Is/Was Jeremy Bamber A Predator?

[Erik Narramore]

Is/Was Jeremy a predator?  Let's consider it.

In what follows, we assume Jeremy is guilty because we are trying to work out what makes him tick as a killer and this only makes sense on the predicate that he did it.  If the predicate turns out to be false, then this thread will just have been a potentially interesting intellectual exercise (or not, as the case may be).

To say that Jeremy committed the killings because he was/is a predator is to espouse a theory.  We'll call it the Predation Theory.  For a number of reasons, I am sceptical of the Predation Theory.   

I don't have the time to compose a lengthy thought piece about it, which ideally I would have liked, and most of this will be fairly summary, but I will do my best.  The first thing to look at is a definition of 'predator' and ensure we have a shared understanding of what criminal predation is.

I will try to keep it simple and say that a predator in the non-sexual criminal sense is someone who commits whatever crime for gain.  The gain could be non-monetary, such as the criminal attempting to change his general situation in life or end certain relationships, but I would assume we are mostly concerned here with monetary and financial gain in the broadest sense.

1. I believe the first factor to consider is that Jeremy has been assessed by prison psychologists as non-psychopathic.  I am heavily sceptical of psychology itself as a discipline (at least in its claims to be scientific) and of psychopathy (anti-social personality disorder) as a discrete concept, but the fact is that Jeremy has sat in front of somebody with experience of evaluating violent criminals and this expert says Jeremy does not have the collection of personal attributes that go to make up the 'psychopath'-type personality disorder.  Even if you can dismiss the exercise as not particular rigorous, would you expect someone with a psychopath-type personality to be able to fool experts with direct experience of the personality type?  This, on its own, undermines the Predation Theory because a predatory killer is, by definition, a psychopath.  That is not to say that criminal psychopathy and criminal predation are synonymous, but it is hard to imagine the latter without the former.  Thus, we are left with a more complex picture because the question of what Jeremy's motives could have been remains open, and how much his motives were guided or influenced by monetary considerations is unclear.

It may of course be true that just because Jeremy is not a psychopath now, that does not mean that the killings were non-predatory, as Jeremy could have changed psychologically over the years and may have outgrown psychopathy and developed greater conscience and empathy.  Who knows?  Yet psychologists tell us that psychopathy is deeply-ingrained psychically: in effect, genetically-determined.  Let us also consider the fact that Jeremy has now spent the majority of his life in high security prisons, a very unpleasant environment in which it is unlikely he will have grown any healthy empathy.

2. The second factor to consider is that Jeremy put himself through a polygraph examination and in the opinion of the polygraph examiner, he was truthful.  Again, this is awkward because I am sceptical about polygraphology.  Yet I am not an expert, and experts across the criminal justice system seem to give polygraphs credence.  It is also awkward because if you are not sceptical as I am, then you have to be honest with yourself and ask how a guilty man could pass such a test with flying colours.

What we can say is that, at the very least, Jeremy has been able to present himself as a truthful person to an expert with experience of making a precise assessment of an offender's physical responses to a high stress situation in which his truthfulness is being examined, using micro-physiological measurements.  Given that we already know Jeremy is not a psychopath (see 1 above), we can exclude that as an explanation for Jeremy's coolness under pressure.  That leaves us with the need to explain how a non-predatory offender could pass such an examination. I think the explanation can only be either he was telling the truth but the questions were deliberately-designed in such a way to allow him to pass, or he was lying in response to whatever he was asked that could be incriminating.

The problem with the former explanation is that, whatever one thinks about the science underpinning it, the test itself was bona fide.  The polygraph examiner is, it appears, an honest man who is knowledgeable and credible within his profession.  This further undermines the idea of Jeremy as a predator.  Predators are calculating and would not typically allow themselves to be put in an ad hoc and unpredictable scenario in which their dubious narrative is stress-tested.  A non-predatory offender, on the other hand, might take his chances and just lie to see if he can get away with it: what does he have to lose?  A lot, but does he think it through?

3. The third factor is to do with what I see as the flaws in the inheritance motive for the killings.  Jeremy was not a potential rocket scientist, but equally we cannot say he was stupid or uncouth.  He must have known that farmers are not passively wealthy.  Nevill Bamber was only nominally a country gentleman: in reality, he was a working farmer and the value of the estate depended on work.  Jeremy must have known this and would have had some idea about what inheriting an estate of that size involved, and he showed this in the aftermath of the death when he was busying selling-off items of value so as to raise cash.  He must have known that in killing his entire family, he would have to do the following:

- commit himself to farming to the satisfaction of the trustees, or lose the main farm;
- commit himself to farming anyway, otherwise the farm's value would rapidly decline due to loss of goodwill, and could be difficult to sell.  A farm has less value idle or neglected, sometimes even nil value where, as here, there was no main freehold asset;
- live at the farmhouse, a boring life with Julie, forgoing nightclubbing and there would be less socialising with Brett. Must keep up appearances;
- share control of the holiday park with the relatives.  It was a close company, so it would not have been easy to dispose of his shares;
- work with and liaise with other business partners and interests, such as North Maldon Growers;
- dispute and argue over the estate with relatives, who would want to contest aspects of it, something Jeremy must have anticipated.

