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

859 replies

Dogleg · 30/12/2019 21:04

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/

OP posts:
AlexaAmbidextra · 29/01/2020 23:30

At the risk of entering conspiracy theory territory, the senior investigating officer who was taken off the case apparently died in an accident before the trial and so they couldn't use his evidence. I can't find any info on the net about that. Was he alone or were there witnesses to the accident?

I don’t think there’s any conspiracy. He was doing some work on the exterior of his house and he fell off the ladder. No doubt some of his colleagues didn’t feel too sad though.

AlexaAmbidextra · 29/01/2020 23:34

Regarding the Express article on Taff Jones, I knew one of the investigating officers in this case very well and spoke with him a lot about it. I think Taff Jones is being portrayed as extremely unpleasant and abusive. As far as I’m aware although he was stubborn in his refusal to hear any other point of view he wasn’t the nasty bully that he’s being made out to be.

AdoptedBumpkin · 29/01/2020 23:58

I don't agree with making up characters. What's the point?

DuckWillow · 30/01/2020 06:50

I agree Alexa, I wouldn’t be happy if he was my family member. I think they’ve portrayed him badly with all the stubbornness and refusal to see another possible answer. In fact they’ve made him one dimensional when in fact it will have been a tiny part of his character,

Apple I have read extensively about the case and there’s multiple reasons Sheila could not have committed suicide.

The biggest piece of evidence against Jeremy was that HE set up the narrative about what had happened.
Ballistics experts say that Neville was shot four times before the final four shots which killed him. He could not have made the phone call Jeremy said he did as the first injuries would have rendered him unable to speak.

Once you consider than then you have to consider why Jeremy is lying about the call. Ironically if he had just gone home and gone to bed and not made the calls he did to Julie and the police he’d likely have been in a better position to deny all knowledge,

Essex Police handled the initial investigation very badly and in a totally different way to how it would be handled today,

For anyone interested there is a website called Miscarriage of Justice which has an extensive forum on Jeremy Bamber. There are some very knowledgeable people there who discuss the ballistics evidence etc at length. It’s well worth a read and the best thing about it is not everyone says he is guilty and not everyone thinks he is innocent. Sensible and civil discussions are had by all though.

CanIHaveATiaraPlease · 30/01/2020 07:09

I read that he was eventually taken off the case for operational reasons. I wonder how accurate his portrayal actually is?

AppleJane · 30/01/2020 08:38

@DuckWillow thank you for being up for a civil debate Smile

I understand that the prosecution would need to destroy the strongest evidence against them, the phone call. Again, for me, I'm looking for something solid. Experts can give their opinion about how they 'think' a situation evolved but it's still too close to feelings over facts for me. It contributes but can it be the main star piece of evidence?

Let's go back to basics. A crime scene with lots of blood and lots of movement. Did the police find any footprints, shoe prints, palm prints, fingerprints of anyone who could be the shooter? Or did the police trample over all of the scene making it impossible to distinguish their own presence from anyone else's?

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 30/01/2020 08:55

Duckwillow (and BoF and anyone else who knows), are you able to explain to me how we know Nevill couldn't have made the phone call to Jeremy before the shooting started?
I quite see he couldn't have done once he was shot, plus there was no blood on the phone, but what makes us certain he physically couldn't have come downstairs and made the call before things escalated to that stage?

SouthWestmom · 30/01/2020 09:09

The upstairs phone was taken downstairs from the bedroom before the shootings.
The police decided the mouth shot was upstairs before the body shots downstairs

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 30/01/2020 10:12

But that doesn't explain why he couldn't have made the call then gone back upstairs.

LordOfTheWhys · 30/01/2020 10:20

Countess that was one of my questions at first too.
But after JB called the police, they asked for the line to be monitored. The phone line was open and a BT operator was listening in for any noises. They didn't hear any shots or fights which they would have done if the fight with Neville took place after the call since chairs were knocked over, the light broken, two shots fired, etc.

