Jeremy
Bamber
IS
INNOCENT
IMPRISONED
FOR 29 YEARS FOR A CRIME HE COULD NOT HAVE COMMITTED
Find out more about why, visit
his official site and know the TRUTH
Friday, 21 December 2012
Tuesday, 18 December 2012
Jeremy Bamber: My latest letter to John Whittingdale MP
The following is my letter to my MP John Whittingdale regarding Jeremy's recent discovery of police event logs recorded on the night of the murders at White House Farm.
The logs themselves cannot be published at the moment, for legal reasons though I have sent copies to John Whittingdale who is the member of parliament for Maldon and surrounding area which includes Tolleshunt D'Arcy. As such Whittingdale is also Jeremy's MP though states that as Jeremy is incarcerated in HM Full Sutton in Yorkshire this no longer applies, regardless of which he believes Jeremy's guilty verdict is safe.
London
SW1A 0AA
Enc;
Essex Police logs
The logs themselves cannot be published at the moment, for legal reasons though I have sent copies to John Whittingdale who is the member of parliament for Maldon and surrounding area which includes Tolleshunt D'Arcy. As such Whittingdale is also Jeremy's MP though states that as Jeremy is incarcerated in HM Full Sutton in Yorkshire this no longer applies, regardless of which he believes Jeremy's guilty verdict is safe.
Poppy Ann Miller
Address provided
14 December 2012
John
Whittingdale MP
House
of CommonsLondon
SW1A 0AA
Dear
Mr Whittingdale,
I
write to you again as my MP to request that you bring to the notice
of Parliament the continued injustice in relation to the
incarceration of an innocent man, Jeremy Bamber.
As
you may recall I have previously corresponded with you via letter and
email as well attending your surgery to express my concerns regarding
this case. You have persistently informed me that you can do nothing
and that in any case you believe Jeremy Bamber to be guilty of the
murder of his family. My opinion is that you could be prejudiced due
to other factors, nevertheless I have been informed that it is quite
within the remit of an MP to voice the concerns of myself, as your
constituent, in Parliament, especially as I have provided you with
documentary evidence to support my concerns. As an example I refer
to Andrew Hunter who, as an MP in 2005, raised the issue of Essex
Police refusal to disclose relevant and crucial evidence which would
categorically have been of benefit to Jeremy Bamber's defence team at
his trial and Appeals. I have also forwarded you copies of
documentation including Essex Police statements which bring into
question the honesty of certain witnesses including Jeremy Bamber's
relatives.
I
have recently seen further Essex Police telephone logs, recorded
through the night of the murders and it is clear that Essex Police
created a manuscript copy of the original, which were used in order
to pervert the course of justice. Please find enclosed.
I
again request that you raise this matter in Parliament with some
urgency. Jeremy Bamber has been imprisoned for twenty seven years,
over half his life time, for a crime that both he and Essex Police
know he could not have committed.
Yours
sincerely,
cc
David Cameron PM Nick Clegg DPM
Enc
Essex Police logs
cc
David Cameron PM Nick C
Friday, 14 December 2012
Jermy Bamber: Appeal rejection
Although I despise the negative terminology used in regard to Jeremy in much of the press, I do believe that public opinion is valuable and whilst Jeremy remains in the media there is hope that people will read the real evidence which shows beyond all doubt that Jeremy could not have committed the murders for which he has been unjustly imprisoned for twenty seven years.
In order to change public opinion, first you have to gain their attention.
Poppy Ann Miller
Tolleshunt D'Arcy: Bamber vows to fight on after latest appeal rejection
Attrib: 11:00am Saturday 8th December 2012 in Countywide news Essex County Standard Edited:
Tolleshunt D'Arcy: Bamber vows to fight on after latest appeal rejection Bamber, 51, was jailed for life in 1986 for the murders of his parents June and Nevill, his adopted sister Sheila Caffell, 27, and her twin sons Nicholas and Daniel at the family farm in Tolleshunt D’Arcy.
Bamber has always protested his innocence claiming it was Sheila, who was a schizophrenic, who killed the family before turning the gun on herself.
Bamber is calling for a third appeal against his conviction.
However, the Criminal Cases Review Commission refused to refer his application.
Bamber’s legal team challenged the decision and applied for permission to seek a judicial review.
However, last Thursday, at the High Court, his application was refused by Sir John Thomas, president of the Queen's Bench Division, and Mr Justice Globe.
SEE THE STANDARD FOR THE FULL STORY
http://www.essexcountystandard.co.uk/search/?page=1&searchpattern=Jeremy+Bamber
Saturday, 1 December 2012
Thursday, 29 November 2012
Jeremy Bamber's latest action against conviction fails
Jeremy Bamber's latest action against conviction
fails
Jeremy Bamber's appeal was
heard by two High Court judges
Killer Jeremy Bamber has failed in
his latest High Court action to overturn a conviction for murdering five
relatives 27 years ago in Essex.
Two judges in London rejected a judicial review application.
Bamber challenged a refusal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) to refer his case back to the Court of Appeal as a miscarriage of justice.
The CCRC, an independent body which investigates possible miscarriages, rejected Bamber's last appeal in April.
The decision on Thursday follows a single judge rejecting Bamber's application for permission to seek judicial review of the CCRC's decision after he studied the case papers in private.
Complex investigation
Bamber made a renewed application dealt with by Sir John Thomas, president of the Queen's Bench Division, and Mr Justice Globe.
Announcing the decision, Sir John said that having looked at the approach taken by the CCRC in the case he could not see "any way" in which a challenge could be made to the decision reached.
"It seems to me that a challenge is impossible to mount," he said.
The 51-year-old who is serving a whole-life term for the 1985 killings at a remote Essex farmhouse, has always protested his innocence.
In April, the CCRC said that despite a lengthy and complex investigation, it had not "identified any evidence or legal argument that it considers capable of raising a real possibility that the Court of Appeal would quash the convictions".
Bamber and two other killers have also started an appeal in the European Court of Human Rights against spending the rest of their lives in prison, claiming a breach of human rights.
