Post by: Admin on February 21, 2011, 08:22:PM
New Evidence
As shown by the Sunday Mirror
19th September 2004
THIS PHOTO PROVES I DIDN'T KILL MY SIS
DRAMATIC NEW EVIDENCE IN BAMBER CASE
By Justin Penrose
THIS is the gruesome photograph Jeremy Bamber says proves he DIDN'T murder his family.
It shows blood pouring from a gunshot wound in his sister's neck. And medical experts say this means she must have been shot by someone else - because Bamber was with police at the time they claim the shooting took place.
The photo is one of several to be uncovered that were not shown to the trial jury in 1986, but now seen by the Sunday Mirror. Bamber, then 25, was jailed for life for killing his adoptive parents, sister Sheila Caffell, 27, and her twin sons Nicholas and Daniel, aged six.
Bamber, 43, branded a psychopath, has always denied committing the murders at the family's farmhouse in Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex, to get his hands on a £500,000 inheritance.
Now two independent medical experts have said that the photos - which were taken between 8.30am and 9am on the day of the murders - show that the killings must have happened no earlier than 7am. And Bamber was with police from just after 3.30am.
He claimed that he had been at White House Farm the evening before the murders when there was a row between his parents and Sheila over whether Sheila's twins should be fostered or not, as she was schizophrenic and having problems looking after them.
Bamber also said that he had a call from his father at about 3.30am saying Sheila had gone mad - and then the phone went dead. Bamber, who lived six miles from the family home, claimed that he called the police and met them at the house. Police logbooks show that officers were in conversation with an unidentified person in the house at 5.25am.
Armed officers believed there could have been hostages in the house and decided to wait until daylight before storming it at about 7.45am - and found the family murdered.
Bamber's lawyer Giovanni di Stefano said the new pictures tie in with evidence that police officers were talking with somebody in the house.
He said: "The fact that our medical experts say that the killing must have taken place no later than 7am means that it could not have been Bamber.
"It's clear from the photo that this is a fresh wound but it was not put before the trial jury. The photos they were given were a lot darker, giving the impression that the killings happened some time before. It looks like they have made them darker to look like the blood is not still flowing and this is extremely concerning.
"The pictures are important and powerful evidence that support the fact that there was a person inside the house who was in conversation with police when Bamber was outside."
At first police believed his sister Sheila - a model nicknamed Bambi with a history of mental illness - killed her family before turning the gun, a .22 semi-automatic rifle, on herself. She was found with her hand on the rifle butt with which she appeared to have killed herself with two shots to the chin and throat.
But the theory fell apart when relatives found a silencer for the murder weapon in a cupboard which officers had missed. It had a spot of blood inside that was said to be Sheila's.
Then a month after the killings, Bamber's girlfriend Julie Mugford told police that he had often bragged that he was going to kill his parents and claim his inheritance.
The new evidence will be sent to the Criminal Cases Review Commission who will decide if the case should go before the High Court.
Post by: Admin on February 21, 2011, 08:31:PM
As shown by the Sunday Mirror
21st November 2004
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 JAILED Jeremy Bamber has hailed dramatic new evidence that could clear him of murdering his family as "my best chance of freedom". Interviewed for the first time since the evidence came to light, he said he is yearning to leave jail - and dreams of eating a Pot Noodle in front of the TV. Bamber, who has spent 18 years behind bars after being convicted of shooting dead five members of his family including his model sister "Bambi", demanded a new court hearing into his case. The new evidence includes a photo - published in the Sunday Mirror - which shows that his sister must have died when Bamber was with police. Two independent medical experts say the photo of bullet wounds to her neck - which was taken at around 9am on the day of the killings - shows she died no earlier than 7.30am. Bamber was with police from 3.30am that day. | My dream of freedom? | ||
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Speaking exclusively to the Sunday Mirror from Full Sutton Prison in York, he said: "This must go before a court as this is the strongest evidence we have ever had - this is proof of my innocence." Bamber, who has always claimed he was at home three miles away at the time of the murders, insisted: "They've hidden evidence so they could get on with the prosecution - they shouldn't be allowed to do that. "The picture of Sheila clearly shows there is blood running down her neck. That can't have happened if she had been dead for five or six hours." Bamber, who has previously failed twice in appeals against his conviction, said he is now "hopeful" of winning his freedom. "I feel this is my best chance but I am a cynic after 20 years in jail fighting away. However, it appears that the truth is finally emerging after all of this time." Bamber, who makes books for the blind in jail, added that simple dreams are all he allows himself. "Just to be able to get some freedom back - to stand on the court steps and thank all of the people who have supported me - that's as far as I look ahead. "If I've learnt anything from jail it's that the monetary things don't matter, it's the people that are important in life. "Even to sit down in front of the telly with a Pot Noodle, that would be marvellous. That's as big as my dreams go. I don't have any desires for the big things in life. A rocking chair and a nice pair of slippers would do me." Other new pieces of evidence to emerge relate to inconsistencies in police log books. One says at the murder scene police were "in conversation" with somebody in the house - while Bamber was outside. Others say a woman's body was found downstairs - when all police photos show Bamber's mother and sister upstairs. Bamber has always tained his schizophrenic sister Sheila killed the family before turning the gun, a .22 semi-automatic rifle, on herself. His lawyer Giovanni di Stefano has written to the High Court asking for a hearing to review the new evidence. He said: "It totally destroys the prosecution case."
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Post by: Admin on February 21, 2011, 08:33:PM
by Emily Parsons
Bamber's new hope for release
CONVICTED mass murderer Jeremy Bamber insists new evidence will prove he did not shoot dead his adoptive parents, his sister and her two young twin sons 20 years ago. In an exclusive interview he told reporter Emily Parsons he hopes to be out of jail by the end of the year.
GRUESOME police photographs lie at the heart of Jeremy Bamber’s latest bid to overturn his murder conviction.
Taken by scenes of crime photographers, they show the bodies of his adoptive parents, Nevil and June Bamber, and his sister Sheila ‘Bambi’ Caffell, at White House Farm, Tolleshunt D’Arcy, on August 7 1985.
Bamber believes they will help him show he was wrongfully convicted of murdering the three adults and Sheila’s six-year-old twin boys Daniel and Thomas.
When the shocking crime was first discovered, police believed Sheila, in a moment of madness, had shot her parents and twins before turning the gun on herself. Bamber had told them she often had mad bouts with his pare nts.
Now Bamber — who has already lost two appeals — says the police photographs support that initial theory.
They show that rigor mortis had set in on all the victims, except Sheila, he says. He is confident the new evidence will lead to a successful third appeal.
He said: “My lawyer has the photos. They are absolutely clear and — it is quite hard for me to say — there is no question you can see mum and dad have been dead quite some time.
“Sheila still looks pink and while the blood on them is dry, Sheila is still bleeding.
“Sheila must also have walked on the blood stains on the carpet as in the photos you can clearly see the stains on her feet, even though they said her hands and feet were clean.”
Bamber is also excited that his lawyers have recently obtained logs completed by a radio and a telephone operator at Essex Police headquarters in Springfield.
They wrote down what they were told by the first officers to arrive at the farmhouse, because it was not until 1997 that conversations were tape-recorded.
He said: “The freshest of fresh evidence we have is probably the other scenes of crime logs and the logs taken and written down at the scene and at head office, which confirm what was not disclosed in the written log.”
These logs show that police officers had seen somebody moving at an upstairs window, while Bamber was outside with them.
Bamber said: “I don’t want to lose focus on the main issues though, such as the non-disclosure of the evidence log. If we’d had the radio log we’d have had an alibi for me.”
He still hasn’t ruled out the possibility that his sister Sheila did the killings.
He said: “The evidence appears to be very strong that she did, but we can’t rule out that there may have been a third party who we don’t know and it’s not for me to suggest who it may have been.”
Clearly optimistic about the possibility of release, he said: “We were very lucky to get this fresh evidence. As soon as I got it I knew, this is absolute dynamite. I thought ‘this is just amazing’.
“It is hard, solid evidence that as soon as it gets before court will absolutely win. It has to win.
“We are currently just waiting for someone to make a decision to get my case into court, waiting for someone to say ‘yes, this evidence is so significant we must get this before court as soon as possible’.
“What we have come up with this time is a whole new angle. I have got an alibi and always have had an alibi — this is clear in this new evidence. It can’t have been me, it wasn’t me and the evidence is there to prove it.”
Bamber, now 44, spoke freely and was in a buoyant mood.
He added: “Up until recently people have had a misconception about what happened. People now say ‘well he’s been in there 20 years, he must have done it’ and it’s not like that.
“I was given a 25 year sentence originally, but that was upped to a whole life term by (then Home Secretary Michael) Howard. Three years ago that was capped to 25 years again, but it’s really up to the parole board when I’m released.
“I hope the new evidence we have will see me released by the end of the year.”
Looking to the future, a visit to his parents’ grave, at the parish church of Tolleshunt D’Arcy, is top of his things to do when finally released.
He said: “I would very much like to do that of course, but it would also be lovely to be with friends.
“The whole point would be to have the choice to do what I would like to do, it would be lovely to do what I choose.”
For now, his fate rests in the hands of those holding his appeal, and despite his earlier certainty, Bamber hesitated as he spoke on the outcome:
“I hope they listen, but I still hold some cynicism. I’m just looking forward to the future. ”
Asked if he really did kill his family, Bamber had only one answer: “No.”
Post by: Admin on February 21, 2011, 08:34:PM
16 July 2005
by James Hore
For full correspondence between Jeremy and Essex Police see Freedom of Information Page
Killer denied access to case information
A BID by convicted killer Jeremy Bamber to access evidence which he hopes will clear his name has been blocked by Essex Police.
Bamber was jailed for life in 1986 for murdering his adoptive parents, sister and her two children at White House Farm in Tolleshunt D'arcy near Maldon.
The 44-year-old has always protested his innocence and is currently hoping to secure his freedom through another hearing at the Court of Appeal.
Bamber sent a number of requests to Essex Police from prison in York, using the Freedom of Information and Data Protection acts in a bid to access more evidence.
Bamber asked for details of notes made by an officer at the scene, a register of the firearms issued on the morning of the killings and audio tapes of radio and telephone calls from August 7, 1985.
But this week Bamber has been told his requests were either “beyond the remit” of the information compliance officer at Essex Police or could not be completed within the 18-hour limit of searches.
Speaking to the EADT from Full Sutton prison, Bamber said he remained confident the emerging evidence from the case would one day result in him walking free.
He said: “I don't think I will make any more requests, I know that really they are not going to give me anything.
“The audiotapes would have been helpful, but they do not want to give those.”
Bamber was convicted after a trial in 1986 of gunning down his adoptive parents, June and Nevill , his sister Sheila Caffell, a model known as Bambi, and her two children Nicholas and Daniel.
The prosecution at the trial said Bamber had been motivated by money and the large inheritance he would receive from the family.
In 2002, the Court of Appeal rejected suggestions the murder convictions had been based on police deceits and withheld evidence.
A spokeswoman for Essex Police said: “We have had several Freedom of Information requests from Mr Bamber, a large number of which we have complied with.
“We have also had a large number of data protection requests, many of which we have also complied with.
“However, this one particular request could not be dealt with in a reasonable amount of time, so in compliance with the Freedom of Information Act we rejected the request on that basis.
“We feel we have complied with the act and our statutory obligation.
“Mr Bamber can appeal via the information commissioner, however, we have not received notice of such an application.”
Post by: Admin on February 21, 2011, 08:37:PM
By Cahal Milmo
Published: The Independent 03 August 2005
Photographs of the sister of Jeremy Bamber taken within hours of her death but not put before a jury will clear the convicted killer of wiping out his family, it has been claimed.
Legal advisers to Bamber believe the graphic police pictures of Sheila Caffell, which remained undisclosed during his trial and two subsequent appeals, will provide the grounds for a third appeal.
Bamber, 44, has always denied shooting his adoptive parents, Neville and June Bamber, along with Caffell and her twin six-year-old sons at the family's farmhouse in Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex, in 1985.
The new evidence, which has been submitted to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), is said to prove that Bamber was in police custody when Caffell, 27, was killed.
Scientists will be called to argue that apparently fresh blood on Caffell's body means she can only have died a maximum of two hours before the pictures were taken at around 9am on the day of the murders.
A log of police activity also records that blood was seen flowing from the mouth of Caffell, a former model nicknamed Bambi - at about 7.30am.
Police records show that Bamber, then 24, had been with police since about 3am after he had called officers to tell them about a disturbance at the farmhouse.
