It is my view that the former Julie Mugford is no longer relevant to this case, if she ever was. Remember that I am considering this case in the context of what is thought to be Jeremy Bamber's legal position now, which includes:
(a). A conviction for five murders following a jury trial, albeit only on a majority verdict. No serious mitigation available, and had capital punishment still existed, we can assume he would have been hung.
(b). 33 years in custody, but he still vehemently denies he did it.
(c). A whole life order, meaning that unless the legal position changes, he will not be released on licence and he may even die in custody.
(d). Two failed appeals.
(e). At least one failed application to the CCRC that we know of, and that following very lengthy consideration of his case by the CCRC's investigators over a number of years.
(f). A failed judicial review challenging the CCRC's refusal to refer his case to the Court of Appeal.
In view of these facts, we can make the following observations:
(i). Bamber is no longer at trial. That was more than 30 years ago. The methods and approaches needed to secure a successful CCRC application are different to those needed to secure an acquittal by a jury.
(ii). Julie Mugford's evidence was largely hearsay and therefore cannot be disproved, as such.
(iii). The Crown's case stands with or without Julie Mugford. Even if Julie Mugford's evidence could be eroded or undermined to some significant degree, that would not undermine the safety of Bamber's murder convictions.
(iv). The converse of (iii) above is that these murder convictions can be quashed with or without Julie Mugford's evidence.
Let us consider what an appellate court has to accept in order to quash Bamber's conviction.
For our purposes, we can provisionally simplify the test this way:
The judges must ask themselves-
-If a jury had heard this evidence, could they have arrived at a different verdict?-
That, I admit, is not the be-all and end-all of the matter, and a lawyer who specialises in this area will probably dispute my wording, but it suffices for our practical purposes. We don't need to be exact to the nth at this point.
If we apply that (admittedly, rough and ready) test, we can immediately see the basis of a misunderstanding about what needs to be done. It is thought that by undermining Julie Mugford, that would present the judges with no option but to quash the conviction. After all, the thinking goes, if the jury had concluded that the former Miss Mugford was lying or had no credibility, or whatever, then surely they could have come to a different verdict in view of such an appraisal?
Unfortunately, that's not the way it works. The point is that Julie Mugford's evidence didn't amount to proof that Bamber had done the killings and, in this case, all the signs are the jury didn't rely on her evidence. Furthermore, even if the jury had relied on her evidence, the convictions would stand without her evidence. Therefore, any attempt to undermine Julie Mugford's evidence is futile because it can never satisfy the test - roughly summarised above - that must be applied by the appellate judges.
Julie Mugford is of no relevance or importance to Jeremy Bamber and she should be left to her life in Canada. Quite apart from my view that her contribution to the trial was strictly for entertainment value - her evidence being a joke and not even accepted by the jury - the point is that attacking her evidence proves nothing.