Read Jeremy's response: http://jeremybamber.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/uk-high-court-ruling-29th-november-2012.html
Monday, 19 November 2012
Jeremy Bamber: 28th November 2012 - EU Grand Chamber Appeal
Attrib: Written and edited by Jeremy Bamber
On the 28th of November 2012, the European Grand Chamber will hear the appeal against my whole life tariff along with two other cases, Vinter and Moore.
It is my position that the UK Government is in breach of Article 3 and article 5 (4) of the European Convention on Human Rights by imposing a whole life sentence without review, this amounts to ‘inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.’ But what does this actually mean? In light of the January ruling that whole life tariff's are not in breach of human rights law, the only appropriate submission my legal team could make to the Grand Chamber is that there is no problem with a government applying a mandatory whole life sentence, but the breach of Human Rights Law lies within there being no mechanism for review of the prisoner’s whole life sentence. It is then asserted, (and it is also my particular view) that a whole life order then becomes parallel with a death sentence. To order someone to die is to permanently exclude them from society and it then follows that to sentence a person to whole life imprisonment is also permanent social exclusion. Social death is a dimension of the slavery which replaced death in Classical society, and was and still is intrinsically linked to loss of liberty. [1] As I have stated many times, I have been sentenced to death by old age. This leads us to the psychological state of those incarcerated for whole life without reviews. It has been clarified by psychologists including those assessing me that I am at continued risk of having depression brought about the prolonged environment of prison.[2] I am in total agreement about life without hope, after all hope is what keeps the human spirit alive and without hope there is nothing. For me, even with the insertion of a review there is still very little hope of release. If the Grand Chamber rule to allow me to have reviews there is no knowing at what point a review could be placed, it might be at 30 or 40 years into a sentence. As I have maintained innocence, there lies the other difficulty of reviewing my prison term in light of this. Because I have maintained innocence I have not taken part in any rehabilitation programmes and neither can I be viewed as a prisoner who has gained atonement. The judiciary and review boards see me as being in denial of guilt. So when the European Court of Human Rights ruled against my appeal at Strasbourg in Janurary 2012, the three dissenting judges emphasised that Article 3 was being infringed and their words rang true for me, “equally importantly depriving him of any hope for the future, however tenuous that hope may be.” Tenuous, really is how I feel about this ruling even if we win in the Grand Chamber. After this digression, nevertheless the argument my lawyers have put forward is that this treatment, taking into account psychological effects does amount to inhuman and degrading treatment. To this I have to agree wholeheartedly, respect for ‘hope’ an essential dimension of human dignity does underpin the protection of human rights. [3] In the USA and China the death penalty still exists in contrast to Canada where there is no death penalty and no whole life sentencing. The USA, similarly to England and Wales currently has the sentence of ‘Life Without Parole’ (LWOP) and in Florida the US Supreme Court commented broadly on the destructive impact of this sentence “It deprives the convict of the most basic liberties without giving hope of restoration.[4] If you have always felt that England and Wales are soft on sentencing then think again because the statistics show otherwise. The position is that all majority state parties of Europe rule that life sentences must have reviews.[5] Only England and Wales and Hungary have an authentically irreducible whole life sentence, England and Wales with almost 21 times more life sentenced prisoners than any other single European country and We currently have more whole life sentence prisoners than all of Europe put together. [6] The first whole life tariff in the UK was set in 1988, and in 2003 reviews at executive discretion for these prisoners was abolished (under a Labour government).[7] Although Scotland’s sentencing is generally similar to England and Wales their human rights laws were brought into line with Europe at the time of the devolution of powers.[8] Whole life tariff prisoners cannot be subject to a prerogative pardon. The only mechanism for release of a prisoner (other than to overturn their conviction) on a whole life sentence in England and Wales is granted in exceptional circumstances, where the prisoner is medically incapacitated with death to occur within 3 months and no life sentence prisoner has ever been released under this or any other power in England and Wales. This exception compounds the view that a whole life sentence is literally a death sentence.[9] As I am not guilty of the crimes I have been convicted of carrying out, where do I fit in all of this? Currently the only avenue to appeal is through the politically controlled quango of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. When this avenue is exhausted because the commission has usurped the role of the appeal courts and is in violation of the Criminal Appeals act 1995, and non disclosure of evidential materials still prevails, surely this is a violation of both Article 3 and 5(4) of European Human Rights Law, and should be taken into consideration when assessing whole life sentences. As crime is intrinsically tied to sentencing it is axiomatic that the problem of Miscarriage of Justice cases could be expanded within this framework simply because a Miscarriage of Justice in UK law does not allow for innocence but only a “miscarriage of due process.”[10] If we are to believe the statistics quoted by Dr Michael Naughton as opposed to the Government’s ‘massaged figures’ we face a very worrying situation indeed. Naughton reveals that there are no less than 18 convictions a day over turned in the UK which is an astonishing figure warranting a full review of the causes of wrongful convictions.[11] Indeed Naughton himself states: “miscarriages of justice as understood from the perspective of the legal system are not the exception to the rule, rather they are a routine and even mundane feature of the criminal justice process.”[12] It is of course, with my own conviction and these statistics in mind when I consider what a whole life sentence means to the individuals living a ‘social death’ as I do each day. But whatever happens on the 28th of November this year it will make little difference to my current life, release for me with my conviction intact means no life at all. There is only one freedom and one hope for me and that is that the truth of my innocence will be heard in a court of Law allowing me the liberty I have been fighting for.
[1] Patterson, O. Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982
[2] Dr Anderson Report, 2006
[3]“reintergrationist” versus “exclusionary” types of imprisonment, Dolovich, pg 13 & 122; Life Without Parole, Ed Ogletree and Sarat, NYU Press, 2012. Absence of a “dignity tradition” comparative study USA, Europe, pg 19 & 282-310, op cit.
