Jeremy behaved oddly in the aftermath

[Erik Narramore]

(i). Jeremy did steal money from the family business.  But he did it once and defenders of Julie Mugford do say we should ignore things that people do once, so let us be consistent and call it - what was that phrase? - a 'spur-of-the-moment' 'white collar crime spree'.  Let's also remember that, when confronted about it, he admitted it.  He didn't have to come clean.  He could have just remained silent or even brazened it out and put them to proof.  Since he is supposed to be guilty, what would he have had to lose?  Where I do agree with guilters about this is that the whole excuse he gave at the time, and maintains now, that he was checking security arrangements is just spurious.  Clearly he robbed the site for the money.  We know he did it for that motive, because he promptly spent the money.

(ii). He did sell cannabis on the side.  Not necessarily the worst crime and lots of young men of similar character engage in that kind of minor offending.  What is bad about the drugs side of things is that he also trafficked drugs into the country for resale, which tells me he was on his way to getting himself into serious trouble at some point anyway.

(iii). It is correct that he was convicted of killing five members of his family.  This whole forum is about whether he actually did it, but at this point in time he stands convicted.

(iv). Jeremy denies laughing about the shootings behind closed doors, but even if he did laugh, it's not a crime and it doesn't mean he committed the killings.  People even laugh and joke at funerals sometimes.  I'm not sure what we can deduce from it, and it's dangerous to make deductions about odd, erratic or eccentric behaviour because we may be stringing together isolated facts that have no particular significance. Jeremy was somewhat immature.  That doesn't mean he was a murderer.  He played around with Julie in the back of the car [Q. What does that say about Julie?  Nobody asks that], but that may have been a way of relieving tension and/or a reaction to grief.  It's not often that your parents' funeral is filmed live in front of the world's media.

(v). Jeremy disputes what is being said about June's funeral arrangements.  He says that, as June was murdered, it was appropriate that she should be cremated and this was in line with June's Christian beliefs.

(vi). The allegation that he attempted to sell lewd photographs of his sister is disputed by Jeremy and relies on the word of a particularly scummy tabloid journalist who was well-known for telling lies, making things up and exaggerating, and is now deceased.  I see no reason to believe the journalist.  It may also be that there is no reason to believe Jeremy, but the two cancel each other out.  I can't remember what Brett Collins, who was supposed to be there, has to say about it all, but I'm equally reluctant to believe a word he says - which probably explains why I've forgotten. There are also one or two chronological holes in the story.  For instance, it's said that Jeremy would have had nothing to sell, as the negatives had been taken by Colin.  Colin may contradict this, but then, Colin has every reason to be biased.  Moreover, Colin wrote a book about how robins solve murders and Betty Shine revealed his destiny, so I'm not sure what credence can be put on things he says.

(vii). Jeremy sold family heirlooms because that is what he was entitled to do, and supposed to do.  Unless you're suggesting that he should have maintained The White House as it was, as if his parents were still living there?  Like a museum?  That is rather ridiculous.  Maybe he did act with some insensitivity, but he was adopted, so would not have had the same emotional connection to the heirlooms as a blood son would have had.  I suppose you blame him for that too?  He would also have had bills to pay and, if he is innocent, he would have been grieving amidst it all.  I also find it doubtful that he murdered five people just so that he could sell some antiques.

(viii). If it is true that Jeremy cleared out the twins' possessions and put them in bin bags, that was insensitive, but I'm not sure what can be read into it.  People can be insensitive.  Jeremy was an arrogant young man - that is not disputed by most people.  I feel sorry for Colin in that situation because he must have felt that he had suffered loss upon loss and that he had lost a tangible connection with his sons that he wanted to say Goodbye to, in one final poignant moment.  That's horrible, but it doesn't make Jeremy 'evil' or a murderer.

