The Presumptive Prosecution Timeline Does Not Hold

[Erik Narramore]

I say 'presumptive' timeline because the prosecution never relied on a timeline for the execution of this crime by Jeremy, not even a rough one - nor was it strictly necessary, to be fair.  However, the position is not symmetrical.  There was an opportunity for the defence to show the jury in very simple terms that a timeline in which Jeremy executes this crime is difficult to conceive, thus there is doubt.

One of the most hilarious things that happened on the Blue Forum was when 'Adam' produced his own timeline.  He was going on and on about it and goading pro-innocent posters to produce one.  When I pressed him on his own version, he fell to pieces and it became clear that far from supporting his case, his timeline undermined it and cast doubt on the case against Jeremy.  I note that a previous pro-guilt poster on the Blue Forum, Scipio, once commented that Adam was an incompetent advocate for the guilt side, in his estimation.  Scipio was right.  Adam is dangerous - but not to Jeremy.  Adam is so incompetent that I began to wonder if he might actually be a pseudonym of Mike's or of a pro-innocent person as part of some sort of clever psychological ploy.

Here's Adam's timeline (or one of them):

Adam June 19, 2022, 12:13:PM »
1.45am:

Leave Cottage.


2.00am:

Enter WHF. Committ massacre.


2.40am:

Start staging scene.


3.10am:

Ring AM (not confirmed)
Exit WHF.


3.25 - 3.40am:

Arrive home.
Wash.
Change.
Ring police.
Ring Julie.

Below are some of my comments on it.  It's important to note that, originally, Adam had only a 10 minute gap between White House Farm and the return to Bourtree Cottage.  If you check the original post (link: https://jeremybamberforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,11278.msg522389.html#msg522389), you can see he edited it some time after.  This was in response to my criticisms below, but all of what I say still applies!

Adam's timeline is nonsense.  What time does Jeremy ring Bourtree Cottage?  What time does he exit the farmhouse?  What time does he set off from the farmhouse?  Those are three different things.  He can't do those three different things all at the same time.  He isn't a Time Lord.  Thus, Adam's timeline tells us that Jeremy returned to Bourtree Cottage not in 15 minutes, but in less than 15 minutes - less than 10 minutes, actually.  Simple logic. The timings are not precise to the extent needed (I allow that we are all making educated guesses).  Adam has Jeremy completing several tasks at once, which then compresses the time it takes him to return to Bourtree Cottage, and results in a timeline that is plainly inaccurate and, at very best, only a loose guide.

Despite editing (whatever it meant), Adam still has Jeremy making a phone call to himself and exiting the farmhouse and getting on his bike and riding off all at once!  Presumably he would have to cycle back without his lights on, or he would risk being seen and identified (or at least remembered). 

This is more than just a petty internet squabble.  The reason this matters to an understanding of the case is that it shows how difficult it is for the prosecution side to place Jeremy at the scene.  I have managed to produce a timeline with Jeremy as the killer, which you will find later in the thread below, but it was hard and I had to proceed on the assumption that there was no staged call from Nevill to Jeremy (instead, Jeremy just made the call up).  This is why the prosecution were quiet about this whole topic at trial.  The defence really should have made much more of it.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Adam says Jeremy could have cycled back in less than 10 minutes.  Not 15 minutes.  Not 10 minutes.  Less than 10 minutes. (In other words, and to make this absolutely clear, we have to assume that it takes at least five minutes for Jeremy to make a phone call to himself, actually exit the White House, then get on his bike).

We have never seen a detailed timeline from Adam.  All he has done so far is present a simplified timeline that has Jeremy completing several tasks all at once.

It would be simpler for Adam if he just admitted that it is unlikely Jeremy staged a phone call, meaning that if Jeremy is guilty, he must have just invented the call from Nevill and chanced it that nobody would be able to check and verify with the exchange that a call occurred or not.  There are a number of problems with this as well, but it would be a more logical position.

Adam also has presented no evidence that Jeremy had an answerphone prior to the shootings.  Adam is simply assuming by default that Jeremy had an answerphone because one was used after the shootings and answer machine tapes were seized by the police.  What he hasn't considered is that if Jeremy did have an answerphone prior to the shootings, this fact would have been significant to the police and referred to by Julie and/or other people.

Reference is made by Adam to a claim that Jeremy had planned to use a last number dialled function.  But this was a claim made by Julie after she spoke with the police, the use of a last number dialled function does not require an answerphone at the receiving end, and Jeremy could not have planned the calls anyway because Nevill ended up in the kitchen.

The simple fact that Nevill ended up in the kitchen could be considered to imply that Julie was not being truthful and perhaps made the whole thing up.  Jeremy would not plan these murders in such a way to implicate himself.

[Erik Narramore]

Quote from: Adam on June 26, 2022, 12:07:PM
QC is still fire fighting.

Now saying Julie was lying.

Bamber had a 16/26 minute window after phoning his AM.

