and my mother and brother (aged 1) joined him there.

In 1957 my father took a job in Taiwan on a five year contract and we went with him to live in Taipei. After a time my mother felt that the expatriate school in Taipei was not as good as a British boarding school in Hong Kong so I and my brother were sent to school there.

I enjoyed my time in Hong Kong and I gained my first experience of the British way of life and because of various connections I gained a very favourable impression of the British Army. When I left Hong Kong I returned to our home in Michigan - but much against my mother and father’s wishes I then decided to join the British 17th /21st Lancers. I served four years.

Realising the army was not the career for me I left the army and obtained employment as a stockbroker in London. I had a very enjoyable life while living there doing many things, including serving five years as a Special Constable at Shepherdess Walk and at West End Central.

Seven years later I felt I had had enough of being a stockbroker and wanted a change. I returned to America and retrained as a pilot. I worked as an instructor and then at a small commercial operation until 1984 when I got hired by a cargo airline flying large aircraft.

This airline had connections with the Department of Defence and shortly after joining them I was assigned to this area of work. It was important work and I had very high security clearances. A lot of my work brought me in contact with the USAF and I became accustomed to their ways and enjoyed their comradeship because I myself was a member of the USAF Auxiliary. By this time I had reached the rank of Major and was a Wing Staff Officer in the Oklahoma Wing HQ at Tinker Air Force Base.

This was a happy time but as a result of my earlier visit to England I decided to return there with a view to starting a business. My mother’s family came from Sussex and it is the county I knew best so I chose to look into prospects there. For a number of reasons Brighton seemed the town best suited to the venture and I took temporary accommodation at a lodging house while looking around for both business premises and a permanent home.

THE ADVENTURES OF AN AMERICAN IN WONDERLAND

On 27 November 1998 I was found guilty by the British and sentenced to seven years in prison. Americans would find this unbelievable. Almost every detail of my account of Bickle's attack on me and my shooting him was supported or confirmed either by witnesses or by forensic evidence. In no case did any evidence contradict my explanation of what happened that night when he attacked the landlord (Michael Dalley) and then came upstairs, broke into my room, and attacked me. In contrast, Bickle's story was shown to be a combination of lies and nonsense. The details I set out all came out at the trial. Blood taken by the hospital showed that Bickle was intoxicated. The tape of Mr. Dalley calling for the police which had the sounds of Bickle shouting and smashing through my door in the background was finally produced by the police and was played in court. Bickle's shirt, which was withheld for so long, was finally produced for us in September. Both the prosecution and defence experts agreed that the bullet marks on it and on Bickle indicated that he was turned right side towards me and that the bullet hit him in an upward path. Also, the bullet marks indicated that the shirt was "bloused out". These facts all fitted in with what I had said from the beginning, that when I shot him I was sitting on the bed and he was coming at me in a forward stooped attitude with his right hand reaching forward at me in a lunging attack.

As to the telephone handset, any fingerprints that should have been on it were, by their own admission, wiped off by police mishandling. The last number re-dial was missing for the same reason. In their written statements the police told lies about this but changed their story in court. My lawyer did not bring out their lies as I would have liked. He thought it was enough that they had admitted the missing prints and re-dial were due to their bungling.

A woman friend of Bickle's had telephoned the police on the 10th December 1997 to say that he had visited her on the evening of the shooting. She told them that he had been in a very agitated state. He blamed me for Mr. Dalley taking legal action against him and said he intended on doing something about me. This woman said she had known Bickle for over 25 years and that she knew him to be a habitual liar and "a bully to smaller people". The prosecution kept this secret from us until just before the trial.

The photographs taken by the police indicate there was a violent struggle between Bickle and Dalley in the entrance hall downstairs. A large wall mirror was knocked to the floor and there was blood on the telephone that Mr. Dalley used to call 999. This unprovoked attack by Bickle on an old man half his size they dismissed as a "scuffle".

Upstairs, the photos show the door to my room has boot marks on the outside surface where Bickle at first tried unsuccessfully to kick it in. After that he shouldered it open. Inside the room the door frame can be seen to be smashed off the wall with a splintered piece of the frame leaning across the doorway. The high back office chair in the corner by the telephone is on its side.

The telephone handset, with its aerial broken, is laying on the floor where it landed when Bickle broke it and threw it. A note to me from Mr. Dalley informing me of the situation between him and Bickle saying "please insure you are safe" is shown. This note was written on the back of a copy of a letter to his solicitor. The letter was part of the correspondence relating to the legal action he was taking to get rid of Bickle. In it he states that he fears violence and asks if there is some way Bickle can be barred from the house until the action is concluded.

