Telephone issue - Extravaganza...

[Alias]

No. But I do. He was my doctor. I can't say that he was drunk that night. But unfortunately alcoholism brings with it many other symptoms and moodiness is one of them. The very fact that he couldn't be bothered to time the deaths accurately indicates this.

Nothing about this case surprises me anymore!

[lookout]

Sorry to hear that Lookout!! X

I know,Caroline,,so sad. Thankyou.x (1986 when we all first met at work )

[Patti]

It's a normal reflex to vomit at bad news. Bad news makes me nauseous,then I get hunger pangs. Everyone's different.
I felt this way this morning when told that a best friends' husband had died in his sleep this morning. I'm still not right yet,as I got a dreadful shock. My friend got a bigger shock when the police followed the ambulance.

Are you OK? xxxx

[gringo]

Yes it was - I remembered while cooking dinner BUT as you say, regardless of which call they were focusing on, it would seem to give weight to the idea that they knew a phone call had been made or why would 'timing' be important. DI Wilkinson was the officer who worked out the timings using various routes. Without taking the call(s) into consideration the timings aren't important because we don't know the time of death of anyone who died that night.

You can only really come to the conclusion that EP are aware of the call from WHF to Goldhanger, Caroline. As you say the timings are irrelevant otherwise.
    Is it possible that Bonnet received the information,which is clearly from Nevill, via other police/special branch ? We know that phones were tapped and that surveillance was ongoing and it would make sense of the paraphrasing . If Nevill's call was intercepted then the message would be passed on in exactly the way it was . This would also explain the discrepancy of cars being sent to attend before any calls were made to police.

[grahameb]

Grahame did not know that about the Dr. what a pity we did not have times of deaths it would have proved Sheila died much later than the rest of the family.

He may of course have estimated Sheila's death at around 8am and just for sake of laziness estimated the others also at that time. If the 8am estimate it correct, them Jeremy could not have possible killed them because he was with the police at the time. I wonder why the court did not pick up on that discrepancy at the trial?

[susan]

Grahame probably nobody told them the times of death if they did it would have been much earlier than 8 a.m.  Very slap happy carry on indeed.

[Adam]

It's a normal reflex to vomit at bad news. Bad news makes me nauseous,then I get hunger pangs. Everyone's different.
I felt this way this morning when told that a best friends' husband had died in his sleep this morning. I'm still not right yet,as I got a dreadful shock. My friend got a bigger shock when the police followed the ambulance.

Jeremy did not vomit. He said nothing came up. Mugford said Jeremy knew how to make himself sick. It obviously did not work this time.

[Steve_uk]

Mugford said that he thought about the death of a dog he loved as he had witnessed it being killed in a an accident. But that's Mugford - she also said that she and Susan Battersby attended the bank alone to confess their fraudulent spending spree. Turns out, they were escorted by a police officer - on his day off!!

This allegation was dismissed at the 2002 Appeal,though I do agree it's all rather mysterious.

[Reader]

. . . the discrepancy of cars being sent to attend before any calls were made to police.

MB logged CA07 as being sent at 03:35, which was well after the time he logged for when Pc West contacted him. However, Pc West's log shows that Jeremy called him at 03:36.

Let's consider the possibility that Pc West logged a time of 03:36 incorrectly, when he should have written 03:26. The logs then reflect one call and confirm that Pc West contacted MB quite quickly after Jeremy called. MB's log still shows that 9 minutes elapsed before the first car (CA07) was sent, but Pc West told Jeremy that the police had been sent to WHF specifying that they were from Witham, and so would arrive quite soon. How could Pc West know that a car was sent from Witham unless he stayed on the line to MB for nearly nine minutes until MB told him?

At court, Pc West testified he kept Jeremy on hold for about 3 minutes. Jeremy estimated that he was on hold for about 4 minutes when questioned by the police. That's nothing like long enough for MB to know that a car from Witham was available. Hence the single call scenario doesn't fit with the evidence even if it's accepted that Pc West logged the time of Jeremy's call incorrectly. In the two call scenario, MB already knew that car CA07 was on its way when Pc West called, and another car (CA05) was sent almost immediately. MB then continued to talk to Pc West for a couple more minutes and possibly noted information that Pc West supplied about the weapons at WHF (though Jeremy doesn't recall giving Pc West that information). Anyway, by the time Pc West got back to Jeremy in this scenario, he knew about both cars and what he told Jeremy was therefore truthful and made sense.

