Debunking the main arguments of Bambers' supporters - that the police were in 'conversation' with someone inside the house and Sheila was 'spotted by police in the kitchen'The Tactical Firearms Group arrived close to 05:00, and, giving the farm house itself a wide berth, everyone repositioned themselves inside a barn at the rear, which allowed them to scan the back of the property and prepare their next move. With the sun due to rise in barely half an hour, the logical thing for the armed response team to do was to bide their time.
Shortly before 05.25, a challenge was issued using a loudhailer to anyone inside the property.
The wireless operator pre-empted events and recorded “Firearms team are in conversation with a person inside the farm”. However, the call to persons inside met only with silence. The wireless operator updated the log at 05.29 – “From CA7 – Challenge to persons inside house met with no response.
Additional firearms officers arrived at 06.45 and were greeted by Sergeant Bews. Fresh on the scene, PC Woodcock from the Firearms Training Department was told by his colleagues that a siege was underway and a young woman with mental health issues was presumed either to have killed everyone or to be holding them hostage. Whatever had taken place, there had been no response from anyone in the farm at any time, and because of this the group were preparing to force entry into the property.
Inspector Montgomery and Police Sergeant Adams put together the raid team, consisting of PCs Collins, Delgado, Woodcock, Hall, Alexander-Smart and acting Sergeant Manners. The team, working from a plan of the building sketched by Jeremy, divided the property into “White”, “Green” and “Black” zones. Woodcock was nominated to break down the rear door using a sledgehammer. Collins and Delgado lined up on one side of the door. To their right was the kitchen window. Collins peered inside and reported seeing the body of a woman.
The door gave way when Woodcock pounded it several times with the sledgehammer. As the armed officer led the others into the property, he turned into the kitchen and saw the same person witnessed by Collins, obviously dead. In fact it was not a woman but 61-year old Nevill Bamber. A chair was on its side to the left of an Aga oven, and Nevill’s corpse was sat awkwardly on one edge of the backrest. He was slumped forward with arms at his side and his head fully inside a silver-topped bucket – in fact a coal scuttle. Blood had run thickly down the sides of this hod. The body was facing the window Collins had looked through, and all that was visible of Nevill’s head was a dishevelled shock of grey hair. This was why Collins had mistaken farmer Bamber for an old woman.
With Collins having stated over his police radio that he’d seen a woman in the kitchen, and Woodcock now reporting the body of a man, the wireless operator made the following entry at 07.37:
“one dead male and one dead female in kitchen”.
The error was insignificant in itself, but when Bamber obtained a copy of the log in 2005, he quickly sought out anything that could be represented as an inconsistency and manipulated to support his claim that he’d been framed for the crime.
Anomaly explained and a psychopaths lies exposed.
