Jeremy Bamber Blog: Proving innocence...first steps

Jeremy Bamber: The Official Blogger.

 

http://jeremybamber.blogspot.co.uk/Copyright © Jeremy Bamber Campaign

"Imprisonment is nothing, but to live defeated and innocent is to die daily." Jeremy Bamber, 2012. 

 

Tuesday, 28 October 2014

Difficult First Steps Towards Proving Your Innocence ...

On the 29th Anniversary of Jeremy's conviction he talks about the difficulties in proving your innocence. 

Innocence Projects, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), lawyers and MP’s as well as the media face that first hurdle of whether the case before them is a genuine Miscarriage of Justice or not. A cursory review is all that can be done in the first instance, which probably won’t reveal anything to help supporters get to the truth. My experience over twenty nine years of listening to fellow prisoners protest their innocence has left me with no special insight into how to sift out those who are trying it on, and those who are not. If I like the person then it plays a huge part on whether I believe them or not. My point being that if I cannot tell face to face, and with my years of experience, then the CCRC and Innocence Projects et all, have even more difficulty as they have to rely on a letter or two, and a quick review of the evidence upon which to make a decision. This has meant the cases chosen to be supported by these organizations are often ones where there isn’t much evidence to sustain the conviction. The CCRC does sometimes investigate complex cases but it is only a matter of time before they drown under the paperwork and bail out. At least, that’s how my experience has been. Other organizations don’t have the resources to take on those kinds of cases either.

The ‘cure,’ which was promised in the guise of the CCRC in 1997, has allowed the real problems to remain unaddressed.  Broadly speaking, the current court process, juries, poorly financed Legal Aid, an over stretched Crown Prosecution Service, combined with a results driven police force all play a part in Miscarriages of Justice happening in the first place.

A fixed, amended and overhauled system would prevent innocent people from being wrongly convicted, and both barristers and solicitors know what needs to be done but it’s as if tradition and protocol prevent those who know from speaking out, and the voice of high profile figures in this field would help. There is also a distinct reluctance for many organizations, and legal workers to embrace social resources and other forms of media, which could raise awareness of the cause. Miscarriages of Justice have a late 20^th Century feel, with most of the population picturing the release of innocent people photographed in the 1980’s and 1990’s, but the problem is as real and persistent today as it ever was. Wrongful convictions continue to affect many young people from diverse cultural and social groupings, but they remain something that is considered a rarity, or a thing of the past.

I have my own ideas on how to improve the trial process, which is always weighted in favour of the prosecution from the outset; it is unlikely anything much will change for the foreseeable future. This means Innocence Projects, the CCRC and other Campaign Groups will be needed for many years to come. The trick will be to ensure that their finite resources are put to best use. Because of the lack of specialist legal help available to prisoners maintaining innocence, in the first instance, prisoners need to self prepare work. Many prisoners will have limited help from others on the outside who might lack any legal expertise, time, money, or access to evidence and resources themselves. Some people who are innocent inside have no one on the outside.

There are valuable voluntary organizations like Miscarriages Of Justice Organization (MOJO) who offer an unbiased platform to tell people about your innocence, but without having done the groundwork before contacting these people all you have is a pen and a piece of paper to say, “I’m innocent but I don’t have any evidence to prove I am.” Not many people will believe the word of someone convicted of a serious crime without any evidence to support their claim. It’s this first rung of the ladder which most wrongly convicted prisoners find difficult to get a foothold upon.

Jails have almost no facilities for use by prisoners and unless you have an appeal pending you cannot have access to a computer resource. It’s catch twenty-two because without facilities to get to appeal you can’t have access to many facilities to get you there. Law books in prison libraries are not allowed to be taken back to prisoners cells and can only be used during library times, which might be limited to two fifteen minute sessions each week or an hour pre booked once every three weeks. They are able to order books from non-specialist, local libraries which takes weeks and is simply not going to have the resources required. Similarly, prisoners cannot have books sent in to them. Prisoners can buy books from a specific resource, but law books often run into hundreds of pounds, which even law students on the outside have difficulty in financing.

If anyone reading this has ever done casework they will know all about the painstaking, meticulous number of hours that go into researching. No one will work harder than the innocent prisoner in this process. The range of books in the library is very limited; you won’t find the latest books by Michael Naughton, or guidance on preparing your casework. Computers should be available for legal work with printing facilities, as well as software packages, which allow prisoners to prepare case material. Access to a broad section of Internet resources, or databases listing forensic scientists, human rights lawyers and their case histories, should be made a priority.

