Did Julie Mugford Receive A Police Caution?

[ILB]

I will not engage the creep.

Going back to the issue I latterly raised, I think a core problem of the Crown’s case is that it supposedly relies on Julie Mugford but at the same time seeks to deoderise her from close involvement.  To me, that’s a paradox. This is difficult to explain, but it kind of gives me the sense of Julie straddling two camps.  We think of her as in the Crown’s camp, but was she entirely?

If I’m wrong and Julie Mugford’s evidence contains substantial truth, that raises the natural question of what the extent of her involvement was.  If she was more involved than she pretends, then that means I’m wrong for the right reasons: her evidence is a synecdoche and can’t be relied as it is defective.  The alternatives are that she wasn’t involved but Jeremy was, or she wasn’t involved and nor was Jeremy.

The thought that is developing in my mind – I only moot this at the moment – is that Julie Mugford’s evidence right up to the trial might have been a smokescreen for both her and Jeremy, especially the fanciful hitman story.  Maybe it all got out of hand?  Maybe they thought nobody would believe it?  I only moot this, though. 

Here we have a phone call at 3.15 a.m., or thereabouts.  I don’t doubt the call took place, but I’m quite surprised nobody probes further.  If you call somebody at that time of the morning, you will be waiting a while for it to be answered, you’ll probably have to explain yourself at length to whoever answers, and you’ll be asked what can be so important to be ringing at this time; then, you’re maybe waiting a while more for the person you are seeking to be rusticated out of bed and come to the phone, if they bother at all.  Then you have to explain yourself to them and so on, and the script we have in the statements won’t be the entirety of it.

Remember that this is a time-sensitive situation, and now I think about it more, I will have to go back on something I said: I am suddenly interested in the order of the calls, and I can see why the police were (though maybe their interest was for a slightly different reason to mine).  We’re expected to believe also that shortly after this call, Jeremy was thumbing through the phone book or Yellow Pages for the police station.  Or did he ring them before? 

Then at 5.40 a.m., we have Jeremy ringing Julie Mugford again on a public payphone.  Julie must have been an early riser, but the pertinent question is why did he ring her at 3.15 a.m. in the first place?  Why not wait until later to call, when he was apprised as to what was going on?

It all looks contrived.  It looks dodgy.

fundamentally, if Jeremy can wake Julie by phone in the wee hours. Vice versa can apply in regards to nevill phoning Jeremy in a tiny cottage

[JackieD]

I will not engage the creep.

Going back to the issue I latterly raised, I think a core problem of the Crown’s case is that it supposedly relies on Julie Mugford but at the same time seeks to deoderise her from close involvement.  To me, that’s a paradox. This is difficult to explain, but it kind of gives me the sense of Julie straddling two camps.  We think of her as in the Crown’s camp, but was she entirely?

If I’m wrong and Julie Mugford’s evidence contains substantial truth, that raises the natural question of what the extent of her involvement was.  If she was more involved than she pretends, then that means I’m wrong for the right reasons: her evidence is a synecdoche and can’t be relied as it is defective.  The alternatives are that she wasn’t involved but Jeremy was, or she wasn’t involved and nor was Jeremy.

The thought that is developing in my mind – I only moot this at the moment – is that Julie Mugford’s evidence right up to the trial might have been a smokescreen for both her and Jeremy, especially the fanciful hitman story.  Maybe it all got out of hand?  Maybe they thought nobody would believe it?  I only moot this, though. 

Here we have a phone call at 3.15 a.m., or thereabouts.  I don’t doubt the call took place, but I’m quite surprised nobody probes further.  If you call somebody at that time of the morning, you will be waiting a while for it to be answered, you’ll probably have to explain yourself at length to whoever answers, and you’ll be asked what can be so important to be ringing at this time; then, you’re maybe waiting a while more for the person you are seeking to be rusticated out of bed and come to the phone, if they bother at all.  Then you have to explain yourself to them and so on, and the script we have in the statements won’t be the entirety of it.

Remember that this is a time-sensitive situation, and now I think about it more, I will have to go back on something I said: I am suddenly interested in the order of the calls, and I can see why the police were (though maybe their interest was for a slightly different reason to mine).  We’re expected to believe also that shortly after this call, Jeremy was thumbing through the phone book or Yellow Pages for the police station.  Or did he ring them before? 

