The retrial of Paratrooper Lee Clegg for the murder of a Belfast teenager, Karen Reilly, eight years ago is to see a video today by an American criminal and ballistics expert, Luke Haage.
A Belfast Crown Court judge, Mr Justice Kerr, gave permission for the 40-minute video to be shown on condition that the commentary is silenced.
Mr William Clegg QC, defending, had claimed the video was an "illegitimate substitute for the live oral evidence of a witness" and the court did not know in what circumstances it was made. Mr Justice Kerr said the moving image was in the same category as a photograph and as such was admissible, but the commentary could be said to be a person's "notes" on his tests, which were not admissible.
The video made by the expert from Arizona details tests he carried out on the various rounds of ammunition in the case and the fragments recovered from the stolen Astra car in which Ms Reilly was travelling the night she was shot dead, September 30th, 1990.
Earlier yesterday the court heard that forensic experts had been unable to produce a bullet with the same characteristics as that fired by Paratrooper Clegg. The prosecution claims it was this bullet, recovered from Ms Reilly's body, which the defendant allegedly fired through "hole four" at the back of the stolen Astra.
Mr Gary Montgomery, a forensic scientist, said it was near-impossible to reproduce such a bullet from test firings because of the "violent nature of events". He added that the range and velocity at which bullets had been fired that night still remained a mystery.
"There would be occasions when the circumstances are right, that the bullet could be produced," he claimed. But while he admitted he had not been able to reproduce such a round, he said it "may take thousands of shots to do so because of the variables" involved.
Mr Montgomery was not prepared to accept that the "Clegg bullet", as it is known, could not have entered "hole four" of the Astra car.