Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Original poster

Was Jeremy Bamber innocent?

152 replies

Yappy12 · 03/12/2019 08:04

Have been interested in this case for years and am uneasy about his 10-2 majority conviction of murdering his parents, sister and 2 nephews. ITV 6 part drama-doc starting 6th Jan. Lots of stuff doesn't add up. He and a cop supposedly saw someone moving about inside hours after everyone was supposedly dead. Was that the sister and did she go crazy and kill them all? Not saying he's innocent but just saying I don't think he was guilty beyond reasonable doubt. There's said to be proof now of the second phone call, from his home at 3.37am. First had been allegedly by his father to him at 3.26 saying the sister had a gun and was going mad. He couldn't have got home, 3.5 miles away, after killing them all in 11 minutes.

OP posts:
Original poster
Yappy12 · 04/12/2019 09:42

Was reading last night on Websleuths that when armed police entered one thought he heard a noise upstairs and in fact shouted "Sheila, armed police officer, make your location known to me now"

OP posts:
BreastedBoobilyToTheStairs · 04/12/2019 12:13

Was reading last night on Websleuths that when armed police entered one thought he heard a noise upstairs and in fact shouted "Sheila, armed police officer, make your location known to me now

If it was her moving around then when they were in the building then they'd have heard the gunshot that killed her. If they didn't hear the gunshot then she was already dead, so I'm not sure how that fits in unless they/you are suggesting a third party's involvement?

ProfessorSlocombe · 04/12/2019 12:21

Taking the phone off the hook wouldn't stop the bedroom extension working, you would need an open line to another number to stop someone calling.

I'd get that 100% checked out with a telecoms expert. My recollection is leaving an extension off hook did stop you being able to dial ... I'm sure I played "find the extension" more than once at a friends house, when the Dad couldn't make a call and it turned out the bedroom phone had been knocked. 1986 is still old enough to have had party lines I think. Not everywhere was SystemX for a start ....

Ataxicbrother · 04/12/2019 13:00

Leaving the phone off the hook would absolutely stop the extensions working (more so if they were corded). It happened frequently to me as a teen in the 80s, so I know from personal experience that saying otherwise is bollox!

sashh · 04/12/2019 13:20

Well the phones we had when I was a kid worked if the extension was off the hook.

If you called someone and they didn't hang up correctly you could not call out but just lifting the receiver didn't do that.

My mum and I used to have joint conversations with her sister, I'd be on one extension and she would be on the other.

It would stop incoming calls but not outgoing.

I also seem to remember if the phone was off the hook for a while you got a warning tone that got souder.

ProfessorSlocombe · 04/12/2019 13:48

I also seem to remember if the phone was off the hook for a while you got a warning tone that got louder.

Ah, now I know we need to be much more careful here. That was only available on SystemX and the rollout was still ongoing well into the late 80s.

But, again, if there was a crucial defence point to be made over the state of the telephone, then I would have expected expert evidence to be provided to the court as to (a) what exactly was being claimed and (b) whether it was technically the case.

Original poster
Yappy12 · 04/12/2019 16:28

I also seem to remember if the phone was off the hook for a while you got a warning tone that got louder.

BT called that the "Clanger". My mum was BT operator.

OP posts:
GrimDamnFanjo · 04/12/2019 16:29

The tv series is based on the book by Carol Ann Lee who is a meticulous researcher and leaves it up to the reader to decide. I think it's called the White House Murders.

Her book about Myra Hindley, One of Your Own, is the best true crime account I've ever read, more of a biography, she is a very talented writer.

AlexaAmbidextra · 04/12/2019 17:33

The tv series is based on the book by Carol Ann Lee who is a meticulous researcher and leaves it up to the reader to decide. I think it's called the White House Murders.

The Carol Ann Lee book was hailed as the definitive piece of work on the Bamber case. Probably by Carol Ann Lee herself! I read it and it was extremely disappointing. It contained nothing that I didn’t already know and espoused the same old theories that had been around for years that supposedly proved JB’s guilt. If the series is based on that then it will just be a rehash of the same old, same old.

GrimDamnFanjo · 04/12/2019 19:16

@AlexaAmbidextra I'll agree to differ with you the. Carol Ann Lee!
the programme is a drama documentary though so I fear you are going to be disappointed...

