Jeremy Bamber Discussion Forum

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.

QuoteAdam:
I first mentioned the answering machine years ago. And today in reply 9!

Jeremy says he received the call from Nevill at roughly 3.10 a.m.

Susan Battersby claims it was 3.12 a.m. when Julie came into her room after the brief call from Jeremy.

If Jeremy is guilty:

(i). at what time do you say he called the answering machine at Bourtree Cottage from the farmhouse?
and,
(ii). at what time does he call Julie from Bourtree Cottage?

QuoteMunksa:
Did he even have an answering machine pre murder though? Unless it can be established then it's waste of my time imo to discuss.

I have head of this answering machine but he got it pro murders.

Munksa,

If Jeremy is guilty, he must have at least one answering machine pre-murders, maybe two if he wants a 'clean' one for the murders that he then hides or destroys while he pretends his usual one was not switched-on that evening.

QuoteMunksa:
No clue QC

Sorry, it would have to be the one answering machine.  The reason I am getting confused is because I have been looping together all the logical deductions and it gets convoluted and confusing.

I now realise that he can't have planned the phone calls.  It follows that he had just the one answering machine and if he is guilty, that must have been switched on.  He has then opportunistically come up with the idea of the call on the hoof, then it goes as Adam says - he rings his own number, presses the hook switch down, leaves the handset off the hook, then takes the ladies push bike back.  He then unravels things at the other end by disposing of the answerphone tape or deleting the record on the phone digitally (hoping that there is no way for it to be recovered by forensic examination).  He rings Julie, then the police, etc., etc.

I accept all this is possible, but in order for it to be plausible I need a solution to the problem of timings.  Remember, he is making three calls:

- one to himself;
- one to Julie;
- one to the police.

How does he manage to keep the timings consistent, bearing in mind he is staging this on the assumption that there could be a traceable record at the telephone exchange of what he is doing?

Specifically, this is what I asked Adam:

QuoteQuote from: QCChevalier on January 08, 2022, 06:09:PM
Jeremy says he received the call from Nevill at roughly 3.10 a.m.

Susan Battersby claims it was 3.12 a.m. when Julie came into her room after the brief call from Jeremy.

If Jeremy is guilty:

(i). at what time do you say he called the answering machine at Bourtree Cottage from the farmhouse?
and,
(ii). at what time does he call Julie from Bourtree Cottage?

Or do we say that he doesn't care about the timings of calls, he even invents the call from Nevill?  If so, what does he need the bike for?

QuoteJane:
Surely all he needed was a spare tape? I seem to think the early answer machines were like mini tape recorders.

It depends on the model and type of machine used.  Do we know?

QuoteMunksa:
Agreed! This is why I don't want to think of a scenario unless I am sure he definitely had one pre murders

I think you misunderstand.  I'm not arguing against scenarios, I merely say that it is confusing because we have to think in reverse about how he might have planned it.

My questions still stand.  At what times did he make the relevant calls?  Or do you say he simply invented the call from Nevill?

QuoteAdam:
https://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,10965.0.html

I have done a recent time scale of the massacre.

At what time does he ring himself from the farm?

Your time for ringing Julie is different to that given by the prosecution.  Susan Battersby seems very sure that Julie came into her room at 3.12 a.m. immediately after her call from Jeremy.

QuoteRob:
If he simply invents the call from Nevil QC then there is no need to delay? He either phones the Police direct, or even better 999 and just says my farther just called etc.

The delay suggests to me he faked a call from WHF?

Yes, could be.  If you accept Susan Battersby's evidence, then you have a 10-minute or so delay which I assume is needed by the guilt camp so that Jeremy can hurriedly cycle back.  But I think they forget that he is cycling back in the dark and being careful not to be seen around Goldhanger and the cottage.

I'm still doubtful that this adds up.  It does look like he winged it and invented the call from Nevill, if he is a guilty.

QuoteAdam:
Well there are lots of different times as to when he phoned Julie. Bamber wasn't even sure if he phoned her before or after the police.

He phoned himself around 3am.

So Susan Battersby's evidence is wrong now?  How convenient for you, to leave the times open like that; but we do have a definite book-end, because PC West must have taken Jeremy's call no later than 3.25 a.m., probably 3.24 a.m.

Let's see:

He phones himself at 3 a.m.

We're now disregarding Susan Battersby's evidence.  She must have been lying.

We'll err on the side of the prosecution and say he cycled back to the cottage in reasonably quick order.  DI Wilson managed it in 16 minutes during daylight.  How about 25 minutes?

He then composes himself, but wait, he needs to ring the police.

It's now 3.27 a.m.  He should have been speaking with PC West three minutes ago, and he first has to ring two other police numbers and he also needs to ring Julie.

Oh dear.

OK.  Let's say he cycles there in 20 minutes.  Then it becomes just about possible, but it means he only has minutes to make multiple phone calls and compose and collect himself, etc., etc.

To me, this doesn't add up.  Or rather, it only adds up if you shave more time off his cycle journey between the crime scene and the cottage.  Shall we say 17 minutes?  But it took DI Wilkinson 16 minutes in daylight.

It remains doubtful he could have done this.  Sorry.

QuoteAdam:
Why are you focusing on SB? There are about 6 people who give varying times on when Bamber called Julie.

The reason should be obvious, if you know the case.

It is Susan Battersby who was encouraged by the police to give a precise time [*date], and she obliged them.  Interestingly, this was not the time of Jeremy's call, rather it was the time that Julie came into Susan Battersby room after Jeremy's call - though Jeremy's call was brief, hence the significance of the time given.  I wonder why Julie did that?  Perhaps we should pass over that question in silence, as a famous philosopher once said.