Giovanni Di Stefano, the high-profile Italian legal adviser acting for Bamber, said he believed that the pictures were enough evidence to quash his client's five convictions for murder.
Mr Di Stefano, whose clients include the killer Kenneth Noye and the timeshare conman John Palmer, said: "These photographs prove, at the very least, that Mr Bamber could not have killed his sister.
"We are instructing experts on this but anyone knows that if blood is leaking at 7.30am as an officer's statement said, and the pictures show that, she could not have been dead at the time he was taken into police custody."
The new evidence is understood to come from a large cache of about 500,000 documents from the police investigation which were not disclosed to defence or prosecution lawyers during Bamber's original trial or his two failed appeals in 1987 and 2002.
During the trial, jurors were told that Bamber had shot his victims at White House Farm before placing the rifle and a Bible on the chest of Caffell to make it look as if she had carried out the killings and then committed suicide.
Caffell was initially the chief suspect after detectives were told by Bamber that she suffered from schizophrenia and had not been taking her medication.
The judge described Bamber, whose apparent motive was a £436,000 inheritance, as "warped and evil beyond belief".
A statement made by the first police officer on the scene, PC Peter Woodcock, described how he had entered the farmhouse at 7.34am and found Caffell's body. The officer said: "She had what appeared to be two bullet holes under her chin and blood leaking from both sides of her mouth down her cheeks."
Mr Di Stefano said that together with the photographs the evidence showed that Caffell could not have been dead when his client met police at 3am.
Bamber has always claimed that on the evening before the shootings there had been a row between his parents and Caffell over whether her son should be taken into care. He said he then received a call from his father in the early hours saying his sister had gone mad before the phone went dead.
Mr Di Stefano said other discrepancies had also come to light from the undisclosed evidence, including indications that Caffell's body had been moved after her death.
The CCRC confirmed that it had reopened its file on Bamber and was considering the new evidence.
Post by: Admin on February 21, 2011, 08:38:PM
Post by: Admin on February 21, 2011, 08:40:PM
LIE TEST PROVES BAMBI KILLER IS 'INNOCENT'
By Jeremy Armstrong 20/04/2007
EXCLUSIVE: 'No flicker of guilt' in quiz on his family's murder
JEREMY Bamber passed a lie detector test yesterday - backing his 22 year fight to prove he did not murder five members of his family.
And the expert who conducted it said: "I am absolutely convinced he is innocent."
Terry Mullins added: "He did not show any sign of a reaction, not a flicker which would have shown up guilt."
Now Bamber's lawyers will send the results to the Home Secretary and ask for a third appeal.
Bamber was "overwhelmed" when told the results in a phone call to Full Sutton jail in York, where he is serving life. He told the Mirror: "I didn't do it. I couldn't have done. I wouldn't have done it."
He has always denied killing his adoptive parents Neville and June Bamber, his sister Sheila Caffell - nicknamed Bambi -and her six-year-old twins Nicholas and Daniel in Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex, in 1985.
He stood to inherit almost £500,000 from his parents. But he claims Sheila, who had a history of mental illness, killed them before turning the rifle on herself.
Police thought so too - until they found a silencer in a cupboard with her blood on and decided she could not have used it in the murders, shot herself and then put it back in the cupboard.
Bamber, 45, who has been asking for the test since 1991, was finally given permission by the Home Office. It is believed to be the first time it has been allowed behind bars.
He was wired up to a £10,000 polygraph machine, said to be the most sophisticated available with 95 to 98 per cent accuracy. It measures reactions that can indicate guilt, including heartbeat, blood pressure, sweat and even electromagnetic impulses.
During the 100 minute test Mr Mullins, one of only seven polygraph experts in the UK, asked three key questions:
* DID you shoot your family on August 7, 1985?
* DID you shoot five members of your family with an Anshutz rifle?
* WERE you in the house when they were shot with an Anshutz rifle? Bamber gave a categoric "No" to each one.
Mr Mullins said: "You only have to fail one question and you fail the whole test. But he passed every time.
"We are testing the nervous system, the fight or flight mechanism, and you cannot hide those reactions. But there was no suggestion he was lying in any answers."
He added: "I am absolutely clear that he did not do this. I am convinced he is innocent from his readings on these tests."
Bamber's lawyer Giovanni di Stefano, who has campaigned vigorously for him, said last night: "I believe there is sufficient evidence to prove his innocence.
"Although lie detector tests are not admissible in the UK justice system, I believe that such a sophisticated piece of equipment does have real value in determining guilt or innocence."
Bamber's appeals in 1987 and 2002 failed. Three weeks ago the Criminal Cases Review Commission refused to refer the case back to the Appeal Court.
But Mr di Stefano said: "I will be demanding immediate action. The Home Secretary should release Mr Bamber on licence until a retrial.
"He has spent 22 years behind bars for heinous crimes which he didn't commit."
Post by: Admin on February 21, 2011, 08:41:PM
by BOB WOFFINDEN - Daily Mail 19 May 2007
A lie-detector test. A tell-tale trickle of blood. Twenty years after Jeremy Bamber was jailed for the brutal slaughter of his family, startling new evidence raises a deeply disturbing question
At about 3.30am on August 7, 1985, Jeremy Bamber called the police. "My father's just phoned me," he told them.
"He said: 'Please come over. Your sister has gone crazy and has got a gun'."
That proved to be the start of one of the most remarkable criminal cases in English history - one that is still controversial today.
When police broke into the farmhouse owned by Bamber's parents, they found five people dead from multiple gunshot wounds.
According to all the first reports, Bamber's sister, Sheila - a model with psychiatric problems - had shot her six-year-old twin sons, her parents and then herself.
The Mail's headline next day was: "Drugs probe after massacre by mother of twins."
Over the weeks, however, the story changed.
Relatives found a silencer, showing traces of blood, in the gun cupboard and took it to police. If it had been used in the shootings, then how could Sheila have put it back there afterwards? And how could she have shot herself twice?
Then, a month after the murders, Julie Mugford, Jeremy Bamber's former girlfriend, went to police and painted a deeply damaging picture of him, including the claim that he wanted to get rid of his relatives.
Bamber, who was then 24, was charged with murdering his family.
In October 1986, he was convicted of all five killings, becoming one of the most reviled men in Britain. Michael Howard, then Home Secretary, ruled that he should never be released.
Bamber, who is now 46, has served more than 20 years but from the start he has vehemently protested his innocence.
He claims to be buoyed by what his father used to say: "Don't worry, Jeremy, the truth always comes out in the wash."
Last month, in Full Sutton prison near York, Bamber passed a lie-detector test. "Did you shoot your family?" he was asked.
"No," he replied.
Lie-detector tests have always been controversial; but if they are to be trusted, then Bamber is innocent.
Moreover, the Mail can reveal new evidence supporting his account. His solicitor has now asked the Home Office to release him immediately.
Nevill Bamber was a farmer and magistrate. He and his wife, June - both 61 when they died - married in 1949 and shortly afterwards took over White House Farm in the Essex village of Tolleshunt D'Arcy.
As they could not have children, they adopted Sheila and Jeremy (who were unrelated to each other) and privately educated them.
After college in Colchester, Jeremy spent some time in Australia and New Zealand before returning to work on his father's farm. He lived in the neighbouring village, Goldhanger, and in 1983 started a relationship with Julie Mugford, then a 19-year-old student at Goldsmith's College in London.
Sheila, who was 28 when she died, went to secretarial college, before working in London as a model, where she acquired the nickname Bambi. She married Colin Caffell in 1977, and their twin sons were born in 1979.
By that time, however, Shelia's mental health was poor. She and Colin divorced in 1982, and the following year she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital where she was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.
In March 1985, a few months before the murders, she was described as "very disturbed" and "acutely ill" and was re-admitted, although she was released some weeks later.
Meanwhile, the twins lived with their father, though Sheila saw them regularly. On Sunday, August 4, Colin drove Sheila and the boys to Tolleshunt D'Arcy to spend a few days at the farm.
On Tuesday, August 6, according to Jeremy and another relative, Nevill and June suggested to Sheila that the twins should be put into foster homes.
When the farm secretary phoned that evening, she said Nevill was "very short" and thought she had interrupted an argument.
It was during that night, says Jeremy, that his father made his dramatic call. After phoning the police, Jeremy called Julie, before setting off for Tolleshunt D'Arcy. He arrived, he says, just two minutes after the police.
No one was allowed into the house. Even when the tactical firearms unit turned up at 5am, the police still waited outside.
Finally, four hours after Jeremy's urgent call, they burst into the house through the back door at 7.30am. They found five bodies. There had been 25 shots with a .22 Anschutz semi-automatic rifle, mostly at close range.
During the day, statements were taken from the main witnesses. Julie Mugford's supported Jeremy's.
At the time, the police were satisfied with the murder-and-suicide scenario. The original investigating officer, DCI 'Taff' Jones, has always believed this - as did the coroner.
Because the killer's identity was not in question, the house was not treated properly as a crime-scene; much forensic evidence was obliterated or never gathered. Bloodstained bedding and carpets were destroyed.
On August 10, relatives - Jeremy Bamber's cousins Ann Eaton and David Boutflour - found the silencer in the gun cupboard with what looked like a flake of dried blood on it. Though it was examined by police on August 13, they found nothing.
During the next month, Jeremy behaved neither sensitively nor prudently. There was a huge media presence at the funerals, where it was suggested that he was over-theatrical in his grief.
He certainly didn't otherwise appear grief-stricken. He had spent lavishly, flown to Amsterdam and even tried ( unsuccessfully) to sell soft-porn pictures of Sheila from her modelling days round Fleet Street for £100,000.
More than a month later, the silencer was examined again.
This time, a scientist found a speck of blood of the same type as Sheila's; he concluded that she must have been shot while the silencer was fitted to the rifle.
Apart from raising the question of who returned the silencer back to the cupboard, this discovery meant that it would have been impossible for Sheila to have killed herself because the gun would have been too long.
DCI Jones was removed from the case. (He died in a fall from a ladder at his home before the case went to trial.)
On September 3, Julie Mugford found out that Bamber had asked out another girl.
Furious, she threw an ornament box across the room and slapped him. He ended their relationship.
Four days later, she went to the police and told them a different story.
Bamber, she said, had shown no remorse; after the murders, he'd thrown money around and clearly enjoyed himself.
Furthermore, he'd talked to Julie before the killings about wanting to get rid of them all, speculating about the perfect murder.
On the night of the massacre, she said, Bamber rang to say: "It's tonight or never."
He added that he'd hired a hitman, called Matthew McDonald, for £2,000. She could prove he was dishonest because they'd burgled the family-owned caravan site together five months earlier.
At the eventual murder trial, Julie's evidence was vital to the prosecution case. The Crown argued that Bamber detested his parents for having sent him to boarding school, and resented Sheila's success and the allowances they made for her state of mind.
But his chief motive, said the prosecutor, was to inherit about £435,000 and 300 acres of land.
The rest of the case seemed cut and dried. Sheila would not have known how to use the gun, which would have had to be reloaded at least twice.
The silencer would have made the gun too long for her to point at herself, and she couldn't have returned it to the cupboard. There were no bloodstains on her body or her nightdress and no traces of firearms residue - except a bit of lead on her hands.
There was no documentary evidence - as there would be today - to back up Bamber's claims of the phone call he received from his father.
On October 18, 1986, ten of the 12 jurors returned a guilty verdict.
Sentencing Bamber to life, Mr Justice Drake described him as "warped, callous and evil".
With hindsight, the case against Bamber was thin. There was no evidence that he had travelled from his home to the farmhouse and back again in the early hours of the morning.
Nor was there forensic evidence linking him to the crimes, other than one of his fingerprints being on the gun. But he admitted using it previously to shoot rabbits and Sheila's fingerprint was also on it; as were those of the policeman who'd picked up the gun after the murders.
When the silencer was found, no one who handled it had worn gloves to try to retain the evidence.
However, there was a flake of blood inside, and the forensic expert who analysed it concluded that it came from Sheila - backspatter (a spray of blood from the victim) after she had been shot.
However, another expert, who also gave evidence for the Crown, said that the .22 Anschutz was unlikely to produce backspatter - and even less likely to when fitted with a silencer.
Major Freddy Mead, a firearms expert appearing for the defence, noted that there were no grounds for believing that the silencer had been used at all during the attacks.
No one could even be sure that the blood in the silencer was Sheila's. The blood tests available at that time were basic. All that could be done was blood grouping.
The prosecution later conceded that Sheila's blood group matched that of Robert Boutflour, Jeremy's uncle, who was present when the silencer was found.