Also, understanding how other prisoners campaign should be pooled into one resource, and updated at least every six months. On line resources in an intranet style should be allowed online so that various law schools, and law libraries can be accessed, enabling those who can help and those who need help to be joined together. All this needs policy change at head office, as it is not the fault of individual prisons, just the rules laid down by a higher force. As it stands today all prisoners are allowed is very limited quantities of our case papers, A4 paper and a biro. Facing the world with nothing but a pen and paper in the twenty-first century after all the lessons we should have learned is crushing for an innocent person.

There is no one readily accessible with experience to help or guide you on how to make a submission or plea for help other than written guidance from the CCRC if requested. You cannot make contact with anyone over the telephone without prior permission and this process can take a month and even then your clearance is to a specific person on one number. You can only telephone someone if they first agree to accept calls from you, therefore you cannot call around to find a lawyer speculatively.

In effect, there is no equality of arms. A prisoner who has been wrongly convicted and who cannot read or write has no possible way in which to seek help for a new appeal. In the high security prison system about 50% of prisoners have real difficulty reading or writing. So how does this group of prisoners obtain even a cursory review of their case? A structure needs to be put in place to help them. The adversarial system is still extraordinarily difficult for even the most resourceful, educated, experienced prisoners to obtain help to fight their case for innocence.

It is never going to be possible to unearth a Miscarriage of Justice without a case undergoing a really thorough investigation. If police corruption is the cause of a wrongful conviction (and it is frequently the cause), then it will be well covered up, and very hard to detect without meticulous and painstaking attention to case papers and evidence. Police officers know the system better than anyone, and are best placed to disguise any wrongdoing, and in the event of transparent mistakes, the errors are ignored and covered up by superiors to maintain public faith in the justice system as a whole. A scant review, which most cases initially receive, has no chance of uncovering these causes of Miscarriages of Justice.

Disclosure of all case material must happen pre-trial, and be given to the defendant personally, not simply made available for a solicitor to look through on a couple of afternoons at some random police station. If Public Interest Immunity has been used then the defendant should know it has been used and why. Obviously in some cases this couldn’t happen, but for most cases and for most of the time there is no excuse for this blanket secrecy and this should be changed.

There needs to be real help with sensible funding for the prison system to support those inmates maintaining innocence. Allow law schools entry to prisons and allow those maintaining innocence to use computers, and access to those who can help via telephone, skype and on line. Allow Innocence Projects and other advocates to come into prisons and give talks, interview prisoners and give advice directly.

Set up extensive law libraries on line or via a database to give access to up to date books, keeping the cost low, and a reduction in the physical space for books. Prisoners who are innocent could find out the latest legal rulings, and learn how to fight for themselves and these Miscarriage of Justice cases have a greater opportunity to present their position to the CCRC, Innocence Projects or even their own lawyers.

Changing Home Office policy to alter how prisons deal with prisoners maintaining innocence is going to be challenging but not beyond the abilities of highly skilled and experienced Prison Governors, who could advise and guide head office on finding the best way forward.  Until changes happen, many innocent people remain in the dark about how to help themselves in a system which does not afford lawyers to carry out thousands of hours work, and requires the prisoners to do most of it themselves.

 Jeremy

HMIC PEEL Inspection: My Response

Emailed to: haveyoursay@hmic.gsi.gov.uk (edited)

I don't do forms and I have not answered specifics but would like to comment on the following and I do hope someone takes the time to read it.

I am all for any move towards transparency.  I have counselled police officers and staff of all levels, so I know something of what goes on.
 
Mostly I am satisfied with my local police officers, other than one complaint I made in 2009 because a female officer stopped me on my way to work.  Accused me of using my mobile phone whilst driving - said I had been spotted on camera, insisted I hand her my phone. She was showing off for the benefit of her a male trainee.  I knew her accusation was false and could prove it, which I did.

On the other side of the coin there are many positives, like the male officer who insisted on coming out in the early hours as I had reported a man knocking on my window and making threatening remarks; he was no doubt drunk and lost but still worrying when you live alone.  A female officer last year was also sympathetic as well as professional.  We get a significant amount of vandalism in this area, pubs' chucking out times mostly, and my window got broken during a street fight. This officer said that one of her main concerns was to know how I felt the local police could support me.  She also visited me twice more in the following weeks.