As you rightly say, the flatmates were all over the place with times, even suggesting it could have been any time between 2.00 and 3.30 a.m.!  But that doesn't help the prosecution case, does it.  It means Jeremy could be as right as the flatmates about when he rang Julie, and in that regard, you have not a leg to stand on.

Anyway, whichever way you look at it, if you are saying Jeremy has staged the call, then it doesn't add up.

If you want to change your story and say that Jeremy just made up the call from Nevill out of thin air, fine.  In that case, you don't need June's bike, Jeremy can just go back on foot.

Quoteilovebooze:
This is my point. And I apologise if I've missed anything. If they could trace a length of a call they could surely prove if said call took place at all? So why didn't the police or prosecution or defence use this?

If Jeremy is guilty, I don't believe he could have planned the call from Nevill or staged one, which leaves only the option of inventing a call from Nevill.

QuoteActually he probably phoned his cottage around 2.50am. Then phoned Julie around 3.15am.

In all the excitement he lost track of time. Or thought a shorter gap between receiving Nevill's call & phoning the police was better.

So now we're saying Jeremy phoned himself at 2.50 a.m.

We'll err on the side of the prosecution and say he has nothing else to do in the farmhouse at this point and can leave quickly.  So he makes off from the farm reasonably smartly at 2.55 a.m.

Adam says he rings Julie from the cottage at 3.15 a.m.  You'll see immediately that the timings are still tight.  He has to be very careful not to be seen around Goldhanger and the cottage especially.

For this to work, he needs to be at the cottage by 3.10 a.m. and then ring Julie quickly and only be on the phone with her briefly.

He speaks with PC West at 3.24 a.m., so he has a 10-minute window after his call to Julie to shower, change and compose himself.

All the time he is doing this, it will be on his mind that the police may ask him why it took him almost 35 minutes to get through to the police.  This must be why he lied in his statement and said 3.10 a.m. for Nevill's call.  He then suggests to the police in an interview that they should check on the call times with British Telecom.

Of course, all of this is possible, but the issue here is plausibility: it doesn't sound convincing to me.

QuoteMunksa:
If he had planned this murders for months, I am sure he would have done his homework if calls could be traced or not.

One could say he was adamant because he knew it couldn't.

He even said a pathetic thing in desperation , that a witness could have seen him through the window taking the call! Ya right, what are the chances of someone seeing him taking a call at 3am in a quiet rural  " sleepy" village?

Who told him?  Where did he find this information?  How?

QuoteAdam:
Just need a BT log to show a 10 second phone call took place at 3.10am from WHF on the night.

Good luck finding that.

Oh & Bamber is saying he phoned the police at 3.36am. So there is time.

So to be clear, now you're saying that Jeremy was telling the truth all along and he rang Julie at 3.30 a.m.?

QuoteAdam:
That is what I just said. Assuming he did phone WHF at all.

And assuming he did phone Julie at 3.15am.

Bamber told the police he received Nevill's call around 3.10am.

What is the problem.

The problem is that you're all over the place.  You're the one who boasts that you know it all about this case and that Jeremy is definitely guilty beyond all doubt, so make up your mind please about what occurred.

You're being evasive and changing the times and explanations when cornered because the prosecution case does not add up.

If Jeremy did this, he must have invented the call from Nevill, but he then tells the police to check with BT.  It's now suggested he was just being cocky.  I note that whenever a stumbling block arises in this case, it's always put down to Jeremy being arrogant or cocky.  That's the go-to explanation.

Ok, let's say he was being cocky, we're still left with doubt about the safety of the conviction because we have a story that doesn't add up.

Someone else says Jeremy must have established the position with BT as part of his planning.  So he rang up BT and asked them?  I can only assume he must have done so under a false name.  Who did he speak to?  I doubt an ordinary BT operator would know this information.  The police looked into this and needed a witness statement from an engineer and even his evidence is inconclusive.

QuoteAdam:
This is a straight forward scenario.

QC will try to go around in circles on specific times.

If Bamber did phone his cottage from WHF, it would be around 2.45am - 3.00am.

He then cycles back & phones Julie/the police.

That is if he did phone WHF.

You are now putting the time back potentially by another five minutes, but conceding that you think it could have been as late as 3.00 a.m., when I have already shown you that this is next-to-impossible, and certainly rather implausible.

You don't have a clue.

QuoteMunksa:
I wish I had an answer to that.

Where there a will there is a way. He could have started it as casual conversation, he knew lots of people around London Clubs and I am sure sone of them will be unsavoury character. He could have got an idea.

Mind you I said COULD.

I don't believe it, sorry.  You just need to think about it logically.  He needed to be sure.  That means he needed to speak to somebody with knowledge of analogue telephony engineering.  He needed to conduct this conversation in such a way that the expert does not know who he is and cannot alert the police at a later point - even months down the line.  It's the sort of thing the person asked would remember.

I will accept that it is possible that he could have convinced himself of the point on some level, perhaps through something as trivial as a TV documentary or engineering magazine article or whatever.

However, there is doubt here.  You admit that you can't produce to me even something on a probable level that would suggest he could have obtained this information from an innocent source.  A man is in prison.  I totally appreciate the gravity and tragedy of the crime, but we can't just go round making assumptions like this.

