Jeremy Bamber: Sheila's Mental Capacity for Murder

Given their history what would be the propensity of either Sheila or Jeremy murdering their adoptive family?

Both raised in the same home environment and materially well provided for, though in a very strict regime.  Sheila and Jeremy's adoptive mother, June Bamber is reported to have been a harsh disciplinarian which would have impacted on both their childhoods.

Jeremy has had many psychiatric assessments, twenty seven in all and there is no evidence of mental ill health or psychopathy.

Sheila developed schizophrenia.

Sheila’s psychiatric assessment found her to be suffering with a paranoid schizoid-affective disorder.  She believed she was in league with the devil; giving her power to project evil onto others, including her sons, aged six when they died; believing she could make them have violent sex with her.  Sheila also stated that she was capable of murdering her sons as well as influencing them to commit murder.  In August 1985 Sheila had not long been discharged from a psychiatric unit; this had not been her first admission to a mental health facility.

My professional experience of working with clients with schizophrenia leads me to deduce that the following classic symptoms are manifested as the disease progresses:

The client is paranoid believing everyone and anyone is out to harm him/her.

The client is incapable of analysing a given situation.

The client appears not to have the cognitive ability of processing healthy choices, making it impossible to reason with him/her.

Clients speak of ‘making plans’ for their own protection or retaliation.

The inherent nature of schizophrenia is in the emergence of what appears to be another personality; hence the outdated use of the term Split-Personality.  My observations lead me to deliberate as to whether this confusion in the client’s perception of him/herself is more akin to that of a computer overload or virus.  The onset of Schizophrenia is often around ages sixteen and seventeen, and in many clients coincides with or is triggered by stressful life events for example intense study in preparation for career or university ^1).

Another classic symptom of schizophrenia is ‘hearing voices’.  I am not aware of whether Sheila experienced this symptom but referring to her psychiatric assessment she did believe she had the power to invoke the devil in her sons and control others.  There is increasing research to show that giving sufferers permission to acknowledge their ‘voices’ and respond – rather than ignore them, can have therapeutic effects ^2).

In a paranoid state sufferers may genuinely believe that others are plotting against them, even to kill them.  This delusion can manifest in extreme violence directed toward themselves or others, though not an innate part of their personality when mentally well.

Sheila’s ex-husband had expressed concerns that she was not caring adequately for her children.  He was also concerned as to how June Bamber's almost zealot like religious beliefs may have been affecting them.  The twins had previously been placed in foster care and Jeremy states that the family discussed that possibility again on the night of the murders as it appeared that Sheila was not able to care for them due to the increasing deterioration in her mental health state.

It would be worth considering as to how this discussion about Sheila’s inability to care for her children may have affected her, in the light of her mental ill health and her own life experience.

Rejected at birth and rejected again now.

A bad mother?  Repeating the pattern of her birth mother?

Given our understanding of June Bamber’s personality we can only fantasise as to how many times Sheila’s circumstances of birth may have been used as ammunition against her.

The Daily Mail, presumably in its inability to apply some investigative journalism, refers to Sheila’s illness as ‘mild schizophrenia’.  A prime example of ludicrous and dangerous disinformation; though they do confirm that she had ‘not been taking her medication,’ ⁽³⁾

To clarify – there is no such thing as ‘mild’ schizophrenia.  Schizophrenia is either managed or not.  Managed; i.e. on initial diagnosis appropriate medication is prescribed and is often required to be administered by a health practitioner as clients, believing themselves to be well, often refuse to take it.

In the 1980’s treatment would have involved prescribed medication such as Haloperidol, Stelazine or Prolixin; then in addition, when the client was more stable; psychotherapy and group therapy.

I am not familiar with Sheila’s biological mother’s history though statistics indicate that a child whose parent suffers with schizophrenia has about a fifteen percent chance of developing it.  Schizophrenia may also be triggered by trauma or abuse and may develop after pregnancy, sometimes existing misdiagnosed for many months due to 'baby blues' syndrome and post-natal depression.

Co-morbidity:

Sheila used cannabis.  Mental health clients do report that cannabis appears to reduce the impact of the side-effects of medication and restores some general feeling of well-being.  However, cannabis use is known to exacerbate schizophrenic symptoms.

Sheila, in her attempt to follow a modelling career no doubt would have wanted to remain slim and it is well documented that psychotic drugs cause weight gain – as much as three stone.  We know that Sheila had been refusing to take her medication; that combined with cannabis use would have made her a ticking time-bomb.

And from what we know of what happened at White House Farm in the early hours of 7th August 1985; this proved to be the case.

