Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage; If I have freedom in my love, And in my soul am free, Angels alone that soar above, Enjoy such liberty.
Richard Lovelace (1618–1657
We can only guess at the truth as to what happened while Jeremy Bamber was sitting in a police car, on Pages Lane, away from the scene, but the evidence suggests the following sequence of events occurred.
1. Before The Firearms Group (TFG) entered White House Farm (WHF), Collins and Delgado looked through the kitchen window. Collins reports by radio that two bodies, one female, Shelia Caffell and one male, Nevil Bamber, have been seen in the kitchen. Both appeared to be dead.
2. Collins, Delgado and others briefly enter the kitchen and confirm the two bodies by radio and telephone. They then continue to search much of the downstairs and the back of the house upstairs.
3. At some point, Sheila Caffell recovers consciousness, and leaving the kitchen and through the main hallway she ascends the main staircase to the master bedroom and shoots herself with the rifle which WPC Jeapes and PC Brown had seen leaning against the window.
4. To conceal their incompetence, TFG officers, probably in collusion with Inspector Montgomery and Ps Adams, decide to 'cover up' that Sheila Caffell had first been seen in the kitchen. At this stage, it was only a mild manipulation of the truth; she had, as they announced publicly, committed suicide upstairs, in the main bedroom.
5. Accordingly, Collins and Delgado omit from their statements any reference to looking through the kitchen window and seeing Sheila Caffell's body there; only one body, Nevill Bamber was found dead, in the kitchen - they first saw Nevill after they had entered WHF.
6. All went well; the inquest ruled that Sheila Caffell had killed her parents and her two sons and then committed suicide.
7. As August advanced, the police found themselves facing increasing difficulties. Jeremy Bamber's relatives were determined to establish his guilt and began to demand a full murder investigation. Detective Chief Inspector 'Taff Jones' knew that Jeremy Bamber was innocent but to explain why he was so sure he would have to admit that Sheila Caffell was alive when the police entered WHF and that the police had concealed this. He would also have been concerned that information about the contamination of the crime scene by more officers being drafted in for training exercises using the bodies in situ was going to become public, making a mockery of crime scene preservation and showing utter disrespect for Jeremy Bamber's dead family.
8. 'Taff Jones' is delighted to be removed from heading the investigation. He is replaced by Ainsley, who had the reputation of being tough and ruthless. These qualities are required to prevent the police being exposed for concealing the truth about Sheila Caffell.
i. First line of defence: all records of police radio and telephone communications indicating that Sheila Caffell was still alive when the police entered WHF to be withheld from the defence.
ii. Second line of defence: in case Jeremy Bamber's defence got wind of any of these radio or telephone messages, select TFG statements to mention mistaking Nevill Bamber's body for a woman.
9. At least eight or nine, perhaps a dozen or so, Essex Police officers know the truth about White House Farm and that Jeremy Bamber did not murder Sheila Caffell and the rest of his family. We are told they were frightened by Andrew Hunter’s revelations in the House of Commons in 2005 but they are more frightened of losing their police pensions or even imprisonment. One has 'come out' over an important detail (the issue of silencers) but will say no more. Another has allegedly confessed to a third party that he feels dreadful guilt about Jeremy Bamber's imprisonment.
All of the above is supported by documented evidence.
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