Jeremy Bamber has made a fresh plea of innocence, insisting he ‘didn’t murder my family’ after a bombshell investigation into the White House Farm murders released today claimed police lied about evidence and altered witness statements.
The magazine probe also alleged that officers withheld and concealed evidence and tampered with a crime scene after the murders at the farm near Maldon in Essex.
The claims raise serious questions about Bamber’s conviction and provide a boost to his 39-year campaign to prove he is innocent over the events of August 7, 1985.
Bamber – whose case was featured in the 2020 ITV crime drama ‘White House Farm’ – is serving a whole-life tariff for killing his adoptive parents Nevill and June Bamber, both 61, his adoptive sister Sheila Caffell, 28, and her twins Daniel and Nicholas, six.
Bamber has always said he is innocent and that Sheila, a paranoid schizophrenic, carried out the murders before shooting herself at the family’s farm. He is the only whole-life prisoner in the British prison system to maintain his innocence.
Jeremy Bamber is the only whole-life prisoner in the UK jail system to maintain his innocence
Jeremy Bamber was convicted of murdering his adoptive sister Sheila Caffell, 28, and her six-year-old twins Daniel and Nicholas (all pictured)
Bamber was also convicted of murdering his adoptive parents Nevill and June Bamber, both 61
Now a 17,000-word investigation by The New Yorker has highlighted more than a dozen apparent discrepancies in the prosecution’s case – making the claims that:
- The lead crime scene officer picked up a Bible next to Sheila’s body before putting it back before the photos were taken to ‘re-create what we just screwed up’;
- Sheila had been on a three-day shooting trip despite the judge telling the trial jury that there was ‘no evidence at all’ that she ‘was used to loading and firing guns’;
- The botched handling of a gun silencer saw crucial evidence lost and a chance of contamination in the weeks between its discovery and forensic tests;
- The jury could have been misled with evidence conflated from two silencers – one from Bamber’s collection and another recovered at the farm which was identical;
- Mystery over a 999 call after an officer involved in the case claimed he had no knowledge of a statement attributed to him regarding the call in a review in 2002;
- Sheila’s ex-husband Colin Caffell said in a handwritten statement that Bamber was sympathetic because ‘I’d had a rough deal all along, in respect of Sheila’s illness’ – but when typed out this was changed to say Bamber felt ‘he’d‘ been mistreated;
- Only 10 per cent of the millions of pages of evidence held by police was disclosed before the trial – with some of the other sections now part of a new appeal attempt launched in 2021.
Bamber also spoke to the magazine about his fear of dying in prison, saying: ‘I hope I get out, and maybe I can have a little life outside. But sometimes I don’t think that I ever will. They’ll just find ways to obstruct.
‘That doesn’t change my innocence. Just because you kept me in jail for 40 years, it doesn’t make me guilty.’
Bamber, now 63, also said: ‘I’ve been awake in jail a billion seconds. I didn’t murder my family. I promise you.’
The publication tracked down officers who were present in the aftermath of the murders and who appear to have substantiated Bamber’s claim that police tampered with the crime scene to effectively frame him.
The investigation also raises questions about the beleaguered Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which Bamber’s legal team says has failed to act on submissions that would exonerate him.
The Bamber farmhouse, White House Farm, at Tolleshunt D’Arcy near Maldon in Essex
The report states this since Bamber’s latest application was filed in 2021, the CCRC has only reviewed three of the nine ground for appeal – meaning that at this pace, it could be another six years until this review is completed.
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has called for the resignation of Helen Pitcher, chairman of the CCRC, over the case of Andrew Malkinson, who spent 17 years in jail for a rape he did not commit.
An investigation into the CCRC’s role by Chris Henley KC found it had missed several opportunities to refer the case to appeal.
Malkinson, who was released only as a result of forensic tests by campaigners, said on proving his innocence: ‘I’m not the only one.’
The New Yorker, which has also raised questions about the safety of nurse Lucy Letby’s conviction for murdering seven babies, has been investigating the Bamber case since last October.
It has focused on claims that Essex Police lied about evidence, altered witness statements, passed evidence to a third party, withheld and concealed evidence and tampered with a crime scene.
Mark Addy, Freddie Fox and Stephen Graham starred in the 2020 ITV drama White House Farm
Bamber says his sister Sheila, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, feared having her children taken into care, suffered a psychotic episode and carried out the murders before turning the gun on herself.
The police argued that Bamber must have carried out the murders because the gun had been fitted with a silencer, which made it too long for her to be physically able to shoot herself, but ballistics experts have subsequently cast doubt on whether the rifle was fitted with a silencer.
Police also said if she had gone on a rampage her feet would have been covered in blood and that this was not the case. But a picture of her feet obtained by Bamber’s lawyers shows bloodstains.
Police had initially worked on the theory that Sheila, a model known as Bambi, had been responsible.
They put Bamber at the centre of the probe after his girlfriend Julie Mugford – whom he had two-timed – claimed he had confessed to her his plans to hire a hitman to kill the family. The hitman she named had a cast-iron alibi and was released.
Bamber’s lawyers also unearthed a police phone log of a call on the night of the killings from Nevill.
Jeremy Bamber, who has always said he is innocent, in a police van during his trial in 1986
The log, entitled ‘daughter gone berserk’, noted Mr Bamber had said his daughter had stolen one of his guns and gone ‘berserk’.
