Louis Theroux

[killingeve]

Batten down the hatches Cambridge; it looks like it's set in for the duration.

Oh well at least we have plenty to keep ourselves occupied here 

[Steve_uk]

Oh well at least we have plenty to keep ourselves occupied here 

I used to quite like the evenings drawing in as a youth, which gave me more of an excuse to practise piano, but those days have dwindled of late, sadly.

[guest29835]

Nobody would have known about the cheque book frauds but for Julie coming clean. She arranged a deal to get the marauding Press pack off her back. Ann Eaton would have inherited Osea Road in time along with half her parents' estate, which would have included monies from Mabel Speakman. RWB inherited nothing directly from Bamber's conviction.

I do have a question about the 1989 Lord Lane appeal. There doesn't seem to be much material online about it, though Mr. QC Chevalier did speculate in a prior thread, which I quite enjoyed. Could anyone elaborate further in this area?

I speculated without the benefit of the full transcript, so unfortunately I was not aware of a flaw in the summing-up, identified by a barrister in the documentary, who does have it.  He pointed out that the judge had failed to summarise Jeremy's evidence while waxing on about Julie.  It seems that Anthony Arlidge was also less-than-impressed with the summing-up, which is quite telling given that he was prosecution counsel.

Of course, we must also remember that none of us were at the trial (or I assume none of us were there), so we can't know things like tone of voice, body language, and other mannerisms, that can give life to a dry text and afford it a meaning that is quite different to the impression given on reading it decades later.  Related to this, I had omitted to mention in my earlier post the inclusion in the documentary of part of the interview given by Judge Drake.  I think that happened in the 1990s.  I had always wanted to see that.  I wish we could see more of it.

I would also like to see more of Colin's interviews from the 1990s - including (if I'm not mistaken) an appearance on the Moral Maze and an interesting BBC2 programme that used to run, the name of which has slipped my mind.

[Adam]

I thought perhaps I had misunderstood.  I will have to listen again as I was sort of multi-tasking at the time.  Here's the podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEf2WCKkT1M&t=114s  Has it been the subject of discussion here?

Very much so.

Sheila's first shot was very damaging & would have knocked her out instantly & killed her over time. The second shot was only around an inch from the first shot & killed her instantly.

So the CT say the police shot Sheila.

[ngb1066]

I'm sure we're all waiting with bated breath, even if only for the skimpiest outlines.

Your sarcasm is so impressive.

[guest29835]

Long post, beautifully laid out and written.   

After the ITV doc earlier in the year I listened to some of the other docs (if you can call them that).  I thought the NOWTV doc was interesting in that it contained some new characters eg James Richard, Anthony Arlidge and Justice Henriques to name but a few.

I believe James Richard house shared with Julie and therefore I assume met with Bamber on occasions.  I thought he came over well and no doubt impressed the jury and trial judge with his claim that Bamber told him he hated his parents.  Apparently upon cross examination he said he recalled the comment as it was said with such vehemence. 

I think PC Saxby remained in the patrol car.

Yes the sticky silencer and hair are interesting.  I will have to have another look at the statements and see what was said at the time.  The accounts seem to vary somewhat.

As you said the pathologist was notable by his absense as was Sheila's psychiatrist.

My issue with James Richards is that he was supposed to be a witness for the prosecution, and maybe I am being old-fashioned, but I think at least in public he should be careful to ensure he is presented in that way, not as a 'friend of Julie Mugford'.  I appreciate he shared digs with her, or something like that, but if he is a friend of Julie Mugford, then that makes him look partisan, and implies he is her spokesman and that his involvement in the documentary is to stick up for her.  To me, there is just something about it that doesn't sit right.

I forgot to mention the appearance of the appeal judge, but hasn't he retired?  I think that should have been made clear.  A lot of viewers will have come away with the mistaken impression that he was giving the view of the judiciary.  The 2002 appeal judgment was flawed and that view should have been covered, but the scope of the documentary was too wide and they were trying to hit too many topics.

'PC Saxby remained in the patrol car' - that may well be, but you underestimate the verbal agility of Christopher Bews.  He is unmatched.

My pet theory about the silencer is, briefly, that at least two of them were examined by the FSS, and one was returned to the Eatons after undergoing chemical treatment for fingerprinting purposes.  David Boutflour has then handled this, or seen it, and confused one with the other in his own mind.  On the other hand, I accept that it is possible a guilty Jeremy would miss the 'stickiness', etc., of the silencer if he was wearing gloves, and he could also miss a hair. 

