Author Topic: Five Senior Officers, a police surgeon, and Coroners Officer only saw one Wound!  (Read 1545 times)

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Offline mike tesko

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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/11/jeremy-bamber-lawyers-say-new-evidence-undermines-conviction

Jeremy Bamber lawyers say new evidence undermines conviction

Officers’ statements suggest Sheila Caffell was found with only one gunshot wound

Lawyers for Jeremy Bamber, who is serving a whole life sentence for murdering his family, have unearthed evidence that they say undermines the claim that it was “inconceivable” for his adoptive sister to have shot herself.

Sheila Caffell, who died alongside her twin sons and Bamber’s adoptive parents in 1985, was initially the prime suspect in the White House Farm case, with police working on the hypothesis of a murder/suicide. But after suspicion later turned to Bamber, the prosecution said she could not have taken her own life because she received two bullet wounds to the neck at an interval.

Lawyers for Bamber – whose case is currently the subject of a six-part ITV dramatisation – have found in archives a series of statements by senior officers and the police surgeon that they say contradict that claim. They say the documents were never seen by the trial jury, and suggest that Caffell appeared to have only one gunshot wound when the police entered the crime scene.

The claim that Caffell was shot twice was significant at Bamber’s trial, alongside evidence that a silencer was used and then removed from the murder weapon. The judge Mr Justice Drake told the jury: “If she [Caffell] had killed everyone and was about to commit suicide and put the gun to her neck and found she could not reach it, is it seriously to be suggested that anyone, whether mentally upset or not, would then unscrew the silencer, go back to the cupboard, put it in the box and then return upstairs to the bedroom before taking her life by two shots – one with some interval between the other? The prosecution on that evidence alone say it is inconceivable that she killed herself.”

In the ITV series, the turning point in the police investigation comes when they realise Caffell has been shot twice in the neck, the investigating officer stating: “Well it can’t be bloody suicide then.”

Bamber’s lawyers asked ITV bosses to postpone the dramatisation, which concludes on Wednesday, because they believe the new evidence could clear Bamber’s name.

During the night of 6 August 1985, Nevill and June Bamber were shot and killed inside their Essex farmhouse along with their adoptive daughter, Caffell, and Caffell’s six-year-old twin sons, Daniel and Nicholas.

Bamber, then 24, phoned the police to say Nevill had called him saying his daughter Sheila had “gone crazy and has the gun”.

Initially, police believed that Caffell, diagnosed with schizophrenia, had fired the shots and then turned the gun on herself. But on 10 August, after the police ended their examination of the crime scene, a silencer was found in a gun cupboard at the farmhouse. It was later said to contain blood belonging to Caffell. In 2018 a forensics report cast doubt on the validity of evidence relating to the silencer.

On 7 September 1985, Jeremy Bamber’s ex-girlfriend told police Bamber had discussed killing his family with her and that he was involved. On 29 September, Bamber was charged with the murders. He was convicted in October 1986.

The newly discovered statements show that before the Essex police photographer began taking crime scene photographs at the scene at 10.20am on 7 August, illustrating that Caffell had sustained two gunshot wounds, five senior officers and the police surgeon had seen Caffell and suggested there was only one wound.

At 8.13am a Ch Supt Harris and Ch Insp Gibbons saw Caffell’s body in the main bedroom. In their witness statements written that morning, they described how she appeared. Harris stated: “A .22 rifle was lying along Mrs Caffell’s body, the barrel of which was resting just below an entry wound beneath her chin.” Gibbons said he saw “a younger female with a wound to her throat”.

At 8.25am a police surgeon, Dr Ian Craig, entered the house. He recorded in his witness statement, also written on the morning of 7 August, that “there was what appeared to be an entry wound in the throat”.

In 1986 during the Dickinson inquiry into Essex police’s handling of the case, ordered by the trial judge after Bamber’s conviction, Craig said: “I only saw one gunshot wound at that stage.”

Two Essex police officers, DS Jones and DI Miller, entered the house together at 9.15am. Miller recorded in a report dated 15 August: “The wound appeared to have been made by her own hand.”

Jones made no reference to any wounds in his witness statements until 1991 when he informed a City of London police inquiry that he attended the house the following day with a pathologist, Peter Vanezis, and was surprised to be told Caffell had suffered two gunshot wounds. He told the City of London police: “Up to that point I thought there had been only one.”

PC Wright , the coroner’s officer who provided information for the official coroner’s report dated 9 August, stated: “The appearance suggested in the case of Sheila Caffell the wound had been inflicted by her own hand.”