A bloodstained Bible, found by Sheila’s side and open at pages containing Psalms 51-55 – on the struggle between good and evil – was never forensically examined or produced at trial, despite requests from Bamber’s solicitor.
Among the claims examined by the New Yorker was evidence of police interfering with the crime scene when the case went to appeal.
The crime scene photographs are said to have shown ‘Sheila lying with her head at an awkward angle against a bedside table, the Bible open against her right shoulder’.
The prosecution had argued Bamber put it there, and the Court of Appeal said in 2002 that it appeared to have been shut and then ‘reopened by someone to lie beside the body’, based on smudged bloodstains on its pages.
Jeremy Bamber at the Court of Appeal in October 2002 to appeal against his conviction
But Detective Sergeant Neil Davidson, the deputy of the lead crime scene officer Detective Inspector Ron Cook, claimed Cook had ‘lifted the Bible up and had a look at it’.
Cook then allegedly stood ‘fumbling’ with the Bible, before asking which page it had been on, and putting it back by Sheila’s body before the crime scene photos were taken to ‘re-create what we just screwed up’, Davidson said.
The investigation also looked into evidence relating to Sheila handling guns, after the judge told the jury trial there was ‘no evidence at all’ that she ‘was used to loading and firing guns.’
However, Sheila had previously been on a three-day shooting trip and fired a gun, as well as going on at least one shooting party, according to the magazine. It also cited a firearms expert who had produced reports for Bamber’s lawyers, saying there was no doubt Sheila could have fired the murder weapon.
The magazine also reported on the ‘chaotic handling of the silencer, and the risk of contamination in the weeks between its discovery and the forensic tests’.
Jeremy Bamber is pictured in 2002 while appealing against his convictions in the 1980s
It said there were ‘questions about its provenance’ and it had not been found by several police officers before it was apparently discovered by Bamber’s relatives.
Allegations were also investigated surrounding claims there were two silencers and whether evidence was conflated from separate devices.
This has always been denied by police and prosecutors, but Bamber’s team claim to have records showing silencers with two different reference numbers were examined by the forensics team.
One further point were the apparent issues relating to a 999 call on the night of the murders.
Police monitored an open line after the phone in the White House Farm kitchen was left off the hook, which was transferred to the force from a phone company operator.
But Scotland Yard records referred to a ‘999 call made from White House Farm,’ suggesting someone picked up the phone and called while Bamber was outside with police.
Jeremy Bamber is pictured in 1986 following the White House Farm shootings in August 1985
A statement attributed to Essex Police officer Nicholas Milbank in the 2002 Scotland Yard review did not mention anyone calling 999 and instead said he was asked to monitor the open line.
The New Yorker tracked down Milbank, still working for the force, and he said that ‘from what I can remember, someone phoned 999,’ from ‘inside the farmhouse’.
He said he recalled hearing what could have been muffled speech and this ‘obviously’ suggested someone was alive in the house.
But Milbank had no recollection of the statement attributed to him and said no one had spoken to him about it since the 1980s until now.
On Saturday, speaking ahead of the magazine’s investigation being published, Bamber said: ‘If restaging of the crime scene is a major new point in The New Yorker story, that will enable us to go directly back to the Court of Appeal, which I hope will be within a few days of us having the fresh evidence in our hands.
Jeremy Bamber is escorted by a police officer in handcuffs after the shootings in 1985
‘The Court of Appeal have already said restaging the crime scene would be a moral sin, so we’ll be straight back to the Court of Appeal ASAP, asking for bail pending a full appeal.’
A spokesman for Bamber’s campaign said the New Yorker investigation highlighted a key issue raised in the report on CCRC failings in the Malkinson case – ‘a refusal to carry out any investigations into submissions that are presented to them’.
They added: ‘The CCRC have had Jeremy Bamber’s latest submissions since March 2021 and they have not investigated any of the key exculpatory issues they contain, which demonstrate Jeremy Bamber’s innocence.’
The CCRC said it ‘makes impartial, evidence-based decisions’.
A CCRC spokesperson told MailOnline: ‘Mr Bamber has made three applications to the CCRC. The first application led to Mr Bamber’s case being sent to the Court of Appeal in 2001, and his conviction was upheld.
‘The second application to the CCRC did not result in a referral. A third application is under review. We are investigating whether there are sufficient grounds for a fresh appeal.
‘The approach taken to reviewing the thousands of pages submitted was agreed with the applicant’s representatives and we have been prioritising the most complex issues first – these naturally take the longest time to review.
‘It would be inappropriate to comment any further while this review is underway.’
Essex Police have long cited Bamber’s failed appeals when asked about the safety of the conviction.
A spokeswoman told MailOnline today: ‘In August 1985 the lives of five people, including two children, were needlessly, tragically and callously cut short when they were murdered in their own home by Jeremy Bamber.
‘In the years that followed this case has been the subject of several appeals and reviews by the Court of Appeal and the Criminal Cases Review Commission – all of these processes have never found anything other than Bamber is the person responsible for killing his adoptive parents Nevill and June, sister Sheila Caffell and her two sons Nicholas and Daniel.
‘Essex Police have continued to comply will all legal requirements in this case and will continue to assist the CCRC as required.’
Scotland Yard declined to comment to MailOnline.