In my life, I have been around the world and, seen and done quite a lot. My experiences have included some memorable situations both high and low but, I have never been more stunned, shocked, dazed and dumbfounded than I was when I heard the foreman of the jury say "guilty". I still cannot believe they could do this to me. To find myself, aged 54, locked up in prison has been a terrible shock. Nevertheless, when I think about what might have happened to me I do not have the slightest regret. I could have ended up a dribbling brain damaged vegetable, a pathetic zombie "cared for" by the National Health. It would be a pretty awful end but, at least I would have been oblivious to it. Had my spine been broken I might now be sitting paralysed in a wheelchair. The thought of being mentally OK but having to be fed, washed, toileted, etc. by other people every day for the rest of my days is too terrible to contemplate. At least I am still alive and well and may yet see justice done.

Everyone I have spoken to thinks the jury found me guilty not because they were convinced it wasn't self-defence but because they didn't like the idea of me using a gun to defend myself. British thinking seems to be that if someone attacks you in your bedroom at 1:30am they are in the wrong and should be prosecuted, especially if they kill you. However, if in order to stop the attack and save your life, you shoot this attacker the situation reverses. The person defending his life becomes the criminal and the attacker is the innocent victim. During a conversation with a parole officer in Lewes prison he said to me "What if a burglar had stolen your pistol and used it to shoot a child?". I replied, "what if I had not had the pistol and Bickle had killed me?" He then said "Bickle would be sitting in front of me now facing a life sentence". HE SEEMED TO THINK THAT WAS THE PERFECT ANSWER. My reply "What good would that be to me?" was dismissed as if I was being petty and argumentative. He then told me that unless I changed my attitude I would not be considered for parole. I must acknowledge that I am the guilty one, that it is right that I was sentenced to seven years, and also it is perfectly right that Bickle should not be charged with any offence.

I quote this example to illustrate what unbelievable attitudes some of the British have. It is easy to see that a jury of people like him would consider me to be the criminal. In America, to avoid prejudiced juries reaching biased verdicts, we have jury selection. Here no jury selection is permitted. Another thing they have here is the judges "summing up" where he tells the jury what he considers they have heard in evidence and gives his comments on how reliable he thinks the various witnesses were. Even if you disregard all that I or Mr. Dalley say happened and consider only the hard evidence of photos, recordings, and forensics, no reasonable person could say - beyond any doubt - there was no possibility I shot Bickle in self-defence. This is not a case of British laws being different than American laws. It is a case of an unjust decision by a blindly prejudiced jury.

The Gun
After being attacked in 1979 by two men, one of whom had a knife and inflicted cuts on my hand when I deflected his stabs at my body, I bought the pistol. I have kept it for self-protection ever since. In common with every American I have ever met, I believe I have "certain inalienable rights" - life being one of them. If I am attacked I have the right to defend my life. This is not negotiable. Britain is no safe haven from violence. Drugs and high unemployment have produced crime rates more or less equivalent to those in America. The murder rate is still a bit lower but, assaults and robberies are worse here and, Britain is now the world leader in burglaries. Newspaper reports of attacks on English tourists in America produce howls of anger and indignation here. It is outrageous that I should be prosecuted and imprisoned and the maniac that attacked me given large sums of money in criminal compensation.

Perhaps the reason they have prosecuted me is political. Along with playing down the true extent of crime in Britain today, government propaganda always portrays guns as frightening evil things that only some abnormal "gun nut" would want to keep. Anything that contradicts this line would have to be suppressed. If a blameless victim defends himself from a violent attacker by shooting him, this might put ideas into people's heads. Many honest people now confronted with ever increasing violent crime might wish to insure their own personal safety in the same way. This could not be tolerated. The people have been disarmed The government wants them to stay that way. Therefore, when a psychopathic bully in a drunken rage smashes a door off the wall in order to get in and attack a 54 year old Airline Transport Pilot who is frantically trying to dial 999, and the maniac gets shot, the account presented to the public has to be spin-doctored. The resulting story then becomes - innocent victim shot by callous "gunman" over a domestic quarrel. The elderly landlord is presented as confused and unreliable old man, and the attack on him, if it occurred at all, was a little scuffle. That this could be done may sound unbelievable but it was, and it worked.

Here’s how they did it. First, although Bickle had attacked Michael Dalley, smashed my door frame off the wall, and then attacked me, the police refused to charge him with any offence. The reason they did not press any charges against him was, if they did, he could not be classed as an “innocent victim”. In Britain, if a person giving evidence in court is classed as an innocent victim, you cannot say anything against their character. The police knew that if Bickle’s true character became known to the jury it would be very damaging to their case, this underhanded trick of “British justice” was used to stop him being exposed for what he was.

When the Sussex police searched Bickle’s apartment in Kent they were forced to have Kent policemen accompany them and watch what they did. As a result, when they found more incriminating evidence they had to make a written record of what was found. Most probably (I guess) what they found included drugs, drug paraphernalia, and instruments of bondage and torture. We don’t know for sure because, once again, they used legal trickery to connive a way of keeping everything they found there secret from my defence.

