The Murders At White House Farm by Carol Ann Lee

[Holly Goodhead]

That's what separates a good copper from a Muppet.  Jones knew from day 1 that all was not as it should have been.  Excellent police work on his behalf.

Gut instinct is a good starting point but the danger is that officers became convinced they are right based on subjective aspects eg JB's attitude and behaviour and then go about fabricating evidence to get a conviction.

I posted this earlier today where DS Jones says he knew JB was guilty of the murders but then says he had to pray something would turn up to prove him right.  Very worrying: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcTvqLk0MWU&feature=youtu.be&t=26m29s

If DS Jones was a an excellent officer why didn't he rise about the rank of Sargent?

[Holly Goodhead]

http://extracts.panmacmillan.com/extract?isbn=9780283072222&utm_source=panmacmillan.com The Murders at White House Farm Book Page

The Murders at White House Farm
Carol Ann Lee | 9 minutes reading time

Prologue

Evening sunlight slanted across the countryside in a blaze of copper as the Volkswagen camper van rattled along the road to Tollesbury, village ‘of plough and sail’, whose inhabitants had long relied on harvests from land and sea. Weatherboard houses and modern bungalows disappeared as fields unfurled on every horizon; to the south was the Blackwater estuary, a wilderness of salt marshes, tidal mudflats and islands. It was an hour’s drive from London, yet a world away.

The six-year-old twins fidgeted in the back of the van, aware that the journey was almost over. From the driver’s seat, their father glanced at them anxiously through the mirror. The boys looked almost identical, with their delicate faces, slim limbs and blond hair, but there was tension in Daniel’s expression. Nicholas, too, was quieter than usual. In the front passenger seat their mother sat silently, her grey-blue eyes impassive.

Where the road twisted sharply to the left, Pages Lane appeared on the right. A postbox stood like a scarlet sentinel against the uncut field to one side of the lane; on the other was a hedgerow stippled with creamy blossom, leading to a neat row of four farm cottages. The van rumbled down the lane, passing the cottages and turning right at a fork in the track, where a tall hedge on the left coiled past black timbered barns to a large yard flanked by outbuildings. The van pulled in, close to the back door of a handsome Georgian farmhouse. Somewhere within, inscribed on a beam under the eaves, was the date ‘1820’.

White House Farm, on the glittering seaward reaches of Tolleshunt D’Arcy, was the hub of a thriving business covering hundreds of acres, yet the building itself had a cloistered air. Hidden by trees and set in large gardens, the elegant grey frontage could only be glimpsed by walkers from the creek end of the lane.

Before the week was out, its timeless seclusion would be gone forever.

The crime about to take place in the Essex countryside would dominate the headlines for weeks to come. Until then, the main news stories included the success of Live Aid, a sixteen-hour music marathon that raised millions for starving Ethiopians and secured the biggest global audience in television history; Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her husband Dennis buying a Barratt Homes house in south London; the discovery that the small pimple removed from President Ronald Reagan’s nose was cancerous; the dropping of charges of riot and unlawful assembly against seventy-nine miners arrested when 10,000 pickets converged on Orgreave coking plant; and twenty-seven-year-old Madonna topping the charts for the first time with ‘Into The Groove’ from the film Desperately Seeking Susan.

In ‘Aids Threatens to Spread Rapidly’, on 6 August 1985, The Times drew attention to the latest information about the aggressive new virus. The government’s chief medical advisers announced that ‘heterosexuals are also at risk from the disease normally associated with homosexuals’ and predicted over 2,000 cases within two years, mostly in London. An editorial in the same paper asked: ‘Can Youth Cope With Our Age?’, warning that in a society obsessed by immediate gratification, young adults were being influenced ‘more by their peers than their parents, by present opportunity more than past tradition’. While older people yearned for the principled 1940s, their children faced ‘the threat of nuclear war, the prospect of mass unemployment, a world in which there are many more sticks than carrots’. Positive responses such as CND and Live Aid were undermined by ‘the implosion of ambition’ and the ‘radical rejection of the diminished world’ of parents and grandparents.

Nevill and June Bamber understood only too well the conflicts highlighted by the editorial. Married in 1949 and unable to conceive naturally, they had adopted two babies: a daughter, Sheila Jean, in 1958, and a son, Jeremy Nevill, in 1961. Ever since, they had striven to instil the values of the pre-war world into their children.