Reference

1) http://www.springerlink.com/content/mr453481p7787004/

2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_Voices_Movement

3)http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-144370/Ex-girlfriend-face-Bamber-dock.html#ixzz1dsuTFG00
AND  
http://www.channel4.com/news/jeremy-bamber-new-evidence-will-set-me-free

McCanns: The Smith Family's Evidence

A MAN WITH A CHILD IN HIS ARMS

May 3rd, after 9.27pm, Dolphin restaurant, Vila da Luz…

The Smiths, from Ireland, are spending their holiday in Praia da Luz. After having dinner at the restaurant, they go to Kelly's bar, 50 metres away. They leave there at around 9.55pm to go back to their apartment in Estrela da Luz, west of the Ocean Club, 300 metres further on. They don't stay late because the next morning one of them has to go back to Ireland. It's a big family, of four adults and five children: the father, aged 58, retired, and his wife; their 12 year-old daughter; their two grand-children aged 10 and 4 (their mother stayed in Ireland); their son accompanied by his wife - who is pregnant - and their two children aged 13 and 6. They go in a northerly direction, the group spreading out; the children are never far away from the adults. There's nobody about. They climb a few steps to reach 25 de Abril street, cross it and turn left into 1 de Maio street, that runs along the west side of the Ocean Club. They haven't gone 30 metres when they come across a man walking up the middle of the road. He is carrying a child in his arms, head resting on his left shoulder. The Smiths don't see the face of the little girl, whose arms hang by her sides. She is dressed in pale-coloured, maybe pink, pyjamas; her feet are bare, she is white and she has blonde hair that covers her neck. The individual's appearance gives the impression that he is not a tourist. He is wearing cream-coloured or beige trousers, classic in style, perhaps linen or cotton. He is a white man, aged around 30 to 35, with no other distinguishing features: he is between 1.70m and 1.80m tall, is visibly in good physical condition; his brown hair is cut short, his face is tanned.

At this time, images of Robert Murat - considered to be the main suspect - begin to be circulated all over the world. After they return to Ireland, the Smiths continue to follow the case. They learn that, according to Jane Tanner's statements, Murat is definitely the man encountered on the night of the abduction. Mr Smith then gets in touch with the Irish police to relate what he saw on the night of May 3rd. He insists, categorically, that the man they came across with the little girl in his arms was not Robert Murat. He is sure of it because he knows him. With hindsight, he is utterly convinced that the little girl was definitely Madeleine. We secretly organise for the Smiths to come to Portugal. On May 26th, in the offices of the Department of Criminal Investigation in Portimao, we interview the father and his son. What they say seems credible. However, because of the dim street lighting, they say they would have a hard time formally recognising the man who was carrying the child. On the other hand, they describe very clearly how the man was holding the little girl and how he was walking. That scene is indelibly printed in their memory. After their interview, they went back to the scene, accompanied by investigators. They indicate the precise place where they came across the man.

Their coming to Portugal as well as their statements are kept secret. Within a few days, they go back to Ireland, but contact is maintained: they undertake to let us have any further details they remember. We finally have credible witness statements about that stranger who, on the night of May 3rd, was walking in the streets of Vila da Luz with a child in his arms.

The McCann couple return to Great Britain after more than four months spent in the Algarve. It's an almost triumphant return. The media coverage is such that you'd think you were witnessing the liberation of hostages held for years in a far-off country. Gerald McCann is shown on television carrying his son, as he descends from the plane. The child's head is against Gerald's left shoulder and his arms dangling by his sides. Gerald walks across the tarmac, still holding his son closely against himself. 

In Ireland, the Smiths are watching the BBC news, which is broadcasting the event. For them, it's a shock: that person, they recognise him. That way of carrying his child, that way of walking...It's the man they saw at around 10pm on May 3rd, with a little girl, who seemed to be deeply asleep, in his arms. 

This image, brings back with a jolt, that of the man they encountered in the streets of Vila da Luz, on the evening of Madeleine's disappearance. It's as if the scene is repeating itself ....Mr Smith thinking he's hallucinating, sees the same report on other channels, ITV and Sky News. From that moment, he is sure: the man they came across that night was Gerald McCann. Of that there is very little doubt. Upset by the implications of this discovery, he alerts the police and waits to be called back by those in charge of the investigation.

When we receive this information, at the end of September, we think we finally have the piece that will allow us to complete the puzzle. Because of this, we may be able to reconstruct the course of events on that cold night of May 3rd in Vila da Luz. We have a better understanding of why Jane Tanner, "sent," the alleged abductor in the opposite direction to that taken by the man seen by the Smith family. Suspicion had to be diverted from Gerald who - if he was the guilty party - would have taken this route: leaving apartment 5A, the individual who was carrying the child, did not go east, towards Murat's house, but west in the direction of the beach. 