Following the reports of Bickle being shot, a lady who had known him over twenty years telephoned the police to let them know he had visited her earlier in the evening before he attacked me. She told them he had been agitated and blamed me for Mr. Dalley wanting rid of him. He told her he was going to “do something about me”. She said she knew Bickle to be a “bully to the little people”, especially after he had been drinking. Once he had even attacked her 14 year old daughter because she had teased him. The police did not want this type of information so they did not take any statement from her. Again, they kept her evidence secret from my defence.

When the police collected forensic evidence at the scene, they found blood on the telephone Mr. Dalley used to call for help. They claimed in court this particular sample was not analyzed and denied knowing whose blood it was. I believe they did have it analyzed, and knew it to be Mr. Dalley’s blood. If they admitted this it would have proved how violent Bickle’s attack on Dalley had been, and indicated that his attack on me must have been equally violent. Also, they would have been forced to charge him with attacking Dalley. Bickle would have lost his innocent victim status.

After suppressing all evidence detrimental to Bickle, the next thing the police did was to falsify and rearrange evidence against me. The telephone handset was wiped clean of all fingerprints, and the memory of the last number I dialled was “lost”. Thus all proof that Bickle had broken it, or that I had been calling for help was eliminated. The police then took the tape of Mr. Dalley’s 999 call and rearranged the dialog so that it sounded like he was calling the police against me and an ambulance for Bickle, when exactly the opposite was the case.

Finally, the trial judge himself did what he could to bias the jury against me. I quote one example typical of his tactics. He said to the jury “It seems American gun society has come to Britain, some say it is here already”.

Against all these crooked tricks, I didn’t stand much of a chance. By a majority of 10 to 2 the jury found me guilty of attacking Bickle. (Editors note: in Britain if the jury cannot agree they are told the verdict of any 10 of them will do, that usually achieves the desired result).

Background
I moved to Brighton intending to set up a business. While looking to find a permanent place to live I took temporary lodgings at Mr. Michael Dalley's house at 48 Princes Terrace. I found him to be a nice person and a good landlord. I liked him and got on very well with him. His background, as I understand it, is that he had come on hard times a few years ago and had entered into some sort of financial arrangement with David Bickle that involved Bickle having an interest in the house. Bickle lived and worked as a security man in Kent, but had a room on the third floor of the house in Princes Terrace where he stayed on weekends when he wasn't working. Soon after I arrived he became bullying and nasty towards me so, whenever I knew he was around I kept out of the way.

Another reason I tried to see as little of him as possible was that he would dress in black leather and heavy boots, and strut around like a Gestapo torturer. I find the sight of these recreational psychopaths threatening and intimidating. He was often abusive towards Mr. Dalley and actually attacked him once. After I myself was grabbed by the lapels by Bickle I told Mr. Dalley one of us would have to go. He told me he wanted rid of Bickle and was taking legal advice on the matter. He expected Bickle would be gone in the near future. I had no dealings with Mr. Dalley other than that he was my landlord and we had become friendly. Whatever his dealings were with Mr. Bickle, they did not involve me in any way and were no concern of mine.

Attack - Shooting
On the night of Tuesday 9 December 1997 I was sitting in my room quietly reading when, around 1:30 am I heard a loud rumpus downstairs. I went out onto the landing and looked down to see what was causing it. I saw Bickle (height 6 feet, weight 220 lbs. age 45) attacking Mr. Dalley (weight 125 lbs. height 5 feet 7 inches, age 64). At this point Bickle had hold of Mr. Dalley's shirtfront with both his hands and was throwing him about like a terrier with a rat. He knew about Mr. Dalley’s heart condition. What was he trying to do, kill him? I shouted down to Bickle to leave him alone. He ignored me and continued his attack. Mr. Dalley was squirming and trying to get away. He succeeded in loosening Bickle's grip a bit so Bickle reached out and grabbed him round the neck in a headlock, such that Mr. Dalley was bent over facing the floor. Again I shouted down to Bickle to leave him alone. Hearing me Mr. Dalley turned his head up towards me and called up to me "Call the police".

I immediately went back into my room, locked the door, and started to do just that. Bickle then came upstairs after me. I learned later that after Bickle had released Mr. Dalley and as soon as he was free he dialled 999 to call the police himself. On the landing outside Bickle was raging and shouting and trying to kick through my door. After several hard shoulder smashes at the door he actually broke the frame off the wall. He came charging straight at me (then age 54, wt. 148 lbs.) and began to attack me. Sounds of him raging and shouting and smashing through the door are in the background of the recording of Mr. Dalley's 999 call. Bickle tore the telephone handset out of my hands and knocked me to the floor. He broke off the aerial and threw the handset across the room. Fearing a kicking from his heavy boots I quickly got back on my feet. He then continued his attack on me. I fought back as best I could but he was much bigger and stronger than me. He was getting the better of me and I was certain that I was about to be killed. I managed to get hold of my gun and shot him just once. He stopped his attack and left my room. (Note the gun was a 9 mm automatic).

