My principal reasons for favouring guilt are Mugford's evidence, which I see as credible, even though she had ample reason to lie, the unexplained delay in calling the police and the failure to call 999. Mugford makes better sense if she was involved in the murders as an accomplice. That reconciles the peculiar duality of her behaviour and her account. For instance, the temazapam story in which, knowing why he wanted to test it on himself she allowed him to do so. In my opinion, she very likely sourced the temazapam specifically at his request but slightly modified the story for the benefit of the cops.
Don't forget the fact that he called Julie before police but lied claiming he called police first.
There is nothing to suggest she was lying about providing him with the sleeping pills to use on himself to help him sleep because he was having sleeping problems. His misinterpretation of her doing so to help aid him provided insight into his mind though- he thought she was on his side with respect to the murders even though she told him to stop talking about it.
It started out with him complaining about his family, that escalating to say he wanted to kill them and burn them out of the house and ultimately culminated in his plan to shoot them. He either didn't explain every last detail he planned to her or she didn't fully listen to him because she didn't think he was serious and she missed things. That means she missed out on a chance to provide even more clarity.
The information he provided to her after the murders was limited so only of general use not the kind of details that would explain in full what had happened. So she is useless to some mysteries like about the burns to Nevill. He didn't want her to think he was so cold blooded as to kill the twins so made up the hit man story. This limited the details he could provide without revealing he had actually killed them personally. This makes her of limited use in the killing details she mostly could only say what he told her about before the killings. Saying tonight was the night and calling her afterwards before even calling police is pretty bad but that doesn't answer why he did certain things he did. PERHAPS the hitman story also was insurance to keep her quiet because he told her if she talked the hitman would get her and he figured if she did tell such story to police it would not hurt him. I say perhaps because these ideas might not have figured into his reason for making it up. They simply might be benefits he realized later. He could have made it up simply so she didn't think he was so cold as to kill his nephews personally. He knew that aspect disturbed her.
I tend to think that if he didn't trust her he would not have told her tonight is the night or called after the murders before even calling police so I doubt he was worried too much about her ratting him out to police. For this reason it seems to me that the hitman lie as mainly for her benefit so she could remain comfortable with him and not know he was as cold blooded as he was.
His behavior with Julie is easy to explain. Many men confide in their lovers/souses plenty even confide in their hookers. Jeremy needed someone to confide in and complain to. She knew about his other bad things including drugs and robbing the caravan site so trusted her. Interestingly she is not the only one he complained to about his parents. He did so to farm workers, Colin and others. Extremely interesting is he even told farm workers he would never share his inheritance with Sheila's side of the family. He said such to them not that long before the murders so they recalled it. This shows he was not very disciplined. If he was not disciplined enough to keep quiet to such people little wonder he could not keep quiet to Julie.
Julie's behavior is understandable as well. It is very common for people to not rat out loved ones immediately. Loved ones (whether lovers, other family relations or very close friends simply) always have a dilemma in what to do when faced with knowledge their loved ones have done wrong. They don't want to lose the loved one (a selfish response) and want to help such loved one because they don't want their loved one to suffer. This results in not only people often remaining silent but also being willing to lie or actively help dispose of evidence including bodies.
Breaking up eliminated the strongest motivation for her to protect Jeremy. Still things she told police could have been used against her but she admitted such things anyway and let the chips fall where they may.
Nothing in this case is unique and not seen before.
Likewise, the phone call to her at whatever time it was on the morning on 07 Aug is likely to have been a ruse to provide him with some kind of alibi. Her account of it makes no sense at all. She says he said, 'there is something wrong at the farm, everything is going well'. The first part of that is likely what they agreed she would say he said, something ambiguous to give the impression he had not received a clear and distinct message from Neville. Since he had told her earlier 'tonight's the night' 'something wrong at the farm' would mean the plan had backfired or failed in some way, not that an unexpected emergency had arisen there.
He called her around 3 for 2 reasons: 1) he was excited/wired and needed to tell someone about it. 2) to use her to bolster his alibi by saying, "I really did receive a call from WHF and truly concerned by it as proven by the fact that I called Julie to tell her I was upset because I received a call."
