A Counter-Conspiracy?

[Erik Narramore]

Is there a counter-conspiracy at work to free a guilty man, or free an innocent man by pseudo-legal means?

The guilt camp would have you believe that something along those lines is taking place and they often point to Jeremy Bamber's obscure behaviour.  I have to say, in some respects, Jeremy's behaviour does mirror that of Essex Police and prosecutors, but not every charge levelled at him is true.

For instance, it is true that Jeremy is lying when he says he saw a silhouette figure in the front window of the farmhouse.  Innocent people do lie about their cases, so we can't conclude from this that Jeremy is guilty.  We merely need to acknowledge that a man who has spent decades in high security prisons may well lie about his case in desperation, whether innocent or guilty.

But the guilt camp also ask why Jeremy did not bring up the 'movement at the window' sighting during police interviews and why he didn't pursue it more aggressively at the trial itself.  The allegation needs to be understood in context.  The guilt camp speak of Jeremy forgetting about it, but the initial investigation concluded uncontroversially that Sheila was the culprit, as this matched the evidence found, so there was no reason for Jeremy to raise the issue.  It was only when Jeremy became a suspect that it became relevant.

Against this background, these suspicions make no sense.  If Jeremy was lying about what occurred, then he would have claimed to have seen movement himself and Bews and Myall would have denied the whole thing ever occurred.  Instead, Bews admits it occurred, and at one point even states he was the one who saw movement in the window!  It's on YouTube for everybody to see.

As for the police interviews, Jeremy's role was to answer the questions asked or remain silent.  True, he could have provided the police with a statement at this stage (which would probably have been a better option for him), but he had a solicitor present in the later interviews over that three-day period and it must be assumed that his lawyer did not advise this course of action.

[Erik Narramore]

It's alleged that Jeremy and his campaigners make too much of the disclosure issue and 'slack paperwork' (in the words of  prosecution counsel at the 2002 appeal, Victor Temple). 

Well, Essex Police and prosecutors did conspire to withhold parts of the police logs from the defence!  That is fact. Furthermore, the log quite plainly and in black-and-white states that the firearms team are in conversation with somebody from inside the farm.  It uses those very words.  They perhaps should have disclosed it and added a note that this was officers attempting to hail a suspect believed to be in the farmhouse, not in conversation with a suspect, and these efforts were to no avail.

Also, if they were hailing to no avail and if there was no sign of life in the farmhouse, then why did they wait so long to attempt entry?  Did they lack the equipment and training to effect low light entry?  I appreciate that safety concerns are legitimate considerations, and anyone with a gun has to be considered dangerous, but ultimately, they were dealing with a young woman, not hardened terrorists.  One argument that occurs to me is that they may have been concerned about setting Sheila off and her then shooting everybody, especially as there were young children in the house.  OK, but they waited three hours.  Three hours.  Why?

[Erik Narramore]

Is is also alleged that Jeremy is making hay of a simple mistake by PC Laurence Collins, the raid group officer who - Essex Police say - simply mistook Nevill for a woman when looking through the kitchen window.

It is a fact that an authorised firearms officer, PC Collins, looked through the back kitchen window and when he reported what he saw back to CA07, he stated one dead female.  They then enter the farmhouse and find one dead male.  CA07 then radioed this back to Igor Norman at Chelmsford as one dead male and one dead female found on entry to the farmhouse, and PC West also recorded it this way in the Wireless Log.

What is clear is that PC Collins' second report back to CA07 could not have included the conjunctive word as there was only one body in the kitchen.  Furthermore, if PC Collins had seen a different body through the window to that found in the kitchen, he would have reported this.

It follows from this that PC Collins' original observation could not have been mistaken in its essential fact - he definitely saw a body, whether male or female.  This in turn leaves open two possibilities:

(i). the body found by the raid group on entry to the main kitchen was in the same position to that observed by PC Collins through the kitchen window;
or,
(ii). the body found by the raid group on entry to the main kitchen was in a different position to that observed by PC Collins through the kitchen window.

If (i) applies, then PC Collins' evidence in this respect is true and he just mistook Nevill's body for female.

If (ii) applies, PC Collins' evidence is false, and either Nevill was still alive at this point or Sheila was in the kitchen just before the raid group entered the farmhouse.

[Erik Narramore]

There is the apparent contradiction that PC Collins is meant to be reporting a dead body but Jeremy claims Sheila was the body and she then ran upstairs as the raid group entered the farmhouse.

But PC Collins was not commenting on whether the bodies he saw were alive or dead.  If he says 'dead bodies', that is because they appear to be dead.  Even a doctor would not be able to tell from behind a window six feet away.

[Erik Narramore]

The Campaign Team and Jeremy are criticised for bringing up the alleged 'suicide note'.  It is said that they are misrepresenting the context of remarks by a police officer and conflating these with private notes of Sheila's or a simple letter Sheila wrote to her mother.

I don't know if there was a suicide note, but it was Stan Jones who mentioned a suicide note in his COLP interview.  It's not as if Jeremy was stood there with him saying, 'Go on Stan, mention the suicide note.  Go on.  I'll give you all my dinner money if you do...'  Jeremy seems to be blamed for drawing natural inferences from things people have done or said of their own free will, which seems rather unfair to me.

Personally, I suspect it was just clumsy expression on Stan Jones' part that Jeremy has now seized on, but if Jeremy Bamber is innocent, can you blame him for making hay of it?  Shouldn't the COLP officers have sought clarification from DS Jones on the point?  Why blame Jeremy when it's the police who are not being rigorous and checking things?

[Erik Narramore]

Jeremy Bamber is accused of changing his mind about the order of his calls that morning to the police and Julie Mugford respectively, while accusing Julie Mugford and all her housemates of lying about the timing of calls.

Even the prosecution counsel, Anthony Arlidge, Q.C. conceded the point in his closing speech on 27th. October 1985, when he told the jury:

"Somebody in this case is lying, and lying their head off.  It's just something you have to face up to."

You say the phone call was at 3 a.m.  Julie said it was at 3.15 a.m.  Susan Battersby said it was at 3.12 a.m., based on her alarm clock, which she asks us to assume was deadly accurate.

Julie told the police in her first statement that Douglas Dale had answered the phone, then corrected this later and admitted she answered.

[Erik Narramore]

If Essex Police have concealed evidence, then what else should we conclude than that they have....concealed evidence?  That is literally what they have done.  And if you were innocent of something and still in prison for it, what else would you do other than protest your innocence at every opportunity?

[Erik Narramore]

Essex Police destroyed key exhibits in 1996. 

officers also took evidence home with them.  Whether the documents were technically stolen by police officers is a matter of law, but no legitimate reason for them to have those documents springs to mind.  "Any chance I can take this document home, guv, show it to the wife?" "Yeah, go on. Jeremy's legal team won't need it anymore", sounds to me like a conversation that should not take place between police officers.  However, we are talking about the police force that destroyed crucial evidence in a murder case involving a disputed conviction, so perhaps that's how it panned out.