94. Julie Mugford was 21 years old at the time of the offences and a student at Goldsmiths College at the University of London. She met the appellant in 1983 whilst working in Colchester during one of the vacations and they became boyfriend and girlfriend. During the relationship she met the appellant's parents, his sister and her children. In December 1984 the appellant had proposed to her.
95. On the day after the killings, Miss Mugford made a statement to the police. In that statement she said nothing adverse to the appellant. She spoke of receiving a telephone call from him at about 3.30 a.m. on the night of the killings. She said that he "sounded disjointed and worried" and he said "There's something wrong at home." She had been sleepy and had not asked what it was.
96. On 7 September, Julie Mugford contacted the police and told them that she had omitted matters from her earlier statement. She then gave a very different account that she was to repeat to the jury in evidence.
97. She said that after she met the appellant, it quickly became obvious to her that the appellant disliked his family. He resented his parents whom he claimed, "tried to run his life" and he said he did not get on with Sheila Caffell. He was angry that she lived in an expensive flat in Maida Vale, which was maintained by his parents. Between July and October 1984, he said that his parents were getting him down and he said that he wished "he could get rid of them all". In evidence Miss Mugford said this included his sister and children because "if he was going to get rid of them it would have to be all of them". The appellant explained to her that his "father was getting old, his mother was mad … Sheila was mad as well … and in respect of the way the twins had been brought up, … they were emotionally disturbed and unbalanced". The appellant also told Julie Mugford he had seen copies of his parents' wills.
98. Miss Mugford's evidence was that the conversations about killing the appellant's family became more frequent between October and December 1984. At first he spoke of being at the house for supper and then drugging the family before driving back to Goldhanger in his car. He said that he then intended returning to the farmhouse on foot or on bicycle and burning the house down. The appellant then appeared to realise that it would be difficult to burn the premises down especially since it would have the consequent effect of destroying the valuables within the property.
99. Later the appellant said he had decided to shoot his family and he told her that he had discovered that the catch on the kitchen window did not work and he could gain access to the house in that way. The appellant said he planned to leave the address by a different window, which latched when it was shut from the outside. He spoke of Sheila Caffell being a good scapegoat because of her admission to hospital during Easter 1985 and said that afterwards he would make it seem as if Sheila had done it and then killed herself.
100. Julie Mugford spent the weekend before the killings with the appellant in Goldhanger. During that period he dyed his hair black and she saw his mother's bicycle at the address. Other witnesses saw the bicyle at the appellant's home following the killings. Robert Boutflour saw mud on the walls of the tyres but not on the tread, as if it had been through deep mud.
101. At about 9.50 p.m. on Tuesday, 6 August the appellant telephoned Miss Mugford. During their conversation that evening he said he was "pissed off" and had been thinking about the crime all day and that it was going to be "tonight or never". 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.
102. 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.
103. 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.
104. Joanna Woad 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.
105. Miss Mugford described how later during the morning of Wednesday, 7 August 1985, the appellant telephoned her again. He said he could not speak for long, Sheila had gone mad and he told her not to go to work because a police car would come and pick her up. Miss Mugford was then taken to the house in Goldhanger, where out of earshot of the police officers, the appellant told her, "I should have been an actor".
106. That evening when they were alone, Miss Mugford said that she asked the appellant whether he had done it. He said he had not, but that he had arranged for a friend of his, Matthew MacDonald, to kill his family. He spoke of what he had told MacDonald as to ways of getting in and out of the farmhouse undetected and he said that one of his instructions was for MacDonald to ring him from the farm on the telephone which had the memory redial facility so that if the telephone was checked by the police it would provide him with an alibi.
107. The appellant reported that MacDonald had said that everything had been done as instructed but there had been a bit of a struggle with the appellant's father. He said MacDonald had told him, "for an old man he was very strong and put up a fight" and that MacDonald had then become angry and shot seven bullets into Nevill Bamber. The appellant said that Sheila Caffell had been told to lie down and shoot herself last. He said that MacDonald had then placed a Bible on her chest to make it look as though she had killed in some sort of religious mania. The appellant said the children were shot in their sleep and so they had not felt anything and there was no pain. He told Julie Mugford that MacDonald had been paid £2,000 for the killings.
108. As a result of hearing this account, the police arrested not only the appellant but also MacDonald. Their inquiries showed that Macdonald could not have been at the farm that night and he was called by the prosecution to give evidence, that was not disputed, to confirm that he had nothing to do with the shootings.
109. In the course of her evidence Miss Mugford explained that initially she did not want to believe what the appellant had told her but then she became scared and the appellant had threatened her that if anything happened to him she would be implicated.
110. She and the appellant spent the following weekend with Colin Caffell and on 12 August she went to the house in Goldhanger with the appellant. There he told her that the police had been a bit slack because they had not done all the fingerprinting at White House Farm. On 16 August Miss Mugford attended the funerals of Nevill and June Bamber with the appellant and then on 19 August the funerals of Sheila Caffell and her children. During that period the witness spoke of the appellant taking her out for frequent meals, and buying expensive clothes for himself and for her. She described the appellant's mood during this period as "very happy". After one of the funerals they drank champagne and cocktails.
111. Miss Mugford spent the weekend of 17-18 August 1985 with the appellant in Eastbourne and it was then that she began to ask how he could behave as he was doing. She kept telling him "£2,000 for five lives". The following week the couple went to Amsterdam for two days, staying in expensive hotels and eating out. On 27 August Miss Mugford returned alone to her lodgings in London and she told her friend Susan Battersby of what the appellant had done.
112. On Saturday 31 August Julie Mugford asked the appellant whether he loved her. He said he did not know. Again they spoke about the murders. Miss Mugford said she could not cope with him behaving so normally and asked why he had told her what had happened. She said she felt guilt for the two of them. The appellant told her he was doing everybody a favour and there was nothing to feel guilty about. Later that night the appellant told her that she was the best friend he had ever had and he had entrusted his life to her.
113. On Tuesday 3 September the couple met again in London at the flat which had belonged to Sheila Caffell. Again Miss Mugford raised the question of their relationship and his part in the killing. During their conversation the appellant received a telephone call from an ex-girlfriend and Miss Mugford heard him asking her out. She became angry and threw an ornament box at a mirror and then slapped the appellant. He became very angry and twisted her arm up behind her back. Four days later, she went to the police.
114. During the course of making her witness statements in September, Julie Mugford admitted that at Easter 1985 she had helped the appellant steal money from the offices of the Osea Road Caravan site which was owned by the appellant and various members of the family. On this occasion he had stage-managed the scene to give it the appearance of a burglary by an outsider. Some £970-£980 had been stolen which was used in part to buy a lavish meal.
115. Miss Mugford also admitted that she had used a cheque book belonging to Susan Battersby which had been falsely reported as stolen to obtain some £700 of property in Oxford Street. She told the jury that she and Miss Battersby had repaid the money to the bank in October 1985 and that she had been cautioned for the offence.
Other evidence of the appellant's dislike of his family 116. Other evidence was given which supported the evidence of Miss Mugford that the appellant disliked his family. Mary Mugford (Julie's mother) said the appellant had often told her that he hated his adoptive mother and he described her as quite mad.