Yet then you have to ask yourself this: How and in what way and to what extent did he clean the silencer, if at all?  If we're saying he didn't clean it because all he was doing was moving it out of the way so that it would not be found, you then have to ask:

(i). Would Jeremy be that stupid in assuming that the police would not search the place in the house dedicated to the storage of firearms and paraphernalia?  He is supposed to have planned this.

(ii). Why wouldn't Jeremy just take the silencer away with him?  Even if it's absence would be noticed and seen as suspicious, he would never have been convicted on that basis.

(iii). Why didn't Jeremy return to clean the silencer properly?  Why did he allow the relatives keys to the house instead?

(iv). If Jeremy took himself and the silencer to the gun cupboard, why wasn't blood found on the floor of the back corridor, Nevill's den and in the gun cupboard itself?

I could go on with the problems.  Really, Jeremy's actions don't make a lot of sense if we accept the official narrative.  It's a bit of paradox to say that Jeremy is cold and calculating enough to stage a phone call and put on an act with the police, relatives and at the funeral and in other respects, but at the same time, he would not take care of incriminating evidence.  Maybe he was just reckless and arrogant and thought he had got away with it?  But this is looking at things backwards.  At the point he could have disposed of the silencer, he did not know that he had got away with it.  I also have issues with the blood patterning found within the silencer.  There's also the problem with the drawback theory that the silencer evidence depends on.  And there's the questions about the chain-of-custody of the silencer.

I was a bit harsh in my post in regard to Barbara Wilson.  I expressed it clumsily.  I said her evidence seemed pointless, but that's not correct because she did report her telephone conversation with Nevill.  I suppose I have a prejudice about her because she seems like a typical gossipy village woman with some sort of grudge against Jeremy, but she is allowed to give her impressions of the people involved, etc; and, to be fair, it may well be that she had more to say that was edited out but if included would make her seem more balanced in her views about Jeremy.

[Steve_uk]

I speculated without the benefit of the full transcript, so unfortunately I was not aware of a flaw in the summing-up, identified by a barrister in the documentary, who does have it.  He pointed out that the judge had failed to summarise Jeremy's evidence while waxing on about Julie.  It seems that Anthony Arlidge was also less-than-impressed with the summing-up, which is quite telling given that he was prosecution counsel.

Of course, we must also remember that none of us were at the trial (or I assume none of us were there), so we can't know things like tone of voice, body language, and other mannerisms, that can give life to a dry text and afford it a meaning that is quite different to the impression given on reading it decades later.  Related to this, I had omitted to mention in my earlier post the inclusion in the documentary of part of the interview given by Judge Drake.  I think that happened in the 1990s.  I had always wanted to see that.  I wish we could see more of it.

I would also like to see more of Colin's interviews from the 1990s - including (if I'm not mistaken) an appearance on the Moral Maze and an interesting BBC2 programme that used to run, the name of which has slipped my mind.

I would have thought that the inadequate summing up argument might fall due to Jeremy's reticence during the trial. To be sure he doesn't fall into that category of men akin to Denis Thatcher, who opined that "better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it and confirm the suspicion" (it's not a direct quote but I paraphrase so one gets the gist), but remember he had said to Julie pre-trial it's important to tell the truth wherever possible, and you can convince anyone of anything if you try hard enough ( remember he held sway with two female jurors).

To my mind the summing up did include Jeremy's evidence, because we were told (in no particular order, though it is in Roger Wilkes' book), that the culprit was either Sheila or Jeremy, that the jury had to consider the alleged telephone call from Nevill to Jeremy, Julie's evidence and the silencer evidence, the latter able to convict the defendant on that evidence alone. I can't really see what was omitted apart from a manager of a snooker club and a couple of other character referees whose names slip my mind.

[lookout]

I used to quite like the evenings drawing in as a youth, which gave me more of an excuse to practise piano, but those days have dwindled of late, sadly.

 


An ocean has gone under the bridge since then Steve, sadly 

[Steve_uk]

My issue with James Richards is that he was supposed to be a witness for the prosecution, and maybe I am being old-fashioned, but I think at least in public he should be careful to ensure he is presented in that way, not as a 'friend of Julie Mugford'.  I appreciate he shared digs with her, or something like that, but if he is a friend of Julie Mugford, then that makes him look partisan, and implies he is her spokesman and that his involvement in the documentary is to stick up for her.  To me, there is just something about it that doesn't sit right.

