As sure as carts to horses

The incident in question occurred in a Kent countryside field near Beaulieu, used for horses. Pennie Davis had a horse stabled at the farm and was attending to it when Justin Robertson apparently murdered her. The motive has been established as being paid assassination. The customer was the son of an ex partner of Mrs Davis. According to the highly elaborate details, there had been a continuous animosity between Davis and Benjamin Carr for approximately eight years. The acrimony was due to several allegations on both sides. While in an on and off relationship with Carr’s father, Davis had been caught by Carr having sex with another man. Mrs Davis claimed that she had been raped and reported the matter to the police. Benjamin Carr refused to back up the account given by Mrs Davis and as a result Davis made allegations against a fourteen year old Carr of sexual assault on an unnamed party. Carr apparently denied the allegations consistently and the police took no further action. It seems that from this point forward, there was a deep and mutual hatred established between the two.

Details as to the identity of the unnamed party were not brought up during the trial. This is conspicuous in that it would not be unreasonable to state that this allegation was a critical factor in the resulting murder of Pennie Davis. If the narrative is to be believed, Carr was resolute in the silencing of Davis due to his fathers forthcoming marriage to a new partner. Davis had been making threats against Carr and the future wife of his father. The nature of the threats were based on the rehashing of the original sexual assault claims. Carr insisted that his motivation for hiring Justin Robertson were to protect is father and the family from a cruel and unwarranted attack on their reputation. It was also detailed that Carr had obtained a job working with troubled teenagers. Any allegations of historical sexual assaults would surely have resulted in him losing said job.

Robertson was a known burglar and thief. He had previously been incarcerated for over seventy counts of theft. In addition he was known to be active in the local drug industry and evidence was heard regarding the commercial growing of marijuana. According to statements made by both Carr and Robertson, the proposed fee for the intimidation / murder was £1500. Apparently Carr also owed Robertson other monies from their drug activity.

Carr made numerous statements to the effect that he didn’t want any violence and Robertson was only to use ‘Physical words – not physical violence’. It’s not clear what Benjamin Carr’s level of education is, but in any event it’s quite difficult to comprehend exactly what is meant by ‘physical words’. Regardless of this semantic confusion, Pennie Davis was stabbed fourteen times with an edge weapon and left lying in the field where her horse was stabled. According to the details read out in court, Robertson’s balaclava ‘slipped off’ when he engaged Mrs Davis in the field. This was apparently the turning point and the frenzied stabbing followed thereafter. Again, the exact meaning of 'slipped off' is quite vague. Balaclavas are close fitting headgear and they do not fall off on their own. The only way the balaclava could have been removed was with some force. This may have been during a struggle, however this is not clearly explained. This discrepancy alone would be justification for a review of the evidence.

It is difficult to gain the mindset of someone who repeatedly stabs someone after the initial attack has happened. It’s highly unlikely that Mrs Davis was an accomplished hand to hand combatant. Consequently she would have been unlikely to be much resistance to Justin Robertson. In comparison Robertson represented a physically capable individual not unaccustomed to confrontation. There is also the fact that Robertson denied the murder charges repeatedly. He admitted to accepting the intimidation / assassination contract based on Carrs claims of being abused by Davis when he was younger. According to various accounts, Robertson himself had been a victim of abuse in his youth. This is presented as the motivation for Robertson to have agreed to the murder.

Benjamin Carr repeatedly denied requesting that Davis be killed and maintained that he only wanted her to be scared off. Robertson received thirty two years for murder and Carr received thirty years for conspiracy to commit murder.

The fact that Robertson continually denied the murder charge is out of place. The man has been described as a ‘career criminal’. Consequently he would have known that denying a crime of such severity and subsequently being found guilty, comes with much more severe penalties attached. The thinking being that the relatives of victims have been unnecessarily traumatised by having to re-live events in court. It’s also based on the fact that court costs rapidly spiral when expert testimonies and further evidence gathering is required.

It’s broadly accepted that pleading guilty qualifies for a more lenient application of custodial sentencing. Had Robertson accepted a pleading down of charges, he may have been out of prison in fifteen years or thereabouts. Some murderers in the UK have exited custody after only ten years of a life sentence. In a previous article, we covered the case of Sabina Ericksson who received a mere five year sentence for stabbing her victim to death with at least one kitchen knife.  

For someone to gamble with double the sentence by consistently denying responsibility, they must either be innocent or incredibly stupid and delusional. Again, Robertson was no stranger to court proceedings and would have known well enough what sort of sentence he could expect for forcing a lengthy trial. Even the most inept duty solicitor would be quite emphatic when making their client aware of the serious consequences of falsely denying guilt. This represents only one of the anomalies seen in this trial. There are several more, some of which relate to lapses in actionable intelligence.

