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http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jeremy-bamber-police-used-my-familys-107641Jeremy Bamber: Police used my family's corpses as props 31 Jan 2011 07:00
Murderer Jeremy Bamber has accused police of using his family’s bodies as “props” in a secret training exercise hours after they were found shot.
He has discovered armed officers had already secured the scene when another team of marksmen entered the farmhouse where the corpses of his parents, sister and nephews lay.
The police papers from 1985 say their role there was for “informatives”, which basically means training.
But Bamber claims the eight-man rookie unit trampled over the crime scene – and argues it supports his case he is innocent.
The fresh evidence comes as the Criminal Cases Review Commission meets today to decide if he should get a final appeal 25 years after he was jailed for life.
In a letter to the Mirror, Bamber, 50, said: “It is just too awful to think senior police management sanctioned the training of other firearms officers using my dear old mum and dad and Sheila as props in their informatives.
“There is no way I could have been prosecuted had police admitted carrying out training exercises in the house before, during and after crime scene photos were taken. It’s not like me to cry very much but I can’t seem to stop myself.”
Bamber has been researching over 100,000 documents about his case in his cell in HMP Full Sutton.
Papers he found earlier this month suggest 43 officers from Essex police entered White House Farm, in Tolleshunt D’Arcy in 1985 – 17 more than was declared at his original trial.
It was apparently never revealed to Bamber’s defence a firearms unit arrived two hours after two other teams of marksmen found the bodies of Nevill and June Bamber, Sheila Caffell and her two sons.
None of them were scene-of-crime officers and the logs say their role there was for informatives.
Bamber claims the officers were ordered to the farm to gain experience on the aftermath of a shooting. Records show the bodies were not removed until several hours later and Bamber claims crucial evidence including the .22 rifle could have been moved while photos were taken.
Rifle by window after farmhouse massacre
Killer's rifle by window after the farmhouse massacre
Sergeant Chris Bews, one of the first officers at the scene, admitted the investigation was mishandled and other senior police believe it did not “meet the standards of the time”.
Police initially suspected Sheila of killing her family and then herself.
Bamber said he got a phone call from his dad on the night of the murders saying she had gone crazy.
But doubts emerged after other relatives found a blood-stained silencer which fitted scratch marks on the kitchen mantlepiece. That suggested the silencer was fitted to the gun during the killer’s struggle with Nevill, found in the kitchen.