On Sunday, 4 August 1985, Nevill Bamber attended the early church service at Tolleshunt Major. The Frosts, whom he had known for years, caught up with him afterwards. ‘He seemed his normal self,’ Joan Frost recalled. ‘I would describe the Bambers as a loving couple, fond of both their children, devoted to their grandchildren, very caring for the community, generous financially and [with] time for others.’

June Bamber was at the 10.30am service in Tolleshunt D’Arcy, where she had been a churchwarden since Easter. She read the lesson and waited outside the church for Nevill after the service. His familiar blue pickup truck soon appeared and Eric Turner, the elderly canon, greeted him as he strode across the gravel. Rev. Bernard Robson heard Nevill remark that he and June were looking forward to having their daughter Sheila and her six-year-old twins Daniel and Nicholas stay for the week. Their former son-in-law, Colin Caffell, was driving them from London.

Until a few months earlier, the twins had lived primarily with their mother, although Colin had joint custody and saw them every week. But in March 1985, Sheila was diagnosed with schizophrenia and admitted to St Andrew’s Hospital, a private psychiatric clinic in Northampton.  June Bamber had twice received treatment there herself and shared a psychiatrist with her daughter, who had suffered a nervous breakdown three years before. Nicholas and Daniel moved in with their father and remained living with him after Sheila was discharged.

Despite their divorce, Sheila and Colin were on good terms; he had invited her to his housewarming party in Kilburn the night before the visit. She arrived early to help him tidy up and prepare food, explaining how unhappy she was with the treatment her parents had chosen, which involved monthly injections of an anti-psychotic drug whose side effects included a debilitating lethargy. When Colin offered to speak to Nevill and June on her behalf, Sheila readily agreed.

During the party she was quiet. Her brother Jeremy and his girlfriend Julie Mugford were there, along with Colin’s partner, Heather. Sheila complimented Julie on her make-up and chatted to a few people, but seemed distracted. Jeremy asked his sister several times if she was okay. ‘Sheila appeared vacant and confused and said she was very tired,’ he later told detectives. Colin confirmed: ‘Sheila just sat there looking detached. She continuously kept staring out of the window.’

Shortly before midnight, Sheila asked Colin to take her home. Because he had been drinking he summoned her brother, who hadn’t touched alcohol. Sheila seemed to shrink from the idea, but Jeremy and Julie saw her safely home, then returned to the party. They left in the early hours for the small village of Goldhanger, where Jeremy lived in a cottage three miles from White House Farm.

On Sunday morning the twins were fretful about the visit to their grandparents. Much as they loved Granny Bamber, they didn’t like how she made them pray with her so often. Colin had already promised Sheila he would speak to his former in-laws about her medical care; now he told his sons that he would ask their grandmother not to be so strict about prayers. He also reassured Daniel, who had recently become vegetarian, that he would have a word about mealtimes.

At half-past three, the twins climbed into the camper van, clutching the plastic Care Bears that accompanied them everywhere. Colin drove the short distance to Morshead Road in Maida Vale, where Sheila lived at the immediate end of an imposing Edwardian building of thirteen red brick apartments. She settled in the camper van’s front seat. Once they were out of London and onto the A12, it was a fairly straight run to Tolleshunt D’Arcy. The sun emerged from a dense ridge of cloud as Colin attempted to make conversation with his ex-wife, but Sheila was lost in her own thoughts. Later he recalled that she ‘never spoke’ during the two-and-a-half-hour journey and seemed ‘quiet and inward’ but ‘smiling and content’.

In contrast, the twins kept up a steady stream of chatter about the party, school friends and a forthcoming holiday to Norway with their father. But as the van lumbered closer to Tolleshunt D’Arcy, Daniel began to grow agitated. Above the stuttering din of the Volkswagen engine, he shouted, ‘You will speak to Granny about the prayers and everything, won’t you, Daddy?’ Colin nodded, calling back that Mummy would make sure everything was fine. He glanced at Sheila, who stared at the road ahead, unresponsive. A knot of unease settled in his stomach.

As they reached the village, his disquiet increased. He couldn’t fathom why, nor could he think of an excuse for heading back to London. Instead, he followed the road where it led to Pages Lane, with its postbox and sign that read: ‘Private Road: White House Farm and Wycke Farm Only.’

