Julie Mugford acted on her own conscience

[Erik Narramore]

Did Julie pay back the caravan park?

[Erik Narramore]

Does anybody else here find this quite interesting?  Julie pays back the bank - supposedly - but doesn't pay back Osea, even though she was just as involved as Jeremy in the latter.  Even if she had made a token payment or tried to pay back half, that would have indicated remorse.

She then receives a pay out from a cheap, scummy newspaper, the News of the World, lies to the court about it in the process despite being a pivotal witness, and thinks it's all behind her and she doesn't have to compensate Osea.

The difference between the two incidents is that in the theft she paid back, she was acting with Susan Battersby, whereas in the Osea theft, she acted with Jeremy.  In both incidents, she was fully culpable, stole out of greed entirely and not for any needful reason, enjoyed the proceeds of her misdeeds, and had no mitigation or excuse whatsoever.  But only one is paid back.  Why?

[Erik Narramore]

Whether you take the view that Jeremy is guilty or innocent, or like me, you're neutral, the whole case requires a complete re-think.  If Jeremy is guilty, I simply do not accept that Julie was an innocent party.  It's not credible.  If Jeremy is innocent, then Julie has some serious questions to answer and an extradition lawyer in Winnipeg will be getting some new instructions.

Would you agree with me that her 2002 witness statement is really quite reprehensible?

Would you also agree that it is clear that the visit to the bank and paying the money back was a set-up by the police and the 2002 evidence from the bank manager cannot be believed?  He claimed it was a spontaneous gesture from the two young women.  Frankly I am insulted that anybody would think I'd buy that story.  It is clear even from the bank manager's own evidence that it can't be true.  It was obviously staged, and I think I have previously remarked sardonically to NG1066 that the appeal judges must have been asleep when they heard that evidence.

Would you also agree that, in view of the staged scenario at the bank, it is suspicious that Julie pays back the money she stole from the bank but not the money she helped steal from Osea?  To spell it out, to my mind it lends itself to the view that Julie was a groomed witness more than a spontaneous witness of truth.  I could speculatively go further and, as I have suggested on here in the past, propose that Julie's entire evidence is a concoction, with collusion from the police, to conceal her own involvement in order to convict Jeremy, and thus the trial was a sham.

[Erik Narramore]

To clarify: I say the bank may have been influenced or pressured; I do not say forced.

[Erik Narramore]

If there was police pressure on the bank, that colours her evidence.

[Erik Narramore]

Why did Mr Dovey at the bank act as he did and save Julie?

[Erik Narramore]

Here is what the 2002 Court of Appeal said about it:

359. We think that it is of the greatest possible significance that Mr Dovey has said throughout that no sort of pressure was brought to bear upon him to take any particular course of action. Mr Dovey also said that during the meeting he got the impression that the girls said what they did out of a sense of guilt. He said that it was highly unusual for those who had defrauded the bank to make offers of repayment and that it was these factors, and these factors alone, that had a bearing on his decision.

I don't believe that!  We've been over this.  His own evidence contradicts his claims.

[Erik Narramore]

The bank doesn't prosecute, the Crown does.  The police would of course ask the bank whether they wish to pursue a complaint.  You say they would not do so as policy due to it being a 'small' amount [what's a 'small' amount?], but that is not the case.  Analogously, supermarkets will often insist that the police proceed against people suspected of shoplifting, even when the amounts involved are small.  Likewise, banks will take cheque offences seriously.

The overarching point here is the reliability of her evidence.   

[Erik Narramore]

The point in regard to Mr Dovey is that his evidence is a contradictory mess, and if anything, harms the prosecution side.

[Erik Narramore]

By saying Julie had been cautioned for those offences, the judge contributed to the impression that a deal had not been done with the police, when in reality it had.

Also, when was this specific point raised on appeal?  I don't recall that.

The pro-guilt camp keep saying that Julie confessed voluntarily and Mr Dovey was not pressured by police.  I'm afraid I am not convinced this is true.

[Erik Narramore]

I emphatically do NOT accept what Mr Dovey is saying.  He is lying on the point.

He is simply lying and his evidence is a joke.  The surrounding circumstances and what he admits himself show him to be lying.  Any unbiased/objective person who reads the relevant primary case material can see it.  He admits that he was pressured by the police, and then in the same breath, he says he wasn't!

Asking us to accept this is akin to treating us like children.  We are not children.  We will stare the truth in the face, no matter how ugly it is.

Guilters keep telling us that Julie Mugford and Susan Battersby went to the police voluntarily, but they did not.  Mr Dovey confirms this when he says the police set up the meeting.

[Erik Narramore]

The issue I have here is that it does seem the prosecution left the jury with the impression that Julie Mugford's evidence was entirely voluntary and the organic outcome of her own conscience.  The misleading information given by the judge to the jury contributed to this impression because it suggested that offences of dishonesty were disposed of by the authorities in the usual manner.  This was done because the kernel of her evidence at trial was her own believability and the dishonesty offences damage her as a prosecution witness if it appears she has done a deal, especially if a deal has been done under police duress.

[Erik Narramore]

The prosecution's whole assumption here is that Julie Mugford's actions were voluntary and on account of conscience. This is also the classic naive guilter assumption in discussions of this case.

[Erik Narramore]

Remember, it was admitted that she had committed fraud and the trial judge misinformed the jury by telling them she had been cautioned for it.  This, I think, is why the 2002 appeal court didn't take the point very seriously, because they took the view that the jury had already been given the worst case scenario regarding Julie Mugford's offending, a caution being the normal disposal for minor cheque offences, and since Julie Mugford's evidence depended on her believability, there was no prejudice to Jeremy Bamber.

The point they overlook is that there was a wider scope of considerations for the jury.  It was not just whether she had committed dishonest acts in the past, but also whether she was entering into a deal with the police in which she was pressured to give certain evidence in return for various matters being dropped.  When the judge misled the jury on this point, it was part of a narrative, which is continued by guilters on here, in which Julie Mugford's trial evidence is naively regarded as voluntary and spontaneous and the organic outcome of her own conscience, rather than something she was pressured into doing by Essex Police.

[Erik Narramore]

However, how did the police know about the cheque book fraud?

I am willing to believe she volunteered this to police, but much depends on context.  It's said that she was the one who went to the police, but this is not true.  Even if we believe the official story, it remains the case that she was press-ganged after telling several people that Jeremy was a murderer.

She had already told Jeremy about the cheque offences.  The police would have told her that she could be regarded as an accomplice to murder, and they demanded she tell them everything, so she did.  Both she and the police will have anticipated that Jeremy and his defence would bring her offending up, so there was no point in pretending it hadn't happened.