Every now and then J7: The July 7th Truth Campaign is contacted by ordinary people who have a need to tell their side of the 7/7 story. More often than not it is precisely these accounts and voices that are absent from the major media coverage, perhaps because their stories often contradict the official 'narrative' and inquest versions of events. We would all do well to bear in mind that, as is so often the case, the real stories of events like 7/7 are the stories of ordinary people, going about their ordinary daily business - the 99% - from the commuters and workers who were initially attacked, right through to the ordinary workers who set about finding, treating and rescuing the injured and those others who assisted with picking up the pieces; train drivers, station staff, paramedics, emergency services personnel, hospital workers; the list goes on.
The Vehicle Recovery Worker's Story
Recently, we were contacted by a vehicle recovery worker, Mr Derek Allison, who, after reading J7's coverage of the 7/7 inquest proceedings, felt moved to recount his version of events with regard to the Fiat Brava that was removed from Luton Station car park on 7th July 2005.
Derek Allison worked for J & K Recovery as a recovery driver and received a call to attend Luton Station car park at 5.30pm on 7th July. A lot of vehicle recovery work was undertaken on behalf of Bedfordshire Police and he was informed that the vehicle to be collected was a UIC (Used In Crime) vehicle, a red Fiat Brava, although no further details were provided.
Allison was surprised on his approach to Luton Station when he found that Station Road had been cordoned off and there were at least two police vans and several police officers present. Still more police officers were in the immediate vicinity of the Fiat Brava that Derek had been instructed to collect. He noticed that the Brava's passenger side front window was open about an inch. Under normal circumstances this would usually enable him to either push the window further down to gain access, or to use a lock-out kit to open the door and release the handbrake. However, the window wouldn't open and he didn't have his lock-out kit with him. He noted that there was a pay and display ticket on the car valid until 23.59 on 7th July and a valid road tax disc displayed. Allison, however, didn't see any parking ticket attached to the windscreen and, generally speaking, any vehicles that had transgressed Luton Station car park regulations would end up being clamped, rather than towed.
Beause of the height restriction of the car park barrier, Derek's own recovery vehicle was unable to enter to collect the Brava directly. A second, smaller recovery vehicle was called for and the Brava was transferred onto Derek's vehicle outside the car park, and then driven to J & K Recovery's vehicle compound in Leighton Buzzard. Derek then used a forklift truck to lift the Brava and place it in the area of the compound reserved for cars picked up on behalf of the police.
The car remained in the same position in the compound from the evening of 7th July right the way through until 12th July. Despite the car being identified as UIC, no representatives of Bedfordshire police attended to carry out forensics inspections on it.
At 8pm on Tuesday 12th July, Derek received a phone call asking him to attend the vehicle compound in Leighton Buzzard. That day he had been watching news reports of controlled explosions on a Nissan Micra at Luton Station. When he arrived at the J & K Recovery compound he was greeted by officers from the bomb squad and SO13 and was asked to move the Fiat Brava into the covered garage for the forensics. This was done using a fork lift truck and he then used a lock-out kit to open the door for the forensics team to investigate the interior of the car. Allison was then present whilst items were removed from the Brava, and he recalls that these items included a pile of clothes, boxes, which may have been cool boxes, a gun, ammunition and a great deal of paperwork.
What concerned Derek is that his experience of the Fiat Brava aspect of the story directly contradicts sworn testimony given to the 7/7 Inquests, the self-styled 'final words' on the story of 7/7 as far as the State is concerned.
The 7/7 Inquest Version of the Fiat Brava Story
During the opening week of the 7/7 Inquests, Hugo Keith QC read from the statement of DC Andrew Donaldson describing events around the Fiat Brava:
The Vehicle Recovery Worker's Story
Recently, we were contacted by a vehicle recovery worker, Mr Derek Allison, who, after reading J7's coverage of the 7/7 inquest proceedings, felt moved to recount his version of events with regard to the Fiat Brava that was removed from Luton Station car park on 7th July 2005.
Derek Allison worked for J & K Recovery as a recovery driver and received a call to attend Luton Station car park at 5.30pm on 7th July. A lot of vehicle recovery work was undertaken on behalf of Bedfordshire Police and he was informed that the vehicle to be collected was a UIC (Used In Crime) vehicle, a red Fiat Brava, although no further details were provided.
Allison was surprised on his approach to Luton Station when he found that Station Road had been cordoned off and there were at least two police vans and several police officers present. Still more police officers were in the immediate vicinity of the Fiat Brava that Derek had been instructed to collect. He noticed that the Brava's passenger side front window was open about an inch. Under normal circumstances this would usually enable him to either push the window further down to gain access, or to use a lock-out kit to open the door and release the handbrake. However, the window wouldn't open and he didn't have his lock-out kit with him. He noted that there was a pay and display ticket on the car valid until 23.59 on 7th July and a valid road tax disc displayed. Allison, however, didn't see any parking ticket attached to the windscreen and, generally speaking, any vehicles that had transgressed Luton Station car park regulations would end up being clamped, rather than towed.