[4]Graham v Florida 130, S.Ct. 2011, 2021 (2010) at 2027 & Naovarath v State, 105 Nev. 525, 526, 779 P.2d 944 (1989), at pg 4 &40
[5] http://treaties.un.org & UN report on Life Imprisonment (1994)
[6]Stats prisoners serving life or IPP http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/statistics/prison-probation/omsq/omsq-q1-2012.pdf, The Howard, Newsletter of the Howard League for Penal Reform, Summer 2009, http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/prisons/& Hansard, Baroness Stern at Col 448 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/
[7]Provisions of CJA 2003
[8]Convention rights (Compliance) (Scotland) Act 2001 c.7
[9]PSO, 4700, para, 12.2.1
[10]Naughton, M. Rethinking Miscarriages of Justice, 2012 edition, Palgrave, Basingstoke, pp 21-24
[11]Daily average in Crown Court, CACD (including referrals from the CCRC) and House of Lords, 18.21, op cit.
"At my trial Judge Drake gave a minimum tariff, and providing that during your jail you do nothing wrong that is how long you do. I was given 25 years. This was then sent to the Lord Chief Justice to be rubber stamped. Lord Lane said he agreed with the 25 year tariff.
So as far as I was concerned I had to serve 25 years and I’d be let out on parole to serve my life license outside. Very few lifers are kept in forever. When I got my life sentence most lifers then were serving between 8 and 12 years, so 25 years was massive.  Eight years into my sentence I was called up to the psychology office in Long Lartin, about 8 different people were there and it was very odd. The number one Governor said ‘I don’t know how to break this to you but Doulglass Hurd, (who was Secretary for State at the time) has ruled that you must die in jail.’ I appealed this ruling last year and I knew that the appeal court would not act on this as it was too political so they kicked it up the line to The European Court who have now agreed to prioritise my case. This ruling will just confirm how cruel the authorities are telling a man he is to die in jail as hope is what keeps the human spirit alive – without hope there is nothing. It is only because I am strong that I can and could see beyond the action of Michael Howard (Home Secretary at the time who wrote to notify me) in telling me my last breath would be staring at a prison door".
See the blog by Jeremy on the ruling that his original sentence no longer stands and that the whole life tariff imposed after his sentence was set has not been overturned by the European Court of Human Rights. Jeremy intends to take the appeal to the Grand Chamber of the European Court.
'The enormity of the universe can make us feel so small but there is nothing greater than our own capacity to endure.' Jeremy Bamber September, 2012
|
Tuesday, 13 November 2012
Thursday, 8 November 2012
HIV and AIDS: Causes: Conflicting evidence and research
Over 1000 people per day, in Africa alone, die of AIDS.
Why?
The course and cause of this often fatal illness is still not an exact science yet the rumour is that it is a disease attributable to the so called sexually deviant.
Research is providing evidence to refute this, yet the stigma remains.
Some believe AIDS was deliberately introduced via a chemical warfare scheme.
This film attempts to identify the causes of AIDS, its treatment and implications.
Why?
The course and cause of this often fatal illness is still not an exact science yet the rumour is that it is a disease attributable to the so called sexually deviant.
Research is providing evidence to refute this, yet the stigma remains.
Some believe AIDS was deliberately introduced via a chemical warfare scheme.
This film attempts to identify the causes of AIDS, its treatment and implications.
Wednesday, 7 November 2012
BBC NEWS Jeremy Bamber 'to renew murder convictions challenge'
6 November
2012 Last updated at 14:09
Jeremy Bamber 'to renew murder convictions challenge'
A judge turned down Jeremy
Bamber's latest appeal bid
Jeremy Bamber is to
renew his legal bid to challenge his convictions for murdering five relatives
more than 25 years ago.
Bamber, 51, is serving a whole-life sentence for shooting dead five members
of his family in Essex in 1985.
He had lost a bid to challenge the Criminal Cases Review Commission's (CCRC)
decision not to send his case to the Court of Appeal last month.
A Judicial Office spokesman said Bamber would renew his application.
He said the new legal bid would made in an open court hearing.
Bamber has always protested his innocence and claims his schizophrenic sister
Sheila Caffell shot her family before turning the gun on herself in a remote
Essex farmhouse.
He was granted an appeal in 2002, after the case was referred by the CCRC,
but the appeal was later dismissed.
The CCRC is an independent body which investigates the safety of convictions
and any possible miscarriages of justice.
After studying the case papers in private, a single judge turned down
Bamber's application last month.
Announcing its decision in April, the CCRC said it had not identified "any
evidence or legal argument that it considers capable of raising a real
possibility that the Court of Appeal would quash the convictions".
Bamber's latest application is unlikely to be heard before the New
Year.
Monday, 22 October 2012
Jeremy Bamber: New Forensic Evidence....
Yet CCRC refuse permission to Appeal. WHY? Only possible reason, 'they' do not want the truth out.....the following is evidence that based on the trial judge's conclusions this conviction is unsafe:
