Jeremy Bamber
Over the last 4 years I have been contacting ex officers involved in this case and witnesses,I have also made many FOI requests.
This is what I “believe” happened. you can make your own interpretation of the word “believe”
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmhansrd/vo050209/halltext/50209h05.htmSo what happened in the Jeremy Bamber case that is so secret ?
Be aware that the UK government have placed much of the evidence and reports on this case under public interest immunity,why you may ask what are they trying to hide?
Well as you can see from the incident logs Jeremy’s sister Shelia was originally found in the kitchen of the family farmhouse when the armed police team entered the family home,the raid was triggered by Shelia having been spotted in the kitchen and when a gun was seen in a upstairs window.
Shelia had not entered into any negotiations with the police and the well being of the family and her two sons was a very high priority,so the police went in.
The raid team broke down a rear door making lots of noise and pushed open the kitchen door, Neville Jeremy's farther was toppled from a chair and was deceased, Shelia also on the kitchen floor had shot herself with one of the two guns in that room,the police quickly searched the rest of the house and found the mother and two boys had also been shot in head and were also deceased.
What was not noticed that Shelia was in fact not dead and managed to escape upstairs using one of the three staircases to get the only still loaded weapon in the house and shoot herself a second time and die.
On the instruction of Assistant Chief Constable (ACC) Peter Simpson the raid team were told to cover up this error as to avoid causing more stress to Jeremy Bamber as he had just lost his whole family in the incident and any embarrassment to Essex Police .
The cover up was awkward to arrange as they needed to explain how Shelia had shot herself twice in the head and why she was placed in the recovery position,Shelia was rolled out of the recovery position a bible was used to hide the running blood stains and some cleaning up of Shelia was done.
To explain the two shots to the head from the scene was made into a one gun event with the semi automatic weapon being used and the explanation given that the gun malfunctioned and two rounds were discharged in quick succession from one trigger pull by Shelia.
Essex police then arranged a training exercise in the house naming the firearms officers that attended “informants” with the aim avoiding this type of incident happing again.
The coroner was also informed and advised he would find probably two or more types of rounds in the victims he was about to examine and what decision had already been made,it was required that his report did not conflict with the arranged story of events,the time of death for each victim did not need to be changed, Shelia was recorded as dying when Jeremy was sat in the police car.
Things started to go wrong within days and were partly driven by historical divides between Jeremy and his wider family,the family knew that Anthony Pargeter (Jeremy’s cousin) gun had been used on the night and discovered the secret training event that took place on the morning with the victims body’s still in-situ,the family pressured Essex Police to look in more detail, at the case which was then a simple 4 murders and a suicide by Shelia.
The extended family were concerned at the conflicting details and grew suspicious of events.
It all came to a head when finally 5 weeks later one of the extended family members had a private meeting with ACC Peter Simpson and made it clear they would go to the press with what they knew if action was not taken,Peter Simpson then made a the decision to give the family what they wanted and also take the heat away from Essex Police and frame Jeremy Bamber for the murders.
ACC Peter Simpson’s decision placed many police officers in a awkward position as the had previously agreed to cover up the real events inside the farmhouse,but now had to make the decision either to speak up and challenge their senior officers and expose their colleagues to disciplinary action or allow a young man to be framed for murdering his whole family,the expectation of the officers was the case would never get to trial.
There was one police officer who did speak up and was going to stand for the defence at Jeremy Bambers trial, he died in a accident before the start of the trial.
Essex Police had many hurdles to cross to stand a chance of obtaining a conviction of Jeremy,this included the fact the time of death for Shelia was when Jeremy was sat in a police car with three police officers,so the coroner reports had to be rewritten.
Also there was no evidence to link Jeremy to events so Essex police set about ways of trying to prove that Shelia could on not of taken her own life,Essex police said a silencer was fitted to the gun which made it too long for someone to shoot themselves with it.
The extended family helped Essex Police fabricate the silencer evidence thinking Jeremy was involved.
All witnesses were told that Jeremy had not received a call from his father so giving the impression he was he was lying and guilty.
Essex police also had to cover up the fact the Jeremy’s farther had called 999 and a car had been dispatched before Jeremy had called the police on the night.
The last hurdle was no witnesses to stand against Jeremy at trial, without this there was no real chance of a conviction and this would lead to the attention being returned to Essex Police.
Jeremy split from his girlfriend several weeks after the deaths and the police discovered she had been involved in a cheque fraud with one of her university friends, this and other crimes were used as leverage to get Jeremy girlfriend to testify against Jeremy at trial, it was made clear to her that if she did not help police they would prosecute her and she would be in the frame as a accessory to murder,she was cleaned and coached as a witness extensively prior to the trial.
The extended family were also unaware of Jeremy’s innocence at the trial when they gave evidence.
Essex Police were only just successful and a ten to two jury majority convicted Jeremy Bamber for five murders in 1986 one more jury member voting not guilty would of lost the case.
Douglas Hurd was unhappy with Essex Polices handling of the case and ordered a review,the review was conducted by Essex police themselves and again covered up events.
Jeremy then made a appeal of his conviction which failed, but again the government ordered a review of Essex Police handling of the case this time by a external police force.
After extensive questioning of the officers involved and examination of the evidence it was clear that the case against Jeremy was flawed but it was not understood why Essex Police had made all efforts to convict Jeremy Bamber when all the evidence pointed towards his sister being responsible.
To discover the truth a deal was struck between the officers involved in the original conviction and the City of London Police (COLP) who were conducting the investigation,the officers were offered immunity from prosecution if they told the truth of why Jeremy became the suspect for the murders.
The truth caught the COLP very much by surprise, as they had not uncovered anything regarding the original mistake made by the firearms team on entry to the farmhouse back in 1995,the COLP final report gave the home sectary a choice of either to publish the report or cover up the case,the case was covered up and the critical parts which would allow anyone to discover the truth were covered by public interest immunity (pii)
Jeremy was still unaware of what was happening and what happened in 1985.
Jeremy’s twenty five year tariff was changed into a full life tariff to stop him on release exposing anything.
When DNA evidence became available Jeremy appealed his case again in 2001 and asked DNA checks to be made on the silencer that Essex Police said was fitted to the gun Jeremy used to shoot his sister,if there was no blood on the silencer then Essex Polices case would collapse.
No blood from Shelia using DNA was found on the silencer, Jeremy came very close to winning his freedom but a judicial fudge was made to stop the first ever full life tariff prisoned from overturning his conviction for multiple murder,the appeal judges also did not know the real details of the case.
Other critical DNA items that exposed the case were destroyed by Essex Police.
Other critical evidence was then destroyed by Essex Police.
A few years later Jeremy discovered the incident log for events back in 1985 was only one page long, and asked Essex police to provide him with the other pages of the log,Essex Police first denied their existence and then later said they were covered by pii and would not disclose them to Jeremy,Jeremy challenged this in court and won.
Essex Police then made the fatal mistake and faxed the missing pages of the incident logs and other logs that they were not obliged to release to Jeremy’s solicitor,these documents finally after twenty four years allowed Jeremy to understand why he had been framed for the murders of his whole family.
The last years have resulted in a uneasy stalemate between Jeremy who now can prove his innocence and a government who is faced with a clear paper trail that leads all the way from a simple mistake right through the Police system the Director of Public Prosecutions and the justice courts to government itself.
Jeremy has not been given the opportunity to challenge his conviction a third time in the appeal courts and all the critical evidence is still held under pii.
There are still parts and details of the case which remain unknown.
These are my own personnel opinions
www.jeremy-bamber.co.uk/what-really-happened