It is plainly obvious this is what he had in mind because around 6AM before police had gone inside and found the bodies he told Julie not to go to work because he would need her to speak to police to tell them about his earlier call. As plain as day he was using that call to her to prop up his alibi. This backfired big time not only because if really worried he should not have called her at all but instead to have rushed over to WHF but even worse yet, they were able to figure out he called her before police. If truly concerned you call police not your girlfriend who can't do anything and doesn't even care about the victims. That he was caught in the lie of saying he called police before her only makes it even worse.
Since he woke Julie up she was not fully awake and didn't appreciate everything he said so he could have said more that she failed to hear/recall. Surely he said more than just something is wrong at the farm he claimed he received a call from the farm. But he told her other things he didn't want her to spill to police such as that he had bee up all night and in saying the plan is going well he meant his plan to kill them quite clearly- something he surely didn't want her to tell police. So he wasn't merely using her as a dupe to support his alibi he was excited and needed to tell someone what he had done to share his excitement. He was like a guy who got a hole in one in golf and needed to tell someone.
Julie admits:
1) he long told her he was planning to kill them
2) he told her his plan involved receiving a phone call from WHF
3) that mere hours before the murders he told her tonight was the night it is now or never
4) he called her around 3Am saying the plan was going well
So in Jeremy's mind Julie knew he was going to kill them that night and telling her he was notified there was trouble at the farm and that the plan was going well was his way of telling her they had been killed.
Julie says:
A) she thought he was just blowing off steam in his talk about killing them she didn't think he was serious thus didn't appreciate he was meant it that he was going to kill them that night
B) She was still half asleep and didn't appreciate what he was telling her until after she hung up and thought about what he had said.
This is the issue where she potentially could have been guilty of perverting justice depending upon what she knew and intended.
If he explained to her in detail that he was going to pretend he received a phone call from Nevill and then he would phone her to pretend he called her because Nevill's call worried her and she would need to tell police about it and then she followed through telling them such it would constitute perverting justice or what is called Obstructing Justice in the US.
This is where one has to wonder:
1) Prior to the murders did Jeremy fully explain his plan of a phony call to her or not explain in detail and just say his plan involved receiving a call from WHF like Julie contended?
2) If he did tell her more than Julie contended did she fail to understand everything he was saying about the call or did she understand but later play dumb in order to avoid a charge of perverting Justice?
On her side is the fact that he had to call her back at 6AM to tell her not to go to work. If they had prearranged things then he would not have needed to do that. On the other hand he could have told her during that 6AM call that he made up receiving a call from Nevill and needed her to back it up.
Since she was willing to admit the other crimes she was involved in I tend to think she would have admitted to lying for him about the call if he had asked her to do so. I think part of how she rationalized her actions in her own mind prior to telling police the full story was by telling herself she wasn't lying to police she simply wasn't telling them everything she knew.
Her involvement also better explains her hesitancy in coming forward. She took an enormous gamble in doing that. The police might have decided to go after her too or she might have faced liability for malicious prosecution. I don't think being jilted was enough to explain her actions.
I think the answer is much more simple. She loved him and didn't want to lose him so initially was willing to not tell police everything she knew in order to protect him so they could still be together. As time passed she had mixed emotions about it all. Even as they fought she still loved him and wanted to try to make it a go. She tried to use the fact she knew the truth as leverage but he responded back that the hitman would get her if she talked and police would never believe her anyway he had committed the perfect crime without leaving any evidence.
After they broke up she still loved him so didn't rush out to immediately rat on him. But a major motivation for her not telling police everything evaporated- the motivation of not talking so that they could remain together.
The characterization of her talking to police is in the following manner:
1) She told her friend about how Jeremy was responsible
2) Her friend ran to the police
3) Police then sought her out to ask her about the things the friend told them
4) She spoke to her mother to tryt o figure out what to do and her mother told her to tell the truth and went with her to police
This is hardly a case of her feeling bad and just running to police to do the right thing. It's more a case of police getting the truth in a roundabout way and her deciding to give up the farce then.
