Lack of alibi and bizarre behaviour – why Jeremy Bamber must be guilty of White House Farm murders

THRILLING drama White House Farm has had the nation hooked for weeks – just like the notorious murder case it is based on did more than three decades ago.

The ITV series, which concludes Wednesday night, tells the story of the 1985 tragedy in which five members of the same family were shot dead in an idyllic Essex village.

The bodies of Nevill and June Bamber, both 61, their adopted daughter Sheila Caffell, 28, and her six-year-old twins Daniel and Nicholas were discovered inside their farmhouse.

At first, police believed Sheila, a glamorous former model known as Bambi, was the culprit in a murder/suicide plot.

Then the finger of suspicion pointed towards her brother Jeremy Bamber, then 24, and also adopted.

He is now serving a life term having been convicted of the murders after trying to frame his sister.

Bamber, 59, played by Freddie Fox in the series, still maintains his innocence and has launched a series of failed appeals, backed by an army of, mainly female, fans.

But with no alibi — and with motive to kill — we believe there can be no reasonable doubt over his guilt, as detailed here in our forensic casebook . . .

His lack of alibi

BAMBER claims he was alone at home at the time of the murders.

But since his conviction he has claimed new evidence shows he was speaking to officers outside his parents’ farmhouse while the murders were taking place.

Essex Police say everyone was dead before they spoke to Bamber.

Ex-best pal Brett Collins, played by Alfie Allen, was sure of Bamber’s innocence.

He has since said: “I’ve changed my mind. I remember saying to him, ‘You’re going to need an alibi – they might put this thing on you’.

"He said to me, ‘Oh, I have it. I was at home’. I said to him, ‘That doesn’t sound like much of an alibi’.”

He had a motive

THE prosecution argued Bamber had been motivated by “hatred and greed”.

His wealthy parents lived in a large farmhouse set in 300 acres in the village of Tolleshunt d’Arcy, Essex, which he stood to inherit.

It would have been worth more than £1million in today’s money.

Bamber’s girlfriend, Julie Mugford, told police he resented his parents because they tried to “run his life”.

He was also angry that his sister Sheila lived in a flat in West London’s expensive Maida Vale paid for by their parents.

Strange way he called in police

IT was Bamber who raised the alarm about the shootings, claiming his father had phoned him in the early hours saying his sister had “gone berserk” with a gun, before the line went dead.

But despite the obvious emergency, Bamber did not dial 999, he called the local police station.

Officers could find no evidence that dad Nevill had called his son.

It was also argued that Nevill would have been too injured to make the call.

It was further pointed out he would have been “severely bloodied” – yet there was no visible blood on the phone.

The prosecution argued that Bamber’s phone call story was all part of his elaborate plan to frame his sister.

The forensics against him

A SILENCER with specks of blood on it was found in the gun cupboard at the house.

The blood was from the same group as Sheila’s, suggesting it had been attached to the murder weapon, a .22 Anschutz semi-automatic rifle.

Forensic tests indicated the gun would have been too long for Sheila to have shot herself.

And if Sheila had shot her parents and sons with the silencer, before realising the gun was too long to use on herself, it is unlikely she would have put the silencer back in the cupboard before returning upstairs to kill herself.

A firearms expert confirmed the blood was “backspatter”, caused by a close-contact shooting.

Red paint marks were also found on the silencer, matching scratch marks on the kitchen wall where Nevill’s body was found.

This matched evidence that a struggle had taken pace and further backed up the prosecution’s argument the silencer had been used during the killings.

The silencer was a key piece of evidence that helped rule Sheila out as the killer.

Bamber’s fingerprint was found on the weapon’s gun barrel. Sheila’s print was also found, but this may have been planted.

His very bizarre behaviour

FORMER police sergeant Chris Bews was one of the officers who met Bamber at the farm on the night of the tragedy.

Speaking to The Sun, he said: “Obviously it’s not anything you can give in evidence but you do get a sixth sense about people, and he just didn’t seem to be behaving right.

“It’s not something I can put into words as such, and that feeling was shared by colleagues.

“He wasn’t particularly emotional. It was almost as if he had prepared to answer certain questions.”

Bamber was pictured sobbing uncontrollably in front of waiting photographers as he left the church following his family’s funeral.

Yet during the service he is said to have cracked lewd jokes.

Sheila’s ex-husband Colin Caffell, father to the murdered twins, claims in his book In Search Of The Rainbow’s End that Bamber, “Couldn’t wait to get back to the house with (his girlfriend) Julie and have some fun”.

After the funeral Bamber booked several exotic holidays and enjoyed a champagne lifestyle.

He even contacted The Sun in a bid to sell topless modelling shots of his dead sister for £25,000.

We declined and ran a story about his bizarre behaviour instead.

His “crocodile tears” at the funeral were what convinced detectives he was the murderer.

Investigators were even contacted by one of Bamber’s former teachers who said they were convinced he was “acting”.

His ex-lover's evidence

BAMBER used Sheila’s mental health struggles to try to frame his sister.

But former girlfriend Julie came forward with crucial evidence about Bamber’s own state of mind.

She told officers he had talked about how his father regarded him as a disappointment and how his mother was a religious zealot.

Julie, whose relationship with Bamber had by then broken down, said he had discussed killing them so he could inherit the family fortune.

She claimed he even talked about how he would do it, sedating his parents then setting fire to the house.

At the time she had dismissed it as “fantasy”.

It couldn't have been Sheila

POLICE originally believed that Sheila, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was responsible for the killings in a murder-suicide plot.

Her body was found with the murder weapon rifle lying on her chest – and it seemed like an open and shut case.

However, there are significant clues that Sheila could not have been the killer.

The former model, played by Cressida Bonas in the drama, would have struggled to overpower her 6ft 4in father, who had fought his attacker.

Carol Ann Lee, author of The Murders At White House Farm, has carried out extensive research into the killings, and the ITV drama is based partly on her work.

She says she was left in no doubt of Sheila’s innocence after police showed her a sensitive photo concerning the children that has never been publicly released.

Carol Ann said: “The photo makes it clear that the person who used the gun knew what they were doing in that particular instance. Without any doubt.

“And they had a very steady hand. Sheila didn’t have a steady hand, that’s a matter of record.”

The author, who has exchanged hundreds of letters with Bamber from his prison cell as part of her research, added: “Nothing I saw made me doubt his guilt.

“I know plenty disagree. That’s fine, as long as you can back it up with evidence, not just what his campaign team have said.”

• White House Farm airs Wednesday night on ITV at 9pm

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