Jeremy Bamber Discussion Forum

I will search my records and see if his statement is there. My recollection is that he heard a single gunshot from a shotgun but I need to check. He could not possibly have heard the rifle, which is the only weapon that inflicted wounds on the victims. I have to say that I regard his evidence as irrelevant. I hear gunshots every day, living in the country it is commonplace. It could even have been a bird scarer rather than a gunshot.

I had a look at my files but can't find anything related to Smith's report. I would be wary of anything reported in books as authors have been known to make things up, especially CAL.
You have reminded me that some of the first newspaper stories had June going crazy with a shotgun. Maybe Smith came forward after reading that. There were confused reports in the immediate aftermath of the incident.

Well I think the marks are probably caused by the Aga, but proving it is nigh on impossible and I'm not sure what difference it makes. It is Jeremy who insisted on every individual aspect of the  evidence being examined and reported to the CCRC so I guess that he is relaxed about spending years locked up unnecessarily. I think that he could have been out 5 years ago if they had just concentrated on a couple of issues.

Quote from: Leslie Aalders on November 09, 2023, 10:09:23 PMBoyce claimed the marks to Nevills back could have been made by the end of the rifle barrel Bill,but not with the silencer attached.But in the same programme Mark Williams Thomas made it clear that they were not sure if the rifle made the marks at all.

In the case of the Aga causing the Burns,this was an accidental occurrance as it were.The killer did not inflict the wounds for a reason,but indirectly caused them by injuring Nevill who then fell against the cooker by himself.If the Aga did indeed make the burns it is very unlikely that the killer was even aware of them.

So I dont think its really a case of proving who inflicted the burns to Nevills back Bill,as they were not caused by a direct act by anyone,and if it can be proven that the Aga did cause them and that they took several minutes to form then this has to point to Sheila as the killer surely.
Only if you believe that the police moved Nevill upon entry,then it could point to a guilty JB.It means that JB could have killed Nevill and left him lying against the Aga when he left the farm house,therefore giving the marks time to form before the TFG entered five hours later.

But as you believe that the police did not move Nevill,then the marks had to be made BEFORE Bamber exited the house.If guilty of course.And this is hard to fit into a guilty JB scenario as far as I can see.

So I cant help it Bill,for me the Aga burns do seem to point to an innocent Bamber, if proven, and therefore do seem to be important.




I have to agree with Yvonne Hartley that the sources of heat available at the WHF was limited,and if we rule out anyone actually branding Nevill with a heated item then the Aga was probably the only device in the kitchen capable of causing any burns by lying against it.

The problem is that there is no agreement that the marks are burns. Didn't JB's own defense pathologist say this? If there is no 100% agreement that the marks are burns it's hard to see the CCRC accepting it 40 years later. The CCRC is particularly keen to use statements from the defence experts to shoot down JB. As for Boyce, in the British legal system you don't get two bites at the cherry. If Boyce said previously the marks were caused by a heated rifle barrel he doesn't get to come back years later and say he has changed his mind. The CoA would laugh at him. The CCRC has no scientific expertise, they are mainly just lawyers looking at evidence from a legal perspective and they are very averse to taking risks. The are not going to put their necks on the chopping block and rule that the marks are burns when others have said that they are not sure.

Unfortunately Yvonne Hartley has wasted everyone's time with this issue and delayed a CCRC decision. Her obsession with demonstrating every flaw in the prosecution case and outlining every aspect of incorrect evidence does JB no favours when it comes to getting him freed, it just makes it more difficult and ties up a great deal of CCRC time. This is the problem when so much of the police evidence is incorrect. You can take the Yvonne Hartley approach and write it all down and dump a massive submission on the CCRC and accept that they will take years to wade through it. Or, you pick just one or two important issues and get the CCRC to look at those. Unfortunately, she is obsessed with highlighting every item of evidence that is in any way incorrect and the 'burns' issues falls into this category. Even if they are burns from the Aga, it won't make any difference to the CCRC. They won't get drawn into the kind of speculation that you have outlined and certainly won't see it as grounds for an appeal.

As for the alleged burns, there are too many 'ifs' and 'maybe's'. Are they burns? How were they caused? How long did they take to form? MInutes? Hours? How was Nevill still for the whole time? Too many questions that can't be resolved and therefore too risky for the CCRC to put before the CoA. As you say yourself, "if it can be proven that the Aga did cause them and that they took several minutes to form then this has to point to Sheila as the killer surely". But it can't be proven in the particular case of Nevill. Even if you took a cadaver and placed it up against a heated Aga it would not provide proof because you can never know the circumstances of the particular Aga in the kitchen at WHF. What temperature was the Aga in WHF on the night of 7 August? Nobody knows and nobody could ever know now.

It may be frustrating that the alleged burns evidence seems to point to JB's innocence but in my view it is never going to prove it to the satisfaction of the CoA. All that Yvonne has achieved is to cause some doubts in the minds of some people about what was not even a crucial point at the trial. Drake did not tell the Jury that they could convict JB on the 'burns' evidence and therefore the CCRC/CoA will regard it as a minor issue, not something that swayed the Jury.

Quote from: Leslie Aalders on November 08, 2023, 07:13:06 PM

Quote from: Bill Robertson on November 08, 2023, 05:33:38 AM

QuoteThanks Bill. Just one more thing, do you agree with Boyces Aga burn evidence?