Other scientists said that the flake could have been a mixture of Nevill's and June's blood. The jury had asked whether this was a possibility.
There was also blood on the barrel of the rifle; again, no one knows whose.
It would be invaluable to learn more about this evidence, using scientific techniques available today.
But this is impossible because Essex police destroyed many of the original trial exhibits, including all the blood-based samples, in February 1996.
Those responsible insisted they had not realised that the exhibits might be needed - yet ever since the conviction, this case had been a hot topic.
In February 1996, it was still under consideration by the Home Office and was one of the first to be transferred to the new Criminal Cases Review Commission, which said the destruction of scientific exhibits was "in breach of the force's own guidelines".
Bamber's lawyers have always believed that Nevill and June were shot in their bedroom. June struggled across it before collapsing, while Nevill, having been shot twice, managed to get downstairs to reach the telephone and call Jeremy.
He then struggled with his assailant, who beat him with the rifle butt before shooting him dead. The prosecution maintained that there were signs of a tussle, with furniture being overturned, which meant that Jeremy, not Sheila, must have been the attacker.
However, according to a document later released by City of London Police (which had been asked in 1991 by the Home Office to conduct an independent inquiry into Essex police's handling of the investigation), the officers knocked over chairs when they burst into the house.
Further, Sheila could have subdued Nevill; having been shot twice, he would have been weak.
Also, it was possible for Sheila to have shot herself twice. The first wound, to her throat, was fired from a distance of three inches but would not have killed her instantly; the second, fired with the barrel pressed against the skin, would have done.
But could Bamber have shot her?
There was no evidence that Sheila had resisted and Bamber would have needed to be underneath her, with her acquiescing, in order to fire the shots at the angle they entered the body.
In effect, he was convicted on the evidence of his own conduct after the shootings, as well as the word of one scientist and his former girlfriend.
Yet not only did her account contradict much of what she had originally stated; it was not supported in crucial ways. The alleged hitman, Matthew McDonald, who gave evidence at the trial, had a strong alibi.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission referred the case to appeal in March 2001. The appeal began in October the following year.
By then, as much scientific testing as possible had been carried out.
The appeal court judges determined that June Bamber's DNA - but not necessarily Sheila's - was in the silencer. They added, however, that they believed there had been significant contamination of the samples and the results were meaningless.
Looking at the case as a whole, they concluded in December 2002 that "the deeper we have delved into the available evidence, the more likely it has seemed to us that the jury were right".
Bamber responded to the disappointment by changing his legal team.
Bamber's defence depends on whether Sheila was a viable suspect. Her family did not think she was capable of serious violence.
"Apart from the odd occasion when she has struck me in a temper," said her former husband, Colin Caffell, "she has, to my knowledge, never struck anyone."
However, Dr Hugh Ferguson, consultant psychiatrist at St Andrew's hospital in Northampton where she was treated, reported that she was "caught up with the idea that the Devil had taken her over and given her the power to project evil on to others, including her sons".
When she was discharged from hospital in September 1983, Ferguson wrote that she had thoughts that she was "capable of murdering her own children".
He made a "firm diagnosis" of schizophrenia, prescribing the antipsychotic drug Stelazine.
She was re-admitted in March 1985 and received injections of another anti-psychotic drug, Haloperidol.
The drug was found in her bloodstream when she died (as was cannabis).
As the appeal court judges said, "She had a psychotic illness requiring in-patient treatment. She had severe mood disturbances (schizophrenia) and she used cannabis and cocaine."
Learning of the killings, Dr Ferguson initially said that such violence was incongruous with his view of Sheila.
Yet, when told that it had been suggested that her children be taken into foster care, he said that this could have had "a catastrophic effect".
He added: "I would not have expected her to be passive about that."
Dr Ferguson said in his evidence that it would have transformed her image of her father from "a support and mentor into a hostile figure".
Instances of psychiatric patients murdering others and then themselves were almost unknown in 1985-6. But they have occurred with tragic regularity in the years since, particularly in the United States.
Bamber's current lawyer is the controversial Giovanni di Stefano. Born in Italy, di Stefano was raised in Northamptonshire and has built a practice in Italy and Britain. His clients have included Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic.
Di Stefano has found the previously lost statement of the first officer to enter the house, at 7.34am.
The officer stated: "(Sheila Caffell) had what appeared to be two bullet holes under her chin and blood leaking from both sides of her mouth down her cheeks."
This puts the case into a fresh light. If blood was still leaking from Sheila's wounds, then she had died relatively recently, and certainly long after the time that Bamber called the police.
It also fits with other evidence. That night, as police waited with Bamber at a safe distance from White House Farm, they said they saw someone moving through the house. That has always been known. Later, it was assumed they were mistaken. Perhaps they were right all along.
It could explain too why Sheila was not bloodied and had only traces of lead on her hands. She could have washed herself and changed before killing herself.
Professor Bernard Knight, a pathologist who gave evidence at the trial, said that those committing suicide would often engage beforehand in "ritualistic" cleaning.
One final aspect of the case that has never been given attention is - assuming Bamber was guilty - why would he have invented such a preposterous story about the phone call from his father?
It would have been simpler for him to go back to bed, make himself scarce and let it appear that there had been intruders.
The idea that he could invent a tale of a killing spree by a mentally disturbed woman to be lent credibility by further violent episodes over the following decade is hard to credit.
Following the lie-detector test, the case is now set more favourably for him than it has ever been.
Maybe the truth will still come out in the wash.
Post by: Admin on February 21, 2011, 08:43:PM
17 May 2008
by James Hore
Bamber: 'I will die a free man'
Jeremy Bamber has told the EADT that he still believes he will one day walk free from prison, despite being told yesterday he will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Bamber, serving life for killing five members of his family at their Essex farmhouse in 1985, was told by a judge that the murders were so “exceptionally serious” that he would die in jail.
The killer was originally told he would serve 25 years, before former Home Secretary Michael Howard increased the sentence to his whole natural life.
The 47-year-old, who has always protested his innocence, had hoped to be given a tariff that would give him some hope of parole.
But after reviewing the case, Mr Justice Tugendhat said: “These murders were exceptionally serious.
“In my judgment, you ought to spend the whole of the rest of your life in prison, and I so order.”
The judge said he had read submissions from Bamber's solicitors pointing out that he was not suffering from mental illness and was behaving and progressing well in prison.
He had also read victim impact statements from the remaining family members.
Bamber was found guilty by a majority verdict of shooting his wealthy adoptive parents, June and Nevill, his sister Sheila Caffell, and her six-year-old twin sons Daniel and Nicholas at their farmhouse in Tolleshunt D'Arcy, near Maldon.
The prosecution said he had murdered them out of greed, hoping to inherit a £500,000 fortune.
Speaking to the EADT yesterday, Bamber said: “I still believe that I will die a free man.
“But I find it incredible that on the one hand they say this and on the other hand they will have to release me for a retrial.
“I have the evidence that can prove my innocence but it does not make any difference - it seems that they can do what they like.
“The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has had years to make its decision on the case.”
He claimed: “There are 58 missing photos of the crime scene - the key ones that show Sheila's body was restaged - and they are the ones that have been withdrawn from the file - it is scandalous. We have been asking for them for the past nine months.
“I am prepared to have a retrial, I have done everything I can do get the case reviewed, it is utterly frustrating - I have told the truth since day-one to now, but all they want to do is suppress the evidence.”
It has also emerged that Bamber has been barred from corresponding with his legal team after his “rule 39” entitlement was withdrawn.
He claimed: “They do not want to admit the truth of my innocence - it is a form of mental torture - 'get the few last kicks in before we have to let him go'.
“I believe the prison governor will have to backtrack and say 'no we can't do that' , but I now have a gagging order on me and it will take four or five months to remove it through the courts.
“In the end the truth will come out.
“The information is out there now - they can't put it back in the box - it is in the public arena now.”
Bamber's solicitor Marcus Farrar said: “We were hoping that there would be at least some prospect of knowing when he could be released, but to have no light at the end of the tunnel is a disappointment to him.”
He said there could be an appeal against the decision in the British courts, but did not rule out taking the case to the Europe.
And on the “missing” photos, he said: “There has been no reason given for the non-disclosure of the photos. They are in existence as the CCRC has them, but their stance is they seem to send us the ones they think we need and are considering the request for the other ones.
“We don't know what is on them, but would like to see them so we can see one way or the other if they are of assistance to us.”
David Boutflour, Bamber's cousin, said: “We were anxious as to what the outcome might be - you have to remember that what he did and what he has the potential to do.
“We now have a sense that justice and common sense has prevailed - it had been a worrying situation.
“I have family and a grandchild now and safeguarding them is paramount and we worry what would happen if he did come out.
“I am saddened that he will have to spend the rest of his life in prison, but for everybody's security, I think that is the only place he can remain.”
A spokeswoman for the CCRC said they could not discuss the details of the missing photos.
She said: We are unable to say very much about this - just that the case is still under review and it is taking this amount of time because of the complexities of the case.”
She said there was no indication about when the decision would be taken about referring the case to the Court of Appeal.
An Essex Police spokeswoman said they could not comment on the case because of the ongoing CCRC review.
A Home Office spokeswoman said they could not comment on individual prisoners.
Post by: Admin on February 21, 2011, 08:45:PM
The lost clues that could clear the Bambi killer of gunning down his family
By BOB WOFFINDEN - 12th January 2008
The case, sometimes known as the White House Farm murders, has always been one of the most sensational in English criminal history.
On August 7, 1985, at about 3.25am, Jeremy Bamber telephoned his local police station, saying: "My father's just phoned me - he said, 'Please come over, your sister has gone crazy and has got a gun'."
Nevill Bamber, a farmer and local magistrate, lived in a large farmhouse in the village of Tolleshunt d'Arcy, Essex, with his wife, June.
Sheila Caffell
Shelia, known as 'Bambi', died along with her parents and sons. Her brother was charged with the murders but he claimed Bambi was the killer
Unable to have children of their own, they had adopted Sheila, who was 28 at this time, and Jeremy, then 24.
Jeremy lived in a cottage of his own in Goldhanger, a neighbouring village.
Sheila, a model known as Bambi, lived in London. In 1977, she married Colin Caffell and gave birth to twin sons in June 1979.
However, she had a history of serious psychiatric problems. She and Caffell divorced in 1982 and the children were generally cared for by their father.
In 1983, she was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and in Easter 1985 had treatment in a psychiatric hospital.
However, on August 4, Colin Caffell drove the children and their mother to Tolleshunt d'Arcy and dropped them off to spend a week at the farm.
Sometime on August 7, Sheila, her sons and her parents were all shot dead.
In the days after the shootings, the police believed, and the media reported, that Sheila had killed her parents and her sons and then shot herself.
However, this initial view soon changed. Sheila had been shot upwards through the neck twice.
How could anyone shoot themselves twice? Then, the senior investigating officer, DCI Thomas 'Taff' Jones, was removed from the case for what were described as "operational reasons". (Tragically, he died in a fall from a ladder at his home before the case went to trial.)
The new police team had a different view: they believed Jeremy Bamber killed everyone in order to claim a £435,000 inheritance (£1million in today's money) and had tried to frame his sister for the murders.
Convicted: Jeremy Bamber was found guilty of killing his sister Bambi and the rest of his family
Their case was strengthened when Julie Mugford, Bamber's former girlfriend, made a highly damaging statement suggesting he wanted to be rid of his family.
Bamber was charged with five murders. The prosecution case was that he had left the farmhouse at about 10pm the previous evening and gone home but then returned and shot them all dead - the twin boys in their own bedroom, and Sheila and June in the main bedroom.
Nevill, it was said, was shot four times in the bedroom, before Jeremy finished him off in the kitchen with another four shots.
He then went back to his cottage and pretended to have received the call from his father.
By the time of the trial in October 1986, that was the accepted view of the case. He was convicted on a 10-2 majority verdict and jailed for life.
Since then, he has made two appeals, which were rejected in 1989 and 2002. Bamber, however, passed a liedetector test last year.
Now, his legal team and the Daily Mail have obtained astonishing new evidence that was not available to the judges who heard the last appeal.
Much has come to light from police records that have been released slowly down the years.
Some have been obtained recently under the Freedom Of Information Act. Only now can the full significance of these documents be appreciated.
For the first time, a clear picture of what occurred has begun to emerge.
The case can now be seen in a completely fresh perspective and - most amazingly - the new evidence appears to confirm that the man who has spent 22 years in prison for mass murder is as innocent as he has always claimed.
After Bamber's telephone call to the police station that night in 1985, he met three officers outside the farmhouse.
