That sentence in bold seems to me a contradiction. If you acknowledge there may have been reasonable doubt in 1986 (I think there was), that suggests the 2002 appeal should have succeeded. I think the evidence was there for a successful appeal and it was messed up.
I totally understand that the CCRC may not refer the case. I have offered an opinion based on inside information that unfortunately I can't detail at this point but that suggests they are not just going to dismiss the application summarily - which does happen in some cases.
Nope. The jury made their decision. The court of appeal made theirs on *entirely* different criteria.
If you were to suggest that a CoA that was more inclined toward a holistic approach to cases should have acquitted then I could possibly agree but the 10 days of weak garbage that was presented clearly only served to annoy them into proclaiming him more guilty than ever - far from a usual step from the notoriously harsh CoA.
The DNA evidence was declared "useless" by Bamber's own expert. Everything else was far worse, if not downright laughable. ( Was Bamber not present when his own hands were examined? The fact that possible contamination of Sheila's hand swabs could only have aided Bamber etc)
The problem, if there is one, is the primacy of the jury and the reluctance of an appeal court to go behind their findings of fact - and the problem with that is that there is no use having 12 peers pass judgement if they can be summarily overruled by three judges. Once the jury has passed a verdict, the burden essentially passes to the appellant and there is no way of changing that without fundamentally changing the entire principle of a jury trial *and* doing so while cutting costs lest the daily mail print a load of dogwhistling crap about undeserving criminals while billionaires like Lord Rothermere avoid tax!