With regard to changes; I have three main points:

1) The ridiculous and virtually criminal procedure of allowing corrupt coppers to resign so that they do not have to face charges, must stop.
2) My personal experience of the IPCC is that they are not independent, so whether more power or resources would have any impact is debatable.
3) Decent, professional police officers need incentives. I am not saying the old days were better or using 'rose coloured specs' but the 'bobby on the beat' of my childhood, was happy to remain in that post, it was his 'calling' but he could have done with more in his pay packet; this fact still remains, they do not all want promotion, other than for the wage increase.

That said, my prime purpose for writing. Jeremy Bamber, an innocent man, has been in prison for nearly 29 years, and until any prosecutors and police officers who withheld information which would have helped his defence, plus any who falsified documents, altered statements and/or blatantly lied, are brought to justice, I feel nothing in our justice system can or will change for the better. 


http://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmic/news/news-feed/hmic-asks-public-for-views-on-new-assessments-of-police-forces-in-england-and-wales/

Andrew Hunter MP : Jeremy Bamber

9 Feb 2005 : Column 480WH

Jeremy Bamber

4 pm

Mr. Andrew Hunter (Basingstoke) (DUP): At 7.35 on the morning of 7 August 1985, officers of the Essex constabulary forcibly entered White House farm, Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex. After a search of half an hour, they had found five bodies: those of Neville Bamber, his wife, June, their adopted 28-year-old daughter, Sheila Cafell, and her twin six-year-old sons.    At approximately 3.15 that morning, the Bambers' 24-year-old adopted son, Jeremy, who lived in a neighbouring village, had called the local police informing them that he had heard from his father saying that his sister, Sheila, had gone crazy and had a gun. Jeremy Bamber met the police at the farm at about 3.40 am. The police initially believed that Sheila, who had a history of mental illness, had committed four murders before shooting herself, but members of the extended Bamber family soon started trying to convince the police that Jeremy was responsible. In due course, he was arrested, charged and convicted.
The trial was unusual. The judge ruled that only Sheila or Jeremy could have committed the murders. Consequently, a major thrust of the prosecution case was to demonstrate that Sheila could not have been responsible and that Jeremy was therefore guilty. It was a near-run thing; the jury convicted Bamber on a 10:2 majority vote. If just one of 10 jurors had wavered, Bamber would have walked away a free man. Instead, he has been incarcerated for 19 years, consistently protesting his innocence. Subsequent developments, particularly during the past 12 months, have given rise to grave concern that Bamber's conviction may be another of the great miscarriages of justice, to be bracketed with the Bridgewater Three, the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and others.
With the Bamber case, the key issue has been, and remains, the non-disclosure of evidence to the defence. Early in 2004, Bamber's new defence team looked at the evidence again, and exhibit 29 caught their attention in particular. It was a document listing some radio messages from the scene of the crime. The defence wondered whether it might be the first page of a longer document rather than a complete document in itself, so they sought clarification. Essex constabulary was adamant that exhibit 29 was a whole document and had been available to the defence for the trial. Unconvinced, Bamber's defence team took the matter to court in March 2004. It was successful, and the police produced the entire document. Exhibit 29, it transpired, was not a single-page document, and Bamber's solicitors received by fax a 24-page summary of radio communications. They then took the unusual step of writing to both the trial judge and the chief prosecution counsel, inquiring if either had known at the time of the trial of the existence of the lengthier log of radio messages. Both replied that they had not.
On receiving the 24 pages, the defence immediately noticed that the first two pages had not only been re-written on different paper from the rest, but had been edited. A comparison with police witness statements revealed that several key radio messages that were made had been left out. Why? The defence therefore asked for the original document so that it could be sent for electrostatic document analysis testing, but Essex

