Fact No 2 Nevill Bamber never phoned the police that morning
Nevill Bamber did not telephone anyone on the morning he was murdered. He couldn't have as the bedroom telephone had earlier been removed to the kitchen and the kitchen telephone hidden under some magazines. Nevill Bamber was shot three times in his bedroom before he managed to get downstairs only to be beaten and shot several more times. No blood was ever found on or around the kitchen telephone.
It was son Jeremy Bamber who telephoned the police around 3.30am and set the scene when he told them that his father had phoned him to say that Sheila had a gun and had gone berserk. Records show that only one telephone call was ever received by Essex Police and that was from Jeremy Bamber. Not only did Jeremy Bamber not dial 999 for emergency assistance but he took time to telephone his girlfriend in London and tell her that it had kicked off at the farmhouse. Interestingly, the evidence shows that this call t the girlfriend was placed around 3am, some 20 minutes before the call to police.
There are several important issues being conflated here.
1) There were 3 phones in the house at the time of the murders. 1 was in the office (which is off of the kitchen).
1 was plugged in the kitchen though it normally was plugged in the master bedroom. 1 was unplugged and hidden in the kitchen under some magazines, this phone normally was the kitchen phone. So this indicates someone took the normal kitchen phone, unplugged it, hid it under magazines then took the bedroom phone and plugged it in the kitchen. The last phone was in the office, the office is actually the back kitchen and is accessed by passing through the kitchen.
2) Telephone company records reveal only 1 phone call was made from WHF on the night/morning of the murders. That call was placed to the cottage Jeremy was using
3) According to the telephone company the phone at WHF was never hung up after making the call. The recipient hung up and after 1-2 minutes the line at Jeremy's cottage cleared so that it oculd be used again. However the phone at WHF was left off the hook and never replaced. The only phone off the hook was the phone in the kitchen that belonged in the master bedroom so it had to be the one that was used to make the call. Neither this nor any other phone had any blood on them.
4) The shootings started upstairs, presumably in the master bedroom. Nevill was shot 4 times upstairs and was shot an additional time on the ground floor near the stairs. He therefore was shot at least 5 times before he could have reached the phone. If he suffered any of the 3 most severe headshots before reaching the phone then he would have been unconscious before he could pick up the phone. If the 3 most severe headshots were delivered last then it means he suffered a shot that cut his lip off and a shot that shattered his teeth and voicebox which means he would have been bleeding profusely and also unable to speak. At most he could have dialed the phone and made unintelligible noises not to speak in an understandable fashion. Moreover he would have gotten blood on the phone if he had tried to use it.
5) Police records reveal only one phone call being made to police and it was made by Jeremy. Instead of phoning 999 he actually bothered to take the time to look up a police station number. He claimed that his father phoned him and said his sister had gotten hold of a gun and was in a frenzy. Nevill was scared she was going to use it come quickly to help disarm her.
6) Jeremy lived 3 minutes away. Instead of going over there himself to help he decides to phone police. Prior to phoning police though, Jeremy phoned his girlfriend. That call was initiated at least 10-20 minutes before the call he made to the police. Jeremy initially told police he called them and then called his girlfriend but at trial conceded he was confused and in fact called her first. So Jeremy answered the call from WHF then hung up. He waited an undetermined amout of time and called his girlfriend. How long they spoke is unknown but it was at least 10-20 minutes after he called her that he finally picked up the phone to call police. Perhaps they spoke 10-15 minutes and then he called police when they were finally done. He told police that his father was worried she was going to use a gun she grabbed and wanted him to go over to help but he was scared. He wanted police to pick him up and take him there. The police were unwilling to drive him in their car. So he waited for them to pass by and then slowly followed them arriving a few minutes later. He walked up to them and repeated his story about Nevill saying Sheila got a hold of a gun and he was scared she would use it. He reoc..ted the various guns in the house and told police that Sheila had used all the guns in the house and was proficient with them. This made them scared to enter and they decided to call for armed police. The armed police arrivedan hour or so later but were also spooked by this claim and decided to spend 2 hours staking the place out and entering after daybreak. Jeremy had no problem with them waiting. He didn't press them to enter and find out what happened to his family. Nor did he have any interest in entering himself to find out what happened. He was content with waiting to find out after the police go in first. It turns out Jeremy lied. At trial he admitted he had not seen his sister use a gun as an adult. All the guns in the house had been acquired when she was an adult. Thus he lied when he told police she fired all the guns in the house and was proficient with them. She never used any of the guns in the house prior to this including the murder weapon.