At Bourtree Cottage, Julie Mugford stood looking at the ladies’ burgundy bicycle resting on its stand: it had a ‘sit-up-and-beg’ frame, white saddle and metal bell. When she had asked Jeremy about it that morning, he told her that it belonged to his mother. ‘He had got it so I could use it,’ Julie recalled. ‘I had not previously asked him to get me a bike, although I think I might have suggested it might be handy sometime the previous summer.’

Julie carried her belongings out to the silver Vauxhall Astra. As Jeremy emerged from the cottage, she frowned in disapproval at his hair, dyed the day before. She had bought him a brown shade from Boots in Colchester to hide ginger streaks from a previous home tinting, which looked odd against his naturally light brown hair, but the result was black as coal. She told him it looked like a wig. Jeremy shrugged off her criticism, unperturbed.

‘Jeremy took me to Chelmsford railway station at about 7pm on Sunday, 4th August 1985 to catch the 7.50pm train to London,’ Julie explained four days later. Studying for an honours degree in education at Goldsmith’s College, she lived in Lewisham, but spent holidays and most weekends with Jeremy in Goldhanger.

Julie hadn’t seen June or Nevill for over a month. She was aware that Sheila was due at the farm that Sunday, and the next time she heard from Jeremy was ‘by telephone at 9.50pm on Tuesday, 6th August 1985 . . .’

After that, nothing would ever be the same again.

Red roses bloomed on the trellis by the back door of White House Farm. June, a keen nature lover, had scattered bread on the bird table in the kitchen yard and filled the birdbath.

‘We arrived there about 6.45pm,’ Colin told the police in a miasma of grief and disbelief four days later. ‘I stayed with the boys, Sheila and the Bambers until about 8.30pm.’ The twins gravitated to their father’s side as soon as they were out of the van. Daniel and Nicholas were not naturally clingy and the knot of unease in Colin’s gut tightened as they entered the farmhouse. He nudged the boys through the scullery and into the kitchen. Every surface was crammed, from the Children’s Society collecting boxes on the worktop to the magazine rack overflowing with the Sunday Times and Farming News. A Welsh dresser took pride of place, crowded with ornaments, postcards, books and decorative plates, one bearing the solemn homily, ‘A Place for Everything and Everything in its Place’.

June made hot drinks and poured juice into the twins’ orange beakers. Crispy, an irascible shih-tzu known as ‘the Pest’, got under everyone’s feet until he was shooed into his basket beside the Aga. After pleasantries had been exchanged, Colin broached the subject of prayers. Nevill pulled up his favourite Windsor chair next to the mantelpiece to listen. June bristled slightly, but let Colin talk. Nevill reacted with customary humour to the news that Daniel was now vegetarian; wagging a finger, he warned his grandson he would never grow up big and strong if he didn’t eat his meat, but tempered his words with a smile.

The one issue Colin did not raise was Sheila’s medical treatment. His priority was the welfare of the twins and he hoped the Bambers would respect his entreaties if he left it there. Sensing that Sheila was upset by his lack of support, he avoided meeting her gaze. Colin stayed to supper at June and Nevill’s request, but Sheila had retreated into her own world: ‘Sheila was very quiet and appeared to be very vacant.’ After the meal he stood to leave and once more felt the weight of her gloom as she cast him a disappointed look.

It was the twins’ reaction to his departure that troubled him most. Daniel and Nicholas fell against him, clutching his clothes and burying tearful faces into his neck as he scooped them up. Their inexplicable distress was overwhelming: ‘It would be difficult to express how tightly they hugged me to say goodbye. They had never acted like this before.’ Gently, he unfastened their grip.

A cool breeze stirred the leaves of the shrubbery as Colin put the Volkswagen into gear. He waved vigorously before turning into the lane, and in his mirror caught a last, fleeting glimpse of the family watching from the darkened garden. In a moment he was at the end of the track and looking back saw only the black, gathered trees.

In the months to come, he went over that night again and again, remembering every detail. He became convinced that his sons had experienced some sort of premonition, as the memory of that final evening, together with a series of deeply disturbing drawings by Daniel, led him to conclude that there was ‘more to all this than I could logically explain’ and that, ‘on some level, they knew they were going to die’.

