Saturday, November 05, 2005

Luton Commuters Interviewed By Telegraph 14/7/05

Some comments have been left on this blog which assume that I have proved, via the timetables published here of the Thameslink services to Kings Cross on the morning of the 7/7/05, that 4 young men must have travelled on the 7.24 train which left Luton @ 7.25 arriving in Kings Cross @ 8.23.

As this is the only train that they could have taken to arrive at Kings Cross in time to board each of the underground trains, it seems the only conclusion which backs up the official version of events on and since that day.

I have continually asked every official source for the times of trains in the belief that any investigation would publish these facts in an appeal for witnesses.

For those that still believe that they travelled on the 7.25 train, perhaps they could explain the following article and why witnesses are being asked to remember whether they saw these men who would have travelled 23 minutes earlier.

If only we had been alert, say regulars on 7:48 to King's Cross Luton
By Amy Iggulden
(Filed: 14/07/2005)

Commuters from Luton to King's Cross yesterday struggled to remember the four British men who carried bombs on their train less than a week before.

As their morning newspapers confirmed that the suicide bombers had travelled on the packed Thameslink train service, bankers, secretaries and doctors on the 07:48 service to London contemplated the possibility that the worst terrorist attack in British history might have been averted if only they had seen something.

Ian Richardson, a 34-year-old business analyst from Woburn in Bedfordshire, takes the commuter service into London every day.

"I felt very shocked, very emotional, when I saw that the bombers had used my train," he said.

"Last Thursday was just another journey like any other. I didn't see anything suspicious, or unusual. I just wish I had."

Another passenger, a 28-year-old banker from Luton, said the bombers' link to the train meant commuters would be more vigilant.

"A lot of people will be asking themselves this morning if they could have seen someone or done something," he said.

But among the yawning crush of 800 or so commuters and tourists on the Gatwick-bound train - with barely room to draw breath, or turn around - four men with rucksacks and flat northern vowels would melt too easily into the crowd.

Audrey Platmore, 46, a secretary at Pricewaterhouse-Coopers in the City, said it was unlikely that anyone would recall seeing the terrorists. "It's frightening. But when you travel regularly you don't even look at people."

Others admitted that the number of tourists destined for Gatwick, or boarding the train at Luton Airport Parkway, meant that they took no notice of luggage, which they assumed would be packed with holiday gear.

But many commuters are now wary. Louise Burns, 22, from Harpenden, Herts, travelling to a PR firm in the City, said: "You trust that everyone is a commuter like you, or a tourist."

Lisa Rabbitt, a 23-year-old public relations officer from Johannesburg, South Africa, moved to England only five months ago to take a job in Oxford Circus.

"I was horrified, really scared that [the bombers] had taken this service. I had already stopped taking the Tube since last Thursday but I wasn't worried about the commuter train. Now I feel very nervous," she said.

Dr Paola Nicolaides, 43, a consultant at Great Ormond Street Hospital, said: "I saw a man with a suitcase this morning and it really made me worried. Everyone now is scared and keeping watch."

After two trains were cancelled yesterday, the eight-carriage 07:48 service was fuller than usual. Two people fainted in the heat.

One Muslim man felt the pressure of the public gaze. Riaz Ahmed, 36, from Luton, said he was feeling increasingly uncomfortable.

"I have already experienced unwelcome attention on the train since the bombings. I know this will be worse now," he said.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

For those that still believe that they travelled on the 7.25 train, perhaps they could explain the following article and why witnesses are being asked to remember whether they saw these men who would have travelled 23 minutes earlier.

Because as per all media articles from the same media outlets conducting the interviews these are the train times they were assuming the bombers were on.

Why they would ask people about the train service they were already reporting was the one use is pretty bloody obvious.

Bridget said...

Anonymous

This information was given at the Metropolitan Police conference held on 13/7/05. That is the reason why these times were reported by the media.

Can you give any reason for the police investigating these events not to give out accurate information in the quest for witnesses? Such as the times of trains.

Wouldn't the police be interested to know if:

They met anybody on the train to London?

Met anyone on the platform?

Were overheard discussing anything?