Excerpt from the statement of David Bickle (taken on Dec. 20th after his discharge from hospital)

He met with friends at 8:30pm on Tue 9 Dec. 1997 and went drinking with them. He arrived at 48 Princes Terrace around 1:30 am. His account of what happened between entering and exiting the house follows:

I let myself in with the key and saw Michael [Dalley] on the phone at the bottom of the stairs. This annoyed me because earlier I had tried to dial out on that phone and I could not get an outside line. I thought Michael may have had the line blocked so only he could use it, but I had not asked him if this was the case. I immediately thought Michael had rung out on the phone and I may have said something to him but I cannot remember. I do remember though going up and pulling the telephone wires out of the socket but I do not know if Michael had hung up or not.

I believe myself and Michael then began to argue but as to what was actually said or if we were shouting, I have no idea. We may have been scuffling but I honestly have no clear recollection of this. The next thing I remember is hearing Stafford shouting from upstairs and seeing him leaning over the landing. I cannot recall what exactly Stafford said but I believe he was saying to leave Michael alone. I remember Michael calling up to Stafford to call the police and he stopped shouting and moved away from the top of the stairs. I then ran up the stairs after Stafford as I was very cross, although I do not know what I was running up after him for.

When I left Michael I think he was still in the hallway but I do not know what he was doing. When I got to the top of the stairs I could see Stafford’s door shut although I did not hear him go in there. I was still so cross that all I remember is kicking at his door about 3 or 4 times. I remember thinking that the door was stronger than I thought it was. The door has a Yale lock so you cannot get in without a key from the outside. I do not know if I knocked on the door first and have no idea what I was saying, if anything at all.

The door burst open and Stafford’s bed is behind the door on the left. My momentum took me into the room and I stopped on the right side wall next to the wardrobe directly in front of the doorway. I stopped and turned toward the bed on a slight angle so that I was facing the bed but with my right hand side slightly nearer to the bed. I noticed that Stafford was sitting at the headboard end of the bed which is against the wall which the door is in. Stafford was half sitting and half laying on the bed with his legs tucked under him but I do not recall which side. I have no idea what Stafford was wearing at the time, nor for that fact what I was. I recall seeing a small bedside table next to the bed behind the door. I caught a glance of a light tan motley leather gun holster although I do not recall what if anything was in it. It was about 6 inches long by about a similar size wide but in a triangular shape. I cannot describe this in any more detail as I only got a glance.

I think I may have shouted at Stafford to get out and he did not respond immediately but just laid or sat there looking as cool as a cucumber. He then said, “I’ve got something for you” in quite a normal voice and the next moment I heard a horrific bang. I had no idea where it came from and I have no idea where Stafford’s hands were, I did not see him point anything at me, I did not see any sparks with the bang and immediately felt a horrific pain in the top half of my left arm and then saw blood pouring from there. I immediately thought “My God he’s shot me” and just could not believe it. I thought at that time I had just been hit in the arm. Everything after this is very hazy and I have no idea where Stafford was or what he was doing. All I remember is staggering downstairs and across the road to Number 3 where I knocked on her door.

An account of:
Part I – The First 999 tape, falsified by the police - Its illegal destruction - its replacement by the second tape falsified by the Police. Part II – The Police use their powers to prohibit any investigation. Part III – The Police first deny having evidence - their own documents prove this false - they then refuse to produce the evidence.

Part I
1. As explained earlier, when Bickle released Dalley and came upstairs to attack me, Dalley called 999 for help. The police had a tape of this call available on 10 December 1997. They refused to let my defence have a copy until ten months later. When she received the tape from the police, my defence lawyer, Vicky KING, noticed there were low moaning sounds in the background of the first call. She sent the tape to a company called Network Forensics, who specialize in analyzing tape recordings, and asked them to enhance those sounds. (Although the following took place in Sept. - Oct 1998, and is stated now, I did not learn these details until Oct. 2000.) Mr. Adrian R. Phillips received the tape and did the work. He states that he took the police tape and, from it he made a copy recording, of the first call only, onto his own separate cassette.

2. He did not make any notes as to whether or not the tape had a talking clock on it but he states, for technical reasons relating to doing an enhancement, if there had been a talking clock track, he would certainly have removed it before doing the enhancement. He did the enhancement work on the copy recording, and marked his cassette 80677/ARP/1. Both cassettes were then returned to KING. It should be noted, KING had prearranged, by letters and telephone conversations with Phillips, that he would enhance the first call, for a set fee. Because he was contracted to do only this, and nothing more, he did not do anything to, and took no interest in, the other calls on the police tape.

