PUBLIC STATEMENT
This statement concerns the present state of the Jeremy Bamber case and the present situation of this Forum. I wish to address both matters.
Thoughts about Jeremy Bamber
At the time of writing (late July 2025), Jeremy Bamber's application is still under formal consideration by the CCRC. Two recent developments have been reported unofficially:
First, in mid-June it was being claimed that the CCRC had already made their decision but were refusing to notify Jeremy Bamber and his lawyers what that decision was. Quite why the CCRC would behave in this way is anyone's guess. On the other hand, the claim came not from Jeremy Bamber's lawyers but from his Campaign Team, and the Campaign Team do have a history of advancing claims that turn out to be untrue or misrepresentations - which is not to say I am suggesting they are liars, you understand. Let us put that awkward topic aside.
Second, it is now being claimed that the CCRC have refused four of Jeremy's 10 grounds for appeal, but there is no official confirmation of this. The closest to a reliable source is the Guardian newspaper, which reports it here: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jul/04/review-body-ccrc-refuses-to-refer-jeremy-bamber-murder-case-back-court-of-appeal.
I say 'reliable'. That word perhaps does not go well with the Guardian, given its history, and I think their source must be the same Campaign Team I refer to above. Nevertheless, I will proceed on the assumption that the report contains at least the essential truth that the CCRC are unimpressed with Jeremy's application, since something that goes to the disadvantage of Jeremy seems unlikely to be a misreport or mistake in the hands of his own Campaign Team or the Guardian newspaper.
What I am about to say may be spectacularly overturned any day now and I may turn out to be completely wrong, but my belief is that the CCRC have already rendered a decision - at least provisionally - to Jeremy Bamber and his lawyers (and by extension, to the Campaign Team) on all grounds and that decision is a conclusive refusal to refer his case to the Court of Appeal on any of the 10 grounds advanced. Accordingly, I predict there will be an announcement at some point in the future that his application to the CCRC for a referral has been refused in full.
It will be open to Jeremy Bamber, his lawyers and the Campaign Team to persuade the CCRC to change their minds or successfully challenge the decision in a judicial review, but I think it is likely further pleas and applications will fall on stony ground.
If I turn out to be wrong about this and the CCRC renders a favourable decision for Jeremy, I will greet the news with genuine excitement and fascination, but I think this is unlikely to happen.
Absent of some change in the law concerning sentencing, I think Jeremy Bamber will remain in prison until he dies.
I started out my interest in this case as a sceptic of Jeremy's claims of innocence, and at one point I even frankly told him in a letter that I believed he was guilty of killing his family. Yet at one and the same time, I was also convinced that there was doubt as to the legal safety of the case against him. That's what made the case interesting. This view was based not on the theories and claims of his Campaign Team or Mike Teskowitz, much of which I have always been inclined to dismiss, rather it was my own conclusion based on my own thoughts and study of the case.
However, as time has gone on and I have seen and studied more documents and material, I have become more receptive to Jeremy Bamber's protestations of innocence.
I am now at the point where I believe his factual innocence is a significant possibility. I never thought I would make that statement. This change of stance is due to one specific piece of evidence I have seen that has never been made public. It is not conclusive, and never will be, and I must grant that it is also possible I am misinterpreting it. Expert input is needed, but my tentative conclusion about it is that it is damning for the prosecution.
Note: I am NOT saying that I think he is innocent. That is not my stance. I never have taken a dogmatic stance on this case and I never will. I am a researcher, not a campaigner. I merely say that, having come into possession of a certain piece of evidence, I think his factual innocence is a significant possibility, whereas previously I would have been best described as sceptical of his claims of innocence.
As to the law, I remain of the same view as always: that there is reasonable doubt in the case, he should not have been convicted in 1986, and his case should be referred to the Court of Appeal at once where his convictions should be overturned. Not to do so would, I believe, be a legal injustice at minimum, and quite possibly keep an innocent man in prison.
This Forum
You may be wondering why this Forum is so quiet. Currently, there are three major online platforms for discussion of this case: the Jeremy Bamber Forum ('the Blue Forum'), a sub-forum of the UK Miscarriage of Justice Forum ('the Red Forum'), and various groups on Facebook that can easily be found by searching on that platform.
