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Adjournment Debate
« on: February 22, 2011, 03:40:PM »

Debate in Parliament

9 Feb 2005 : 4 pm

Mr. AndrewHunter (Basingstoke)

(DUP): At 7.35 on the morning of 7August 1985, officers of the Essexconstabulary forcibly entered White House farm, Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex. Aftera 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 twinsix-year-old sons.    At approximately 3.15 that morning,the Bambers' 24-year-old adopted son, Jeremy, who lived in a neighbouringvillage, had called the local police informing them that he had heard from hisfather saying that his sister, Sheila, had gone crazy and had a gun. JeremyBamber met the police at the farm at about 3.40 am. The police initiallybelieved that Sheila, who had a history of mental illness, had committed fourmurders before shooting herself, but members of the extended Bamber family soonstarted trying to convince the police that Jeremy was responsible. In duecourse, he was arrested, charged and convicted.

The trial was unusual. The judgeruled that only Sheila or Jeremy could have committed the murders.Consequently, a major thrust of the prosecution case was to demonstrate thatSheila could not have been responsible and that Jeremy was therefore guilty. Itwas a near-run thing; the jury convicted Bamber on a 10:2 majority vote. Ifjust one of 10 jurors had wavered, Bamber would have walked away a free man.Instead, he has been incarcerated for 19 years, consistently protesting hisinnocence. Subsequent developments, particularly during the past 12 months,have given rise to grave concern that Bamber's conviction may be another of thegreat miscarriages of justice, to be bracketed with the Bridgewater Three, theBirmingham Six, the Guildford Four and others.

With the Bamber case, the keyissue 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, andexhibit 29 caught their attention in particular. It was a document listing someradio messages from the scene of the crime. The defence wondered whether itmight be the first page of a longer document rather than a complete document initself, so they sought clarification. Essexconstabulary was adamant that exhibit 29 was a whole document and had beenavailable to the defence for the trial. Unconvinced, Bamber's defence team tookthe matter to court in March 2004. It was successful, and the police producedthe entire document. Exhibit 29, it transpired, was not a single-page document,and Bamber's solicitors received by fax a 24-page summary of radiocommunications. They then took the unusual step of writing to both the trialjudge and the chief prosecution counsel, inquiring if either had known at thetime of the trial of the existence of the lengthier log of radio messages. Bothreplied that they had not.

On receiving the 24 pages, thedefence immediately noticed that the first two pages had not only beenre-written on different paper from the rest, but had been edited. A comparisonwith police witness statements revealed that several key radio messages thatwere made had been left out. Why? The defence therefore asked for the originaldocument so that it could be sent for electrostatic document analysis testing,but Essex constabulary refused. The requesthas been repeated many times, and on each occasion the constabulary hasrefused.

The disclosure of the radiomessage log was not the only dramatic development last March. Bamber's defencehad requested only one document. However, perhaps inadvertently, the policealso provided evidence that had not been requested—pages from a contemporaneoustelephone log and from a contemporaneous incident report. The defence had notknown that either existed. It was immediately apparent that the two logs andthe incident report that the police had withheld contained details that wereentirely inconsistent with the case put by the prosecution at Bamber's trial. Iwill give just two examples; others might be used by Bamber's defence on anotheroccasion.

First, at 5.25 am, officers inpolice car call sign Charlie-Alpha 7—the same officers who had met Bamber atWhite House farm and spent much of the time with him—relayed a message from thetactical firearms team to incident headquarters. The firearms team was inconversation with a person inside the farm. If the police were in conversationwith somebody inside the farm at 5.25 am, the case against Bamber collapses. Hecould not have murdered everybody in the farmhouse before 3 am if at 5.25 amthe 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, thejudge's ruling that either Jeremy or Sheila and nobody else could havecommitted the crimes is blatantly wrong. However, neither trial judge norprosecution or defence had any opportunity to evaluate the 5.25 am entry,because the police had withheld it.

Secondly, four entries in thelogs and incident report flatly contradict the prosecution's account thatNeville Bamber's body was found downstairs in the kitchen and the other fourbodies upstairs. An entry in the radio message log, which the police withheldfor nearly 19 years, reads:

"0737: one dead male and one dead female inkitchen".

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

"0738: one dead male and one dead female found onentry",

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

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

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

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

So, almost immediately onentering the farmhouse, the police had found two bodies downstairs in thekitchen, and later three more bodies had been found upstairs. Mostemphatically, that is not what the prosecution said during the trial.