By then, it was about 3.50am. From that point on, Bamber was with the police continuously.
As they all waited, they thought they saw someone moving about inside the house. However, at the trial, the officers interpreted this sighting as "a shadow" or "a trick of the light".
Bamber, however, has always maintained that they saw someone. Now, the newly available transcript of a police radio log supports his claim.
At 5am, several members of Essex police's tactical firearms group (TFG) arrived at the scene. The radio log records the following exchange:
5.25am: Firearms team are in conversation with a person from inside the farm.
5.29am: Challenge to persons inside the house met with no response.
At 5.38am, the TFG requested that "an inspector and six extra firearms personnel" be sent.
If there had been no sign of life or activity within the house, why call for more firearms officers?
The reason back-up was requested must be because the police - as already shown in the radio transcript - knew there was someone alive inside the house.
The officers in this new team attended a briefing at the New Times pub in nearby Tiptree.
There, according to police statements, they were informed that "a woman [is] going berserk with a gun at White House Farm".
The 10-man back-up squad arrived at the farm at about 7am.
At this point, as they waited outside the building, one officer noticed, again according to a newly obtained statement, what "appeared to be a rifle leaning against the window" in one of the first-floor rooms.
At 7.35am, six officers entered the house by smashing down the back door with a sledgehammer.
The radio log states: "07.37: one dead male, one dead female in kitchen".
The body of the "female" was reported as being "just inside the kitchen door".
At 7.48am, there was a message from the scene asking the police surgeon to attend "to examine two bodies".
At 8.10am, the crime scene incident log recorded that the rest of the house had: "now been thoroughly searched by firearms team" and "now confirmed further three bodies found - five dead in total".
So at this time, there were two bodies downstairs and three elsewhere - yet the official record of the case is that there was one - Nevill Bamber - downstairs and four upstairs - Sheila's, June's and those of the two boys.
How did one of the bodies leave the kitchen and go upstairs?
This evidence casts a wholly new light on events at the farm. Taking into account the mysterious figure the police originally reported seeing moving around inside the house, and the locations of the bodies, a very different scenario to that described at Bamber's trial emerges.
In fact, it appears to prove Bamber's innocence and the belief of the first team of detectives that the deaths were murder and then suicide by a disturbed Sheila Bamber.
This may be what really happened... First, at about 7am, as police numbers around the house grew, four people already lay dead inside: the children, Nevill and his wife June.
Their killer, Sheila, however, was still alive and watching the activity from an upstairs window.
As the police considered tactics, she took the gun that was leaning against the window, and went downstairs to the kitchen where her father's body lay.
She shot herself and lost consciousness.
When the police got close and peered through the kitchen windows, they thought they saw two bodies - one male and one female. However, Sheila was not dead.
It was a popular misconception that she could not have shot herself twice.
The medical evidence is conclusive: the first shot to the neck would not have killed her instantly.
"A person having suffered such an injury," commented Lord Justice Kay at the appeal court, "may have been able to stand up and walk around for a little time."
As police were breaking into the farmhouse with a sledgehammer, the noise and clamour caused Sheila to regain consciousness.
She panicked and went up the back stairs (there were three staircases in the house).
Without going into the kitchen, officers made their initial check of the scene, found three bodies in the upstairs rooms and then re-assembled in the farmhouse hallway and reported on the radio what they had seen: two bodies downstairs (seen through the kitchen window) and three upstairs.
Then one of the officers heard a "sound", which must have come from someone alive upstairs.
The officer said in his statement: "I began to challenge [shout] up the stairs - I was calling to Sheila to make her whereabouts known to me."
Sheila went into her mother's bedroom, where she shot herself again.
This second shot was delivered with the muzzle pressed against the skin - so the gun's report, in the large farmhouse, may have been slightly muffled, and perhaps not heard by all those there.
The police were still taking precautions and, before going further, used "an extending mirror to look at the landing area upstairs".
The next crucial question is what happened to Sheila's body.
When officers first found her, the gun (a .22 Anschutz automatic rifle) was on top of the body.
One officer stated: "The rifle was lying on the body with the muzzle close to her throat." The senior officer, DCI Jones, simply noted that "on her body there was a rifle".
There was also a Bible which, according to some officers' statements, was "alongside" her body.
Later, however, the gun was no longer on her body. A detective inspector noticed the "rifle by her right side".
The coroner's officer, whose original handwritten notes are now available, wrote: "I believe that the gun had been removed from the body of Sheila when I saw her."
So why was the gun moved? In the statements that are now available, three officers refer to blood "leaking" or "running" from the corners of her mouth.
The inference is obvious: at that point, Sheila had only just shot herself and officers reached her quickly.
They put her in the recovery position and desperately tried to revive her. Crime scene photographs show blood flowing in rivulets across Sheila's upper arm.
Blood, of course, does not flow sideways. So this strongly suggests that she was put on her side, in the recovery position.
Evidence that the body had been moved was ruled inadmissible on technical grounds by the judges at the 2002 appeal, although they did comment on it in their judgment.
They believed that Bamber must have moved Sheila's body, thus proving his guilt; they were unaware of the evidence that police at the scene had moved it.
Photographs also showed a handwritten note sticking up from between the pages of the Bible.
The words at the top of the note are "love one another". The same words were written on a banner over a religious community in Jonestown, Guyana, where 909 people died in 1978 in a mass murder-suicide.
However, the evidential value of what was inside the Bible cannot now be gauged; Essex police have informed Bamber's lawyers that the note has been destroyed.
The photos contain another clue. It was always part of the prosecution case that the gun had been damaged in a fight downstairs in the kitchen between Jeremy and his father, with the result that a piece of the butt had been broken off.
However, there is no visible damage to the gun in the crime scene photographs.
The bodies were removed and taken to the mortuary at Chelmsford and Essex Hospital.
The post-mortems were conducted there that afternoon by Dr (now Professor) Peter Vanezis.
He found that Sheila's stomach contents included "partially digested food". The family had had their evening meal all together, yet there were no stomach contents in the bodies of the other victims.
So this indicates that Sheila had had something to eat after that meal, and only a few hours before her death.
Was this while she was alone in the house in the early morning - after she had murdered her parents and her sons?
One of the issues that harmed Bamber's chances at the last appeal was that Sheila's hands showed only "very low levels of lead".
If she had been handling, firing and re-loading a gun for a period of time, the prosecution argued, there would have been significant traces of firearms residue on her hands.
However, if she had eaten after the killings, she would very probably have washed her hands, thus washing off the residue.
The amounts of lead that were detected could have been consistent with firing the two shots that killed her.
The post-mortem also showed traces of cannabis and psychiatric drugs in Sheila's body and Professor Vanezis noted that she was menstruating and commented, according to notes he made at the time, that this "may well have been significant as it could have made her more unstable".
None of this evidence was heard at trial. The jury, however, were clearly swayed by the testimony of Julie Mugford.
On September 3, she had learned that Bamber had asked out another girl.
Furious, she threw an ornament box at him and slapped him. He ended their relationship.
Four days later, she went to the police and told them Bamber had shown no remorse over the murders and had thrown money around and clearly enjoyed himself.
Furthermore, he'd talked to Julie before the killings about wanting to get rid of them all, speculating about the perfect murder.
On the night of the massacre, she claimed, Bamber rang to say: "It's tonight or never."
He added that he'd hired a hitman, called Matthew McDonald, for £2,000.
The Crown argued that Bamber detested his parents for having sent him to boarding school, and resented Sheila's success and the allowances they made for her state of mind.
The murders were carried out in a frenzy. Nevill was shot eight times, June seven, and the boys were shot respectively five and three times.
Immediately afterwards, several key people all concluded that Sheila was responsible.
It was thought that, in her precarious mental state, she may have been pushed over the edge by a family discussion about having her sons fostered.
The coroner's officer reported that "there was nothing .. . which gave me cause for concern in relation to the murder/suicide theory".
Prof Vanezis, concluding his examination of the five bodies, wrote that "numbers 1, 2, 4 and 5 shot by No.3 [Sheila] who then shot herself".
When the exhibits were sent to the laboratory on August 9, the officer explained that it was a case of 'murder/suicide'.
From the start, there were gaping holes in the prosecution case - as the two jurors who wanted to acquit Bamber presumably understood.
There was never any adequate motive for Bamber to have committed such a terrible crime.
First, though he would have come into an inheritance, he hardly needed it, as he lived in a rent-free cottage and had all he needed.
In any event, the inheritance did not include the farmhouse, which was rented by Nevill and June from a local charitable trust.
Second, there was no evidence whatever that Bamber had returned to the farmhouse during the night.
In forensic science terms, the crime scene management was a disaster. Astonishingly, 29 people (26 of whom were police) went into the farmhouse that day and vital evidence was lost.
Ballistics experts were asked to attend but the forensic lab, citing a staff shortage, refused to send anyone.
Nor was any fingerprint expert asked to go. The first time a scientist went to the scene was on September 7 - exactly one month later.
When the murders occurred, Sheila had already been diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic.
The Daily Mail's original headline - "Drugs probe after massacre by mother of twins" - almost certainly put the blame where it lay: with the uncertain and sometimes extreme reactions of psychiatric patients to particular medications.
At the time, in 1985, there had been few serious incidents of this kind; there have been mounting tragedies over the years since.
The criminal cases review commission is now examining this new evidence. For Jeremy Bamber, it may be the turning point in his long campaign finally to prove his innocence.
Post by: Admin on February 21, 2011, 08:51:PM
Jeremy Bamber did not murder his family, insists court expert
The crime was horrific: an elderly couple, with their daughter and her six-year-old twins, were gunned down in an Essex farmhouse 25 years ago. Their adopted son, Jeremy Bamber, has always protested his innocence. But as this film shows
Inconsistencies in the key photographic evidence that convicted Jeremy Bamber, one of Britain's most notorious multiple murderers, are being examined by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the authority that investigates miscarriages of justice.
Analysis of police negatives by one of Britain's most eminent photographic experts has found them incompatible with the principal prosecution case used to imprison Bamber for the White House Farm murders 25 years ago. The conclusions reached by Peter Sutherst, a photographic expert with 50 years' experience who provides technical advice to scenes of crime officers and is on the UK register of expert witnesses, were sent last week to the CCRC.
Sutherst had found that scratch marks said to have been caused by Bamber on the night of the killings might have been made more than a month after the murders.
Bamber, who was described by the trial judge as "warped and evil beyond belief", was found guilty in October 1986 of shooting his adopted parents, June and Neville, his sister Sheila Caffell and her six-year-old twins, Daniel and Nicholas, at their Essex farmhouse. When he was home secretary, Michael Howard ruled that he should never be released from jail. Bamber, who is now 49, has served more than 23 years behind bars, but has always maintained his innocence.
During the trial, the jury was shown photographs of scratch marks allegedly made by a silencer fitted on the murder weapon, a .22 Anschütz semi-automatic rifle. According to the prosecution, the marks were made during a violent struggle between Neville, 61, and Bamber in the kitchen at White House Farm, Tolleshunt D'Arcy, during the early morning of 7 August 1985.
The jury was shown a close-up image of the scratches on the underside of a mantel shelf above the kitchen's Aga cooker, close to where Neville's body was found. He had been shot eight times in the head and neck at close range.
However, Sutherst's analysis of crime-scene photographs taken on the day of the murders found no trace of the scratch marks. Sutherst subsequently discovered that the photograph of the scratches used in Bamber's trial was taken on 10 September, 34 days after the murders.He also examined the carpet below the scratches.
Normally, the expert would expect to find a significant amount of chipped paint. Sutherst failed to locate a single speck of paint on the carpet. The scratch marks made by the silencer simply did not exist in the aftermath of the massacre, the expert concluded.
Sutherst – who says he came to the case with an open mind – said: "My conclusion, drawn from examination of photographs taken from the time of the case, was that the marks had occurred something like a month later.
"The prosecution case regarding the scratch marks was crucial to the conviction of Jeremy Bamber and therefore it was significant when I realised they had been made something like a month later. Here was evidence that Jeremy Bamber in all probability had not done the deed.
"It is quite clear from the reconstruction I made that the marks don't appear in the original crime scene evidence. Having done that, you draw your own conclusions as to where and when that happened. It starts to become an entirely different case altogether."
Sutherst, whose report is dated 17 January 2010, was asked in 2008 by Bamber's legal team to study negatives of the CCRC case, including some never presented at the trial. Sutherst, who has supplied expert testimony in numerous police and Ministry of Defence inquiries, has conducted more than 100,000 investigations for Kodak into photographic defects and is on the technical committee of photographic processing for the British Standards Institution.
