Killing Mum and Dad - the Sky 3 documentary

[Erik Narramore]

It is a very poor documentary.  The three 'experts' are unprofessional and embarrassing.

I think all the books and documentaries so far have been of low quality in that they have been not very probing.  I include the Wilkes and Lee books in this view.

However, the interview with Christopher Bews is interesting.  For context, I suggest listening from 22:00 onwards:

https://youtu.be/95DiJA1Gqy0?t=1320

Over the years, Christopher Bews has provided at least four different versions of what happened that night in regard to the 'trick of the light' controversy.  He doesn't seem able to make up his mind about what occurred.  This time he blames himself and says he was the one who saw movement and that he went back to look and verified that he saw nothing by recreating the light effect, which simply doesn't make sense.  I thought it was Jeremy who made all that up? Why does Mr Bews' story keep changing?

Consider this video, which shows him give two different versions of his story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohcCMvLrFm0&t=3s

In the first version, Jeremy saw it.  In the second version, Stephen Myall saw it.  Now in 'Faking It', he says he saw it himself, and went back and double-checked.

Mr Bews also now says that later that morning, he and the other officers all agreed that Jeremy did it, but in his notes for the Dickinson Review, he merely says that he and Myall were unhappy with what Jeremy had told them - and bear in mind, even that was with considerable hindsight.

I have just been re-reading Mr Bews' witness statements, pocketbook entries, notes from his interview for the Dickinson Review, and notes taken by COLP when interviewing him, and I cannot find anywhere a mention of seeing a figure in the window.  Perhaps it is there and I am just missing it.  I believe it was raised at trial, but I cannot find Mr Bews' evidence.  Was that ever uploaded?  We do have Myall's evidence and he is not asked about it.  Another oddity is that the three officers - Messrs. Bews, Myall and Saxby - have submitted substantially the same witness statement, largely word-for-word.  Is that even allowed?

Back to the 'trick of the light'.  If Mr Bews didn't see anybody, and if - as Mr Bews claims - he was sure Jeremy can't have seen anybody, then why would he be concerned about entering the farmhouse?  Consider the incident forwards rather than backwards.  Bews, Myall and Saxby record clearly in their notes that there was no sign of life.  There was no evidence that a gun had been used or that this was a firearms incident.  All they had to go on was Jeremy's account of a call from Nevill, but that call did not report shots fired, only that Sheila had 'got the gun', the sort of thing that could happen in a rural domestic incident where there are guns about, and frankly, it could imply anything.  Nevill had not rung 999, nor had Jeremy.  We keep being assured by guilters that Sheila was frail and slight - a slip of a girl - and it would be easy to take a gun off her.  Of course, Mr Bews would not be aware of this last point, as we assume he didn't know Sheila or the family, and Jeremy apparently did tell him that she knew all the guns in the house, but there was no indication that anybody had fired a gun, and in view of this, it seems strange that Mr Bews would immediately decide to bring in firearms officers.  In effect, he was drawing out the entire operational firearms capacity of Essex Police to tackle a lone schizophrenic woman who, for all he knew, may be just waving an unloaded gun about.  Surely that could be handled by an ordinary unarmed police officer?  If, on confronting Sheila, it became apparent that armed back-up would be needed, that would be a different matter, but at this point, he had no evidence that anybody had fired a gun or made threats with a gun.

Another issue I have with Christopher Bews is the nature of the risk calculation he makes.  Police officers should be selfless and physically courageous.  He says he didn't want to go in the farmhouse because it would be [I paraphrase], "Five dead bodies or four dead bodies and a nutter with a gun", but some of those people may still have been alive, even if injured.  By calling for firearms assistance, he was abandoning them and putting himself first.  That's the stark truth of it.  To me, it's like a fireman refusing to go in a house that's on fire.  I don't blame him, but it's not very noble, is it.  Ideally a police officer should be banging on all the doors and downstairs windows, shouting up at the bedroom windows, maybe go up on a ladder; then if no response, he should be rushing in to that house, breaking the door down if he has to, even asking Jeremy for help to do so.  Even if this is foolish, it's what I would hope and expect a police officer to do.

If you're drowning, you'd ideally want somebody to jump in and try and rescue you, not stand around saying: "Well, mustn't risk myself..."  I realise that first aid doctrine says that you should always consider your own safety and not add yourself to the casualty list.  This is understandable in principle, but as a matter of reality, I'd like to think a police officer could be brave and take a chance to save somebody.

That brings me to another point.  Jeremy has not dialled 999, but he did call the police.  Guilters tell us that he didn't dial 999 because he wanted to delay things in order to ensure that the police didn't realise that the time of death was somewhat earlier than 3.30 to 3.50 a.m. or so.  On the face of it, that reasoning seems weak because Jeremy has still contacted the police, so it would seem to make little or no difference, but maybe Jeremy had anticipated Christopher Bews and was thinking that by calling the police locally, that would delay the deployment of firearms officers and thereby delay entry to the farmhouse?  But would (or could) Jeremy plan things to that level of sophistication?  How could Jeremy be sure that a local police officer wouldn't just try to get in straight-away?  And why was Jeremy trying to encourage Christopher Bews to go in, if he wanted the police to delay?

Here's one possible explanation:

Was Jeremy trying to set up a local police officer as a sixth victim?  Perhaps Jeremy thought that the police would only send out one or two officers and his intention was to lure one or two officers into the house, then kill them too, then stage it as a murder by Sheila?  Maybe Christopher Bews really did save his own life.

If you think this speculation is far-fetched, consider how deranged Jeremy must have been to kill his own family in this way at all.

If you think this speculation is laughable, then please explain in your post why Jeremy needed to delay the police.