[Jan]

This allegation was dismissed at the 2002 Appeal,though I do agree it's all rather mysterious.

the sworn statement from the bank manager is on this site and had been posted up before .

[gringo]

MB logged CA07 as being sent at 03:35, which was well after the time he logged for when Pc West contacted him. However, Pc West's log shows that Jeremy called him at 03:36.

Let's consider the possibility that Pc West logged a time of 03:36 incorrectly, when he should have written 03:26. The logs then reflect one call and confirm that Pc West contacted MB quite quickly after Jeremy called. MB's log still shows that 9 minutes elapsed before the first car (CA07) was sent, but Pc West told Jeremy that the police had been sent to WHF specifying that they were from Witham, and so would arrive quite soon. How could Pc West know that a car was sent from Witham unless he stayed on the line to MB for nearly nine minutes until MB told him?

At court, Pc West testified he kept Jeremy on hold for about 3 minutes. Jeremy estimated that he was on hold for about 4 minutes when questioned by the police. That's nothing like long enough for MB to know that a car from Witham was available. Hence the single call scenario doesn't fit with the evidence even if it's accepted that Pc West logged the time of Jeremy's call incorrectly. In the two call scenario, MB already knew that car CA07 was on its way when Pc West called, and another car (CA05) was sent almost immediately. MB then continued to talk to Pc West for a couple more minutes and possibly noted information that Pc West supplied about the weapons at WHF (though Jeremy doesn't recall giving Pc West that information). Anyway, by the time Pc West got back to Jeremy in this scenario, he knew about both cars and what he told Jeremy was therefore truthful and made sense.

Hi Reader, there is the possibility of only one call to police(from Jeremy) but that the messages were received from different sources hence the so called paraphrasing.
      It is a recorded fact that Jeremy was under surveillance (including telephone intercepts) and also that Nevill was under some threat, and that some monitoring of WHF was ongoing (including panic alarm fitted ). It is therefore reasonable to assume that when Nevill called Jeremy, EP immediately became aware of the situation at WHF via intercept.
     Whoever intercepted the call would then pass on details to police HQ . This would explain the so called paraphrasing as the interceptor would pass the message as Nevill having called and that his daughter had got the gun, not that Nevill called Jeremy telling him his sister had the gun.
     Also, given the ongoing surveillance, it is reasonable to assume that intelligence on the family was held and this would include ages which offers an explanation for the age discrepancy on the two logs.
    It is possible therefore that the two logs do refer to the same call and that police were already responding to the situation at WHF when Jeremy called because Nevill's call to Jeremy was intercepted.
    This would also explain why the police investigated the possibility of whether it was possible to get from WHF to Goldhanger in time to make both calls. As Caroline pointed out earlier ,it does strongly indicate that EP are certainly aware of at least one call from WHF otherwise there would be no point .
    I am open to the possibility that Nevill also called the police but do not believe the police explanations as they are not credible . The discrepancies have no reasonable explanations if we are to believe that the Bonnett log is simply a paraphrasing of Wests.
   

[Reader]

As far as released records are concerned, it isn't known whether the telephone line at WHF or at 9 Head St was on intercept on the night in question, or, if it was, whether it was being intercepted by BT on behalf of the police or direct by the police (which would have been somewhat unusual). Also, there's no released record that confirms a panic alarm was fitted then. Even if there was, it wouldn't be related to interception of the line. The main reason for doubting your scenario is that MB's log (as released) states nothing that specifically suggests its first paragraph was based on any direct source other than Pc West. If the police used intelligence already held that included ages, why would Sheila's age from that source be incorrect? If Nevill didn't speak to the police, how come MB's log uses the word "berserk", whereas PC West used "crazy" (which is what Jeremy said his dad used)? Your scenario doesn't help explain why there was a 9-minute gap according to MB's log between when he started the log and when the first car was sent.