(ix). Jeremy went on holiday.  People go on holiday.  The guilt camp call that 'foreign jaunts with the blood money'.  Are you saying that when a relative dies, there is a fixed period during which somebody should not go on holiday or take any sort of restful break?  When do you suggest he should have stopped publicly grieving?  And from memory, didn't Colin go on holiday and also buy himself a new car during this period?  Or am I mistaken?  Not that this, even if true, would excuse Jeremy if he was unpardonably insensitive, but why are you insisting on precise adherence to careful, neo-Victorian social mores from Jeremy and not others?  Did the Eatons go on holiday that year?  Maybe we should check with everybody?  What if Stan and Taff went off on a lads' drinking blag to Ibiza?  How would that look?

This may be an opportune moment to mention again what happened immediately after the trial:

1. The entire CID capacity of Essex Police repaired to a nearby hotel for an orgiastic, sweaty, mayhemic bender in which, to the man, they got themselves snozzled on cheap acidic ale, in the company of one Kelvin MacKenzie, and quite possibly, a certain David Boutflour.  Not only that, one member of this Forum who claimed to be in know - and I stress, as matters stand, this claim is unproven - told us that this Kelvin MacKenzie told the following to anybody who could hear him above the deafening music: "We know the little sh*t is innocent".

2. A certain student teacher by the name Julie Mugford was posing for racy snaps in her lingerie for a scummy two-bit tabloid newspaper.  Not just any scummy two-bit tabloid newspaper, but the worst of the worst of the worst.  The very scum that decades later hacked the phones of the families of murder victims.

[Erik Narramore]

I'm not denying that he attempted to sell such photographs.  I am expressing scepticism about it.  I do not believe the say-so of this Fielder can be relied on at all, and what Colin says has to be treated with caution.  It is all the word of Fielder and Colin.  There is no hard proof.  One thing I have asked myself is why Fielder did not go ahead with the transaction in order to establish his newspaper's story.  Instead, the entire story rests on Fielder's account of a meeting.  And where are these photographs you (i.e. Carol Ann Lee) say were in the bureau?  What happened to them?  Is it likely that June would retain such photographs, given her conservative moral outlook?

[Erik Narramore]

Essex Police recommended a verdict to the coroner, who then released the bodies to Jeremy.  Sheila and the boys were buried, not cremated.  In the case of Nevill and June, since you concede that my rationalisation of Jeremy's actions is plausible, we're left to speculate as to whether, as you say, there was some ulterior motive for it.  I don't know.

[Erik Narramore]

 In fact, possessions can be sold before probate is granted, and I note that Jeremy kept a record of the transactions, thus he was acting properly and correctly. 

[Erik Narramore]

(i). He retched when informed that all his family were dead.  This is a common emotional response.

(ii). He collapsed at the funeral.  Even if this was fake and acting, an innocent man might do this in order to show sensitivity to the occasion.  A funeral is theatre.

(iii). Several reliable witnesses, including Dr. Craig and Basil Cock, record normal emotional responses from him in the circumstances.

(iv). Colin Caffell remembers him crying or tearful when they first met at Bourtree Cottage.

(v). His odd/unusual turns could be seen as symptomatic of shock and grief or the result of him having already got emotions out of his system beforehand.  Chris Marsden records him as acting normally when they met at some pub, but it's overlooked that hours before he had met Basil Cock and been upset.  Maybe, having been upset that day, he then felt able to socialise?  Or must he grieve 24/7?

(vi). He cried when June's letter was read out at the trial.

Those hostile to Jeremy very unfairly point to Jeremy's varied emotional reactions and behaviour as some basis for suspicion, but the exact same observation could be made of practically anybody, including the family.

People can't grieve on demand.  Have you lost five of your family in a murder?  No?  Then how do you know how Jeremy should act and behave?  There isn't a template for it.  He then had to attend a funeral in full view of the cameras and press.  Do you expect him to act naturally under those circumstances?

