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The
Official Website of S. C. Lomax
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Jeremy Bamber: Fresh doubt cast on key evidence used to convict family
killer By
Andrew Hough Published:
One
of Bamber,
49, has always protested his innocence over his involvement in the 1985 crime. Crucial
evidence against to convict Bamber, who murdered five members of his adoptive
family in their Essex farmhouse in August 1985, is being reviewed by the
Criminal Cases Review Commission, the authority that investigates
miscarriages of justice. Campaigners
claimed the new analysis of photographs taken from the crime science, which
appears to cast doubt on his conviction, could lead him being freed after
almost a quarter of a century behind bars. Bamber,
who has always protested his innocence, was found guilty in October 1986 of
shooting his adopted parents, June and Neville, his sister Shelia Caffell and her six-year-old twins, Daniel and Nicholas. At
first it appeared that Miss Caffell, who had a
history of schizophrenia, had murdered the family then committed suicide. But
suspicion turned to Bamber after his girlfriend said he bragged of his
intention to kill his parents and collect an inheritance of nearly £500,000. Bamber,
now 49, was described by the judge at his original trial as "evil beyond
belief'' and Michael Howard, then Home Secretary, ruled that he should never
be released from jail. The
jury at Chelmsford Crown Court were shown photographs of scratch marks on the
underside of a mantle shelf, which the prosecution said were the result of a
violent struggle between Neville and Bamber. But
a new analysis of the police negatives, carried out by Peter Sutherst, a photographic expert, has uncovered
inconsistencies in the photographic evidence. Mr
Sutherst, an expert with 50 years experience, said
the scratch marks allegedly caused by Bamber on the night of the shootings
could have been made more than a month after the White House Farm killings. The
jury was shown a close-up image of the scratches on the underside of a mantel
shelf above the kitchen's Aga cooker, close to
where Neville's body was found. He
had been shot eight times in the head and neck at close range. Mr
Sutherst's analysis of photos taken of the crime
scene on the day of the murder showed no trace of the marks, said to have
been made by a silencer fitted on the murder weapon, a .22 Anschütz semi-automatic rifle. “Here
was evidence that Jeremy Bamber in all probability had not done the
deed,” Mr Sutherst told the Observer. “It
is quite clear from the reconstruction I made that the marks don't appear in
the original crime scene evidence. "Having
done that, you draw your own conclusions as to where and when that happened.
It starts to become an entirely different case altogether.” Scott
Lomax, author of a book on the killings, said: “I would expect Bamber
to walk free by the end of the year.” Andrew
Hunter, the former Democratic Unionist MP for “I
think this is a terrible miscarriage of justice,” he said. The
CCRC will now decide whether Bamber's case should be referred to the Court of
Appeal based on the new analysis as well as previously undisclosed police
notes and evidence from a forensic specialist. Two previous appeals, in 1997
and 2002, failed. Speaking
from Full Sutton Prison near A
CCRC spokesman confirmed that a “detailed submission” containing
new evidence had been received last week and was being investigated. “We
will obviously have to look at the submissions and investigate them very
carefully,” he said. To return the list of articles I am
referred to in, please click here |
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Website created by
S. C. Lomax in September 2004. |
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