Jeremy Bamber, one of Britain’s most notorious multiple killers, may be on the verge of being set free 25 years after he was given a life sentence for murdering five members of his family.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission has spent four years sifting through "new" evidence but is now thought to be close to making a decision on whether to refer the case to the Court of Appeal.
If they were to rule in Bamber’s favour, he could be a free man by the end of the year.
Bamber, now 49, was convicted in 1986 of shooting dead his adoptive parents, his sister, and her two six-year-old nephews with a semi-automatic rifle.
He has consistently maintained his innocence, twice taking his case to the Court of Appeal. His lawyers are now hoping that his third appeal will finally secure him his freedom.
The latest appeal will focus on photographs taken by forensics experts in the aftermath of the bloodbath in which Bamber’s parents, June and Neville, his sister, Sheila Caffell, and her six-year-old twins, Daniel and Nicholas, were all shot dead with a .22 Anschütz.
A re-examination of the photographs has provided evidence that the crime scene was painstakingly – though inaccurately - re-staged in the aftermath of the murders.
In one police forensic photo the rifle is shown next to a body, in another it is propped up against a window and a further photo shows it misisng from the window scene.
Bamber’s lawyers suspect that rather than jurors being shown original crime scene photographs, what they actually saw was images of a reconstruction. If that is the case, they argue, the 1986 jury was misled.
Detectives were alerted to the killings by Bamber himself. When they descended on the remote White House Farm, Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex, they initially saw it as a classic case of murder suicide.
Mrs Caffell had a history of mental illness and they reasoned that she had carried out the killings before turning the weapon on herself.
But a few days later, with the house returned to the family, a relative rang police to say he had found a blood-spattered silencer in a cupboard.
When police examined the item they found that, in addition to the blood, it bore both a strand of hair – presumed to have come from the head of Neville Bamber – and a fragment of paint.
The trial judge told the jury that the evidence of the silencer “could, on its own, lead them to believe that Bamber was guilty”.
However, in recent years the validity of this pivotal part of the case has been called increasingly into question.
The 1986 jury was told that scratch marks found on the silencer were made during a violent struggle between Bamber and his 61-year-old stepfather.
These marks appeared to tally with further scratches on the underside of a mantle shelf above an Aga cooker, close to where Neville Bamber’s body was found.
But members of the Criminal Case Review Commission now believe there are serious discrepancies which throw Bamber’s conviction into doubt.
Firstly, Peter Sutherst, a photographic expert who viewed the scenes-of-crime images, has concluded that the scratch marks above the Aga did not exist at the time of the murders on August 7, 1985.
The reality, he insists, is that that they were actually taken 34 days after the murders.
There remains the discrepancy that if Mrs Caffell was the killer she could not have reached the trigger with the silencer in place, but overall senior lawyers believe there is sufficient doubt over Bamber’s conviction to see him set free.
One legal expert told the Telegraph: `Jeremy Bamber is still a suspect, but there is now a strong case to say that he is the victim of a miscarriage of justice.`
Having seen Bamber convicted by a 10-2 majority at Chelmsford Crown Court, Mr Justice Tugenhadt described him as “warped and evil beyond belief”.
Subsequently, Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, ruled that the killer should never be released from prison.
The committee considering the case have three options before them: to refer Bamber’s conviction to the Court of Appeal, to reject his submissions, or to decide to give themselves more time.
Even if he overcomes the first hurdle, the Court of Appeal is unlikely to sit for at least six months.
Technically, the Appeal Court judges could order a re-trial if they find his conviction to have been unsafe. However, because of the length of time Bamber has spent in prison they would be most likely to simply quash the conviction and order his immediate release.
Bamber, who is serving his sentence at Full Sutton Prison, near York, is said to regard his submissions as “100 per cent solid proof” of a miscarriage of justice.
A spokesman for the commission said: “I can confirm that the committee considering Jeremy Bamber’s case is due to meet on Monday. Beyond that, I cannot speculate
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