I'm confused about the section in bold above.  I'm taking it to mean that SC suffered a breakdown in 1982 whereas I believe it was 1983?  June was admitted to St Andrews in 1959 and 1982 and Sheila was admitted in 1983 and 1985.
 

   

[Holly Goodhead]

The above sounds remarkably like Steve_uk.  Poor Lookout will be broken hearted - she had fallen in love with Steve    I think she was torn between Mike's earthiness and foul-mouthed tirades, and Steve's eloquence.

[puglove]

The above sounds remarkably like Steve_uk.  Poor Lookout will be broken hearted - she had fallen in love with Steve    I think she was torn between Mike's earthiness and foul-mouthed tirades, and Steve's eloquence.

Ho ho!! Poor Steve - what a thought.   

Having a (very) quick squiz at this book, it certainly seems to be incredibly well researched. I didn't know that Sheila's first Shih Tzu was Sweepy, a present for her 10th birthday. Or the heart-breaking name of her home before the adoption - The Holy Innocents Sunnyside Nursery. But I love that Tussauds' deemed Bamber "too forgettable" to make a waxwork of him!

I'll be very interested to read Colin's message.

[puglove]

Ho ho!! Poor Steve - what a thought.   

Having a (very) quick squiz at this book, it certainly seems to be incredibly well researched. I didn't know that Sheila's first Shih Tzu was Sweepy, a present for her 10th birthday. Or the heart-breaking name of her home before the adoption - The Holy Innocents Sunnyside Nursery. But I love that Tussauds' deemed Bamber "too forgettable" to make a waxwork of him!

I'll be very interested to read Colin's message.

I should add that, in his letters to C.A.L., Bamber sounds his usual ignorant, arrogant, deluded self.

[Myster]

Ho ho!! Poor Steve - what a thought.   

Having a (very) quick squiz at this book, it certainly seems to be incredibly well researched. I didn't know that Sheila's first Shih Tzu was Sweepy, a present for her 10th birthday. Or the heart-breaking name of her home before the adoption - The Holy Innocents Sunnyside Nursery. But I love that Tussauds' deemed Bamber "too forgettable" to make a waxwork of him!

I'll be very interested to read Colin's message.

Where did all that lot come from!!!?     I must have welled-up and missed it through worrying about Reagan's cancerous pimple. 

[puglove]

Where did all that lot come from!!!?      I must have welled-up and missed it through worrying about Reagan's cancerous pimple. 

I just googled and a big lump appeared - the layout of the book, preface, prologue, the first few chapters and a list of references for each chapter. And a quotation from To Kill A Mockingbird...."People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for" which, I think, possibly answers Holl's question as to why so many people were initially conned by Bamber.

(I don't know what I did, but if a plum like me can find it, a diabolical mastermind like you should have no trouble!)

[Myster]

I'm confused about the section in bold above.  I'm taking it to mean that SC suffered a breakdown in 1982 whereas I believe it was 1983?  June was admitted to St Andrews in 1959 and 1982 and Sheila was admitted in 1983 and 1985.

Sheila was admitted to St. Andrews on the 2^nd August 1983, and discharged on the 10^th September having been diagnosed for the first time with schizophrenia. The next admission following a second breakdown at Moreshead Mansions was on the 3^rd March 1985, after which she was released around three weeks later on the 29^th March, having responded well to Haloperidol treatment, although as we know, this made her lithargic.

This was according to Wilkes and Powell.
Bet you can't wait to get your analytical into these weighty tomes?
 

[puglove]

I just googled and a big lump appeared - the layout of the book, preface, prologue, the first few chapters and a list of references for each chapter. And a quotation from To Kill A Mockingbird...."People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for" which, I think, possibly answers Holl's question as to why so many people were initially conned by Bamber.

(I don't know what I did, but if a plum like me can find it, a diabolical mastermind like you should have no trouble!)

It looks like C.A.L's book will be definitive....I wonder how MD's will measure up?

(Hopefully about four and a half inches, to cure my wobble.)

[Myster]

It looks like C.A.L's book will be definitive....I wonder how MD's will measure up?

(Hopefully about four and a half inches, to cure my wobble.)

Found the link...

