When I first wrote about the Jeremy Bamber case, it was not clear to me whether the forensic evidence used to convict him was simply a mistake, or whether it was fabricated. New evidence has since come to my attention which shows it was both – a mistake led to Jeremy being suspected by police, and then fabricated evidence was manufactured to ensure a conviction.
CCRC Watch
First, I want to make some brief observations on the source of some of the most important new evidence. A search for “Dr Michael Naughton” brings up this page from the website of Bristol University, https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/persons/michael-naughton which states that “Dr Michael Naughton is a leading scholar on miscarriages of justice and wrongful convictions, activist for innocent victims of wrongful convictions and writer. He has received numerous awards and prizes for his work” and “Michael is the Founder and Director of Empowering the Innocent (ETI), a research and criminal justice system reform project (click here).
Empowering the Innocent (ETI) has so far set up two subprojects, CCRC Watch (click here) and False Allegations Watch (FAW) (click here).”
The page has further extensive information about Dr Naughton, making it clear that he is an accomplished scholar with a reputation to maintain.
The CCRC Watch article I will be referring to is https://empowerinnocent.wixsite.com/ccrcwatch/post/is-the-ccrc-implicated-in-36-years-of-deception-in-the-case-of-jeremy-bamber
The prosecution case
The prosecution claim that Jeremy Bamber murdered his family ( parents Nevill and June, sister Sheila and her twin sons) in the early morning hours on 7th August 1985, and a single moderator(sometimes referred to as a silencer) with Sheila’s blood in it, was discovered by Jeremy Bamber’s relatives in a box in a cupboard on 10th August 1985. While initially it was thought to be a case of murder-suicide, Sheila’s blood in a moderator would prove that her suicide had been staged, and since Jeremy claimed to have been called by his father, stating that Sheila had “got the gun” and had “gone crazy”, he must have carried out the murders and staged Sheila’s suicide.
In addition, the prosecution alleged that red paint on the moderator matched paint on the underside of the Aga shelf in the kitchen, which had been scratched, suggesting a struggle in the kitchen for the gun.
The testimony of Glynis Howard
On 13th August 1985 a sound moderator was examined (with a microscope) by Glynis Howard ( see here for a timeline for the case). She performed a chemical test, the Kastle-Meyer test, and claimed the blood was of human origin, however in fact the KM test only tests for hemeglobin, and cannot distinguish animal from human blood. This mistake was I believe the mistake that first led to Jeremy Bamber being considered a suspect. She did not observe any red paint on this moderator – this is perhaps the first clue that something is wrong with the prosecution case. Her testimony is posted in the comments on this Facebook post her statement to police is here.
Evidence a moderator was discovered by police
Per the CCRC Watch article, on Friday 9 August a moderator (labelled SBJ/1) was ‘dusted’ for fingerprints by DS219 Davidson, as confirmed by him in his interview with City of London Police. This is another clue, how could the moderator be examined by police before it was even discovered? [ Edit, Feb 25, 2023 : it turns out Davidson simply prepared paperwork, and even if there was fingerprint paperwork dated Friday 9th August including the moderator, it is still possible the moderator was added to the items to be fingerprinted before being sent to the lab ]
There is further evidence that a moderator was actually discovered by police on August 7th, in the form of statements made by Assistant Constable Peter Simpson, reported by the press – again see the CCRC Watch article.
Moreover, there is evidence (again from the CCRC watch article) that rather than a moderator being handed in to police by relatives on 11th August, on 11th September 1985, a sound moderator was collected by DC Oakey and handed to DCI Wright SOC Chelmsford. To put this in context, Jeremy Bamber was arrested on 7th September, 1985.
It now becomes clear that a second moderator with damning evidence planted in and on it was injected into the case after Jeremy Bamber was arrested to strengthen the evidence against him, after Glynis Howard mistakenly said the Kastle-Meyer test proved the blood was of human origin. More likely, the blood Howard detected was simply rabbit blood from an earlier rabbit hunting expedition.
Trial by Media 