The defence team believes thatit probably now knows what happened. It believes that the body of SheilaCafell, which the police insist that they found upstairs,
 
had first been seen downstairs in the kitchen. Of course, dead bodies do notmove. The proposition that Sheila Cafell was still alive when the policethought that she was dead in the kitchen might be dismissed as entirelyfanciful if there were not supporting photographic evidence—photographicevidence that was not disclosed until 2001. Unfortunately, Bamber's previousdefence 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 NevilleBamber, rigor mortis is evident, as is skin discoloration, and the blood iscongealed. The defence wrongly assumed that the first bundle contained all thephotographs that had been taken. Before the 2002 appeal, however, the defenceteam was shown another, smaller bundle of 80 to 100 photographs that hadpreviously been withheld.

At Bamber's trial, theprosecution argued that if Sheila had committed the murders and then killedherself, she would have trodden in blood as she moved about the house; but notrace of blood was found on her feet. Interestingly, no photographic evidencewas produced at the trial to support that assertion. Curiously, the firstbundle of photographs contained no pictures of Sheila's feet. That is not sowith the second bundle of photographs, which were withheld. In that bundle werephotographs, which were not available at the time of the trial, clearly showingblood on Sheila's feet.

The withheld second bundlecontains even more dramatic evidence. There are several photographs ofSheila—there is no rigor mortis, the skin is not discoloured and the blood fromher wounds has not yet congealed. Bamber's defence team have shown thosephotographs to leading pathologists. Independently, they have concluded thatSheila could not have died much more than one and a half hours before thephotographs were taken. However, the police photographer did not arrive until alittle after 9 o'clock. According to the pathologists, therefore, Sheila diedat about the time the police entered White House farm, and Bamber could nothave murdered her.

The points that I have made—Icould make many others if we had more time—give rise to grave concern aboutBamber's conviction. Their common theme is the non-disclosure of evidence bythe police. Nearly 16 years after the White House farm murders, the defencefirst saw the second bundle of photographs. After nearly 19 years, the defenceteam discovered that there was a full radio log, a telephone log and anincident report, of which it had previously been unaware. It is theunderstatement of all understatements to say that such non-disclosure is deeplyworrying. Even worse, it is still going on.

Bamber's defence team hasrepeatedly asked for access to the following: first, the notebooks and otherpapers of Inspector Jones, who headed the initial investigation and firmlybelieved in Bamber's innocence; secondly, the findings of the coroner whoinquired into Inspector Jones's sudden death, which have never been madepublic; thirdly, the audio recordings of all telephone and radio messages fromWhite House farm; fourthly, the audio recordings describing the scene of thecrime; fifthly, the video recordings of the scene of the crime; and sixthly,the original radio and telephone messages log and incident report. All arestill being withheld from the defence. On every occasion on which the defenceteam has asked for them, Essex constabularyhas refused to provide them. I put it directly to the Minister—and ask her torespond—that that is surely an intolerable state of affairs.

In December I tabled a written questionasking the Home Secretary to instruct Essexconstabulary to give Mr. Bamber's solicitors all audio tapes relating to eventsat White House farm. The Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and CommunitySafety replied:

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

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

"If the informationrequested is available under the access provisions of the Data Protection Act1998 or the Freedom of Information Act, then Mr. Bamber may have his own rightsto gain access to such information under this legislation."—[OfficialReport, House of Commons, 21 December 2004; Vol. 428, c. 1556W.]

Those possible rights have beenexplored, but appear not to exist. It is now time for the Home Office to takematters seriously, and consider carefully not only the few points that I havemade, but the whole Bamber affair. In particular, it should look at the issueof non-disclosure and the behaviour and attitude of Essexconstabulary. It is also time for the Criminal Cases Review Commission toexpedite matters so that the case of Mr. Jeremy Bamber is not left in judiciallimbo. Such action is necessary to avoid perpetuating what a growing number ofpeople fear may be one of the greatest miscarriages of justice of our times.

4.16 pm

TheParliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (FionaMactaggart) :

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 alife sentence for the murder of his adopted parents and sister and her twinsons.

The hon. Gentleman has statedthat 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 attitudeof Essex constabulary. I shall begin by sayingthat, on previous occasions, the Home Office has looked closely at the Bamberaffair, 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. Its14-month study did not uphold Mr. Bamber's complaint. Since then, there havebeen reforms to the Police Complaints Authority, and I do not know whether Mr.Bamber has made a further complaint to the new Independent Police ComplaintsCommission. Perhaps, however, it would help if I explained the recent handlingof requests to review cases such as Mr. Bamber's, because that is relevantto the points raised by the hon. Gentleman.

