Jeremy Bamber: Telephones at White House Farm

Copyright of "Jeremy Bamber Campaign."

 

 

There has recently been much discussion over the telephones at White House Farm. This was brought up at the 1986 Trial of Jeremy Bamber. Key witnesses made statements and gave testimony about the phones that were at the farm. Firstly there were usually three phones at White House Farm; a cream dial phone in the master bedroom; a blue digital dial one in the upstairs office; and a cordless phone which was kept in the kitchen. There was also another phone at the Farm that was a ‘fawn’ colour and it also had a digital key pad and it is unclear where this phone was usually kept although it was found in the kitchen under some magazines. There had been a thunderstorm which had caused damage to the phone system and an engineer called Mr Pike made a statement that he took away the cordless phone and that he did not leave a replacement. The farm secretary Mrs Wilson had been on holiday and was not entirely sure where the phones were moved to as a result of this storm. Nevertheless Mrs Jean Bouttell testified in court that the phones had gone wrong so many times in the past year that she described it as “musical phones” when asked in court simply because the phones were moved around so frequently by the Bamber Family. She said it was common practice for the cream phone from the bedroom to be moved down into the kitchen.   After the tragedies happened on the 7th of August 1985, Chief Supt Harris used the phone to call Assistant Chief Constable Simpson on that morning before SOCO carried out their search of the house but this was denied at the 2002 appeal, evidence released in 2004 now proves he did make this call using the cream telephone in the kitchen. When the police finished their SOCO investigations and handed the keys to the family, by the weekend of the 10th of August Ann Eaton and Jean Bouttell started cleaning the house. Additionally numbers of people had been in and around the house including, Basil Cock, Barbara Wilson, Robert Boutflour, Pamela Boutflour, Chris Nevill, David Boutflour, Karen Boutflour and Anthony Pargeter. On the 23rd of August Jeremy had been back to the farm, Barbara Wilson had commenced her duties as farm secretary reporting to Jeremy. Jean Bouttell had also commenced her regular cleaning duties. Jeremy had increased the wages of the farm workers during this time. And he asked Barbara Wilson to clear out many of the papers in the office for him. It was on this date that he asked Jean Bouttell to clear out other belongings in the house. As we all know after a family member has died we have to face the difficult task of removing their belongings from our lives and Jeremy was no different from any other person in facing the emotional and practical difficulties of doing this. Jean Bouttell testified that Jeremy had asked her to remove the pile of magazines in the kitchen and it was during this clear out that she found the fawn coloured phone. She said that she asked Jeremy what she should do with it and he replied that it was just a spare. When she later checked the phone some three weeks later at the request of the police she found that it was working. Barbara Wilson also states that she checked the phone and found it to be working. Neither of these witnesses stated that Jeremy had told them that the phone was broken. The police asked Jean to check the phone some three weeks later and she found it to be working. It has been suggested that Jeremy deliberately removed the phone from the bedroom that his father slept in so that he could not call the police when Jeremy allegedly broke into the house to kill the family. Firstly, Jeremy could not be responsible for the storm which had again damaged the telephone equipment and secondly is Jeremy expected to remember where each phone was at each moment when he didn’t even live in the house? Is it reasonable to expect Jeremy to know which phones were supposed to be where at this time? Is it not a reasonable assumption that if the Bamber’s phone was broken that one of them would take a phone from the upstairs bedroom and use it to replace the broken one? Particularly if, amongst the piles of untidy clutter littered throughout the house they didn’t know where the spare phone was. Considering the number of moves that the telephones had made during the last year which seems to have been at least two or three times up until the 7th of August is it not reasonable that Jeremy wouldn’t have spent his days thinking about where the phone was? Is it not reasonable to wonder at how many people had been in the house ‘looking for evidence’ long after the initial police SOCO search between the 7th of August and the 23rd of August? Is it not reasonable to assume that the ‘spare’ phone could have been moved at any time by anyone to its position under the magazines during Ann Eaton’s clean up of the farm house? The other area for concern is the amount of rumour which has emerged into the media since the trial of Jeremy Bamber. Barbara Wilson made no less than 14 statements to the police before Jeremy’s trial all dated 16.12.85, 05.10.85, 06.10.85, 11.10.85, 17.09.85, 19.09.85, 22.11.85, another on 05.10.85, and more on 08.11.85, 12.09.85, 16.11.85, 25.10.85, 26.11.85, and 27.09.85, 29.09.86. In more than one statement she even described Jeremy as "a likeable young man" and that she probably got on better with him than she did her own son. Out of all of these statements she never mentioned at any time that Nevill had told her that Jeremy had intended to kill him or anything which could be interpreted as such, it is my opinion that Nevill had no premonition whatsoever that he might die in the near future and Barbara Wilson didn't mention this at trial. It is only in her statement to  the City of London Police  on 28.06.91, six years later that she 'invents' (in my view) a 'premonition'. This invention was considered by the City of London police 'not to be suitable' for her final statement (I can't imagine why, and secondly it appears the police pick and choose the content of their statements) and details of this 'revelation' only appears in an officers report. I suggest that if Nevill Bamber had told an employee such a thing why did this employee not mention this at trial to assist in the conviction of Jeremy Bamber and why did she not go to the police with this ‘story’ on the 7th of August? This new 'invention' emerges creatively in the Roger Wilkes book and on various television programmes and we will leave you to make your own conclusions about why this story has been intensified for various forms of media.     Attrib: http://www.jeremy-bamber.co.uk/telephones For more information on Jeremy Bamber's innocence and evidence of this gross miscarriage of justice visit: http://www.jeremy-bamber.co.uk/Campaign-Hub

