Serial killer Jeremy Bamber launches high court challenge.

[John]

By Charles Hymas
Published 8 December 2019


Lawyers for Jeremy Bamber have launched a high court challenge to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in an attempt to force it to disclose evidence they claim could undermine the safety of his conviction for murdering his family.

Bamber is serving a whole life sentence for for killing his adoptive parents, sister and her six-year-old twin boys in 1985.

His lawyers claim the CPS has refused to follow directions made by the court of appeal in 2002 to disclose the material that could challenge his conviction.

It also accuses the CPS of rejecting a report by an eminent ballistics expert appointed by Bamber, without instructing its own expert to challenge the claims.

Nevill and June Bamber were shot and killed inside their Essex farmhouse, along with their adoptive daughter, Sheila Caffell, and Sheila’s six-year-old twin sons, Daniel and Nicholas Caffell.

Bamber, then 24, had phoned the police to say Nevill had phoned him, saying his sister, Sheila, had “gone crazy and has the gun”.

Initially, police believed that Sheila, diagnosed with schizophrenia, had fired the shots then turned the gun on herself.

However, the discovery in a cupboard in the farmhouse of a silencer said to contain the blood of Sheila cast doubt on his claims because it would have made the gun too long for her to kill herself.

New reports however have emerged suggesting that forensic scientists believed the blood on the silencer could have come from Sheila or another relative - and that there may have been a second silencer also with blood from the tow.

The CPS has, however, dismissed his findings, although the lawyers says this had been done without employing its own expert to study the evidence, as is the protocol.

Speaking from Wakefield prison, Bamber said his requests for disclosure had been ignored for almost 35 years, despite court orders issued in 2002 during his only full appeal that directed complete disclosure to be made.

“We are now in a position to show exactly what has been withheld, which amounts to thousands of key files and documents pertaining to, not just the forensic examination of two silencers, but also to my innocence. This repeated non–disclosure means that the truth remains unknown, as the evidence that gives my case clarity still remains hidden,” he said.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/12/08/serial-killer-jeremy-bamber-launches-high-court-challenge-blood/

[John]

Jeremy Bamber High Court bid to disclose vital evidence.

Published 18 December 2019

A CONVICTED killer has launched a High Court challenge for the disclosure of evidence which he believes will see his conviction overturned.



Jeremy Bamber was jailed in 1986 for the murders of his parents Nevill and June, his sister Sheila Caffell and her six-year-old twin sons, Nicholas and Daniel, at White House Farm in Tolleshunt D’Arcy. He has always protested his innocence.

Now lawyers working on his behalf have made an appeal to the High Court claiming the Crown Prosecution Service has failed to follow directions to disclose material showing two gun silencers were taken from the farm, not one.

Bamber contests evidence from the two silencers was also contaminated and presented to the jury at his trial as coming from one silencer.

He says Sheila, who had mental health problems, killed the family before turning the gun on herself.



The prosecution in the 1986 trial argued it could not have been Sheila because she could not have killed herself while the sound moderator was on the gun because her arms were simply too short to have reached the trigger.

The trial judge Justice Drake, in his summing up, told the jury: “On the evidence of the silencer alone you may find Mr Bamber guilty.”

But Bamber claims a letter sent from a forensic expert said blood found on the silencers, which was presented as definitely being from Sheila, was also a match for his late uncle Robert Boutflour. This was not disclosed to the defence, he says.



Speaking to the Gazette from Wakefield high security prison, where he is serving a whole life tariff, Bamber said: “Take away the silencer and there is nothing.

“I am excited, I believe this is the beginning of the end.

“The Crown will be forced to admit there were two silencers. They can’t continue with my conviction.”

He added: “There were two silencers taken from White House Farm and it was presented to the jury as though there was one. We are asking for the disclosure of evidence which proves there were two silencers taken.”

Bamber has had two appeals thrown out and a bid for a third turned down in 2012.

A dramatisation based on the murders is set to be screened on ITV next month.

A spokesman for Essex Police said: “Bamber’s conviction has been the subject of several appeals and reviews by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. There has never been anything to suggest that he was wrongly convicted.”

https://www.clactonandfrintongazette.co.uk/news/north_essex_news/18107288.jeremy-bamber-high-court-bid-disclose-vital-evidence/

[John]

Published 22 December 2019

'No substance' to Bamber case claims, says QC.

Serious allegations of impropriety, dishonesty and conspiracy against police involved in the Jeremy Bamber case had "no substance whatever" to back them up, the Court of Appeal heard today.

Victor Temple QC, for the Crown, told three judges hearing Bamber's appeal against conviction for the murders of five members of his adoptive family, that once the court looked closely at the allegations "the entire edifice crumbles to nothing".

Bamber, now 41, who is serving life for the murders at White House Farm, Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex, in August 1985, is urging the judges to overturn his convictions as "unsafe".

He claims that the case against him was built on a series of "deceits" by police and that certain evidence was withheld in order to unfairly bolster the prosecution case.

Mr Temple, rejecting the allegations on the 11th day of the hearing before Lord Justice Kay, Mr Justice Wright and Mr Justice Henriques in London, said that Bamber's counsel, Michael Turner QC "was seeking to swim in an empty sea".

He said that Mr Turner was seeking to base "very serious allegations of impropriety, dishonesty and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice" on no more than slack paperwork, double hearsay and strained constructions on documentary evidence.

Mr Temple added: "There is no substance whatever to back these allegations up."

Bamber, who is present in the dock for the hearing, regularly passed notes to his legal team.

He was convicted at Chelmsford Crown Court in October 1986 but has always maintained his innocence.

The court has heard how his mother June, 61, and six-year-old nephews Nicholas and Daniel were shot dead in their beds at their farmhouse home.

His father Nevill, 61, was found slumped downstairs, while his sister Sheila Caffell, 27, a model nicknamed Bambi, was found by her parents' bed.

Detectives initially suspected that Sheila, who suffered from mild schizophrenia and who had not been taking her medication, had murdered her parents and sons before turning the gun on herself.

They arrested Bamber, who stood to inherit almost £500,000 from his parents' death, nine weeks later when he returned from a holiday in France.

His first appeal attempt was rejected in 1989.

The hearing was adjourned until tomorrow when Mr Turner and Mr Temple will make their final submissions to the court.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-145437/No-substance-Bamber-case-claims-says-QC.html

[Angelo222]

It's the same old garbage rolled out to keep Bamber in the public eye but it will make no difference in the end as he is as guilty as sin imo.

[Miss Taken Identity]

It's the same old garbage rolled out to keep Bamber in the public eye but it will make no difference in the end as he is as guilty as sin imo.

I could't claim to be an expert on this case. But if the silencer is THE evidence it would not matter who's blood was found- as no on heard the shots in the house!. So it could be assumed a silencer was indeed used. If Sheila shot herself who removed the silencer?  How could someone rampage about a house firing off shots without waking the children and others in the building.

[adam]

Bamber is optimistic.

He is the only alive suspect due to his phone call to the police. He had several motives, no alibi & an opportunity. There is also Julie Mugford, who would never dare perjure herself so seriously.

Then there is the mountain of forensic evidence.