If he planned it, he planned it.  Tracing of phone calls is a very obvious point.  If what Rob said on the other thread is true and the line could only be closed at the caller end, then Jeremy can't stage the call from Nevill.  It's impossible.  Furthermore, we know that Jeremy did later on make calls from Bourtree Cottage.
Thus, what the guilt camp are telling us is that Jeremy has decided to wing it and invent a call from Nevill and hope either that the police don't check with BT or there is no practicable way of establishing the position.  I find that rather unlikely.  The pro-guilt camp agree with me, which is why they explain it as Jeremy's arrogance.  Notice what Jane is saying.  Think about it.  Jane is tacitly conceding the point, but saying: 'Oh, but Jeremy is arrogant and would have chanced it'.  Jeremy's supposed 'arrogance' has become the deus ex machina of the pro-guilt camp as they confront the practical and logical difficulties of the prosecution scenario.

My own belief is that, if Jeremy did this, the phone calls were an unplanned aspect and thought up on the hoof due to Nevill ending up in the kitchen.  This is based on the simple logical observation that Jeremy could not - and would not - plan for Nevill to be in the kitchen.  Even if Jeremy knew that Nevill would be sleeping downstairs, he would kill Nevill where he found him, for two reasons: (i). he needs to make it look like Sheila has run amok; and (ii). he needs to kill Nevill anyway.  If Nevill's body is found in such a way that suggests he was struggling with Sheila in the kitchen, Jeremy may have decided he needed to give himself what he considered to be the extra insurance of an 'alibi', otherwise investigators might well ask how it came to be that Nevill is running through the house away from a slight, weak woman (of course, there are rational explanations for this anyway - for one thing, she has a loaded rifle - but we need not go into that now, and the point is that Jeremy will not have thought about it that way).

In that scenario, Jeremy may well have decided to wing it, but the guilt camp also want us to believe that Jeremy would tell the police to make inquiries with BT.  Why would Jeremy do that?

My goodness, this Jeremy was a helpful, public-spirited chap wasn't he!  He commits mass murder and helps the police catch him.  I suppose it was only fair, as Taff did give him a sporting chance at the start.

On the path to justice, a walk up the path where poor jodi was found

Corinne Mitchell's speech at the Miscarriage of Justice day meeting 2011

Some points to note:
(i). I posted this on the Forum way back on 23rd. February 2023.  I have decided to move it now to the public area.  I have deleted one short sentence, a rash remark about Neil Bellis that is not needed.  I have also made a couple of corrections for syntax and one or two minor stylistic emendations, and I may make more if I ever re-read it again.  The rest of it remains, as is. 
(ii). What follows should not be interpreted as a personal attack on Neil Bellis, let me just make that clear. It is harshly worded and maybe reproducing it here now is cathartic at some deeper level, but truly it was just my opinion at the time, and that's just how it is.  I came upon it because I was thinking about the Blue Forum the other day when composing my 'statement' in the other thread.
(iii). While I no longer share George Orwell's Leftist politics and have not done since my misguided youth 25 years ago, I remain fond of him and I will always defend him, even if the defence is more emotional than intellectual.  It is just about possible he would drag me back again, if he were still alive.
(iv). Thinking it over just now, this essay is, sort of, the type of thing George Orwell himself might have written, with all the flaws of Orwell's writing but none of the upsides - though I do not have even a drop of his ability, of course, let me make that clear too!





Two posts from Neil Bellis to the Blue Forum's 'Russia' thread caught my eye, and I attach them here.  In these posts, Neil Bellis expresses his venom towards George Orwell.

Bellis makes the following allegations against Orwell:

1. That George Orwell falsified his service during the Spanish Civil War.
2. That he (Neil Bellis) knew members of the International Brigades who had fought in the Spanish Civil War.
3. That these veterans had a low opinion of Orwell.
4. That Orwell was an MI5 informant.
5. That since 1945/46, Orwell has been a "darling of the right wing".

All of this is rubbish, Mr Bellis does not know what he is talking about, and I will here explain why.

Before I begin, it is important to give a little bit of background about Neil Bellis.  Mr Bellis is a Stalinist and I believe has held to this political philosophy pretty much his entire adult life, even when practising as a barrister and then working as chairman of a public company.  He associated with the neo-Marxist Left and supported the former Soviet Union.  By contrast, George Orwell was fiercely critical of Stalinism and the Soviet Union.  His most famous political novels, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, were critiques of Stalinism.  Therefore, Bellis' sectarian politics are diametrically opposed to that of Orwell, even if, as a figure of the Left, Orwell's viewpoints may overlap with those of Bellis.

Now a little about me.  If George Orwell were alive today, he would regard me as someone of the "far-Right" and want nothing to do with me.  I mention this to emphasise my objectivity in defending Orwell. 

To me, George Orwell was a chimera: a good writer, perhaps he should be regarded as England's national writer, but I also think that he was very naïve politically and socially.  The 'conservatism' and even racialism that some people attribute to him were really more a sign of the times he lived through and his own middle-class colonial background than a reflection of any change in sentiment from the Left to something else.  Orwell explicitly wanted a socialist revolution in Britain, but democratic socialist and patriotic.  He wasn't in the avant garde of the Left.  He was slightly imperialist and moderately conservative, but that's because a middle-of-the-road Leftist of his time often would be slightly imperialist and moderately conservative and so forth - especially if, like Orwell, the Leftist came from a colonial family and had received a public school education.  It was nothing unusual – for the time.  If Orwell were alive today, he would not be these things, he would instead be whatever is middle-of-the-road for a Leftist today, which means he would be a constant source of annoyance and incredulity to people like me. 