1. The sound moderator: (sometimes referred to as a silencer).
The trial judge told the jury repeatedly in his summing up that they could convict Jeremy Bamber on the evidence of the sound moderator alone, for two reasons:
· Because it contained traces of the blood enzyme (AK-1) found to be in Sheila’s blood · Because there were flakes of red paint adhering to the end. The judge said that “it was inconceivable that Sheila would use the moderator during part of the tragedy and then take if off and put it in the gun cupboard where it was later found. He also said that the red paint was proof that the moderator was attached to the rifle during the incident. “On that fact alone you could convict” he said.  The moderator did not “connect” Jeremy with the deaths of his family, it merely meant that if it was on the rifle when Sheila suffered her injuries, then she did not commit suicide. At the 2002 appeal, forensic scientists testified that none of Sheila’s DNA was present either inside or outside the moderator, but the court found that there were possible contamination issues relating to DNA testing and the moderator, and accordingly this appeal point was lost. 2. New forensic evidence from American expert Dr Fowler, ( plus two peer reviewers) found that the fatal gun shot wound to Sheila’s neck was a contact wound. This wound was caused when the end of the rifle’s barrel was in contact with her skin, and not caused by the end of the moderator as the court was told. Dr Fowler’s evidence has been confirmed through experimentation by ballistics expert Mr Philip Boyce. The CCRC reject this evidence from four credible experts stating that their conclusions are “speculation” and incapable of forming a ground of appeal. 3. Burn marks to Nevill Bamber’s back. The judge said in his summing up that it was “a fact” that the moderator was on the rifle in the kitchen. New evidence from Dr Caruso, a leading burns specialist confirms that Nevill’s burn injuries were made by the end of the rifle’s barrel. They were not made by the end of the moderator. Forensic tests and experiments have been carried out by ballistic expert Mr Philip Boyce which has confirmed the conclusions of Dr Caruso. Scientific evidence from five credible experts makes it very unlikely that the moderator was on the rifle during this tragic incident. Evidence strongly suggests that Nevill was burnt with the end of the rifle’s barrel either after death or when he was completely incapacitated. In 2011 the defence discovered that Essex Police had instructed Mr Fletcher (pre-trial) to test whether the burns to Nevill’s back were caused by the end of the rifle’s barrel, or the end of the moderator. It was suggested that he used pig skin for these experiments. The results from Mr Fletcher’s tests have never been disclosed. 4. Scratch marks under the red painted kitchen mantle shelf correspond to the red paint found adhering to the end of the moderator. In light of Dr Caruso’s evidence, Dr Fowler’s evidence and newly disclosed photographs it is reasonable to question the scratch mark evidence afresh. It is also known that more than one moderator features in this case. Evidence now shows that there are five or possibly six moderators in total. Essex Police maintain that there is only a single moderator associated with this case, which oddly has at least three different forensic reference numbers, DB-1, SBJ-1 and DRB-1, and two case numbers, SC688-85 and SC786-85. The moderator was also noticed to be visually different each time it was forensically examined. During a post trial investigation, two of the Crown’s forensic scientists discovered that Essex Police had altered the moderator’s exhibit reference numbers in the witness statements without their permission or knowledge. The City of London Police concluded in their final report that the changes of exhibit reference numbers relating to the moderator was an administrative error, and a need to change DB-1 to DRB-1. The CCRC concluded that this explanation was perfectly acceptable. Both the City of London Police and the CCRC fail to explain why it was necessary to alter the moderator’s original and unique exhibit reference number, and the case number once one had been allocated to it. “Administrative error” is not applicable as a possible defence in this instance. Accordingly an adverse inference can be drawn over Essex Police altering statements without the knowledge or permission of these two forensic scientists, unless that is, a credible explanation for this is given to explain matters further. 5. Scratch marks which appear in photographs taken on 12th September 1985 of the red painted Aga surround, are not present in photographs taken on 7th August 1985, of the same Aga surround.  Peter Sutherst a leading photometrist confirmed this, but his conclusions were challenged by Mr Andy Laws of LGC Forensic, as being inconclusive. To resolve matters, accurate measurements would be required from the kitchen of White House Farm. The CCRC failed to resolve this issue by not instructing Mr Laws to carry out these measurements, (accompanied by Mr Sutherst) so this issue remains unresolved. In July 2011 the CCRC finally disclosed to the defence for the first time, 402 photographic negatives that supposedly accounted for all the photographs taken by the police in this case. Oddly 77 photographic frames have been cut from these 63 rolls of film. The CCRC accept the explanation given by Essex Police that unused frames at the end of a roll of film would be cut off routinely. DC Bird, the photographer was surprised by this explanation. The CCRC have failed to address the fact that some of these strips of negatives are missing up to eight frames at the beginning of these films, which is not explained by stating that they were removed because they were unused. All of these 402 negatives have now been scanned at high resolution enlarging kitchen photographs taken on 12th September 1985. It shows that the Aga surround was scratched and gouged during the taking of these photographs. An explanation was sought from both Essex Police and the CCRC about how the red painted Aga surround came to be scratched and gouged on 12th September 1985. A complaint about this scratch mark issue has also been made to the IPCC, who granted dispensation to Essex Police so this matter has yet to be investigated. Fresh evidence from Dr Caruso and Dr Fowler now shows that the trial judge was quite wrong to tell the jury that it was “a fact” that the moderator was on the rifle during this incident. Expert scientific analysis of the same evidence used by the Crown’s experts at trial proves that the jury was misled over the sound moderator evidence. Mr Philip Boyce has carried out numerous forensic experiments confirming that Dr Caruso and Dr Fowler’s conclusions are correct, and Dr Fowler’s work has been peer reviewed twice, by credible experts, who agree with his findings. The CCRC are wrong to dismiss the evidence from five very eminent scientists as no more than “speculation,” without experts of their own confirming this with their own findings. To date the evidence of Dr Fowler and Dr Caruso remains unchallenged. |
Monday, 1 October 2012
JeremyBamber: The Ladies Bicycle
The Prosecution’s case was that Jeremy Bamber had left his house in Head Street, Goldhanger and walked to White House Farm after 12pm to carry out the killings. In a fantastic story unsupported by evidence, he allegedly walked the route across farm land to White House Farm to murder his family. He broke into the house through a window (even though there was no evidence of a forced entry and the doors were locked and bolted from the inside). It is then alleged that after carrying out the killings he used his mothers bicycle to return to his home across farmland in the pitch black of night. The police forensically tested the bicycle and found there to be no blood or forensic evidence linking Jeremy to the crime in any way. The bicycle belonged to Jeremy's mother but had had been brought to Jeremy’s house for Julie Mugford to use so that she could cycle from Goldhanger to Toleshunt D'arcy, leaving the bike at the Red Lion Pub. She would then get the Osbourne's bus which runs from Tollesbury to Colchester.
A police officer gave evidence of timings between the two houses using farmland routes. The journeys were not replicated at night time as Jeremy Bamber is alleged to have done, neither were they carried out by a man of the same weight, height and build as Jeremy. The accuracy of the tests is highly debatable. Remember, Jeremy Bamber, nor anyone meeting his description was seen on any of the routes by anyone that night, his car remained at his house in Goldhanger until he drove to White House Farm to meet police.
Extracts from the police officer’s statement.
“With the aid of these maps I measured the distance, using a pedometer, from White House Farm to 9 Head Street, Goldhanger, via the farm track and sea wall. This route measured 6,978 metres and at a brisk walk took 70 minutes to complete. I subsequently cycled this route in 35 minutes.
