Police ‘baffled’ by Mitchell’s motive

“To be quite honest, I’m still trying to work out David Mitchell. DI TOM GILLAN

The senior investigating officer who helped to catch David Mitchell admitted police may never truly know why the quiet software engineer decided to do what he did.

Detective Inspector Tom Gillan described Mitchell as having “clean skin”, in that Mitchell had no previous convictions, no apparent interest in guns and no apparent political leanings which could have driven him to tracking down a gun, silencer and ammunition online and buying it.

Indeed, according to DI Gillan, there was “nothing remarkable” about Mitchell’s life at all, although he baffled officers by stubbornly refusing to answer questions about his motivation for trying to bring the firearms into the country.

DI Gillan said Mitchell’s use of cryptocurrency to buy the items from the States represented a “unique spike” in his financial activity and aroused suspicion.

“He was quite a meek and wellmannered individual who did not offer up anything at all, no intonation, no information that we could even use to try and take any information about what could have been his motivation,” the senior investigating officer noted.

“Part of our preparation before we could move to enforcement was to cover some of the risks that may have existed, but he was a loner in as much as he had no real personal platform, no children, no partner to speak of, and lived alone.

“We’ve followed lines of inquiry in relation to past and previous relationships, but these were extremely limited so it didn’t add any colour to the picture.

“To be quite honest, I’m still trying to work out David Mitchell.”

Investigators said it had been an agreed decision between UK and US authorities not to send a live gun to his office in Fife, although they decided to send a placebo package to try to get a better understanding of Mitchell, what his motivations might have been, what structures may have existed around him and if other firearms might be involved.

Despite the many questions asked of him though, Mitchell replied with no comment answers to police probing.

DI Gillan added: “It’s as sterile as that. Quite clearly he had legal representation and he’s every right not to reply.

“But he certainly didn’t fit the model of someone you would expect to be in this situation.”