Now let us move on to Neil Bellis' allegations.

That George Orwell falsified his service during the Spanish Civil War.  That he (Neil Bellis) knew members of the International Brigades who had fought in the Spanish Civil War.  That these veterans had a low opinion of Orwell.

You will perhaps forgive me for being sceptical about Mr Bellis' claim that he knew some socialists who had fought in that war.  He grew up in England and has no obvious connection to Spain and veterans of the Spanish Civil War don't typically turn up in England, but we must assume that Mr Bellis has moved in radical political circles and may have attended talks and conferences and so forth, so there may be an element of truth to it. 

I suspect that he met such people once or heard them speak at an event and Orwell was mentioned.  At any rate, let's for the sake of argument assume Bellis has heard Spanish Civil War veterans bad mouth Orwell.  What to make of it?

Mr Bellis is giving us an account of Orwell from socialists, but socialists of a different stripe to Orwell, indeed of the type who may have taken a dislike to him purely for sectarian ideological reasons.  It follows that their account of Orwell cannot be treated as reliable.  Mr Bellis seems not to have considered this.  Nor, it appears, has he asked himself how, if Orwell was exaggerating his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, he came to be shot in the throat.  Was that a hoax? 

Let us suppose I am wrong about all this, and in fact Orwell did exaggerate his experiences in some significant way.  It seems to me that George Orwell was a writer, both fiction and non-fiction.  He was an imaginative person who made up stories for a living, as well as journalising real events.  Is it such a surprise that he may have blended the two worlds and exaggerated?  Suppose he did, is that such a great sin?  Don't professional soldiers exaggerate their experiences of war at times?  Is that such a great sin?  I would say not.  I would even defend it on the basis that if you want to fight in a war, you'd better come back with some entertaining stories.  Isn't it inevitable that somebody who makes his living as a writer will do just that?  Wouldn't it be more surprising if he didn't?

That Orwell was an MI5 informant.

This is the 'Orwell's List' allegation, which is that shortly before he died, Orwell gave a list to a government department of people he considered unsuitable for official propaganda work, in many cases on the basis that they were thought to be sympathetic to Stalinism. 

It appears that George Orwell did indeed prepare such a list, but there are some important points that Neil Bellis fails to mention:

(i).    How the list came to exist.

(ii).    What the list contained.

(iii).    Orwell's motives.

Let me explain.  It was common in those days for politically-engaged intellectual types like Orwell to compose such lists, often as a sort of parlour game.  On this occasion, the list took on a serious purpose. Orwell's motive was anti-Stalinism and British patriotism.  Orwell considered himself both a democratic socialist and a national patriot and compiled the list to ensure that individuals whose beliefs he found repugnant would not be influential in British society and would be stymied (or so he hoped). 

However - and this point is crucial - Orwell did not malign any of these people, did not mean any of them ill, and for the most part, did not show a trace of malice towards them.  To the contrary, in many cases he was full of praise for them and generous in remarks he added to the list before it was handed over. 

A further point to note is that Orwell would have had no control over how the information was used once it left his hands, thus Bellis attributes motives and purposes to Orwell that he simply did not have. 

The reason Neil Bellis does not mention all this is because he has imprisoned himself in a small ideological box and can't see anything outside it.  The result is variegated misunderstandings about all sorts of subjects, this being one of them. 

Mr Bellis' condemnation of Orwell is in fact what in psychology is called projection: denunciation of enemies and secret lists is a Stalinist thing, something Mr Bellis should know all about.  Inevitably, given that he is a Stalinist, he will see Orwell's actions through that jaundiced field of interpretation and ignore the nuances of the incident.

George Orwell became a "darling of the right wing" from 1945/46 (before his death)

It is not clear whether Mr Bellis is referring to the 'right wing of the Left' or political Right in opposition to the Left.  It is true that conservatives often cite and reference Orwell, especially his political literature, but that is not because they think George Orwell was one of them, rather it is because as conservatives they value traditional English liberty and recognise that Orwell, though of the Left, was equally determined to defend traditional England.  This did not make Orwell any less a figure of the Left, any more than advocating traditional liberty turns a conservative into a raving liberal.

Not everybody to the right of Neil Bellis is "right wing" or of the Right.  In Orwell's day, conservatism and traditional liberty were not the exclusive province of the Right, but were also believed in by the mainstream of the Left, who were socially and culturally conservative and, by today's standards, could be quite reactionary. 

I think it is clear that George Orwell was a man of the Left.  All of his writings and utterances show a definite commitment in that direction and the sheer weight of it would be hard to refute.  That doesn't mean he belongs to the Left exclusively, but his political home was amongst those who believe in the fundamental values of the Left: equality and the ultimate liberation of the working class from propertied social relations.  He supported government intervention in society in the sense of a humane democratic socialist and supporter of the Labour Party.  All that said, a good argument could be made that Orwell - who was always ambivalent and vague about the revolutionary character of socialism - moved towards the 'right wing of the Left' as the Atlee Labour government came to power in 1945.  Perhaps this was because he saw the social revolutionary possibilities of a Labour government supported by a landslide parliamentary majority.