There is no such thing really as a passive asset or passive wealth.  All asset wealth involves a degree of management, and in the case of farming and residential landlording, there is work to be done, risks to be taken, and insight and commercial judgement are needed.  Are we saying Jeremy killed off his family so that he could become a hard working farmer and businessman in Nevill's stead?  Or do we accept that the inheritance motive is not as compelling as it looks at first glance?

4. Supporters of the Predation Theory may argue for a more sophisticated version of the inheritance motive: that Jeremy was not necessarily killing just for money and wealth, what he really wanted was freedom from his family.  It was a change of scene he wanted.  In this idea, the money is just a means for freedom but not the real motive in itself, and enough was needed to buy a smallholding in Dorset (as Jeremy discussed with somebody).  Jeremy really just wanted rid of his family.  This idea, and its variations, make no sense because if Jeremy wanted his freedom, it was easy: he just had to leave.  There was no need to kill anybody.  If he needed money to leave, he could have come to an arrangement at some point with his father and mother.  The idea of killing his family does not square with it.

5. Finally - for now - I believe certain factors about the execution of the killings point to a lack of considered premeditation on Jeremy's part (what I call 'counter-rationalisation').  I don't have time to go through all the points, and I did this before on a previous thread, but one of the obvious ones is the phone calls.  That looks like a planned aspect, but I would argue it only seems planned in retrospect and is in fact the result of Jeremy's lack of planning, which may in turn indicate that the killings were not premeditated.

[Erik Narramore]

I am given to understand that, in criminology, a predator is an offender who tracks or follows people in order to commit crimes against them.  Typically this would be a sex offender, but the term could be also be applied to somebody who deliberately targets and tricks somebody out of their savings, let's say, and similar crimes.  In the present case, much depends of course on how you interpret these offences and the motives, and also how you interpret the Jeremy Bamber of today.

I asked previously whether a hypothetical guilty Sheila would be considered a predator, and if not, why distinguish between Jeremy and Sheila in this way?  Another way of asking the question would be why over-simplify Jeremy's drives and motivations and paint him as just somebody who was greedy and, like The Terminator in the James Cameron blockbuster released around the same time, have him mindlessly and without feeling assassinating his own family?  Is that a realistic portrayal?

[Erik Narramore]

Some further thoughts:

1. I don't accept the inheritance motive theory, as I don't believe it stands up under close scrutiny.  I think Jeremy had a bit more business nous than that and I also think his alleged actions in the aftermath of the incident are inconsistent with inheritance as a motive.  He would not be disposing of everything and living it up, as is alleged, if he had killed to take over the estates himself.  Rather, I see his actions as consistent with somebody in shock, either because he is an innocent victim too, or because he did it, but for other reasons or no reason and he cannot himself quite believe what he has done.  In that latter scenario, Jeremy has brought disaster on himself because, though he may have some business ability, he would not be quite up to it at that point, being a 'young' 24 and inexperienced, and he is now surrounded by potentially antagonistic (if not hostile) relatives who are part of the same farming-business cluster.  In either scenario, innocent or guilty, Jeremy is vulnerable.

I think the reason inheritance as a motive is promoted is because it's very easy for people to grasp, not necessarily because it's actually true or wholly true.  I accept the obvious point that Jeremy would have inherited a substantial estate and I also accept that if Jeremy had killed his family just for gain, then that would point to him being a potential psychopath, and such actions would furthermore fit the definition of 'predator', but I cannot accept it was that simple, for several reasons, one being that it just seems highly improbable.  He would have to sit down and plan to kill two little boys, for one thing.  I can't see it, personally.  I know it can happen, though it must be exceedingly rare.

I also don't believe the killing was planned at length or with any sophistication.  The phone call idea, for instance, I think may have come up on the night after things went wrong with Nevill, and this would fit more with the timings and having to move on foot.  It hardly makes sense for him to plan to shoot Nevill in bed and then pretend there was a phone call, but if things have gone wrong, it may make more sense for him to stage a call and move the phones around (though it could equally be that there was coincidentally a genuine problem with the domestic phones and he knew this).

2. Jeremy's relationship with his parents was rough and smooth. I think Jeremy essentially told the truth about this to police in the interview.  He must have got on with his father for them to work together, but I can also imagine his father being snappy and on edge with him.  The photograph of Nevill I started a thread on, in which he looks to have been taken by surprise when out working, shooting or game keeping, or whatever, shows a man with concerns and worries etched on his face, which is sad when you consider how old he was.

The photographs I have seen of June show her as uncomfortable, and I do not believe she was terribly close to Jeremy, but I think the relationship would have been amicable.  She probably channelled all her concerns about Jeremy through male figures in the family, including Nevill especially and also Robert Boutflour.

Sheila and Jeremy were not very close either.  Jeremy may not have seen too much of the twins.   

When initially Jeremy told the police the relationships were good, this was seen as suspicious but it could equally be viewed innocently.  If we imagine an innocent man has just been told all his family are dead and it's murder-suicide by his sister, why does he need to go into careful nuances about his family relationships?  Of course, if he is guilty, that puts a different complexion on the matter.