Jeremy Bamber

Jeremy Nevill Bamber (born Jeremy Paul Marsham; 13 January 1961) is an Englishman who was convicted of the White House Farm murders.

Jeremy Bamber
Born
Jeremy Paul Marsham

(1961-01-13) 13 January 1961
London, England
Criminal penaltyWhole life order (convicted 28 October 1986)

He was found guilty in October 1986 of the August 1985 shooting of his parents, his sister, and his sister's six-year-old twin sons at his parents' farmhouse in Essex.[1][2]

Returning a majority verdict, the jury found that, after committing the murders to secure a large inheritance, Bamber had placed the rifle in the hands of his 28-year-old sister, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, to make the scene appear to be a murder–suicide.[3] Bamber is serving life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.[4] As of November 2016 he was one of 70 prisoners in the UK subject to a whole-life order,[5] and is the only such prisoner to assert his innocence.[6]

Bamber has repeatedly applied unsuccessfully to have his conviction overturned or his whole life tariff removed; his extended family remain convinced of his guilt.[4] The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) referred the case to the Court of Appeal in 2001, which upheld the conviction in 2002. The Court of Appeal ordered full disclosure of evidence to the defence, but this did not take place.[7] The appeal was rejected and the CCRC rejected further applications from Bamber in 2004 and 2012, having not identified any new evidence or legal argument capable of raising a real possibility that the court of appeal would quash the conviction.[8]

In December 2019 Bamber's lawyers made a further application for the disclosure of withheld evidence in relation to Bamber's phone call to the police on the night of the killings and a silencer.[9][10]

Early life

Adoption, education

Bamber was born Jeremy Paul Marsham at St Mary Abbot's Hospital, Kensington, London,[11] to Juliet Dorothy Wheeler (born 1938 in Leicester),[12] a vicar's daughter who had had an affair with army Sergeant Major Leslie Brian Marsham (born 1931 in Tendring, Essex),[13] a controller at Buckingham Palace.[14][15] She gave the baby up for adoption in 1961, the year of his birth, through the Church of England Children's Society. Nevill and June Bamber adopted him when he was six months old. It was only after Bamber's conviction that his biological parents were told by reporters that Bamber was their son. They were by then married to each other and working at Buckingham Palace.[16]

The Bambers were wealthy farmers who lived in a large Georgian house at White House Farm, near Tolleshunt D'Arcy in Essex. Nevill was a local magistrate and former RAF pilot. In 1957, four years before adopting Jeremy, the couple had adopted a baby girl, Sheila.[17]

Bamber attended St Nicholas Primary, followed by Maldon Court, a private prep school, then from September 1970 Gresham's School, a boarding school in Norfolk.[18] Claire Powell writes that Nevill felt it would be inappropriate to send the boy to a local school for the village children, when he might one day have to employ them on the farm. This led, writes Powell, to a situation in which Bamber felt increasingly alienated from his family and their life in the countryside, as did his sister, who was also sent to boarding school.[19] He left school with no qualifications, much to Nevill's anger, but managed to pass seven O-levels at sixth-form college in Colchester, which he left in 1978.[20]

A close friend of his, Brett Collins from New Zealand, said Bamber was sexually assaulted when he was 11, around the time he started at Gresham's. According to Collins, Bamber went on to have sexual relationships with men and women, finding that his good looks and charm made him popular with both.[21] Collins, who was nearly arrested with Bamber and now lives on Waiheke Island near Auckland, now thinks that Bamber is guilty.[22]

Work

After school Bamber's adoptive father financed a trip for him to Australia and New Zealand and a scuba diving course. While in New Zealand, Bamber met Brett Collins, who said Bamber was "ripped off" by a would-be heroin dealer in Auckland.[23] Bamber also broke into a jewellery shop and stole two expensive watches, one of which he gave to a girlfriend back in Britain. He also boasted, according to Claire Powell, that he had been involved in smuggling heroin overseas. One of his cousins said Bamber ended up leaving New Zealand in a hurry, because friends of his had been involved in an armed robbery.[24]

He returned to the UK and worked in restaurants and bars, which included working as a waiter in a Little Chef on the A12; but he later agreed to return home and work on his father's farm.[24] Although he reportedly resented the low wages, he was given a car and lived rent-free in a cottage his father owned at 9 Head Street, Goldhanger, 3.5 miles (5.6 km) from his family's farmhouse at White House Farm. He also owned eight percent of his family's caravan site, Osea Road Camp Sites Ltd., in Maldon, Essex.[25]