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constabulary refused. The request has been repeated many times, and on each occasion the constabulary has refused.
The disclosure of the radio message log was not the only dramatic development last March. Bamber's defence had requested only one document. However, perhaps inadvertently, the police also provided evidence that had not been requested—pages from a contemporaneous telephone log and from a contemporaneous incident report. The defence had not known that either existed. It was immediately apparent that the two logs and the incident report that the police had withheld contained details that were entirely inconsistent with the case put by the prosecution at Bamber's trial. I will give just two examples; others might be used by Bamber's defence on another occasion.
First, at 5.25 am, officers in police car call sign Charlie-Alpha 7—the same officers who had met Bamber at White House farm and spent much of the time with him—relayed a message from the tactical firearms team to incident headquarters. The firearms team was in conversation with a person inside the farm. If the police were in conversation with somebody inside the farm at 5.25 am, the case against Bamber collapses. He could not have murdered everybody in the farmhouse before 3 am if at 5.25 am the police were talking to one of his supposed victims. If, on the other hand, the police were in conversation with a third party inside the farmhouse, the judge's ruling that either Jeremy or Sheila and nobody else could have committed the crimes is blatantly wrong. However, neither trial judge nor prosecution or defence had any opportunity to evaluate the 5.25 am entry, because the police had withheld it.
Secondly, four entries in the logs and incident report flatly contradict the prosecution's account that Neville Bamber's body was found downstairs in the kitchen and the other four bodies upstairs. An entry in the radio message log, which the police withheld for nearly 19 years, reads:

"0737: one dead male and one dead female in kitchen".

The telephone message log, which the police withheld for nearly 19 years, records:

"0738: one dead male and one dead female found on entry",

and at 7.40 am, the incident log, again withheld by the police for nearly 19 years, records a message from a Detective Inspector "IR"—we know only his initials—which. said:

"Police entered premises. One male dead, one female dead".

We know from their witness statements that at 7.40 am the police had not yet gone upstairs and searched the back of the house, where the other bodies were found. Finally, after they had eventually searched that part of the house and finished their task, they reported:

"House now thoroughly searched by firearms team. Now confirmed a further 3 bodies found".

So, almost immediately on entering the farmhouse, the police had found two bodies downstairs in the kitchen, and later three more bodies had been found upstairs. Most emphatically, that is not what the prosecution said during the trial.
The defence team believes that it probably now knows what happened. It believes that the body of Sheila Cafell, which the police insist that they found upstairs,

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had first been seen downstairs in the kitchen. Of course, dead bodies do not move. The proposition that Sheila Cafell was still alive when the police thought that she was dead in the kitchen might be dismissed as entirely fanciful if there were not supporting photographic evidence—photographic evidence that was not disclosed until 2001. Unfortunately, Bamber's previous defence did not recognise its significance before his 2002 appeal.
Before the trial in 1986, Bamber's defence had access to a large bundle of scene of crime photographs, which included photographs of the dead bodies. In the cases of June and Neville Bamber, rigor mortis is evident, as is skin discoloration, and the blood is congealed. The defence wrongly assumed that the first bundle contained all the photographs that had been taken. Before the 2002 appeal, however, the defence team was shown another, smaller bundle of 80 to 100 photographs that had previously been withheld.
At Bamber's trial, the prosecution argued that if Sheila had committed the murders and then killed herself, she would have trodden in blood as she moved about the house; but no trace of blood was found on her feet. Interestingly, no photographic evidence was produced at the trial to support that assertion. Curiously, the first bundle of photographs contained no pictures of Sheila's feet. That is not so with the second bundle of photographs, which were withheld. In that bundle were photographs, which were not available at the time of the trial, clearly showing blood on Sheila's feet.
The withheld second bundle contains even more dramatic evidence. There are several photographs of Sheila—there is no rigor mortis, the skin is not discoloured and the blood from her wounds has not yet congealed. Bamber's defence team have shown those photographs to leading pathologists. Independently, they have concluded that Sheila could not have died much more than one and a half hours before the photographs were taken. However, the police photographer did not arrive until a little after 9 o'clock. According to the pathologists, therefore, Sheila died at about the time the police entered White House farm, and Bamber could not have murdered her.
The points that I have made—I could make many others if we had more time—give rise to grave concern about Bamber's conviction. Their common theme is the non-disclosure of evidence by the police. Nearly 16 years after the White House farm murders, the defence first saw the second bundle of photographs. After nearly 19 years, the defence team discovered that there was a full radio log, a telephone log and an incident report, of which it had previously been unaware. It is the understatement of all understatements to say that such non-disclosure is deeply worrying. Even worse, it is still going on.
Bamber's defence team has repeatedly asked for access to the following: first, the notebooks and other papers of Inspector Jones, who headed the initial investigation and firmly believed in Bamber's innocence; secondly, the findings of the coroner who inquired into Inspector Jones's sudden death, which have never been made public; thirdly, the audio recordings of all telephone and radio messages from White House farm; fourthly, the audio recordings describing the scene of the crime; fifthly, the video

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recordings of the scene of the crime; and sixthly, the original radio and telephone messages log and incident report. All are still being withheld from the defence. On every occasion on which the defence team has asked for them, Essex constabulary has refused to provide them. I put it directly to the Minister—and ask her to respond—that that is surely an intolerable state of affairs.
In December I tabled a written question asking the Home Secretary to instruct Essex constabulary to give Mr. Bamber's solicitors all audio tapes relating to events at White House farm. The Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety replied:

"The disclosure of information held by Essex Constabulary is a matter for the Chief Officer of the force".

