I suspect he could be innocent yes, I certainly believe Sheila was involved but I'm well aware JB could be as well. I have always struggled with the idea of him climbing through the window in the dark after biking across dark fields, banging the window shut etc. although it is a possibility which is one reason he was convicted. It seems this was thought up to solve the problem of how he eas able to enter the house with the door locked and bolted rather than any proof he did. They didn't have to prove he did just that he could. I know it's acceptable in law but not particularly convincing. We know that in the past statements have been inaccurate or even rewritten to fit in with belief of guilt or innocence. Ito not a great way to convict someone and take their life away. I assume you mean some police would have been on duty 6pm til 2 am then gone home and slept before they reported to work and recalled accurately what had been said many hours before or those who had been up all night possibly gone home and slept before they all met up to make their statements. It's the same for any case not just for this one but it seems a pretty inadequate way to record information which is so important to the defendant whoever he/she is.
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Well, I wouldn't stir myself from my comfortable home at dead of night and do a bike ride across uneven tracks to crawl through someone else's window -my psychology isn't right. My greed isn't strong enough- but the lure of several millions pounds in today's money would, I suspect make such more attractive. It wasn't exactly unknown terrain for him so less difficult than you might imagine, perhaps. The door MAY not have been locked when he went in. It's not impossible that Nevill was till up and let him in. All that's required then, having locked the door from the inside, is for him to exit a window.
The shifts run 6am til 2pm, 2pm til 10pm, 10pm til 6am, so those involved would probably have been a mix/overlap of two shifts. The firearms team would all have been members of other units. I'm almost certain that personnel don't go home and sleep on it before writing reports!
The point you raise re statements and their accuracy, or lack of -in this case, there was little to report as nothing happened for several hours. They were just hanging around outside waiting for something to happen, nothing of which changed when Jeremy was eventually suspected. If we're to go down the 'not fit for purpose route' there wouldn't be any convictions. If we relied on the word of the convicted insisting the police had got it wrong and took their word for it our prisons would be relatively empty. Such MAY work in Sweden but I'd suggest that the Swedish mind set is very different from ours.