Going down the pan

[TheBrilliantMistake]

Interesting article:

http://www.newsweek.com/2009/02/18/better-off-dead.html

(about murder then suicide families)


Within 5 minutes on the all seeing Google - it turns out that it's not so rare at all!
There's even a few women who've killed the family.

Clearly not 'common', but the Bamber case isn't really so off the wall after all

[Jackiepreece]

Sometimes I get really angry with things I read here like today JB would be found guilty.  He was found guilty on a 10-2 majority and the jury asked who would inherit the family money they were not given a truthful answer.  They asked that question it was important for them to make a decision about a young persons life.  If they had known the family would inherit I truly believe JB would not be in prison today and yes no one really knows what happened but Sheila could have killed the family although the police have gone out of their way to try to prove she didn't. As for JB and this myth of a young boy with all this money i think him and Sheila had a horrible life from what I have read there was never any real love in that family. I get fed up reading about JB being arrogant=mass murderer.   JB s family sound like one of the most dysfunctional families I have read about and the home looked a pig sty.  I have tried to read everything about this case I can but JB had no history of violence to anyone and I don't think the prisons that he has been kept in treat him like a mass murderer that tells me something too.  He was downgraded from an A to a B within 4 years until the relatives got him put up to an A.  My gut feeling is innocent and I think the whole history of this case is so sad when people really believe Jeremy and Sheila had this blessed life.  If you remember on the way down to wHF Sheila said she wanted Colin back but he told her he was happy with his new girlfriend.  Sheilas doctor said this would have had a catastrophic affect on her.  Maybe  that set off a chain of events

[Reader]

The logical part of me says the majority of evidence points to him . . .

That's the illogical part of you. It's irrational to say that as eight pieces of evidence point to his guilt and two pieces point to his innocence, your opinion is therefore 80% guilty. I realize you didn't say precisely that, but you seem to be estimating along those lines. It's necessary to consider what the evidence shows. You also need to estimate various likelihoods, such as how likely it is that a scheming, but arrogant murderer can pass all the psychological tests he takes, including a lie detector test.

There are those that say Jeremy IS mentally ill. A psychopath perhaps.

Did they know Jeremy or say anything remotely like that before the killings occurred? Do they also assess what Sheila's mental health was?

[robholt]

As I have posted on this forum previously, there are also people on here who don’t enter into the He’s Guilty / Not Guilty argument. Irrespective of one’s own opinion of his guilt, and given the absence of any solid evidence either way, it will remain only an opinion.

The wider issue, for me at least, is that the whole handling of the case and evidence on which JB was found guilty is unsound and would certainly not convict him in a courtroom today, and that is a FACT.

I wonder if he would have been acquitted today. With DNA testing the outcome might have been very different, but even so, the experts at the 2002 appeal couldn't seem to agree about the DNA, and the appeal judges didn't consider that the DNA evidence made the verdict unsafe.

There was the issue of the silencer being in the cupboard too. I think that those who believe Jeremy did it are a bit blinkered about that. I think Sheila could have shot them all and put the silencer away, but the prosecution seemed to think that was out of the question.

There's also the issue of Sheila being relatively unmarked and showing no signs of having rampaged through the house shooting people. That could be enough to swing a jury.

When I say JB would not have been convicted in a court today, I refer to evidence that exists from the original case, not additional DNA evidence for instance which may have been available but lost, we must deal with the facts and hard evidence in the case that are available. A distinction needs to be made between real evidence and opinion. The due judicial process was abused, disregarded and manipulated. I can only speak for myself, I have not seen any evidence to take away a mans liberty for the remainder of his life.

[Jackiepreece]

Such a good post Robholt

In this country we are forced to be jury members and with that huge weight of responsibility we deserve to be given the full facts of the case. On that evidence a jury makes a decision and sometimes it will be wrong but more often it is the right decision.  There have been too many miscarriages of justice in this country because certain evidence is witheld and in this case I believe there was information available but witheld

[mike tesko]

Such a good post Robholt

In this country we are forced to be jury members and with that huge weight of responsibility we deserve to be given the full facts of the case. On that evidence a jury makes a decision and sometimes it will be wrong but more often it is the right decision.  There have been too many miscarriages of justice in this country because certain evidence is witheld and in this case I believe there was information available but witheld

-------------------------

An "abuse of process" by the agencies of the state, in my opinion...