Controversially, the scene of crime officers, tasked with gathering forensic evidence, were unable to gain access to the house for 45 minutes and did not conduct their examination until approximately 10am.

While Bamber’s lawyers do not dispute that Caffell had two gunshot wounds by the time official police photographs were taken, they believe the failure to inform the jury of these statements prejudiced the case. One theory is that a gun went off accidentally in the chaos that followed after numerous police officers entered the farmhouse. It is accepted that the scene of crime was contaminated as officers attempted to reconstruct what had happened.

In evidence given to the Dickinson inquiry in 1988, Vanezis, the pathologist, said that while it was possible for people to kill themselves using two shots, it was uncommon.

Mark Newby, a solicitor advocate at Quality Solicitors Jordans, which represents Bamber, told the Guardian: “The jury only heard of the two shots, which was relied upon by the crown to support their case, but this wasn’t the whole picture. It represents yet another significant aspect to this case which supports Jeremy Bamber and undermines this conviction.”
« Last Edit: March 28, 2020, 10:38:AM by mike tesko »
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when we first practice to deceive"...

Offline mike tesko

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Controversially, the scene of crime officers, tasked with gathering forensic evidence, were unable to gain access to the house for 45 minutes and did not conduct their examination until approximately 10am.

This is not entirely accurate, although Cooks SOCO team DS Davidson, DC Hammersley and PC Bird) based at Witham police station were kept out of the crime scene until around 10.00am (two and a half hours after the firearms officers first entered the farmhouse). What Essex Police, and the Crown Prosecution Service are not admitting to, was the fact that a team of SOCO (including DC Oakey and DC Henderson) based at HQ, took crime scene photographs and crime scene video footage, showing the bodies of the three adult victims (June, Neville and Sheila) laid in conflicting locations and positions, as compared to the position of their respective bodies, as photographed by Cooks SOCO team from Witham police station, from 10.00am, onwards..

There was two investigations and two crime scene examinations inside the farmhouse on that first morning 7th August 1985...

7.30am - 10.00am, Firearm Officers, HQ SOCO team, Senior HQ Officers, A police surgeon, and a Coroners officer conducted or took part in the first phase of the investigations that date. At this time, two bodies had originally been identified as being dead in the kitchen (7.35am - 7.42am), with a further three bodies found upstairs in bedrooms after 8.10am.

By 8.15am, Sheila's body went missing from the kitchen!

The police did not carry her body upstairs and Shoot her again, on the main bedroom floor!

Sheila was originally shot when a firearms officer came around the opening edge of an internal door which joined the back hallway and the main kitchen. Sheila grabbed the muzzle end of the weapon being carried by the firearms officer and apparently forcefully pulled it into and against her own neck. This sudden movement caused the police weapon to be activated, and this was how she was presumed to mistakenly be dead.

It was not until around 8.15am, when senior Officers (Harris and Gibbons) left the forward Control Point, along with Firearms Officer, PI Montgomery, and entered the crime scene via the same door used by the raid team at 7.30am. It was not until Harris, Gibbons and Montgomery entered the kitchen that it was realized Sheila's body had gone AWOL. Upon this discovery, Harris spoke to Assistant Chief Constable, Peter Simpson, by using the telephone in the kitchen (landline), during which Harris updated Simpson regarding how the firearms' operation had just gone pear shaped. The dialogue between Harris and Simpson which took place between 8.15am until 8.30am, was allowed to take place, once the open line intercept involving the kitchen telephone was discontinued at about 8.10am (an audio recording of the entire eavesdropping exercise had been made between the entire period 6.09am until about 8.10am)...

As a result of this dialogue, arrangements were made for HQ SOCO (DC Oakey and DC Henderson) to attend the incident, to examine it, and take photographs.

Sheila's body was relocated upstairs in the main bedroom at 8.30am, her body was laid on the top of her parents bed. She appeared to be dead. There was no gun on her body, and she only had one bullet wound to her throat. There was no triangular bloodstain on her nightdress at the region of her right armpit, and no trail of blood from the single entry wound to her throat. The solitary wound had self sealed with a plug of dried blood by this time. At 9.00am, HQ SOCO (DC Oakey and DC Henderson) arrived at the scene, and were invited into the crime scene by Senior officers. This coincided with the senior officers carrying out 'informatives', where the various crime scenes inside the farmhouse were reorganized, bodies moved, potential items of evidential value replaced, and re-staged to make it look like Sheila had shot herself dead in the main bedroom. Before anything was moved HQ SOCO took photographs and crime scene video footage (these photographs and the video footage were taken at the scene between 9.00 and 10.00am)..

