Bamber loses appeal against conviction for murdering family
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
Jeremy Bamber, who was jailed for life for murdering his adoptive mother, father, sister and twin nephews, lost his appeal against the conviction yesterday.
Three judges at the Court of Appeal said they had "no doubt" the verdicts were safe and rejected all 15 points on which Bamber had made his case for freedom.
The judge at the 1986 trial at Chelmsford Crown Court described Bamber as "evil almost beyond belief". His adoptive mother, June, 61, and six-year-old nephews, Nicholas and Daniel, were found shot dead in their beds on 7 August 1985 at the family farmhouse in Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex.
The body of his adoptive father, Nevill, 61, was found downstairs, and his sister Sheila Caffell, 27 – a model known as Bambi – was found dead by her parents' bed.
Bamber's fingerprints were found on a gun that was used in the murder and weeks later his girlfriend told police he had plotted to murder his parents to inherit £500,000.
Lord Justice Kay, who sat with Mr Justice Wright and Mr Justice Henriques, 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, although we can never go further than that."
Bamber, 41, sought to cast doubt on scientific evidence, made allegations of deceit against the police and claimed evidence that would have helped his case was deliberately withheld. The case was referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates possible miscarriages of justice.
Detectives initially suspected that Ms Caffell, who had not been taking her medication for schizophrenia, had murdered her parents and sons before turning the gun on herself.
But three days after the shootings, a cousin of Bamber discovered a silencer in a cupboard at the farm, apparently with Ms Caffell's blood on it, casting doubt on the theory.
Four weeks later, Julie Mugford, who was Bamber's girlfriend, went to police and said he had often bragged that he was going to kill his parents.
Peter Eaton, a cousin of Bamber, said on behalf of the family yesterday: "We never doubted for a second that this was the only possible decision they could reach and that justice was indeed done in 1986. Although the appeal has only been in the public eye for three weeks we have had to bear this nightmare periodically for the past 17 years.''