To think Jeremy Bamber might be innocent

[KimberleyClark]

Or that at the very least his conviction wasn’t safe and there needs to be a retrial? Ihe was convicted in 1985 of murdering his adoptive parents, sister and her twin sons at his parents’ farmhouse. It was at first deemed to be murder-suicide by the sister, Sheila Caffell, who was a diagnosed schizophrenic. Bamber had been on full life tarriff ever since and still protesting his innocence. I always assumed he was guilty until I listened to a podcast called Blood Family. There was a lot of evidence the jury didn’t hear, it seems the police mucked up the crime scene, his cousins had a financial motive for framing him and a police officer in the control room apparently took a 999 nonspeaking call from the farmhouse while Bamber was outside with the police, which would indicate someone was still alive at that point.

He wasn't a master criminal he was a screw up, thats why he was caught.
His lies were all unravelling which is why he was so desperate for money and came up with his horrific plan to murder his parents, 6 year old twin nephews and sister who he intended to blame for his crimes.
The fact that he made silly mistakes and didn't get away with it doesn't prove hes innocent it just proves that like all convicted criminals he isn't as clever as he thought he was and/or that the police weren't as dumb as he assumed.

Remember Hanlons razar
Never attribute malice to that which is adequately explained by stupidity

Motive it always comes down to motive. It really could only have been him or the sister and it was proved that the sister could not have done it.

If he didn’t do it, who else wanted all of them dead?

I’m sure Mumsnetters will be able to get to the bottom of this situation and will be able to deliver the guilty party to the Authorities. How lucky we are to have them.

You could have a mobile phone in 1985, my sister had one in 1984 and they weren’t new then. They were ungainly and required a battery the size of a small shoulder bag though.

The profile for family anhilaters did not exist when JB was convicted it came about from studying men like JB who had been convicted of these crimes and drawing up the profile from all the commenalities that they have and like all of them before and since he fits the pattern and its a male crime.

I was always puzzled as to why he wa convicted when there was little forensic evidence (just his fingerprints on the rifle which he said was because he’d been shooting rabbits the day before the murders). I doubt he would have been convicted without the evidence from his girlfriend, who may have lied. And why would he put the silencer with blood on it back in the cupboard?

I read that the police records do show two different phone calls. The police have apparently said the call handler made a mistake and it was only one. Is that not true? I’m really on the fence. I think it’s odd that there’s no technical evidence, surely he’d have had blood on him or his clothes? And then there was something about when he was outside the house with the police the police said they saw someone moving inside the house?

Absol not. He’s guilty.

The extended family’s behaviour was very odd though. And I can’t imagine why they were so keen to move into the house.

He's guilty and the evidence against him was convincing. Of course he's still protesting his innocence - that doesn't mean he's not guilty!

I remember this well and always had my doubts about his guilt. There were an awful lot of police errors made at the crime scene.

I have always, always thought that he is innocent. Right from the very beginning. I have read about it and the more I read the more uneasy I have become.

I think the experts concluded that Sheila couldn't have have shot herself because the rifle was too long for her to reach the trigger, judging by the position her body was found

From what I can recall ,this case has been reexamined a number of times and each time the same conclusion is announced,it was not an unsafe conviction. I believe he is guilty because he kept changing his story. If you are innocent, you explain the details of your alibi and stick to it. The police have to have sufficient evidence to make a charge. Can't quite remember when CPS was invented ,but there was enough evidence to charge him, put before a jury and they convicted him. To me the fact that the gun that Sheila was supposed to have used to kill herself has too long a barrel means I am satisfied that a guilty man is in prison.

Yes I agree. Sheila could not have shot herself with that gun because the barrel was too long for her to have pulled the trigger or something like that. Bamber got that wrong and once that fact is established, the restbof the case against Sheila falls apart.

I read up about this a while ago expecting to see some definitive evidence that would put him in the clear but it doesn't seem to exist. You would think that DNA testing would do it but I guess that the police have no reason to reopen the case.

Yep, mainly circumstantial evidence and there wasn’t much of that.

His cousin reckoned he did the murders wearing a wetsuit, then escaped through a small kitchen window.

So did the King and many, many other influential people, in fact everyone it seems!

I've always thought theres a possibility he's innocent. And as we should go by innocent unless beyond reasonable doubt, i feel he should at best be given a retrial. This could be the biggest injustice and wrongful imprisonment of the last century.

I was 28 when the Bamber murders happened and I've followed the case on and off ever since. I have listened carefully to both sides of the argument/evidence from different sources over the years. I believe the Police handled it poorly (I don't think anyone particularly refutes that) but I still believe that Jeremy Bamber is guilty.

Have you read or listened to the New Yorker investigation? What do you think about the repeated psychological assessments that find no evidence of psychopathy? Or the evidence from police officers that things were moved at the scene when they initially concluded it was a murder/suicide, or of the 999 call from inside the when JB was with police?

I didn’t know a huge amount of the detail but that investigation prompted me to look into it more and I think there is at least enough doubt for him to be acquitted at a retrial.

I always thought it was odd that Bamber’s cousin moved very quickly into the farmhouse and kept it exactly as it was. Who would want to live in a house where so many of their close family were murdered? Nowt s o queer as folk.

She even kept the bloody nightdress Sheila died in!

They initially concluded she’d done it herself but when a silencer was found with her bloody type on, inside a cupboard, found by the cousins, they began to investigate as murder. If the silencer was on the rifle would have been too long. However one of the cousins had the same blood type, and modern DNA testing can’t find any of Sheila’s DNA on the silencer, even though other evidence is still there.

ETA: highly recommend reading Did the U.K.’s Most Infamous Family Massacre End in a Wrongful Conviction? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/08/05/did-the-uks-most-infamous-family-massacre-end-in-a-wrongful-conviction