[mike tesko]

Hi Reader, there is the possibility of only one call to police(from Jeremy) but that the messages were received from different sources hence the so called paraphrasing.
      It is a recorded fact that Jeremy was under surveillance (including telephone intercepts) and also that Nevill was under some threat, and that some monitoring of WHF was ongoing (including panic alarm fitted ). It is therefore reasonable to assume that when Nevill called Jeremy, EP immediately became aware of the situation at WHF via intercept.
     Whoever intercepted the call would then pass on details to police HQ . This would explain the so called paraphrasing as the interceptor would pass the message as Nevill having called and that his daughter had got the gun, not that Nevill called Jeremy telling him his sister had the gun.
     Also, given the ongoing surveillance, it is reasonable to assume that intelligence on the family was held and this would include ages which offers an explanation for the age discrepancy on the two logs.
    It is possible therefore that the two logs do refer to the same call and that police were already responding to the situation at WHF when Jeremy called because Nevill's call to Jeremy was intercepted.
    This would also explain why the police investigated the possibility of whether it was possible to get from WHF to Goldhanger in time to make both calls. As Caroline pointed out earlier ,it does strongly indicate that EP are certainly aware of at least one call from WHF otherwise there would be no point .
    I am open to the possibility that Nevill also called the police but do not believe the police explanations as they are not credible . The discrepancies have no reasonable explanations if we are to believe that the Bonnett log is simply a paraphrasing of Wests.
   

This is a plausible account, particularly since if when Ralph made his call to Jeremy (around 3.25am) and the line at whf was being monitored, and the distress call was intercepted, causing those responsible for eavesdropping of the call to contact police HQ, might this have been the reason or cause for the line going dead between Ralph and Jeremy (temporarily), and which led to the line producing an engaged tone by the time Jeremy tried to re-establish contact with Ralph, upon redialing...

Phone records exist concerning Ralphs call being recorded as being received by police at 3:26am, some 10 minutes before Jeremy himself made the call to PC West at 3:36am, which has been presented as a true record of the call made to Jeremy by Ralph Bamber (about 10 minutes earlier). In your explanation, the paraphrased account in MB's (3:26am) phone log record, could easily be an account of Ralph's call to Jeremy intercepted by the spooks, couched in terms passed on by them, which would be the perfect explanation to account for the grammatical differences recorded in the two logs...

It is also likely...

if the spooks had been monitoring the phone line at whf as part of a protection program, or if the drugs squad had been monitoring it as part of an ongoing international drug investigation, it might account for why Sheila's age was given as 26 years of age, with Sheila's birthday falling on 18th July (less than a month before her death), when in fact she was 27...

It will therefore be necessary to establish the date when threats to kill Ralph Bamber and his family were
 made, when and if a protection program involving special branch was put into operation, and or, if there was any sort of drugs operation ongoing into whf and Jeremy / Sheila / Freddie the coke, and others, at the material time...

[mike tesko]

As far as released records are concerned, it isn't known whether the telephone line at WHF or at 9 Head St was on intercept on the night in question, or, if it was, whether it was being intercepted by BT on behalf of the police or direct by the police (which would have been somewhat unusual). Also, there's no released record that confirms a panic alarm was fitted then. Even if there was, it wouldn't be related to interception of the line. The main reason for doubting your scenario is that MB's log (as released) states nothing that specifically suggests its first paragraph was based on any direct source other than Pc West. If the police used intelligence already held that included ages, why would Sheila's age from that source be incorrect? If Nevill didn't speak to the police, how come MB's log uses the word "berserk", whereas PC West used "crazy" (which is what Jeremy said his dad used)? Your scenario doesn't help explain why there was a 9-minute gap according to MB's log between when he started the log and when the first car was sent.

MB's phone log (3:26am) contains information received via "the exchange line", it does not say how many pieces of the various bits of information recorded there, were received at different times, but it becomes obvious that there must have been several contacts between MB and other sources in order to end up with everything recorded upon the log at completion. If the main body of information was received from a source which had intercepted the call made by Ralph to Jeremy at about 3:25am, the exchange line would have to be used to relay that intelligence to MB, at (3:26am) that time...

[Reader]

MB's log gives Pc 1990 (Pc West's number) as the initial source, and the box containing that detail doesn't show any sign of alteration. Either way, both Pc West and MB must have been aware that JB was not the first source.