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plastic restraints on his hand.

Davison quizzed the sergeant on the debriefing carried out after the operation. In it, the STG inspector had complained of the lateness of notice given police before the raid. The debriefing note read: "Undue considerable pressure was placed on the tactical planning team to both obtain and consider the relevant information to safely and effectively execute the warrant in order to meet the objectives set." It mattered little, the sergeant said. The same tactics would have been used, just refined.

"Unless, Davison asked, it turned out the STG should not have been used at all?

Possible, conceded the sergeant. Police could have decided it was inappropriate to use the STG squad for the raid.

THE DECISION TO have the STG go in wasn't just based on a perceived firearms risk, he said. The team had specialist training with equipment others did not — door breach equipment, for example. Simple assistance to police had an important role, and in this case it could have been fulfilled in securing the evidence. In this case, speed of access was key to achieving the main objective of preserving evidence.

Davison again referred to the form used to assess the need for STG help. It read: "Destruction of evidence during the execution of this search warrant will ultimately affect the success of the prosecution. If further evidence is located as a result of the successful termination of this operation it will shed light on a number of additional relationships and connections. If evidence by way of a master code is entered to allow the destruction of evidence there will be significant financial and technical implications."

This was a focus for the second specialist team needed for the raid. The experts from the Electronic Crime Laboratory (ECL) were called on — although, again, their first briefing was late in the process. Warned early something might be afoot, ECL analyst Allan Langille was first briefed on the mission on January 18. A few hours after the STG left the house, the e-crime specialists went in to seize any items which might be used to store evidence. It was a wide brief — the mansion and surrounding buildings were packed with electronic items. Langille was also told the FBI would carry out the analysis. The FBI agents had the knowledge he needed to seize the right material, but they weren't there. He was — and it was hard to work out which systems should be seized and which should be left, he said.

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