SouthWestmom · 30/01/2020 10:44

He was found by the phone covered in blood and with the phone off the hook

LordOfTheWhys · 30/01/2020 11:41

Apple perhaps you should read one of the books. They answer a lot of your questions about fingerprints, handprints, blood smears. Plus they use original documents and interviews so you can decide which arguments are compelling.

CanIHaveATiaraPlease · 30/01/2020 12:21

Does anyone know which characters have been made up? Or are some representatives of say investigators or mourners?

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 30/01/2020 13:11

Thanks, LordOfTheWhys.
So they must have got someone listening in to the line very quickly indeed.
I had always assumed it was something they got round to a bit later but not sure why I thought that.

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 30/01/2020 13:18

CanIHaveATiaraPlease, I know they changed Sheila's boyfriend/friend from Freddie to Frankie, but not sure why.

AppleJane · 30/01/2020 14:01

LordOfTheWhys I have looked at the books on Amazon but all of them seem to have a bias one way or the other (understandably so in some cases) I would be interested in just accessing an unbiased list of all the evidence presented at court. Perhaps I will have to visit miscarriage of justice websites as DuckWillow suggested but I don't want to disappear down the rabbit hole!

LordOfTheWhys · 30/01/2020 14:03

Countess according to the police log (according to the CA book!) it was only about five to ten mins from JB's call to the police to them contacting BT, asking them to check and listen in on the line. BT heard the dog but nothing else.

To the PP who recommended the miscarriage of justice forum. I decided to check it and then found references to the blue forum where someone is claiming they spoke to JB in prison and JB admitted he'd killed his parents and the twins but not Sheila! backs slowly away from the blue forum and all the conspiracy theories

Oulu · 30/01/2020 14:07

He appealed to the ECHR about the unfairness of the whole life tariff and they said it did breach his human rights

Not quite. The EHCR decision was based on the perception that there was no chance whatsoever of release. The case was then remitted to the Court of Appeal to reconsider based on that, but they decided that whole life sentences in the UK aren't in breach because there are defined circumstances when people may be released.

LordOfTheWhys · 30/01/2020 15:44

Apple you could read one of each and come to your own conclusions.

Oulu · 30/01/2020 16:43

the problem I have with books is that inevitably you work your way through them and soon realise the author is biased.

I don't think that's really the case with the CAL one, though, because it is very carefully researched - so what she says is backed up by facts. I think you have to put a lot of weight on Colin Caffell's views, too, not least because he was so central to events at the time, and because it's not as if he showed bias against Bamber from the start - definitely the reverse, in fact.

I agree it's not great that the cousins found the evidence, not least because it results from the crap job that the police did. But I don't see that that conceivably means that the evidence must be discounted.

Oulu · 30/01/2020 16:50

Re the selling of stuff from his parents' house, he has said he needed money urgently to pay for the funerals and to pay workers on the farm, but I don't think anyone has disputed the facts of what he did.

That is one of the least convincing excuses he has come up with. Funeral costs would normally be paid out of the estate and the bills just go to the solicitors dealing with probate, and I'm sure they could also have arranged to pay workers. I wonder whether he actually asked the executors for permission to sell things? They weren't his to dispose of till probate had gone through. I suspect, too, that Sheila hadn't made a will, which would have complicated matters.

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 30/01/2020 17:06

I am about a quarter of the way through the CAL book and it is very well footnoted and so far seems even handed - she is definitely not setting you up to think it's one or the other of them, at least at this stage.

LordOfTheWhys · 30/01/2020 18:10

I wonder whether he actually asked the executors for permission to sell things?
I think the executor said that JB originally told him that he wanted to get items valued so the insurance on the house and its contents could be updated.

BitOfFun · 30/01/2020 18:51

frillyfarmer, I don't think Jeremy's brazen behaviour has been exaggerated at all: all of the incidents shown have been described by witnesses, and are included in the CAL book.