Colin's initial reaction when he says, 'So she finally did it', is interesting and relevant for the defence, not because of what it says about Colin, but because it suggests that reports of Sheila's suicide were not entirely surprising.  Otherwise, I agree that one or two comments in this thread about Colin Caffell are harsh and unfair, but perhaps it's being done to prove a point? Emotions are varied, the interpretation of emotions in others is highly subjective, and people under such scrutiny can't win.  Stan Jones' first words to Jeremy were to the effect that he should pull himself together.  This same Stan Jones views it as suspicious when Jeremy does just that and makes himself breakfast and starts planning the harvest.  Perhaps Jeremy shouldn't have bothered with the harvest and gone bankrupt instead?  Maybe Jeremy should have refrained from eating for the next few days?  What exactly is it that Stan Jones wants?  Sackcloth and ashes?

From the 'candid discussion' round the dinner table at White House Farm, Dr. Vanezis reported the grounds for Stan Jones' suspicion of Jeremy.  Almost-all of it is subjective and reflects Stan Jones' own views about how people should go about grieving, as if Jeremy is a robot.  The one exception is the phone call to Julie, which I agree was a legitimate basis for suspicion, but on its own, it's not enough.

David Boutflour insensitively complains that Jeremy misled the police about his relationship with his parents, but even if Jeremy did so, an innocent man might well lie in those circumstances and say the relationship was good when it wasn't.  They'd just died.  Is he supposed to say: 'No, I hated my parents'.  People do lie about these things.  Jeremy was not, at this point, giving evidence in court and he was not a suspect and, if he is innocent, he had no reason to assume that the police would wish to pry further.

I could go on, but won't.  I could critique the cold and heartless behaviour of the family themselves in this tragic aftermath, but won't, as it seems unfair, or would be if they had not set out to attack Jeremy in the same way.

[Erik Narramore]

The guilt camp want Jeremy to grieve on demand and if he doesn't display the right responses, you're suspicious of him.  The truth is that there is no template for shock and grief and people behave in varied and different ways, sometimes from one moment to the next.

Jeremy was an ebullient character as it is.  He was an arrogant, self-confident young man and he behaved in a way that comported with that.

The guilt camp say he appeared to retch.  Well, what else could he do?  Maybe he should have paused halfway through the retching and said, 'Let me assure you, Detective Sergeant, this is genuine retching...'

It's all subjective, all people's prejudices.  You could easily interpret the family and Colin's behaviour the same way, and some people do.

None of it is evidence.

[Erik Narramore]

I afford Jeremy Bamber the presumption of innocence, but that is not a belief in his innocence, it is only a formal assumption.  Nor is it itself a fact.

I am, in a sense, a 'soft guilter', it's just that I insist on proof.

So far, my verdict is Not Guilty in law.  The 1986 Jeremy Bamber may have been an abominable person, but a charge of murder must be proven.

I have never said Jeremy is innocent.  I am interested in evidence.  A profile of him as a callous and arrogant young man, assuming that is what he was, is no proof of murder.

I want proof, please.

Almost everything said about him has an innocent explanation, if we start from an innocent presumption.

He was not close to his adoptive parents, but he put on an act at the funeral so as to be sensitive and respectful to the occasion.  In private, out of sight, he didn't care, which I agree shows him to be callous, but he was in a very unusual situation.  Were all your family wiped out in violent circumstances?  Were your parents' funerals televised for all the nation to scrutinise your every move?  If my father's funeral had been televised, everybody probably would have called me a psychopath or murderer, nevertheless I was upset.  People are complex you know.  Jeremy isn't a robot able to grieve on demand.

At other times he was genuinely upset.  He cried when he heard June's letter read in court.  He was crying when Colin greeted him at Bourtree Cottage.  He was upset when in Basil Cock's office.

At other times, he wasn't upset, in fact he was positively cheery and happy.  It seems to me this is normal, especially if he had a poor or unformed attachment to his parents and sister.

Stan Jones told him to pull himself together.  So he did, and Stan Jones decided that was suspicious.  Stan wanted it both ways and sideways.  The truth is that Stan just didn't like him.  Now, Stan may also have been right in his suspicions, I don't deny that, but suspicion is suspicion.  It's no proof.

