Agree with that.
Bamber did something once. Then has spent the next 36 years saying he didn't do it. He may have been able to blank it out of his mind, if not completely, then he is able to justify his actions to himself.
This together with the motivation that passing a test will boost his campaign, would have made it easy for him to say 'no' when answering the expected question.
That's sort of what I'm getting at, but I'm really talking about the idea that when somebody does something terrible, they will often construct an entirely alternate narrative that they come to believe in. That sounds weird and paradoxical, and I can understand if you are sceptical about the idea, even scoff at it. It's not necessarily common experience. But I do think a lot of people genuinely believe their own lies, especially if the extent of the lie is deep and has been maintained for a very long time.
It has nothing to do with rationalisation or justification. It is simply a lie. Sometimes (as it will be in this case, if Jeremy is guilty) it is virtually an entirely constructed false alternate reality - a fantasy world. It starts with the offender lying to himself. Dissimulation and fabrication can be an essential survival strategy, especially in high security prisons, but in some cases it may become the basis of an offender's reality, in his own head. Thus, paradoxically, a lie becomes true.
The reason I labour the point is that it could go some way to explain why Jeremy has passed the polygraph test. This point is independent of his guilt or innocence, though it's obviously more useful for guilters and sceptics to consider. By the time he took the polygraph, Jeremy had served 20 or more years in custody. Think about it. That's 20 years to construct an alternate narrative that he then promotes aggressively and, quite possibly, comes to genuinely believe in. Hence, he comes across as genuine and his fine-tuned physiological responses betray nothing other than that he is a truthful subject. And in a sense, he
is telling the truth, even if he is guilty!
Of course, here I am putting aside my scepticism of the whole field of polygraphology. I am adopting the assumption that the polygraph is valid, and on that premise, I am considering how a guilty person could pass it with flying colours - albeit it would still raise questions about the usefulness of the test (even if the methodology is valid).
An additional point, which is related, is that if Jeremy is guilty but has a guilty conscience about it (i.e. he is either not a clinical psychopath or no longer a psychopath, he is psychologically normal), then this guilty conscience may be projected through his aggressive defence of his claimed innocence.