I have no wish to post on any of those platforms; I have neither the time nor inclination. Specifically, the Red Forum is dogmatically pro-guilt and its members come over as closed minded, and at times unpleasant and abusive. Facebook is a waste of time in general and I have never understood its appeal, but a particular factor in my aversion to it is that the pro-Jeremy Bamber groups on there contain some of the most boorish (and boring) and abusive individuals you could hope to meet, giving the lie to any suggestion that the rabid, haranguing and unpleasant atmosphere that characterises this case at times has its provenance exclusively with the pro-guilt side. It doesn't. There are some nasty people on the pro-innocent side as well.
The Blue Forum is the superior of the three, but the discussions go over old ground already covered, sometimes involving people who would not post such opinions and speculation if they took the time to actually read the case documents and other primary sources. The Blue Forum also tolerates a group of trolls who I suspect are heavily vested in the case and whose purpose is to disrupt that forum and render it mostly trivial (and I believe they have succeeded).
The purpose of this Forum is a bit different to those other places. This Forum is a place for serious discussion of the case and to provide access to a comprehensive library of case documents, catalogued and indexed. That means there will not be a queue down the street to join. I receive plenty of applications that aren't Russian bots, maybe 10 a week at the moment, but nearly always never hear back when I explain that I expect people to join transparently under their own names because I don't want (and don't have the time for) trolls and bored, mentally-unbalanced middle-aged people who need to fill up their lives by annoying people online. This means that the Forum has few members and is quiet, and that is the way I want to keep it for now.
Filling up an online forum with idiots and silly people is something anybody can do. I don't have the time to nanny a bunch of adult babies.
If you have a genuine interest in the case, by all means e-mail me and you can join. If you are vested in the case in some way, there is no objection to you joining as long as we have transparency and you let me know what your interest in the case is.
My approach to the case – to any such case – is strictly neutral, impartial and objective. I have come to my conclusions, but that does not alter my neutrality. I have spent considerable time examining and debunking the claims and theories of the Campaign Team, as much time as I have spent on the prosecution, and if further evidence arises that causes me to believe Jeremy Bamber is guilty, then so be it.
Another factor in the quietness of the Forum is that, frankly, I am mentally spent. I will not lie to you: I am a failure. I had hopes for my investigation of this case and those hopes have come to naught – so far. The root of this is that the task of cataloguing and uploading all the case documents in an organised and comprehensible structure took six months of solid work in between my other commitments, with late nights and getting up in the early hours of the morning. By the end of it, I was cursing Mike Teskowitz because Jeremy Bamber had trusted the case documents to him and it was incumbent on him to carry out this archiving, not spend his time inventing wild theories. Had he buckled down to the task, his legacy to Jeremy Bamber would have been meaningful. This is a case that should have light shone on it because it can teach us so much about policing and the workings of the criminal justice system in England and all their flaws, but that can only happen if people can approach the material in an organised and systematic way.
By the end of the archiving task, I was done with this case forever – or so I told myself at the time – because all I could see was more and more thankless work stretching into the distance. I was also at this point still demoralised from my experiences on the Blue Forum.
The work ahead
The good news [well, I think it's good news anyway] is that I am back at it.
What I have organised into a library now needs to be indexed and turned into a searchable archive, which requires coding work. I now intend to resume that work, but slowly this time, and this time alongside my other plans: including one or more books on the case.
I am only slowly getting back into it, and in so doing, I am wary and mistrustful of others and any claims of good faith. The behaviour of trolls on the Blue Forum took its toll on me mentally and motivationally. They know who they are and they will always deny what they did. My attitude to it is let them waste their lives arguing online. My time will be spent on productive work.
Realistically, what can be achieved?
I no longer believe that it is a matter of challenging an unsafe conviction. Unless I am shown to be wrong by the CCRC, I think the case made by Jeremy's representatives was not enough to overturn the convictions and he will stay where he is until he dies. If he is truly innocent (it is very much an 'If'), it is monstrous what has been done to him, but realistically I am just one man and I cannot change it.
It is not that the evidence is lacking, it is more the nuanced problem that the expertise to translate the evidence into an arguable case in legal terms is lacking, and so in my opinion, the real task before us is now public education and recording history for future generations. Whether my efforts are of any effect or value will be for others to judge, probably after I am dead - should anyone even find me or pay attention.