Unfortunately, the chief constable has made his position clear: he will not co-operate. One wonders why not. The Minister also stated in her reply:

"If the information requested is available under the access provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 or the Freedom of Information Act, then Mr. Bamber may have his own rights to gain access to such information under this legislation."—[Official Report, House of Commons, 21 December 2004; Vol. 428, c. 1556W.]

Those possible rights have been explored, but appear not to exist. It is now time for the Home Office to take matters seriously, and consider carefully not only the few points that I have made, but the whole Bamber affair. In particular, it should look at the issue of non-disclosure and the behaviour and attitude of Essex constabulary. It is also time for the Criminal Cases Review Commission to expedite matters so that the case of Mr. Jeremy Bamber is not left in judicial limbo. Such action is necessary to avoid perpetuating what a growing number of people fear may be one of the greatest miscarriages of justice of our times.

4.16 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Fiona Mactaggart) : I thank the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter) and congratulate him on securing this debate on the important and, in many ways, sensational case of Jeremy Bamber, who is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of his adopted parents and sister and her twin sons.
The hon. Gentleman has stated that he believes that the Home Office should look closely at the Bamber affair, and in particular at the issue of non-disclosure and the behaviour and attitude of Essex constabulary. I shall begin by saying that, on previous occasions, the Home Office has looked closely at the Bamber affair, as have the constabulary and the City of London police, following a complaint by Mr. Bamber to the Police Complaints Authority under the previous system. Its 14-month study did not uphold Mr. Bamber's complaint. Since then, there have been reforms to the Police Complaints Authority, and I do not know whether Mr. Bamber has made a further complaint to the new Independent Police Complaints Commission. Perhaps, however, it would help if I explained the recent handling of requests to review cases such as Mr. Bamber's, because that is relevant to the points raised by the hon. Gentleman.

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The 1993 royal commission on criminal justice recommended that the responsibility for re-opening cases of suspected miscarriages of justice should be

"removed from the Home Secretary, and transferred to a body independent of Government."

Parliament agreed with that when it passed the Criminal Appeal Act 1995, setting up the Criminal Cases Review Commission. Accordingly, the Home Secretary's powers to consider alleged miscarriages of justice ended on 31 March 1997, and were replaced by new powers vested in an independent body, the CCRC. It has the power to review and supervise investigations into possible miscarriages of justice in England, Wales and Northern Ireland; to approve the appointment of investigating officers; to gain access—I emphasise this—to documents and other material that may be relevant to its investigations; and to refer any cases when there is a real possibility that the conviction or sentence will not be upheld to the appropriate court, which will treat the referral as a new appeal.
The Home Secretary is answerable to Parliament for the work of the commission, but as it is operationally independent, he cannot intervene in its determination of   a particular case. That being so, in many ways, it is not within the Home Secretary's remit to examine Mr. Bamber's case. I recognise that the hon. Gentleman is asking not for a general re-examination of the case, but for a particular investigation of the role of Essex constabulary. Further allegations of non-disclosure by the Essex constabulary are a matter for the CCRC, rather than for the Home Office, because non-disclosure can be a ground for the CCRC to refer a case back to the   Court of Appeal. The commission referred Mr. Bamber's case to the Court of Appeal in 2001, following an earlier investigation, but those grounds were not based on non-disclosure. Mr. Bamber's solicitor added a number of non-disclosure arguments at the appeal hearing, although they were dismissed by the full court.
I understand that the commission has recently been asked to investigate the new allegations, and I can confirm that under section 17 of the Criminal Appeal Act it has the power to gain access to documents and any other material that may be relevant to its investigations. I have been told that there are something like 4  million items of material in this case, so there is a large range of matters that the commission needs to investigate. If it has not already done so as part of its earlier review of the case, which resulted in the unsuccessful appeal in 2002, it may, if it believes it appropriate, obtain the material to which the hon. Gentleman has referred.
It would be inappropriate for the Home Secretary to become involved in this or any other alleged wrongful conviction. The safety of the conviction is a matter for the courts rather than the Home Secretary. Accusations about the Essex police are a matter for the chief constable of the force or the new Independent Police Complaints Commission. There is an important public policy reason why both the Criminal Cases Review Commission and the Independent Police Complaints Commission are independent of the Home Office: to create public confidence in those authorities.
Mr. Bamber is of course aware of the Criminal Cases Review Commission's remit, as his second appeal in October 2002 followed its reviewing his case and

