Jeremy Bamber investigators may have lied about evidence that led to his conviction and 39 years in prison, an inquest is expected to suggest.
Bamber was sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of murdering his adoptive parents Nevill and June, his 26-year-old sister Sheila Caffell and their six-year-old twins Daniel and Nicholas at White House Farm, near the village of Tolleshunt D’Arcy in Essex, in August 1985.
Caffell, who has always maintained his innocence and is a schizophrenic patient, claimed that he first pointed the gun at his family and then at himself, and said:
The New Yorker’s 17,000-word investigation, due to be published on Monday, is said to have uncovered more than a dozen inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case.
The magazine, which also casts doubt on Lucy Letby’s conviction, spoke to officers who were at the scene after the murders and are thought to have confirmed Bamber’s claim that police intervened at the scene.
The eighth-month investigation has focused on allegations that Essex Police tampered with witness statements, lied about evidence and concealed evidence, The Mail on Sunday reported.
“If the crime scene reconstruction is a significant new point in The New Yorker’s story, that would give us the opportunity to go straight to the Court of Appeals, and hopefully within days of the new evidence coming in,” Bamber told the newspaper.
“The Court of Appeal has already said that recreating the scene of the crime would be a mortal sin, so we will be going back to the Court of Appeal as soon as possible and applying for bail until the full appeal.”
The investigation is also said to have raised questions about the Criminal Cases Review Board, which Bamber’s legal team said had failed to act on statements that would have exonerated him.
Bamber claims his sister Sheila, a model diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, had a psychotic episode and committed the murders before turning the gun on herself.
But the prosecution argued that if the silencer had been triggered, it would have taken too long for Sheila’s fingers to reach the trigger and shoot herself.
Another key issue in the case is whether Bamber received a phone call from his father on the night of the murder, saying that Sheila had stolen one of his guns and was “going berserk”.
Police said Nevill made no such calls but lawyers revealed a phone recording of a call he made on the night of the murder entitled “girl going crazy”.
Meanwhile, the bloodstained Bible found with Sheila was never forensically examined or shown at trial, despite Bamber’s lawyer’s request.
He was found guilty by a 10-2 majority in October 1986 and sentenced to a minimum of 25 years in prison. In 1994 he was told he would never be released.
The Court of Appeal upheld the decision in 2002.
He lost the case he filed to be released from the high-security prison in 2020.
Bamber has sought permission to take action in the High Court against a decision in March by the director of the long-term, high-security property, which is part of the Prison and Probation Service, not to downgrade him from Category A prisoner status or hold an oral hearing on the issue.
Category A prisoners are considered the most dangerous prisoners to society and are held in the highest security conditions.
At a remote hearing in October of that year, Bamber’s lawyers asked Judge Julian Knowles to grant approval for Bamber’s claim to be heard in full, arguing the decision was “unreasonable”.
Judge Knowles refused to allow Bamber to bring the case.
Bamber’s appeal against his conviction was dismissed by the Court of Appeal in 2002, and his appeal to the High Court against the Criminal Cases Review Commission’s (CCRC) refusal to refer his case for further appeal was also dismissed in 2012.
A spokesman for the Jeremy Bamber innocence campaign told the Mail on Sunday: “The CCRC has held Jeremy Bamber’s latest submissions since March 2021 and… they have not investigated any of the underlying exculpatory issues contained in them which would demonstrate Jeremy Bamber’s innocence.”
An Essex Police spokesman said: “In August 1985, the lives of five people, including two children, were cut short when Jeremy Bamber needlessly, tragically and callously murdered them in their own home.
“Over the years that followed, the case was the subject of a number of appeals and reviews by the Court of Appeal and the Criminal Cases Review Commission, all of which found nothing other than that Bamber was responsible for the murder of his adoptive parents, Nevill and June, his sister Sheila Caffell and her two sons, Nicholas and Daniel.
“Essex Police has continued to comply with all legal requirements in this case and will continue to assist the CCRC where required.”