3. Shortly after receiving it back KING had copies made and mailed a copy to me. The tape I received consisted of five 999 calls, including the enhanced version of the first call. It was a plain C90 cassette and had no markings on it. I listened to the entire tape a couple of times. It became clear that the first call was the only one of any use to my defence. The call was made at the same time that Bickle was smashing through my door and attacking me. The enhanced sounds were clearly his voice, raging and shouting on the landing outside my door, before he had broken through. I listened to that call at least a hundred times. It was only around 1 minutes long. I can remember quite clearly everything that was said. The tape began with the NYNEX operator (Dalley used this cable telephone service on one of the two telephones in the entrance hall) connecting Dalley to the British Telecom switchboard. The BT operator took details and then asked “what service do you require”. Dalley replied “police please----and an ambulance”. Instead of immediately connecting Dalley, it appeared the operator then proceeded to ask him a number of questions. Dalley became impatient and hung up.

4. From the first time I heard it, I felt this dialog did not sound right, neither in what was said, nor in the sequence of the dialog. There were suspicious gaps of silence, the sound of the gunshot was missing also, my body being thrown to the floor by Bickle would have made a crashing sound on the ceiling above Dalley. Both this sound, and the reaction to it, that I would have expected from Dalley were missing. An important point to note, because of what I will tell you later, is the way the call ended. Dalley became impatient and hung up, the female operator then said to the male “He’s gone”, to which the male replied “Hold on he may come back”. They waited a minute or so during which there are no voices, only what sounds like the tapping of keys on a computer keyboard. The call ends with the operators saying (male - female) “operator - hello - clear the line - OK bye”. These words are of no significance, but they may be useful for voice frequency analysis in comparison to the voices in the second falsification..

5. As stated I was not satisfied with the dialog. The only thing I could think to do was to give Dalley a copy and ask him, “Is this the call as you remember it?”. Being held in prison it was impossible for me to make a copy so I simply pulled out the section of tape from the cassette, and cut it off. It should be noted that I did not cut out the entire recording, only the dialog. I kept, and still have the final 24 seconds of the call which includes the final words in the above paragraph 4. I rolled the length of tape up into a small reel and passed it to Dalley when he visited me. I asked him to splice it into a cassette, listen to it, and tell me what he thought. I don’t believe he ever did this. When I asked him later as to whether he thought the dialog genuine, he circumvented the question and said “I have to do things in my own way”. His testimony at my trial was a catastrophe. The judge instructed the jury to consider him to be an unreliable witness.

6. During my year in prison awaiting trial, other prisoners had told me that BT keep all recordings of their 999 calls. After I was convicted I felt my defence should try and get hold of the BT master tape. KING came up with excuses and did nothing. It was clear to me that if I wanted anything done I would have to do it myself. I wrote to BT and, by a series of letters and telephone calls, finally got to the right person. I was told: “we keep all 999 recordings for 3 months, after this we reuse the tapes, however, if the police request a copy of a tape from us, we keep a copy of that tape in our archives for a long time, typically 15 - 20 years”. “If you give us our reference number, which would be marked on the tape we gave to the police, we can give you a copy of it from our archives”.

7. The same day I received this information, (17 November 1999) I wrote to Paul Whitehouse, Chief Constable of the Sussex police. I stated I believed that his police had falsified the tape. I requested he let me know the BT serial number, so that I could obtain a copy from BT. He passed my letter to Detective Superintendent Probert. At first Probert said he did not have any serial numbers. His story then evolved into - there are no serial numbers because the call came directly from NYNEX to the police control room. I knew this was a lie, but locked in prison with no one outside helping me, there was nothing I could do. Probert deliberately delayed answering my letters to prolong the game. In the end, after five months of stalling and lies from Probert, I had got nowhere. It was now the beginning of April 2000. I took the only other course open to me.

8. On 7 April 2000 I again wrote to Whitehouse. This time I said words to the effect “OK, never mind the serial numbers, I still believe the tape is falsified, please produce the sealed copy of it, that you have in your evidence stores, for forensic testing”. My letter was ignored so, on 19 April, I contacted another lawyer, Stephanie DALE, and asked her to get the tape from the police and send it for testing. She proceeded to do this. She also wrote to KING asking for copies of the tape. In reply, KING sent DALE some tapes which she represented as being, the original copy from the police, and the original enhancement from Network Forensics. Enclosed along with them KING also sent a ten page transcript, of all the calls on the tape.