Jeremy didn't ring 999.  That seems odd to us, but he did call the police, and if he is guilty, he had no obvious reason to delay things, since everybody is dead anyway.  If he's innocent, then it's obvious that he was ruminating over what to do and he probably found it strange to have received that call from his father at all.  Whatever, the bottom line here is that he did alert the authorities.

Jeremy told Chris Bews that his sister knew all the guns in the house and had been target shooting with him.  Well, she may well have been.  Maybe he did exaggerate things for the police initially.  So what?  He'd just been told his schizophrenic sister was going crazy with a gun.  What do you expect him to do?  Tell the police not to bother?

Let's say he did discuss buying a porsche car with a police officer.  Again, so what?  Young men want porsches to impress girls and the police officer was trying to keep his mind off things and Jeremy was going along with it.  Discussing porsches is the ideal topic for a young man to take his mind away from reality. Your point is what?

You said he 'appeared' to be retching.  Well how is he supposed to appear when he's retching?  At any rate, retching is a normal psychosomatic response in such circumstances.  It doesn't necessarily involve vomiting, which could be where the confusion came in for Stan and everybody who has taken his word for Gospel since.

He referred to the pathologist cutting into Sheila's fatty tissue.  This was insensitive and should have earned him a rebuke from those present, but maybe he resented Sheila for normal reasons and was angry at her because of what she had done?

It is claimed that he was caught running up the stairs in Colin's house with his hair in a style resembling the twins in a photograph.  That's insensitive, but what are we supposed to conclude from it?  It doesn't tell us anything of import.  He could still have been upset about the twins, but at the same time, he may well have made jokes about them.  He may also have been embarrassed at his own behaviour.

He sold all his parents' effects to auctioneers and what not.  Well, that's what antique dealers and auctioneers are for.  What is he supposed to do?  Take it all to the tip?

He insisted that his family be cremated.  This was in accord with religious practices in such circumstances.  Maybe he went about it insensitively, and personally I can see why the family were upset, but somebody has to make a decision and you can't please everybody.

He was wining and dining quite a lot, going off on trips, etc.  But Colin went on holiday, didn't he?  When did the Boutflours and Eatons go on holiday?  People go on holiday.  People go to restaurants.  People go to pubs.  People socialise.  Life goes on.  In and of itself, it doesn't tell us anything because it's all selective.

If Jeremy is innocent, then there will have been points when he was upset, then once he'd got it out of his system, he would have been his normal, sociable, ebullient self.  He is upset for Basil Cock, then sociable for Chris Marsden.  What are we to conclude?  Maybe that he is a callous, greedy, arrogant murderer?  Or maybe that he is just normal person who can't grieve on demand?

The guilt camp should face it - they can't prove the case against Jeremy.  There has always been doubt.  That's why dogmatic guilters enjoy discussing this stuff.  The more they rant on about his 'suspicious' behaviour, the weaker the case looks in my eyes.

[Erik Narramore]

Based on what I have read and heard, I don't accept Jeremy's behaviour was suspicious, and anyway, suspicion is not evidence.  In this country, we do not convict people on suspicion.  We convict people on proper proof or not at all - or that is what is supposed to happen.

The basic problem here for the 'guilty side' is that you don't have proper proof.  You never have had.  This comes out in the way you talk and comment about the case.  You rely on glibness, suspicions, apocryphal facts, myths, media legends, and simplified explanations of the evidence, and this is one of the reasons I cannot quite cross the line into saying definitively that I think he is guilty.  The case against Jeremy Bamber does not meet the high bar demanded of criminal proof.  He certainly had a case to answer, that I will grant, and I am inclined to think he did it, but the evidence was not quite enough.  The fact he was actually convicted does not detract from this observation.  Glaring injustices do occur, and this is one of them.

Now, of course police officers should note down any suspicions or concerns they or other people have.  That's their job.  No-one disputes that, but all of what has been said about Jeremy has an explanation if we assume Jeremy is innocent, and even if he is guilty, it proves nothing.  Even Julie Mugford's evidence proves nothing at all.  Even if she is completely telling the truth, all she has proven is that Jeremy told her all about the killing, perhaps in an effort to sexually-excite her or impress her.  It doesn't mean Jeremy is the killer or that he arranged the killing.

