On 7 August 1985, five members of the Bamber family were shot dead at their farmhouse in Essex, England. This Wednesday marked exactly 40 years since Jeremy Bamber was convicted of the murders of his adoptive parents, his sister and her six-year-old twin boys. He was initially jailed for a minimum of 25 years, later upgraded to a whole-life sentence.
CCRC reviews and criticism
The conviction has been examined three times by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), the body that decides whether a miscarriage of justice may exist. In 2001 the commission referred the case to the Court of Appeal, where judges affirmed the jury’s verdict. A second request in 2012 was denied, and a third submission in 2021 has so far produced a provisional refusal of four of the ten points raised.
The CCRC has taken five years to examine those four points, and there has seemingly been no attempt to investigate the issues that Bamber insists make his conviction unsafe or prove his innocence.
Investigative journalist Heidi Blake published a New Yorker article in 2024 that was later turned into the podcast “Blood Relatives.” Blake reported that former police officer Nicholas Milbank, who monitored the farm’s open phone line, heard a 999 call from inside the house at 6:09 a.m., a detail that could have cleared Bamber if it had been acted on.
Instead of interviewing Milbank itself, the CCRC allowed Essex police (whom Milbank still worked for) to interview him. The force told the commission that Milbank had never spoken to the New Yorker and that he died shortly after denying the interview. The New Yorker podcast came out a few months later, and it emerged that Milbank had indeed spoken to Blake – there was audio of their interview – and had confirmed the 999 call from inside the house.
When Dame Vera Baird KC became interim chair of the CCRC last year, she said of the commission: they don’t communicate with applicants, are reluctant to challenge the court of appeal, look for reasons not to refer rather than to refer and are quite often incompetent.
Key forensic questions
The original trial hinged on a silencer found in a downstairs cupboard. Prosecutors argued that with the silencer attached, the victim Sheila Caffell could not have shot herself, and that the silencer contained blood matching her blood group.
In 2012 the defence hired American forensic expert Dr David Fowler, who concluded Caffell was shot without a silencer. Two U.S. pathologists peer-reviewed his report and agreed. The CCRC rejected the findings.
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Silencer evidence and blood testing
The silencer in question was found by Bamber’s relatives in a downstairs cupboard at the farmhouse that had already been checked by the police. Investigators noted that the cupboard had been searched by police before the item was recovered, so its presence could not be definitively linked to the night of the murders.
During the jury’s deliberations, they sent a question to the judge, Mr Justice Drake, asking if the blood in the silencer definitely belonged to Caffell. The answer affirmed the jury’s ability to rely on that evidence alone. Later analysis revealed that one of the five blood-group components matched common animal species kept on the farm, a fact the jury never heard.
Blood-group testing at the time identified a match with the victim’s type, yet the same grouping could also have applied to a frequent hunting associate who regularly handled the firearms.
Police logs, photographic evidence and campaign responses
Original crime-scene negatives were eventually supplied to the appellant, who funded the conversion to high-resolution images at personal expense. The review body declined to cover those costs, despite the material’s potential relevance to the forensic reassessments.
The enhanced photographs displayed patterns that suggested a possible struggle in the master bedroom, an observation not raised at the original trial. The biologist who examined the images concluded that the blood distribution could be explained by a self-inflicted wound, but also noted that the evidence did not rule out a confrontation.
Analysis of police logs revealed two distinct entries. The first, recorded at 03:26 a.m. by civilian officer Malcolm Bonnett, described a “daughter” in crisis and listed the farmhouse address. The second, logged at 03:36 a.m. by PC Michael West, referenced a “sister” and cited the appellant’s cottage. A 1988 internal police inquiry omitted any mention of the earlier call, accepting only the later timestamp.
Cross-examination of the constable showed that police vehicles had already been dispatched before the later call, contradicting the single-call narrative presented at trial. This discrepancy suggests that two separate alerts may have been issued, potentially providing an alibi for the appellant. If Bamber isn’t guilty, the idea of an innocent man spending 41 years and counting in prison, wrongfully convicted of killing his loved ones, is horrifying.
