White House Farm - The Bamber Murders. Jan 8th ITV 9pm

[Dogleg]

Is anyone else planning to watch this six part series? I vaguely remembered the killings and on seeing this advertised have now lost hours to reading up about it online and have also downloaded a book about the case. I’m really looking forward to this one!

www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2019-12-25/itv-drama-white-house-farm/

I have been doing some reading up in recent days. I was always a bit dubious about the conviction as there seemed to be so many holes in it and was surprised it was beyond reasonable doubt. I am leaning towards the fact now that forensics say that Sheila COULD NOT have done it, and hence as Jeremy's phone call was the thing that put her in the frame, he must be lying. I do think the programme is doing a good job of showing all the different family dynamics to date.

I've just noticed that the actress playing Julie Mugford is also in Silent Witness this week. It was the sad face that done it.

I'm just watching it now on itv hub

Surely Ann was just really close to Sheila's mum and dad? And that's why she said about the ring

It said earlier they were like a 2nd mum and dad to her

I remember a documentary years ago that said Job was experienced with a shotgun. Also at the funeral, he was heard to be loudly discussing his hew suit, saying 'it's Hugo Boss, I'm the boss niw'. Hardly the grieving relative. He was also noted to pretend to cry, "but when he raised his head there were no tears".

@TheresWaldo I noticed that too.

JB tried to sell nude photos of his late sister to the tabloids

'Why would Sheila have done it and not inherited because she's dead ? Would she have done it to ensure JB got everything ? Nope.

The only gain out of this, of course, was JB. So he had the motivation to murder. He was bragging about what he was to gain i.e. the caravan site is about to buy me a sports car. Or words to that effect.'

Nobody has ever suggested a rational / greed motive for Sheila - if she did it the only possible explanation can be psychosis. She loved her sons and had a good relationship with her father and would have had to be a long way divorced from reality to kill them.

Re the sports car, I believe JB on this one: he says he was talking about a kit car, not an actual Porsche, which he could have bought out of the next payment he was due as a director / shareholder of the caravan site. The kit car company has confirmed he had been in touch earlier, but he didn't know it was going to be brought up in court so didn't have a chance to get the statement.

As far as I can see there was a fair bit of stuff said in court which was wrong, or dubious constructions put on innocent things. If Bamber was guilty, but he knew some of the prosecution's claims could be disproved, it makes sense that he would have consistently claimed his innocence and been confident that sooner or later he would win an appeal.

Assuming JB is guilty (since the courts have consistently found him so and they have all the evidence) it's ironic that his attempt to frame Sheila by fabricating the phone call, actually worked against him. If he hadn't mentioned the phone call, it would have rested on his gf's statement and I'm not sure that would have been enough to convict him.

Essex police didn’t really cover themselves in glory did they?

Essex Police made dreadful errors and this meant JB nearly got away with it.

The thing is if he had just left everything and not made the calls to police he would have had a much better chance of getting away with it,. As it was he set up a narrative that it had to be Sheila and as soon as it was established that Sheila could not have done it he was automatically the focus.

I wish I hadn't started watching this. Please God the boys didn't feel anything.

gower4 at least one of the boys was found still sucking his thumb. The opinion was that the boys knew nothing.

I've never worked out what happened with the magazines from the rifle, and whether there were fingerprints on them. I understand that the bullets were all found, but I've never heard anything about the ammunititon clips they were housed in, other that that they had to be loaded manually and it was quite difficult to get the last two in.

All the reports state that the boys were killed quickly and cleanly and never even woke up.

The twins would be 40 if they were still alive now.

TheSmall I couldn't work that out either. They mentioned bullets and magazines and cartridges but I don't know if they were using them interchangeably (because the police seemed to mess up terms throughout eg in reference to the silencer). I've actually bought the book on the case because I was finding it so difficult to keep track.

Various sources also mention a telescopic sight which was normally kept attached to the rifle. Was it found?

If Sheila had killed everyone during a psychotic episode, why would she have bothered to remove the sight first?

For anyone wanting to read more details then Carol Ann Duffy's book White House Farm is excellent and well researched.

By the way do people here know that when Jeremy Bamber writes to people he does so in capital letters? Very defensive and hidden.

Personally rather than fighting his conviction he'd do better fighting the whole life tariff thing. He's done the original 25 years and then some. He'd stand more chance of getting an eventual release based upon appealing that than the conviction.

Instead he's still protesting his innocence, still demanding Ann Eaton be arrested and still bitter that the rest of the family took his inheritance.

Julie Mugford still stands by her testimony as do others who heard Jeremy say in many occasions how much he hated his family and wished them dead. For them all to be lying would be quite some conspiracy.

Duck that's the book I'm reading just now. It's incredibly well researched. I agree with you that JB is fighting on the wrong grounds. But he's too arrogant and narcissistic to change his position. He'd need to admit his guilt, be rehabilitated and then argue the tariff. Just as he made his own situation worse by fabricating the phone call. He has made his sentence worse by protesting his innocence, failing to take responsibility and rehashing the same facts over and over again whilst claiming they are new.

Book is by Carol Ann Lee, not Carol Ann Duffy - the latter is the ex-Poet Laureate!

I've been watching this from the start. I think Gemma Whelan is excellent. Ann's not meant to be likeable, I assume.

just knew I would make that error GaspOde

Watching the third one. Weird how JB has wet hair in spikes like the photo of the boys.

I don't mind Anne. She was close to them and JB was behaving weirdly.

Who are the two men with Anne? One played PH in the Royals?

Her DH and her DB in one scene. In another scene the family's executor/solicitor is there too.

Thank you, do you know why her mum isn't in it?

Apparently in RL, her mum wasn't at White House Farm as much straight after the murders. Ann's mum tended to watch the GDCs and her own mum, who was frail and who they didn't tell about the murders straight away.