I forgot to mention the appearance of the appeal judge, but hasn't he retired?  I think that should have been made clear.  A lot of viewers will have come away with the mistaken impression that he was giving the view of the judiciary.  The 2002 appeal judgment was flawed and that view should have been covered, but the scope of the documentary was too wide and they were trying to hit too many topics.

'PC Saxby remained in the patrol car' - that may well be, but you underestimate the verbal agility of Christopher Bews.  He is unmatched.

My pet theory about the silencer is, briefly, that at least two of them were examined by the FSS, and one was returned to the Eatons after undergoing chemical treatment for fingerprinting purposes.  David Boutflour has then handled this, or seen it, and confused one with the other in his own mind.  On the other hand, I accept that it is possible a guilty Jeremy would miss the 'stickiness', etc., of the silencer if he was wearing gloves, and he could also miss a hair. 

Yet then you have to ask yourself this: How and in what way and to what extent did he clean the silencer, if at all?  If we're saying he didn't clean it because all he was doing was moving it out of the way so that it would not be found, you then have to ask:

(i). Would Jeremy be that stupid in assuming that the police would not search the place in the house dedicated to the storage of firearms and paraphernalia?  He is supposed to have planned this.

(ii). Why wouldn't Jeremy just take the silencer away with him?  Even if it's absence would be noticed and seen as suspicious, he would never have been convicted on that basis.

(iii). Why didn't Jeremy return to clean the silencer properly?  Why did he allow the relatives keys to the house instead?

(iv). If Jeremy took himself and the silencer to the gun cupboard, why wasn't blood found on the floor of the back corridor, Nevill's den and in the gun cupboard itself?

I could go on with the problems.  Really, Jeremy's actions don't make a lot of sense if we accept the official narrative.  It's a bit of paradox to say that Jeremy is cold and calculating enough to stage a phone call and put on an act with the police, relatives and at the funeral and in other respects, but at the same time, he would not take care of incriminating evidence.  Maybe he was just reckless and arrogant and thought he had got away with it?  But this is looking at things backwards.  At the point he could have disposed of the silencer, he did not know that he had got away with it.  I also have issues with the blood patterning found within the silencer.  There's also the problem with the drawback theory that the silencer evidence depends on.  And there's the questions about the chain-of-custody of the silencer.

I was a bit harsh in my post in regard to Barbara Wilson.  I expressed it clumsily.  I said her evidence seemed pointless, but that's not correct because she did report her telephone conversation with Nevill.  I suppose I have a prejudice about her because she seems like a typical gossipy village woman with some sort of grudge against Jeremy, but she is allowed to give her impressions of the people involved, etc; and, to be fair, it may well be that she had more to say that was edited out but if included would make her seem more balanced in her views about Jeremy.

Barbara feels guilty because she didn't prevent the crime. She doesn't seem to me to fit the category to which you ascribe her. James Richards was entitled to give evidence, which corroborated to some extent Robert Boutflour's. Jeremy thought the silencer would be missed. He knew he was going to have a problem with cousin Ann post-murders, which is why he tried several means of currying favour with her in the run-up to them.

[guest29835]

I would have thought that the inadequate summing up argument might fall due to Jeremy's reticence during the trial. To be sure he doesn't fall into that category of men akin to Denis Thatcher, who opined that "better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it and confirm the suspicion" (it's not a direct quote but I paraphrase so one gets the gist), but remember he had said to Julie pre-trial it's important to tell the truth wherever possible, and you can convince anyone of anything if you try hard enough ( remember he held sway with two female jurors).

To my mind the summing up did include Jeremy's evidence, because we were told (in no particular order, though it is in Roger Wilkes' book), that the culprit was either Sheila or Jeremy, that the jury had to consider the alleged telephone call from Nevill to Jeremy, Julie's evidence and the silencer evidence, the latter able to convict the defendant on that evidence alone. I can't really see what was omitted apart from a manager of a snooker club and a couple of other character referees whose names slip my mind.

You may be right.  I am going on what the barrister says, but we need our own copy of the transcript.  I think I know how to get hold of one, but it may involve bringing or threatening court proceedings.

I forgot to mention that there is a copy of the 1989 appeal judgment on this Forum.  I downloaded it from here some time ago.  I will see if I can find it again. 