Then at 5.40 a.m., we have Jeremy ringing Julie Mugford again on a public payphone.  Julie must have been an early riser, but the pertinent question is why did he ring her at 3.15 a.m. in the first place?  Why not wait until later to call, when he was apprised as to what was going on?

It all looks contrived.  It looks dodgy.

QCChevalier

You are clearly intrigued by the case so I wondered why you wouldn’t write to Jeremy? After conversations with him on the phone I just found this side of him that was so naive and definitely find it difficult to believe he especially on his own could have planned these murders and also carrying out the actual physical act of shooting all his family when he wouldn’t take part in blood sports.
We have all read seen or heard about Jeremy’s arrogant behaviour many times but that is a million miles away from being a cold blooded killer.
Jeremy had his category downgraded quite quickly considering his crime although the relatives had that decision reversed. What did the prison know and why would they take those steps?? Surely he would be one of the last people to have that treatment
It’s all a mystery?

[David1819]

I will not engage the creep.

In your account settings. You have the option to add members to an Ignore list. That way you will never see what they post. 

[guest29835]

fundamentally, if Jeremy can wake Julie by phone in the wee hours. Vice versa can apply in regards to nevill phoning Jeremy in a tiny cottage

That's true and I already accept it.  The distinction I'm making, and what I find suspicious, is that Julie was roused from bed at 3.15 a.m. in a shared house.  That's much more difficult, especially when you're also supposed to be making an emergency call and holding for several minutes while a police officer rings somebody else.

And we are led to believe her involvement in the whole thing was limited and, at most, passive.

At the kernel of this case is the paradox outlined above: if she really is a witness of truth, is she a witness of whole truth or partial truth?  Is her evidence a synecdoche, concealing her own deeper involvement?  If so, was this for her own purposes only or also for Jeremy's? 

[guest29835]

QCChevalier

You are clearly intrigued by the case so I wondered why you wouldn’t write to Jeremy? After conversations with him on the phone I just found this side of him that was so naive and definitely find it difficult to believe he especially on his own could have planned these murders and also carrying out the actual physical act of shooting all his family when he wouldn’t take part in blood sports.

I respect your loyalty to Jeremy.  However, you hit a nail on the head here.  You have just articulated quite well one of the reasons I doubt he planned it all out.  There's lots of discussion about Sheila's mental condition, but little sophisticated probing into Jeremy's mental world.  Instead, we have from the pro-guilt people what I call the Robot Theory, inaugurated by Wilkes, in which we have Jeremy as rather like The Terminator, sent from the future, to kill Sarah Connor and then kill his family at the farm, all because he is a greedy psychopathic neo-thatcherite.

We have all read seen or heard about Jeremy’s arrogant behaviour many times but that is a million miles away from being a cold blooded killer.

Of course.  I think anybody with any sense would acknowledge this.  But why did he act like that?  What was the role of cannabis in it?  What happened to him at that school?  What was going on inside the family?

Jeremy had his category downgraded quite quickly considering his crime although the relatives had that decision reversed. What did the prison know and why would they take those steps?? Surely he would be one of the last people to have that treatment
It’s all a mystery?

I agree.  The prison re-categorisation happened because his offending was thought to be narrowly-focused, then the relatives intervened - or at least, that's the story.  If true, they don't come out of this well, in my view.

[guest29835]

I've discovered that this Douglas Dale gave a statement to the police and also gave evidence at the trial, which means there must be a statement of truth from him somewhere.  I assume his witness statement was around the same time as Julie's.  Unless I'm purblind, I can't see anything in the Archives on here.

I would be very interested to see his various statements and evidence.

I also found this in the 2002 appeal judgment:

307. Douglas Dale was in the house at the time. He made a statement on 9 September saying that he had heard the phone at about 3 a.m. He also gave that evidence at trial. But when cross-examined he said that it could have been about 3.30 a.m. He said that he had never looked at the time and had probably been told the time the next morning by others.