To be honest, I've never given it much thought, it hasn't interested me as I can't see the CCRC or COA giving it any credence. It's one of those issues that can be dismissed easily by the prosecution. Unfortunately, Boyce doesn't have any credibility as far as the CCRC is concerned, didn't he previously state just as firmly that the burns were caused by a heated up silencer? The source of the marks will never be explained, in the same way that the cuts in the pajama jacket can't be explained either. As far as I know the cuts don't line up with the marks on his back, so what is that about? Fact is, Sheila was mentally unstable and was capable of doing barmy things. But even if she did cause the cuts in the pajamas and the marks on his back, the court would say, so what? As in, anyone could have done both those things prior to the massacre and it makes no difference. The court can easily dismiss such issues and I'm sure that they will.

I have spent my time researching issues capable of influencing the CCRC and the marks on the back don't strike me as worthy of spending a huge amount of time on. Boyce is easily dismissed as an expert as his work is inconsistent in its conclusions. I'm afraid that Boyce's theories are not going to make any impact. Just my opinion!

QuoteBill also thinks the boys were shot first, not sure if he thinks the police moved Nevill or not.
Will think about what you have both said.

I think that moving Nevill onto the coal scuttle would be at least a 2 man job and whoever does it gets covered in blood (which is why it's very unlikely that the police did it). A dead body is bloody hard to lift and I can't imagine how either JB or Sheila could have done it. But, there was no reason for the police to move the body except the remote possibility of larking around after the scene had been viewed by Taff Jones. (I reject this possibility).
I spent years trying to figure out the positioning of Nevill's body without coming to any conclusion. It is the volume of blood running down from his head and over the floor that complicates things. For that amount of blood to flow down and across the floor suggests that however improbable, he was in that position for quite some time, ruling out the possibility of police, or anyone else, having placed him there, in my view.

The other factor is the four shots into the skull. Nevill's head has to be quite low down for these shots to be possible. Even if he is sat on a chair his head is probably too high. So my opinion is that the four shots probably occurred after his head settled on top of the coal scuttle. He was probably unconscious by this time.

Another factor is that it would have been career suicide to tamper with the crime scene until after Taff had ruled four murders and a suicide and I believe that he didn't do that until after 09:30. So there was virtually no time for any manipulation of the crime scene by the cops before Bird started his photography.  As unlikely as it may seem, I think that the body ended up where it is photographed all of its own accord.

For what it's worth, Sheila's predictive notes only referred to her killing the boys and herself. In fact, she refers to June as someone needing support from Christine, Sheila's natural mother. So I don't think that she set out to kill her parents but something happened to cause a confrontation between Sheila and June. I believe that she killed the boys first and intended ending her own life. It's possible that Nevill was only aware that Sheila had the rifle, not that she had fired it. I think that the comments about Sheila going berserk or crazy came about because Nevill heard the fight between Sheila and June. Sheila killed June and came downstairs to the kitchen where she confronted Nevill. What exactly happened then, I don't know but I do think that Nevill received all his injuries in the kitchen.

We now have a scenario where we know that Hayward did not find a match for Sheila Caffell's blood in a silencer despite the evidence that he gave in court (see recent CCRC Watch article). We also know that David Boutflour's blood was found in a silencer, though we don't know for certain which one. We also know for sure Fletcher measured two different silencers, one 7 inches long and one 6.5 inches long.
It seems to me that there is a possibility that if there was blood in one or more silencers, it could have been animal blood rather than SC/RB blood, and that a different silencer contains blood from DB. I wonder if the CCRC will get any nearer to finding out the truth?

She had a whole year to get her story straight and still managed to get her knickers in a twist numerous times during her evidence. How a jury could have believed her I can't imagine.

Why was Mugford kept in a police house for a year prior to the trial? Who paid her expenses? Why did Stan Jones visit her 36 times during that period? Why would a young woman agree to such an egregious regime of self denial? What was the implied 'threat' to her if she had protested at such a loss of liberty?

I tried to get answers to these questions during my research but pretty much drew a blank. I feel that answers to these questions could reveal much about Mugford's role in the MOJ. This was a highly unusual situation for what was supposed to be a straightforward murder investigation. I'm not aware of any other case where a prosecution witness was treated in the same manner.

It was reported in the trash press that Mugford was guarded by armed police, however Mugford was in no danger as JB was on remand. I was left to conclude that it suited the police to keep her under 'house arrest' to prevent her talking to anyone, especially journalists, about the case. Perhaps she was not trusted to keep her version of events private for any length of time? I assume that she embarked on a sexual relationship with Stan Jones, she did after all disclose after the trial that she enjoyed adventurous sex with JB and I doubt she suddenly stopped when he was arrested. I wondered also if RB might have been slipping her money? My understanding is that she continued her studies in London; someone must have come up with the cash for commuting. Mugford must have had compelling reasons for agreeing to put her life on hold. In my view it was financial compensation; she knew that the trial and imprisonment of JB was her only hope of significant monetary gain from the WHF tragedy.

Neither EP or Essex County Council would divulge payments made to Mugford, though there was some documentation evidence that they did make payments. I suspect that there is much of interest in that year, not just her grooming as the star witness.

Quote from: Erik Narramore on January 30, 2022, 01:10:44 AM
What sort of mistake could PC Dryland make?  It's either padlocked or it's not.

The only way he could be telling the truth is if he inspected the cupboard prior to the den conversion and at that point there was a padlock mechanism on it.

If he inspected after the conversion, then unless something else was then done to the cupboard, it does look like he was lying.

Does anybody know when Nevill's downstairs conversion was completed?  Was it Dennis Wager who completed it?  I'm sure I have read about it somewhere, but I can't remember.

After examining the photographs of the gun cupboard, I cannot see any sign of a padlock and hasp being ever fitted to the door or door surround. It is virtually impossible to remove a padlock hasp and not leave an indent in the wood where it was fitted. Therefore, I believe that PC Dryland lied when he said he saw a padlock on the cupboard. Apparently it did have a cheap nylon mechanism that stopped the door from swinging open, if it was engaged.