Barry Woods, of Chivers Solicitors, Bingley, West Yorkshire, who is representing Bamber, said: "Now it appears the scratches were not, in fact, made on the night of the murders. The significance of this development cannot be underestimated. The scratch marks were pivotal to the prosecution's case."
When addressing the jury, the trial judge instructed them that "the evidence of the sound moderator [silencer] could, on its own, lead them to believe that Bamber was guilty".
When the police were first called to the scene, they thought the killings were consistent with murder-suicide. Detectives believed Bamber's sister, Sheila – a model nicknamed Bambi, who had a history of mental illness and had referred to her sons as "Devil's children" – had shot her parents and two children before turning the gun on herself.
Three days after the shootings, the case turned on its head. A cousin of Bamber found a silencer in the gun cupboard and took it to the police. Officers deduced that it was impossible for Sheila to have shot herself and then return the silencer to the cupboard. A scientist found a speck of blood on the silencer and concluded it had come from Sheila after she had been shot.
Subsequent forensic analysis shed doubt on whether the blood was Sheila's. The focus of the murder investigation turned to Bamber and the following year he was convicted on a 10-2 majority verdict by a jury at Chelmsford Crown Court. Two previous appeals by Bamber against his life sentence have been rejected. Close observers of the case believe the latest evidence is by far the most compelling to emerge.
Scott Lomax, author of Jeremy Bamber: Evil, Almost Beyond Belief?, said: "I would expect Bamber to walk free by the end of the year."
Speaking from Full Sutton Prison, near York, Bamber said: "This is what I have been waiting nearly 25 years for. It's 100% solid proof. They cannot look at this new evidence and say it doesn't cast doubt on my conviction."
In 2008, Bamber was told by Mr Justice Tugenhadt that he would spend the rest of his life behind bars because the crime was so "exceptionally serious".
Sutherst's report is one of several grounds that lawyers have forwarded to the Criminal Cases Review Commission contesting the safety of Bamber's conviction; newly obtained police documents reveal an unexplained "movement" of Sheila's body after she was killed.
Bamber's lawyers have also studied x-rays and ballistic reports they believe indicate that at least one round of ammunition was significantly different to the others, raising the possibility that it was changed to show it was fired through a silencer.
"Without the sound moderator [the silencer], it is unlikely the prosecution would have been able to build a strong enough case against Bamber," said Woods.
BAMBER'S TRIALS
- August 1985 White House Farm shootings take place.
- September 1985 Jeremy Bamber arrested and charged with five counts of murder.
- October 1986 Bamber found guilty at Chelmsford crown court.
- June 1987 First appeal to overturn conviction fails.
- December 2002 Bamber loses second appeal to secure freedom.
- May 2004 Bamber taken to hospital after attack by another inmate while making a telephone call from Full Sutton prison, near York.
- April 2007 Bamber passes lie detector test.
- May 2008 Loses High Court appeal against his whole life tariff.
- May 2009 Bamber loses legal challenge against an order that he must die behind bars.
- February 2010 Lodges new evidence to Criminal Case Review Commission to try to win fresh appeal.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/feb/21/jeremy-bamber-murder-conviction-doubt
Post by: Admin on February 21, 2011, 08:55:PM
Killer Bamber believes he could soon be free
ANNIE DAVIDSON
22/2/2010
AN Essex man who was jailed for life 23 years ago for the murder of five members of his family has told the EADT that he believes new evidence could free him within weeks.
Jeremy Bamber was found guilty of five murders in October 1986 and told he would never be considered for parole for the killings, which his trial judge described as “evil almost beyond belief.”
Now aged 49, Bamber has always protested his innocence and has lost two appeals against his convictions, the most recent in 2002.
He was found guilty in October 1986 of shooting dead his adoptive parents, June and Nevill Bamber, his sister Sheila Caffell, and her six-year-old twins, Daniel and Nicholas.
The prosecution case was that he carried out the murders at his parents' home, White House Farm in Tolleshunt D'Arcy, near Maldon, so he could inherit his parents' wealth.
Now a report by an expert in scenes of crime photography has been sent to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) with Bamber claiming his name will finally be cleared.
Last night Jeremy Bamber told the EADT he was “on top of the world” and was expecting to be released from prison within weeks.
He said: “It is all looking very promising - it is out of the bag now.”
At Bamber's trial at Chelmsford Crown Court, jurors were shown pictures of the underside of a shelf above an Aga cooker which had scratch marks allegedly caused as Bamber and his father struggled with the murder weapon.
The marks were said to have been caused by a silencer fitted to the 22 Anschutz semi-automatic rifle - which was later found in a gun cupboard by some of Bamber's extended family. It proved vital in convicting him.
Now photographic expert Peter Sutherst has examined photographs taken in the kitchen of the farmhouse by police scenes of crime officers.
His report finds that the scratch marks were not present in the pictures taken immediately after the tragedy and concludes they must have been caused some time afterwards.
Mr Sutherst's report has been sent to the CCRC which was already re-examining the Bamber case and has the power to refer it to the Court of Appeal for a full hearing.
Bamber said last night: “When it is photographic evidence there is no chance of another explanation.
“Over the years when different things have come up, there is always a different explanation given - like we misunderstood or were given the wrong information.
“But this is one of the world's leading experts in crime scene photography. It is credible and it is powerful.”
Bamber said he hoped to see the case move forward within weeks and his solicitor would be applying for him to be released on bail.
A spokesman from the Criminal Cases Review Commission said: “Mr Bamber has an application with us at the moment and his case has been with us for some time.
“As part of that review we have received submissions from Mr Bamber recently and we will need to consider those very carefully.”
A spokeswoman for Essex Police said yesterday: “This matter is currently being investigated by the CCRC and it would be inappropriate for Essex Police to comment at this stage.”
Post by: Admin on February 21, 2011, 08:58:PM
Bamber: I have new evidence to clear my name
by WENDY BRADING Friday 26th February 2010
CONVICTED murderer Jeremy Bamber has uncovered new evidence which he claims will prove his innocence.
Bamber was jailed for life in 1986 for the murders of his adoptive parents, sister and her twin sons.However, he has continued to protest his innocence, claiming his sister Sheila killed the other member of their family before turning the gun on herself.
Years of research has now lead to the discovery of new photographs which Bamber says reveal indisputable inconsistencies in the case against him.
The new evidence relates to scratch marks found on the underside of the mantleshelf in the kitchen of White House Farm, Tolleshunt D'Arcy - scene of the murders in August 1985.
Photographs presented at the trial at Chelmsford Crown Court in 1986 showed the scratch marks which were said to have been caused by the silencer on the rifle used in the killings.
The prosecution claimed the marks had been made during a violent struggle between Bamber and his father, Neville.
However, Bamber has uncovered crime scene photographs taken on the day of the murders.
They show no marks on the mantle shelf and no paint on the floor beneath it.
The police negatives have been analysed by one of Britain's most eminent photographic experts, Peter Sutherst, who provides technical advice to scenes of crimes officers and is on the UK register of expert witnesses.
Mr Sutherst said he believed the photographs featuring the scratches which were used in Bamber's trial were, in fact, taken on September 10, 34 days after the murders.
Bamber, speaking from the top security Full Sutton prison, said: "This latest evidence is simple and easy to understand, there can be no argument against it. "This goes to the heart of the case. The foundation of the case against me was the sound moderator but now we can prove that evidence was flawed."
Bamber said the evidence relating to the scratch marks was accepted unchallenged at trial. He has now written to Geoffrey Rivlin - now Mr Justice Rivlin - who defended him in 1986 and to prosecuting QC Anthony Arlidge. He said: "If the photographs had not been accepted at trial, I would not be here today and would not have spent the past 24 plus years in prison.
"I have asked them in the light of this mistake if they will support my application.
"I have also approached the Director of Public Prosecution.
"I accept that not challenging the pictures was an unintentional mistake, but a mistake nevertheless."
Bamber claims his sister, Sheila, who had paranoid schizophrenia, was responsible for killing their adoptive parents June and Neville Bamber, both 61, and her six-year-old sons, Nicholas and Daniel, before killing herself.
However, the trial heard a silencer was found in a gun cupboard three days after the murders by Bamber's cousins Ann Eaton and David Boutflour.
The prosecution argued Sheila could not have shot herself and then put the silencer in the cupboard.
Bamber's legal team have sent the photographic evidence relating to the scratch marks to the Criminal Cases Review Commission as part of a 100-page document challenging his conviction on this and seven additional grounds. They include claims that blood was found on Sheila's feet - they were previously reported to be clean indicating she had not walked around the blood stained house.
Bamber said there was also previously unreleased evidence of a radio log between his father and the police making reference to Sheila.
Bamber said: "I am fairly optimistic because the photographic evidence is something so simple.
"I hope to hear from the CCRC in a matter of days."
PHOTOGRAPHIC expert Peter Sutherst's report forms a key part of the evidence sent to the CCRC.
He said: "The scratch marks played a key part in his conviction.
"The new evidence suggest these marks were made after the murders took place.
"In this case, the scratch marks under the mantle shelf turned out to be a most significant piece of evidence."
Bamber's solicitor Barry Woods said: “The significance of Mr Sutherst’s latest findings should not be underestimated.
"His report raises grave concerns as to the way in which crucial prosecution evidence was presented at trial.
"Taken alongside the extensive submissions already being considered by the CCRC, there is now a real possibility that Mr Bamber’s conviction is unsafe. "As such we feel it should be referred by the CCRC to the Court of Appeal without delay.”
A spokesman for the Criminal Cases Review Commission confirmed it had received submissions from Bamber and said they were being studied. He added: "It is one of many submissions he has made over recent months. "We will look at it carefully as part of the on-going review of his case. "No decision has been made yet. It is not a quick process.
"The CCRC will need to understand and evaluate the evidence to assess whether the case is refered back to the Court of Appeal."
Bamber explained the significance of the photos in a letter. He said: "The photograph Strip Seven, Negative 1 shows a section of the mantleshelf's underside. It was taken by PC Bird on the morning of August 7 1985 and it covers part of the area photographed on September 10 1985 Strip 0036 Negative 3 of the three scratch marks that Brian Elliott (Home Office Forensic Scientist) established were made by the sound moderator.
"The photo taken on August 7 is unscratched.
"Mr Sutherst of Fotoforce Associates has sworn to that but if those scratch marks as seen in the photograph taken on September 10 were made during a struggle in the kitchen as the Crown relied, then the August 7 photo would show part of one of those scratch marks but it doesn't." He said Mr Sutherst had also examined "every square inch of the floor below" which had been photographed by crime scene detectives but no paint flakes were found.
JEREMY Bamber has had - and lost - two previous appeals against his conviction. Throughout his incarceration he has denied the crime and at one point counted the days of his "wrongful imprisonment". His first requested for leave to appeal was rejected in April 1988. However, he won the right to have fresh forensic tests carried out on the gun used in the killing. He was subsequently granted leave to appeal and the first appeal was heard at the Court of Appeal in London in March 1989. It opened with Bamber's former QC Geoffrey Rivlin launching a stinging attack on trial judge Mr Justice Drake and the claim that Bamber did not get a fair trial. The appeal was dismissed and Bamber went back to jail.
In March 2001, however, he won a further leave to appeal again and the hearing was held at the Court of Appeal before Lord Justice Kay, Mr Justice Grigson and Mr Justice Ouseley. Fifteen key points were presented but the bid was rejected.
Post by: Admin on February 21, 2011, 08:59:PM
Campaigner hopes murderer could be released
A CAMPAIGNING north Derbyshire author who has written a book about a convicted mass murderer believes he could soon be freed.
Scott Lomax, aged 27, of Brimington, Chesterfield, wrote a book about Jeremy Bamber, now 49.
Bamber was convicted of murdering his adoptive mother, father, sister and twin nephews in Essex in 1985.
Mr Lomax today spoke of his confidence that Bamber will be released after meeting the prisoner's legal team and a new expert who has examined crime scene photographs.
New analysis of the photos, by expert Peter Sutherst who has 50 years' experience, has revealed inconsistencies, Mr Lomax said.
The jury in Bamber's murder trial was shown a close-up image of scratches on the underside of a mantel shelf close to where his father's Neville's body was found, which they said were caused in a struggle. But Mr Sutherst's analysis of the photos suggests there were no marks.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission is deciding whether Bamber's case should be referred to the Court of Appeal based on the new analysis, as well as previously undisclosed police notes and evidence from a forensic specialist. Two previous appeals, in 1997 and 2002, failed.