Joana Morais Blog: McCann Libel Case

9 October 2013 | Posted by Joana Morais

Attrib: http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2013/10/goncalo-amarals-book-contained-nothing.html

1.Everyone shall possess the right to freely express and publicise his thoughts in words, images or by any other means, as well as the right to inform others, inform himself and be informed without hindrance or discrimination 2.Exercise of the said rights shall not be hindered or limited by any type or form of censorship Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, Article 37.º

 

Gonçalo Amaral's book: Two members of Judiciary Police. Quote 'contained nothing new, nothing that it wasn't published before'

  

Gonçalo Amaral's book edition post McCann injunction, 'No axe can cut the roots of freedom, 

the Portuguese are going to read the forbidden book'

“Despite everything, until a certain moment in the investigation, the [McCann] family sustained and fed the abduction thesis. Nevertheless, at an uncertain date, the family suggested to consult a person that might, eventually, indicate the probable location of little Madeleine’s cadaver. This fact became inexplicable to the members of the investigation, given the fact that it was the family members themselves who raised the possibility of little Maddie’s death.”
in Process 201/07.0GALGS, volume XVII, page 2594

Gonçalo Amaral's book did not add “anything new”

Two members of the Judiciary Police have stated yesterday in court, that Gonçalo Amaral's book did not add anything new to what was already known regarding the process of the investigation of the English child, who disappeared in the Algarve, in May 2007. The statements of this two witnesses, Luís Neves and Ricardo Paiva, concur with Gonçalo Amaral's defence argument, which alleges that the book written by the former coordinator of the Judiciary Police “contained nothing new, nothing that it wasn't published before”.

Gonçalo Amaral is being tried at Lisbon's Civil Court after a complaint from the McCanns, who claim the book “has deeply affected the family” and seek 1,2 million euros for alleged defamation. Inspector Ricardo Paiva, who was directly involved in the investigation, considered that the book did not add “anything new”.

Luís Neves, who coordinated part of the investigation and was the then director of the Judiciary Police Organized Crime Unit, stated the same. The judge ended up by ironically saying that the book had “misleading advertising”, since the cover promised “revelations” about the case.

Jornal de Notícias, Paper Edition, page 10, October 9, 2013

Gonçalo Amaral's book may have “misleading advertising”, said the Judge
Trial - PJ Director admitted that initial thesis of Maddie's abduction was rushed

by Valentina Marcelino [Translation Astro/JM]

The Judge at the 1st Civil Court of Lisbon who is presiding the McCann couple's lawsuit against the former PJ inspector - who defends the thesis of the parents' responsibility in their daughter Madeleine's death - suggested that Gonçalo Amaral's book may have “misleading advertising”, because contrary to what is announced on its back cover it does not contain “unique revelations” about the case of the disappearance of the little girl in 2007, in Praia da Luz.

The magistrate's conclusion followed the statements of one of Amaral's defence witnesses that was heard in court yesterday, the PJ inspector Ricardo Paiva, who took part in the investigative team. He stated that 'The Truth of the Lie' did not contain any more information than what was in the files of the process that has been shelved in the mean time, and made public. Thus Gonçalo Amaral's defence seeks to devalue the impact of the accusations that are contained in the book on the McCann family and to empty the arguments that sustain Gerry and Kate McCann's request for 1.2 million as compensation over moral damages.

“What are the 'revelations' in the book?” the judge asked Ricardo Paiva. “There is nothing new compared with the inquiry”, the inspector replied. “But it says the contrary on the back cover, it says that there are 'unique revelations'. What are those?”, the magistrate insisted. “They may be unique to those who bought the book and didn't read the case files”, Ricardo Paiva suggested. Ironically, the judge concluded “Then it's misleading advertising!”.

The McCann couple's lawyers, on the other hand, have been trying to demonstrate that the book contains a lot more information than the criminal process, namely the author's final conclusion that the little girl died in the apartment, which is the motive of the moral damage that was caused to the family.

During yesterday's session, the director of the National Counter-Terrorism Unit (UNCT) testified for Gonçalo Amaral's defence and implied that the abduction theory, with which the investigation started right after the little girl's disappearance, may have been rushed. “When Dr Guilhermino Encarnação [former PJ director] held the first press conference and spoke about an abduction, we still didn't know whether it was one thing or another”, he said. According to Luís Neves, an abduction expert, at the time, the signs that usually support this type of crime, like “a ransom note”, were missing. The director of UNCT also recalled that it was Maddie's parents who, being first to admit that their daughter might be dead, ended up indirectly triggering the arrival in Portugal of the English dogs that detected cadaver odour in the apartment where Maddie disappeared from. And that was when Amaral's thesis started to gain strength.

