You can't have it both ways, the phone calls timed at 3.36 or 3.26am?

[mike tesko]

Yes correct. But after that the phone was not put back onto the cradle. But when Jeremy put his phone down that had the effect of cutting off the call, giving the engineer the impression that the call was ended by Jeremy. But because the phone was now off the hook at WHF Jeremy's phone was now able to make a call. He (according to him) called his father back, but because the phone was off the hook gave the impression that it was now engaged.

Correct, again, Grahame...

[scipio_usmc]

scipio I don't think you grasped what I said? What I said was if the person who was phoning you put his finger on the receiver button for a moment this would give you the person being phoned the sense that the person who was phoning you had hung up. But what had actually happened was that he had momentarily depressed the receiver button this giving you the impression that he had hung up. Then after depressing the receiver button for a moment and then leaving the phone off the hook, you thinking the phone had gone dead would then put your receiver down. So that in effectually both phones were now free to make another call. This could have been why Jeremy got an engaged sound when he attempted to phone again.
Technically the engineer would be right in that whilst Ralph, or someone else there momentarily depressed the receiver button and Jeremy hanging up his receiver in order to attempt to phone back this would give the impression that the phone call was ended by Jeremy?

Fact Pattern:

Scipio phones Grahame.  Scipio doesn't want to talk to Grahame so puts the receiver down on the desk and pushes down on the button then releases the button with his finger and leaves the phone on the desk so Grahame can't call back.  Grahame hears a click and decides to hang up and then redial.
 
Q1 ) What happens if Grahame hung up the phone but before he got it on the cradle Scipio released the button?

A) The phone call is still connected and Grahame will not hear a dialtone and will not be able to redial.  If Scipio or someone else is making noise Grahame even would be able to hear it.  If Grahame hangs up and leaves it hung up for 1-2 minutes then the line will clear and he will be able to dial out again. 

Q 2) What happens if Grahame hung up the phone while Scipio still had his finger down on the button?  Then in this case the call would be disconnected.

So the timing had to be perfect for the phone to disconnect both people had to have it hung up at the same exact time for the call to disconnect. 

So Scipio would have to keep it held down long enough for Grahame to hang up while Scipio had the button depressed but would have to release the button before Grahame could have finished redialing.

How long did Jeremy allegedly take to hang up?  We don't know he gave conflicting stories. He gave accounts of waiting a while and hearing noises on the other end and claims of hearing the click and then hanging up within a couple of seconds.

Unless the timing of the hangup was perfect though the call would not disconnect.

We don't have to guess whether or not Jeremy managed to hang up before the person allegedly at WHF released the button.  There was expert testimony on this issue at trial.  The expert testimony is that the call was ended by the party at Goldhanger hanging up not WHF.  So either someone at WHF released the button before Jeremy could hang up so the connection still existed or no one depressed the button at all and Jeremy made up speaking to someone alltogether or he heard someone put the phone down.

Because the connection still existed if Jeremy picked up the phone to redial he would not have gotten a dialtone.  If he kept hanging up and picking up the phone again he still would not have a dialtone.  He needed to leave it hung up for 1-2 minutes for his line to clear and the call to disconnect. 

If he had actually tried redialing immediately instead of waiting 1-2 minutes for the line to clear he would have had no dialtone and would have been aware of the fact he could not redial immediately but rather had to wait for the line to clear.  If he had claimed such then his story would have been more credible. But he didn't he had no idea his line would not work because he didn't try to use it immediaely.  It cleared before he tried to use it again and he had no idea it would not have worked had he tried to use it immediately.   

So what he should have stated to make his claim credible was that he tried to redial immediately but was unable to get a dialtone and had to wait a while for his phone to work again.  Had he said that then his claim would have been possible from the standpoint of the telephone company testimony. 

Whether it makes sense based on the circumstances though is another matter.  Even if he had claimed he had to wait a while before his phone worked again there is still the problem of why Sheila would care if the phone was ringing and would want to leave it off the hook.  It is not as if anyone coudl answer since she would have them at gunpoint plus why would she wait till Nevill was done with the call before finally pushing the button in?  Why would she not shoot him before he finsihed dialing, before Jeremy answered or before he could finish talking to Jeremy?  Marching him upstairs to shoot him makes little sense but even less to wait till he is done to march him away.   

