Bullet traces found on second jacket

Senior forensic scientist Gordon McMillan told Belfast Crown Court that when he examined a black coat police seized from ex-Sinn Féin councillor Brendan McConville's Craigavon home, he uncovered a total of 57 Cartridge Discharge Residue (CDR) particles on five surfaces.

Asked by the prosecuting QC what that meant, Mr McMillan said that the properties of the particles and their high number "strongly supports a contact of this item with a source of these particles."

Forty-year-old McConville, from Aldervale, Tullygally and 20-year-old John Paul Wootton, from Collingdale, Lurgan are accused of murdering Constable Stephen Carroll on March 9 2009, just two days after two soldiers were gunned down outside Massereene Army Barracks in Antrim.

Sharon Wootton, who is John Paul's mother and also from Collingdale, Lurgan, faces a charge of perverting the course of justice on dates between 8 March 2009 and 20 October 2009 in that she allegedly gave false information to police and "removed a computer or computers from her home address believing her home address might be searched and the said computer or computers seized by police".

Constable Carroll, a 48-year-old married man and grandfather with 24 years service in the police, was nearing the end of his 12-hour shift when he was sent to a 999 call-out in Lismore Manor, Craigavon where a gunman was lying in wait 50 metres away.

Mr McMillan said he examined another jacket allegedly associated with McConville, a brown jacket which was uncovered in the boot of John Paul Wootton's Citroen Saxo car the day after the murder.

He said that although he found CDR on it, it was of a different type than CDR which came from the spent cartridge which was found at the firing point.

What he did find, the court heard, was PETN which Mr McMillan said was an explosive composition found in the likes of semtex or detonating cord.

The boot of the Saxo car was also swabbed for CDR and while particles were found the senior scientist, with 38 years experience, told the court they were also of a different make-up to that which came from the spent cartridge adding that in his view, the source was most likely a different firearm.

Similarly swabs on clothing seized from John Paul Wootton also revealed CDR but again, their make-up was such that a different firearm was the more likely source, said Mr McMillan.

The court heard that swabs were taken from both McConville and John Paul Wootton but that in each case, no CDR particles were found.

The trial continues.

At hearing.