9. The police stonewalled, but DALE kept pressuring them to produce the tape. Finally, after eight weeks and threat of court action they called her in to Brighton police station (12 June 2000) and showed her some loose cassettes. I spoke to her by telephone the next day. She expected to see the master copy in a sealed plastic bag. The police informed her that they had destroyed the master copy, but assured her that the cassettes they presented were true copies. DALE listened to one tape. She could not tell me anything specific about what she had heard but did notice two serial numbers were marked on the cassette and noted them. They were T980162 and 80677/ARP/1. She did not ask for reasons why the evidence had been illegally destroyed or request details of its destruction.

10. In a telephone conversation the next day, DALE said she felt my case was too much for her and she could not pursue it any further. With that she dropped me. I asked DALE to send the actual papers and tapes she had received from KING to a friend of mine, and to send me copies of the tape and transcript she had received from KING. I received these within a few days, but thinking I already knew the contents, I didn’t bother to look at the transcript or play the tape for another 5 or 6 days.

11. When I looked at the transcript I was surprised to see it had all the call timings marked on it. This was a question I had raised before my trial with KING but she had not been able to give me any information about the exact timings of the calls. How was it she now had a transcript marked in hours, minutes, and seconds? I then played the tape and was absolutely shocked to find that the dialog had been considerably changed. Essentially, what they had done was to remove the BT operator. The other dialog had then been rearranged appropriately to cover up the gaps. The whole thing sounded extremely convincing. I went back to the transcript, read it, and compared it to the tape. It matched the new dialog.

12. I knew what they had done, but I also knew very well that no one else who listened to that tape would ever believe me. I felt very depressed, my thoughts were - “well it looks like that’s it, - the fight’s over, - the bastards have got me”. After a couple hours of gloom and despair I thought - listen to it again Stafford, maybe they have made some small slip. I listened to it over again four or five times. Then I noticed, what should have been obvious from the beginning, there was a talking clock in the background, it was speaking the time every ten seconds throughout all of the calls. Neither my original tape nor the tape played in court had talking clocks on them. The police had made a massive blunder. They had included the talking clock to back up their story that the call had come directly to the police control room. They never thought to take into account the discrepancies it would raise. In passing it off for the police, KING had painted herself into a corner.

13. I decided to say nothing about this for the time being, and to try and get a copy of the tape played in court. In addition to sending the copy to me KING must have sent copies to the two defence barristers and, she was not the only one to have received a copy from the police. The prosecuting barrister and the Crown Prosecution Service also would have been given copies. Apart from these four possibilities, there was my piece of tape with Dalley. I wrote to all of them and sent a friend to visit Dalley. I received a copy of the second falsification from my senior barrister, the junior barrister and the prosecutor both replied they had returned their copies after the trial. The CPS sent me a copy of the second falsification. I got nothing from Dalley, he was, and has continued ever since, to be evasive and contradictory in his answers as to what became of my piece of tape. The next thing to do was find out more about the talking clock.

14. In seeking information, I had already contacted Network Forensics asking for advice and, by coincidence, it was Adrian Phillips himself that replied. In a letter from KING, I now learned it was Phillips who had done the original enhancement. It was at this time he told me the details given in paragraph 2, along with an explanation of how the clock voice worked. I also contacted BT’s Network Security Investigation department. A combination of the information from him and NSI yielded the following: - BT’s recording equipment is digital, mono, and no talking clock is recorded; police recording equipment is required to have a timing device and is mostly older analog equipment. The talking clock is not recorded superimposed on the dialog, it is on a separate track. In the way that a stereo recording has a left and a right track, police recordings have a clock track and a dialog track. With professional equipment it is a simple matter to remove the clock track and turn it into a single track mono recording but, making a copy tape on a normal two bay stereo cassette deck, will not do this. Even if the volume or balance is adjusted so the clock cannot be heard during copying, this will not remove the track. If the track is removed, it is not a simple matter to put it back. For a good accurate job, only a sound lab could do it. Even then, the slightest misalignment of track timings would be detectable.

15. The police have access to professional equipment and experts to operate it. They can and will produce anything. KING on the other hand does not have such equipment sitting around her firm’s offices. She has come up with very fanciful speculations as to how the presence and absence of the talking clock on her different tapes might have occurred and as to how the police got hold of a cassette with ARP’s serial number on it. These stories can easily be shown to be nonsense, but why bother with intricate debate? What she cannot explain is how, after Adrian Phillips returned to her an enhanced recording with no clock track on it, she managed to put the clock track back onto the tape. She should only have the version Phillips sent her. There is no way she could have both an enhanced tape with a talking clock, and an enhanced tape without a talking clock. I have not had the tapes she sent to DALE analysed yet. It will be interesting to see how the alignment of the clocks on the un-enhanced tape, and the enhanced tape, compare. There is also a good possibility of finding that the new falsification was done on digital equipment, and Sussex police control room equipment is analog.