To Neil Bellis, that makes Orwell "right wing" or "the darling of the right wing", but that seems purely a matter of relativity and hardly makes Orwell anything other than of the Left.  The real issue for Neil Bellis is sectarian: he supports Stalin, while Orwell supported democratic-socialism and a sort of esoteric English version of Trotskyism, involving mass worker action that raises popular awareness and consciousness of the problems in capitalism and brings about socialism by consent, in harmony with international currents amongst workers abroad.  To this end, Orwell had suggested early in the Second World War that the Home Guard could form the basis of a revolutionary people's militia, and this could have dovetailed with a peaceful resolution of war and conflict internationally, with peace and democracy everywhere.  Note that Orwell's ideas were entirely peaceful (accompanied by a willingness to use violence lawfully, when needed) and intended to be simpatico with English tradition, in which sense he was both deeply conservative and deeply socialist.  This is antithetical to the centralised, planned, top-down, bureaucratic character of Stalinism. 

In summary, Orwell wanted socialism (communism), but peacefully and by consent, and against the setting of a calm, bucolic, traditional England.  In other words, socialism that aligned with the rhythms of English life and the special character of England, blending civic patriotic ideas and internationalism.  Bellis wants socialism (communism) in the classical Stalinist way: top-down, a utopian template imposed by force, all 'for your own good', perhaps with a strong centralised British 'socialist' state.  Presumably, enemies of Bellis will be 'disappeared' and all records of their existence erased, living on only in the memories of the people who knew them - rather like what happens to Winston Smith's parents in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, if I recall, and certainly similar to what happens on the Blue Forum to anybody who crosses Neil Bellis.

Neil Bellis says George Orwell was a fraud.  I will leave others to judge whether it is in fact Neil Bellis who is the fraud.  I will say nothing on that question.

A Long Walk To Justice - Did Luke Mitchell Murder Jodi Jones?

We don't know that the relevant time was 3.10 a.m., but if we work on the assumption it was, then in my Sheila scenario, Nevill is calling Jeremy at 3.10 a.m. while Sheila is stood in front of him.  At this point, nobody is injured.  Sheila then runs upstairs, Nevill terminates the call, and the shootings begin.

Nevill is the first victim, because he then runs back to the kitchen after being shot by Sheila on the main stairs.  Since Sheila already has a loaded rifle, he is negated within a few minutes.  (Although he was the first victim, I believe Nevill was the last to die, and may have been alive right up until minutes before the raid group entered, due to the volume of blood in the kitchen).

Now let's say it is 3.20 a.m.  Sheila reloads.  This may take her a few minutes.  She can hear June on the main landing, shouting down, wondering what is going on.  Let's say Sheila returns upstairs at 3.30 a.m.  She shoots June but does not kill her.   

Let's be conservative with our timings and say it is now 3.50 a.m.  It has taken Sheila a long time to load the rifle again.  June is severely injured and crawling around the bedroom.  At this point, Jeremy and the police have arrived, but they are stood at least 50 yards away on Pages Lane.  The vantages from the front and rear kitchen windows are shielded by trees.  Sheila would have no awareness of them at all.

Over the next 20 to 30 minutes, Sheila kills June with one further shot, then kills the twins and herself.  During the final fusillade, two police officers and Jeremy are walking around the farmhouse from a distance of 30 yards, which is roughly 27 metres - a very great distance.  Sheila would not know they were there (even if she did appear in the front window) and they would know nothing of Sheila unless she spoke to the police - which I assume she didn't.

Incidentally, Sheila's supposed appearance in the front window interestingly coincides with her likely movements at that point.  It would have been around 4.20 a.m.

The question of how Jeremy could have got to and from the farmhouse has to be considered in conjunction with the phone calls.  The two matters are interlinked.  You can't consider one aspect of the case without the other.  Furthermore, a consideration of the phone calls requires us to logically re-consider the crime scene scenario, for the reasons I set out here.

I am familiar with the local area and I can tell you that, in order for Jeremy to be guilty, he would have had to make at least the return leg by push bike.  This absolutely must be the case if he is guilty and if he staged a call from Nevill, for reasons I will again explain in what follows.

The police in their report to the DPP argued that he went out by foot and returned using June's ladies' bike.  I think this argument is based on the following logic:

- the bike was usually kept at the farmhouse;
- prior to the shootings, June's bike is seen at Bourtree Cottage by Julie;
- June must have missed the bike, which implies Jeremy must have sought permission to have the bike for Julie's use;
- Julie's stance implies she wasn't making use of the bike, as Jeremy claimed;
- this could be taken to suggest that Jeremy took an interest in the bike for the purpose of his murder plot;
- the bike is again found at Bourtree Cottage after the shootings;
- June must have had contact with Julie during the latter's visits.

Taking all these factors together, it seems more likely than not the bike was returned to the farmhouse before the shootings.  If, in the alternative, we say that Jeremy maintained a lie to June about his utilisation of the bike, this implies complicity in the lie on the part of Julie - i.e. Julie is Jeremy's accomplice on some level.  Hence, the police stance on the bike is that Jeremy used it on the return leg only.  After all, they don't want to implicate Julie.

I have never believed Essex Police were stupid in this case.  They thought everything through carefully and came up with the best incriminating scenario they could.

Why couldn't Jeremy have returned on foot?  Because of the phone calls, which create timing pressures for Jeremy.

First and foremost, I believe that if Jeremy is guilty, then the idea of the phone call from Nevill was unplanned.

Here I outline my thoughts on this:
https://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,11011.msg509821.html#msg509821

Here's a comment outlining why the bike was necessary: https://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,10975.msg508478.html#msg508478

Then I suggest you read the exchanges between myself and Adam on the 'Telecoms in 1985' (which you started), starting with this comment: https://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,11011.msg509922.html#msg509922

You will see that Adam is all over the place and has to keep trying to bring the timings forward to make it all fit.