[Source: http://www.homepage-link.to/justice/judgements/Bamber/index.html]

I see in Sheet 10 of her own statement of 8th. September 1985, Julie Mugford claims the following [the poor grammar, I assume, is down to the police]:

"I suppose I went to bed that night at about 11.15 p.m. time.

In the early hours of the morning, I have since found out from a friend of mine Susan BATTERSBY who lives with me that it was about 3.15 a.m.  I was woken by another housemate Douglas DALE who told me that Jerry was on the telephone.  I got out of bed and went to the phone on the landing and said 'Hello'.  I felt very dozy and I suppose I was only half awake."

Some brief observations on the above [this may be pedantry on my part]:

(i). In the actual statement (can be viewed in the Archives), there is a gap between the words 'housemate' and 'Douglas'.

(ii). I find it odd that she uses the word 'telephone' at one point.  Wouldn't she more naturally say: "...Jerry was on the phone..." or "it was Jerry"?

There are other points to make, but I don't have time right now.  The full statement is in the Archive.

Among the questions I would like to ask Douglas Dale, just to focus on him for the moment:

1. How was Julie dressed before she went to bed that night and what was she doing?

2. How would you assess Julie's manner and demeanour prior to her retiring to bed?

3. Why were you awake at 3.15 a.m. and what were you doing?

4. How were you dressed?

5. Were you aware at any point during the night of Julie also being awake?

6. In relation to you, where was the phone that you answered at roughly 3.15 a.m.?

7. Where was the same phone in relation to Julie's room?

8. What did you say to Jeremy and what did Jeremy say to you?

9. Did you know who Jeremy was?  Had you ever met him?  Did you recognise his voice?

10. If you knew Jeremy, did you like him?  If so, why?  If not, why not?

11. Had he ever rung in the middle of the night before?  Had he ever behaved in any other odd, strange or erratic way that you can recall?

12. Where was Julie at this point?

13. If she was in her room, what steps did you have to take to alert her to the phone call and what were her responses?

14. Roughly how long did it take for Julie to reach the phone from the point you first alerted her to the call? 

15. Did you stay by the phone while waiting for Julie?  Did you speak to Jeremy again while waiting for Julie?  If so, what was said?

16. How was Julie dressed when she answered the phone?

17. Did you hear Julie on the phone?  If so, what did you hear?

18. What do you remember about what happened after the call finished?

[guest29835]

I have now found another statement from this woman dated 23rd. September 1985, in which she admits that it wasn't Mr Dale who answered the call at roughly 3.15 a.m. [she now says 3 a.m.].  She now claims she answered it herself.  See Sheet 5 of that statement.

I knew I was right to be sceptical.

She says Mr Dale woke her for the 6 a.m. call.  (Minor point: I thought it was 5.40 a.m.?).

If I was investigating this, I would be very keen to speak to this Mr Dale.  I have some serious questions for him!

On the subject of cannabis, I suspect Julie Mugford lies outright in her statement of 18th. November 1985 when she claims she was not a cannabis user.  She does this because the police need her to be of entirely sober deportment whenever the Evil One is confessing.

This woman's entire evidence should have been excluded from the trial.

[guest29835]

One possible explanation for Julie being alert to the call at 3 a.m. is that, she says, Jeremy rang her earlier.  This may have induced anticipation of another call.  But I thought she was supposed to be asleep?  The problem is that in her later corrective statement she doesn't re-elaborate on what she was doing when she takes the call.  Was she asleep or not?

This is where I am so far with it and then I'll probably leave it for now:

1. I take the view that he may not have planned it out.  There was a genuine call from the father, Nevill, and that catalysed a psychotic rage.  He's got a vague idea in his head about leaving a rifle by Sheila's body and he's then elaborated from there, and got 'lucky'.  He may also have blacked-out and genuinely believes himself to be innocent.

2. But....that may well be wrong.  The whole phone call business bothers me.  It's not the call from Nevill to him that I'm worried about so much, it's the call from him to Julie.  Obviously when things don't make sense, we need to be careful that we're not reading into it that it's suspicious.  In reality, people do strange things and things don't make sense or add up.  Nevertheless, this phone call to Julie at 3.15 a.m. [or whatever time it was] looks suspect to me.  And she changed her story about it fundamentally.

