Jeremy Bamber: Police dispatch car BEFORE Jeremy's call

One of the big mysteries in this case which has always been harmful to Jeremy's testimony was the prosecution's case that Nevill Bamber didn't call the Police. This is featured in the Daily Mirror Article 05/08/10. Jeremy did say that his father called him and in turn Jeremy also called the police.

But we know that Nevill did call the Police - view the Police transcripts of Nevill's call here and Jeremy's call here

Question: It’s looks as though one log is just a copy of the other, meaning they are both regarding Jeremy’s call.

The logs are rolling documents and were started when the calls were made and added to as the events of the morning unfolded. An explanation (by the proesection) for the anomalies below is that the officer who took the calls simply made a mistake about the times. What do you think?

For instance at the top of the Essex Police Communications log (Nevill’s call) it shows ‘mobiles dispatched to the scene’ (mobiles being police vehicles). It shows 3 police cars being dispatched and then the time each arrived, it also shows 3 police tactical firearms vehicles being dispatched and also when they arrived. So we can clearly see that it was a rolling log, added to as the events unfolded.

The message that confuses people is “message passed to CD by son of Mr Bamber after the phone went dead, Mr Bamber has a collection of shotguns and .410’s”

By referring to Jeremy Bamber’s call message report timed at 03.36 there was no word of him mentioning which firearms were at White House Farm in that call. By referring to PC Myall’s 8^th August 85 Statement he says that on arrival at the farm he asked Jeremy to tell him which guns were in the house. It was only at this point that headquarters were contacted by radio to say that the son had given a list of firearms and the circumstance of the phone call he received, which the officer in the radio car CA07 relayed to HQ. This was logged as above.

Nevill’s call		Jeremy’s call
Made at 3.26am		Made at 3.36am
3.35am Police dispatch car CA7		Police despatch another car CA5
3.48am CA7 arrives at the scene		4.23am CA5 arrives at the scene
Nevill: Refers to Sheila as ‘Daughter’		Jeremy: Refers to Sheila as ‘Sister’
Address: White House Farm		Address: Head St, Goldhanger
White HF Tel No: 860209		Jeremy’s Tel No: 88645
Nevill says his daughter has gone ‘Beserk’		Jeremy says his sister had gone ‘crazy’
Nevill says Sheila was 26 yrs		Jeremy says Sheila was 27 yrs
Nevill lists shotguns and .410’s		Jeremy makes no mention of any other guns in the house
Nevill says she has got one of ‘my’ guns		Jeremy says ‘the gun’

Question: Isn’t it possible for Jeremy to have made both calls if they are ten minutes apart?

It could be argued that Jeremy made the call from WHF and then went to his home at Goldhanger and made the second call, but it’s not possible to get from one to the other in less than 10 minutes without going by car on the main roads. Jeremy’s car remained outside his house until he went to meet police. All of the roads were accounted for and no one saw Jeremy or his car or anyone suspicious along the route from his home to WHF. This is why the prosecution’s case was that Jeremy had cycled across farmland to carry out the murders.

Question Why was this log never shown to the jury?

At the trial Nevill’s call log was passed off as Jeremy’s call. Jeremy’s call log was not disclosed to the Defence until 3 March 2004. Malcolm Bonnet put in his witness statement 13^th September that the call he received from Jeremy was at 03:36. It is for this reason that the trial judge put in his summing up that this anomaly was simply Mr Bonnet or Mr West Putting the wrong time down.

Had the actual message log from Jeremy been disclosed almost twenty years earlier then it would have been apparent that the police received two telephone calls. Jeremy’s call was to PC West and Nevill’s call was to Malcom Bonnet, but PC West informed Malcolm Bonnet of Jeremy’s call so Mr Bonnet passed off Jeremy’s call as being to him to disguise Nevill’s call being made.

Question: If Both Nevill and Jeremy called the police why weren’t these calls recorded?

What is incredible is that all police calls were recorded onto audio tape as Mr Bonnet (a civilian who took calls for the police) said in his 16.12.85 statement. According to the ICO letter see (Doc A7) & list of evidence destroyed Essex Police destroyed the audio tapes after 28 days and this was standard practice unless the Defence asked for them, but Jeremy wasn’t arrested until after this 28 day period.

Nevertheless this story doesn't appear to be true as documents recently released to the Defence show that these tapes were actually kept and copied during September. Action 146 states that the tapes of the calls were copied after the 12th September 85. This was carried out on action report number 123 and also dated 12th September 1985. These tapes were supposed to have been destroyed on 7th September 1985 but they cannot possibly have been as copies were made of these calls.

The court then, should have been able to listen to these calls, both voices would have been distinctly different from one another. Instead of this, at trial Nevill’s call at 3:26 was passed off as Jeremy’s. Jeremy’s later call at 03:36 was kept secret and only disclosed in March 2004. The “JB Calls” on audio must still exist as additional copies were made after 12^th September 1985 and there is no record of their destruction as there always is when exhibits are destroyed. Could these tapes be part of the Public Interest Immunity documents stored in the Chief Constable’s safe?

Question: Why did the police despatch more than one car?

They despatched two cars in response to two calls about the incident. Why would the same police officer, collar number 1990, make two different records of a call from the same person, at different times (3:26 and 3:36am), referring to details passed to him about the caller’s "daughter" in one, and the callers "sister", in the other?

The patrol car which overtook Jeremy en route to the farmhouse that morning, (CA07) was responding to the call made by Nevill, not to the call made by Jeremy, as confirmed by the fact that CA07 left to go to the scene, (3:35am), one minute before Jeremy made his call to the police at 3:36am (this anomaly was apparently commented upon during the judgement at the last (2002) appeal).

Note, that the patrol car, CA05, was dispatched to respond to the call made to the police by Jeremy at 3:36am, as verified by the fact that these details are recorded in the message log relating to Jeremy's call, "Dispatched CA05 to scene"...

Question: Jeremy couldn’t have called the police if Nevill had really called him as the phone was off the hook at WHF and would have still been connected to Jeremy’s line making him unable to make another call out from his phone.

This is not the case. It is apparent that during the call made to the police by Nevill Bamber (3:26am) that he left the handset off its cradle, and that this would be consistent with Nevill having earlier called Jeremy, and the line going dead, because Nevill would have tapped the cradle to enable him to make the call to the police at 3:26am, so that by the time Jeremy attempted to re-establish contact with Nevill at WHF, he kept getting the engaged tone because Nevill was speaking to the police. Later, the police got the operator to check the line at WHF from where Nevill had made the call at 3:26am, who confirmed that at that stage, the handset was off its cradle...

Attrib. http://www.jeremy-bamber.co.uk/