Could Paul Edwards, thrower banned for life, be telling the truth?

Ultraboy wrote:

How many of you know each other and are involved in the active campaign to re-instate Paul? Are any of the posters part of Paul’s Legal Team or have been used as witnesses or experts by Paul?

Simple questions. They go to whether we are getting the information from a one sided perspective. I think it’s important to be honest about such things.

It is because it seems evident that the information is being provided by one side of an argument. You don’t try cases based on one side of the debate.

So let’s just agree that Paul is a convicted drug cheat who has exhausted all legal avenues of appeal. If you aren’t prepared to be open about what it is you are doing then don’t expect much support.

Michelle V wrote:

Ultraboy wrote:

How many of you know each other and are involved in the active campaign to re-instate Paul? Are any of the posters part of Paul’s Legal Team or have been used as witnesses or experts by Paul?

Simple questions. They go to whether we are getting the information from a one sided perspective. I think it’s important to be honest about such things.

It is because it seems evident that the information is being provided by one side of an argument. You don’t try cases based on one side of the debate.

So let’s just agree that Paul is a convicted drug cheat who has exhausted all legal avenues of appeal. If you aren’t prepared to be open about what it is you are doing then don’t expect much support.

Here we go again ; yet another post that utterly ignores the previous one!

I do not know the other posters but I can’t see if it matters if there is a team or galaxy trying to reinstate Edwards and expose the system that covered up.

The evidence gets presented by those who believe it is significant and causes them to come to that conclusion. That is the normal process.

When that evidence is independently formed and is not challenged by the lab then then it quite powerful .

When the head of legals at the lab says similar then the evidence becomes damning in the extreme.

When you see the way that every attempt was made to hide the new evidence you begin to see a very disturbing patten.

Presenting such is entirely reasonable.

One side puts there case and the other side responds.

To deny the existence of such because these opinions come from one side and thus must be wrong is the product of a primary school debating society and a very very poor one.

Nearly every post on Letsrun is on an issue or a concern.In fact the very title of this thread sets it out.

Just because you can’t understand the evidence does not mean that the evidence should not be presented.

I am not going to deal with the tautology which is the basis of your last paragraph as yet again I would point out , from your own words, it comes from a “simple ex athlete”.

May I ask again. Do you think that the evidence presented has any merit? Remember the evidence is independent from those who present it.

You never question what the authorities

Have done ?

Take a look around letsrun. I’ve been here a while and I’ve posted a fair bit. I’ve no connections to anybody or anything involved in this case.

I’ve not once shouted abuse at Paul. I’ve stated the fact that he is a convicted doper. That’s not abuse that is the current state of affairs.

I’m not refusing to acknowledge the facts I’m saying that the question you are posing is not the one I personally am interested in. Im saying that I’d like to know what Paul’s defence was to the 1994 charged was at the time. I’m saying I’d like to see the contemporaneously records rather than one sided narrative.

I’m saying that a polygraph would help to establish Paul’s innocence and gain public support. I’m saying that I struggle to give a crap about overturning the 97 ban when the 94 doesn’t have this weight of evidence against it. I’m asking for clarity over what the High Court case Michelle V keeps saying was going to see him re-instated was, because that appears to be a misrepresentation of what happened.

When I said I was an ex athlete it was to make sure I was accurate in my declaration of that interest. I wanted to be clear that my only connection to any organisation or person involved in the case was that I was once a registered athlete. That’s a close as personal interest is for me.

I know it’s infuriating for you that I don’t want to ask the questions you want to answer, but if you are asking for my support it’s up to me what questions I want to ask not you.

OP here. No connection to Paul before having started the thread. I simply read an article that had come up about him and got a feeling something wasn't right so I ended up contacting Paul directly on facebook and asked him to address some questions in this thread, which he has tried to do.

I think Ultraboy is asking fair questions, but at the same time doesn't know much about the case so may be asking questions that seem obvious and therefore it comes off as sticking his head in the sand and just repeating the same thing over and over. One thing people ought to know is this: the case deals with a lot of science that is way over most of our heads and the organization of all the documents associated with the case are a bit of a mess. There are hundreds if not thousands of pages of documents in addition to a fair amount of emails. Most of the documents are paper-only given the time most of this went on was before we were putting things online.

I tried to start organizing the documents electronically, but to actually do that properly I would need to temporarily leave my coaching job here in California and fly out to wherever it is Paul lives. I don't have the time or money to do that.

Like Ultraboy, I am not 100% convinced of Paul's innocence simply because, well, how could any of us know for sure what someone else has done in their life? We can't, right? What I am convinced of 100% is that the way his case has played out is outrageous.

Paul has denied any wrongdoing in both 94 and 97. What is his defense? That he didn't do it, the labs messed up (this has been documented) and then they proceeded to cover it up (this has also been documented).