Jeremy could as easily have said in his defence (and perhaps should have done): "Oh yes, Julie is mostly telling the truth.  I did tell her most of that.  It's all rubbish of course.  I was just making it up to impress her.  Sorry I lied about it in my last interview, but it just seems like she's setting me up.  You don't seriously think I killed my own parents, Sheila and the twins, do you?  I mean, THE TWINS?!  Two 6 year old boys?  It's all a bit much this."

Personally I would find that quite convincing.

Much comment is made about Jeremy hamming it up at the funeral.  I agree he was acting.  That's obvious.  But is that suspicious?  Don't normal people act up at funerals?  Do you really think normal, ordinary people are always genuinely upset at funerals? Think about that carefully.  A funeral is a customary ritual that people have to put themselves through because it's socially expected. People can't just emote on demand, so they often have to act up and affect to be upset.

And then there's the fact that the funeral was televised.  Can we really expect anybody to act naturally in those circumstances?  Have you given any consideration to this whatsoever, beyond just blaming Jeremy?  Have you considered the whole situation from his point-of-view?

For background and context, let us recall that Jeremy was the adopted son of emotionally-cold and undemonstrative parents.  His mother had mental health issues.  His sister had developed mental illness.  Jeremy was sent to boarding school at 8.  Jeremy himself would probably find what I now say offensive: but it seems to me that the family was a sham and dysfunctional.

Put aside whether Jeremy is actually guilty or innocent, why should he be upset at his parents' death?  Even if he is innocent, his behaviour may not reflect how a genetically-related child would react in similar circumstances, and given the lack of attachment, even a blood child might react quite coldly.  He might well in those circumstances joke around with his girlfriend in the car, tactlessly forgetting Colin's feelings.

I agree that's wrong and it's right to criticise Jeremy for this, and we also need to consider an additional factor in all this that nobody mentions - the effect of cannabis use on Jeremy's actions.  But at the same time, if we stop to reflect on things from Jeremy's point-of-view and consider that he might be innocent, his actions don't seem all that strange.

[Erik Narramore]

Everybody acts at funerals to some degree.  Funerals take place normally some days after the news of death is broken, so the initial and most traumatic part of grief is over with.

That said, perhaps I am looking at it from a man's point of view.  I can't get upset simply because somebody is dead.  We all have to die some time.  But I will be upset and angry at the circumstances or the memories, it's just that I can't put on a big performance for people.  If something moving is said or heard at a funeral service, such as a song or poem that brings to mind the deceased or stirs my emotions, then I may cry or choke up, but it's quite a complex and unpredictable thing.

I think the basic point is that most people will affect to be sad because that's what's expected.  Funerals are a social rite and custom.  Jeremy's real offence was to go against it by being too transparently insincere in private company.

I think Jeremy was acting.  I think if he is innocent, then his acting can be explained as doing what all ordinary/normal/regular people do at funerals to some extent.  Normally people tacitly acknowledge this is the case and go along with it. We all know that we have to put on an act and a bit of a show at funerals out of respect.

This normal behaviour has been turned into something suspicious by people who took a dislike to Jeremy.  Everybody forgets that the funeral was being televised and Jeremy was being scrutinised by everybody (including the headmaster of his former school!).  It's incredibly unfair.  Maybe they were right to be suspicious of him, though?

[Erik Narramore]

All social occasions require people to put on an act, don't they?  A funeral is a social rite and custom.  It's theatre.  It's acting.  It doesn't mean that people are being false or dishonest necessarily.  It's more a matter of respect and sensitivity.  Even if I didn't like the person, I wouldn't make that known at the funeral.  I would be respectful and put on the 'right face' and try to say the right things, which is what people should do.