TheresWaldo · 04/12/2019 19:38

I read that a couple of years ago and she had obviously decided he was guilty up front. He may well be. I read another book which was more dispassionate, or maybe written by one of his supporters, I can't remember. Will try to find a link.

1WayOrAnother · 04/12/2019 19:45

she was a schizophrenic though. Could have snapped
Really? And how much knowledge/experience do you have of mental illness? Clearly none. Its views like this that stigmatize people with mental health problems. Completely unjustified and ignorant.

Original poster
Yappy12 · 04/12/2019 21:01

Erm you're wrong. I've suffered from mental illness all my adult life. Depression, severe mood swings, panic attacks etc.

OP posts:
Original poster
Yappy12 · 04/12/2019 21:03

Don't people with mental illness suddenly snap and push people ff train platforms? There's been a few I believe. Why couldn't she have snapped. As I said before in this thread I'm not sure if he's guilty but think there wasn't enough forensic evidence and there's reasonable doubt. Was a 10-2 verdict so had one more juror not agreed he'd have been freed.

OP posts:
LittleTopic · 04/12/2019 21:08

I’ve followed this case for years too. Not convinced he’s guilty. Wasn’t a large part of his conviction testimony from the ex-girlfriend who later recanted?

@BreastedBoobilyToTheStairs From what I remember, there was a silencer on the gun that killed Sheila and it was said for years that she wouldn’t have been able to pull the trigger herself because of the length. Years later it was said it was possible and that it was possible that Sheila was still alive and shot herself as police were entering. I think...been a while since I read up on it.

Stupiddriver1 · 04/12/2019 21:10

I’ve read the White House Murders. I wasn’t sure about the case prior to reading it but after reading it thought on the balance of probabilities he’s guilty.

DartmoorChef · 04/12/2019 21:22

I remember this when it happened. Ive always had doubts about his guilt. It has always screamed police errors being covered up to me.

doublebarrellednurse · 04/12/2019 21:50

Don't people with mental illness suddenly snap and push people ff train platforms? There's been a few I believe. Why couldn't she have snapped.

I get that the general public might not get this. The media portrays people in a certain way when serious incidents happen and it paints a picture which isn't accurate.

I've worked with people with serious and enduring mental illness for 15 years. Never ever once, despite working in prisons, high medium and low secure services, personality disorder unit and those with various illnesses has anyone just "snapped".

They are not ever ok one day and not the next.

They have declined over a period of time. Every serious case review that I've ever read or been involved in has shown, sometimes with hindsight, that there were warning signs of a decline in mental state. That's why mental health services get so heavily criticised in deaths etc because usually warning signs have been missed.

No one has ever indicated that about Sheila including her HCP team and wider family, neighbours, friends. Most people with hindsight will recognise that something was off even if it was subtle.

doublebarrellednurse · 04/12/2019 21:51

*portrays schizophrenic people

ComisSousDePartie · 04/12/2019 21:54

He did it. And should rot in jail.

The only people who have any doubts about him are the people he’s charmed.

ComisSousDePartie · 04/12/2019 21:58

And Bamber was such a ray of sunshine that he tried to sell kinky photos of his own dead sister to the newspapers, who were so disgusted they called in the police.

Yeahnahyeah1 · 04/12/2019 22:16

And Bamber was such a ray of sunshine that he tried to sell kinky photos of his own dead sister to the newspapers, who were so disgusted they called in the police.
Really?!

BreastedBoobilyToTheStairs · 04/12/2019 22:31

@LittleTopic I hadn't realised that the evidence saying she wouldn't have been able to shoot herself had been successfully contested so that would make it more complicated, but I'd still be surprised if police could be in the same house as a gunshot and not notice unless they were really clattering around and making a lot of noise on entry. Do we know how effective that particular silencer was? Some are pretty impressive, others just take the edge off the noise which would still be clearly identifiable.

Clearly I need to do more reading!

Original poster
Yappy12 · 04/12/2019 23:24

ComisSousDePartie

With respect, where you there when it happened? Only he and 5 dead people know the truth.

OP posts:
ComisSousDePartie · 04/12/2019 23:51

Yeahnyeah1

news.google.com/newspapers?id=cd1AAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6qYMAAAAIBAJ&dq=brett+collins+bamber&pg=5839,6644530&hl=en