'Touching A Murderer': the questionable claims of 'Jane' on the Blue Forum

[Erik Narramore]

'Jane' on the Blue Forum claimed that she knew somebody who worked for a psychiatrist who visited and assessed Jeremy Bamber shortly after he was detained in custody.

She PM'd me and gave me further information about this psychiatrist and what he said confirms to me that the person referred to was not the defence psychiatrist referred to in Wilkes' book.  (I have reason to believe that Wilkes has given a misleading account of the incident anyway, or his source did).

Now, it could be that Jeremy was looked at by a different psychiatrist earlier, when in police custody perhaps, but Jane previously claimed differently. Jane claimed that the psychiatrist she knew of was the defence psychiatrist, i.e. same one as in Wilkes' book.  I think the whole thing is an invention in Jane's own head to make her appear to be somebody 'in the loop'.

Or, if it's true to some extent, then it's some unprofessional idiot bragging to Jane about how he/she (or somebody he/she knows) was sent to see Jeremy when he was first arrested and thought he was "a right psycho", or whatever.  People aren't diagnosed with personality disorders in that way and Jane should have had the discernment to realise this instead of going round telling people it supported the tendentious assertion that Jeremy is a psychopath.  It doesn't.

[Erik Narramore]

Jane's claim was that she knew the secretary (or knew somebody who knew the secretary) of the psychiatrist who assessed him.  On that basis alone, I suppose we can dismiss everything Jane says about it.  It's gossip and can't be taken seriously.  The only reason I take an interest is that Jane specifically claimed this was the defence psychiatrist, which it can't have been because she now admits (as she did in that PM to me) that the evaluation happened just after Jeremy went into police custody.  For those who don't know, the defence psychiatrist was only appointed much later (and in fact, there's even some dispute about that - I have reason to question the whole incident as related by Wilkes).

This is why I question Jane's honesty, because what she has done is represented that this was the same psychiatrist as Wilkes mentions, which it can't be, for good reasons that she knows.  She just omits to mention this now.

Also, Jane seems to lack the basic discernment or common-sense to realise that no psychiatrist would conduct an evaluation of somebody in custody in this way.  People aren't just instantly declared psychopaths or narcissists after one meeting in a police cell.  I even doubt that the person she knows was secretary to a psychiatrist.  It's much more likely that the professional who assessed Jeremy was a nurse or general practitioner from a community medical team, but in any event, the anecdote doesn't stand up.  What Jane has received is either a pack of lies or the verdict of an unprofessional idiot who has got carried away with himself and started boasting to people how he 'touched a murderer'.  Or the whole thing is simply the product of Jane's own imagination, invented out of thin air.

In the relevant thread on the Blue Forum, I challenged Jane to tell us who this 'psychiatrist' was, or pass the information to the moderator or owner of the Blue Forum, but she did neither.

[Erik Narramore]

I am convinced Jane made the whole thing up out of thin air.  I accept I can't prove it, in so many words, and I have no wish to pursue this, but I believe she was lying.  The reason I am sure is that what she claims (or what the idiot she spoke to claims) doesn't comport with what happened when Jeremy was in police custody.  Jeremy was fit to be interviewed and the police have no vested interest in raising doubt about a criminal suspect's mental capacity.

Of course, I can't exclude the possibility completely that the police did bring in a psychiatrist in this case.  It does occasionally happen, and Stan Jones did reputedly say to Jeremy words to the effect that he was sick in the head.

But it's rather unlikely that a psychiatrist was called, given that Jeremy was immediately interviewed and nobody apart from Jane has ever made the claim.  A nurse or a police doctor, yes I can believe that, but they are hardly qualified to be offering specific diagnoses of personality disorders, and if that is what happened, then Jane's contact just knew some idiot who was mouthing-off and Jane has dishonestly spun it to make it fit Wilkes' anecdote.

I think the real villain here is Roger Wilkes.

[Erik Narramore]

I must grant the possibility that Jeremy was seen by a psychiatrist early on and it could be that the fact is buried in some book or statement somewhere and I've just forgotten it.  But for the reasons given above, it does seem rather unlikely and I draw my conclusions accordingly, allowing that I cannot prove Jane's motives, I can only have suspicions.  Anyway, we know it was not the defence psychiatrist, so even if the core account is true, Jane's spin on it falls down.