I think it was Mr. Cardew who was first shown the slate, I think then in its pristine form before the accident, and he said that he would have been surprised to identify it on his sonar equipment, and he said nothing of significance had been spotted for the divers to find by his equipment.
Further dives were carried out on the 29th of August and the 1st of September 1997 at sites further South than this scene. Mr. Carruthers, the dive supervisor, told us about this. On the 2nd of September a further dive was carried out. Again searches were done, the object being to do a circular sweep of 360 degrees around the point, with a radius of ten metres. Mr. McMahon was the diver in the water first. He went to the spot he said where Mr. Mason had been two weeks earlier, and he said that he had left a heavy weight at the scene on the 14th of August; it had not been moved. Searches were carried out by two divers for a total of about an hour, as indicated in the dive records. Again Mr. Carruthers was shown the slate and confirmed that in spite of its size, it was not found on the 2nd of September, and indeed nothing of evidential value was found on that date. Mr. Carruthers accepted there was no record of the dives, other than the written manual ones, and no bearing had been taken to fix the exact spot.
On the 4th of September another dive was carried out and thought to be in the immediate area of the body site. Again nothing of interest was found.