[TheBrilliantMistake]

Every case has information withheld on both sides.
There's usually too much evidence to ever get through.

The defence has to cherry pick what best illustrates their argument, and the prosecution the same.

If can feel like the prosecution is the one with all the evidence and chooses what to reveal to the defence, but that simply is not the case, it's a mutual situation.

Can I believe a few bent coppers 'helped' the case? yes (not saying they did)
Can I believe Mugford lied? yes
Can I believe the family colluded? at a push, yes but the more involved, the less likely
Can I believe the Judge was fooled by all this (knowing full well the police had cocked up in the first place)? Yes, but unlikely
Can I believe all 5 of these things happened to varying degrees? Not really, I still accept it's possible, but so very unlikely.

IF JB's innocent, I personally think it's likely to be as a result of no more than two of these things (which is already horrendous)

In my opinion, these very same factors exist today just as much as they did 25 years ago, and that's why his appeal was unsuccessful, and he still looks up against the odds.

I don;t even want to go into the political and media influence which also negatively impact him.

[robholt]

Every case has information withheld on both sides.
There's usually too much evidence to ever get through.

The defence has to cherry pick what best illustrates their argument, and the prosecution the same.

If can feel like the prosecution is the one with all the evidence and chooses what to reveal to the defence, but that simply is not the case, it's a mutual situation.

Can I believe a few bent coppers 'helped' the case? yes (not saying they did)
Can I believe Mugford lied? yes
Can I believe the family colluded? at a push, yes but the more involved, the less likely
Can I believe the Judge was fooled by all this (knowing full well the police had cocked up in the first place)? Yes, but unlikely
Can I believe all 5 of these things happened to varying degrees? Not really, I still accept it's possible, but so very unlikely.

IF JB's innocent, I personally think it's likely to be as a result of no more than two of these things (which is already horrendous)

In my opinion, these very same factors exist today just as much as they did 25 years ago, and that's why his appeal was unsuccessful, and he still looks up against the odds.

I don;t even want to go into the political and media influence which also negatively impact him.

Forget all that complication....it is a cast iron fact that the moderator should not have been admissible as evidence and without that everyone knows the ramifications to the original trial. We all need to rewind and deal with facts. I repeat, fact needs to be separated from opinion. The moderator issue is just one FACT that bolsters the case for appeal / review.

[Reader]

IF JB's innocent, I personally think it's likely to be as a result of no more than two of these things (which is already horrendous)

You have no basis for saying "it's likely" without estimating just how likely, and no basis for saying "no more than two" without explaining how you arrived at that count, and what pairs you had in mind. You don't even make it clear what judge you are referring to.

[Jackiepreece]

Would you agree that had the jury been given an open an honest answer about the relatives inheriting all the money if Jeremy was convicted the outcome of the case would have been different. Also in asking about the relatives inheriting the money was probably connected to whether they believed the story about the silence.
It's just not good enough if Jeremy did this if he did that no one really knows what happened but when the police decided it was a suicide I would have thought between all of them they came to the conclusion that it was possible for Sheila to have carried out these murders.  What conclusions and proof did they come to that it was suicide. Then a relative gets involved most of the evidence has already been damaged and it's all change Sheila couldn't have done it. I didn't see any evidence of the real family grieving they were too busy rummaging through the house.  Why is Jeremys behaviour after the murders questioned not the real family.

[TheBrilliantMistake]

IF JB's innocent, I personally think it's likely to be as a result of no more than two of these things (which is already horrendous)

You have no basis for saying "it's likely" without estimating just how likely, and no basis for saying "no more than two" without explaining how you arrived at that count, and what pairs you had in mind. You don't even make it clear what judge you are referring to.

