Could Phone Calls Be Logged At The Local Telephone Exchange?

[Erik Narramore]

Did Jeremy even think about the possibility of calls being logged?

It could be one or both of these:

(i). he just didn't think about it.  Bills were not itemised back then, so it may not have occurred to him;
(ii). he didn't plan the killings in any great detail and the phone calls happened because Nevill ended up in the kitchen and, rightly or wrongly, Jeremy decided that this would have to be explained by Nevill using the phone at some point.

[Erik Narramore]

Why did Jeremy tell detectives to check with the 'telecom' in one of his police interviews?

Possibility A - he was blagging.

Possibility B - he staged a call or was telling the truth.

We can rule out possibility A.  The police will always check and Jeremy clearly anticipated this, or he would not have mentioned it to the police in his interview with DS Jones and DC Barlow on the 11th.

We can also rule out a possibility C, which is that Jeremy knew that British Telecom would not be able to confirm whether such a call had been made.  For Jeremy to know this, he would have to ask somebody or undertake research of his own - either seems unlikely, and he would leave a witness trail.

It follows that possibility B is the truth and he is either innocent or he staged a call from Nevill, rather than made one up, and he took care to ensure accurate timings by returning to Bourtree Cottage by push bike (though even allowing for the bike, I am very sceptical).

[Erik Narramore]

Jeremy was a blagger, and he was young, and also I suppose he may not have factored into his plans that he would ever be formally suspected or interviewed by the police.  But if he knew he had not received or staged an actual call from the farmhouse to Bourtree Cottage, he would be hoping the police don't check, not suggesting that they check.

Possibility C - how would he have found out?  Assuming he planned the calls, he could have made an anonymous call to British Telecom at some point and simply asked, but it's rather specialist knowledge.  Would an ordinary BT operator know if calls are logged at the Private Exchange?  If he has to speak to somebody, even if anonymously or under an alias, isn't there a risk he then creates a witness trail?

On the other hand, maybe Nevill, a magistrate, knew and mentioned it to him at some point.

[Erik Narramore]

If he planned it, he planned it.  Tracing of phone calls is a very obvious point.  If 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?

[Erik Narramore]

I believe the salient points are these:

(i). In order to stage a phone call from Nevill, Jeremy needed an answering machine/answerphone.

(ii). There is no evidence Jeremy Bamber had an answering machine/answerphone prior to the incident, but he did obtain one after the incident.

(iii). There was no telephone in the main bedroom at the farmhouse and, if Jeremy is the killer, he would have wanted to kill Nevill where he found him.

(iv). It follows from (i), (ii) and (iii) that if Jeremy is guilty, he made-up the call from Nevill.

(v). It follows from (iv) that Jeremy cannot have made checks with BT or others about whether some sort of record is kept at the exchange of calls made and received from and to specific numbers.  Had he done, he most likely would not have received a clear answer and would have resolved to stage a call, as making-up a call in those circumstances is too risky.

(vi). It follows from (v) that a guilty Jeremy cannot have thought of the possibility of BT keeping a record of calls made and received.

(vii). This leaves us with a paradox: Why did Jeremy suggest to the police that they could check on the calls with BT?  There are two possibilities: Jeremy is innocent, or Jeremy is guilty and was just chancing it at this stage, perhaps in the belief that if the police were going to check on calls they would have done so already and would be mentioning it to him in the interview.

[Erik Narramore]

The question of whether Jeremy had an answering machine of any sort is relevant to the extent that it tells us whether he could have staged the call (assuming he's guilty in the first place).

I think we have reasonably established now that he did not have an answering machine prior to the incident.  That means he could not have staged the call.  He must have made it up - again, if he did it.  This in turn means (again, if we assume guilt) that his comment to the police during the interview was a bluff, probably because he had concluded that if the police were going to check on calls, they would have already done so by that stage.