The other issue is whether Jeremy had an answerphone prior to the shootings.  I believe I have established fairly conclusively that he could not have owned and/or used an answerphone beforehand.

See this comment: https://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,10975.msg508446.html#msg508446

And this one:
https://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,11011.msg509870.html#msg509870

And this one:
https://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,11039.msg512339.html#msg512339

I believe my analysis throws substantial reasonable doubt on Jeremy's guilt.  The only way out of this for the guilt camp is to argue that the call from Nevill was invented rather than staged, but this then involves Jeremy running the risk of no call log existing at the PB exchange, and you also have to ask why during his later police interviews he would prompt the police to make such inquiries.

I outline the problem with the guilt position on this issue here:
https://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,11011.msg509997.html#msg509997

I should add that the police took evidence from a BT engineer and he could not say conclusively and definitively whether a call log would have been made at the PB exchange.  I can't imagine how Jeremy could have established the position, so we are left with the pro-guilt camp's fall-back stance: that Jeremy was just arrogant and decided to chance it.

For completeness:

Here's my full Jeremy Scenario thread: https://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,10975.0.html

Here's a 2020 thread I started in which the interlinkage of the phone calls and Jeremy's movements that night is explored: https://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,10348.0.html

It is not far-fetched to think that Jeremy returned the murder clothes to his own wardrobe at Bourtree Cottage, potentially even unwashed, and any resultant forensic evidence went undetected by the police in their searches of Jeremy's home.

Consider:

(i). DNA evidence - wasn't widely available at that point, but even if used, would have been of no value concerning Jeremy's clothing.

(ii). Blood evidence - only of value if the victims' blood, and even then, only if in large quantity and/or finger or hand prints, and even then, there would be doubt due to strong possibility of cross-contamination.  Jeremy's own blood on his own clothes is of no forensic value.

(iii). Fibre analysis - may have been of use, but police would not have been able to isolate samples by the time Jeremy came under suspicion and probably assumed the exercise was not worthwhile.  Also, defence would argue cross-contamination, due to Jeremy's closeness to his own family and likelihood that June washed his work clothes, etc.  Even with 'clean' control samples, there would be doubt.

The reason I think Jeremy changed into Nevill's clothes at the farmhouse and disposed of his own is because I assume Jeremy had transfer blood stains on him by the end of the shootings due to contact with Nevill and from the two shots to Sheila, but that is not necessarily the case and it is not out of the question that he even wore the murder clothes when confronting the police later that morning.

The typical pro-guilt argument is that this does not hold for a Jeremy scenario because Nevill had been shot while in bed.  Yet Nevill manages to get out of bed and escape the bedroom.  That being the case, it seems more likely than not that something different would happen: Jeremy would kill him in the bedroom and/or Nevill would struggle with Jeremy for the rifle.  Instead, the pro-guilt scenario is that Nevill runs away and Jeremy hares after him, which means Nevill has run right past Jeremy, who is stood in his way in a small space.

Why is it offensive to some if Nevill should be considered a coward or it be inferred as much?  Personally I don't hold that opinion of him - he was an RAF pilot in wartime - but on the other hand, you would have thought his natural response would have been fight rather than flight.  Perhaps by running he was drawing Jeremy's fire?  He may not have imagined Jeremy would kill Sheila and the twins, but June may have still been alive at this point.  He may also have had a vague notion of escaping to his den for a gun or escaping the farmhouse altogether to raise the alarm, or running for the downstairs phone, or whatever.  Why didn't he run for the upstairs office?  There was a phone there.

Anyway, all of that is to say that, all things being equal, I acknowledge there is nothing odd or strange in Nevill fleeing the room in principle, but once you add in the factor of Jeremy with a lethal weapon and stood in Nevill's path, it does start to look a bit strange.  Then you factor in that none of the blood found in the bedroom was Nevill's and there is no blood on Nevill's side of the bed.  It doesn't make sense on its face.

It makes more sense if Jeremy and Nevill have their confrontation outside the bedroom, probably on the stairs.  This also preserves Nevill's honour.  He runs for the kitchen as Jeremy fires on him and Jeremy has no option but to follow, as he knows well enough that there is a phone in the kitchen and a key in the back kitchen door and Nevill will also have access to a gun in the den.

At first, literally everybody without exception accepted it was Sheila.  Even the relatives, Colin Caffell and Stan Jones.  The relatives and Stan Jones only became sceptical when listening to Jeremy, and even Stan Jones defended Jeremy for quite some time while also suspicious of him.

I am neutral but I disagree that Jeremy was the obvious suspect.

Sheila is the obvious suspect.  If you apply Occam's razor, Sheila did it because:

(i). all entry points to the farmhouse were secure and there was no evidence of an intruder;
(ii). Sheila was found with the rifle;
(iii). everybody in the farmhouse was found dead, including Sheila;
(iv). the rifle was simple to use;
(v). Sheila was severely mentally-ill;
(vi). the son, who lives just over two miles away, claims that he received a call from the father saying Sheila had gone mad with a gun;
(vii). there is no evidence to say that he can't have received that call;
(viii). there is nothing else linking the son to the scene other than that call he claims he received;
(ix). in theory, the son could have had an inheritance motive to kill the family and frame Sheila, but in reality the inheritance would have been a complex affair and he was already comfortably off and more or less assured a comfortable future;
(x). there was no indication that the son was mentally-ill and he had no violent history at all;
(xi). the son was observed crying at the scene;
(xii). the son behaved strangely at the funeral and so on, but he had been prescribed valium;
(xiiii). the son's former girlfriend claims he confessed to her his involvement in the murders, but she only came forward with this information after he split up with her;
(xiv). if the son had hired a contract killer, that would mean the killer was willing to eliminate two six year old boys;
(xv). on a similar point, if the son was involved, that means he has murdered his two six year old nephews who he used to play football with at the farmhouse;
(xvi). Sheila's blood was in the sound moderator, which this was retrieved from the gun cupboard by relatives, not by police, despite a search of the gun cupboard.  The relatives have a clear motive for undermining Jeremy and his inheritance of the estate.