Mr Lomax said: "I have studied the evidence for myself, having had access to a large amount of evidence, and have read the expert's report.
"I believe this evidence is the most compelling to date. It now needs to be assessed at the Court of Appeal.
"It is fresh evidence, capable of belief, and worthy of examination."
Post by: Admin on February 22, 2011, 02:46:PM
THE BAMBER LETTERS THAT 'PROVE HE ISN'T A KILLER'
Sunday February 28,2010 By Hilary Douglas and James Murray
Letter from Jeremy
KILLER Jeremy Bamber has asked detectives to investigate several people he has named in a letter to police.
Officers are considering whether to pursue the case after a senior detective replied to Bamber acknowledging his letter.
The new development came as Bamber, who was jailed for life in 1986 for the murder of five members of his family, made a series of astonishing allegations in a letter to the Sunday Express.
The letter also explains in detail how new evidence relating to photographs of the crime scene could lead to him being freed.
Bamber was found guilty of shooting his adoptive parents Nevill and June Bamber, his half sister Sheila Caffell and her twin six-year-old sons, Daniel and Nicholas, through the head with a .22 semi automatic fitted with a silencer so he could inherit the family estate.
It was claimed Bamber was involved in a violent struggle with 61-year-old Nevill in the kitchen at their home, White House Farm in Tolleshunt D’Arcy, Essex, in the early hours of August 7, 1985.
During the struggle the end of the silencer caused scratch marks on the underside of a shelf above the Aga cooker. Now expert Peter Sethurst says photos taken hours after the murder do not show scratch marks. He concludes that the marks were made a month after the crime.
His report, submitted to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, says: “It’s quite clear from the reconstruction I made that the marks don’t appear in the original crime scene evidence. D’Arcy, Essex, in the early hours of the original crime scene evidence.
Having done that, you draw your own conclusion as to where and when that happened. It starts to become an entirely different case altogether.”
In his letter from Full Sutton jail, York, Bamber, 49, writes: “One photograph shows part of the underside of the shelf as it was on August 7.
“The CCRC had this photograph enlarged recently and it was discovered that part of one of the scratch marks that was later seen to be on this section of the shelf is not there.
“Further examination of the floor area in the kitchen shows that there is absolutely no paint debris of any sort from approximately 60cm of scratch marks that penetrate up to 11 layers of paint in places.”
He argues the “only credible conclusion” is that the shelves were scratched “after these photos were taken”.
He adds: “Tampering with this central exhibit can only have been done with the intention of corrupting or perverting the police investigation.
“With the evidence now proven to be a complete fabrication, the Crown’s case against me can no longer be sustained. I have made a criminal complaint to Essex Police.”
A spokesman for the force said: “We cannot comment further because the matter is with the Criminal Cases Review Commission.”
A commission spokesman said it was examining Bamber’s new submission. It could refer the case back to the Court of Appeal to consider whether there should be a re-trial. Initially, police believed Miss Caffell had killed the others before shooting herself.
But there was no forensic evidence on her body or clothing and Bamber’s fingerprint was found on the gun barrel.
Post by: Admin on February 22, 2011, 02:53:PM
Who killed Bambi?
July 11th 2010
A very in depth article including new photos by David James Smith who visited Jeremy in prison as seen in Sunday Times Magazine July 11th, 2010 Who killed Bambi?
Twenty-five years ago Jeremy Bamber was jailed for life for murdering his family. In his first face-to-face prison interview, he discloses disturbing new evidence Tuesday was not a normal day for ordinary visitors, so the visiting room at HMP Full Sutton, a high-security prison just outside York, was deserted as the door opened at the far end of the room and a lone prisoner entered. I had been offered any seat in the house, but had already decided we would sit in the private conference room just off the main area, with the low table and the chairs – all bolted to the floor....
View the pdf link here for the full article.
Post by: Admin on February 22, 2011, 02:59:PM
'My daughter's gone berserk': 'Missing' police evidence could clear Jeremy Bamber over farmhouse family massacre
By Stephen Wright
5th August 2010
New evidence unearthed by mass murderer Jeremy Bamber could result in the Court of Appeal quashing his conviction for killing five relatives, it was claimed yesterday.
Lawyers are examining two ‘lost’ police logs which allegedly suggest the 49-year-old’s sister was behind the 1985 massacre.
Bamber, who has served nearly 25 years for the notorious shootings at White House Farm in the Essex village of Tolleshunt D’Arcy, has always protested his innocence.
He has twice lost appeals against conviction. Now he is set to launch a fresh appeal after asking the Criminal Cases Review Commission to examine the police logs which, he claims, support his story that his sister Sheila Caffell was responsible.
He insists Mrs Caffell, a model known as ‘Bambi’ who suffered from mental illness and was prone to violent outbursts, gunned down the family before turning the weapon on herself.
He also alleges he was the victim of a conspiracy involving relatives and a former girlfriend out to frame him. All deny any wrong-doing.
Detectives insist privately-educated Bamber is a cunning, deluded killer who was rightly convicted because of compelling forensic and circumstantial evidence.
He is one of 38 convicted killers in the country who have been given a whole-life tariff, which means they will never be released.
Bamber’s wealthy adoptive parents Nevill and June, their daughter Mrs Caffell and her six-year-old sons Daniel and Nicholas were shot dead with a .22 Anschutz semi-automatic rifle, which was found in schizophrenic Mrs Caffell’s hands.
The latest twist in Bamber’s quest to prove his innocence came yesterday when it emerged he has found a police log suggesting his father called police saying his daughter had ‘gone berserk’ and ‘got hold of one of my guns’.
The log is timed at 03.26am on the day of the massacre, August 7, 1985.
Titled ‘Daughter gone berserk’, it says: ‘Mr Bamber...White House Farm...daughter Sheila Bamber aged 26 years has got hold of one of my guns.’
Missing log: The document titled, 'Daughter gone berserk', reveals a call was made to police from Mr Bamber stating Sheila had 'got hold of one of my guns'
The memo is similar to another police phone log timed ten minutes later which details a call that Bamber himself made from his home in Goldhanger, three-and-a-half miles from White House Farm.
In that he tells of a call from his father saying Sheila had gone crazy with a gun.
The documents are among 100,000 pieces of paper relating to the case which Bamber has sifted through, helped by lawyers and supporters.
The prosecution at Bamber’s trial said he committed the murders out of greed, hoping to inherit a £500,000 fortune, and that he lied about receiving a call from his 61-year-old father to frame his sister.
Mrs Caffell had referred to her twins as the ‘Devil’s children’ and detectives initially assumed she was behind the killings.
However suspicion fell on Bamber when scratch marks were found on a kitchen shelf above the Aga, allegedly caused by a silencer fitted to the murder weapon.
Gunned down: Jeremy Bamber's parents Neville and June (above), and his sister Sheila with her children Daniel and Nicholas (below) were murdered in
The silencer was later found in a gun cupboard, and police deduced it would have been impossible for Mrs Caffell to return it there after shooting herself. They concluded Bamber carried out the murders after a violent struggle in the kitchen with his father during which the shelf was scratched.
Bamber, jailed for life in October 1986, last year lost a Court of Appeal challenge against the order that he must die behind bars.
Last month respected crime author David James Smith became the first journalist to interview Bamber in prison and said he found him ‘all too human and understandable’.
Happy family: Jeremy Bamber with his mother June and sister Sheila in the kitchen at the White House farmhouse
‘Except for the part of him that I felt was hidden,’ he added chillingly.
‘The corner of his soul that carried the knowledge of what had really happened that night 25 years ago, and who had really killed his family.
‘He knows the truth. And he is the only person in the world who does.’
Even if Bamber’s conviction is eventually quashed by the Court of Appeal, it is highly likely a re-trial would be ordered because of the seriousness of the case.
Post by: Admin on February 22, 2011, 03:03:PM
Jeremy Bamber: Missing police phone log could clear Bambi killer - Exclusive
By Jon Clements 5/08/2010
Farmhouse killer Jeremy Bamber could be cleared after the discovery of dramatic new evidence.
Lawyers are examining a “lost” police phone log which they claim proves he was innocent of shooting dead five relatives.
The document backs his story that the 1985 Essex massacre was carried out by his “crazed” sister Sheila, known as Bambi.
Now Bamber, 49, is set to launch a fresh appeal against his life sentence.
One of the logs, previously unseen, suggests Bamber’s father Nevill called police on the night of the massacre at White House Farm in Essex.
The note written on August 7, 1985, is titled “daughter gone berserk” and timed at 3.26am – 10 minutes BEFORE a second note records Bamber’s own distress call.
It states: “Mr Bamber, White House Farm, Tolleshunt d’Arcy – daughter Sheila Bamber, aged 26 years, has got hold of one of my guns.” The message adds that “Mr Bamber has a collection of shotguns and .410s” and includes the correct phone number for White House Farm – 860209.
It also records that patrol car CA7 was despatched to the scene at 3.35am, one minute before Bamber rang from his cottage in nearby Goldhanger village.
The message is strikingly similar to the scenario Bamber has consistently claimed his 61-year-old father described to him.
Bamber rang Chelmsford police station at 3.36am, according to a second log also obtained by the Mirror. He told an officer: “You’ve got to help me. My father’s just phoned me, he said, ‘Please come over, your sister has gone crazy and has got the gun’.” The log has small but significant differences to the other note, indicating it relates to a different call.
It refers to Sheila as a “sister” who had gone “crazy” with a gun. And it records that another car, CA5, was separately sent to the farmhouse – again indicating the logs refer to different calls.
The documents are among 100,000 pieces of paper Bamber has sifted through in his prison cell at Full Sutton with the help of his lawyers and supporters.
Prosecutors told Bamber’s trial he invented the call from his father to lay the blame on his schizophrenic sister Sheila, a former model known as Bambi. The judge told jurors – never shown the earlier log – that the existence or not of 61-year-old Nevill’s call was crucial in determining the former public schoolboy’s guilt.
They found Bamber guilty of murdering Nevill, mum June, Sheila, and her twin six-year-old sons Nicholas and Daniel to claim a £436,000 inheritance.
He is currently serving a whole life tariff after being branded “evil almost beyond belief”.
The new evidence is being examined by the Criminal Cases Review Commission which will announce within weeks if Bamber is to have a third appeal. Senior figures at the CCRC are understood to harbour long-term doubts about the safety of his conviction which they have referred to appeal judges once before.
Bamber has spent most of his life in jail for one of the most shocking crimes in British history.
Police who responded to his call, overtaking him en route to the farmhouse, discovered a bloodbath.
Magistrate Nevill was in the kitchen, slumped forward in a chair, his head in the coal scuttle. He had been shot eight times with a .22 semi-automatic rifle.
His wife June, also 61, lay on her bed in a blood-soaked nightie with five bullets in her body and two in her head. Sheila, up from London for the weekend, was on the floor with an open Bible nearby. She had been shot twice in the neck. Her sons Nicholas and Daniel were shot three and five times in the backs of their heads.
At first, detectives believed Bamber’s version of events and agreed Sheila had slaughtered her family before turning the gun on herself.
Doctors always agreed the first shot to her throat was not fatal and at Bamber’s 2002 appeal Lord Justice Kay noted: “A person having suffered such an injury may have been able to stand up and walk around a little.” Bamber was famously pictured holding hands with girlfriend Julie Mugford behind his parents’ coffins, struggling to contain his grief.
Then Julie, 21, discovered he had cheated on her and told police he had discussed hiring a hitman to kill his parents. Detectives were reluctant to change their minds but then a silencer stained with blood and paint was found by Bamber’s cousins.
Forensic tests matched paint on the silencer to scratches on the underside of the farmhouse kitchen shelf.
That suggested the silencer was on the rifle during the struggle with Nevill. With the silencer fitted the gun would have been too long for Sheila to shoot herself in the throat. Nobody believed she had killed in a frenzy, then calmly removed the silencer, put it away downstairs and gone back up to take her own life.
Police realised that if Sheila wasn’t responsible then Bamber must have invented the call from his adoptive father.
The conclusion was obvious – the grieving son was actually a scheming murderer who had nearly succeeded in framing one his victims.
Bamber was charged and in October 1986 convicted by a 10-2 majority verdict at Chelmsford crown court.
Now he hopes the new evidence will ultimately prove his innocence.
Essex police said it would be “inappropriate” to comment at present.
A CCRC spokesman said: “We’re still reviewing the evidence. No decision has been made whether to refer the case.”