The precursor was 'I personally think it's likely".
Every individual, you included as a scale of what they think is believable and what isn't. In my particular case, can buy into ANY of them individually, and buy into a couple of them occurring at the same time coincidentally, or even with confusion.

Do I think Jeremy could run 2 miles in 15 minutes across fields? yes. 12 minutes? possibly, 10 minutes? unlikely... it's a sliding scale.

Do you have a problem with me doing what any juror would do and deciding their own level of what's credible or not, or would you rather set out the facts as they happened?

I do not KNOW what the facts were, I know some of them, and some speculation and some I simply have to base on my own life experience ... it's like erm, how a jury works.

So, I arrive at my no more that two together 'number' simply from a belief that collusion by it's very nature needs two parties, but when you introduce three, the potential for disagreement between those parties increases exponentially.


The 'Judge' with a capital J would be the presiding Judge at the trial. Who the Judge (Drake) was isn't relevant, only his role.

[TheBrilliantMistake]

Would you agree that had the jury been given an open an honest answer about the relatives inheriting all the money if Jeremy was convicted the outcome of the case would have been different. Also in asking about the relatives inheriting the money was probably connected to whether they believed the story about the silence.
It's just not good enough if Jeremy did this if he did that no one really knows what happened but when the police decided it was a suicide I would have thought between all of them they came to the conclusion that it was possible for Sheila to have carried out these murders.  What conclusions and proof did they come to that it was suicide. Then a relative gets involved most of the evidence has already been damaged and it's all change Sheila couldn't have done it. I didn't see any evidence of the real family grieving they were too busy rummaging through the house.  Why is Jeremys behaviour after the murders questioned not the real family.

Because Jeremy was the accused unfortunately that's why his behaviour was investigated to a higher degree than others. Even so, the family and the Mugford were also investigated.

The jury were told of the inheritance details.

[TheBrilliantMistake]

You cannot have it both ways that the Police thought it was suicide (which they did, and could have been right) and use that as an indicator of it being a valid view that suicide was convincing (which is was), THEN not accept that the silencer evidence which the police also bought into wasn't credible.

You're using the police judgment to back up the suicide credibility, but not use the same judgment with the silencer.


It wasn't really the police's initial judgment (based in Jeremy's account to them, and of their own view of the scene on entry) that caused the problems. It was the fact that they allowed this initial judgment to influence all that they did thereafter and 'skimp' out on the collection of evidence, cutting corners etc. However well intentioned it might have been (or ulterior) it was the gathering of evidence that made a mess of this case.

The repercussions of these mistakes became (and were also going to become) political, and it's THIS upon which I believe JB's strongest case lies. The Judge was aware of much of this mess at the trial, although, not aware of it all.
I don't think a court will change it's decision on new interpretations of the evidence that was presented at the time (unless it's of a magnitude way WAY beyond anything that's surfaced so far), but it MAY do if the scope of all the evidence that was LOST was quantifiable in an understandable way.

This is a crass illustration but:

If said there were 10 pieces of evidence supporting JB being guilty, and 5 supporting Sheila being guilty (just an example!!!!) then this can look quite bad for Jeremy.
If you know that 300 pieces of evidence were 'lost' as a result of the fiasco, then the the 10:5 balance no longer looks like he's twice as likely to be the killer - it look MUCH more like pure luck he got 10 and she got 5, but had the 300 been available, she might easily have overtaken Jeremy.

Like I said, not the best analogy but that's the reality of how much could have been lost in releasing the building back to the family after 2 days, and of not doing their jobs in those two days anyway!

The current strategy for JB's defence team isn't working (imo) and countless times 'new unearthed evidence' has proven to be discounted with aplomb.

[Jackiepreece]

To TBM

As you seem really knowledgable about most things and I enjoy reading your posts in a case like the Guildford Four where a certain piece of information was witheld and people were kept in prison for a number of years when they shouldn't be if  a person or people knew that information was available and would keep it hidden are those people always prosecuted

[Jackiepreece]

To TBM

I think you must be a barrister?