I then measured the distance, using a pedometer, from 9 Head Street, Goldhanger to Brook House Farm track at its junction with Maldon Road via Church Street and the B1026. This route measured 2895 metres and at a brisk walk took 28 minutes to complete. I subsequently cycled this route in 10 minutes.
I then measured the distance, using a pedometer, from Brook House Farm Track at its junction with Maldon Road to White House Farm via B1026 and B1023. This route measured 3290 metres and at a brisk walk took 30 minutes to complete. I subsequently cycled this route in 12 minutes.
I then measured the distance, with a pedometer, from White House Farm to Maldon Road via Brook House Farm track. This route measured 1629 metres and at a brisk walk took 17 minutes to complete. This track is well maintained, clearly defined, and easily negotiable by foot, cycle or motor vehicle. I subsequently cycled this route in 6 minutes.
There are footpaths marked on the Ordnance Survey map which seem to link White House Farm and Goldhanger in a direct manner via Joyces Farm and Lauriston Farm. However I have attempted to negotiate these footpaths but without success. The paths go directly across ploughed fields or cultivated crops or peter out on the banks of small streams and irrigation canals.
In my opinion the shortest practicable route between White House Farm and Goldhanger without using main roads is via the sea wall. However, the shortest and quickest practicable route between White House Farm and Goldhanger by foot, cycle or motor vehicle is by using Brook House Farm track and the B1026. This route is 1661 metres less than going through Tolleshunt D'Arcy.”
The routes detailed here mostly involve going on a road, and yet no one saw anything. The footpaths away from the road were not negotiable. The sea wall is a narrow route with a drop into water on one side. Is it realistic to believe that Jeremy Bamber mounted a ladies bicycle and cycled across routes that were partly overgrown and he did all this in the pitch black in a matter of minutes?
Jeremy Bamber detailed television programmes that he watched before he went to sleep and these were accurate, the police checked his video tapes to see if he had recorded them and watched them later but there were no such recordings made by Jeremy Bamber and that’s because he watched the T.V programmes just as he said and went to sleep where he stayed until his father called him. The story of a bicycle journey across farmland is a ridiculous and exaggerated story invented by the prosecution, fed to them by the suggestions of Robert Boutflour and Ann Eaton who benefitted from Jeremy’s conviction. Evidence which alleged that someone other than Sheila had carried out the killings was found by his relatives. To find out more read Jeremy’s interview with The Times here.
Oh. Now thoroughly clean the cycle so that not one of your fingerprints or fibres from your clothing or shoes or hair or any of your forensic evidence remains.... Attrib:http://www.jeremy-bamber.co.uk/ |
Friday, 21 September 2012
Jeremy Bamber's Blog: Plans to televise interview....
We are currently going through the process of applying for permissions for me to have a televised interview at Full Sutton which will be the first instance in the UK where a prisoner wrongly convicted will be able to argue their case to a national audience. There is absolutely no question that the interview will not go ahead as planned as there are so many reasons why it must be done. Primarily it is in the public interest for the new evidence to be discussed and for the first time ever I will be able to defend myself personally against my conviction. This will pave the way for exposure of other miscarriages of justice cases, and encourage greater transparency of the judiciary where information is deliberately kept under wraps through the means of stifling the voice of those maintaining innocence.
The
IPCC and Essex Police have recently logged further criminal acts by
police in my case bringing the total number of complaints made to
them in the past 18 months to well over one hundred. This time
though I am convinced that the IPCC will rule against the request
from Essex police for further dispensations to be applied to retired
officers and instead order an outside force to investigate police
misconduct.
The
documents we now hold electronically consist of 3.5 million pages
and these include copies of material from all different judicial
departments and investigations, no one hold’s all of these
documents in one place collectively and this puts us in a really
strong position, the case files are made up of the following: Home
Office files, CPS files, Forensic Science Services files, Appeal
Court files, all of my barrister’s files, my solicitors files, my
own files, the IPCC files, The CCRC files, The Dickinson Enquiry
files, The Metropolitan Police (Stokenchurch files), Civil Case
files, Judicial Reviews, a copy of the police HOLMES 2 computer
files, also media files, correspondence files and research files as
well as law reports, forensic expert files, photographs and material
from my prison files. No one else has all of this material in one
place. If you were to start reading our database today – reading
500 pages each day, every day, 365 days a year it would take 19
years and 4 months just to read through everything once. It is
unlikely that you could manage 500 pages a day but in order to
understand the evidence everything has to be grouped, cross
referenced and analysed. So you can understand why more evidence is
being discovered on a daily basis by myself and my teams, both legal
and admin.
There
is set to be a complete revamp of the web site beginning towards the
end of the year and both a vast amount of content and design is to
be replaced and all text will be academically referenced to
documents, it is much appreciated that we will have the help of new
team members to continue the work already in place.
I’ve
been very busy of late and my correspondence is behind owing to the
volume of letters I receive from friends and newcomers alike. It’s
really good to have the support of so many of you and all
well-wisher emails are frequently passed on to me, it’s been
really heart warming to see them increasing week by week.
Keep
in touch. Jeremy
Posted
by Jeremy
Bamber at Sunday,
September 09, 2012
"Information is deliberately kept under wraps through the means of stifling the voice of those maintaining innocence"
Tuesday, 4 September 2012
Jeremy Bamber: Poor Mr Blunt. So much time; so little to do...
Philip Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (toothless bark Clarke) how many media requests the Prison Service received to enter prisons from (a) broadcast and (b) print media in each of the last three years; and how many were (i) accepted and (ii) rejected. [118136]
Mr Blunt: The National Offender Management Service desk in the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) press office receives a significant number of bids for access to prisons for a variety of reasons. These include covering ongoing news stories, filming dramas, producing documentaries and to collect material for print features. Bids are received via email, phone and from journalists in person. They may go to individual prison staff, the NOMS desk, the MOJ press office newsdesk, Ministers' offices, charities working in prisons, service providers such as primary care trusts, the office of the Prison Service Chief Executive Officer and the private companies running prisons who have their own press offices. Bids from national media are usually channelled to the MOJ press office but some are immediately rejected before they reach press office and regional bids may be accepted by prisons without reference to press office. The MOJ press office does not collate the requests they receive, or progress, centrally.