Post by: Admin on February 22, 2011, 03:06:PM
Convicted killer Jeremy Bamber feels guilty for not helping the “crazed” sister he claims slaughtered their family
By Jon Clements 6/08/2010
Farmhouse killer Jeremy Bamber says he no longer blames his sister for what he claims she did – but he has still vowed to prove that she carried out the murders.
He reveals today he wishes he had helped to tackle sister Sheila’s schizophrenia before the gruesome shootings.
Bamber, 49, insists he is innocent of murdering dad Nevill, mum June, Sheila, and her twin sons Nicholas and Daniel at their remote farmhouse in 1985.
And in an astonishing 14-page letter to the Daily Mirror, he says he was convicted by the evidence of an ex-girlfriend hellbent on revenge. But his own cousin David Boutflour last night said Bamber was as “guilty as hell”.
Bamber’s letter, written from his prison’s hospital wing, says: “How do I view Sheila?
“With sadness now, as I have lived with many people with schizophrenia and so don’t blame Sheila any more – if anything I feel guilty for not understanding about her condition and helping her more.
“And I do have happy memories too.”
He claims troubled model Sheila, who was also known as Bambi, killed her children and parents before turning the gun on herself after going berserk.
And he says his ex-girlfriend Julie Mugford wrongly told detectives he had boasted of hiring a hitman to kill his family after she discovered he had cheated on her.
The letter says: “As for those who’ve done me wrong, the police/CPS will pursue anyone who needs to be pursued.
“I’ve stopped feeling angry – I suppose in revealing all that I know about my case in books and stuff, Julie and Co will be shamed publicly, that’s if they don’t go to jail, and I have no desire to see them or even for them to say sorry – the fact everyone will finally know the truth will be enough.
“We now have evidence to directly link Sheila in a struggle with my dad in the kitchen, a clear forensic link that is compelling to say the least.
“Sheila’s psychiatry files were not released to us. So building a case against Sheila has not been easy but we have pretty much done so.
“No doubt when my conviction is overturned a public enquiry of some sort will get access to this material and prove without doubt that Sheila was responsible.
Twenty-five years have passed since I came to prison – the outside world is very different, and of course, so am I.
“It’ll take me some time to learn about all the new things and think about what I might like to do.
“If a little money comes my way, buying a small farm would perhaps be fulfilling a dream but who knows what opportunities will come my way, or if my inheritance will be returned? We’ll wait and see.
“But I’d like to tell my story to give hope to those who feel like giving up – because you never know what is around the next corner and so the trick is to always hope that there is something that will help.”
At the trial, Bamber was accused of behaving inappropriately after the murders and buying champagne for pals the evening after his parents’ funeral.
Bamber said: “You ask me whether I would have done things differently, as if I had control over how I coped with the grief of losing my whole family.
“I am certainly not alone in turning to alcohol in sorrow – nor in seeking the company of others who cared about me.”
Yesterday, the Mirror revealed how a lost police phonelog may help back up his claims about Bambi, 26, being guilty of the killings in Tolleshunt d’Arcy, Essex.
The document suggests their dad, 61, had called police saying his “daughter” had “gone berserk” with a gun and the Criminal Cases Review Commission is due to announce within weeks if it has referred Bamber’s case to the Court of Appeal.
His cousin David Boutflour, from Harwich in Essex, played a key role in the case after he uncovered a blood-stained gun silencer inside the farmhouse.
And he said yesterday: “He’s as guilty as hell and should spend the rest of his life in jail.
“I have a family and if he was ever let out I would be seriously concerned for the safety of us all.
“It would be a terrible injustice if he were ever to get off on a technicality.”
But Bamber – who is serving a full life sentence in Full Sutton prison, near York – maintains an unshakable belief that he will walk free one day.
He concluded his letter in bizarre fashion by saying he had a “toothache that shows no mercy”.
Bamber added: “If I’d known of the pain later, the joy of those lollipops at 10 years old does not in any way compensate for what it’s caused.
“Ouch, it’s hurting like, well, bad. Yours sincerely Jeremy Bamber.”
Post by: Admin on February 22, 2011, 03:08:PM
DO NEW PICTURES PROVE JEREMY BAMBER IS INNOCENT?
Sunday August 29,2010
By Hilary Douglas
BULLET fragments found in the neck of Jeremy Bamber’s dead sister prove he could not have faked her suicide, say campaigners fighting to free him.
They claim the scraps “became whole” when evidence was presented at his murder trial.
They also claim that the scene of crime was doctored and the former model’s body was moved by police.
Bamber was found guilty of shooting his adoptive parents Neville and June Bamber, his half-sister Sheila Caffell and her six-year-old twins Daniel and Nicholas with a silenced gun so he could inherit the family farm.
His defence team has uncovered an X-ray showing a fragmented bullet in Sheila’s neck, which at the trial was described as “whole”.
They claim that police swapped the bullet with one fired through a silencer to strengthen the prosecution case that Sheila could not have shot herself using a gun fitted with the silencer.
They have also uncovered notes by a firearms officer, a Sgt Adams, who questioned the photographs of Sheila’s body.
He was one of the first officers on the scene at White House Farm in Tolleshunt D’Arcy, Essex, on August 7, 1985. His notes, released to the defence in 1991, state: “Sheila not in same position. Bible shown next to body was level with her waist 12-18 inches away.”
A campaigner said: “In the photographs we can clearly see why Sgt Adams questioned the position of the body, as the Bible is level with her upper arm and not at waist level in the picture.
“At the 2002 appeal, the prosecution stated that Sheila’s body had been moved. It had, by the police, but Jeremy was blamed. It looks like the original inquiry was right and Sheila did the killings after all.”
The campaigner added: “We assume the whole bullet was the second shot and the fragmented bullet the first. Because it is in the muscle on the neck and is not in the brain, it wouldn’t have killed her.
“Some of the pathologist’s notes suggest she might have been able to walk around after the first shot, evidence which was repeated at the initial trial.”
Earlier this year, Bamber asked detectives to investigate people he named as alternative suspects. The development came as he made allegations in a letter to the Sunday Express concerning photographs of the crime scene which were not disclosed at his trial or appeal.
At his trial it was claimed he was involved in a struggle with his adoptive father Neville, 61. During the fight, the end of the silencer caused scratch marks on the underside of a shelf. However, expert Peter Sethurst concluded the marks were made a month after the crime.
His report says: “It’s clear from my reconstruction that the marks don’t appear in the original evidence. Having done that, you draw your own conclusion.”
In a letter from Full Sutton Prison, York, Bamber, 49, said the “only credible conclusion” was that the shelves were scratched “after these photos were taken”.
He adds: “Tampering can only have been done with the intention of perverting the investigation.”
Bamber plans to submit his evidence to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates possible miscarriages of justice.
Post by: Admin on February 22, 2011, 03:11:PM
Why was killer Bamber given access to media?
THE family of the victims of convicted killer Jeremy Bamber have welcomed moves for a Parliamentary debate on whether prisoners should be allowed to give interviews.
The mass murderer spoke to journalists about new evidence he hoped could be used to overturn his conviction for shooting dead five relatives.
Witham MP Priti Patel said the family were left “immensely distressed” that Bamber had been allowed to speak to the media by the Ministry of Justice and called for a debate into whether people serving life sentences should be granted access to the media.
Karen Boutflour, wife of Bamber’s cousin David, who lives in Wix, said the family would welcome a debate.
“It has been very hard and it puts an immense strain on all of us,” she said.
“He is in prison for a reason and he has had three failed appeals, so it is very strange that he was allowed to give an interview.
“He has his own official website and its awful that he’s even allowed to have that. We would be very pleased for there to be a debate at the House of Commons.”
Bamber has been in jail for more than 23 years for shooting his adoptive parents, June and Nevill, sister Sheila and her six-year-old twin sons, Daniel and Nicholas, at their farmhouse in Tolleshunt D’Arcy in August 1985.
At his trial, the prosecution said he committed the murders in the hope of inheriting a £500,000 fortune.
He now claims a police phone log suggests his father Nevill called police saying his daughter, Sheila, had “gone berserk” and “got hold of one of my guns”.
Speaking during a debate at the House of Commons, Ms Patel said: “The Leader of the House might be aware of the immense distress caused to the family of the victims of the Jeremy Bamber murders by the recent media interview he gave, which was allowed by the Ministry of Justice.
“May we have a debate in Government time on the impact of prisoners and mass murderers such as Bamber, who are serving whole-life tariffs and life imprisonment, being granted access to the media, so that victims of such crimes can be protected?”
George Young, Leader of the House of Commons, said he would raise the case with Justice Secretary Ken Clarke.
“It cannot be right that those who have been sentenced to imprisonment for serious crimes such as murder should then from prison be allowed to cause distress to the relatives of their victims,” he said.
Post by: Admin on February 22, 2011, 03:12:PM
Murderer Jeremy Bamber hopes for Court of Appeal hearing
By steve clow [email protected]
MASS murderer Jeremy Bamber should know by the end of the week whether his bid for freedom will be heard by the Court of Appeal.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) – which probes possible miscarriages of justice – could decide to refer Bamber's conviction to the Court of Appeal after a six year investigation.
Bamber, 49, has always protested his innocence despite being convicted of the murders of five members of his family at White House Farm, Tolleshunt D'Arcy, in August 1985, and has spent years gathering evidence he claims could clear his name.
He told the Chronicle from his cell at HMP Full Sutton in York: "We now know the truth, sadly it's taken 26 years to come out.
"But the CCRC should make a decision on my case this week.
"We have submitted a lot of compelling new evidence, and more to the point shown that we know the truth – that I have been framed."
Three Appeal Court judges rejected his first bid for freedom in 1989, but he re-applied to the CCRC for a second judicial review in 2004.
CCRC spokesman Justin Hawkins said: "Complex cases like this one take time. We have been investigating this second application by him since 2004.
"The Commissioners are meeting this week and could announce their decision.
"They could decide to refer it to the Court of Appeal. But if they do not it will be case closed, although he could submit any number of further applications."
Seventy per cent of CCRC cases referred to the Court of Appeal are upheld, he added.
Adoptive parents Nevill and June Bamber, both 61, adoptive sister Sheila Caffell and her six-year-old twins Daniel and Nicholas were killed with a rifle fitted with a sound moderator.
A year later he was jailed for 25 years by Mr Justice Drake at Chelmsford Crown Court, saying he was "evil almost beyond belief".
Jeremy Bamber has submitted key photographic evidence to the CCRC, a set of original negatives taken by Essex Police which he insists show inconsistencies in the case against him.
Mr Hawkins added: "Mr Bamber and his lawyers have submitted a very substantial amount of additional material during the period since the Commission started its review.
"We have accepted this material in order to ensure that our review of the case can be as complete as possible. We have looked, and continue to look, very carefully at the many points that have been raised during the whole review process."
Post by: Admin on February 22, 2011, 03:18:PM
Could these photographs clear multiple murderer Jeremy Bamber at his THIRD appeal?
Unseen police photographs could help secure a new appeal for one of Britain’s most notorious killers.
Jeremy Bamber, 50, will hear next week whether he can launch a new legal challenge in the Court of Appeal against his conviction for one of Britain’s most notorious murders 25 years ago.
Lawyers for Bamber - convicted of blasting to death five relatives in a farmhouse - claim newly disclosed police photos cast doubt on a key part of the prosecution case and raise disturbing inconsistencies in the evidence.
Jeremy Bamber is appealing his conviction for shooting dead five relatives
Bamber claims Sheila Caffell, his schizophrenic sister shot her family before turning the gun on herself
Appeal: Bamber, 50, has always protested his innocence and claims his schizophrenic sister Sheila Caffell, known as 'Bambi' (right), shot her family before turning the gun on herself
Bamber, who is serving a whole life term for the 1985 killings, has always protested his innocence and claims his schizophrenic sister Sheila Caffell shot her family before turning the gun on herself at a remote farm in the Essex village of Tolleshunt D’Arcy.
Defence lawyers say the new images show the murder weapon seemingly resting in different positions on Mrs Caffell’s body and around the bedroom.
At the trial, police claimed the gun was not moved until after all police photographs were taken but two views of the same window inside a bedroom show a gun against it in one frame and missing in the second.
The release of the photographs to Channel 4 News comes as the Criminal Cases Review Commission prepares to announce on Monday whether it will refer his conviction to the Court of Appeal.
Last year, it emerged that photographs which were used as prosecution evidence against Bamber were to be reviewed after an expert claimed there were discrepancies on crime scene pictures.
Bamber, who was convicted by a 10-2 majority, has twice lost appeals against conviction.
In this view inside a bedroom at the Essex farmhouse there is no gun at the window.
