Hi Neil I think it's become complicated with Jeremy Bamber's team sowing the seeds of doubt in everybody's mind over the years which they have every right to do,but notwithstanding I think it's a tactic they're employing at every opportunity with every piece of evidence in the hope that the authorities will just want to rid themselves of this troublesome case and let him go,which they won't.
In my opinion the defence since the trial hasn't done a bad job,and I recall that at the original trial this was the only question which the jurors asked about the blood in the silencer,about whether it could only have been Sheila's or a mixture of the parents' blood. The jurors were told at the time if I remember rightly that the blood on the silencer was Sheila's. Since the 1986 trial forensic evidence has emerged that the blood could have been a mixture of June's and Ralph's(Nevill's) and that June's DNA was on the silencer,but they couldn't be sure whether Sheila's was.
We just don't know whether Jeremy did use a silencer that morning,though it would have made sense had he killed the twins first and didn't want to rouse the suspicion of other occupants of the house. Jeremy knew he couldn't kill so many people outright with the first round of ammunition so after he killed the twins he shot June in bed and possibly Nevill in the bedroom or on the landing. This would account for the ten shots of the first load of ammunition after which Jeremy would have to reload,whereupon Nevill seized his chance and fled downstairs to try and reach the telephone in the kitchen.
I'm going off the point slightly but I do believe a silencer was fitted to the rifle,and Andrew Hunter MP came to the same conclusion in his book draft. The point about the silencer evidence in court was that as Jeremy was by necessity in such close proximity to Sheila when he shot her with the silencer that backspatter lodged in the silencer,which Jeremy then cleaned and replaced in the gun cupboard. It was less dangerous in his mind to put the silencer back there than to remove it from the farm altogether as he had nowhere to hide it and I believe the drains were also searched by Police.
Of course the Jeremy supporters claim multifarious things;either there was no silencer used in the crimes in the first place so the silencer was irrelevant,or there was a silencer but there was contamination,or a flake of Sheila's blood was deliberately placed in the silencer by the relatives to incriminate Jeremy.
As I'm of the belief that the Julie Mugford testimony is true and that Jeremy's statement to the Police was a pack of lies from start to finish the silencer evidence to my mind is not a crucial part of this case,it just tends to confirm my belief that this case has been proved beyond reasonable doubt.
Thanks Steve, great post, not that I agree with much of it though. My own belief is that the silencer evidence has now been totally discredited. From the moment it was handled by all and sundry, left to sit on a desk in someone's office and generally left wide open to cross contamination, the prosecution should never have been allowed to produce it.
I think it's very difficult to assess Julies evidence without hearing it straight from the horses mouth, so to speak. That is why so much importance is placed on a witness appearing, in person, at court. Rather than just hearing the words, you can judge their demeanor etc. I haven't even been able to read the transcript of Julie being cross examined, have you? Therefor I find it difficult to decide whether I believe her or not.
I think that if I had been on that jury and knew about Julies newspaper deal and her criminal activities, I would have been inclined to rely more heavily on other evidence, such as the silencer when reaching my decision, rather than her testimony.
To be honest, I don't know how vigorously the defence challenged the silencer evidence at trial and how much was made of the cross contamination issues. Remember, the silencer evidence, if believed, would be enough to convict, said Judge Drake.