According to Natasha Brook, a long standing friend of Justin Roberston, he admitted the murder to her several days after the event. This is where the marijuana growing becomes relevant. The defense counsel focused heavily on the fact that Robertson and Brook were engaged in a commercial growing operation. As such she had motive for giving false evidence against him, thereby keeping the profits for herself. Brooks denied this and claimed her motivation was based purely on doing the right thing. The court appears to have accepted this, along with testimony from another acquaintance of Justin Robertson.

An unconnected individual stated that he had heard Robertson admitting to the murder while a group of them were restoring a boat. It would appear that these two accounts of third party confessions do not qualify as ‘hearsay’ and have in fact provided the clinching details for Mr Roberstons murder conviction.

With a highly contentious and complicated background, the scenario between Carr and Davis could only be described as a powder keg. Despite being written up as a loving mother who doted on her children and loved life etc etc, there does seem to be some question as to the good character of Pennie Davis. When she heard of Mr Carr Senior’s forthcoming marriage, she sent a facebook message to the future bride stating “Good luck – you’ll need it”. This has been explained as being due to her deep resentment toward Benjamin Carr, his father and in fact their entire family.

There is an uncomfortable yet inescapable reality which may be relevant to the background of this narrative. Pennie Davis was a mother of five children. It is not clear how many of them shared the same father. Neither is it clear how she supported the family. When she met her latest husband, she was apparently 'helping out in a pub'. At the time of her death she is stated as being a 'supermarket worker'. Even the salary of a bar or supermarket manager would be unlikely to provide enough means to shelter, feed and clothe a family of such a scale. The fund raising appeal after her death was apparently to pay for her two youngest children to be 'supported and educated'. Clearly the state has a responsibility to educate any and all children in the UK. Consequently this money for education must relate to fee paying schools. In turn this implies that her other three, older children had also been privately educated. These lifestyle details raise a question of where Pennie Davis found the money to care for her family and even continue her interest in equestrian pursuits. Keeping horses is notoriously expensive and the animals themselves are not cheap. It is therefore a reasonable consideration that Pennie Davis may have been using blackmail methods in order to generate revenue. There is no mention of the defence counsel looking into her finances, it either didn't ever happen or was considered immaterial and withheld from the press. While it represents a truly abhorrent activity, the number of women using blackmail as a tool for revenue generation in Britain (and elsewhere) is in fact, exceedingly high.

The use of such leverage methods in British society is endemic. The entire City of London pretty much runs on blackmail. If a director of company A. backs out on a deal with company B. then the companies of the corporation will potentially bring punitive measures against the director of company A. These measures are generally considered to be social in their delivery yet come with massive financial implications. Most journeymen, freemen and aldermen would refer to such punitive measures in very lightweight terms. Destroying the professional reputation of company A. and their board would be referred to with such language as 'being uninvited to breakfast'. This superficial and shallow methodology has been operating in the City for literally centuries. The corporation predates the Norman conquest and as such, do pretty much whatever they want. There is also a substantial amount of 'boarding school syndrome' across the square mile which also predisposes it's character in the use of leverage methods.

The issue regarding the allegations made against Benjamin Carr when he was a teenager are critically relevant to the analysis of lapses in actionable intelligence. While the police decided not to pursue the matter, the chances are exceedingly high that Benjamin Carr would have been monitored from that point forward. In addition, given that Justin Robertson was a self confessed petty career criminal, the chances are quite high that he was also an informant of some kind – whether he knew it or not. Consequently the hatching of a plot to either murder or intimidate Pennie Davis, could well have been intercepted at any point during the run up to her murder.

In several TEFLONRABBIT articles the issue of smartphone surveillance rears it’s head. During the court appearances of Carr and Robertson, the use of Robertsons mobile phone on the day in question is mentioned several times. As a result of apparently dropping his car keys at the murder scene, he was locked out of the car that he had traveled to the farm in. This necessitated the calling of a friend to come and pick him up. In addition he also called another friend to take him back to the locked car in order for him to search for his keys. The way the narrative reads, it's difficult to perceive Justin Robertson as an accomplished assassin. This incongruity would be further evidenced by his consistent denial. He repeatedly explained that while he considered burglary as a victimless crime, he would never hurt a woman and would always seek to protect them. There is no evidence that Robertson had ever been violent towards women in his past. For a physically capable man who has spent time in prison to suddenly abandon his credo and resort to a frenzied stabbing is distinctly out of character.  Therefore there appears to be reasonable doubt that Justin Robertson was of such a background that he would be capable of committing this cold and calculated act of murder. There is also no mention of any DNA being found at the scene which would implicate Robertson beyond reasonable doubt.