Given that we are told they rehearsed this journey on 28/6 (for which we are shown far more images than we have seen from 7/7), surely they would have allowed themselves more than 2 minutes (if they had planned to catch the 7.24, which you asssume they did), to get tickets and onto the platform?

It seems to me that you assume they got this train rather than the media assuming it. I wonder why?

Anonymous said...

Can you give any reason for the police investigating these events not to give out accurate information in the quest for witnesses? Such as the times of trains.

Clearly I can give you a reason since I already did that in your earlier post.

Given that we are told they rehearsed this journey on 28/6 (for which we are shown far more images than we have seen from 7/7), surely they would have allowed themselves more than 2 minutes (if they had planned to catch the 7.24, which you asssume they did), to get tickets and onto the platform?

Why surely ? Why would anyone not catch the next train departing for their destination ?
If you have information which contradicts this assumption then state it. Otherwise I see no reason to discuss this as though it is in dispute.

And what is implausible about 2 minutes ? It takes me all of 10 seconds to buy a ticket and get on a train at my local station.

Bridget said...

I have received the following email from Malcolm Donald who is corresponding with both the Met and his MP.

Malcolm Donald

Email: info@malcolmdonald.com

08November2005

Reference:

CCTV Camera 14 Picture as published by the Metropolitan Police at the Station Road Entrance to Luton Railway Station on the 7July2005 at 07hours 21minutes 54seconds and used by the Metropolitan Police to support their statement published on the 14July2005 regarding the movements of the alleged perpetrators of the London 7 7 Bombings

My Observations:

On initial inspection of the CCTV Camera 14 picture it is clear that the actual time and date displayed in the top left hand corner can be proved true or false by equating it with the angle of shadow reflection of the overhead walkway pillar detailed in the top right hand corner.

On the 07November2005 I travelled by South West Trains and Thameslink from Southampton Central to Luton (town) station. The specific purpose of this visit was to ascertain if the information contained in the CCTV Camera 14 Picture was true or false.


From a position immediately under the CCTV camera 14 I took a number of compass bearings of the right hand side of the overhead walkway pillar aligned with the right hand side of the drain cover positioned in right hand bottom corner of the picture - this alignment corresponds exactly with the reflected shadow of the pillar as seen in the CCTV camera 14 picture.

These compass bearings were confirmed at 133º magnetic. Applying variation of 3º resulted in a bearing of 130º true.

It was thus possible by deduction to confirm the actual time of the CCTV camera 14 picture by equating it to the azimuth of the sun as reflected by the overhead walkway support pillar.

Referring to United States Naval Observatory Published Sun Altitude and Azimuth Tables for the latitude and longitude of Luton Station on the 7July2005 the actual time for this sun azimuth was 10h 04m 55s.

As this time does not correspond to that indicated in the top left-hand corner of CCTV camera 14 picture it is proved that the CCTV camera 14 time is incorrect and that it must have been altered by a person or persons unknown.

It was impossible for the perpetrators of the London 7-7 bombings as identified by the Metropolitan Police to be in both London and Luton at the same time. My question to the Metropolitan Police is who actually were the individuals who carried out the London 7-7 Bombings and who altered the time on the CCTV camera 14 picture?

Anonymous said...

Wow.
So you've made a sizable effort to hound people for information to establish a precise to-the-minute timeline of events.
Then found that this doesn't support your pre-determined opinion that what happened couldn't possibly have occurred.
So you've thrown all that research out and opted for any old dubious methodology which will call things into question.

Certainly a step down in terms of credibility.

Just out of interest when the guy making these complex calculations on hand-held instruments with nice round numbers says the shadow couldn't possibly have been at 7:23am on 7th July 2005 did he say when he thought it was?
April maybe?

Or more to the point whether by using the same method he was also able to discredit all atomic clocks currently in use. Seriously, why not ask him to carbon date something while he is at it.

Anonymous said...

7:23am? Get your facts right.

Anonymous said...

As I understand it, Malcolm Donald's analysis is based on an interpretation of the "Luton Four" image which says that the reflection of the overhead walkway pillar by the wet ground is in the shadow of the pillar cast by the sun.

I can see nothing gross in that poor quality image to rule this out. On the other hand the poor image quality makes it difficult to be certain that there are any shadows at all. There may be but there is no certainty.

