I wonder if Martin Bryant had a blood test when he was taken to hospital, the day after the massacre? Looking specifically for rohypnol.
However, at this early stage of the game, Bryant vehemently resisted the idea that he had perpetrated the murders at Port Arthur. He maintained that he had not even visited the Port Arthur Historic Site (PAHS) on the day in question, and he had difficulty understanding how the police had obtained a picture of a vehicle that seemed to be his own yellow Volvo parked at the PAHS toll gate when he only recalled driving past it. Clearly, a great deal of work remained to be done before Bryant could be made to confess to the shootings at Port Arthur.
Avery capers
Bryant's first lawyer, David Gunson, failed to make any headway in this respect, and on 30 September 1996 Bryant pleaded "not guilty" to all of the 72 charges against him. He did so "clearly and coolly".1 Gunson resigned as Bryant's lawyer the very next day and refused to clarify his reasons to the media. The individual who rose to the task was John Avery, who had already been involved in the case as part of the police effort to frame Hobart gun dealer Terry Hill for allegedly supplying Bryant with the weapons and ammunition used at Port Arthur. That Avery was waiting in the wings, ready to take over from Gunson, can be inferred from his presence in the courtroom when Bryant pleaded "not guilty". Avery met with Bryant for the first time the following day—the day that Gunson retired from the case.
Avery proved able to do in a month what Gunson had failed to do in five. On 7 November 1996, Bryant reversed his "not guilty" pleas and finally, on 22 November 1996, pleaded "guilty" 72 times. The fact that on the latter occasion Bryant tittered between his "guilty" pleas is a baffling circumstance that begs comparison with his previous experience on 30 September. On that occasion, Bryant entered "not guilty" pleas without any inappropriate noises, so it is extremely strange that Bryant apparently tittered while pleading "guilty". Since one would expect the opposite—that a mass murderer declaring himself "not guilty" might do so with a certain self-amusement—it is striking that Bryant apparently was more amused by the idea of pleading "guilty". Alternatively, he may have been trying to send the public a message: the sounds he made to accompany his "guilty" pleas may have been intended to help convey the message that his pleas were insincere and not to be taken at face value.
A further circumstance that invites concern is that, having pleaded "guilty" to all charges, Bryant was never escorted over the crime scene to verify that he had perpetrated the criminal acts to which he had "confessed".
As researcher Joe Vialls pointed out: "Standard procedure in these circumstances is to take the suspect out to the crime scene and ask for details of exactly how he committed the crime(s), i.e., where each victim was standing, what sex, how many bullets, where the weapon was reloaded, etc., etc., all recorded on continuous (time-stamped) video. The Victoria Police Service observed this standard procedure meticulously in the case of Julian Knight at Hoddle Street during 1987, as did the New South Wales Police Service after a street shooting in Wollongong in 1998."2 Such "walkthroughs" are a staple of modern criminological procedure and are invariably videotaped. Footage of this nature is often used in television crime programs, such as Forensic Investigators and similar American programs such as Body of Evidence. In short, Bryant has never corroborated his "guilty" pleas—a fact that makes them virtually worthless.
How did the turnaround come about in the space of about a month? Until recently, it has been impossible to do more than guess how Bryant was finally persuaded to plead "guilty" to all charges against him. All we have had to go by is a sequence of events that looks extremely suspicious: first, Bryant stunned the Tasmanian legal establishment by refusing to plead "guilty"; second, Bryant's first lawyer retired from the case; third, Bryant acquired a new lawyer, John Avery; and fourth, Bryant pleaded "guilty" a month later. Three transcripts of conversations between Bryant and Avery, published by the Bulletin (4 April 2006), shed a great deal of light on the sudden transformation.3
The threat of a trial
However, before we discuss what can be learned from the Bulletin-published transcripts, it is important to emphasise that the first transcript supports the conclusion that the DPP was extraordinarily anxious to prevent a trial from being held:
Bryant: ...Mr B., do you know Mr B.?
Avery: I know Mr B., yes, and Mr D.
Bryant: Well, they are trying to brainwash me to not having a trial.
It is intriguing that the Bulletin has suppressed the names of the two individuals who, unacknowledged in any public source concerning the Port Arthur case, were clearly part of some irregular or extra-legal form of pressure being exerted on Bryant. (I know of no one involved with Bryant's case whose surname begins with "D". However, "Mr B." might well be Damian Bugg, QC.)
If Bryant were really guilty, there would seem no reason why a trial should not have been held. On the other hand, it would be consistent with the case that Bryant was set up that a trial be averted at all costs. Bryant clearly raised the stakes by pleading "not guilty" to all charges on 30 September 1996. At this stage, the DPP at least went through the motions of preparing for the possibility that there would be a trial, with a provisional date set for a first session on 18 November 1996.
Throughout October 1996, the DPP's focus was on strategies for controlling such a trial. One strategy was clearly to sift through the body of witness testimony and eliminate witnesses who posed a problem for the prosecution.
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