----------- What does all this add up to?
A) Nevill likely did not dial the phone because if he had then it would have had blood on it
B) If Nevill had dialed the phone he would have been unable to speak coherently and to tell Jeremy what Jeremy claims his father said to him
C) I Nevill had been able to speak coherently he would have stated that he and his wife were shot by Sheila and needed medical help and also someone to help stop her from killing them. It would make no sense for a man who was shot to say that he was scared she would use the gun. He would say she did use it, that he was shot and needed an ambulance. Someone in this position would be most apt to call 999. If calling a family member they would surely announce they needed a doctor and were shot.
D) Why would Jeremy be scared to go to the house without police if he had simply been told his sister grabbed a gun? He supposedly was not told that she had used it yet. For all he knows it wasn't even loaded. It is only a 3 minute drive. He could have gone there, spied from outside and then if necessary drive back home and call police. But he is too scared to even drive there and spy from outside and to try to see if he could hear anything. He has so much fear he will not go until after police arrive at the scene first. Since his fear is so great does he call police immediately? No he lies and claims he called them immediately but in fact he first called his girlfriend and waited a considerable amount of time to call police. Was he anxious for police to go in? No, he lied about her proficiency with the guns in the house to scare them so that they would not go in right away. A normal person would want to go inside and find out not wait for hours with police but not him. He knew they were dead so was not anxious wondering what happeened. That is the only explanation for his behavior.
Nevermind why did he call Julie before he called the police, why would he call Julie at all? If you know your family is dead and want a shoulder to cry on then you would have a reason to wake your girlfriend in the middle of the night. Why would you call to say, "my father called to say there was trouble at the house and he wants me at once. But I am not going there I am calling police instead. when I find out what happened I will call you again" Why would you wake a girlfriend to tell her that? You would wait to find out what happened before you bother to wake up a grilfriend to talk to her and in fact he could have just waited till daytime to talk to her instead of waking the household. Did he want her to go wait with him? That's the only other possible reason to call her but he never claimed he called to ask her to come over from London to wait with him. Nothing he claimed about the calls makes any sense. What his father supposedly said makes no sense. His call to Julie makes no sense. Waiting to call police makes no sense. Not going over to investigate outside at least makes no sense. Not being impatient with police at they just spent hours waiting makes no sense. It all makes no sense unless he is the killer in which place it all makes perfect sense.
How did the bedroom phone get in the kitchen and why was the kitchen phone hidden? There are only 2 rational explanations. 1) the killer moved it prior to the killings to make sure that no one in the bedroom could use it during the murder attempt or 2) the killer hid the kitchen phone knowing that someone would go get the bedroom phone and place it in the kitchen so that it would not be in the bedroom as the murders were taking place.
Would a person having a crazy fit do this? No this is rational foreplanning not the actions of a crazy person. In fact, why would a crazy person even care if the phone were used? if i planned to kill everyone then commit suicide what would I care if someone were able to report to authorities that I was in the process of shooting them? They would be dead and so would I before police could ever arrive to stop me. Only someone who plans to escape from the scene and doesn't want to be blamed would be scared of a phone because it the killer's identity is reported then the killer will be caught. Sheila would no care about the phones but a killer trying to frame Sheila would because the frame job would fall apart if a victim identified the framer as the killer.
It was testified to at trial that when the kitchen phone was broken that the bedroom phone was usually brought down and used.