UK Justice Forum 🇬🇧
Alleged Miscarriages of Justice => Jeremy Bamber and the callous murder of his father, mother, sister and twin nephews. Case effectively CLOSED by CCRC on basis of NO APPEAL REFERRAL. => Topic started by: Holly Goodhead on February 24, 2020, 10:48:21 AM
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I've set this thread up for those who wish to discuss the above and to keep threads on topic.
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Have I got my a/effect the right way round?
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Have I got my a/effect the right way round?
In this case, either is right &^^&*..................ergo neither is wrong &^^&*or should that be *&^^&?
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In this case, either is right &^^&*..................ergo neither is wrong &^^&*or should that be *&^^&?
Thanks I'm even more confused now but in any event the thread title is correct 8((()*/
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OK so back to the beginning when the Bambers found themselves infertile:
Infertility is not usually something that "happens". Rather, it is a reality that is forced on a couple over a period of months which then stretch on into years. It includes anxieties about sexual performance and bodily intergrity. It includes medical investigations and the possibility of drugs and of surgical interventions. It includes the allocation of responsbility for the infertility - to the man, to the woman or to both. And it requires mourning.
I use the term "mourning" deliberately, as infertility implies some very significant losses. There is the loss of an image of oneself or of one's partner as biologically intact and capable of conceiving a child. There is the loss of the hoped-for status of biolgocial parent (which includes a fantasy of presenting a grandchild to one's own parents). And there is the loss of the hoped-for biological child, a child who carried both one's own genes and one's own dreams. This last loss, is for many people, an especially painful one. Paradoxically (except within a psychoanalytic framework) it is this loss of which they often are not conscious. Fantasies regarding their imagined biological child often remain hidden until they are exposed by a discrepancy between the real adopted child and the imagined biological child.
Unfortunately the adoptive parents' fantasies regarding their (nonexistent) biological child are not at all inactive. They silently colour many aspects of the relationship between the adoptive parents and their adopted child. And, of course they are not alone in this process; sooner or later the adopted child also develops his own fantasies about his biological parents.
These fantasies whether they reside within an adoptive parent or within the adopted child - are not necessarily pathogenic. However, the clinical literature contains many examples of families in which such fantasies prevented one person from seeing the real person in front of them. (The adopted playwright, Edward Albee, uses an especially powerful example of such fantasies as the focal point for his play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? In this play the "son" of the two major protagonists, George and Martha, is gradually revealed to be a fantasy - a fantasy who has himself wondered if, perhaps, he was adopted.)
If the adoptive parents are to be able to see their adopted child for whom he is, and if the adopted child is to be able to see his adoptive parents for whom they are, they must mourn the loss of their respective fantasied biological child and fantasied biological parents. The lost (fantasied) relationships must be mourned before the new (real adoptive) relationships can flourish".
The above is from the Psychology of Adoption by psychologist David Brodzinsky.
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What the Bambers wanted were children who accepted and fit into their way of life. Their efforts to mould their adopted children in their images failed. Some think that a child is a blank sheet who will accept what s/he is taught as they grow. I think that's more likely if the child is related, as they will have genetic similarities to the family. The problem with adopted children is that they have inherited different ways of thinking, feeling, understanding and reacting. It's much harder to mould such a child.
I know these things because I refused to be moulded into what my mother wanted me to be. Similarly the child I was forced to give up for adoption when I was 16 also refused to follow the lifestyle and beliefs of her parents. For example they were religious; she, like me, isn't. Her way of thinking and her outlook on life is much the same as mine, although we only contacted each other when she was in her 50's.
There may not be such a thing as bad blood, but there's something which is inherited which makes raising an adopted a child different from raising a natural child.
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Have I got my a/effect the right way round?
Yes!
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What the Bambers wanted were children who accepted and fit into their way of life. Their efforts to mould their adopted children in their images failed. Some think that a child is a blank sheet who will accept what s/he is taught as they grow. I think that's more likely if the child is related, as they will have genetic similarities to the family. The problem with adopted children is that they have inherited different ways of thinking, feeling, understanding and reacting. It's much harder to mould such a child.