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referring it back to the Court of Appeal on 23 March 2001. In that case, the Court of Appeal did not find that there were sufficient grounds for finding the conviction to be unsafe. In its judgment, the court went so far as to say:

"It should be understood that it is not the function of this court to decide whether or not the jury was right in reaching its verdicts. That is a task that is wholly impossible in virtually every case because this court does not have the advantage of hearing and seeing the witnesses give evidence, and deciding which of the witnesses are trying to tell the truth and which of those who are trying to do so are accurate in their recollection. Our system trusts the judgment of a group of 12 ordinary people to make such assessments and it is not for the Court of Appeal to try to interfere with their assessment unless the verdicts are manifestly wrong, or something has gone wrong in the process leading up to or at trial so as to deprive the jury of a fair opportunity to make their assessment of the case, or unless fresh evidence has emerged that the jury never had an opportunity to consider.

We have found no evidence of anything that occurred which might unfairly have affected the fairness of the trial. We do not believe that the fresh evidence that has been placed before us would have had any significant impact upon the jury's conclusions if it had been available at trial. Finally the jury's verdicts were, in our judgment, ones that they were plainly entitled to reach on the evidence. We should perhaps add in fairness to the jury that the deeper we have delved into the available evidence the more likely it has seemed to us that the jury were right, but our views do not matter in this regard, it is the views of the jury that are paramount."

It is open to anyone to re-apply to the Criminal Cases Review Commission if they can present an argument or evidence not raised in previous court hearings or demonstrate that the case would, exceptionally, otherwise merit a reference back to the Court of Appeal. I am informed that Mr. Bamber's solicitor reapplied to the commission in March 2004. I understand that the commission reached a provisional decision but that his solicitor has since provided further material that will take time to investigate. I am confident that the commission is dealing with the further application both fairly and thoroughly.
It is neither in my remit nor in that of the Home Secretary to consider the said to be newly discovered police logs or any other new evidence that may have been made available to the commission. However, the commission can ask for that material and assess whether it demonstrates that the concern expressed by the hon. Gentleman that there has not been a fair trial is sufficient to merit re-referring the case to the Court of Appeal.
I believe that it is at best premature to discuss a call for a further inquiry into the suggested withholding of information by the Essex constabulary. At the second

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appeal, the court found no evidence to support Mr. Bamber's allegations of serious wrongdoing, including deliberate non-disclosure, by the police; nor did the results of the internal inquiry and the 14-month investigation of Mr. Bamber's complaints by the City of London police confirm that there was any justification to Mr. Bamber's allegations.
I understand that there is no current recorded complaint to the new Independent Police Complaints Commission. If there is a complaint that the police are deliberately withholding material, that is the proper authority to deal with the matter. Only if a third appeal contradicted the earlier findings of the re-referral and of the previous court might it be reasonable to consider whether an inquiry was needed into how the matter had come to that pass.
Before us is a concern that evidence has not properly been made available to the body that is rightly charged with judging it. There is an independent body, which is sifting through that evidence and which has the powers, given to it by Parliament, to call for that evidence if it believes that it is in any way relevant to the case for a re-hearing by the Court of Appeal. It is doing that job. I urge the hon. Gentleman to depend on that process. The Criminal Cases Review Commission has been pretty efficient at dealing with the matters before it.
Mr. Hunter : Is not the point that the CCRC may be evaluating submissions from Mr. Bamber's solicitor and has the power to request evidence, but the defence does not? The defence's submission to the CCRC is the weaker, because it does not have access, or powers to gain access, to the evidence that the police are allegedly denying it.
Fiona Mactaggart : The hon. Gentleman points out that these are allegations. The record of the CCRC in its independent role is good. It has referred a number of cases back to court. I do not have the figures before me, but I think that, to date, there have been more than 60 cases in which the judgments of previous courts have been overturned as a result of its work. The CCRC is not anybody's patsy. It has the power to require the material. It is the mechanism that has the power to ensure reconsideration if a case merits reconsideration. We have established a powerful independent way to deal with miscarriages of justice. If the concern is that there has in this case been a miscarriage of justice, that body must have the opportunity to do its job and to ensure that that matter is dealt with effectively.
Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Four o'clock.