Anonymous said...

I used the image from the Met site and noted that the jpeg compression was set to 30. At that level compression artefacts will have crept in making the alleged fakery easy to cover up. It also means you can't get bogged down with chasing every shadow - they may simply be part of the compression process. The original shot appears to come from a low-res digital video system which is in keeping with the story.

The lower two figures appear correct to me but overall there seems to be something fishy about the composition. The two at the back may be avoiding the puddle but the body orientation of the person with the white cap somehow seems unlikely if he had just done this. Somehow the turn looks too sharp. Also the fourth figure (nearest the phone box) looks like he may even be walking past the station - either that or he was avoiding the puddle like his 'colleague'. Do suicide bombers care about their trainers that much? Do radical Muslims even wear such obvious Western footwear?

The railing error is really peculiar. The strength of the line is way too much to be attributed to compression artefacts that much I know. It is very typical of a PS mistake too. What really bothers me about the railing though is that it should be a couple of pixels higher in order to meet the corresponding piece to the left of the shot. I can't work out why this mistake was made - it probably was a rush job. Still for me I would be prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt. It could be a marking on the man's jacket for instance.

However when I looked at 'railing man's' head I realised it was a fake. The head has a black halo around it that has no reason to be there. The give away is the shade of black in the halo - quite unlike any other black anywhere else in the shot. The whole picture has a blue tint that is not present in this black halo. To me this is a smoking gun - it's so reminiscent of what happens when images are pasted in - and I've seen it before many times. Unless the outline of the pasted image is absolutely perfect something like this will always crop up when it's dropped in. The white baseball cap also has a missing pixel (upper right of the hat) which is very damning. It looks very obvious at 1000% zoom that someone cut into the hat when they were making the outline - the background halo disappears at this point too.

I then looked to see if the fourth man's face had been blurred as I'd seen suggested here. Well, OMG!, it has been blurred. Very nice subtle job, just touching a few pixels but the colour is wrong. There's a shade of blue that doesn't match the rest of the picture that seems to have come from a PS brush. Also above his head something has been edited (it slightly breaks up the double yellow line on the road) - something may have been erased here I think. There's something about this blur that can't be put down to compression algorithms either - it is a blur with some tinting. Looking at the bus stop post it should have a straight line all the way up. As soon as it comes near the fourth man the line falls apart. It looks like his body is interacting with the post but he's far behind it. So I now think this fourth guy was pasted in too.

The more one studies this image the more you see the inconsistencies. There's a fair bit of blurring and the railing guy could also be missing a leg. It's weird what's happening with phone-box guy's left foot and the small post too. It's a strange shot though because when viewed at normal magnification it all looks fairly plausible - disregarding the railing anomaly and the odd composition. Zoom in and it's a different story.

Anonymous said...

Hi Bridget,

I don't know if you've noticed, but there's a documentary on BBC TV tonight with never before seen footage from the police, traffic police and fire service, it could be very useful to you and similar 7/7 investigators.

If you go to the BBC news website there are also streaming feeds of these resources.

I hope that's helpful. Keep up the good work.

The Antagonist said...

Full credit to the BBC for making an hour long television programme called 7/7: The Day The Bombs Came which managed to avoid entirely the issue of quite how the bombs came.

At least they didn't make the same mistake as the recent episode of Horizon.

Anonymous said...

Do radical Muslims even wear such obvious Western footwear?

You are not intelligent enough to be assessing what happened.
The footwear is a little less "obviously Western" than their home address and place of birth nimrod.

Anonymous said...

It looks very obvious at 1000% zoom that someone cut into the hat when they were making the outline - the background halo disappears at this point too.

As does your credibility in intepreting digital images.

If you are dealing with image quality that is so blocky you can reproduce something identical with Lego you really should have figured this out yourself.

But it's not like credible analysis is an issue when the shadow measurer is the blog author's own suggestion for something worth copy pasting.

Anonymous said...

I happen to think the bombing was arranged by western powers to adjust public opinion, at a time when public opinion was really slipping away from them. Anyway, we must bare in mind that they might have tried to brighten the mens faces up to make them clearer. Of course it doesn't cover for the other photographic problems in the images. But we should discount anything which we cannot be 100% sure of.