"I'm so sorry Mrs Jones for your loss, but to be honest your husband was right w.anker."  Errr....no, that doesn't work, does it.

When you attended that funeral at which you felt no grief, I imagine you didn't stand at the back of the church and loudly share Bernard Manning jokes while the vicar was giving his sermon.  You were, I am sure, quiet and respectful and (perhaps without realising it yourself) affected to look sad in front of the bereaved.  It's not dishonesty, it's just showing respect.  Why can't the same be said of Jeremy?  Admittedly, his is an extreme example.  I am sure, or at least, I hope, you have never been in a similar situation and I hope you never will be.  Imagine somebody pointing a camera at you when you're at a funeral?

By all means, we should criticise him for his callous bent of mind, but perhaps when doing so we should take account of the rather exceptional circumstances he found himself in?

[Erik Narramore]

Jeremy Bamber, it appears, did put on an act, though I will grant there is witness evidence that in private company both before, at and after the funeral, his show of grieving was insincere.  The two things are not necessarily in contradiction.  He is not the first person, and not the last, to be insincere in his grieving.  I think normal people often are, because they put on an act for the funeral thinking that's expected of them.  This is not unusual.  An innocent man may behave this way,

[Erik Narramore]

Jeremy's grief at the funeral looks acted, and there is clearly also something bothering Julie in the film and photos of the occasion.  The faces don't lie.

Yet there are points that can be made in Jeremy's defence:

(i). If he genuinely didn't care much for his adoptive family, he would still have to show respect at the funeral, so he would have to fake grief.  That's not 'crocodile tears', it's just being respectful by behaving in a manner that accords with social expectations.  This is normal behaviour and commonly observed.

(ii). Even if he did genuinely care for his adoptive family, he may have got over the most emotive stage of grief by the point the funeral arrived and so he has to ham it up a bit out of respect, as explained in (i) above.  Again, this is not out of the norm.

(iii). The funeral is being filmed.  Everybody forgets this.  Jeremy is under the full glare of the entire world at the funeral of his family.  Nobody can act naturally under those circumstances.

(iv). Emotional behaviour in the immediate period of grief doesn't follow a template.  People react in different ways, especially when as here the people involved have found themselves in the middle of a mass murder inquiry.  Jeremy's entire family has been wiped out.  How is he supposed to behave?  Do we know?  Are there set rules?

[Erik Narramore]

Immature young men like Jeremy behave like this and can be callous.  Why are we forgetting that?  I don't necessarily contest anything you say here, I merely observe that Jeremy could have been acting the fool, etc. while at the same time genuinely grieving, or he may not have been upset at all and was at the same time acting the fool because he was nervous about the funeral or just immature.  Any of those scenarios could be seen as within the range of normal for an immature man of his age and none of it, even if the case, proves guilt or really tells us anything of relevance.

For one thing, consider that a guilty man would, if anything, be careful to remain poker-faced and sensible throughout the whole day so as not to arouse suspicion or draw attention to himself, whereas an innocent man might be less inhibited and would perhaps have conflicted emotions about the situation.  You will say that Jeremy acted like this because he was arrogant and assumed he'd got away with.  Maybe so, but we can't read this mind and we just don't know that.

[Erik Narramore]

This is the thing.  We keep being told that Jeremy was this master criminal who'd been planning the whole thing for months, maybe even years in advance.  Yet apparently he was cackling at the funeral like a Bond villain.  Talk about giving the game away.  I'm not saying that the two things stand in contradiction, but it does seem a bit inconsistent, and it's quite puzzling really.  There again, I suppose anybody who would do something like that can't have been 'all there'.  Maybe he's just a nutter?

How fortunate for us that this remorseless and cunning mass killer confessed all to Julie, before breaking up with her.  Not to mention his mistake in letting hostile relatives have access to the house where part of the murder weapon was still stored.

[Erik Narramore]

Colin doesn't look too upset at that funeral.

Normally you'd expect a young girl like Julie to be crying at a funeral.  Isn't that what the fairer sex normally do at funerals (and weddings too)?