16. When questioned as to just where the transcript with the timings had come from KING replied; it had not been made by her firm, it had come from the police. She said she had never given me a copy, or mentioned it before the trial, because the police had only given it to her after the end of the trial. After the trial I never met KING again. She did not mail a copy to me, and she has never claimed that she did. It is not mentioned in any of her correspondence. The day I was released from prison (3 July 2001), most of the property held by the prison service was returned to me but, my case papers were not returned to me until nearly two months later. When I looked through them I found a copy of this transcript. According to KING, and to me, there is no way it could be among those case papers. How did it get there?

Part II
17. From the end of June till the end of July, I concentrated on the business described. Having got that moving, I next turned my attention to the police destruction of the tape. I wrote letters to the Chief Constable, the Complaints Department, Force Crime Department, and to the Inspector whom DALE had met on 12 June. All my letters were either ignored or, if answered they refused to say anything whatsoever about their destruction of the tape. I next wrote a letter of complaint (27 July 2000) to the Independent Police Complaints Authority in London. I informed the PCA that I had asked the Sussex police to retrieve evidence used against me at my trial, from their stores and make available for testing. Instead of producing the sealed evidence, the police had removed it from their evidence stores and illegally destroyed it. This was a deliberate and criminal act. I asked the PCA to investigate.

18. The Police Complaints Authority were, at first, interested in taking up my complaint, but the final answer I got back from them seemed like something from the pages of Alice in Wonderland. They informed me that, before they could investigate any complaint against the police, they had to have permission from the chief officer of the force concerned. They had put my complaint to the chief of the Sussex police, Paul Whitehouse, and he had vetoed any investigation. Accordingly, there was nothing they could do.

19. The only thing the PCA could suggest was that I should try writing to the Sussex Police Authority. I wrote to the Chairman of the Sussex Police Authority, setting out full details of my complaint and enclosing photo-copies of the relevant correspondence. In reply, I got a letter from the Deputy Clerk saying he was sorry but they could not help me.

20. A year later, at around the same time as I was released from prison, the Home Secretary (government minister in charge of law and order) ordered the Sussex Police Authority to fire Paul Whitehouse. Thinking that the new chief officer might take a different view and allow my complaint to be investigated I wrote once more to the PCA. The Chairman himself, Sir Alastair Graham, answered my letter. He said he personally would put my complaint to the new chief officer, but that he was not optimistic she would cancel Whitehouse’s veto. He was right, Maria Wallis, the current chief officer, also vetoed any investigation.

21. On hearing Maria Wallis’s decision I wrote to the Home Secretary (10 Sept. 2001). I asked him to overrule the Sussex police veto, and allow the Police Complaints Authority to investigate. I have still not had any decision from him. Because of his undue delay in answering, I contacted and met with the local Member of Parliament (19 Oct. 2001). I asked him to push the Home Secretary in Parliament. So far, I have heard nothing more from him either. The matter remains unresolved.

Part III

22. As explained earlier, Bickle attacked Dalley in the entrance hall and then came upstairs after me. As soon as Bickle released him and went upstairs Dalley called 999. The telephone he used was later photographed by the police Scene Of Crime Officer. It was covered in blood. After I shot Bickle, the trail of his blood shows he went down the stairs and straight ahead out the front door. He never went anywhere near the hall telephone.

23. At my trial the police said they did not take samples of the blood on the telephone and did not know whose blood it was. I believed, and now know, this was a lie. The reason they said this was because they did not want to disclose that it was Dalley’s blood. In this country an attack on a person that results in bleeding is called wounding, and the charges “wounding” or “wounding with intent” are serious offences. If the police had admitted it was Dalley’s blood, they would have been forced to charge Bickle with the attack. This would have been very damaging, probably fatal, to their case against me.

24. While I was in prison I met another prisoner who had been a Detective Constable with the London police. He advised that the police would definitely have taken samples of the blood on the phone and almost certainly it would have been sent for testing. If, by some very unlikely chance, the Sussex police had not sent it for testing, he assured me the sample itself would be in the evidence stores. He told me to request copies of the SOCO’s (scene of crime officer) report, the Lab. report, and various other police documents. I wrote to the Sussex police requesting the documents he had told me about. They would not give me anything. I wrote to the Forensic Science Service Laboratory that the samples had been sent to asking them for a copy of their report. I got nothing from them either.

25. When my case papers were finally returned to me, as described previously, I found among them a copy of the SOCO’s report on the blood samples that he had taken. This report shows very clearly that he had listed six samples, the second of which is described as “Telephone Handset HALL”. I got photo-copies and sent them with my next letters to Maria Wallis and the FSS Lab. I requested Maria Wallis give me a copy of the Lab report on this sample or get the sample out of the police evidence stores and make it available for testing now. She refused to do anything. The FSS Lab replied that they did not have any record of the sample.