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Rj14BwAAQBAJ&pg=PP255&lpg=PP255&dq=The+Murders+at+White+House+Farm+read&source=bl&ots=h7KmLHRnPl&sig=Mq-fJTjV015NHZ2BOWq7GlxUSEY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=pz2gVba6EeXW7QaXzYjADg&ved=0CEsQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=The%20Murders%20at%20White%20House%20Farm%20read&f=false

Looks like the WHF plans have been taken from yours truly's.

[puglove]

Found the link...

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Rj14BwAAQBAJ&pg=PP255&lpg=PP255&dq=The+Murders+at+White+House+Farm+read&source=bl&ots=h7KmLHRnPl&sig=Mq-fJTjV015NHZ2BOWq7GlxUSEY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=pz2gVba6EeXW7QaXzYjADg&ved=0CEsQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=The%20Murders%20at%20White%20House%20Farm%20read&f=false

Looks like the WHF plans have been taken from yours truly's.

Ta Dah!! God, you're good!!       

You only get a few goes though, till you "reach your limit."     

[Myster]

Ta Dah!! God, you're good!!       

You only get a few goes though, till you "reach your limit."     

More easier to follow extracts here... http://www.sainsburysebooks.co.uk/reader/9780283072222?fromssl=true

Lucky pugsy!  ... you'll have the whole book for FREE before the 30th... HOPEFULLY!       

You reading, Carol? 
 

[Holly Goodhead]

Ho ho!! Poor Steve - what a thought.   

Having a (very) quick squiz at this book, it certainly seems to be incredibly well researched. I didn't know that Sheila's first Shih Tzu was Sweepy, a present for her 10th birthday. Or the heart-breaking name of her home before the adoption - The Holy Innocents Sunnyside Nursery. But I love that Tussauds' deemed Bamber "too forgettable" to make a waxwork of him!

I'll be very interested to read Colin's message.

Good find puglove    I Googled some of the words in your post above and hey presto....

Lots of new info re previous occupants of WHF along with opinions and views from those that knew June, NB, SC and JB but so far I haven't read anything new or old from an evidential perspective.  In fact CAL states she is not going to touch on that as it would require an entire book in itself!  Can CAL then claim the book is definitive?

[Holly Goodhead]

I just googled and a big lump appeared - the layout of the book, preface, prologue, the first few chapters and a list of references for each chapter. And a quotation from To Kill A Mockingbird...."People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for" which, I think, possibly answers Holl's question as to why so many people were initially conned by Bamber.

(I don't know what I did, but if a plum like me can find it, a diabolical mastermind like you should have no trouble!)

True.  But police officers, and others eg police surgeons and pathologists, are trained to think critically/independently and not to be led by witnesses at soc?  They are frequently called to such scenes: domestic violence, child abuse, disputes turned violent between neighbours, rape.  All these scenarios usually involve one witness/victim blaming the other witness/victim. 

Those who believe JB guilty must by definition disbelieve the phone call.  They porn scorn on the idea that NB would call JB.  Can you honestly imagine multiple police officers, from various ranks, and others, accepting the phone call at face value and being totally oblivious to what was staring them in the face ie that SC was without signs of a struggle or blood beyond her own injuries (or certainly that's what the photos seem to indicate) having observed the state of poor NB in the kitchen?

I've noted a lot of input in CAL's book from the Carr family who don't have a good word to say about JB.  It seems they might have been influenced from day 1; Jim Carr was effectively employed by RB.  People often aren't good at thinking critically and independently unless they have been trained and/or encouraged to do so.  Hence we have "popular delusions" and "the madness of crowds".  A current example is the small Chinese investor encouraged to invest their life savings into the China stock-market by the government. 

http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=580.msg17683#msg17683

[Holly Goodhead]

Sheila was admitted to St. Andrews on the 2^nd August 1983, and discharged on the 10^th September having been diagnosed for the first time with schizophrenia. The next admission following a second breakdown at Moreshead Mansions was on the 3^rd March 1985, after which she was released around three weeks later on the 29^th March, having responded well to Haloperidol treatment, although as we know, this made her lithargic.

This was according to Wilkes and Powell.
Bet you can't wait to get your analytical into these weighty tomes?

Thank you    That's what I thought.  So that appears to be an error then on CAL's part.

I was interested to learn that June required psychiatric treatment in 1955.  How on earth she was approved to adopt SC in 1957/8 and JB in 1961 having required further psychiatric treatment in 1959 I honestly don't know.  It simply beggars belief.