3. If in fact that call was staged, then that upturns my whole viewpoint about Jeremy's motivations and mindset.  But it also upturns the 1986 trial.  It means that the trial itself was a sham and Julie Mugford's evidence was a synecdoche, the jury were misled, we've all been misled, and she has been protected by the police under Public Interest Immunity.

It's all moot, though.

[lookout]

JM and her house-mates by all account enjoyed an evening of spliffs and alcohol so is it any wonder she appeared fuzzy when JB rang ?

[guest29835]

JM and her house-mates by all account enjoyed an evening of spliffs and alcohol so is it any wonder she appeared fuzzy when JB rang ?

She denies taking cannabis other than on two isolated occasions.  I suspect that's a bare-faced lie, at the instigation of the police.  It's common for the police/Crown/prosecution side to engage in dissembling of that kind.  It's not clever.

Can't remember if she was questioned about drink.  That's a very good point [I'll add it to the questions above].

[guest29835]

There is an explanation for the 3 a.m./3.15 a.m./3.30 a.m. phone call that incorporates Julie as innocent. That is, apart from Julie's own explanation.  Possibly Jeremy rang her with a Machiavellian motive, trying to drag her into his criminal actions.

Yet:

(i). How does Julie come to answer the phone if it's not answered by Douglas Dale or somebody else?

(ii). In his original statements to the police, Jeremy makes no mention of the late-night call to Julie on the 6th., but Julie does mention this, even in her earliest statements.  Were those statements of hers back-edited? 

Another interesting thing I've noticed is that the police chauffeured her to Essex.  That's nice of them.
She wasn't his wife.  Why didn't the police just implicitly expect her to make her own way there?  And she didn't seem to object when Jeremy, having only 10p in the payphone, insisted.  Was this entirely at Jeremy's will or was there already a suspicion forming among some of the detectives that Julie and Jeremy were both culpable in all this and they decided to get them both together at Goldhanger and observe?  Does this explain DS Jones' heightened detective senses per Jeremy's behaviour?

If I continue down this train of thought, I wonder if DS Stan Jones' evidence is going to unravel and reveal something rather murky?

Observations:

The official position of Julie Mugford was vague and tentative.  It was one of those situations where she knew but she didn't know, he was going to and she knew it, but he might not have done and she didn't know what to do.  She did commit cheque fraud, but somehow Jeremy was her Svengali and it was his fault.

This was a woman of majority age, yet it's as if the woman had no agency.  If we believe her, then we must believe that her involvement wasn't deeper, yet we have this strange phone call, that she tried to explain by roping in Douglas Dale.  Did he realise what she had done and object?

[Steve_uk]

That's true and I already accept it.  The distinction I'm making, and what I find suspicious, is that Julie was roused from bed at 3.15 a.m. in a shared house.  That's much more difficult, especially when you're also supposed to be making an emergency call and holding for several minutes while a police officer rings somebody else.

And we are led to believe her involvement in the whole thing was limited and, at most, passive.

At the kernel of this case is the paradox outlined above: if she really is a witness of truth, is she a witness of whole truth or partial truth?  Is her evidence a synecdoche, concealing her own deeper involvement?  If so, was this for her own purposes only or also for Jeremy's?

These are serious allegations, which to my mind go to the heart of the matter. Julie was guilty of being led astray by a cunning conman who turned into a murderer. Who knows what he may or may not have promised her during the almost two years they were acquainted? I reject the notion that she was complicit. The problem for the Jeremy supporters is that they are walking a tightrope in blackening Julie without inculpating him at the same time.

Incidentally I think the word synecdoche has been misapplied:

a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa, as in England lost by six wickets (meaning ‘ the English cricket team’).

[Steve_uk]

There is an explanation for the 3 a.m./3.15 a.m./3.30 a.m. phone call that incorporates Julie as innocent. That is, apart from Julie's own explanation. Possibly Jeremy rang her with a Machiavellian motive, trying to drag her into his criminal actions.

Yet:

(i). How does Julie come to answer the phone if it's not answered by Douglas Dale or somebody else?

(ii). In his original statements to the police, Jeremy makes no mention of the late-night call to Julie on the 6th., but Julie does mention this, even in her earliest statements.  Were those statements of hers back-edited? 

