How Jeremy's conviction was obtained:
The first rule is always to restrict the number of persons directly involved in the conspiracy to a bare minimum; to divulge information strictly on a ‘need to know’ basis.
There would perhaps have been 6 or fewer police officers who knew for certain that a conspiratorial plot was being enacted to convict Jeremy Bamber.
The core team was DCI Michael Ainsley, DS Stan Jones, DI Miller and DI Ron Cook. They would have manipulated other police officers such as DS Barlow, who fabricated the evidence about the kitchen window at WHF.
The strategy is to formulate a ‘team’ ethos. In the WHF case it was the characterisation of Jeremy Bamber as extremely cunning, devious and manipulative. So, the core team would say to a witness, “Help us or this horrible man might get set free”.
They would play on somewhat mythical fears that the Court system was rigged against the police and the police had a far greater burden of proof than was fair or reasonable. Alternatively, the police would simply lie to the witness. The situation regarding Colin Caffell’s witness statement serves as a good example.
On 9th September 1986 Colin Caffell, Sheila’s ex-husband, wrote a letter of complaint to DCI Ainsley voicing his concerns about an alteration which had been made to his witness statement. “I am writing to you because there are a few things which have been on my mind recently which I would like to bring to your attention. The main point I would like to raise concerns a sentence in either my first or second statement. It is the part where I am talking about my conversation with Jeremy at my party prior to the shooting. It refers to an opinion of Jeremy's where he says that he has always felt that I (referring to me) had always had a rough deal with regards his family etc. When the typed, edited statement was presented to me to read and sign, I noticed that the reference Jeremy had made to me, was changed to him, altering the whole inflection of the sentence. The 'I' which is underlined above was changed to 'he'.
When I commented to Stan Jones on this, he said something like: "Oh, it's only a typing error, don't worry about it. It's correct on the hand written statement isn't it? That's all that matters, so just sign it- If you change it, we'll have to have it all typed out again." This has been niggling me for some time and feel it must be important to have been included in the typed statement. When I asked Stan Jones about it again last week he said, "Leave it, whatever you do don't say anything about it in the witness box, it'll cause all sorts of trouble if you do." Unfortunately I can't accept that and feel I have to say something about it now, before it's too late.”
There does not appear to be a written response from DCI Ainsley to Colin Caffell regarding his concerns, however DS Jones visited him again on 15 September 1986. The only recorded reference to what was discussed is in a note attached to the action which states: “Caffell seen 15/09/86 – Got his facts wrong”. The statement was never corrected to read in the original wording contained in Caffell’s hand written original version of this statement and, of course, the defence only ever saw the typed, inaccurate, version.
For the detectives working on the WHF incident, the primary benefit to them of being involved was financial. This was an investigation that would result in hundreds of hours of overtime payments. To hard-up police officers the ‘murder’ case was a godsend. To rock the boat by questioning whether Jeremy Bamber was guilty would jeopardise the financial rewards of many colleagues.
Very few witnesses would be asked to lie outright. Julie Mugford being the most obvious example of one who was.
A witness such as Ann Eaton could however be ‘advised’ that certain truths would be unhelpful - if the aim was to convict a vicious murderer.
For example, if Ann Eaton barely knew Sheila Caffell, it would not lend her testimony credibility. Thus, Eaton might be persuaded to say that she knew Sheila well, or fairly well, and she could testify with alleged accuracy as to Sheila’s supposed scatty and uncoordinated nature, or that Sheila could not possibly know how to fire a gun.
For the witness, this form of deceit was not regarded as conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, this was just being helpful to the prosecution when the odds were stacked so highly against them (according to the police themselves).
For the professional witnesses the situation was slightly different.
The Home Office appointed forensic scientists were, in effect, part of the prosecution team. They were not expected to demonstrate scientific impartiality. Their role was to use scientific arguments to bolster the prosecution case. They were paid by the government and they were expected to support the police, not undermine them. Thus, they were highly susceptible to police pressure for them to overlook the submission of forensic evidence that did not comply with regulatory requirements, such as hand swabs taken from Sheila Caffell that were transported along with firearms and bullets, which could have caused cross-contamination. Ainsley regarded the rejection of the hand swabs with utter disdain and raged against the decision to reject them, causing them to be examined again at the first opportunity.
Thus, for a forensic scientist, being asked to work on two different ‘silencers’ was not problematical - as long as they were never asked directly to perjure themselves. They may have realised that there were two diverse silencers being examined but their role was not to question why – it was simply to report on what they found. The shenanigans surrounding falsifying exhibit labels were not the concern of the forensic scientists, as long as nobody knew.
For independent experts such as Dr Peter Vanezis, other considerations could be used to influence him. Primarily, the great financial rewards for being regarded as a prosecution-friendly pathologist. He has reaped huge financial reward and professional kudos over the years from being a Home Office pathologist, and an OBE with certain celebrity status. All that was required was for Ainsley to point out the testimony that would be good for Vanezis’ career, and again, to play on the need to convict a cunning and devious murderer who had, somehow, been clever enough to slaughter his entire family without so much as receiving a scratch.
The conspiracy was aided greatly by the decision of the DPP to allow Ainsley’s team to edit and amalgamate witness statements. The end result was cherry-picked testimony in statements that were not dated or seen and signed by the witnesses. Very few witnesses were aware that their words had been ‘twisted’ and those such as Colin Caffell who did notice, were fobbed off by the police. The defence protested about the production of undated and unsigned witness statements and Ainsley was forced to promise that he would get them signed, but he never did.
Thus, by the time papers were submitted to the defence prior to Jeremy’s trial, a careful case had been constructed that omitted a vast amount of information. The nature of the evidence was such that Jeremy’s defence conceded before the trial began that he was guilty, but didn’t tell Jeremy this.
Ultimately, it was a conspiracy between a handful of police officers and a few professionals who knew what was going on. The majority of civilian witnesses just thought they were being helpful to the police, although several of Jeremy’s relatives lied on oath so as to ensure that they inherited large sums of money.
