PRESS STATEMENT
JEREMY BAMBER CASE
We welcome the publication of an extensive and thorough investigation by The New Yorker Magazine. This article by an award winning investigative journalist Heidi Blake has significantly moved the dial forward on this case .
The current application to refer Jeremy Bamber’s case has now been with the CCRC for over 3 ½ years with precious little progress , which will hardly be surprising to many independent observers of the current malaise in the Commission with its lack of effective leadership .
The grounds advanced to the Commission in March 2021 were significant and included concerns referred on by Knowles J in the High Court over the possible existence of a second moderator and significant concerns over crime scene interference .
The New Yorker Article shines a light on those concerns and presents freshly obtained evidence which couldn’t be any starker and calls for a swift referral of the case back to the Court of Appeal .
We now are confronted with evidence that the crime scene had been interfered with by a senior officer, DI Ron Cook. Including picking up a bible, thumbing through it, and repositioning it by the body. The account of former DS Neil Davidson, DI Cook’s deputy on the case, supports concerns already raised in our submissions. It is clear that serious interference with the crime scene had taken place, which was then covered up on this account.
There is further evidence that there was a call from within the Farmhouse at 6.09am and the officer who handled that call confirms he heard sounds of movement in the background at a time when Jeremy Bamber could not be in the farmhouse . This not only rides a coach and horses through the Crowns previous attempts to explain this away, but the officer also confirms he never provided a statement to the subsequent Pre-appeal Stokenchurch Inquiry despite one being put in in under his name . This fundamentally casts doubt on the reliability of the post-trial review of this case which has been previously relied upon .
There is also fresh evidence relating to a second silencer and potential crucial presence of DNA material , and that only scratches the surface of the concerns that now arise .
Taking into account that the Court of Appeal in 2002 in discussions considered that any crime scene interference would be “a moral sin” and knowing that the Court has over the decades made clear that any impropriety with regard to interference with evidence has the potential to undermine the safety of a conviction , it is hard to see on what basis the CCRC wouldn’t now want to get this case to the Court of Appeal for full review with all possible haste .
That said those of us who have worked with the Commission for many years have seen a sad decline in the Commission in its effectiveness , past errors of the commission were evident from 2013 when opportunities were missed in the case of our client Victor Nealon with the then Chair of the CCRC apologising and promising to learn lessons over a failure to test for DNA .
This proved to be a promise without substance as at the very same time Andrew Malkinson was with the commission seeking a referral, but opportunities were missed by the commission, and we know what the consequences of that were as highlighted by the Henley Review . We are left to now watch events play out within the CCRC with the Lord Chancellor indicating she wishes to remove the current leadership and the Chair refusing to resign . It is difficult to know how any of this is helping Jeremy Bamber or the many other applicants who are crying out for an effective , well led and well-resourced Commission not tomorrow but today .