By the time Cooks SOCO team were handed control of the crime scene at 10.00am, a good deal of crime scene photographs had already been taken by HQ SOCO DC Oakey and DC Henderson. Almost all of the missing 358 photographs which were edited out of the disclosed batch of images given to Jeremy Bambers defence solicitors/ barristers, were taken by HQ SOCO, prior to Cooks SOCO team from Witham police station taking their own crime scene photographs...

In total 581 photographs were taken in one form or another, at the scene, Mortuary and elsewhere, but Bambers legal team only got access to 223 photographs...
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when we first practice to deceive"...

Offline mike tesko

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The existence of two different sets of Crime scene photographs which PC Bird (Witham Police Station SOCO), was tasked to merge into a solitary one, is the damning evidence that lurks in the background, confirming that senior officers and others, falsified the crime scene with a view to trying to make it appear that Sheila had shot and killed herself with use of the rifle on the main bedroom door...

PC Bird created an album containing 223 photographs or images..

This became known as 'THE MASTER COPY ALBUM'

However, Assistant Chief Constable Peter Simpson, retained the complete album containing all 581 photographs / images..

This became known as 'THE SENIOR INVESTIGATING OFFICERS ALBUM'
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when we first practice to deceive"...

Offline mike tesko

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PC Bird created the 'MASTERCOPY PHOTOGRAPHIC ALBUM', which although it should have had 223 photographs contained inside it, there were only 222 - for some reason one photograph chosen by PC Bird, got removed..

It is my belief, that the absented photograph, was the one DS Jones took inside the downstairs toilet capturing the collection of Anthony Pargeters collection of guns, including a shotgun, and his .22 (brno) bolt action rifle, ammunition magazines and his Parker Hale Silencer.

It is my understanding, that DS Jones took possession of Anthony Pargeters silencer and his .22 rifle which were referred to as exhibit SBJ/1. The fact that he did, permitted Anthony Pargeter to claim that on the penultimate week-end before the shootings he had taken his .22 brno bolt action rifle home to Bourne-End in Buckinghamshire. His rifle and silencer was not technically present at the scene once DS Jones removed them. It also goes some way towards explaining why the photograph which DS Jones had taken inside the downstairs toilet was subsequently destroyed (according to an entry in the major incident Property Register)...
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when we first practice to deceive"...

Offline mike tesko

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Massive clues as to what actually transpired at the scene on the first morning of the investigations can be found in the testimony at trial of DI Cook, and PC Bird (Witham Police station SOCO) regarding the sequentially numbered photographs taken on that first morning, who was invited into the premises after 10.00am, who removed the rifle from the body of Sheila Caffell, etc...

According to Cook, it was he who removed the rifle from the body of Sheila Caffell and placed it at the main bedroom window (which later on PC Bird took photograph no.23). However, PC Bird was at pains to say who had removed the rifle from the body and placed it in the bedroom window. He didn't see who had placed it there. According to PC Birds testimony during the trial Cook only moved the hand ever so slightly from the gun so that he could photograph bloodied marks on the front lower side of Sheila's nightdress. At one point during his testimony, he claimed to have taken photograph no. 23 himself, but gave a different account when questioned by Mr Rivlin QC, to the effect that he didn't take photograph no.23 at all, but that that photograph, and others, in close sequential order had been taken by DC Oakey (HQ SOCO)...

Cook testified that it had been himself who removed the rifle from Sheila's body and placed it in the bedroom window, and yet he also admitted allowing PI Montgomery access into the crime scene so that he could remove the said rifle, from Sheila's body and make it safe...

And yet, according to the official version of events, HQ SOCO (DC Oakey and DC Henderson) never attended the crime scene at all...

If that be the case, then how did DC Oakey manage to take photograph no. 23 which shows the rifle in the bedroom window, with part of June Bambers body visible near the bedroom doorway between the vantage point from which photograph no. 23 was taken (middle landing of the main stairs) and the distant main bedroom window in which the rifle had been captured. In addition, PC Bird testified that he had not taken crime scene photographs which showed Sheila Caffells body on the bedroom floor with the barrel of the rifle in a different position to the photographs of Sheila with the rifle taken by PC Bird after 10.00am - PC  Bird testified that DC Oakey had taken those photographs...

But how can he have if DC Oakey and DC Henderson (HQ SOCO) wasn't present at the scene on the first day of the investigation(s)?