A few weeks before the murders, Bamber trashed and robbed the family business at Osea Road Caravan Park. This was only revealed after the murders, when he was forced to admit to the robbery, after girlfriend Julie Mugford came forward as a witness against him.[26]

White House Farm murders
Main article: White House Farm murders
White House Farm in 2007

Bamber alerted police to the shootings at around 3:30 am on 7 August 1985. He told them that Nevill telephoned him to say that Bamber's sister, Sheila Caffell, had gone "berserk" with Nevill's rifle. When police entered the farmhouse Caffell was found dead on the floor of her parents' bedroom, with the rifle up against her throat. June Bamber was found in the same room. Caffell's six-year-old twin sons, Nicholas and Daniel, were found in their beds in another upstairs room, while Nevill was found in the kitchen downstairs. The family had been shot 25 times, mostly at close range.[4]

Sheila Caffell had spent time in a psychiatric hospital being treated for schizophrenia months before the murders. The police believed that she was responsible until Bamber's girlfriend told them he had implicated himself.[4] The prosecution case included that there was no evidence that Bamber's father had telephoned him. They argued that the father was too badly injured to have spoken to anyone; that there was no blood on the kitchen phone; and that he would have called the police, not Bamber.

They also argued that the silencer was on the gun when the shots were fired, and that Caffell's reach was not long enough to hold the gun and silencer at her throat and press the trigger. In addition she was not strong enough, they said, to have overcome her father in what appeared to have been a violent struggle in the kitchen. They also argued that the fact Sheila had shot herself twice in her apparent suicide attempt was evidence that she was not the killer.[27]

Bamber's defence team have unsuccessfully challenged the evidence over the years. They alleged that a police log suggested that Bamber's father had indeed called the police that night, and that the silencer may not have been on the gun during the attacks.[28] The silencer evidence was unreliable, they argued, because the silencer was found in a farmhouse cupboard by one of Bamber's cousins three days after the murders.[4]

Life in prison

Bamber is a category A prisoner in HM Prison Wakefield, Yorkshire. He has worked there as a peer partner, which involves helping other prisoners to read and write, and has won several awards for transcribing books in the prison's Braille workshop.[29]

In 2001 The Times alleged that he had been treated with indulgence at Long Lartin Prison, Worcestershire, where prisoners were given the key to their cells. Among the allegations were claims that he studied for his GCSE in sociology and media studies, had a daily badminton lesson, and drew pictures of supermodels in an art class, which he later sold through an outside agent.[30]

Bamber's maternal grandmother, Mabel Speakman, had removed him as a beneficiary within her will shortly after his arrest,[31] but in 2003, he instituted an action to recover £1.2m from her estate, arguing that he should have inherited her home in Wix, Essex – which went to June's sister – and that he was owed 17 years' rent from his cousins who lived there.[32] In 2004 the court denied Bamber's claim to £326,000 of profits from the caravan site.[33]

A group of outside supporters has formed around Bamber, and he has reportedly developed several close relationships with women since his conviction. He defended himself on one occasion from a knife attack by another prisoner by using a broken bottle, and on another received 28 stitches on his neck when attacked while making a telephone call.[34] In 1994 he called a radio station from Long Lartin prison to protest his innocence.[30]

In October 2019 he claimed that new evidence, of a telephone call he made, proved he did not murder his family. He believed that a police telephone record, showing that he was elsewhere at the time of the killings, had been unearthed.[9]

Lawsuits

Bamber launched two unsuccessful lawsuits while in prison to recover a share of his family's estate.[35] His grandmother had cut Bamber out of her will when he was arrested, and most of the inheritance went to June Bamber's sister.[32][36] In 2004 Bamber went to the High Court again to claim a share of the profits from the Bambers' caravan site in Maldon. He had retained his shares after his conviction, but had sold them to pay the legal costs arising from his claim on his grandmother's estate. The court ruled that he was not entitled to any profit from the site because of his conviction.[37]

In January 2012 Bamber and two other British prisoners, Peter Moore and Douglas Vinter, lost a case before the European Court of Human Rights, in which they argued that whole-life imprisonment amounts to degrading and inhuman treatment. In July 2012 they were granted the right to appeal that decision.[38] In July 2013 the Court's Grand Chamber ruled in their favour, holding that there must be a possibility of release and review.[39]