Jeremy Bamber: As many as FIVE silencers

 Copyright ©Jeremy Bamber Campaign                                                 Edits PAM

Flawed though it was, the evidence surrounding the sound moderator - known as a silencer - was undoubtedly crucial in securing the conviction of Jeremy Bamber for the murders of five members of his family in 1985. Speaking to author Scott Lomax in a book on the case, Jeremy himself said "...it all comes back to the blood in the moderator."

Trial judge, Justice Drake had told the jury "...on the evidence of the silencer alone...", they may find Jeremy guilty, and indeed the jury themselves wrestled to get to grips with the issue and, at one stage, after their first deliberation to reach a verdict, they asked to hear again the evidence relating to it. Their verdict followed soon after, so one can be in no doubt that the issue was central to the decision made almost thirty years ago.

The jury had been concerned that Jeremy's relatives, who found the moderator, would benefit from his conviction, and asked the court a question in writing about their motive but were told that the relatives were wealthy in their own right, and had no interest in financial gain from Jeremy's conviction. Despite a wealth of evidence showing motive for the Boutflour's and Eaton's to lie in court, including the existence of documents showing a court battle between Jeremy's father and mother's families for the estate, the 2002 Appeal ruled that new evidence did not suggest that the 1986 court was lied to in any way, and that the jury were given the correct answer by Robert Boutflour. The courts have ignored any possible financial motive to plant evidence, including the secret land deal and the will of Jeremy's grandmother which had been changed after the tragedies making his aunt and uncle Boutflour wealthy in their own right. Since the 2002 Appeal, considerable information has come to light regarding the depravation of monies from the Bamber estate including accusations of theft against Peter Eaton by the Bamber's secretary Mrs Barbara Wilson which went un-investigated thus hampering the first appeal of Jeremy Bamber.

It has now been established that the 'silencer' in the case of Jeremy Bamber is nothing more than a complete red herring, probably thrown into the mix by those who financially benifited from Jeremy's conviction to muddy the waters. Only now, decades later, have we been able to unravel the issue completely and piece back together how its evidence was manipulated by police to aid their bid to secure Jeremy's conviction. The City of London Police Investigation (1991), Metropolitan Police Investigation (2001) and Criminal Cases Review Commission (2004-2012) have all ignored statements made in 1991 by the Forensic Scientists who worked on the sound moderator exhibit, who explicitly say that their original statements made to Essex Police had been altered without their knowledge. No action has been taken by either Political or Judicial authorities to address the very serious issue of Police fabricating key witness statements.

Our Case Quick Time video on The Moderator explains some of the issues surrounding the forensic examination, and highlights a comprehensive dossier of material supporting the truth. You will be able to see how the evidence presented at trial was not from one exhibit, but from as many as five moderators. Collected and examined at different times,
the exhibit evidence was effectively stitched together to form what was the cornerstone of the fabricated prosecution case against an innocent man. We know for sure that the moderator never played a part in the tragedies that unfolded at White House Farm.
 
For more on sound moderators watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0Id6L5TMIg
For more on corruption and cover-up visit
 http://www.jeremy-bamber.co.uk/

Bamber's Rambles: NOT

No-one saw Jeremy Bamber walking or cycling or driving along any roads on the night of the White House Farm murders, so... in order to confuse the jury and to help secure a guilty verdict the following is one of the routes that Essex Police fantasised that Jeremy had walked and/or cycled.

   Essex Police were so desperate to implicate Jeremy in the murders that they said he phoned the police station from White House Farm, Tolleshunt D'arcy, pretending to be his father, then went back to his own home in Goldhanger and phoned the police from there to report his father's call to him.

Of course this was before the log (which Essex Police and the CPS said did not exist) appeared and which proved Nevill Bamber DID phone the police and that this was logged ten minutes or so before Jeremy's call.

 

 



The video clips do not do justice to the true nature of the terrain - it was impossible to cycle either side of the narrow track as the ground is extremely uneven with pot-holes and long grasses.  There's a six foot drop into the sea on one side and down a steep bank on the other - and of course Jeremy was supposed to have done this in the dark on a lady's cycle.