He didn't need to cycle back in less than 10 minutes. However it seems he could have. Certainly not 25 minutes as QC claimed.

You have not provided a detailed timeline.  You can't argue that he set off by bike at 2.45 a.m., but also made the call to his answerphone at 2.45 a.m.  It's absurd rubbish.  The reason you are conflating all the times is because you know that you can't make the times work for a guilty case.

You have not proved that he had an answerphone prior to the shootings.  It's not mentioned anywhere in the statements or books, yet the police would have pounced on it if Jeremy had one.

The answer machine tapes were only seized after Jeremy was arrested.  If Jeremy had answer machine tapes prior to the shootings, that would have been mentioned by Julie or somebody else.

Jeremy could not have staged a call from Nevill.  Your own (simplified) timeline shows this.

There was no reason for Jeremy to invent a call from Nevill and implicate himself.  If he did make a snap decision to do this, it was unplanned, which makes an answerphone irrelevant.

All of this is logical.  I'm not going round in circles with you.

More of your nonsense from the other thread:

Quote from: Adam on June 26, 2022, 12:09:PM
Do you not believe Bamber knew how to use the cream coloured dial phone?

Do you not believe Bamber knew how to ride a bike?

This is just laughable.  Of course he knew how to ride a bike and use a phone.  That's not the point.

[Erik Narramore]

Quote from: Adam on June 26, 2022, 12:23:PM
Of course I have my back up timeline -

Bamber did not bother phoning his cottage.

But my current timeline works just fine. Plus I believe Julie's WS.

I think that's probably the nearest we will come to an admission from you that I am right about this.

If Jeremy made up the call and decided to chance it - to me, that seems the only possibility if he is guilty - there are still a number of problems.  It means that Julie may be lying, at least in part.  It does cast doubt over her evidence.

[Erik Narramore]

In Adam's naive mind, the real point of his timeline was to make a general point that Jeremy had a 'window of opportunity' on the night, but nobody can say that Adam's timeline is accurate.  If you think that, then I must put you in the category of people who don't know what they're talking about.  His timeline is clearly wrong.  Or to put it another way, his timeline is right because it proves that Jeremy can't have staged a call from Nevill.

[Erik Narramore]

If we are just saying there is a 'window of opportunity', then that's not really telling us much as that's just a general statement of the obvious.  Jeremy had a window to watch TV, ring Julie, get in some midnight badminton practice in his front living room, or practice for the annual Essex under-25s tiddly-winks championship, if he'd wanted.  A bit more detail is required.

[Erik Narramore]

Below is one of my timelines.  I have produced several versions of this in different contexts on here.  You will see I am allowing around 75 minutes for Jeremy to actually complete the shootings and staging.  This does not include all the other tasks he has to complete, including exiting the farmhouse itself, which would bring us to around 90 minutes.

If you study my timeline carefully, you will see that I have brought the times forward for a reason.  Jeremy needed more time than you think.

Jeremy certainly had a window of opportunity in the sense that:

- all the immediate family were there;
- it's dark at night for at least five hours;
- the family are asleep for around three of these dark hours, therefore vulnerable;
- Julie wasn't at Bourtree Cottage;
- Sheila was having severe problems connected to a diagnosed mental illness;
- there's a loaded rifle.

I think this was a very narrow window of opportunity in which several different things came together.  That could be read as for or against Jeremy, depending on what attitude you want to take.  If he is guilty and he planned it, then he had to strike at some point that week.

He must have known that Nevill would not be asleep until maybe 12.30 a.m., so I would say his actual window of opportunity is between 1 a.m. and 2.30 a.m. to complete the shootings, extending to between 12 a.m. and 3.00 a.m. to make it back out to the White House and to return inside the safety of Bourtree Cottage.  In that 180 minute (3 hour) window, he has to do the following:

(i). exit Bourtree Cottage without being seen or heard;
(ii). leave Goldhanger on foot without being seen;
(iii). make it to the environs of White House Farm;
(iv). enter the White House itself;
(v). retrieve the rifle from the gun cupboard (it's probably already loaded);
(vi). carry out the shootings;
(vii). stage Sheila's body;
(viii). leave the kitchen phone off the hook;
(ix). change into Nevill's clothes and put his contaminated clothes in a bag or rucksack or whatever;
(x). exit the White House;
(xi). find the ladies bike and cycle along the Brook House Farm track back towards Goldhanger;
(xii). leave the bag/rucksack in bushes at the end of Fish Street (probably), to be retrieved while out 'jogging' the following evening;
(xiii). enter Goldhanger and approach Bourtree Cottage without being seen;
(xiv). stop, get off his bike and enter Bourtree Cottage without being seen or heard by anybody.

I estimate he allows 60 minutes to go by foot to the White House and 30 minutes to cycle back.  I think he would set out at 12 a.m., reaching the White House Farm complex at somewhere between 12.45 a.m. and 1.a.m.  Allow a further 10 minutes to enter the White House.  Allow 75 minutes for the shootings and staging.  Allow a few more minutes to exit the White House.  It means he arrives back at Bourtree Cottage somewhere roughly around 3.00 a.m.