To be clear, whatever the merits of the summing-up argument, it's doubtful Jeremy's lawyers would try to raise it again given that it was dealt with in 1989.  I believe old appeal points can be re-hashed (there is a statutory provision that specifically allows this in the interests of justice), but is it the sort of point that would typically hold sway in an English appeal court?  You don't overturn a mass murder conviction on procedural defects and technicalities.  You'd have to show that the judge was jumping-up-and-down biased, and I believe the view of Lord Lane in 1989 was that a summing-up can certainly be slanted and biased to the comparable strengths of the evidence.  To my mind, that disposes of the point adequately.  I think it's also that the English judicial tradition seems to be to 'defer down' as much as 'defer up', especially with regard to jury verdicts, which are treated as sacrosanct; whereas courts that follow the Continental tradition seem more willing to upturn verdicts and trial defects.

[lookout]

As a suspect, the last thing you'd do is hand over the keys to a property in which you've supposedly slaughtered a family in quick succession and departed it as was without a backward glance

[Steve_uk]

As a suspect, the last thing you'd do is hand over the keys to a property in which you've supposedly slaughtered a family in quick succession and departed it as was without a backward glance

But we know from his own evidence that he could bypass the need for keys to White House Farm when necessary.

[guest29835]

As a suspect, the last thing you'd do is hand over the keys to a property in which you've supposedly slaughtered a family in quick succession and departed it as was without a backward glance

Yes, but it's also that he left the silencer in situ after shooting his family.  I suppose the official theory is that he did this because he had not expected to have to remove the silencer from the rifle, so he had to think quickly and decided it would be better to return the silencer to the gun cupboard rather than take it with him, so that it would not be missed. 

I accept that this is plausible, but I personally would have thought the more natural thing to do would be to simply leave the silencer by Sheila's body.  That way, the police find it immediately and the explanation is obvious, and then it's much harder to incriminate Jeremy.

Why didn't he do that (assuming he is guilty)?  If I were a convinced guilter, I would need to satisfy myself on that point.  There must be a reason.  Maybe he just panicked?

The alternatives are you either clean the silencer there and then and return it to the gun cupboard, or you take the silencer with you. 

The last of those three options is adequate but risks suspicion being cast on him due to somebody noticing the silencer is missing.  But then you have to ask: How would the police know the silencer is missing?  Does the firearms certificate held by Nevill record it?  I'll have to check, but would the police be that thorough or make the connection?  Really?  It would be a bit of a stretch.  All Jeremy would need to do in this situation is ensure he took custody of the farmhouse after the police left.

Instead, he leaves the family to take custody of the farmhouse and the crucial evidence he has left there - part of the murder weapon.

[JackieD]

I would have thought that the inadequate summing up argument might fall due to Jeremy's reticence during the trial. To be sure he doesn't fall into that category of men akin to Denis Thatcher, who opined that "better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it and confirm the suspicion" (it's not a direct quote but I paraphrase so one gets the gist), but remember he had said to Julie pre-trial it's important to tell the truth wherever possible, and you can convince anyone of anything if you try hard enough ( remember he held sway with two female jurors).

To my mind the summing up did include Jeremy's evidence, because we were told (in no particular order, though it is in Roger Wilkes' book), that the culprit was either Sheila or Jeremy, that the jury had to consider the alleged telephone call from Nevill to Jeremy, Julie's evidence and the silencer evidence, the latter able to convict the defendant on that evidence alone. I can't really see what was omitted apart from a manager of a snooker club and a couple of other character referees whose names slip my mind.

Pathetic post as usual. You are questioning the information given by a highly experienced barrister re the summing up. I know who I believe. Tomorrow I will post the typed summary of the podcast re the silencer and the grey hair. It also relates to the summing up and is quite damming

I hope Julie Mugford is as worried as David Boutflour is about there future

[JackieD]

Barbara feels guilty because she didn't prevent the crime. She doesn't seem to me to fit the category to which you ascribe her. James Richards was entitled to give evidence, which corroborated to some extent Robert Boutflour's. Jeremy thought the silencer would be missed. He knew he was going to have a problem with cousin Ann post-murders, which is why he tried several means of currying favour with her in the run-up to them.

Jokes


Did Julie feel guilty because she didn’t prevent the crime???

No course not she took her clothes off

Her kids must be proud