I know these things because I refused to be moulded into what my mother wanted me to be. Similarly the child I was forced to give up for adoption when I was 16 also refused to follow the lifestyle and beliefs of her parents. For example they were religious; she, like me, isn't. Her way of thinking and her outlook on life is much the same as mine, although we only contacted each other when she was in her 50's.
There may not be such a thing as bad blood, but there's something which is inherited which makes raising an adopted a child different from raising a natural child.
Closed adoptions from the so-called baby scoop era were set up to fail in a good many cases. June was extremely religious and had very strong views about sexual morality. In her eyes sex outside marriage was a sin to the point she offered to buy JM a property as she did not agree with her staying over at JB's. If she found all of this so unpalatable it makes you wonder if she was capable of accepting her adopted children born illegitimate!
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Closed adoptions from the so-called baby scoop era were set up to fail in a good many cases. June was extremely religious and had very strong views about sexual morality. In her eyes sex outside marriage was a sin to the point she offered to buy JM a property as she did not agree with her staying over at JB's. If she found all of this so unpalatable it makes you wonder if she was capable of accepting her adopted children born illegitimate!
Perhaps she believed that if they could be 'cured' of it if went to church regularly, confessed their heinous sin and repented. God would then forgive them and so, too, could she?
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Perhaps she believed that if they could be 'cured' of it if went to church regularly, confessed their heinous sin and repented. God would then forgive them and so, too, could she?
I wonder if June did run with 'bad blood' hence her 'encouraging' the twins to pray with her at every opportunity.
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I wonder if June did run with 'bad blood' hence her 'encouraging' the twins to pray with her at every opportunity.
It was very common, not just amongst the more religious. Illegitimacy carried as much of a social stigma as a religious one.
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It seems that the 'old boy' network played some part in Sheila's adoption. Her birth mother was sent away from her family and lived and worked in Bath until the child was born. After two weeks she gave her into the care of the Church of England Children's Society and Sheila was sent to the Holy Infant's Sunnyside Nursery in Box, Wiltshire, where she remained for two and a half months. The decision to place her with the Bambers was taken by her grandfather, who had known Nevill Bamber in the war and was aware that they were looking to adopt.
Carol Ann Lee's book page 21.
http://www.hiddenlives.org.uk/homes/BOX01.html
http://www.hiddenlives.org.uk/cgi-bin/displayrec.pl?searchtext=sunnyside&record=/homes/BOX01_1.html
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Was it perhaps because Sheila's natural grandfather was within the Church that he was given the opportunity to choose who adopted her? It was by no means normal practice at the time. The normal procedure was to keep the identity of the adopters secret in case the mother contacted them. Presumeably Canon Eric Jay didn't tell his daughter who he had chosen as her child's new parents. Shortly after he emigrated to Canada with his family and there they stayed.
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Was it perhaps because Sheila's natural grandfather was within the Church that he was given the opportunity to choose who adopted her? It was by no means normal practice at the time. The normal procedure was to keep the identity of the adopters secret in case the mother contacted them. Presumeably Canon Eric Jay didn't tell his daughter who he had chosen as her child's new parents. Shortly after he emigrated to Canada with his family and there they stayed.
Does it not seem strange that Canon Jay would recommend, as a prospective parent, someone he'd known during the war some 12 years earlier? What seems more likely is that a relative, being vicar in residence very close to where the Bambers lived, was more than aware of their desire to adopt, and when Christine became pregnant was able to manipulate the situation in their favour.
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Was it perhaps because Sheila's natural grandfather was within the Church that he was given the opportunity to choose who adopted her? It was by no means normal practice at the time. The normal procedure was to keep the identity of the adopters secret in case the mother contacted them. Presumeably Canon Eric Jay didn't tell his daughter who he had chosen as her child's new parents. Shortly after he emigrated to Canada with his family and there they stayed.
