Could Jeremy Bamber be cleared of murdering his family? Fresh doubt cast on 1985 case after review by gun experts

Gun experts claim to have unearthed new evidence which could clear convicted killer Jeremy Bamber of a notorious 1985 multiple murder. Bamber was jailed after he was found guilty of killing his adoptive parents June and Nevill, his sister Sheila Caffell and her six-year-old twins Daniel and Nicholas, at their Essex farmhouse.

But he has always denied the murders - and a new legal team has now suggested that a silencer, the discover of which was crucial to his conviction, was never used on the gun that caused their deaths.

It puts his role in the crime in doubt, and subsequently points the finger at his schizophrenic 28-year-old sister who, police believed in the immediate aftermath of the killings, had murdered her parents and sons before turning the gun on herself. That theory was declared void when, in the days following the shooting, a silencer with Caffell's blood was found in a cupboard at the farm.

Prosecutors at his trial at Chelmsford Crown Court in 1986 said that if her blood was on the weapon, then she could not have shot herself and then hidden it in the cupboard.

The jury, which had unusually been told that the murders could only have been carried out by Bamber or his sister, was also told by the judge that the silencer 'could, on its own, lead them to believe that Bamber was guilty'.

But the verdict has now been thrown into doubt with the conclusions of a peer-reviewed pathology assessment of the evidence relating to her death.

The findings, obtained by the Observer, suggest that a silencer - so pivotal to Bamber's conviction - was never used.

Firearms experts working for Dr John Manlove, an Oxfordshire-based forensic scientist, said that evidence that the fatal wounds were fired by a rifle without a silencer were backed up by fresh analysis of burn marks on Nevill Bamber's back.

He told the Observer: 'From its size and shape, this mark could possibly have been caused by the hot muzzle of a firearm, without a sound moderator.'

A report by the chief medical examiner of the U.S. state of Maryland, David Fowler, said: 'In my professional opinion, the [burn marks] complex just described of the lower entrance and two abrasions is consistent with the rifle not having a silencer.'

And his theory that no silencer was used is supported by Ljubisa Dragovic, chief medical examiner of Oakland county in Michigan, and Marcella Fierro, former chief medical examiner of Virginia.

Leeds-based Simon McKay, Bamber's new solicitor advocate, said: 'The evidence of three senior and respected pathologists that the wounds to Sheila Caffell are consistent with the rifle having been fired without the silencer fitted shakes the safety of Jeremy Bamber's convictions to their core.

'The fresh expert evidence aligns itself with what police officers found at the scene on the morning of the killings and the combined views of those who assessed the position then: namely, and tragically, [that] Sheila Caffell murdered her family, then took her own life.'

And he said that the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which rejected Bamber's last attempt to win freedom 12 months ago, now had no option but to refer the case. He added: 'A picture is emerging that exculpates Jeremy Bamber and implicates his sister.'

The jury struggled to reach a verdict in the trial and returned with a 10-2 majority.

Original report here




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