'Mistakes made in Woolmer examination'

KINGSTON: Mistakes were made in post-mortem examinations of late Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer, a British pathologist said under cross-examination at an inquest into Woolmer's death.

Pathologist Nathaniel Cary spent the three-hour morning session on Thursday answering questions from Kent Pantry, Jamaica's director of public prosecution, in the probe into the shock death of the 58-year-old former England player.

Woolmer was found in his room at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel unconscious on March 18, a day after Pakistan were embarrassed by Ireland in a major upset at the Cricket World Cup.

Cary told the court that Jamaican government pathologist Ere Sheshiah, who conducted the first post-mortem, made a mistake when he suggested murder.

Following Sheshiah's post-mortem two days after Woolmer died, the Jamaican police first reported inclusive and then suspicious circumstances around the death before saying Woolmer was murdered.

Jamaican police went to Scotland Yard for help and London's Metropolitan Police, after an exam by Cary, concluded that Woolmer was not murdered, but died of heart failure.

Cary, who said there was no evidence of strangulation or poison, admitted he also made mistakes in a pathology exam of Woolmer.

In his report, Cary said the neck was cut before the brain was removed, but after shown videos, he admitted otherwise.

"I was mistaken when I said the brain was not removed before the next. I have to withdraw that statement," Cary told the court.

He also sided with Pantry and judge coroner of Kingston Patrick Murphy that the brain was possibly removed to examine and that weighing of the brain was to determine if anything was wrong.

Cary, however, remained adamant that Sheshiah went about his business wrong, justifying his stance by saying the wrong procedure was used to pull out the tongue and adding the used procedure would have made determining anything difficult.