[Erik Narramore]

As for time of death, I'm not a pathologist but I note that the indicators have very broad parameters.

[Erik Narramore]

Adam's timeline is wrong.  Jeremy couldn't have made the phone call from the farmhouse and simultaneously left the farmhouse.  He had to make the phone call first, then wait while the phone rang (and wait for the answerphone to pick up the call, according to Adam), then leave the phone off the hook, then climb through the window and bang it shut, then get on his bike, then set off.  To be generous, you could add five minutes on to the delay to allow for these tasks, so 35 minutes, but it may have been longer than five minutes.  You then have to take into account that Adam's timing for the journey is wrong.  It would take longer than 15 minutes as the journey was in poor light or dark and included a muddy dirt track.

Adam needs to update his timeline and tell us when exactly the phone call was made and give a more realistic journey time.

I would suggest Adam's timeline is untenable anyway, even if accepted as it is.  With my points taken into account, all in all we are looking at something like a minimum 45 minute delay.

[Erik Narramore]

Adam's timeline is clearly wrong, even on his own terms.  His own timeline in effect amounts to an admission that the prosecution case is wrong.

[Erik Narramore]

I think Adam produced one more version of his timeline, slightly adjusted, but it still had the same problem.  Enter White House Farm means enter the farmhouse, yes?  Before he enters the farmhouse, he has to stop, get off the bike, find somewhere to leave the bike, then find a way to enter the farmhouse, then execute the decided-on method of entry.  In the circumstances, these are not trivial things.  They take up minutes.

[Erik Narramore]

The basic problem for Adam and the guilt side is that a more detailed timeline in which Jeremy is staging a call would unravel the prosecution case.

Steps would be something like:

Arrive in environs of farmhouse.
Stop in rear farm yard and dismount.
Leave bike along wall.
Locate window to enter farmhouse.
Achieve entry.
Add to the above some waiting time as he would be acting cautiously and the dogs may have been barking.

Instead of this necessary detail, you just say he arrived at the farmhouse in an attempt to argue that it all took just 15 minutes, but it can't have done, and the ride itself can't have taken him only 15 minutes anyway.  Your own timeline would make it more like 10 minutes, which is close to impossible.

I would allow something more like 25 minutes for the bike ride, then 10 minutes to enter the farmhouse.

[Erik Narramore]

As I keep explaining, Adam's whole scenario (indeed, arguably the whole prosecution case) is blown out of the water by the simple fact that Nevill was found downstairs and the telephone engineer who visited prior to the shootings confirmed the phone was downstairs, not in the master bedroom.  These facts pretty much prove that Jeremy did not plan the phone calls. Nearly everybody is behind the curve on this.

We can add to this that Adam's grasp of timings is laughable and he has been caught out on it by myself twice now, and you can see he resorts to insulting me.

A plausible Jeremy scenario is that he thought up the idea of the calls when Nevill ended up in the kitchen.  He then invented a call from Nevill, but did not actually stage one.  He then decides he needs to return to the farmhouse quickly, so uses June's ladies bike, which happens to be in the kitchen yard.  This allows him to be flexible with the timings somewhat, so he rings Julie, then decides that Nevill rang him at 3.10 a.m., and at roughly 3.19 a.m. he makes his phone call to the police, finally getting through to somebody at 3.24 a.m.

[Erik Narramore]

As for my own Jeremy timeline, I'm saying he went out on foot, and that's also what Essex Police thought.  Interesting that you think Essex Police were wrong.

By foot would have taken well over an hour from opening his door to Bourtee Cottage to climbing through the window of the farmhouse.  I would allow 45 minutes, if going by push bike, but it's impossible to be sure because the conditions would have been difficult.  He was cycling in the dark and it was muddy.  If anything, using the bike makes things harder.

Allow another 35 to 45 minutes the opposite way, by push bike, depending on whether he dumps clothing on the way.  It's easier on the way back as it's approaching dawn, so lighter in places, but light is still poor and it would be dark along much of the Brook House Farm track, which has tree cover.  And don't forget the mud.

He would be delayed in both directions because he has to be careful not to be seen around Goldhanger.

[Erik Narramore]

The statement from DI Wilkinson does not help the prosecution case.  It's virtually useless.  He was cycling in broad daylight in dry conditions. 

[Erik Narramore]

In summary, Jeremy had maybe three hours or so open to him to commit the murders, but as well as actually committing the shootings, this involved having to find a way to get to and from Bourtree Cottage and the farmhouse unseen and undetected.  You then have to weigh in what happened with the phone calls.  He can't have planned the calls and Adam's own posts prove that he can't have staged a call.  This means, if guilty, he must have made up the call from Nevill. If he made it up, then he had a bit more time open to him because he could decide on a time that Nevill rung him, but he still had to get back to Bourtree Cottage quickly as it was summer and morning light was encroaching.