The inclusion of Robertsons phone calls establish that the police and or courts were able to access Robertsons phone records after the fact. This places a relatively modern digital device on the way to the scene of the crime, at the scene and leaving the scene. In terms of establishing his presence, this is a slam dunk for the prosecution. With the inclusion of third party statements as to his confession and the contract fee, the prosecution had everything they could need for a successful conviction.

If someone has been made into an informant, they are unlikely to be left alone to roam the land denying people their property with impunity. This ongoing monitoring extends to both legal and illegal wire tapping, location monitoring and ambient audio capture. There is no mention in any of the details that attest to Justin Robertson being a highly technical mobile phone security specialist. One would imagine that if he were he would probably not be a petty career criminal and instead work in the mobile phone or security industry. Consequently it seems unlikely that he would have installed any location blocking applications or microphone blockers. Critically important surveillance data from mobile devices monitored by OS manufacturers, commercial intelligence organisations and blue light services doesn’t seem to be getting where it needs to go.

• When Justin Robertson was communicating with Benjamin Carr in relation to the forthcoming intimidation / murder, the chances seem quite high that either or both may have had a mobile phone on their person. According to several accounts they did in fact use mobile phones to communicate many of the details of their intent, over a period of two weeks. They also met in person and Robertson apparently conducted surveillance on proposed locations.
• When Justin Robertson apparently confessed to Natasha Brooks in her kitchen (after snorting three lines of cocaine) it also seems quite likely that there would have been at least one mobile phone in the vicinity.
• When Justin Robertson apparently confessed to a boat restoration colleague that he had murdered a woman, again it seems highly likely that among the multiple restoration enthusiasts, at least one mobile phone would have been switched on.
• When Pennie Davis was making the threats to Benjamin Carr, it is not known whether she insisted on meeting under a bridge with all mobile phones switched off, or whether she casually brought it up in conversation. In the case of the former it would be reasonable to assume that Mrs Davis was a highly experienced clandestine operative. In the case of the latter, it’s safe to assume that she was not.

The reality of phone surveillance indicates that Pennie Davis herself could well have been monitored as a result of her allegations and failed rape accusation. If she was using blackmail as a method of revenue generation, this information would represent even more grounds for her being surveilled. The surveillance industry has become increasingly privatised in recent decades. Therefore there exists reasonable grounds to consider that many of the individuals involved in this tangled web of lies and animosity, were being surveilled by multiple groups.

The mobile phone industry is now synonymous with spying. Many people have had experiences with digital devices eavesdropping on their conversations. This generally amounts to product placement appearing in their search results as ‘Personalised advertising’. There have been reports of people merely thinking about subject matters and seeing corresponding advertisements.

This is a problem. We are being forced to accept is that it’s ok to use surveillance on people’s mobile phones to sell them products they don’t need or want, but it’s not ok to use the data to preserve human life. Such a blatant disregard for the sanctity of human life and the preservation of well-being flies in the face of any language utilising the words 'security' or 'policing'.

Since programs such as Carnivore and Echelon have been operational for decades, it would not be unreasonable to assume that the automatic recognition of keywords has also been happening for decades. The entire situation is reduced to the concept that it’s not ok to rely on illegal wire taps for conviction purposes, but it’s perfectly ok to use them for ‘Intelligence purposes’. Quite what is meant by this has never been clear. What we do know is that there is now (and always has been) a distinct association with the profits attached to the technological surveillance industry.

This raises an uncomfortable question of culpability. If automated keyword recognition is flagging specific usage patterns as representing risk, then the ethical action would be for those managing the systems to forward the details directly to the relevant local authorities. This would be considered as correct action to prevent any major crimes occurring. Many of the 'Persons of Interest' articles from TEFLONRABBIT illustrate that this is clearly not happening. Furthermore the issue of profitability creates a major conflict of interests. As mentioned previously the chances are quite high that surveillance was already operating on Carr and Robertson’s mobile phones. This surveillance could well have been shared between the police and the security / intelligence services.