In Jeremy's favour, everything can be simply explained.  To implicate Jeremy, we have to come up with a highly complex and risky scenario that, in places, make little or no sense.

(i). Is it likely that all this would happen and Nevill would leave no blood on the bedclothes or on the floor of the bedroom?

(ii). If Jeremy believed Nevill was a physical threat, why did he shoot June first?

(iii). Why did Jeremy shoot June five times?

(iv). If Jeremy is using a silencer and Nevill is asleep, why does Nevill wake?  I thought you said, or you assumed, that the use of a silencer meant the weapon lacked report?

(v). You say Jeremy shot from inches away, but you then say Jeremy walked round the bed.  This means you are assuming for the first two shots Jeremy is firing from June's side of the bed and at least two of the shots were fired into Nevill while both Jeremy and Neville are in the corner of the room nearest the door to the box room.  How come no cartridge casings were found in that area or on the bed itself, or perhaps (as a result of a ricochet effect) by the front of the bed? Note: the crime scene footfall of raid group officers converged on that point.

(vi). If Nevill and June were asleep, or at least in bed, that means both were prone or lying face up or to the side.  That being the case, why didn't Jeremy just shoot both Nevill and June in the head while they are still in bed and perhaps still asleep?

(vii). How does Nevill escape all this?  Even if we assume Jeremy ran out of ammunition, why didn't Jeremy just use the rifle stock as a bludgeon?

The police all, without exception, accepted murder-suicide completely - even the relatives.  I think the only individuals ahead of the curve were DS Jones and DI Cook.

I think in the case of the relatives it was more that they persuaded themselves of Jeremy's guilt over time and saw things in hindsight.  If you look at their statements, you'll notice that the early suspicions are not vocalised to third parties.

Bews claims he was suspicious, but I think that is wisdom after the fact.  His concerns about Jeremy arose from the unusual nature of the situation rather than a specific suspicion that all was not as it seemed.

The taking of statements from Jeremy, Colin, et al, was a formality.  It was Jeremy's behaviour that drew the suspicion of DS Jones.  I think ILB is correct that it was detective instinct and intuition combined with DS Jones' own prejudices that focused his mind on Jeremy.  However, Jones was unsure of his own suspicions and went to great lengths to defend Jeremy at first to the relatives, as he was disgusted by their behaviour.

I don't think DI Cook suspected Jeremy as such, but he sensed something was not quite right about it all - again, instinct or intuition.  This led him to order more thorough scene of crime work than otherwise would have occurred.  But I suspect DI Cook had inner doubts right to the very end, maybe until his death.  I see him as a very interesting figure: a sceptic who was perhaps dragged along on a persecutory wave (though sometimes persecutors do catch the right person, and they probably did here).

Well was June shot with the silencer on the rifle or not?  If that was the case, then I'm just wondering why Nevill stirred.  It must be that June was already awake when Jeremy entered the main bedroom.  The idea being that Jeremy therefore has to shoot June first instead of Nevill, and June is perhaps the one who wakes Nevill while she is being shot, either by noise or touch or both.  The whole thing then goes pear-shaped.  Nevill is awaken and moves, resulting in shots to his face rather than upper head.

There is also a possible explanation for Jeremy shooting June multiple times, which is simply that she is already awake, and although she is still in bed, she is moving around and this could have put Jeremy off his stride.

Jeremy's assumptions would have been:

- silencer, so no noise;

- parents in bed, so shoot them quickly in the vital areas;

- kill twins quickly (maybe this was before parents, doesn't matter either way for present purposes);

- grabs hold of Sheila or Sheila is already moving around, either way he pins her down and kills her quickly, then stages the scene.

This basic plan goes wrong when June hears somebody creeping around.  Robert Boutflour, Jnr. did say that June had sleep problems.  Jeremy is surprised to find her awake, and this puts him off.

On the other hand, the relatives may have thought all this through in the same way we have and this may explain Robert Boutflour, Jnr.'s claim about June's sleep problems.

When people make this point, what they are you are doing ultimately (mostly without realising it) is repeating an argument made by author Roger Wilkes in his book on the base.  I've read his book several times and I have had correspondence with him.  Wilkes is giving an interpretation of part of the judge's summing-up.  What it boils down to is this: if Jeremy and the response cars arrived at 3.48 a.m., that must mean Sheila could not have shot anybody after 3.48 a.m.  This seems to me like a naive application of the facts.

First, the response car arrives at Pages Lane at 3.48 a.m., and Jeremy arrives at 3.50 a.m. (at least), and you have to add at least a few minutes on as they stand around making general introductions and talking and what not, and asking Jeremy questions.  In his statement of 16th. August 1985, PS Bews recalls, seemingly ad verbatim, a lengthy conversation with Jeremy that took place at Pages Lane on arrival.  PC Saxby then was appointed as radio officer, opened a scene log, and asked BT telephone operator Jean Rowe to check the line. It must have been at least 4 a.m., if not later, before PS Bews, PC Myall and Jeremy even approached the White House.
 