26. The police admit all of the other five samples were sent to the FSS Lab. for testing. Why would this one sample not have been included with the rest? Why are they obviously trying to hide this sample? I can only think it is because: a) I am right - it is Dalley’s blood, or b) I am wrong - it is not Dalley’s blood - but there is something else about that sample the police do not want known.

The Falsification of Court Transcripts of Police Evidence
1. In reading the account of the destruction and replacement of the tape played in court you might have thought, surely the routing of Dalley's 999 call would have been covered by testimony given at the trial. It was. I remember it quite distinctly. Accordingly, all I should have to do to expose current police lies would be to confront them with a transcript of what they said in court. It is one thing for the police to tamper with evidence they are entrusted to hold in their evidence stores but a very different thing for them to get at documents held by the court. Nevertheless, they managed to do it. When I obtained transcripts of the evidence given by the police I found that all references to the BT switchboard and BT operator had been removed.

2. I was there, I heard, and remember, the evidence given in court by Detective Inspector John Kevin May. He clearly stated that Dalley's 999 call went first to the NYNEX operator and was then routed to the BT emergency switchboard. In addition, I remember it was stated that the time delay between Dalley reaching the NYNEX operator and her connecting him to the BT operator was less than ten seconds. This was established because the tape recording only began at the point he reached BT. NYNEX do not make recordings of emergency calls, so what ever had been said prior to the call reaching the BT operator was lost. DI May also gave details of picking up the tapes and then taking them to Brighton police station.

3. DI May's testimony would, by proving that the call passed through the BT switchboard, lead to the BT reference numbers on the tape, and from there to the master copy of it that BT will have kept and which is sitting somewhere in their archives right now. Unfortunately, I pointed this out to Paul Whitehouse in one of my letters to him. Obviously, there was no point in his police making a second falsification of the tape that removed the BT operator unless they also removed it from May's testimony, so they did just that.

4. The recording of the court transcripts at my trial was done by a lady typing on an adding machine like device. This machine does not have letter keys in the usual way, instead its keys produce symbols rather like shorthand. What she typed was recorded on a roll of paper similar to a roll of adding machine paper. These rolls are the official record of everything said in court. Transcripts readable in plain text are produced from these rolls by feeding them through a special machine attached to a computer which reads the symbols and converts them into a word processor document. If the transcripts are stored as word processor documents, it would be very simple and easy to get at the court computer and alter them. To alter the original rolls of paper would be far more difficult and, almost certainly, it could not be done without the tampering being obvious.

5. Even though I know the transcripts have been altered, how can I prove it? The altered dialog is perfectly credible, or at least mostly credible. One part is very clearly not so credible. May's testimony referred to the BT switchboard not only in relation to Dalley's call but also in relation to my call. You will remember that I had gone back into my room to call the police. I was attempting to dial 999 when Bickle attacked me. My telephone was a BT line so, unquestionably, my call would have had to go to the BT switchboard first. I do not know if I dialed all three nines or, if I did, whether my call got through before Bickle broke the phone. May's evidence, which quite possibly might have been true, was as follows: we checked with the BT switchboard about Mr. Freeborn's call, they had no record of receiving any call from his telephone number. If his call had reached them, even for only one second, it would have been recorded by their computer. The only other possibility is that all lines to the local switchboard were busy at the time. In that case his call would have been automatically transferred on to the next switchboard. We checked with them and they had no record of any call from Mr. Freeborn's number either.

6. This testimony of May's that I have recounted would, if it were there, not be of any use to me. Fortunately for me, whoever altered the transcripts removed it and in doing so removed too much. May's testimony as it now stands says only: Mr. Freeborn's call did not reach the police control room. Quite obviously this could not have been said without first establishing that my call had reached the BT emergency operator. My guess is that Paul Whitehouse, or one of his henchmen, told their contact at Lewes court "remove all reference to the BT switchboard from May's testimony". That person, not fully understanding what they were doing, simply did exactly as requested.

7. Forensic examination of the original rolls would, I am sure, show either that the dialog is not the same as the word processor document or prove there had been tampering with the rolls. However, the quickest and easiest way to prove that the transcripts have been altered would be to compare them to the judge's notes. If his notes on May's testimony contained any reference to the BT operator or the BT switchboard it would prove my claim. I wrote to Lewes court and requested copies of Judge Richard Brown's notes. It took some time to get a straight answer from them. After four evasive replies, in their fifth letter I was finally, clearly, and briefly told Judge Brown had seen my letters but I could not have copies of, or even see his notes. The reason given by the court manager was "it is not policy".

8. So far, because every law they have in this country has got an escape clause written into it, they have managed to put a lot of obstruction and delays in my way. Well, as a famous American once said, "it ain't over till it's over".

Stafford Freeborn 2002 (still fighting for justice).

Also read: The Killing of James Ashley

You can contact Stafford at swfreeborn@hotmail.com - or email Portia and your message will be forwarded on.

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