As a result it would not be possible, without disproportionate cost, to provide a list of media requests to enter prisons for the past three years.
Fantastic subject for a poem. Errrrm? Now what rhymes with Blunt?
Saturday, 1 September 2012
Jeremy Bamber: Dickinson Inquiry:Perversion of justice
In
November 1986 after the trial of Jeremy Bamber the trial Judge Mr Justice
Drake ordered an enquiry into the conduct of Esssex Police. The investigation
was directed by the Chief Constable, Mr Robert Bunyard. The review was
conducted by Detective Chief Superintendent Dickinson of Essex Police
assisted by DI Storey.
This
investigation consisted of interviews with Police officers and witnesses but
no statements were taken although statements and other material submissions
from pre-trial were used during the enquiry. It was also noted that the
papers available did not include any written records of the original senior
investigating officer DCI Thomas Jones who died in a tragic accident at his
home on 11th May 1986.
The
Dickinson report was an account which relied heavily on the accounts of
Jeremy Bamber’s relatives and in particular his uncle Robert Boutflour. The
final report does not accurately reflect events which were uncovered by
Dickinson and Storey. It is only post 2002 appeal that extensive handwritten
accounts of interviews have been disclosed to the defence.
Missing
from the Defence copies were the interviews of Julie Mugford and her mother
Mary Mugford. In addition to this many of the senior police officer’s
interviews are also missing.
Overall the review inaccurately drew on accounts which contradict the original statements of witnesses and even contradicted court testimony. It also presented Jeremy Bamber in a biased way using the accounts of Julie Mugford and Robert Boutflour to provide a complete character assassination of Jeremy presented as a money hungry sexual predator who was also engaged in “unsavoury homosexual activities”.
At the
end of the report DCI Dickinson concluded that the most senior investigating
officer had not visited the scene until after the bodies had been disturbed.
He also found that owing to a "shortage of resources," senior
officers DCI Jones, DI Cook and DI Montgomery had failed to request that a pathologist and ballistics expert attend the
scene with the bodies in situ. Recommendations were made pertaining to these
points and also included issues of training and force communication with
other police sources.
DCI
Dickinson would have us believe that Jeremy Bamber was so sophisticated that
he managed to fool a large number of senior and junior police officers at the
scene and later a pathologist and ballistics expert. We put it that it is
highly unlikely and improbable that experienced police officers attending
such a tragic scene would have ignored key evidence if they had not been 100%
convinced that Sheila Caffell had killed the family.
In 2002
the appeal court judges placed little significance on any of the Dickinson
report referred to by the Defence including the issue of inheritance an area
which has developed further in light of evidence disclosed since the 2002
appeal which brings into question the credibility of key prosecution
witnesses in particular that of Robert Boutflour.
|
Wednesday, 29 August 2012
Jeremy Bamber: Evidence of Innocence
"I'll be able to relax on a Dorset beach and watch the waves crashing, walking, hearing the birds sing, and hopefully have someone around me, or people around me, who I love and they love me. Just simple things."
Jeremy Bamber
Bamber in tears at his family's funeral in 1985, supported by his then girlfriend Julie Mugford. Photograph: Peter Davies/McLellan
Jeremy Bamber in 1988, just before the first appeal against his conviction. Photograph: Today/Rex Features
Bamber in a picture taken in prison, 2009. Photograph: Guardian
Jeremy Bamber
Jeremy Bamber is driven to prison in 1986 after being convicted of killing his mother, father, sister and her twin sons. Photograph: Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy
Jeremy Bamber is thinking about how he has maintained his sanity over 25 years in prison. His answer is quietly shocking. He walks and talks with his family – his mother, his sister, her twin sons and particularly his father. In short, he gets solace from the memory of the very family he was convicted of slaying 26 years ago. "In my mind, I walk with my Dad more than anybody on a daily basis and think, how would he cope with it, what would he think about it all?" He comes to a stuttering stop. You can hear the pain in his voice. "How I cope is quite an emotional thing for me to talk about."
Jeremy Bamber is one of only 38 prisoners in England and Wales serving a whole-life sentence, and the only one of them to protest his innocence. The list is as chilling as it is exclusive – Bamber is in the company of Rose West, Dennis Nilsen, Peter Sutcliffe and Ian Brady. The judge at his trial described him as "warped and evil beyond belief". If he committed the crimes he has been convicted of, he deserves his notoriety.
Yet Jeremy Bamber has always protested his innocence. The Guardian has corresponded with him over five years, during which time dozens of letters have been exchanged. His are written in block capitals, breathless in their intensity, polite, largely impersonal and almost wholly concerned with the evidence. They are not a light read. He expects those interested in his case to be as well drilled in the minutiae as he is. If Jeremy Bamber is telling the truth, he is a victim of one of Britain's worst miscarriages of justice.
To decipher the letters one has to learn the courtroom shorthand – DRB1, a reference to the "sound moderator", or silencer. PV19? A bullet fragment. RWC1, the paint sample taken from the kitchen, where Nevill Bamber was killed. And so it goes on, with references to the thousands of exhibits, documents and photographs.
Jeremy Bamber is clever and strategic. He has courted a number of news organisations over the years. He divides the evidence he has gathered and packages "exclusives" to different newspapers. The Guardian has made repeated requests to interview him, but has always been blocked by the Ministry of Justice. So it was a surprise when a member of staff at Full Sutton prison, near York, asked whether we were willing to accept phone calls from Jeremy Bamber, AKA prisoner A5352AC.
It was late January when he rang, just before he was due to hear from the Criminal Cases Review Commission whether his case would be referred for a rare third appeal. He said he had saved money so he could afford half an hour on the phone. This Jeremy Bamber sounded quite different from the letter writer – talkative, human, dealing in emotions. We didn't need to deal with all his new information – he had already painstakingly laid out how he had recently discovered evidence that suggested the crime scene had been used for training purposes by more than 40 officers from the firearms support unit just hours after the murders, which may have corrupted evidence; how bodies seem to have been moved; how freshly disclosed Essex police files appeared to challenge the assertion that Jeremy Bamber was the killer.