BBC programme
SIC guarantees that they were not approached

SIC [Portuguese television network and media company, which runs several television channels] was not approached to broadcast BBC's Crimewatch program on the “Maddie case”, contrary to what the English press published. Next Monday, on 14 October, the English TV channel, BBC, that broadcasts Crimewatch, promises to show a reconstruction of Madeleine McCann's disappearance. The script is a result of Scotland Yard's investigation. The British press assured that Portuguese TV channels refused to broadcast it, however when questioned by DN, an official source from SIC guaranteed that they were never contacted. RTP and TVI did not reply up to the closure of this edition.

Diário de Notícias, Paper Edition, page 19, October 9, 2013

 

Jeremy Bamber; Pathologist's Views

Attrib: http://www.jeremy-bamber.co.uk/public-interest-immunity/psychopathy/pathologist-s-views

Dr Vanezis, the pathologist who examined the bodies had not detailed a time of death for any of the deceased in his report. He provided the police with statements written long after the post mortem, the first during September and others during November 1985 and May 1986 when he used his notes and scene photographs to assist him.  The Dickinson review then requested that he write an additional report post trial and the extracts below are taken from this report which appears to be much more candid and in favour of the Defence than his pre-trial statements. Regarding his initial examinations he stated:   “Sheila had suffered two gunshot wounds. I was a little concerned with this but in my experience, bearing in mind the low velocity of the weapon, whilst unusual, suicide with two shots does occur. I have experienced four or five in the past. In order to consider this a possibility, however, I must have been impressed by the information given to me as to position of the weapon, length of barrel and the ability of Sheila to reach the trigger. I had been told it was a semi-automatic weapon.  The result of my P.M. examination of Sheila was 'death due to gunshot wounds'. My examination did not reveal anything to contradict the suicide theory and I must say, although I could not from my examination, confirm murder or suicide”  The post mortem’s continued the following day and Dr Peter Vanezis further states:   “Having discussed the number of shots involved (24) I was told the magazine could hold at least eight cartridges. Sheila was a farmer's daughter and would have been used to firearms. I drew no serious consequence from the number of shots fired.”                                                       When DS Stan Jones later asked him some time later what he thought about it being a murder/suicide he wrote:   “Whilst respecting his views there was nothing impressive about what he said and certainly I cannot recall anything of evidential substance to the effect that Sheila could not have done it.”   Dr Vanezis continues:   “I then discussed the two possibilities : If it wasn't Sheila it had to be Jeremy. We went over the information and I expressed the views that Jeremy would have to be a nutter to have done what had occurred, in that he must have had such a warped state of mind to engineer it in the manner in which it was presented. This was almost too incredible to believe. Additionally, in order to stage manage Sheila she would probably need to be under the influence of drugs. I said that I would ascertain the results of the drug analysis with regard to that point before completing my report.”   The drug analysis came back negative, apart from the tests showing a reduced dose of Haloperidol a treatment for Schizophrenia, and a trace of Cannabis taken some four days earlier, Sheila had not been sedated. In support of Dr Vanezis views, Jeremy Bamber had no history violence, has never had any mental illness, and does not have any psychopathic traits in 27 different assessments. Sheila Caffell on the other hand, was delusional, volatile, suicidal and “could use physical aggression directed to property, herself or others” As detailed by her Psychologist, her boyfriend and other witnesses who gave police statements.  It is unclear why the views expressed by the pathologist shifted in this report which seems to suggest that he was later influenced by the information provided by police. He also described one of the bullet's in Sheila Caffell's body as "Fragmented" but Malcolm Fletcher the Ballistics expert for the prosecution describes it as whole which is how it was presented at trial. Read more about Sheila's X-Ray's and the fragmented bullet here. Dr Vanezis also stated that SOCO officers took hand swabs from both Sheila Caffell and Nevill Bamber but none of the SOCO officers admitted to taking swabs from Nevill. Later the hand swabs taken from Sheila Caffell were rejected by the lab, when they returned they bore a different exhibit reference number and only very low levels of lead were detected suggesting that Sheila had possibly handled the weapon but not fired it. This became key prosecution evidence. Why were the exhibit reference numbers for the swabs altered and what became of the hand swabs from Nevill Bamber which were never allocated an exhibit reference? Many of the key exhibits had altered reference numbers including the sound moderator and hacksaw blade.  Recent testimony from forensic ballistics expert Philip Boyes proves that gunshot reside which would have discharged onto Sheila Caffell's hands when she fired the gun was easily and simply wiped away on cloth or clothing without any need for washing. This meant that Sheila had very low levels of lead when her hands were tested.  The low levels of lead on Sheila's hands  is not a valid part of the prosecution's case and never was.  Professor Peter Vanezis is now a leading Home Office Pathologist.