Did Jeremy Have An Answering Machine Prior To The Shootings?

[Erik Narramore]

The guilt camp have not proved that Jeremy 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.

Related to this point is that, as I have already demonstrated, Jeremy could not have staged a call from Nevill.  A simple timeline shows this, as does a basic understanding of the incident choreography.

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, and more importantly, precludes the possibility that Jeremy needed an answerphone as part of the execution of a sophisticated, premeditated plan to kill his family.

[Erik Narramore]

Essex Police did seize answer machine tapes.  It's in a list of exhibits that included Jeremy's property.  I believe these items were taken after Jeremy's arrest.

[Erik Narramore]

I must add that I am not completely sure if the property list specifies that the tapes were seized from Bourtree Cottage.  I will have to double-check.  It is possible they were in fact seized from Maida Vale.  Remember that Jeremy was living at the flat in London at the time of his arrest.  Even if so, that would not necessarily change the position as the answer machine may have been originally from Bourtree Cottage.

[Erik Narramore]

If Jeremy rings himself, that means he is staging a call.  If he is staging a call, that can only be because he thinks some sort of log of calls will be made somewhere, otherwise there would be no point to the exercise.  He could instead just make a call up, couldn't he.  Since Jeremy thinks there is a chance that calls are logged somewhere, he won't be ringing himself at 2.45 p.m.

Then we must ask: Why would Jeremy want to stage a call from Nevill anyway?  Why not just turn up at the farm the following morning to find everybody dead?  For Jeremy to plan ahead to stage a phone call from Nevill would require that Jeremy plans for Nevill to be in the kitchen, since we know from a statement by the telephone engineer that the phone was already downstairs before the shootings.

There's also the fact that Jeremy did not have an answerphone before the shootings, so if he did use an answerphone that night, he must have hidden it at Bourtree Cottage.  Buying it would also have been risky. He must have bought it from a shop while disguised, perhaps as an Arab sheikh?

Adam also believes that Jeremy could cycle back to Bourtree Cottage in 10 minutes.  The ground was muddy during this period and the Brook House Farm route was a dirt track.  That's before we get into the inherent risk of being seen or stopped, or having to stop, while cycling, and the noise of a bike and the need to use lights, etc.

[Erik Narramore]

For the answerphone to be of significance, he must have planned the calls, but he can't have planned the calls, for the reasons given. 

[Erik Narramore]

If Jeremy is guilty, then the evidence tells us the call from Nevill was unplanned and was not staged.  He made it up on the hoof.  So what use did he have for an answerphone?

If he had followed the plan you suggest, that would mean his answerphone potentially would incriminate him, if the police get hold of it.  They would see that the timings don't match - your own posts prove that - and no conversation took place.

And why bluff to the police?  What's the point of the whole exercise of using an answerphone if telling the police to check with BT is a bluff?  Isn't that a contradiction?

The pro-guilt/prosecution arguments are not logical and even at times undermine their own case.  We all need to stop and rethink the whole thing through.

[Erik Narramore]

I may be mistaken, but I cannot recall mention of an answerphone is any of the witness statements and Wilkes does not mention one, despite a detailed and careful attempt at analysing the phone calls.  The natural inference from this is that Jeremy did not have an answerphone.  It would have been significant fact if he had.

[Erik Narramore]

There is a middle course, which is that he had a phone with an answer function prior the shootings but never made use of the answer function, hence the lack of any source confirming its use.  Someone at Bourtree Cottage (Jeremy himself or Julie or whatever) activated the answer function after the shootings due to all the calls he was receiving and the travelling he was doing.  That would seem a more reasonable explanation to me, but I'm not saying that is what occurred.  For one thing, if Essex Police seized "answer machine tapes", this would suggest otherwise and implies he bought or was given an answering machine after the shootings.

[Erik Narramore]

If Jeremy had an answer function on his phone, wouldn't there be a record of the abortive calls from Nevill, which Jeremy would be aware of and bring to the attention of the police?