Clothes ‘cut with scissors’

Press, 25 September 1982, Page 8

Clothes ‘cut with scissors’

NZPA Darwin A hole in baby Azaria Chamberlain's clothing was caused by a pair of scissors, an Adelaide policeman told the Chamberlain murder trial yesterday. Sergeant Frank Barry ■Cocks, of the forensic and technical services division of the South Australian police, was giving evidence on the tenth day of the trial. Questioned by Mr lan Barker. Q.C.. for the Crown. Sergeant Cocks said that threads in a sleeve of the baby’s jumpsuit had been cut off. “The fibre ends were together, whereas if you have a pulled thread they are all at different lengths. “In the sleeve there was a stain that can still be seen, a blood stain, but I looked very closely to see if there was any flesh or blood. There was none around the hole," said Sergeant Cocks. Mr Barker: “Can you tell us in your opinion what made that hole?" Sergeant Cocks: "A pair of scissors." The policeman said that be had made cuts on similar material with a razor blade and’ scalpel. "The only way you could cut the material was to cut it on a hard surface.” Sergeant Cocks said that

one could join segments of the baby’s clothes together to see that both sides of the material had been cut together. He said that it would not have been possible for plant material to have got inside the jumpsuit if the baby was wearing it. Vegetation was actually embedded into the fibre. Mr Barker asked how much soil had been found in the feet of the jumpsuit. “There was quite a lot. I actually observed loose sand in the feet and by holding the feet inside out I was able to hold it over a petrie dish and

shake the sand out." said Sergeant Cocks. Mr Barker: "Can you teil us in your view from its appearance whether the blood was wet or not when it (the jumpsuit) • was buried.” Sergeant Cocks: "I believe it was dry because the sand had not clotted in with the blood. If the blood was wet you would have had sand forming part of the crust of the blood." Mr Barker asked if he had seen anything consistent with dragging or the garment being pulled'’along the' surface.

Sergeant Cocks: “No." Segeant Cocks was shown a pair of small curved scissors which Mr Barker said had belonged to the Chamberlains. Sergeant Cocks said that he had received them in September last year and had tried to use them. He noticed when he first examined them the blades did not fit exactly. He tried to use them, but he found they came apart. Mr Barker asked if he was able to express an opinion on whether the baby was in the jumpsuit when the cut marks were made. Sergeant Cocks said that he did not think so. He said that there was no blood or flesh in the area of the cut mark, in the arm of the jumpsuit, and he would have expected traces of these if an arm had been present when the cuts were made. He said that it would be extremely difficult to perform a cut in the collar of the jumpsuit with a head above the collar. Under cross-examination Sergeant Cocks confirmed that he had given inaccuratae evidence’ to a murder trial in South Australia. He agreed that errors he had made in. the witness box at the Van Beelen murder trial had been the subject of comment later by the Chief Justice of South Australia.