I have always thought this strange because as you said adoptions from that era were rooted in secrecy and Afaik all identifying info withheld from both parties.
Official records show SC's birth father as a married dry cleaner. A book by Claire Powell has SC telling friends her birth parents met as students. I've also read, but can't recall where now, that he was a curator which could be connected to a museum or more likely the church! Maybe the birth father was some underling to Eric Jay.
I thinks it's remarkable that only a few weeks after SC was reunited with her birth mother she was found dead and initially all concerned in a professional capacity, excl DS Jones, thought SC had taken her own life.
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Does it not seem strange that Canon Jay would recommend, as a prospective parent, someone he'd known during the war some 12 years earlier? What seems more likely is that a relative, being vicar in residence very close to where the Bambers lived, was more than aware of their desire to adopt, and when Christine became pregnant was able to manipulate the situation in their favour.
Who was his relative?
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Who was his relative?
His brother, Peter Jay.
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His brother, Peter Jay.
A Peter Jay was Eric Jay's son and a poet. Did EJ have a brother PJ who was a local vicar?
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A Peter Jay was Eric Jay's son and a poet. Did EJ have a brother PJ who was a local vicar?
Peter Jay was vicar at St Luke's in Tiptree. I believe he corresponded with Sheila, possibly around the time Sheila and Christine met? I understood him to be Sheila's uncle.
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Peter Jay was vicar at St Luke's in Tiptree. I believe he corresponded with Sheila, possibly around the time Sheila and Christine met? I understood him to be Sheila's uncle.
If he was Sheila's uncle then he was Christine's brother not Eric's son. I haven't heard of him having a formal role in the church. Afaik he was/is an Oxford educated poet who run his own publishing firm.
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Peter Jay was vicar at St Luke's in Tiptree. I believe he corresponded with Sheila, possibly around the time Sheila and Christine met? I understood him to be Sheila's uncle.
I know her natural mother had a brother Peter, but he wasn't a vicar when Sheila was born and adopted he was living with his parents, I think. He learned of the birth and adoption from his mother in 1978 I believe.
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If he was Sheila's uncle then he was Christine's brother not Eric's son. I haven't heard of him having a formal role in the church. Afaik he was/is an Oxford educated poet who run his own publishing firm.
My information is that this person was vicar of St Luke's in Tiptree and that letters from him were found amongst Sheila's effects. Might he have been Sheila's mother's brother? In which case his name wouldn't have been Jay. It raises questions, such as how would the Bambers have felt about having one of her biological relatives living so close? How might they have felt about them corresponding? Next time I'm in Tiptree, I'll go into St Lukes. It may have a list of previous vicars.
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If he was Sheila's uncle then he was Christine's brother not Eric's son. I haven't heard of him having a formal role in the church. Afaik he was/is an Oxford educated poet who run his own publishing firm.
Eric was father to both Christine and Peter. Peter was a publisher, at least that is what it stated on one of his statements. I think he was the founder of Anvil Press - they do (or did) publish poetry.
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There's very little information about how people were screened and accepted as adopters. Obviously religion was an important consideration because most adoptions were organised by religious organisations. In the years up to the 1970s the unmarried mother was seen as a sinner, a fallen woman. It was important to make sure that her child was brought up in a household where it would learn right from wrong, which meant a religious household.
There were circumstances where a baby might be rejected for adoption. These included disabled and mixed race children and those whose mothers had mental health issues. Only 'perfect' children were elligible.
It's not possible to discover what criteria (apart from religion) were used to choose parents for these children. There were medicals and references were sought, I believe, but how much weight was given to them isn't known. I was adopted by a man with serious heart problems, but I don't know if that could be diagnosed easily in the 1940's. All I know is he only lasted two years after the adoption. The Bamber children were given to a woman with mental problems but we don't know why.
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There's very little information about how people were screened and accepted as adopters. Obviously religion was an important consideration because most adoptions were organised by religious organisations. In the years up to the 1970s the unmarried mother was seen as a sinner, a fallen woman. It was important to make sure that her child was brought up in a household where it would learn right from wrong, which meant a religious household.
