Claims grow that Woolmer was not murdered

A report in today's London Times has backed claims at the weekend that a Home Office pathologist has concluded Bob Woolmer died of natural causes and was not murdered.

Reports from the post-mortem, photographs and other material have been examined by Dr Nat Carey, the pathologist who examined the bodies in the Soham murder case.

The original post-mortem, carried out in Jamaica, decided that strangulation was possible because a bone on Woolmer's neck had been broken.

Police are reported to be waiting for the results of a toxicology report after traces of a herbicide were found in Woolmer's body. The chemical is sometimes used on cricket pitches as a weedkiller, and one theory is that he might have accidentally ingested it. The report will show if the level of the toxin were suspiciously high or whether they could have built up over a period of time.

The Times noted that the herbicide can cause sickness and diarrhea, both of which Woolmer suffered on the night he died. The broken bone could have been the result of a fall as he collapsed in his hotel bathroom.

The report also claimed that the possibility that he was attacked by a disgruntled fan or player have been ruled out.

There were also criticisms of the handling of the investigation by the Jamaica police, with delays in retrieving and examining the CCTV, a failure to take swabs from Woolmer's hands and body, and the fact that the body was embalmed within hours of the post mortem.

The Jamaica Gleaner published a hard-hitting editorial on Tuesday in which the local police were openly slammed. "The now-it-is-now-it-isn't spectacle being played out in the international media over Woolmer's death must be particularly upsetting to his family and makes Jamaica's constabulary appear a bunch of incompetent boobs. It couldn't hurt the investigation, we feel, to publish the pathology report so as to clear the air. There should also be some official statement why the scheduled coroner's inquest appears to have been postponed indefinitely."