You can tell a lot about somebody from the way they sound.
What did Nevill's voice sound like? Does anybody here know?
Was it anything like Jeremy's? Jeremy voice, from audio recordings, sounds to me like a generic Anglian accent with 'educated' modulations and a slight but definite Essex lilt. Nevill had sought to give Jeremy a good education of at least equivalent to what he received, and this lingers in Jeremy's voice, which has an educated aspect to it. I also pick up a 'wishy-washy', plaintive aspect to Jeremy through his voice, which I think comes out of spending most of his adult life in high security prisons under submission to the authorities.
I imagine that Nevill sounded quite different to Jeremy. They were genetically unrelated for one thing.
There was an obvious age gap, from which we can imply a lot. Maybe Nevill had a Home Counties accent, though it may have been genericised by his War service and other cosmopolitan experiences, and it must also have reflected an advantaged background that saw him attend public school. Did Nevill ever live in or visit India? Maybe Nevill picked up an Essex country twang along the way. He seems to have impressed the Speakmans immensely and rubbed along reasonably enough with the younger Robert Boutflour, which suggests that despite his advantaged upbringing, he was able to fit in and not overbear people.
How does this quality compare and contrast with Jeremy? It is difficult to imagine Jeremy enjoying the same success as a respected hard-working Grey Man whose jib fitted. Jeremy was an individualist, somebody who stood out. Nevill seduced June as her tennis partner. Jeremy met Julie as a barman at Sloppy Joe's. Nevill was a worker. Jeremy was a performer. Nevill slotted into the farming-business matrix of the Speakmans and Boutflours. Jeremy was still young and unformed, but seemed more self-interested and short-termist in his horizons and attitudes: the Epicurean to Nevill's Zeno.
Nevill devoted himself to the life of a working farmer and to his local community as a parochial church warden and respected magistrate and youth justice chairman. Yet he was not of a parochial sensibility. Like Jeremy, he was able to follow his adventurous instincts when young. In Nevill's case, this was through War service. Then he settled down. In business, he was an important northern Essex farmer, owning a large and successful farm business formed as a limited company, yet he did not put on airs and graces. He directly-supervised all aspects of the farm operations and, isolated incidents aside, was generally respected in the farming community. He was also a company director and shareholder in a successful food production co-operative. He would have been self-confident and comfortable around people at all levels and one can imagine that perhaps his voice was strong, authoritative and assertive.
Jeremy picked up this self-confidence and authoritative air from his adoptive father but it may have been precociously misdirected into youthful arrogance and insecure defensive petulance. "That is for you to prove" is what Jeremy told the prosecution counsel, Anthony Arlidge, at the 1986 trial. Barbara Wilson seemed unimpressed with him, perhaps because Jeremy's self-assuredness was out-of-place at that stage as he had not proven himself as a capable farm operator in his own right.
One reason we like to assume this terrible act on the 6th. and 7th. August 1985 was planned is that it makes it easier to discuss and rationalise. A spontaneous murder - a 'crime of passion', as the Continentals would call it - is harder to understand, often impenetrable to ordinary human comprehension. It is easier to apply post hoc ergo propter hoc observations to evidence and template on to Jeremy's mind a fully-formed criminal intent. June's bike must be part of the plan, whereas it may just have been as Jeremy says: Julie borrowed the bike. Jeremy specifically enquired after Colin about whether Sheila and the twins would be there that week, whereas Colin invited Jeremy to that social gathering and Jeremy may have just been making conversation. Jeremy showed Sheila how to load the rifle, but Sheila had expressed an interest in guns before and may have just been curious. Jeremy left the gun out, but guns were left out all over the house. The bedroom phone was missing, but the kitchen phone was being repaired.
I suspect Jeremy's actions were unplanned and the outcrop of a psychosis catalysed by family tensions, and he instantiated the fake phone call after a genuine call from Nevill that evening. But let us say I am wrong and it was all planned. We must then ask: How did Jeremy arrive at the conclusion that Nevill would call him rather than the emergency services? Surely such a plan would entail considerable risk, due to the inevitable suspicion it throws on Jeremy? Surely better for Jeremy not to fake (or make) a call at all, to anybody. So why did Jeremy go down this avenue? As part of his criminal planning, Jeremy must have given some careful thought to Nevill, and among other things, Nevill's voice. Jeremy must assume that Nevill would go for the phones, and Jeremy would know that the police would assume this too and would ask why Nevill had not reached the phones and why Nevill's voice had not been heard on the phone by a police officer or a civilian operator like Malcolm Bonnett. This is especially important if Sheila is to be deemed the suspected killer because she would probably focus on June rather than Nevill. Who does Nevill call? The emergency services, 999. Unless there is a reason for Nevill to call somebody else, like Jeremy. For what reason would that arise? Nevill might want to keep the incident from the authorities and prefer to manage things within the close family. However, in reality, Nevill must try to ring 999 because he must know that the perpetrator is Jeremy. Even if Jeremy wears a mask, surely Nevill would still recognise him?
This is where we come to another problem for the Crown. How can they explain the lack of a 999 call from White House Farm, even if it was an abortive call? The fact that Nevill was shot in the face does not prevent him dialling 999. For one thing, he may not have been cognisant of his injuries at that point and surely would have tried to dial 999 anyway. Why didn't he? Why did he run for the kitchen? Or did Jeremy take him there at gun point? If that is what happened, why didn't Nevill fight more for June, Sheila and the twins, and why would Jeremy take him downstairs at gunpoint leaving June still alive and conscious, albeit seriously injured? And why at this crime scene do we find the kitchen phone free of blood marks?
And what about phone records? Jeremy would know that phone bills then were not itemised, as he must have received bills at Goldhanger. (Or did he?) Would Jeremy know whether calls were itemised at the exchange end? Would Jeremy have understood that 999 emergency calls were recorded, as were ordinary calls to the police? This was back in the 1980s. Was that common knowledge then? For instance, were there popular TV series with 999 recordings that would have made him aware of this?
A still more pertinent question: If Jeremy did not know any of these things but had thought of them as part of his criminal planning, then how does he go about finding out the position without leaving an evidence trail? This was before the internet and worldwide web. He can't just carry out a Tor search. He would have to make enquiries of BT, the police, maybe a public library, and so on, or ask people he thinks are 'in the know'. How does he do this without the risk that the people he contacts become witnesses for the prosecution later down the line?
Thinking all this through, maybe for the sake of completeness we should explore the notion of an actual 999 call from Nevill. The scenario would be that Jeremy comes to the conclusion that he could fake Nevill's voice, or have a Fake Nevill make a abortive 999 call with some vague noise to the operator to indicate he is in trouble. But could Jeremy credibly throw Nevill's voice?
If that is too far-fetched, then consider what the Crown allege Jeremy did as it is: he entered a property and wiped out his own family, including two small boys, then left, and did all this without leaving any direct forensic evidence of the act. He did it for money, they say. In a way, that's far-fetched too. Really, whether something is far-fetched or not often depends on one's point-of-view and how one interprets the evidence available.
There is evidence for a 999 call from Nevill. The question is whether it is good evidence or we should just fall back on the default explanation that the civilian operator, Malcolm Bonnett, took one call, from PC West, who in turn spoke to Jeremy. I have to say, the default explanation seems the more reasonable, but we are reliant on the evidence in front of us and the two phone logs could be interpreted in Jeremy's favour.