 

 

 

Start of the route - bottom of Pages Lane   

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cannot ascertain when playing field was erected - original route was by footpath only

Head Street is 0.2mls to the right at the end of the footpath

 

 

 

 

Justice4JeremyBamber: Julie Smerchanski nee Mugford...Subpoena?

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

 http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/city-woman-key-witness-if-uk-judge-allows-appeal-148056175.html

City woman key witness if U.K. judge allows appeal

By: Nick Martin

Posted: 04/19/2012 1:00 AM |      

   

Jeremy Bamber was convicted in 1986 of killing five members of his family -- one of the most sensational British murder trials in decades.
The 52-year-old Bamber has alleged all along he was the victim of a wrongful conviction, and he'll find out next week if the British courts will grant him leave to appeal.
If the appeal goes ahead, a key witness could again be his former girlfriend, Julie Mugford -- now Julie Smerchanski, a Winnipeg wife and mother, and director of assessment and instructional support services for the Winnipeg School Division.
"Yes, absolutely," he will call Smerchanski to testify should his client have his appeal heard, Bamber's lawyer, Simon McKay, said Wednesday from Leeds.
"She was a key witness," McKay said, though he emphasized, "No one considered that her evidence alone convicted Bamber."
Smerchanski has not responded to interview requests from the Free Press.
Jeremy Bamber's case has resulted in several books and numerous television documentaries.
Bamber was adopted as a child into a relatively wealthy English farm family. In 1985, five members of his family were found shot to death, a rifle lying across the body of Bamber's non-biological adopted sister.
The victims included Bamber's adoptive parents, and his sister's two young children.
For weeks, police believed the sister suffered from mental illness and killed the four others before taking her own life.
But they eventually charged Bamber with all five slayings, and he was convicted and sentenced to life without parole.
McKay said the Bamber trial has been so sensational in the United Kingdom for so many years, that a mythology has developed around it.
The original trial created a media frenzy in Britain, complete with some media outlets offering tens of thousands of pounds for exclusive interviews.
A previous appeal bid failed in 2002, but that attempt to get a new trial was based entirely on DNA evidence, said McKay, who took up Bamber's case last year. McKay has had several highly publicized murder convictions overturned, and is representing several clients victimized in the ongoing hacked telephone and email scandal in Britain.
McKay said he will allege in court the police mishandled the original murder investigation, and that some crucial evidence was contaminated.
Bamber's legal team has pathologists and forensic experts who will testify the evidence clearly points to the sister as the killer, said McKay.
He said the charges against Bamber were laid after Mugford came forward and told police about statements he had allegedly made to her, McKay said.
"It wasn't until the 2002 appeal that it was learned she had moved to Canada," McKay said. "I know journalists have come to Canada and tried to talk to her."
Extensive online coverage of the Bamber case indicates Mugford played a crucial role in the 1986 trial, and she has consistently declined to talk to the media.
McKay said he believes he can compel Smerchanski to testify at an appeal.
"We're fairly certain we can issue a subpoena upon her," and that extradition treaties would force her to testify, he said.
nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 19, 2012 A9

Justice4Jeremy: Guardian Reporter Eric Allison

Tuesday, 6 August 2013

"On the 28th Anniversary of the Killings which took Jeremy's Family away from him"

On the 28th anniversary of the killings which took Jeremy's family away from him, I am reminded of the words spoken to me by Ann Whelan some years ago. Ann is the mother of Michael Hickey, wrongly convicted of the murder of 13 year-old Carl Brigewater. Michael served almost 17 years of a life sentence before being freed by the court of appeal.

Ann fought tirelessly for her son's release and became a beacon for many of the campaigns that followed.

 

 

I had asked her if she had any advice for other victims of miscarriages of justice and those who fight to set them free? She said they should "Be prepared for a long fight and not to expect any help from the system that created their injustice." She added that they had to "keep battling, even on the darkest days." 

I remember her wise words as I see Jeremy starting his 29th year of false imprisonment and I think of him and those on this website and beyond, who support his struggle for justice. It is indeed a long fight and there are dark days; such as the day the CCRC last refused to refer his case back to the court of appeal; but Jeremy battles on and so must we, his supporters.

We must believe we can win, we must believe that the walls of the Crown's case against Jeremy, built on lies, deceit and gross police misconduct, will come crashing down one day.The weight and power of the increasing mass of evidence of his innocence, must eventually prove too strong for the authorities to repel.

So, as we remember Jeremy's family, the struggle for truth and justice must continue. It will prevail.

Eric Allison.