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The
Official Website of S. C. Lomax
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COULD
NEW EVIDENCE FREE JEREMY BAMBER?
Daily
Express Friday
August 6, 2010 By
Simon Edge
THE trial
judge branded Jeremy Bamber “evil almost beyond belief” and it
was easy to see why. The
25-year-old former public school pupil stood accused of murdering his entire
adoptive family at his parents’ farmhouse in rural Bamber,
who lived in a nearby village, had tried to blame the crime on his sister
Sheila, a doe-eyed occasional model known as Bambi. He
maintained she had gone crazy with a shotgun, killed their parents, her
six-year-old twin sons and then turned the weapon on herself. He said he
knew this because his father Nevill had called to tell him so shortly before
he died – whereupon Bamber himself phoned the police. The jury
concluded by a majority of 10 to two that this was an elaborate deception.
Bamber was sentenced to life for a crime deemed so monstrous that he is one
of only three dozen or so British killers told they will never be released. The
verdict has since been upheld at two appeals. But new evidence has emerged
this week that could mean the convicted man, now aged 50 and held at a
high-security prison outside Twenty-five
years almost to the day after the killings a police log has surfaced that
appears to confirm his version of events. The
document, released by Essex Police under a Freedom of Information request,
comes from the communications log on the night of August 7, 1985. Headed
“Daughter goes berserk” it records a call received at 3.26am. It reads:
“Mr Bamber, White House Farm, Tolleshunt
D’Arcy. Daughter Sheila Bamber, aged 26 yrs, has got hold of one of my
guns.” It then shows that a series of patrol cars were sent to the
house. Confusingly,
it also adds: “Message passed to CD [presumably a police officer] by
the son of Mr Bamber after the phone went dead.” This
contradicts the earlier part of the message and implies the caller was
Jeremy. But campaigners say the document is open to interpretation and is
grounds for a new appeal. “It
introduces the possibility that Nevill Bamber did contact the police prior to
Jeremy’s own phone call,” says Scott Lomax, author of Jeremy
Bamber: Evil, Almost Beyond Belief? “That
would show that Nevill was alive some time after 3am, which would prove
beyond all doubt that Jeremy is innocent of the murders for which he was
convicted.” The
prosecution accept that, if Bamber was responsible for the murders, he must
have committed them between midnight and 3am. This was
based on the time it would take to get home from his parents’ farmhouse
to call the police at 3.36am. While he might in principle have made the call
pretending to be in the name of the father he had just killed, Lomax says he
could not have made it from White House Farm at 3.26am. When
firearms officers eventually entered the handsome double-fronted farmhouse at
7.45am Nevill’s body was in the kitchen. He had
been shot eight times and was sitting in a chair, slumped forward with his
head in the coal scuttle. Upstairs twins Daniel and Nicholas had been shot
five and three times in the head, respectively. In the main bedroom
Bamber’s mother June had been shot seven times. On the
floor beside her was Sheila. She had two wounds to her throat and a rifle
across her chest, pointing to the wounds. Given that
the house was locked from the inside and there was no sign of forced entry
everything suggested that Sheila was the killer. A paranoid
schizophrenic she had recently stopped taking her medication and referred to
her sons as “the devil’s children”. According to medical
experts the fact that there were two wounds on her body is not inconsistent
with suicide. It was
Bamber’s cousins Ann Eaton and David Boutflour and their father Robert
who began to grow suspicious of his brash, high-spending behaviour in the
wake of the murders. Searching the house Boutflour discovered a silencer in
the downstairs gun cupboard. Forensic
tests showed a spot of Sheila’s blood inside it, as well as paint that
corresponded to scratch marks on the kitchen fireplace, as if a struggle for
the gun had taken place there. Forensics
implied the silencer had been attached to the rifle for the killings. If so,
the firearm would have been too long for Sheila to shoot herself. Besides,
who had put it back in the cupboard? Meanwhile
Bamber was splitting up with his girlfriend Julie Mugford. Having discovered
he had slept with one of her friends she tried to smother him with a pillow
and next day went to the police, telling them Bamber had hired a hit man to
kill his parents. That story
turned out to be false because the man in question had an alibi but she later
testified in court he had told her of his murderous deeds, both before and
afterwards. Bamber was
found guilty and his cousins inherited the estate – with his cousin Ann
moving into White House Farm and remaining there to this day. From prison
Bamber has accused the pair of framing him, a charge that Boutflour recently
rejected as “an absolute load of piffle”. But the
crucial evidence of the silencer, without which Bamber would not have been
convicted, has been questioned by one of Earlier
this year Peter Sutherst examined pictures from the scene of the crime and
concluded that the scratch on the fireplace had been made as long as a month
after the murders. “Here
was evidence that in all probability Jeremy Bamber had not done the deed. It
is quite clear from the reconstruction I made that the marks don’t
appear in the original crime scene evidence,” he said. “Having
done that you draw your own conclusions as to where and when it happened. It
starts to become an entirely different case.” He
insisted he had initially come to the case with an open mind. Having
been to the Court of Appeal twice the only way Bamber can get his case heard
there again is by referral from the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the
authority that investigates miscarriages of justice. His legal
team has made a number of submissions, including new evidence yet to be made public,
and they hope to get a response in weeks rather than months. If the
case does go back to appeal and it is established that Nevill Bamber did call
the police to say his daughter was going crazy with a gun, his son would have
to be innocent. But the troubled matter of the silencer would still require
an explanation. Scott
Lomax says: “It’s my belief the silencer wasn’t used at all
in the shooting and the blood got in either by deliberate or innocent
contamination. It’s either an innocent mistake or Jeremy was framed.
Both are possible in principle.” In the
extraordinary event that Bamber is freed – he is believed to be the
only prisoner on a full-life tariff who protests his innocence – there
will be immense pressure from his supporters for an inquiry into possible criminal
behaviour during the investigation. And Essex
Police already has serious questions to answer about why the newly disclosed
log was never shown to the defence. After 25
years in jail the compensation bill would be staggering if Bamber were shown
not to have committed the crimes but no claim has yet been made and
Bamber’s legal team plans to cross that bridge if and when it comes to
it. For the
moment he himself is convinced the CCRC will announce its decision to refer
his case to the Court of Appeal by the end of next week. A
spokesman for his official website jeremybamber.com says Bamber is encouraged
by the fact that his cousins, who have previously fought him every step of
the way, have not contested the new evidence about the scratch marks.David
Boutflour did call Bamber a “psychopath” yesterday and expressed
fears for his and his family’s safety if his cousin were ever released
but he did not address the specific issue of the silencer. For his
part Scott Lomax feels vindicated by the new developments. “There have
always been snippets of evidence ever since I came to believe that Jeremy was
innocent but it’s becoming far more concerted now,” he says. “He
has always been optimistic. For the seven years I have known him he has been
telling me constantly he will be free in a few weeks’ time – and
this is the first time I believe him. “He
is absolutely confident he will be granted a new appeal in the next couple of
weeks and is hoping to get bail. Then he is looking forward to the
future.” To
return to the menu of articles in which I am referred to please click here |
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Website created by
S. C. Lomax in September 2004. |
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