The three of them did not get right up close to the farmhouse at all prior to the setting up of the Forward Observation Post by armed officers and commanders, which was some time later and not of relevance to this.  Instead, PS Bews, PC Myall and Jeremy first went to the rear of the farmhouse (west side), then walked around the side and to the front, always maintaining their distance.  From the east field side (the front), they thought they saw something in the window.  Since all this happens at some distance from the farmhouse itself, they would not have heard anything of the melee inside (assuming Jeremy is innocent and Sheila was not using a silencer), nor necessarily need they have heard water from the drains if Sheila was washing herself or whatever.

PS Bews only radioed for armed support at 4.22 a.m., which suggests that the three of them were out in the fields and surrounds of the White House for quite a number of minutes, yet crucially:

(i). they were not at hearing distance due to an abundance of caution; and,

(ii). the 'movement in the window' was seen from the east field, which was the last observation point of the three before PS Bews returned to Pages Lane.

Note: the timings I give here are based on the official record of officers of Essex Police.

Now let's consider this '38 minutes' controversy in view of the above facts.

1. First, we can't rely on Jeremy's timing of 3.10 a.m. for receiving a call from Nevill.  This is not a point 'for' or 'against' Jeremy.  You could make the argument that the call must have been received later and therefore compress the time available to Jeremy.  But Adam insists on 3.10 a.m., based on Jeremy's first statement to the police, so let's assume that as our bookend for now.

2. If we are taking 3.10 a.m. as our starting-point, then it wasn't 38 minutes.  It was more like at least 70 minutes, if not more, because, as we can now see, the bookends are 3.10 a.m., and 4.22 a.m.  When you also consider that, unlike Jeremy, Sheila was already in situ, this does not seem unreasonable at all, but my timeline says that Sheila took around 75 minutes, which fits the scenario anyway.

3. We shouldn't take this issue too seriously, for the reason given in 1 above.  An innocent Jeremy could have received the call from Nevill at 3 a.m., 3.05 a.m., or whatever, and then delayed in making the call for the reasons he states.  It is the early hours of the morning.  We don't know how long Nevill has been trying to call him or where Sheila is (though in my Sheila scenario, Nevill terminates the call as soon as Sheila goes upstairs).  Jeremy was confused by Nevill's call.  He tried to call Nevill back, to no avail.  Maybe tried more times than he remembers. At about 3.15 a.m., he rings Julie, his steady girlfriend, because he is in a state of confusion, and perhaps this is the point he checks the time and later assumes he got Nevill's call at 3.10 a.m. for that reason.  After a very brief call to Julie, he then tries calling the police.  He's frightened of calling 999, and it's not clearly an emergency at this point.  He finally gets through to a police officer at 3.24 a.m.  The seriousness of it is gradually dawning on him.  He goes to the scene.  None of this is implausible.

QuoteQuote from: Adam on June 21, 2022, 04:52:PM
Anyway Julies WS states he planned to use the last number dialled phone as proof Nevill called him.

That's helpful of Julie to let us know.  Pity she came forward with this information after the fact, when Jeremy's claim of a phone call was public knowledge.

Arrive at the farmhouse, find there was no answer or response.  Notice his father through the kitchen window.  Run to the cottages and ask somebody to call the police.

Or, depending on the morning routines at the farm, allow somebody else to raise the alarm.  My understanding is that Jeremy was typically not the first to arrive.

The way I look at it is this: if any important aspect of the case against Jeremy relies on supposing that he was bluffing, or that he was 'cocky and arrogant', then it can't be a very good case.  The burden is on the Crown at all times.  We can't incriminate Jeremy by supposing he was bluffing or putting everything down to arrogance.  We either have evidence for the point being advanced or we don't.

To understand this, we have to bring together the following topics in a critical synthesis:

1. A likely plan for the murders, assuming Jeremy is guilty.
2. Crime scene choreography - i.e. what actually happened, people's movements and so forth.
3. Set-up of telephones inside the White House.
4. Telephone set-up at Bourtree Cottage

I reiterate that:

(i). Jeremy could not have planned the phone calls because he didn't plan on Nevill being in the kitchen.  The telephone engineer clearly confirms where the phone was prior to the shootings.  This is a gaping hole in the prosecution case.  It means that if Jeremy is guilty, the phone calls were an unplanned aspect of the murders.

(ii). It follows that Jeremy had no specific use for an answerphone and there is no evidence he owned one prior to the shootings anyway.

(iii). Apart from that, Jeremy could not have staged a call.  This is for a number of reasons that I have covered exhaustively.  One of them is tacitly conceded by the prosecution themselves: the timings just don't work.  The prosecution will never admit this, but it's clear from their own omission and deemphasis of the point.  Jeremy is hardly going to risk pretending to have received a phone call and then take 30 minutes (I would say more) to ring the police.  On reflection, the whole notion of staging a phone call is bizarre anyway.

(iv). Jeremy could have made a call up, but then he runs the risk that calls may be logged somewhere. Yet Jeremy prompted the police to check for a log of Nevill's call. 

(v). Jeremy also puts himself under some time pressure because the call to the police needs to be made from Bourtree Cottage.

(vi). This is where the whole prosecution theory starts to seem less-than-plausible.  The alternative is to simply accept that a phone call from Nevill woke Jeremy up and he answered the phone and the call was as Jeremy claims.  Instead of this simple explanation, we have to accept that a needlessly complex plot was put in motion by Jeremy that put Jeremy in the frame.