Why hide the involvement of HQ SOCO at the crime scene (between 9.00am and 10.00am) before the crime scene was handed over to Cook and his SOCO team (from 10.00am, onwards) based at Witham police station?

Interestingly enough, the attendance of HQ SOCO (DC Oakey and DC Henderson) at the scene coincided with the 'INFORMATIVES' carried out by Senior Officers during that same time frame. But why hide the fact that HQ SOCO were there at all? What did they witness, that Essex police and the Crown prosecution service did not want anyone to find out about, or get to know about?

Well, HQ SOCO certainly took crime scene photographs, and  video footage of the various crime scenes before and after senior officers had restaged the crime scene in an effort to promote the idea that Sheila had shot the other four, and then turned the gun on herself. Furthermore, it is worrying that police originally opted for not talking about a second shot which Sheila received in her throat. This 'one shot' approach was even extended to the mortuary when Julie Mugford attended to carry out official identification procedures - She only saw one bullet entry wound in Sheila's neck when she formally identified her at the mortuary, so it stands to reason that one of the two bullet entry wounds had been masked over, with makeup, or whatever, in an attempt to conceal the fact that Sheila had been shot twice!
« Last Edit: March 28, 2020, 05:45:PM by mike tesko »
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when we first practice to deceive"...

Offline mike tesko

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Well, HQ SOCO certainly took crime scene photographs, and  video footage of the various crime scenes before and after senior officers had restaged the crime scene in an effort to promote the idea that Sheila had shot the other four, and then turned the gun on herself. Furthermore, it is worrying that police originally opted for not talking about a second shot which Sheila received in her throat. This 'one shot' approach was even extended to the mortuary when Julie Mugford attended to carry out official identification procedures - She only saw one bullet entry wound in Sheila's neck when she formally identified her at the mortuary, so it stands to reason that one of the two bullet entry wounds had been masked over, with makeup, or whatever, in an attempt to conceal the fact that Sheila had been shot twice!

And then of course was the fact that One or other SOCO team, photographed Sheila's body laid on top of the bed, with only a solitary bullet wound in her throat, no rifle on her or on the bed Who took that photograph and others related to it? Well it can't have been Cook and his team of SOCO from Witham Police station, because by the time they were handed the crime scene, Sheila's body had already been moved onto the bedroom floor, and by the time they took control (after 10.00am) Sheila had already received the second shot to her throat! So, everything points to it having been HQ SOCO (DC Oakey and DC Henderson) who photographed Sheila's body on the bed, at a time when she only had a solitary bullet wound in her throat. HQ SOCO took photographs at the scene between 9.00am and 10.00am. This is very interesting because according to the police surgeon, Dr Craig when he saw Sheila's body on the far side of the bed, she only had one bullet wound in her throat, and he had pronounced Sheila as being dead before HQ SOCO had arrived at the scene and carried out duties inside the farmhouse between 9.00am and 10.00am...

The photographs of Sheila laid on top of her parents bed sporting only a solitary bullet wound in her throat was a photograph which can only have been taken between 9.00am and 10.00am, but certainly not after Cook and his  team of SOCO had control of the crime scene from 10.00am, onward...


In a nutshell then, there can only have been two possible outcomes surrounding the question of how and when the second bullet entry wound got inflicted in Sheila's neck - either (a) Sheila was still alive long after the police surgeon, Dr Craig pronounced her as being dead (8.42am), and she shot herself on the second occasion, or (b) there was some sort of accident where the police shot Sheila on the second occasion, whilst manoeuvring the rifle on her body, a rifle that must still have had a live round of .22 ammunition in its breach...
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when we first practice to deceive"...

Offline mike tesko

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In a nutshell then, there can only have been two possible outcomes surrounding the question of how and when the second bullet entry wound got inflicted in Sheila's neck - either (a) Sheila was still alive long after the police surgeon, Dr Craig pronounced her as being dead (8.42am), and she shot herself on the second occasion, or (b) there was some sort of accident where the police shot Sheila on the second occasion, whilst manoeuvring the rifle on her body, a rifle that must still have had a live round of .22 ammunition in its breach...

One thing seems certain, and that was that Sheila was not shot on the second occasion whilst her body was laid on top of the bed, she received the second shot after her body had been moved onto the bedroom floor. I strongly believe that the second shot coincided with the 'INFORMATIVES' being carried out by senior Officers, witnessed by HQ SOCO (DC Oakey and DC Henderson)...
« Last Edit: March 28, 2020, 10:04:PM by mike tesko »
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when we first practice to deceive"...

