Jeremy Bamber ‘fighting for retrial’
From his prison cell in York, Jeremy Bamber tells Channel 4 News that he is fighting for a retrial rather than for his sentence to be quashed.
Bamber, who was sentenced to life in 1986 for the murder of five of his family members, is expecting to hear on Monday whether his case will be referred from the Criminal Cases Reviews Commission to the Court of Appeal.
One of a handful of prisoners for whom life means life, he has always protested his innocence, claiming that his sister Sheila Caffell, who had paranoid schizophrenia, used a rifle to kill her adoptive parents and her twin sons before shooting herself.
The expected decision will come after Channel 4 News saw previously-undisclosed photographs taken on the day of the shootings, 7 August 1985, which Bamber’s legal team argue proves he was not given a fair trial.
Bamber has had two previous appeals rejected, in 1989 and 2002, but believes that previously-unseen evidence he and his legal team have uncovered since the last hearing will result in his sentence being overturned.
Last December, Eddie Gilfoyle, who was found guilty of killing his wife Paula – found hanged in the garage of the couple’s home in Upton, Wirral in 1992 – was released from prison on parole with a gagging order.
But 50-year-old Bamber said that unlike Gilfoyle, he is attempting to force a full re-trail, rather than being freed without one.
He told Channel 4 News, via his supporters: “I would love a retrial so all evidence can be examined in the public arena so that everyone can see the full extent of what has happened for so long.”
“Finally to show the truth in open court would be fantastic but that will never happen.”
In concluding remarks made in the unsuccessful 2002 appeal, Lord Justice Kay said: “We do not doubt the safety of the verdicts and we have recorded in our judgment the fact that the more we examined the detail of the case, the more likely we thought it to be that the jury were right.”
However, none of the newly discovered documents, photographs and expert opinions Bamber’s legal team have unearthed and assembled were available to them in 2002.
‘I’m not a psychopath’
Asked why the courts and the public should believe he is innocent after the two failed appeals, Bamber said: “Because it’s the truth, there has never been any evidence against me, forensic or witness evidence and I have consistently maintained my innocence.” he said.
“(My legal team have) evidence to prove the sound moderator (silencer) was (not present on the day of the crime), and forensic evidence placing Sheila at the scene.
“I also passed a polygraph test in 2007, I’m not a psychopath.”
The newly-disclosed images, which form part of the legal team’s case for a fresh appeal, allegedly show the body of Bamber’s sister, Sheila Caffell, with the murder weapon – a rifle – positioned in different places on her body.
The defence team claims that such inconsistencies would point to evidence-tampering and would therefore be incompatible with the original prosecution’s case; that Bamber killed his family and then, crucially, restaged the scene to make it look like a suicide/murder.
Bamber added that his legal team are trying to get access to documents from the original enquiry – some 340,00 pages of documents held under Public Interest Immunity (PII) and a further 367 photographs.