On 7 August 1985, Jeremy's mother, father, sister and her six-year-old boys were shot dead at the parents' farmhouse in the Essex countryside. It was a sensational story, a classic whodunit – a whole family murdered, a substantial inheritance to be fought over, complex relationships with adopted children, and a glamorous model known as Bambi at the heart of it.
Bamber in tears at his family's funeral in 1985, supported by his then girlfriend Julie Mugford. Photograph: Peter Davies/McLellan
That night, Jeremy Bamber rang the police saying he had just received a panicked call from his father Nevill saying his daughter Sheila had picked up one of his shooting rifles and had gone "crazy". By the time the police entered the house, all five were dead. The gun was found by Sheila's side, fresh blood still oozing from her mouth. It looked as if she had killed her mother and father and her twin boys before turning the gun on herself. It all seemed to make sense in a terrible way – a woman who had recently been diagnosed with schizophrenia had broken down. But then the story took an unexpected turn. Jeremy's girlfriend, Julie Mugford, whom he had two-timed, claimed he had confessed to her his plans to hire a hitman to murder the family and that hours before the shooting he had told her: "Tonight's the night." The man named was a local plumber, who was arrested with Jeremy. The plumber had a cast-iron alibi for that night and both were released.
A month after the killings, Jeremy's cousins found a silencer with flecks of blood on it in a cupboard in the farmhouse – this would have ruled out Sheila being the killer because, with the silencer on the rifle, her arms would not have been long enough to reach the trigger to kill herself, and it left Jeremy Bamber as the only suspect. Jeremy was charged and the prosecution argued he was a greedy schemer who, motivated by the prospect of inheriting the £436,000 family fortune and considerable land, had killed all five then placed the rifle in his sister's hands to make it look like a murder-suicide. He was found guilty in a 10-2 majority verdict and given five life sentences, upgraded to whole life in 1994.
There was something about Jeremy Bamber that made him unsympathetic to the public. He was handsome in a rather cruel, caddish way – he seemed to exude arrogance and indifference. In court, when the prosecution accused him of lying, he replied: "That is what you have to establish." Like Meursault in the Camus novel L'Etranger, he did not seem to display the appropriate emotions. Or at least not when the press had its lens fixed on him. More tales emerged about his callousness – how he had spent money with abandon after his parents' death, how he was living the life of a playboy. And then there was his sister, the other suspect – Sheila (known as Bambi) was so blessed with her beauty, so vulnerable with her illness, few people wanted to believe she could have been the killer.
Jeremy Bamber in 1988, just before the first appeal against his conviction. Photograph: Today/Rex Features
So Jeremy Bamber went to jail, and ever since he has told anyone who would listen that he is innocent. He sieved his way through myriad documents, trying to piece together another version of what could have happened that night at White House Farm. He became a legal expert, stayed up into the early hours every night reading his own case notes, he courted sympathetic journalists, wrote to legal experts, challenged the very basis on which he had been convicted.
And gradually it emerged that the investigation had been, at best, flawed: the police had not searched the farmhouse properly; a call from Jeremy's father to the police, saying his daughter had gone "berserk", had not been disclosed to the jury; officers had said they had seen somebody moving inside the house before they entered while Jeremy was standing next to them. How had the police failed to find a silencer in the cupboard? Why was it not revealed that the people who did find it – the cousins – stood to benefit from Bamber going to jail by inheriting the property. Why had so many people been allowed to trudge through the crime scene, contaminating so much of the evidence? Why did scratch marks on the kitchen mantelpiece that suggested a struggle not exist in the original scene-of- crime photos?
The new evidence on the marks is perhaps the most compelling. The trial judge, in his summing up, told the jury: "On the evidence of the scratch marks alone you may find Mr Bamber guilty." But the photographs they were shown were taken after the silencer was discovered. Photographs taken on the day of the shootings and not disclosed at trial have emerged showing there were no scratch marks, which contradicts the evidence of a struggle – a completely different picture to the one presented to the jury.
Jeremy Bamber appealed for the first time in 1989 on the grounds that the judge had summed the case up unfairly. He was finally granted a second appeal in 2002. Jeremy's team argued that vital evidence had not been disclosed or had been fabricated, most of it relating to the silencer and the blood testing. The silencer was found to contain blood, but it could not be established if it was human or animal. But in a 522-point judgment, the three judges concluded that no conduct on behalf of the police or the prosecution would have adversely affected the jury, and that the more they examined the details, the more they thought the jury had reached the right conclusion.
When he lost that appeal, Jeremy says, it was "as if the light had gone out". How did he feel? "Desolate. I felt abandoned. It was just before Christmas that they gave me that decision and I remember that Christmas Day I had jam and toast because I'd not put in menu slips for my dinner." He had expected to be home for Christmas. "I felt I was the laughing stock of the jail in that I had told people I was going to win and I didn't. I felt friendless."
His case should be referred back to the appeal court imminently. And Jeremy Bamber is convinced that, this time, his conviction has to be overturned. "I shall feel hope again. I shall feel that maybe, finally, my position, which I've held for 26 years, will be validated."
Jeremy Bamber was 24 when he was convicted, and has been in prison more than half his life. He is fit, but he is only too aware of life passing him by. "I'm an old man now. I'm 50 and I feel it," he says. If this is a miscarriage of justice, it is the worst kind of double whammy – not simply convicted of murder, but of murdering those you love. Has he managed to grieve for the family he is convicted of killing? "I think what helped is that I was out for their funerals. It wasn't until almost two months later that I was arrested, so I have grieved to some degree, but I'm not sure I have grieved enough. But I cope . . . I just have happy memories."
If he is cleared, he says, he will feel he has defended the family's honour. "I will feel proud that if Mum and Dad were around, they would be proud that I had the self-discipline and staying power to keep with this as long as I have." And this is when you realise just how complex his relationship is with his family. In finding him guilty of the massacre, he believes the court besmirched his family name. If his sister is guilty, it does not in any way lessen the horror, but it is less shaming because she was ill.