The 1993 royal commission oncriminal justice recommended that the responsibility for re-opening cases ofsuspected miscarriages of justice should be

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

Parliament agreed with that whenit passed the Criminal Appeal Act 1995, setting up the Criminal Cases Review Commission.Accordingly, the Home Secretary's powers to consider alleged miscarriages ofjustice ended on 31 March 1997, and were replaced by new powers vested in anindependent body, the CCRC. It has the power to review and superviseinvestigations into possible miscarriages of justice in England, Wales andNorthern Ireland; to approve the appointment of investigating officers; to gainaccess—I emphasise this—to documents and other material that may be relevant toits investigations; and to refer any cases when there is a real possibilitythat 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 answerableto Parliament for the work of the commission, but as it is operationallyindependent, he cannot intervene in its determination of   aparticular case. That being so, in many ways, it is not within the HomeSecretary'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 aparticular investigation of the role of Essexconstabulary. Further allegations of non-disclosure by the Essexconstabulary 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 tothe   Court of Appeal. The commission referred Mr. Bamber'scase to the Court of Appeal in 2001, following an earlier investigation, butthose grounds were not based on non-disclosure. Mr. Bamber's solicitor added a numberof non-disclosure arguments at the appeal hearing, although they were dismissedby the full court.

I understand that the commissionhas recently been asked to investigate the new allegations, and I can confirmthat under section 17 of the Criminal Appeal Act it has the power to gainaccess to documents and any other material that may be relevant to itsinvestigations. I have been told that there are something like4  million items of material in this case, so there is a large rangeof matters that the commission needs to investigate. If it has not already doneso as part of its earlier review of the case, which resulted in theunsuccessful appeal in 2002, it may, if it believes it appropriate, obtain thematerial to which the hon. Gentleman has referred.

It would be inappropriate forthe Home Secretary to become involved in this or any other alleged wrongfulconviction. The safety of the conviction is a matter for the courts rather thanthe Home Secretary. Accusations about the Essexpolice are a matter for the chief constable of the force or the new IndependentPolice Complaints Commission. There is an important public policy reason whyboth the Criminal Cases Review Commission and the Independent Police ComplaintsCommission are independent of the Home Office: to create public confidence inthose authorities.

Mr. Bamber is of course aware ofthe Criminal Cases Review Commission's remit, as his second appeal in October2002 followed its reviewing his case and referring it back to the Court ofAppeal on 23 March 2001. In that case, the Court of Appeal did not find thatthere were sufficient grounds for finding the conviction to be unsafe. In itsjudgment, the court went so far as to say:

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

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

It is open to anyone to re-applyto the Criminal Cases Review Commission if they can present an argument orevidence not raised in previous court hearings or demonstrate that the casewould, exceptionally, otherwise merit a reference back to the Court of Appeal.I am informed that Mr. Bamber's solicitor reapplied to the commission in March2004. I understand that the commission reached a provisional decision but thathis solicitor has since provided further material that will take time toinvestigate. I am confident that the commission is dealing with the furtherapplication both fairly and thoroughly.

It is neither in my remit nor inthat of the Home Secretary to consider the said to be newly discovered policelogs or any other new evidence that may have been made available to thecommission. However, the commission can ask for that material and assesswhether it demonstrates that the concern expressed by the hon. Gentleman thatthere has not been a fair trial is sufficient to merit re-referring the case tothe Court of Appeal.

I believe that it is at bestpremature to discuss a call for a further inquiry into the suggestedwithholding of information by the Essexconstabulary. At the second appeal, the court found no evidence to support Mr.Bamber's allegations of serious wrongdoing, including deliberatenon-disclosure, by the police; nor did the results of the internal inquiry andthe 14-month investigation of Mr. Bamber's complaints by the City of London police confirmthat there was any justification to Mr. Bamber's allegations.

I understand that there is nocurrent 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 contradictedthe earlier findings of the re-referral and of the previous court might it bereasonable to consider whether an inquiry was needed into how the matter hadcome to that pass.

Before us is a concern thatevidence has not properly been made available to the body that is rightlycharged with judging it. There is an independent body, which is sifting throughthat evidence and which has the powers, given to it by Parliament, to call forthat evidence if it believes that it is in any way relevant to the case for are-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 hasbeen pretty efficient at dealing with the matters before it.

Mr. Hunter :

Isnot the point that the CCRC may be evaluating submissions from Mr. Bamber'ssolicitor and has the power to request evidence, but the defence does not? Thedefence's submission to the CCRC is the weaker, because it does not haveaccess, or powers to gain access, to the evidence that the police are allegedlydenying it.

FionaMactaggart :

The hon. Gentleman points out that these areallegations. The record of the CCRC in its independent role is good. It hasreferred 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 thejudgments of previous courts have been overturned as a result of its work. TheCCRC is not anybody's patsy. It has the power to require the material. It isthe mechanism that has the power to ensure reconsideration if a case meritsreconsideration. We have established a powerful independent way to deal withmiscarriages of justice. If the concern is that there has in this case been amiscarriage of justice, that body must have the opportunity to do its job andto ensure that that matter is dealt with effectively.

Question putand agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly attwenty-nine minutes past Four o'clock.