How did he get away to make a call and why would he ask Jeremy to come disarm her instead of doing it himself?  He could have disarmed her before Jeremy even answered the phone.  In fact, normally Jeremy did not answer his phone at night.  He normally left his answering machine on and the answering machine would pick up after a couple of rings.  So more than likely he simply would have gotten the answering machine.  how did he know th eanswering machine would be off?  Evne with the machine off he could not be sure Jeremy would wake up and evne if he did tt would take Jeremy a while to wake up, go downstairs and answer it.  He could have disarmed her before Jeremy answered.  Instead he chose to wait not only till Jeremy answered supposedly but would wait for him to dress and drive there and then find a way in the bolted house.  So wait 15 minutes of more for Jeremy to try to disarm her instead of doing it himself and risked angering her into shooting him while on the phone to ask Jeremy to come.  It just doesn't make any sense.

I can't come up with a reasonable scenario where Nevill would get up, leave June or the boys at gunpoint, go call Jeremy to ask him to come disarm her, leave the phone off the hook and then run back up and go pass by Sheila without trying to disarm her and then staying near June to be shot with her.
The kitchen had knives, other weapons and the back kitchen had guns.  Why would he not take a weapon back with him to confront her?


Nor can I come up with a reasonable scenario where Nevill would get up, leave June or the boys at gunpoint, go call Jeremy to ask him to come disarm her and then have her walk in and grab the phone from him and then order him back upstairs.

If he got away from Sheila he would go to the closet and get a gun to challenger her with or to grab a knife or some other weapon not run to the phone to call Jeremy to come disarm her. 

So he would have to be watched by her constantly to make sure he didn't go get his own weapon.  With her watching him constantly why would she let him make a call?

He can't have made the call after the shooting started because his wounds precluded him from talking. 

There is no reasonable scenario though as to how or why he could/would have made the call before the shooting started.

The only reasonable explanation is the one that the prosecution gave.

That Jeremy turned off his answering machine, dialed his own number and left the phone off the hook so it kept ringing his place, went home and answered, then hung up and left it hung up long enough to clear before using it and thus didn't even know I took several minutes for the line to clear.     

[Adam]

Yes. It surely would be easier for Neville (& June) to disarm and/or calm Sheila down. Rather than the strongest head of the family going to make a phone call.

If I have a problem at home at 2am, I will not ring a relative. Might ring a plummer if I have a burst pipe.

[grahameb]

Fact Pattern:

Scipio phones Grahame.  Scipio doesn't want to talk to Grahame so puts the receiver down on the desk and pushes down on the button then releases the button with his finger and leaves the phone on the desk so Grahame can't call back.  Grahame hears a click and decides to hang up and then redial.
 
Q1 ) What happens if Grahame hung up the phone but before he got it on the cradle Scipio released the button?

A) The phone call is still connected and Grahame will not hear a dialtone and will not be able to redial.  If Scipio or someone else is making noise Grahame even would be able to hear it.  If Grahame hangs up and leaves it hung up for 1-2 minutes then the line will clear and he will be able to dial out again. 

Q 2) What happens if Grahame hung up the phone while Scipio still had his finger down on the button?  Then in this case the call would be disconnected.

So the timing had to be perfect for the phone to disconnect both people had to have it hung up at the same exact time for the call to disconnect. 

So Scipio would have to keep it held down long enough for Grahame to hang up while Scipio had the button depressed but would have to release the button before Grahame could have finished redialing.

How long did Jeremy allegedly take to hang up?  We don't know he gave conflicting stories. He gave accounts of waiting a while and hearing noises on the other end and claims of hearing the click and then hanging up within a couple of seconds.

Unless the timing of the hangup was perfect though the call would not disconnect.

We don't have to guess whether or not Jeremy managed to hang up before the person allegedly at WHF released the button.  There was expert testimony on this issue at trial.  The expert testimony is that the call was ended by the party at Goldhanger hanging up not WHF.  So either someone at WHF released the button before Jeremy could hang up so the connection still existed or no one depressed the button at all and Jeremy made up speaking to someone alltogether or he heard someone put the phone down.

Because the connection still existed if Jeremy picked up the phone to redial he would not have gotten a dialtone.  If he kept hanging up and picking up the phone again he still would not have a dialtone.  He needed to leave it hung up for 1-2 minutes for his line to clear and the call to disconnect. 

If he had actually tried redialing immediately instead of waiting 1-2 minutes for the line to clear he would have had no dialtone and would have been aware of the fact he could not redial immediately but rather had to wait for the line to clear.  If he had claimed such then his story would have been more credible. But he didn't he had no idea his line would not work because he didn't try to use it immediaely.  It cleared before he tried to use it again and he had no idea it would not have worked had he tried to use it immediately.   

