It's interesting that the most basic phone was 'off the hook' and last number redial / recall obviously wasn't possible.
In addition, this usually resided elsewhere. That's an awful lot of trouble to go to to ensure the last number couldn't be re-dialled.
Well, let me explain it to you in simple terms so you understand.
There would be two reasons why Jeremy Bamber moved the rotary phone from the bedroom into the kitchen; remember, although he wasn’t a bright psychopath, he wasn’t completely stupid.
The first reason is that he expected to shoot Nevill and June dead in their bed as they lay sleeping.
Mistake number one for him: plans go awry
As Nevill was able to reach the kitchen it should have occurred to the police (had Taff not been thick and dismissed officers concerns) that as Nevill must have attempted to call for help, that meant he had no access to a bedside telephone. They knew he wasn’t shot in the bedroom, so Jeremy had to think up a reason why Nevill didn’t use his bedroom phone, and tried to reach the one in the kitchen instead.
So Jeremy simply moved the bedroom phone into the kitchen, where Nevill was found dead. Jeremy wasn’t expecting to kill Nevill in the kitchen, and he could hardly drag his dead body upstairs, could he?
Does that register with you?
The second reason Jeremy hid the kitchen Statesman phone amongst a pile of magazines was that it wouldn’t be found. Think about it, General, why would anyone in that household hide that phone? That phone which was in perfect working order, as was proven — why would anyone wrap the long wire round it and hide it? Do you hide your working phones amongst piles of magazines, Hmm? Keep thinking...
And the other reason Jeremy hid that phone was that he murdered his family earlier than 3am. He probably murdered them any time between 1am and 2am. So when his “perfect murder plan” went all wrong, he had to use the phone that didn’t store the “last number redial” in case engineers examined it and detected the exact time the phone call to Goldhanger was made.
Jeremy did call his home number from WHF; allowed his answer phone to connect to the call; waited about 10 seconds; then clicked the cradle buttons down, allowed them to release, and left the receiver by the cradle.
It’s very, very simple.