Jeremy didn't need her help in carrying out the murders and I doubt she took part in any way in the planning. What she could have left out doing is telling him it was a good idea and encouraging him to carry the murders out. That is realistically the limit of what she might have done. If she had done that I think he would have provided her with more details though than he actually did and he would not have been scared to admit he killed them personally. The story about a hitman seems to have been primarily to quell her unease that he knew she had. That's inconsistent with her encouraging him. Though I don't think she encouraged him there are 2 plausible motives for her supporting his actions:
1) he broke off their engagement because they liked the idea and he didn't want to please them. So she could potentially believe with them dead he would then marry her
2) she could want him to inherit the money so he could then spend it on her.
She didn't seem like the type of person worried about him being rich to spoil her and nothing else to suggest she encouraged him for these reasons I am just listing them for the sake of completeness.
Anyway, if she made up her account, she sure did a bad job of keeping herself out of it. Even taken at face value she was admitting very serious offences involving concealment and assistance following the crime. It is remarkable that she was not prosecuted for those but, maybe not, as it was in nobody's interests to pursue the question of her involvement - not Bamber's and not the cops'.
The crimes she admitted to in her statement were unrelated to the murders and not very serious. With respect to the murders all she admitted to was knowing more than she told police she didn't admit to lying to police. She was very careful to say she didn't lie to police but rather didn't tell them everything she knew. he only potential issue where she could have lied pertained to the phone call. I already highlighted how that would have amounted to perverting justice if she knew he made up the phone call from Nevill and was lying for hi to pretend he received such a call and it worried him. That's realistically the only thing where lying to police to benefit him could come into play.
Whether Bamber received a fair trial is a separate and important question on which I have not formed a strong opinion due to not reading enough about it. I've read the 2002 appeal which describes and then dismisses a litany of errors and inadequacies in the conduct of the case. There are substantial concerns about the provenance of 'the' moderator, the state of Sheila's body when found and so on. It beggars belief that the scene was cleared of blood stained carpet and wallpaper the next day and the cretinous fumbling of Essex police, even to the extent of being unable to write down the time correctly, is truly staggering.
Nonetheless, through all that fog of blundering incompetence and perhaps worse, the theory that seems to fit best is that he did it with her knowledge and assistance as far as the alibi is concerned. That's where I am with this one.
None of the supposed police errors have anything do with legal issues of whether he got a fair trial though. The errors are raised to create general suspicions and then giant leaps are made therefore. many of the errors aren't even errors.
For instance, police moving Sheila's arm to take photos of the blood on her gown that was concealed by her arm and the gun was not an error at all. Removing the gun from her body after this was not an error either. Her body could not remain there forever it had to be moved.
Police account:
1) Sheila's body was on the floor with the gun across her body
2) Photos were taken of her before she was moved
3) Her arm and the gun were moved enough to see the blood on her gown then photos were taken
4) the gun was removed and placed against the wall and photos taken of the rooms revealed the gun in the location where police put it
Allegations by Jeremy supporters:
1) Police planted the gun on her body it was not originally on her body. This allegation features the claim the photo police say was taken last taken first so the gun was against the wall initially.
This is a stupid allegation not only because all the police who saw her noted the gun was on her and also because if true it would be absolute proof that Sheila was murdered. She died instantly from the 2nd shot there is no way for her to have committed suicide with a gun that was found far away from her body.
2) Sheila's body was in the bed but was moved to the floor by police.
This is another stupid allegation. A pool of blood on the floor proves that is where she died. All police who saw her body say it was on the floor and police had no reason to relocate her body to the floor.
3) Sheila's body was slightly moved by police prior to the crime scene photos being taken. This allegation has some variation. Some claim police picked up the gun to check if it was loaded hen put it back on top of her in slightly different position than it had been. Other say they moved her head a little to look her over or her arms. These claims have no support but even if true have no significance at all to the prosecution. If her head was at a slightly different angle or her hands at a slightly different angle is makes no difference it doesn't make it possible for her to have committed suicide.
The only significant issue is the moderator and you will find that most of the claims made about the moderator by Jeremy supporters end up being sheer nonsense. The favorite claim is that police had multiple moderators. The truth is that the police changed the exhibit number of the moderator. Some Jeremy supporters use this to craft wild allegations that make no sense and since they have no evidentiary support could not be made to an Appeals Court. The most wild claims are used simply for propaganda purposes to try to get public support as opposed to being used in legal proceedings.