So what he should have stated to make his claim credible was that he tried to redial immediately but was unable to get a dialtone and had to wait a while for his phone to work again.  Had he said that then his claim would have been possible from the standpoint of the telephone company testimony. 

Whether it makes sense based on the circumstances though is another matter.  Even if he had claimed he had to wait a while before his phone worked again there is still the problem of why Sheila would care if the phone was ringing and would want to leave it off the hook.  It is not as if anyone coudl answer since she would have them at gunpoint plus why would she wait till Nevill was done with the call before finally pushing the button in?  Why would she not shoot him before he finsihed dialing, before Jeremy answered or before he could finish talking to Jeremy?  Marching him upstairs to shoot him makes little sense but even less to wait till he is done to march him away.   

How did he get away to make a call and why would he ask Jeremy to come disarm her instead of doing it himself?  He could have disarmed her before Jeremy even answered the phone.  In fact, normally Jeremy did not answer his phone at night.  He normally left his answering machine on and the answering machine would pick up after a couple of rings.  So more than likely he simply would have gotten the answering machine.  how did he know th eanswering machine would be off?  Evne with the machine off he could not be sure Jeremy would wake up and evne if he did tt would take Jeremy a while to wake up, go downstairs and answer it.  He could have disarmed her before Jeremy answered.  Instead he chose to wait not only till Jeremy answered supposedly but would wait for him to dress and drive there and then find a way in the bolted house.  So wait 15 minutes of more for Jeremy to try to disarm her instead of doing it himself and risked angering her into shooting him while on the phone to ask Jeremy to come.  It just doesn't make any sense.

I can't come up with a reasonable scenario where Nevill would get up, leave June or the boys at gunpoint, go call Jeremy to ask him to come disarm her, leave the phone off the hook and then run back up and go pass by Sheila without trying to disarm her and then staying near June to be shot with her.
The kitchen had knives, other weapons and the back kitchen had guns.  Why would he not take a weapon back with him to confront her?


Nor can I come up with a reasonable scenario where Nevill would get up, leave June or the boys at gunpoint, go call Jeremy to ask him to come disarm her and then have her walk in and grab the phone from him and then order him back upstairs.

If he got away from Sheila he would go to the closet and get a gun to challenger her with or to grab a knife or some other weapon not run to the phone to call Jeremy to come disarm her. 

So he would have to be watched by her constantly to make sure he didn't go get his own weapon.  With her watching him constantly why would she let him make a call?

He can't have made the call after the shooting started because his wounds precluded him from talking. 

There is no reasonable scenario though as to how or why he could/would have made the call before the shooting started.

The only reasonable explanation is the one that the prosecution gave.

That Jeremy turned off his answering machine, dialed his own number and left the phone off the hook so it kept ringing his place, went home and answered, then hung up and left it hung up long enough to clear before using it and thus didn't even know I took several minutes for the line to clear.   

No that isn't what I said. What I said was that during the conversation someone at WHF depressed the button for a couple of seconds. This would give the impression to Jeremy that the phone went dead. So he hangs up. At WHF the person who has just depressed the button takes his/her finger off the button and puts the receiver to one side. Thus allowing Jeremy to phone back and when he phones back gets the engaged tone. This automatically answers your following questions.

[scipio_usmc]

Yes. It surely would be easier for Neville (& June) to disarm and/or calm Sheila down. Rather than the strongest head of the family going to make a phone call.

If I have a problem at home at 2am, I will not ring a relative. Might ring a plummer if I have a burst pipe.

Good luck finding a plumber to answer the phone at 2AM! 

[grahameb]

Yes. It surely would be easier for Neville (& June) to disarm and/or calm Sheila down. Rather than the strongest head of the family going to make a phone call.

If I have a problem at home at 2am, I will not ring a relative. Might ring a plummer if I have a burst pipe.

Well I direct you to scipio's answer: "If someone was pionting a gun at you, you would do as you are told" or words to that effect. That's not my answer, that is scipio's answer.

[grahameb]

Good luck finding a plumber to answer the phone at 2AM!

Also good luck to have him turn up by next Tuesday.

[Adam]

Good luck finding a plumber to answer the phone at 2AM!

I did have to ring a plummber at 2am once. They made me pay over the phone before they arrived.

