Crash reconstruction was 'flawed', expert tells murder trial

A CRASH expert told a court that he was not surprised the fireball car crash in which murder accused Malcolm Webster's first wife died was marked down as an accident in 1994.

John Marshall, 60, also criticised the findings of two other crash experts, claiming there were inaccuracies in their report.

Mr Marshall was giving evidence at the trial of Webster, 52, who denies murdering his first wife Claire in a fireball car crash in Aberdeenshire in 1994.

Webster also denies trying to kill his second wife Felicity Drumm by drugging her and by staging a car crash in New Zealand in 1999.

At the High Court in Glasgow yesterday Mr Marshall, who was a policeman with Central Scotland Police for 25 years before setting up his own crash investigation company, said there was no way of accurately reconstructing the crash in which Ms Webster died.

Defence QC Edgar Prais asked him: "Why is that?" and he replied: "From a reconstruction point of view there is an absence of physical marks and marks on the road."

Mr Prais then said: "Are you saying there is no physical factor on the road which would allow anyone to track the path the vehicle took?" Mr Marshall replied: "That was my finding."

Mr Marshall told the court he had examined witnesses' statements and photographs of the crash scene and had also gone there on two occasions to see the road for himself.

Mr Prais asked: "Were you surprised that the police who investigated this in 1994 put this down to an accident?" Mr Marshall said: "I was not surprised it had been marked down as an accident, but I was surprised other things had not been done in the investigation."

Mr Marshall criticised the findings of two other crash experts Professor Hugh Barron and Stephen Jowett, who earlier in the trial gave evidence for the Crown.

He claimed that the scale drawing of the crash scene which they relied on was not accurate saying that the car was not drawn as a true rectangle.

Mr Marshall added: "The car length is short by just over a metre."

He said that this could affect the outcome of his experiments and also suggested that the effect of the car possibly moving after it hit a tree had not been taken into account.

Mr Marshall said that the calculations were based on the position the car ended up in and not the position it came off the road.

Under cross-examination, advocate depute Derek Ogg QC, prosecuting, said to Mr Marshall: "You have not conducted an accident reconstruction?" and he said: "That's correct."

Mr Ogg then asked: "You are not able to assist the jury with this question - did Malcolm Webster murder his wife?" and Mr Marshall replied: "That's correct."

Webster denies all the charges. The trial continues.