There were circumstances where a baby might be rejected for adoption. These included disabled and mixed race children and those whose mothers had mental health issues. Only 'perfect' children were elligible.
It's not possible to discover what criteria (apart from religion) were used to choose parents for these children. There were medicals and references were sought, I believe, but how much weight was given to them isn't known. I was adopted by a man with serious heart problems, but I don't know if that could be diagnosed easily in the 1940's. All I know is he only lasted two years after the adoption. The Bamber children were given to a woman with mental problems but we don't know why.
My adoption was arranged by the East Anglian Adoption Society in Cambridge. I don't think it was affiliated with any religion or church.
My birth mother said she had no interest in religion and the adopters could be Buddhist for all she cared! My adoptive father has always been an atheist and my adoptive mother agnostic.
My file shows various questions asked of my birth mother eg family history of physical and mental health and alcoholism. There's also a letter from her GP and various references but Interestingly now you've mentioned it there wasn't anything for my adoptive parents.
There seemed to be a lot of emphasis on 'matching' by way of physical appearance: height, weight, hair and eye colour. I've always thought the way these adoptions were arranged as on par with Nazism! Luckily I was described as a fine child but what if I had been unfine? I wonder what happened to any of the Thalomide babies put up for adoption?
I once had a boyfriend who was adopted and his adoptive father died in a car accident when he was 2 yoa.
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My adoption was arranged by the East Anglian Adoption Society in Cambridge. I don't think it was affiliated with any religion or church.
My birth mother said she had no interest in religion and the adopters could be Buddhist for all she cared! My adoptive father has always been an atheist and my adoptive mother agnostic.
My file shows various questions asked of my birth mother eg family history of physical and mental health and alcoholism. There's also a letter from her GP and various references but Interestingly now you've mentioned it there wasn't anything for my adoptive parents.
There seemed to be a lot of emphasis on 'matching' by way of physical appearance: height, weight, hair and eye colour. I've always thought the way these adoptions were arranged as on par with Nazism! Luckily I was described as a fine child but what if I had been unfine? I wonder what happened to any of the Thalomide babies put up for adoption?
I once had a boyfriend who was adopted and his adoptive father died in a car accident when he was 2 yoa.
Mine was arranged by the, now defunct, National Adoption Society. It had no religious affiliation. My file carries the same background questionnaire as, I imagine, does your own. I was also subjected to the same medical overhaul as were all other babies, or perhaps it was only those who were going to be adopted who were required to be clear of STD's? There was no letter from a family doctor, but there were other letters of character reference.
The woman who adopted me used a tubercular shoulder as a reason for adopting. Whilst it may not be seen as sufficient reason now, it was at a time when there were more babies to adopt than there were homes for them to be placed in. Certainly there were many, MANY women who were allowed to adopt who should NEVER have had children.
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My adoption seems to have been organised by the Local Authority. I wasn't able to find any files.
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My adoption seems to have been organised by the Local Authority. I wasn't able to find any files.
As the National Adoption Society (office Baker Street, London) had ceased to function, my files were held by Brentford Council. You need to approach which ever Council was responsible for arranging your adoption and they will arrange for a social worker to handle the case. I feel sure your files can be located. It's your legal right to know what's in them.
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Crikey! Does being adopted give you more of an interest in this case than if you weren’t adopted? Every adopted male person I have ever known (at least 4 of them) were gay. I wonder if that’s coincidental or not...
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As the National Adoption Society (office Baker Street, London) had ceased to function, my files were held by Brentford Council. You need to approach which ever Council was responsible for arranging your adoption and they will arrange for a social worker to handle the case. I feel sure your files can be located. It's your legal right to know what's in them.
I did it all by the book; social worker, counselling etc. I was told they couldn't find them. My birth mother wasn't a young single girl, she was a married woman with two daughters. Her husband only agreed to reunite if I went, which is why I was two years old when adopted.