Offline mike tesko

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One thing seems certain, and that was that Sheila was not shot on the second occasion whilst her body was laid on top of the bed, she received the second shot after her body had been moved onto the bedroom floor. I strongly believe that the second shot coincided with the 'INFORMATIVES' being carried out by senior Officers, witnessed by HQ SOCO (DC Oakey and DC Henderson)...

The second shot inflicted long after the police surgeon (Dr Craig) had already pronounced her as being dead, as a result of what appeared to be a solitary bullet wound to her throat. It beggars belief, that Dr Craig only managed to note the existence of a solitary bullet entry wound at the point he confirmed her death!
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when we first practice to deceive"...

Offline David1819

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Dr Craig simply didn't pay much attention.

Offline nugnug

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    • http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDMQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fjohnnyvoid.wordpress.com%2F&ei=WTdUUo3IM6mY0QWYz4GADg&usg=AFQjCNE-8xtZuPAZ52VkntYOokH5da5MIA&bvm=bv.5353710
but that dosnt on its own maen that there was only one wound just that they were not looking a corners officer isnt a patholgist he doesnt examine the body.

things like that often dont get noticed straght away.
« Last Edit: April 26, 2020, 09:12:PM by nugnug »

Offline mike tesko

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but that dosnt on its own mean that there was only one wound just that they were not looking a corners officer isnt a patholgist he doesnt examine the body.

things like that often dont get noticed straight away.
bearing in mind though a total of 581 photographs were taken in connection with these investigations and yet only 223 were originally disclosed and even one of those was subsequently removed and destroyed a total of 358 other photographs have been deliberately concealed and in order to get to the truth there needs to be access to each and every one of those 581 photographs, but there is a problem because somebody connected with the police or the Crown Prosecution Service  tampered with the negative strips and negatives of the strips and these photographs which will pinpoint the truth about what really did happen. There's no doubt in my mind that sheila was still alive at the time the police went into the farmhouse! You can choose to believe whatever you want to believe about how she got shot on the second occasion but the  truth of the matter is that she only got shot once and was presumed dead in the kitchen. I don't make the claim that Sheila's body was carried upstairs and ended up on the bedroom floor by the police. My belief is that she wasn't dead in the kitchen at any stage, but that she was mistakenly presumed to be dead after 7.35am, and that between then and until just after 8.10am, that Sheila was basically unconscious and that she regained consciousness and had made her own way up the spiral staircase and the reasons and there was no vertical blood marks running down her neck and onto the front of her nightdress from the single bullet wound at that moment  is because the wound had become plugged or clogged with dried blood, which served the purpose of retaining fresh blood held back in the track of the first bullet...
« Last Edit: April 28, 2020, 10:06:AM by mike tesko »
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when we first practice to deceive"...

Offline mike tesko

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  'the wound had become plugged or clogged with dried blood, which served the purpose of retaining fresh blood held back in the track of the first bullet'...

Sheila was not moving or running amok in possession of any weapon during any stage of the period (7.35am - 8.10am), she was on the kitchen floor mistakenly presumed dead, and unconscious.

By the time she regained consciousness, ample time had elapsed for any blood that had leaked from the first bullet entry wound to coagulate, and form a plug of dried blood at the entrance of the bullet entry wound - Sheila was able to get to her feet after regaining consciousness around 8.10am, and was able to walk around without any blood dripping vertically down her neck and onto the front of her nightdress from the singular bullet entry wound in her neck!
« Last Edit: April 28, 2020, 10:21:AM by mike tesko »
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when we first practice to deceive"...

Offline grahameb

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Looking at the second entry wound in the picture there appears to be a blood clot just below the wound? I wonder could this be a clot that removed from the first non fatal would when Shiela removed herself from her original location to the bedroom where she was eventually found?

Offline lookout

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Because of the " break " in the flow of blood from the second wound ( if you study it you'll see the gap from the actual entry to the flow of blood ) that last wound could have happened as Sheila had jolted after the initial shot as she'd have been dead after the first shot but it doesn't stop the body from jolting immediately after caused by an involuntary movement within the nervous system. Even her medication caused TD.

Dying in such a way is immensely different than dying from an illness as the way Sheila died there'd have been an involuntary movement with the shock of the first firing when a second would have followed straight after. The blood would have been a residual flow unlike the initial shot.

I can picture in my mind how it would have happened. Spontaneous movements can occur after death.

Offline lookout

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Both fingers and toes can move soon after a person has died which can frighten those who are not aware. My belief is that Sheila's finger's moved while still suppressing the trigger. It's that simple.