Exploit them further you mean - knowingly or unknowingly ?
I’m not referring to ‘legit’ 🤑 people like Mark Williams Thomas btw
What I mean is that Theroux will give equal weighting to the possibility that Bamber is innocent and the possibility that Sheila is guilty.
It was always my concern that this doc was going to give equal weighting to these alternative scenarios, therefore muddying the waters, rather than clearing things up.
And he would justify it by saying that that is how you create balance.
But that's not how you create balance. You create balance by looking at and analysing and assessing the evidence from a neutral point of view. Ofcom rules allow broadcasters to take sides.
This quote from Theroux is the problem:
Theroux says: "Whether you think Jeremy Bamber did it or whether you think Sheila did it, both scenarios have anomalies, or at least require one to accept... surprising and in some cases seemingly anomalous details.
"The journey I went on was hearing something and going 'If Jeremy Bamber did it, how did they explain that?' - or 'If Sheila did it, how would they explain that?'"In the Sheila is innocent scenario there are no anomalies. Where are the anomalies? There is scientific, forensic evidence that proves beyond reasonable doubt that she didn't do it. There's more evidence today than there was in 1986. You don't have to believe a word Julie Mugford said to see that Sheila is innocent. There are literally no anomalies. There is no contradictory evidence.
All of the other 'smaller' pieces of evidence, like the fight in the kitchen, add credence to the Sheila is innocent scenario because it would be so unlikely that Sheila could have put up such a struggle against her dad and won.
All the evidence supports in a big or small way that Sheila didn't do it.
With the Bamber is guilty scenario, there are also no anomalies. There is no contradictory evidence that throws a spanner in the works.
With the Bamber is guilty scenario, there is missing evidence because his house wasn't searched and he wasn't examined at the time for injuries of markings on his body.
The silencer should have been found by the police, but that's not an anomaly, it's not contradictory evidence. Although it does allow room for Bambers supporters to claim that the blood in the silencer was planted, for which there is no evidence, and planting the blood would also be a very difficult thing to do technically. In fact, almost impossible. Therefore, no contradiction.
When you stick only to the evidence, there are no anomalies.
For Theroux to say what he did means that he doesn't understand this case, and hasn't properly gone through the actual evidence.
Louis Theroux may have an emotional attachment to Bamber because they are both white middle class, privately educated, well spoken, articulate people of a similar age. We know Theroux was fooled by Saville in exactly the same way that some Bamber supporters have been fooled by Bamber. Could it happen again? I believe it's a personality type that allows people to be fooled in this way. So Theroux may be predisposed to sympathise with Bamber, just as he may have been predisposed to sympathise with Saville.
The only way to defend Theroux is that the quote looks like it originated from an informal spoken interview and sometimes a written down excerpt comes across completely differently to the actual spoken interview. The quote therefore may be out of context, and also Theroux could have mis spoken the words, saying something that he didn't really mean, that then gets printed slightly out of context.
I hope that's the case.