See also

References
  1. Carol Ann Lee, The Murders at White House Farm, Sidgwick & Jackson, 2015.
  2. Powell, Claire (1994). Murder at White House Farm. Headline Book Publishing. ISBN 978-0747243663.
  3. Lee 2015, 342–344.
  4. David James Smith, "And by dawn they were all dead", The Sunday Times Magazine, 11 July 2010 (webcite).
  5. Martin Evans, "The 70 prisoners serving whole life sentences in the UK", The Daily Telegraph, 25 November 2016.
  6. Allison, Eric; Hattenstone, Simon (10 February 2011). "Is Jeremy Bamber innocent?". The Guardian.
  7. Allison, Eric; Hattenstone, Simon (8 December 2019). "Jeremy Bamber lawyers challenge CPS over withheld evidence". The Guardian.
  8. Eric Allison, "Jeremy Bamber murder appeal bid thrown out, The Guardian, 26 April 2012.
  9. Reporters, Telegraph (19 October 2019). "Serial killer Jeremy Bamber claims new telephone call evidence proves he didn't murder his family". The Daily Telegraph.
  10. Hymas, Charles (8 December 2019). "Serial killer Jeremy Bamber launches high court challenge over 'blood on the silencer' evidence". The Daily Telegraph.
  11. Lee, Carol Ann (7 April 2016). The Murders at White House Farm. Pan Macmillan. ISBN 9781447285755. Retrieved 4 February 2018 – via Google Books.
  12. "findmypast.co.uk". search.findmypast.co.uk. Retrieved 4 February 2018.
  13. "findmypast.co.uk". search.findmypast.co.uk. Retrieved 4 February 2018.
  14. "He went to lovely people who gave him the best start in life. He abused them. He's a murderer, he's guilty as hell. We want nothing to do with him; EXCLUSIVE: KILLER'S REAL DAD SPEAKS. – Free Online Library". thefreelibrary.com. Retrieved 4 February 2018.
  15. "findmypast.co.uk". search.findmypast.co.uk. Retrieved 4 February 2018.
  16. Lee 2015, 25, 55–60.
  17. Scott Lomax, Jeremy Bamber: Evil, Almost Beyond Belief?, The History Press, 2008, 67–68.
  18. Lee 2015, 27, 31.
  19. Powell 1994, 28–30.
  20. Powell 1994, 40.
  21. Powell 1994, 38, 46.
  22. "So my best friend turned out to be a mass murderer". Stuff/Fairfax. 1 March 2020.
  23. "So my best friend turned out to be a mass murderer". Stuff/Fairfax. 1 March 2020.
  24. Powell 1994, 47–48.
  25. Lomax 2008, 68–69.
    For the cottage in Goldhanger, "R v Jeremy Bamber", Royal Courts of Justice, 12 December 2002, para 18.
  26. Blood Relations: Jeremy Bamber and the White House Farm Murders ISBN 978-0-140-24200-3 pp. 159-161
  27. "R v Jeremy Bamber", 12 December 2002.
  28. Eric Allison, Mark Townsend, "Gun experts raise doubts over Jeremy Bamber murder verdict", The Observer, 4 February 2012.
  29. Lomax 2008, pp. 72–73.
  30. "Murder most foul, but did he do it?", The Times, editorial, 18 March 2001.
  31. "Bamber Claims £1m From Family". BBC News. 18 August 2003. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  32. "Bamber claims £1m from family", BBC News, 18 August 2003; John Ezard, "Murder family sued by killer", The Guardian, 19 August 2003.
  33. "Killer's family cash claim fails", BBC News, 6 October 2004.
  34. Martin Wainwright, "Murderer Bamber suffers knife attack in prison", The Guardian, 1 June 2004.
  35. Ezard, John (19 August 2003). "Murder family sued by killer". The Guardian.
  36. "On This Day," The Times, 29 October 1986.
  37. "Killer's family cash claim fails", BBC News, 6 October 2004.
  38. Tom Whitehead, "Notorious killers can die behind bars, rules Europe", The Daily Telegraph, 17 January 2012.
    Caroline Davies, "Jeremy Bamber wins right to European appeal over whole-life sentence", The Guardian, 19 July 2012.
  39. "Killers' life terms 'breach their human rights'", BBC News, 9 July 2013.
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