There is probably no more hard evidence that the airworthiness state of the HC2 was directly responsible for this accident than there is that it was caused by pilot negligence.
It seems to me what should be important is that those responsible for the gross negligent verdict were also responsible in part for an unairworthy aircraft being used for this task. This same argument applies to those airships who have recently supported this verdict in the press.
When Jeremy Paxman suggested something like this to Wratten in the infamous Newsnight interview many years ago, Wratten appeared to be shocked and offended that anyone should suggest that an officer of the Royal Air Force would stoop to allowing self interest to interfere with his duty. He left Paxman lost for words but I am sure that, with access to the information we have today, it would have been a more fruitful interview.
Now some of the facts are public knowledge and now Haddon Cave has made this stance of Wratten's sound so phony, I would like to see the interview repeated but replacing Paxman with a good barrister or Judge.