I think this case is a little more complex because it's not just Paul Edwards' career and reputation that are on the line, but Professor Cowan's as well as the anti-doping establishment as a whole. So you've got the head of the 2012 London Olympic's anti-doping science center versus some guy everyone forgot about a long time ago. If you take Professor Cowan down, how bad does that look for anti-doping? If the head of the 2012 Olympics anti-doping has lied about something like this for 20+ years, what else has he lied about? That's a big problem in my view. Cowan is in too big of a position to fail, which means Edwards is unfortunately collateral damage at this point.

In my opinion this case could never be understood via a thread like this, especially on such an outdated form where it's very difficult to post documents. I think a 1 page overview of the case would be helpful, then a 10 page summary for the layman, then a 100+ page for those who want to read the science and all of the different emails and other communications. Until something like that is put together, it's too hard to remember all the connections.

The above post is spot on.

The head of legals at the Lab said no calibration data run.

Quite simply that should be the end of it.

The consequences for those who persistently said the test was done right should be a matter for a separate evaluation.

The absence of the calibration data is not just as simple as saying that the police speeding gun was already set at 10 when someone was done at 41 , so yes going at 31 so still quite guilty so who really cares.

A better analogy is that the speed gun could have been totally mis directed and picked up the speed of birds.

Thus monitoring the wrong object eg ion.

Cowen had already admitted he had done this in the Hylton case and that case stopped at that very moment of his admission.

What process exists in anti doping when the hearing and the appeal are denied evidence.

Evidence that then appears after due process had finished.

In the normal world there is always the possibility of cases being quashed when new evidence appears esp when the prosecution has fully known about that hidden evidence all along.

It is about time that this sorry mess was sorted.

Whatever we think of Paul Edwards you can’t maintain a life ban when the prosecution hid evidence that would have cleared him.

It is inconceivable that this thread has not been seen by either UKA , IAAF , UKAD, UKS Or KCL.Yet not one hint of any rebuttal.

If Prof Cowen had published academic papers which were based on analysis which was not subject to dealing with calibration data what would the academic journals do about these papers.

Would they have to be withdrawn and all references in other papers have to be removed.

Bit of a can in worms !

Oh well the immature cretins are here. Biggut was my handle on another forum and clearly this poster Fangio was my brothers handle. Such is the way that these people behave that they feel it’s worth demeaning the topic of the thread to trade is silly personal comment.

So much for people treating this matter as worthy of proper discussion.

Paul and I were going to have a chat on the phone about this case for me to get some info directly. That seems like a waste of time if his supporters are just going to act in purile ways.

Ultraboy wrote:

Oh well the immature cretins are here. Biggut was my handle on another forum and clearly this poster Fangio was my brothers handle. Such is the way that these people behave that they feel it’s worth demeaning the topic of the thread to trade is silly personal comment.

So much for people treating this matter as worthy of proper discussion.

Paul and I were going to have a chat on the phone about this case for me to get some info directly. That seems like a waste of time if his supporters are just going to act in purile ways.

No idea whatsoever who is who but now all is clear this chap with the large middle area will change his “handle”. Apologies as I think it would seem of benefit to speak with Edwards .

As it happens I think the matter of academic integrity is a matter of proper discussion and I await response.

Well, when you talk to him simply ask him straight up if he took steroids or HGH.....

What?

It’s very hard to prove your innocence when the evidence is withheld from you remember this is been going 23 years now and about time it’s resolved.In law is called disclosure.

The live ban should be lifted on Mr Edwards.

I think they mean life ban.

Paul Ed wrote:

It’s very hard to prove your innocence when the evidence is withheld from you remember this is been going 23 years now and about time it’s resolved.In law is called disclosure.

If several people and organisations join together to deliberately withhold evidence that they believe will help a defence then they will suddenly discover that the words used are far more significant that the word disclosure.

My MP Andrew Hunter did a lot of work trying to get the evidence of the other side he spent many hours writing A paper called victim of deceit and incompetence . Then followed ahouse of commons debate by Andrew Hunter to the ministe of media culture and sport .

Paul put together a couple page brief overview, which I've uploaded to his google drive folder. I believe this was done to help with the multiple "powers of ten" summaries where a 1 page, 10 page and 100 page summary could be made to help understand the case clearly. So here's 2 pages. Maybe we can get a 20 page summary together next. For now, this seems pretty solid. If anyone feels other things should be addressed with the 2 pages, please let us know.

The second link below is to the main folder, but it is still missing tons of documents, unfortunately.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6f0LPZ-uUKqSUd6dHJ6a0g2ZWI1NmJvdU5CbWNCam5sUjdj/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B6f0LPZ-uUKqQWVFZ2w3akNhcjg

Your document appears to suggest that the evidence against the 1994 uk based test was submitted at the time, considered and dismissed. Is this the case?

It also refers to the Helsinki test being withdrawn, is there any documentation from the time this occurred clarifying how this happened in the google docs area?