A firearms forensic expert testifying in the retrial of paratrooper Lee Clegg for the murder of teenager Karen Reilly said yesterday it was still his opinion that the 18-year-old had been shot twice.
Mr Gary Montgomery said one bullet entered through hole eight in the side of the stolen Astra car in which Ms Reilly was a passenger, while another was fired through the back of the car at hole four.
The prosecution in the Belfast Crown Court trial claims it was the hole four bullet in the back of the car, allegedly fired by Clegg, which killed the teenager in the stolen Astra car in the early hours of September 3Oth, 199O.
Yesterday, Mr William Clegg QC, for the defence, describing the hole four shot as "that knotty problem", claimed that for all the tests carried out no bullet could be found to match the round fired by the paratrooper and recovered from Ms Reilly's body.
Mr Clegg also claimed the only thing certain about the bullet which entered hole four was that it was in "significant yaw" - moving from side to side, up or down - that the nose cap was damaged on impact and that it had not been fired from "a range anything like 5O ft".
Mr Montgomery agreed that he had revised his estimate of the range and that it was fired from at least 1OO metres or 3OO ft.
The firearms expert also agreed that rifling marks found on the "Clegg bullet", as it was referred to, were visible and could also be felt by touch.
But he did not accept that this rifling had been obliterated or flattened on all the bullets test-fired at the hole four position.
Mr Montgomery was then asked if he could show any bullet tested by any expert, either from the "prosecution, defence, American, European or even a Scotsman in the form of Strathclyde police". He said he could not remember every bullet tested, and later said of his own tests "I admit that I have not reproduced a Clegg bullet". He qualified that answer by saying there were "thousands of degrees of angle" that a round could have hit the car which would have produced a similar bullet.
Mr Montgomery suggested that test-fired "bullet 11" was the best to compare with the Clegg bullet, although he agreed there were significant differences between the two.
The trial continues today.