Nevill and June Bamber adopted Jeremy when he was six weeks old. He was the son of a vicar's daughter who had an affair with a married army sergeant. (His sister Sheila was adopted a few years later.) He was sent to a private boarding school in Norfolk, then went to college in Colchester and, after spending time in Australia and New Zealand, he returned to work on the farm for £170 a week. At the time of the murders, he lived in a cottage owned by his father three miles away from the family farm.
What was life like on the farm? "Idyllic," he says. "It can be quite a solitary life, but I am a person who's quite happy with my own company. Mum and Dad were wonderful people, very kind, very gentle, very honest people. I loved them with all my heart and they were my mum and dad. I resent the 'adopted child', because I never saw myself as an adopted child."
If he is lying, he is a disturbingly good actor. Five years ago, he took and passed a lie-detector test. He has seen numerous therapists and psychiatrists in his time in prison, none of whom has suggested that he is mentally unstable, let alone a psychopath.
He says he and Sheila were close when they were growing up. "She looked after me, she cared for me and when I was 14/15 and she was modelling, I loved going up to London, staying with her and going out with all her modelling mates."
But ultimately, he says, when she became ill they weren't close enough. "Schizophrenia, especially if it's coupled with paranoia, can be the most devastating illness. I certainly take my share of the blame for not supporting her. And I wish I had visited her when she was in hospital. I was growing up and starting relationships and building a life for myself and I probably didn't listen and care and learn enough about Sheila's condition and give her the support I should have done. Had I done, maybe she would have been able to cope with the world – I don't know."
Sheila married at 20 in 1977, sons Daniel and Nicholas were born two years later, and by 1982 she was divorced. In 1983, suicidal and paranoid, she was hospitalised and put on anti-psychotic drugs. In March 1985, she was readmitted – delusional, obsessed with the nature of good and evil and admitting to disturbed ideas about her mother. (June Bamber had also suffered a mental breakdown when Jeremy was in his late teens – her illness, coupled with her religious fervour, created a rift between mother and adopted daughter). Again, Sheila was put on anti-psychotic drugs. Four months later, she was dead.
Her Bible was found by her side, open at pages containing Psalms 51-55. Eminent theologian Susan Gillingham has prepared a report on the significance of these psalms, in relation to Sheila's mental state and religious mania. She says anyone who knew the psalms well would turn to them as a means of "expressing their own penitence at the evil within themselves and outrage at the evil words and actions performed against them by others". Astonishingly, the bloodstained Bible was never forensically examined, nor produced at trial, despite repeated requests from Jeremy Bamber's solicitor. So the jury was not aware of the significance of the psalms. Photographs also showed a handwritten note sticking up from between the pages of the Bible. The words at the top of the note are "love one another" – the same words were written on a banner on a wall in a room in Jonestown, Guyana, where 909 people died in 1978 in a mass murder-suicide. But the evidential value of what was inside the Bible cannot now be gauged; Essex police have informed Jeremy Bamber's lawyers that the note has been destroyed.
Bamber in a picture taken in prison, 2009. Photograph: Guardian
Hugh Ferguson, Sheila's psychiatrist, gave evidence at the trial. In a statement made in 2002, he says he was unaware that the Bible was open at the psalms at the time he gave evidence. Having read them, he says, "they contain in them the themes which, over time, I knew were exercising Sheila Caffell. In short form, the struggle between good and evil, or God and the Devil."
Nor was Ferguson, or the jury, aware of another factor that may have influenced Sheila to carry out the killings. At the trial, Bamber said his sister was upset at the prospect of losing her children, but the prosecution accused him of making this up.
Last week, the Guardian was passed a letter, written by Sheila's ex-husband, Colin Caffell, to Nevill Bamber. In it, Caffell expresses deep concern about Sheila's mental state and asks his father-in law-to "try and convince Sheila that it would be better for her and the boys if they stayed with me most of the time". Ferguson says if Nevill had pleaded Caffell's case to Sheila, it could have had a "potentially catastrophic effect on her". As a result, he says, "she may have projected on to her father a concept of evil".
How does Jeremy Bamber feel about his sister today? "I don't blame her, and I still love her." For somebody who protests his innocence so vehemently, he shows a remarkable lack of bitterness. "Oh, I have been terrible, but I don't feel it now. That just eats you up, fills you full of hate, gives you ulcers and lines around your eyes and you look horrible. I have resented Sheila and hated her over the years, but I don't any more. I understand."
One of the things that seemed to sway public opinion against Jeremy Bamber was a photograph of him smiling outside the court, apparently without a worry in the world. "I was smiling because my mates were on the pavement and they were all cheering me on. And I was giving them that encouraging smile, 'I'm OK, lads, don't worry.' I understand a picture tells a thousand stories, but we all know the media can snap that split second and not put it in context." It's one of the things that seems to upset him most – the idea that he is universally reviled.
When he was first convicted, he was convinced he would be out in no time. Nine years later, he was told that he would never be released. How did that feel? He stammers his way towards an answer. "I . . . I . . . just found that incredible that they could hand you a death sentence using old age as the tool when I'd already been sentenced to 25 years in jail." Even then, he says, he never believed he would be in jail for good. "I have never contemplated the thought that I'm not going to win."
But there is, of course, every chance that Jeremy Bamber won't win – there is a small possibility that he will not win the right to his third appeal, and the greater possibility that the conviction will be upheld at appeal. Well, if that happens, he says, he'll just have to continue fighting. He claims he's holding back some new evidence just in case he needs to fight for another appeal.
And if he is released? "I'll be able to relax on a Dorset beach and watch the waves crashing, walking, hearing the birds sing, and hopefully have someone around me, or people around me, who I love and they love me. Just simple things." He would like to write a book on motivational techniques – to help people to cope, not just in prison but with illness and bereavement.
All this is a long way from the playboy image. "I've never been a playboy," he says quietly. "I've only been to a few nightclubs in my life. I've only had a few girlfriends in my life."
There is a classic image of people who have had their convictions quashed – say, the Guildford Four or Birmingham Six – standing on the steps of the court of appeal, triumphant. Does Jeremy Bamber ever imagine himself in that pose? "Absolutely," he says. "I've got a drawing that a friend did for me of me standing on the steps with my hands raised. It's on my wall, and I look at it all the time and visualise the day."
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