Another interesting thing I've noticed is that the police chauffeured her to Essex.  That's nice of them.
She wasn't his wife.  Why didn't the police just implicitly expect her to make her own way there? And she didn't seem to object when Jeremy, having only 10p in the payphone, insisted.  Was this entirely at Jeremy's will or was there already a suspicion forming among some of the detectives that Julie and Jeremy were both culpable in all this and they decided to get them both together at Goldhanger and observe?  Does this explain DS Jones' heightened detective senses per Jeremy's behaviour?

If I continue down this train of thought, I wonder if DS Stan Jones' evidence is going to unravel and reveal something rather murky?

Observations:

The official position of Julie Mugford was vague and tentative.  It was one of those situations where she knew but she didn't know, he was going to and she knew it, but he might not have done and she didn't know what to do. She did commit cheque fraud, but somehow Jeremy was her Svengali and it was his fault.

This was a woman of majority age, yet it's as if the woman had no agency.  If we believe her, then we must believe that her involvement wasn't deeper, yet we have this strange phone call, that she tried to explain by roping in Douglas Dale.  Did he realise what she had done and object?

1. Jeremy had already tried to rope her in by using her sleeping pills to slip into Nevill's drink. It's not a great leap of imagination to surmise that this was another opportunity to tie her to the crime as an accessory.

2. At that stage Jeremy was seen as the victim, who had lost his closest family. Nothing more natural then to accede to his request to have Julie as comforter by his side.

3. The cheque fraud was her fault alone, or her and Susan Battersby's together. I don't accept that they did it wholly or partly because Jeremy called her a "goody two shoes".

4. The question here to my mind is: why telephone Julie at all at this stage? Only the cynics in my view would argue this was a pre-arranged signal to inform her that their joint enterprise had succeeded. It was evidently going to arouse suspicion at a later date anyway, so why have Douglas Dale and others as witnesses?

[guest29835]

These are serious allegations,

I am not making allegations.  Please do not try to make out I am doing something that I am not doing.

Incidentally I think the word synecdoche has been misapplied:

a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa, as in England lost by six wickets (meaning ‘ the English cricket team’).

Not that it really matters, but that is what I am describing.  I am speculating that if her evidence is true, it represents only a partial picture.  The rest of it would be her as a co-conspirator on some level, or something similar, and this having been concealed by Essex Police under PII rules. 

In any case, whatever the correct language, as I have made clear, I am speculating about whether the whole case was a sham.  Her evidence has never made sense on a motivational level, at least not to me.

Beyond those observations, I repeat that I would rather not be dragged into a thread discussion with you.

[guest29835]

She did not receive a police caution.  The Judge misled the jury on this.  It is not clear whether he was misled by the prosecution or merely jumped to an incorrect conclusion. 

I think I have now found the answer and it looks like you are correct.

The answer, or an answer, is found in the McKay and Hutchins reports among the Operation Stokenchurch papers.

These reports cover various matters of inquiry, among them the police and DPP's arrangements with Julie Mugford.

Hutchins spoke to the DPP office staff, McKay spoke to Ainsley.

Hutchins was given information covered by PII at that time.  He confirms that three areas of offending by Mugford were considered:

(i). The drug offences.
(ii). The caravan park break-in.
(iii). The frauds.

In regard to (i), she was cautioned.

In regard to (ii), the charges were withdrawn.

In regard to (iii), no further action was taken.

Of course, without access to Julie Mugford's PNC records, we cannot know for sure whether she received a formal recordable caution for the drug offences or it was just a police warning; and it will be deleted now from the record anyway and she can deny everything.  In any event, it does appear that the trial judge did mislead the jury.

Ainsley gets it completely wrong about Mugford.  He says she was cautioned for everything, and implies that she was not given any formal immunity viz. court proceedings, it was all done verbally.  But this is wrong, both on account of what Hutchins discovered, and also because we have since seen disclosure of the formal letter from the Assistant DPP John Walker, which refutes his claim that it was all informal and agreed 'on the nod' at a case conference.  Furthermore, one has to suspect that there may be further material pertinent to Julie Mugford's dealings with the DPP and Essex Police that is being withheld under PII rules.