Beause of the height restriction of the car park barrier, Derek's own recovery vehicle was unable to enter to collect the Brava directly. A second, smaller recovery vehicle was called for and the Brava was transferred onto Derek's vehicle outside the car park, and then driven to J & K Recovery's vehicle compound in Leighton Buzzard. Derek then used a forklift truck to lift the Brava and place it in the area of the compound reserved for cars picked up on behalf of the police.
The car remained in the same position in the compound from the evening of 7th July right the way through until 12th July. Despite the car being identified as UIC, no representatives of Bedfordshire police attended to carry out forensics inspections on it.
At 8pm on Tuesday 12th July, Derek received a phone call asking him to attend the vehicle compound in Leighton Buzzard. That day he had been watching news reports of controlled explosions on a Nissan Micra at Luton Station. When he arrived at the J & K Recovery compound he was greeted by officers from the bomb squad and SO13 and was asked to move the Fiat Brava into the covered garage for the forensics. This was done using a fork lift truck and he then used a lock-out kit to open the door for the forensics team to investigate the interior of the car. Allison was then present whilst items were removed from the Brava, and he recalls that these items included a pile of clothes, boxes, which may have been cool boxes, a gun, ammunition and a great deal of paperwork.
What concerned Derek is that his experience of the Fiat Brava aspect of the story directly contradicts sworn testimony given to the 7/7 Inquests, the self-styled 'final words' on the story of 7/7 as far as the State is concerned.
The 7/7 Inquest Version of the Fiat Brava Story
During the opening week of the 7/7 Inquests, Hugo Keith QC read from the statement of DC Andrew Donaldson describing events around the Fiat Brava:
Mr Williams had to force entry into the vehicle in order to conduct his procedures as the doors were locked and there were no keys present with the car. This entailed a front window being smashed.
Source: 14 October am page 51 line 6
Derek Allison knows this to be untrue. The front window of the Brava was not smashed and the explosives officer, Mr Williams, did not force entry to the car. On the contrary, Derek Allison was asked to use the lockout kit to open the door, which is precisely what he did. This information would have been available to the inquest teams as Allison gave a statement in May 2006 after being contacted by DS Richard de Cadenet [brother of Amanda de Cadenet] to give a statement. An interesting aside, particularly for anyone unfamiliar with the outstanding success of arrests related to the Operation Theseus investigation, and in a similar way to the investigating officers in the case of Imran Bham, Richard de Cadenet was himself later arrested and imprisoned for fraud.
J7 have been studiously submitting Freedom of Information requests since the inquests into the 52 ended to enable us to examine the many further anomalies that have arisen during these proceedings. One Freedom of Information request was sent to Bedfordshire Police asking why the Brava had been towed from Luton Station on 7th July 2005. This had not been explained during testimony or cross examination.
During his testimony to the inquests DI Kindness stated that the removal of the Brava was captured on CCTV and that this CCTV would be shown during the inquest proceedings, but this never happened. Certainly the cordoning off of the entire station car park and the number of police officers present at Luton Station on the day absolutely requires some explanation. Given the official investigation timeline, it is hard to imagine quite what it was that had inspired the police to cordon off the entire car park and maintain such a heavy police presence for what nobody would have suspected to be any other than an ordinary Used in Crime car recovery situation.
During his testimony to the inquests DI Kindness stated that the removal of the Brava was captured on CCTV and that this CCTV would be shown during the inquest proceedings, but this never happened. Certainly the cordoning off of the entire station car park and the number of police officers present at Luton Station on the day absolutely requires some explanation. Given the official investigation timeline, it is hard to imagine quite what it was that had inspired the police to cordon off the entire car park and maintain such a heavy police presence for what nobody would have suspected to be any other than an ordinary Used in Crime car recovery situation.
The response to the J7 FOI request from Bedfordshire Police was refused and they instead replied with a link to a publicly available statement by Bedfordshire Police issued in February 2011, which states:
Weeks later, the tragic and terrible events of 7 July prompted an immediate national police response. In Bedfordshire that included using 'Automatic Number Plate Recognition' (ANPR) technology on the evening of July 7 to locate suspicious vehicles in the county's railway car parks. The Fiat Brava was found in the Luton railway car park because it was identified as a vehicle used in the previous aggravated burglary. It was immediately removed to a secure garage for subsequent forensic examination in relation to the May offence, and regarded as a break in the Luton investigation. Clearly, once the Met Police had examined the CCTV footage from the car park, it quickly became apparent that the Fiat Brava was also significant to the 7/7 Bombing investigation. The car was then handed over to the Met Police for further investigation.
An open vehicle compound can hardly be described as 'a secure garage' and no explanation is offered for why 'no subsequent forensics' on the Brava were carried out in connection to the burglary until the events of 12th July. Did other police forces also carry out searches for 'suspicious vehicles in their railway car parks' on 7th July and why was this considered necessary? What would a 'suspicious vehicle' look like? Derek is not aware of a higher than normal number of vehicles being removed that day and given that the Brava exhibited a pay and display ticket issued that morning would it not have made better policing sense to monitor the car to see who returned to it in the few hours that remained until the pay and display ticket expiry time of 11.59pm? Why did the 7/7 Inquest hear that the Brava was entered by smashing a front window which Derek knows is a lie? And why, so far, has no official body had the temerity to explain quite what the pressing need was to cordon off all of Luton Station for a routine vehicle recovery in the early evening of 7th July 2005?