The intelligence community have officially gone on record as stating that they most certainly do instigate war in other countries as it is good for the economy. The horrific reality of these organisations operating on domestic soil can not be ignored. Consequently we are faced with a situation of profit motivated decisions being made by military mindsets against a backdrop of civil society. This is exactly what the USA prohibits through the Posse Comitatus Act. It clearly “limits the powers of the federal government in the use of federal military personnel to enforce domestic policies”. Of course it has become quite clear that the CIA and various other militarised federal agencies do whatever the hell they like on domestic soil and are rarely, if ever, held to account. Apart from anything else, the terminology can easily be skewed. In the same way that thousands of state department sanctioned PMC operatives are currently deployed to sites in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Withdrawing from a war zone equates to troops out - mercenaries in.

It would not be out of place to assume that the exact same situation is the norm in most NATO countries, including the UK. As a result, we can be fairly sure that Justin Robertsons mobile phone represented a shared intelligence source between several organisations. Groups who may well intersect with the military in one form or another.

The potential for massively unethical practices can not be ignored. Deliberately not forwarding critically important information counts as a crime in itself. If Mr.X has material information relating to an impending attempt on the life of Mrs.Y, he is compelled to forward said information to the authorites. If it can be proved that he did not, he can expect to face a conspiracy charge based on a failure to communicate a credible threat to life. If Mr.X happens to work for the police, security services or intelligence services this paints the democratically elected government in an extremely bad light.

The fact that the Y character is female is highly relevant. Most societies adhere to the ancient philosophy of protecting women and children first. This is based on the human race surviving numerous cataclysms throughout the millennia. A need to maintain the population requires that men protect women and children before themselves. The damage done to civilisations as a result of reduction in the female population lasts for decades and reduction in the junior population lasts for centuries. For policies to exist whereby women and / or children are routinely sacrificed by decisions predicated on the pursuit of greater gain, any society must surely have become a pale facsimile of it's expressed value system.

The elected government is essentially responsible for the actions of the clandestine community. When faced with blatantly malicious actions being perpetrated by the numerous clandestine agencies, they basically have two options. They can either insist that it’s as a result of ‘rogue operatives within the intelligence and security industry’ or they can admit that they have signed off on such horrendous, morally bankrupt practices. In the case of the latter, it’s safe to say that they probably wouldn’t be the government for much longer. The former has been trotted out so many times that basically nobody believes it anymore, so they just deny everything and hope for the best. If that doesn’t work then they move up a gear and plaintives end up shooting themselves  (sometimes twice) in the back of the head whilst driving along secluded mountain roads.

The gaps in the narrative and the inconsistent portrayal of Robertson as a master criminal who made rookie mistakes, give cause for question. Also the language employed by His Honourable Mr Justice Popplewell  during sentencing smacks of fairly emphatic narrative enforcement.

Going over the details pertaining to the fateful incident, its difficult to rule out the potential of a sophisticated operation to implicate Robertson. There is also the fact that Davis was stabbed fourteen times, which would be the age of Carr when he was accused by Davis. There are undeniable instances of numerology appearing in the details of crimes on a daily basis. Those who give credence to numerology are generally not overly encumbered with a sense of rationale. They do however, take it very seriously and there are actually millions of them.

Seemingly Robertson lost control and went into a frenzied attack, thereby not noticing the dropping of his car keys. Yet still he managed to represent this numerology in the attack. This does not fit with the behaviour of anyone who grows marijuana. Growers are generally users themselves. As a rule, potheads don't normally go on mercenary missions in balaclavas. In addition, growing marijuana requires a high level of focus and precision in order to gain the greatest yield and potency. Making sloppy errors in a complex endeavour is just not a reality for those capable of such technical activity.

A more plausible reality would be that both Carr and Robertson were both informants. As such it's possible that Carr considered the threats by Davis as an opportunity to stir up some form of deception based revenge. Having had contact with Robertson as a result of them both being involved in low level drug dealing, Robertson could well have been considered by Carr as a useful patsy.  Carr's hatred for Davis came to the attention of someone who perceived gain in the unfolding of the conspiracy. Robertson carried through his plan to intimidate Davis but it went wrong, a struggle ensued, his identity was disclosed and the car keys were dropped. Those seeking to capitalise on the situation intervened after Robertson had fled the scene. They murdered Davis, included the numerology and ensured that the car keys would be found near the body.

Finally, there is no mention of the murder weapon ever being recovered. This is prima facie evidence in any murder trial. The abscence of any DNA and any murder weapon reduced the prosecutions case to arguments based on what would otherwise be discounted as hearsay.

Analysing the available information, it is the opinion of TEFLONRABBIT that there could be several grounds for Justin Robertson to appeal his conviction. However as with so many cases in the Persons of Interest category, the interested parties would undoubtedly prefer that this neatly presented, ribbon tied outcome remains intact.