We decide to get the Smiths back to the Algarve, for a formal identification of Gerry McCann - by means of televised images, certainly - direct confrontation being impossible - and possibly proceed to a reconstruction of the events of the night of May 3rd. The National Director of the Judiciary police agrees, the process is set in motion, all the details are sorted out; all that remains is to choose the hotel where they will be put up. But the Smiths were never to come back to Portugal. After my departure, the PJ were to change their minds. They asked the Irish police to proceed with interviewing the witness. That decision was to seriously delay the process since the Smiths were not interviewed until several months later. Meanwhile, rumours were to circulate and people not involved with the investigation would be made aware of the existence of this witness; someone allegedly even sought out contact with the family, without its being known to what end.

Lest We Forget: On Remembrance Sunday...

Remembrance Sunday; with my two Whippets I set out on our daily constitutional.  Making our way up the High Street I could see the road ahead was closed off, just before the Anglican Church where a few dozen or so people had gathered on the pavement outside.  I walked quietly through the midst of them giving the occasional grin and nod – my Whippets followed suit.  Heard a mumbled, ’Show some respect’.  Well!  Red-rag-to-a-bull for me though I kept my cool and did not respond.  But it stirred in me again the fury I try to contain when I see people being used in their ignorance to promulgate government propaganda that war is somehow worthwhile and that we are a benevolent force intending to defend ourselves by fostering democracy in countries where there is none.

World War 1(WW1) and World War 11(WW11) were, maybe, a necessary evil.  And even if the motive was greed and not justice and freedom from a fascist regime, at least most Brits believed our ‘boys’ were fighting to keep Great Britain safe from Nazi Germany.  Little though was publicised as to the loss of life incurred on all sides.  Figures show that the total number of people killed during WW1 was sixteen and a half million, of whom twelve million were civilians ^(1).  Having learnt nothing it seems we entered into WWII where we and our enemies managed to annihilate up to seventy two million, an estimated fifty million of whom, were civilians^(2).

And this culture of war continues...oh except that now everyone's a terrorist and we call it the 'war-on-terror'.

There was little support in the UK for the war in Iraq.  Thousands protested nationwide.  Bush and his gang started talking about Al-Qaeda and along with British Prime Minister Tony Blair's misleading statement that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction which could be released within forty five minutes, set the scene for what is now known to have been an illegal war.

David Kelly, in 2003 was a British weapons inspector in Iraq.  He was deliberately named in relation to the famous ‘sexed-up dossier’ implying that the British government knew that the forty five minute claim was false.

David Kelly died – suddenly – a suicide.

Depending on which survey one refers to it seems likely that in the first two years of the Anglo-American instigated invasion of Iraq, over one million people were killed and several hundred thousand maimed and injured – the majority being women and children caught in the path of cluster-bombs.

British MP Robin Cook, in 2005 helpfully informed us that the term 'Al-Qaeda' simply meant 'computer data-base' and was the product of Western intelligence, set up by the CIA in 1980; to keep a record of the Mujaheddin whom they funded to purchase weapons and trained to fight the Russians.

Robin Cook died - a month or so later – suddenly – a heart attack.

War is big business.  There has been much murmured about the UK’s involvement in supplying weapons, in particular cluster-bombs, for dubious causes. Prime Minister David Cameron was suspected of killing two birds with one stone on that account when he apparently took advantage of the Libyan eruption to negotiate the sale of weapons.

Years previously in 1997 it was the land-mine and cluster bomb issue that Princess Diana was campaigning against, particularly in Angola.  Oh what a tangled web that was.  The Angolan conflict,  represented in the media as a civil war between opposing political groups, I am informed was in fact perpetrated by both Anglo-American and Russian interests – in order to gain control of Angolan raw mineral reserves including oil and diamonds.  Whilst three quarters of the Angolan people lived in poverty on less than a dollar a day the British government turned a blind-eye in favour of a good deal on cheap Angolan oil.  Five hundred thousand Angolans were killed and thousands more maimed.  Princess Diana eventually persuaded President Clinton to agree to join her campaign against land-mines.

Princess Diana died - a month or so later – suddenly - a car crash and Clinton changed his mind.

The numbers of deaths and mutilations continue to rise due to the twenty million land-mines which still lay buried in Angolan soil.

According to author, Jon King,

’ …since the early 1970’s, MI6 acting on behalf of the Royal Establishment and its Neo-Colonial cartel of Africa-based corporations and NGO’s has been secretly financing and equipping teams of mercenaries to carry out its dirty work in Angola………….at least in part to ensure the Royal Family’s vested financial interests there.’

I observe our world-scene. Two thirds if its inhabitants starving when there is more than enough for all. I feel impotent when faced with images of bony, pot-bellied, bog-eyed babies infested with insects and ask myself, ‘Why doesn’t the ‘democratic’ West go and ‘invade’ and ‘rescue’ them from their tyrannical and selfish leaders? And I am saddened, embarrassed and disgusted at my own reply,

‘Cos there’s nothing in it for us!

1. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_died_in_World_War_1#ixzz1dgHCOIqe
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
3. King, Beveridge (2010) Princess Diana, The Evidence, SPI

Jeremy Bamber: Moderator - CCRC letter

Poppy Ann Miller

Psychodynamic*Psychosomatic Counsellor 

MBACP MFHCP

29 October 2011

by email complaints@ccrc.x.gsi.gov.uk

Hard copy: Recorded Delivery

Criminal Cases Review Commission

5 St Philip's Place

Birmingham

B3 2PW

Dear Sir/Madam,

Re:                  R v Bamber 1986 IPCC Case number 2011/015691

I write to you due to my grave concerns regarding recent information I have received which I have reason to believe will prove that the trial of Jeremy Bamber was flawed resulting in an unsafe verdict.

Documents relating to the investigation were ‘inadvertently’ sent to Jeremy Bamber.  It is clear that these documents were intended never to be in the public arena for reasons which will be made clear upon reading them.

Jeremy’s most recent sixteen page letter to me provides an in-depth account of what he has found within these documents.  Jeremy’s letters are handwritten.  He writes in detail including reference and exhibit numbers and he has the written evidence to support every statement he makes.

I believe it is crucial that this information is placed in your hands as it shows beyond doubt that Jeremy’s trial was tainted; that witnesses perjured themselves also that Essex Police and others including the City of London Police falsified or withheld evidence which would have supported Jeremy’s continued pleas of his innocence.  Jeremy states on more than one occasion, ‘I have the documents to prove it’.  The text in italics are direct quotes from Jeremy’s letter and of his findings within these documents

‘COLP (City of London Police) discovered that Glynis Howard and her assistant Leslie Tucker; John Hayward and his assistant, Andrew Palmer; Brian Elliott and his assistant, Louise Float and Malcolm Fletcher all signed a set of falsified documents for a second sound moderator to create a chain of evidence paper trail capable of deceiving the jury and it did.......I have their lab notes.’

‘They(sound moderators) are both the same, Parker-Hale MM1 type and someone simply took SBJ/1 out of its cardboard tube packaging and slipped in DB/1 that had been contaminated with red paint from the scene.

‘And in any event they admitted this to COLP in 1991 but COLP and Essex Police just covered it up under PII.  John Hayward took photos of SBJ/1 on 12th Sept ’85, well him and his assistant Andrew Palmer, COLP showed these photos to Brian Elliott in 1991 and asked, “Is that the same sound moderator you examined?” 

Elliott replied as follows;

‘Well, the one I examined had red paint flakes impacted into the pattern on the knurled end.  Also, the one I examined had a large piece of adhesive tape with flakes of red paint stuck to it, that was stuck along the sound moderator as you can see in the drawing my assistant made on 25/Sept/’85.’

Jeremy adds, ‘and you can see it’.

‘Everyone examined the sound moderator under a microscope as well as by eye and it’s clear that the first one SBJ/1 had blood on it and this smear of red paint and the second one DB/1 was switched with SBJ/1 after being sent to the lab on 20/Sept/85.’

‘I can prove every word of the above – I have all the PII primary documents showing exactly how my relatives and Essex Police and the forensic scientists at Huntingdon and COLP and PCA (now the IPCC) all worked together to either directly corrupt the sound moderator evidence or actively assisted in concealing that Essex Police found SBJ/1 and it was switched between 20th and 25th Sept ’85 at Huntingdon Forensic Laboratory with DB/1 that had been used to scratch and score the kitchen mantle shelf at White House Farm to falsely implicate me as a murderer. ....I have the documents showing that it was.......These are the document references: Exhibit signed by Glynis Howard, Malcolm Fletcher, John Hayward and Brian Elliott:- ‘Police Crime Number’ SC/786/85, ‘Description of Article ‘Silencer’ DB/1, crossed out, and DRB/1 in brackets:- Serial Number 22, as the identification marker.’

I would plead for justice here.  Jeremy Bamber has been imprisoned for twenty six years for a crime which can only have been carried out by someone of a deranged mind and for which he has always maintained his innocence even to the extent of passing a polygraph test along with twenty seven psychiatric tests, all of which found no evidence of mental ill health or psychopathy.

After reading this evidence, to incarcerate him for a day longer would constitute an act of the most heinous kind adding further to the injustice of what must be the longest known miscarriage of justice in England.

It is not an unreasonable request that this matter be treated with the utmost urgency and I await your response.

Yours faithfully,

Poppy Ann Miller

Cc. COLP, IPCC, Theresa May Home Secretary, Kenneth Clarke Sec of State, David Cameron Prime Minister, John Whittingdale MP