The Times can reveal today that Mr Griffiths’s passenger was a convicted animal rights extremist. The jury was not told that John Curtin, 49 had been jailed for two years for planning to dig up the remains of the 10th Duke of Beaufort and send the head to the Princess Royal. His part in the 1980s plot was intended, he said, to give fox hunters, whom he called “blood junkies”, a “taste of their own violent medicine”.
Mr Curtin, who had led the campaigns at Huntingdon Life Sciences’ laboratories and was questioned by police in connection with robbing the grave of Gladys Hammond, a relative of owners of a farm breeding guinea-pigs for experiments, was the first to volunteer to sit in the back of the gyrocopter. A few months later the two took to the air together, dividing their time between the Warwickshire and neighbouring Haythrop hunts
And what, exactly, is the relevance of this gem to this court case? Are we supposing that the evil Mr Curtin was in the back seat egging on Mr Griffiths in a dastardly way to kill this fella? "Go on son, chop his head off, he murders foxes." I know this is a rumour network, but a few facts wouldn't go amiss when trying to convict a person in an online kangaroo court. As far as I know Curtin was not on trial as an accessory to murder or any other charge in this dreadful episode, whatever the Times may say, so I 'm at a loss to see what this has to do with anything. Other than perhaps a character assassination on the gyrocopter pilot for mixing with the sort of people who get jailed for "planning" to dig up a body and "questioned" but not charged, for grave robbing. Whatever Curtin's past, he did not chop Mr Morse's head in two. Or did he? Perhaps the Times knows something we don't.
Best wishes all
Seang