WPS Julia Jeapes - Firearms instructor - Statement

[Admin]

WPS Julia Jeapes - Firearms instructor

Statement dated 26 September 1985

[goatboy]

She does state she saw what appeared to be a rifle leaning against the upstairs window-before any of the police had entered the building. What are people's thoughts on this?

[goatboy]

I don't think people could just say Jeapes was mistaken, firstly she was an experienced firearms officer, secondly there is actually a crime scene photo of a rifle leaning against the window. Of course it is not clear if it is "the rifle". And it doesn't prove Bamber's innocence (far from it-Sheila wouldn't be able to shoot herself then rest the rifle against the window). What this statement does do though, is give a certain amount of credence to the possibility that the police could have stage managed the scene.

[Myster]

I don't think people could just say Jeapes was mistaken, firstly she was an experienced firearms officer, secondly there is actually a crime scene photo of a rifle leaning against the window. Of course it is not clear if it is "the rifle". And it doesn't prove Bamber's innocence (far from it-Sheila wouldn't be able to shoot herself then rest the rifle against the window). What this statement does do though, is give a certain amount of credence to the possibility that the police could have stage managed the scene.

I thought I read somewhere, (can't remember exactly where though) that the rifle was placed  there out of harms way by a police officer, possibly while the bodies were removed.

I think it was an Anschutz 525 though, as in the attached image...,

[goatboy]

The point Jeapes raises though is that she could see a rifle by the window at 7:15am, which was before the police entered the building. However, I don't see how she would have been able to see the rifle in that picture from the angle she would need to have been looking up at from outside.

[Myster]

The point Jeapes raises though is that she could see a rifle by the window at 7:15am, which was before the police entered the building. However, I don't see how she would have been able to see the rifle in that picture from the angle she would need to have been looking up at from outside.

Absolutely...., if that was the rifle she claimed to have seen, only a small part of the barrel if any, would be visible from her position outside on the white/red side. It may well have been another trick of the light as in the the case of Bewes et al.

Another mistaken point concerns the lit room to the right of the 'front door' which I take to mean the covered portico one, which she 'understood' was the kitchen, when on plan it was the Dining Room. If you substitute 'back door' instead as on JB's plan, then of course she would have been correct.