Interesting section from the 2002 appeal.
The following morning she was awoken by a telephone call from the appellant to her lodgings in London. The appellant said to her, "Everything is going well. Something is wrong at the farm. I haven't had any sleep all night … bye honey and I love you lots". Miss Mugford did not take him seriously and went back to sleep.As to the timing of this call, Miss Mugford said in evidence said that it was between 3.00 and 3.30 a.m.
A number of Miss Mugford's housemates were disturbed by the telephone call and provided additional evidence as to timing.
One, Helen Eaton, had been consulted by Julie Mugford, when the latter was first making a statement to the police about it. She put the time at 3.00 a.m. in evidence but agreed in cross-examination that it might have been as late as 3.30 a.m.
Another flat mate, Sue Battersby, said that she was positive that when she was disturbed, she had looked at her clock and the time shown was 3.12 a.m. However, she pointed out that she was in the habit of keeping her clock about 10 minutes early and police checks made on the clock confirmed this to be the case. If her evidence was right and if the clock was, as the evidence suggested, ten minutes fast, the time was probably no more than a minute or two after 3 a.m.
Joanna Wood gave evidence that when she heard the telephone, she looked at her digital clock and all that she noted was that the time was 2 something. This meant that according to her clock the time was between 2.00 and 2.59 a.m. If it was at the end of that bracket, it differed very little from the time suggested by Susan Battersby's evidence.
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So it seems that Jeremys phone call was at 3.00am. The most damning evidence from Joanna Wood.
However there is a slim chance it was at 3.30am. Hang on, didn't Jeremy ring the police at 3.26am. The call lasting several minutes after being put on hold ? So he couldn't have rang Julie at 3.30am.
Maybe Jeremy rang Julie at 3.40. Hang on, he was driving to WHF at that time after getting smartly dressed. And none of the witnesses said the call was that late.
If this evidence & the 4 witnesses are correct & Jeremy phoned Julie around 3am, that is over 20 minutes before 'dad' rang Jeremy. But Jeremy said he was sleeping like a log with his answering machine switched off. 'Dad's' call waking him.
Julies much discussed diary has the call at 3.00am.
I will leave the last words to Jeremy when asked why he phoned Julie at that unsocial hour - 'No comment'. That was after intially saying he phoned Julie first.
Do other people beleive Jeremy phoning Julie at 3.00am is conclusive of his guilt ?
