Revised and updated April 2023, following release of the Inquest recordings in January 2023. Includes and discusses new images and information from the investigation, which MoD and HSE withheld from the courts and family. (Contact the author if you bought the original version and want a free Kindle upgrade).
This is a story of unrelenting misconduct and injustice. Martin-Baker, designers of the world's best escape system, were prosecuted for not providing information they had already supplied many times, but the Ministry of Defence instructed its engineers not to use. Bizarrely, the Judge named the correct MoD recipient in court. Applying this information would have saved Sean Cunningham's life.
The Health and Safety Executive and Lincolnshire Police did not evaluate verbal, written and video evidence proving the allegation false. The Judge and Coroner were misled. This subversion of the judicial system has placed military aircrew, passengers and the public at greater risk.
Also discussed is post-trial misconduct by the HSE and BBC; linkages to the Shoreham Air Display accident, in which the Air Accidents Investigation Branch confirmed MoD had the information necessary to avoid the death of Sean Cunningham; and a brief analysis of the Service Inquiry report into the death of Corporal Jonathan Bayliss, passenger in a Red Arrows Hawk which crashed in March 2018; revealing twelve common factors with the death of Sean Cunningham. This 2018 case is now the subject of a separate book, A Noble Anger.
All proceeds to St Richard's Hospice, Worcester.