[Adam]

How did Neville get to phone Jeremy if Sheila was pointing a gun at her ?

Oh god, everyone has gone through this before. Trying to find out what Sheila was doing when Neville made his 'mysterious' phone call.

[scipio_usmc]

No that isn't what I said. What I said was that during the conversation someone at WHF depressed the button for a couple of seconds. This would give the impression to Jeremy that the phone went dead. So he hangs up. At WHF the person who has just depressed the button takes his/her finger off the button and puts the receiver to one side. Thus allowing Jeremy to phone back and when he phones back gets the engaged tone. This automatically answers your following questions.

He would have to hang up right away to make sure that he hung up before the person at WHF released the button.  So he would have to have hung up before the 2 seconds with the button down was over. 

If the person at WHF released the button before he hung up fully the call would still be connected.

In the meantime if he did hang up before the person at WHF relased the button it would have registered at the phone company as WHF ended the call instead of the person at Goldhanger.

[mike tesko]

The court was deliberately and biasly deceived into thinking and beleiving that Jeremy would have been prevented from using his phone because the phone at the scene was found with its handset off the hook, which when linked to Jeremys claim that he had received a call from his father alerting him to the fact that Sheila had got the gun and she was going crazy, gave a false impression that during such a call between father and son, the handset had simply been put down on the worktop without Ralph at the scene terminating the call by depression of the receiver, and this followed by the release of the receiver before the handset was placed down on the worktop. This activity created a dialling tone for Ralph at the scene, an engaged tone for anyone trying to contact the occupants of the farm, such as Jeremy and the police, ringing but getting a constant engaged tone, to the check made by the operator at 3.56am, when upon checking the line discovered that the handset was off the hook...

All reported states of the telephones easily accounted for, all leading to the inevitable conclusion that someone still very much alive at the scene depressed the receiver of the round finger dial phone, causing the connection from the scene to Jeremys cottage to go dead...

[grahameb]

He would have to hang up right away to make sure that he hung up before the person at WHF released the button.  So he would have to have hung up before the 2 seconds with the button down was over. 

If the person at WHF released the button before he hung up fully the call would still be connected.

In the meantime if he did hang up before the person at WHF relased the button it would have registered at the phone company as WHF ended the call instead of the person at Goldhanger.

No that wouldn't be an issue. I can testify that what I am saying is true, because exactly the same thing happened to me in the 70's. If someone at WHF depressed the button for just a couple of seconds it would have the effect of the phone going dead. I fact the length of time the button is depressed is immaterial. But the leaving off of the receiver from the cradle is. For it is this that enables Jeremy to phone back and get the engaged tone. Now if Jeremy had phoned the operator the operator would have been able to tell him whether the phone was off the hook, or if Ralph was on another call. But he didn't. The important part in all this is that because the button was depressed for a couple of seconds making the phone go dead, Jeremy by putting his phone down would cause the engineer to believe that the call was ended by Jeremy and not Ralph.

[mike tesko]

No that wouldn't be an issue. I can testify that what I am saying is true, because exactly the same thing happened to me in the 70's. If someone at WHF depressed the button for just a couple of seconds it would have the effect of the phone going dead. I fact the length of time the button is depressed is immaterial. But the leaving off of the receiver from the cradle is. For it is this that enables Jeremy to phone back and get the engaged tone. Now if Jeremy had phoned the operator the operator would have been able to tell him whether the phone was off the hook, or if Ralph was on another call. But he didn't. The important part in all this is that because the button was depressed for a couple of seconds making the phone go dead, Jeremy by putting his phone down would cause the engineer to believe that the call was ended by Jeremy and not Ralph.

Absolutely correct, Grahame...

[mike tesko]

Now, what all of this is leading to, is the fact that without knowing it, Jeremys account of the aforementioned events provided him with the perfect alibi to prove that he could not possibly have killed all and sundry at the scene, because somebody had to still be alive inside the farmhouse, to depress the receiver of the round finger dial phone in the kitchen. This was undone by the crowns experts putting a different slant on the claims made by Jeremy, to the affect that he would have been prevented from using his own phone until the exchange mechanism had reset itself, when all along, the call from the scene to Jeremys cottage , had been terminated by someone at the scene, proving Jeremys alibi and inocence...

[mike tesko]

The jury were misinformed by the testimony of these prosecution experts, which gives a clear impression that there has to be a quashing of these convictiins, and a retrial, otherwise the criminal justice system is brought into disrepute...