Window: In this view (below) inside a bedroom at the Essex farmhouse there is no gun at the window.
In this second view of the bedroom, a rifle is propped against the frame. His defence team say this suggests inconsistencies in crime scene evidence
Defence: In this second view(below) of the bedroom, a rifle is propped against the frame. His defence team say this suggests inconsistencies in crime scene evidence
He insists Mrs Caffell, a model known as ‘Bambi’ who suffered from mental illness and was prone to violent outbursts, gunned down the family before killing herself.
Bamber also alleges he was the victim of a conspiracy involving relatives and a former girlfriend out to frame him. All deny any wrong-doing.
Detectives have always insisted that privately-educated Bamber is a cold, cunning, deluded killer who was rightly convicted because of compelling forensic and circumstantial evidence.
He is one of 38 convicted killers in the country who have been given a whole-life tariff, which means they will never be released, and he is said to have made 'multiple submissions' to the CCRC in a bid to prove his innocence.
Bamber’s wealthy adoptive parents Nevill and June, their daughter Mrs Caffell and her six-year-old sons Daniel and Nicholas were shot dead with a .22 Anschutz semi-automatic rifle, which was found in Mrs Caffell’s hands.
The prosecution at Bamber’s sensational trial in Chelmsford Crown Court said he committed the murders out of greed, hoping to inherit a £500,000 fortune, and that he lied about receiving a call from his 61-year-old father to frame his sister.
Mrs Caffell had referred to her twins as the ‘Devil’s children’ and detectives initially assumed she was behind the killings.
However suspicion fell on Bamber when scratch marks were found on a kitchen shelf above the Aga, allegedly caused by a silencer fitted to the murder weapon.
The silencer was later found in a gun cupboard, and police deduced it would have been impossible for Mrs Caffell to return it there after shooting herself.
They concluded Bamber carried out the murders after a violent struggle in the kitchen with his father during which the shelf was scratched.
Jailed for life in October 1986, Bamber has repeatedly challenged the verdict and in 2009 lost a Court of Appeal case against the order that he must die behind bars.
Last year respected crime author David James Smith became the first journalist to interview Bamber in prison and said he found him ‘all too human and understandable’.
'Except for the part of him that I felt was hidden,’ he added. 'The corner of his soul that carried the knowledge of what had really happened that night 25 years ago, and who had really killed his family.'
Post by: Admin on February 22, 2011, 03:19:PM
The new evidence Jeremy Bamber says could end his 26 years in prison
The murder of five members of one family in 1985 shocked Britain. But new material from an Observer/Guardian Films investigation – including police logs – will be examined tomorrow and could open the way for a fresh appeal
* Eric Allison and Mark Townsend
* The Observer, Sunday 30 January 2011
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Video: Will new evidence bring a historic third appeal for Bamber?
In North Yorkshire's Full Sutton maximum security jail, prisoner A5352AC will go about his business as usual. Up at 7am, the subsequent hours will be spent obsessing over documents that he hopes will overturn his conviction for one of Britain's most notorious multiple murders. Tomorrow Jeremy Bamber is likely to discover whether those efforts have been in vain.
Bamber was a 24-year-old with dark hair and striking youthful looks when five members of his family were killed on 7 August 1985 in an Essex farmhouse; a horrific crime for which he was found guilty. New images, published for the first time, show the effects. "I am an old man now and I feel it," he said last week. "I can feel all that time I have spent in jail. I never thought I'd do 26 years. I always thought another year, maybe another 18 months."
His fate rests on the judgment of three legal experts who will gather in the Birmingham offices of the Criminal Cases Review Commission to decide whether the evidence they have examined over the past two years casts sufficient doubt over the safety of Bamber's conviction to refer the case to the court of appeal.
It is a high-pressure, high-profile, decision. A referral would raise the possibility that Bamber is a victim of one of the UK's longest miscarriages of justice. It would also, clearly, pose fresh questions over the police investigation and subsequent prosecution.
Experts from the commission have examined a wealth of new evidence, including freshly disclosed Essex police files that appear to challenge the assertion that Bamber shot his adopted parents, June and Neville, his sister Sheila Caffell, and her six-year-old twins, Daniel and Nicholas, at their farm in the village of Tolleshunt D'Arcy.
The material, never heard before a jury or during previous appeal attempts, challenges key elements of the prosecution's case. Bamber believes the findings support his allegations that police fabricated, suppressed and interfered with evidence in an attempt to frame him.
Among the newly disclosed material – uncovered during an investigation by the Observer and Guardian Films – are logs chronicling police radio communications on the night of the murders which suggest that another person was in White House Farm and could have carried out the killings.
At 5:25am, when it is accepted that Bamber was standing outside the building alongside police, one states: "Firearms teams in conversation with person in farmhouse." Minutes later, the logs reveal another call requesting the urgent attendance of more firearms officers.
Ninety minutes earlier, the logs reveal that officers had seen a mystery figure inside the farm, with one noting "movement of person in upstairs window". They also show that police used a loudhailer for two hours as they attempted to contact an individual within the farmhouse, a period during which Bamber was outside.
Bamber's case is that Sheila, 27, his schizophrenic sister, shot her family before turning the gun on herself. One firearms officer states seeing a rifle propped against a window in the farmhouse at 7.30am before noting, minutes later, the rifle disappearing, substantiating suggestions that someone apart from Bamber was alive in the building throughout the killings.
At 7.38am, police stormed the property and a log entry records "one dead male, one dead female found on entry". Yet, according to court documents, only the body of Neville was discovered downstairs. Sheila, a model nicknamed "Bambi", was found in an upstairs bedroom alongside her dead mother.
Bamber said: "I know I was outside with the police when they saw someone moving around in the house, when they were talking to someone in the house, when they saw my sister in the kitchen, when they went into the house."
Bamber, described by the trial judge as "warped and evil beyond belief", is one of only 38 convicted killers in Britain who have been given a whole-life tariff, meaning they will never be released. Others include Ian Brady, Donald Neilson, Rosemary West and Peter Tobin. Only Bamber has consistently claimed to be innocent.
"It is incredible that they could give me a death sentence, using old age as the tool. But I have never believed I would stay in jail or that I would not win," he added, before his third appeal is heard.
Another component of his case is testimony from one of Britain's most eminent photographic experts, whose analysis of police negatives found them incompatible with the principal prosecution case. Peter Sutherst, an analyst with 50 years' experience who advises scenes-of-crime officers, found that scratch marks on the farm's kitchen wall that were said to have been made by a silencer fitted to the murder weapon used by Bamber during the killings might have been made more than a month after the murders.
Following that discovery, the review commission asked Sutherst to scrutinise a minute "red spot" on the carpet beneath the scratches. It had initially assumed it was paint, but Sutherst – after examining hundreds of police photographs – matched the fleck to Sheila's toenail varnish.
Further analysis revealed a "missing" area of varnish on her big toe. When Sutherst transposed the fleck upon the missing area, it matched perfectly. He believes this places her in the kitchen on the night of the murders and that the damage may have occurred when she attempted to shoot herself and the recoil from the rifle butt struck her foot.
A decision to refer the case to the court of appeal would lead to fresh criticism over the conduct of the police. One former officer on the case told the Observer that the original investigation was "mishandled". Ex-police sergeant Chris Bews, who met Bamber at the farm on the night of the shootings, also confirmed that officers later compared notes of the incident, although he rejected any allegations of collusion. "We sat down together: it was permissible under what was called judges' rules in those days."
Yet at least one of the statements by officers assigned to the case has raised questions over its integrity. Forensic scientists found that a page of one officer's official statement had been "typed using a different typewriter".
Bamber himself is more exercised by the amount of evidence that is still withheld by Essex police. More than 40,000 documents and 211 photographs relating to the case have yet to be disclosed, with offers by Bamber to pay for the cost of searching through paperwork refused by the police. Of those police photographs recently released, several point towards the movement of Sheila's body and the murder weapon during examination by scenes-of-crime officers. Italian forensic image analyst Martino Jerian, whose specialist software allows pictures to be merged, shows Sheila's body lying in two differing positions. The murder weapon, originally found by her side, is seen propped up against the bedroom window. Essex police deny tampering with the crime scene.
However, when shown the images, Mick Gradwell, a former detective chief superintendent with Lancashire police, identified possible flaws with the police inquiry. "The standard of the investigation did not meet the standard of the time," he said.
Bews, one of the first officers to arrive at the scene, said after studying the pictures: "Somebody has obviously moved her hand." He added: "I don't think any of the police involved at the time would disagree that it was a badly handled investigation."
Other newly disclosed photographs indicate blood on Sheila's hands and feet. However, at the trial the prosecution claimed her hands and feet were perfectly clean. Summing up, the trial judge, Mr Justice Drake, said: "I have reminded you of the fact – and it is a fact – that when she was found she had no marks of blood on the soles of her feet and no marks of having handled bullets on her hands."
The apparent absence of blood on swabs used to test Sheila's hands for the presence of firearms residue has provoked further concerns over police procedure during the inquiry.
In another development, Bamber's cousin, David Boutflour, who found the silencer at the farm days after the killings, has admitted – for the first time – that he inherited a significant sum following the murders. "I have inherited quite a large amount of money as a result of Jeremy. And most of it I've wasted, I've spent," he said.
Boutflour, who gave evidence for the prosecution, has consistently maintained that Bamber is guilty of the murders. However, campaigners have argued that the possibility that Boutflour might benefit from Bamber being convicted was not properly articulated to the jury.
As it was, the prosecution alleged that Bamber's motive for the murders was financial, driven by the hope of an inheritance of £436,000.
Money, says Bamber, seems unimportant after 26 years in prison. "All I want is one day to be on a Dorset beach and have someone around me, or people around, who I love and they love me," he said.
"I have no desire for anything monetary. Simply to go for a walk with someone I love and see a bird together. To enjoy a beautiful ballet, a simple meal in the local cafe or go to a supermarket and buy a mango."
Post by: Admin on February 22, 2011, 03:25:PM
Jeremy Bamber: Police used my family's corpses as props
by Jon Clements, Crime correspondent 31/01/2011
Murderer Jeremy Bamber has accused police of using his family’s bodies as “props” in a secret training exercise hours after they were found shot.
He has discovered armed officers had already secured the scene when another team of marksmen entered the farmhouse where the corpses of his parents, sister and nephews lay.
The police papers from 1985 say their role there was for “informatives”, which basically means training.
But Bamber claims the eight-man rookie unit trampled over the crime scene – and argues it supports his case he is innocent.
The fresh evidence comes as the Criminal Cases Review Commission meets today to decide if he should get a final appeal 25 years after he was jailed for life.
In a letter to the Mirror, Bamber, 50, said: “It is just too awful to think senior police management sanctioned the training of other firearms officers using my dear old mum and dad and Sheila as props in their informatives.
“There is no way I could have been prosecuted had police admitted carrying out training exercises in the house before, during and after crime scene photos were taken. It’s not like me to cry very much but I can’t seem to stop myself.”
Bamber has been researching over 100,000 documents about his case in his cell in HMP Full Sutton.
Papers he found earlier this month suggest 43 officers from Essex police entered White House Farm, in Tolleshunt D’Arcy in 1985 – 17 more than was declared at his original trial.
It was apparently never revealed to Bamber’s defence a firearms unit arrived two hours after two other teams of marksmen found the bodies of Nevill and June Bamber, Sheila Caffell and her two sons.
None of them were scene-of-crime officers and the logs say their role there was for informatives.
Bamber claims the officers were ordered to the farm to gain experience on the aftermath of a shooting. Records show the bodies were not removed until several hours later and Bamber claims crucial evidence including the .22 rifle could have been moved while photos were taken.
Rifle by window after farmhouse massacre(below)
Killer's rifle by window after the farmhouse massacre (below)
Sergeant Chris Bews, one of the first officers at the scene, admitted the investigation was mishandled and other senior police believe it did not “meet the standards of the time”.
Police initially suspected Sheila of killing her family and then herself.
Bamber said he got a phone call from his dad on the night of the murders saying she had gone crazy.
But doubts emerged after other relatives found a blood-stained silencer which fitted scratch marks on the kitchen mantlepiece. That suggested the silencer was fitted to the gun during the killer’s struggle with Nevill, found in the kitchen.
Kitchen crime scene and, inset, mantlepiece gun scratches
Sheila could not have shot herself and then removed the silencer.
Girlfriend Julie Mugford then told police Bamber bragged about killing his parents for the inheritance. Bamber’s lawyers reckon an expert found no sign of the scratches in early crime pictures. The killer also claims Mugford was angry at him for cheating on her.