angela

The profile of Brian Jones has been raised considerably over the past weeks what with regional and national reporting of the bust ceremony in Cheltenham, Stephen Woolley’s film ‘Stoned’ premiering in Edinburgh, and the article recently published in the Sunday Express – an article incidentally that's been picked up across the world and re-reported in various forms by many newspapers, (e.g. Sweden's 'Aftonbladet' newspaper on the right), radio stations and on-line reporting organisations. As well as our forum here, many Stones and Brian Jones websites, including LARS, offer views fore and against the on-going situation and we welcome support (and criticism) in comments and observations from you all.

On the 9th August Mr. Chris Goodman, the music writer for the UK national newspaper The Sunday Express contacted the BJFC for our opinion on the controversy surrounding the Brian Jones bust in Cheltenham.

However, the discussion soon focussed on the Stephen Woolley film and the circumstances surrounding the death of Brian Jones from the fan club’s perspective. Mr Goodman had his views on the film ‘Stoned’ and its script content and became extremely interested in our version of events of what we believed happened in the days and weeks leading up to the 2nd July 1969. When I outlined the scenario of how I envisaged Brian’s life ending that night, together with some of the supporting facts, he asked for co-operation for an article in the upcoming issue of his newspaper. The article to the left appeared in the 14th August edition of The Sunday Express; please click on the image to view a larger, more readable version.

As with any telephone interview comments can be misinterpreted, but overall the reporting is a fair reflection of my telephone conversation with Mr. Goodman. What I’d like to point out though is that the secondary banner headline ‘We believe he was killed in the house and thrown in the pool’ is inaccurate, our belief is that Brian was rendered unconscious in the house and carried out to the pool area alive, hence the possibility that there might still be more than one crime scene in the house and grounds. Further mistakes in the article include the date of Brian's death being quoted as the 3rd July 1969 when in reality he died before midnight on the 2nd July, Mr Goodman referring to the Stephen Woolley film as ‘The Wild and Wycked World of Brian Jones’ when it should be ‘Stoned’ and quoting Pat and Brian's son as Mark Jones when in fact it should be Mark Andrews.

Much comment has been made on this article and the call for Sussex Police to re-open the investigation into Brian’s death together with, if the Home Office were to approve, a new autopsy. Both Pat Andrews and myself understand the controversy and depth of feeling any exhumation would provoke and have been very careful to refer to any mention of this in the correct terminology. This however has not been respected by some, including the reference to the exhumation in the text of the Daily Express report of August 22nd.

As many BJFC members know, Pat Andrews has been searching for the truth behind Brian’s death for the best part of the last decade and, when I became involved in the fan club’s activities three years ago I became a focal point for the collation of all the fan club’s research and interviews.

Early in my own research it became apparent that many questions remained unanswered and many flaws could be found in the official version of events. Re-establishing time lines and setting about the task of tracing witnesses and questioning people I found an enormous amount of co-operation from many sources, but alternatively an even larger amount of misinformation and obstruction to the truth. What I also discovered, as others in the past have, is that there is a total ambivalence on the part of Sussex police to re-open the case. Their reasons always were, on the surface, valid and correct but to my mind there was just too much confusing, ‘negative’ and misleading information in this whole scenario.

Through a set of circumstances therefore, nine months ago, I became aware of a private company in the UK who contract to many police forces, both in the UK and abroad, to undertake ‘cold case’ and forensic investigations. As many of you might have read earlier this year in Uncut magazine, this extremely professional and well equipped organisation is staffed by ex-senior police offices from the Metropolitan and Thames Valley police forces and ex-Home Office forensic scientists. After an initial forensic examination at Cotchford Farm and an extensive review of my 150 page dossier of information I have, for the past nine months, been advised by this organisation as to the correct procedural regimes to follow in achieving our objective of a re-investigation into the circumstances surrounding Brian’s death.