NEWS UPDATE
There have been a number of issues raised during the past month which require additional explanations. For some reason the police and the prosecuting authorities are reluctant to concede that the police officers at the scene identified a male and female body in the kitchen of the farm house that morning. Firstly, when the two officers looked into the kitchen from outside prior to entry, and then two further officers made the same identification of a male and female body in the kitchen upon entry to the house. The information relayed to headquarters from the sighting from outside was to the radio operator in the control room, whose job it was to keep accurate, contemporaneous records of all radio traffic.
Once police had entered the house and discovered the male and female bodies this information was relayed to force information room at headquarters via the telephone in the kitchen. This officer in the force information room had to record every sound he heard over the open telephone line accurately. So here you have two different officers in two different rooms receiving information from two different police officers. Information which was seen independently a couple of minutes apart and both pass on the same information and both officers receiving it write down the same thing, that two bodies were in the kitchen, one male and one female.
In a letter to the lawyers dated 14th December 2004 Essex Police give two explanations for why it is wrong to believe that two bodies were in the kitchen that morning:
- “It is possible that that (sic) the relaying of information led to mis- interpretation at the receivers end of the communication”
- “It is equally possible that a police officer attending the scene looked through the window and initially thought the body downstairs was the body of a female”
or
The chances of both the radio operator and the officer monitoring the telephone (both in different rooms) to both misinterpret what they were told and write down the same thing but it be exactly and equally wrong is clearly nothing more than ‘fanciful’, to coin one of their own phrases in this case. It would appear that Essex Police are now saying that it was the incompetence of both the radio operator and the officer monitoring the open line from the force information room which led to this misinterpretation of the facts.
The second excuse suggests that the police officers mistook Nevill Bamber, a six feet four inches, sixteen stones, red faced farmer as a woman, from less than three feet away in a well lit kitchen when they looked through the window. They then made the same misidentification when they entered the kitchen. Such a mistake would be an incredible error to make. Even if this excuse is possible it still poses the question of what happened to the other body?
From outside two bodies were seen and when the police entered the kitchen two bodies were seen yet Essex Police simply promote the ridiculous excuse that Nevill Bamber was mistaken for a woman by two different pairs of police officers – as if that explains the fact that they both report finding two bodies in the kitchen. It is clear that something strange happened that morning which Essex Police refuse at all costs to admit to.
What is the explanation as to how two hours after the police entered the house Sheila was photographed upstairs in the master bedroom when she had been seen in the kitchen at 07.35 (and we have to assume it was Sheila) from outside and identified at 07.38 from inside. Further research has been carried out on some of the four million documents in the case to see if there are other references or indications about what happened. This could only be done in the light of the disclosure of the radio and telephone logs in March 2004, as will be seen.
For instance, document 5/54 which is part of a chronological diary written by an officer at the scene states:
“07.30 bodies (crossed out) Entry gained – body found in kitchen male and female (and female crossed out)”see doc 1
The significance of this document would not have been recognised without the radio log because the precise time of entry to the house is only available from the telephone operator recording precisely when the door was sledge hammered down at 07.35. Close examination of this 07.30 entry reference suggests that it was altered at a later date because firstly no entry had occurred at this time and the word ‘entry’ looks to be written in a different hand. This document is not conclusive but simply suggests that someone was trying to obscure the fact that prior to entry at 07.30 bodies had been seen – male and female.
To prove when this alteration was made then an ESDA test would be necessary on the original document – it would show the impression of the crossings out on the page underneath. It is also interesting that the first page of this document is missing, suggesting that it contains information that the police did not want anyone else to see. The Crown Prosecution Service have been asked to provide the complete document under the Freedom of Information Act.
Document 5/55 is a log written up in the incident room concerning all movements by police officers connected with the case. Log entry timed at 07.40, from D/Insp I.R. “police entered premises 1 male dead 1 female dead” This appears to confirm the radio log 07.37 reference of finding ‘one dead male and one dead female in kitchen’ – 07.38 reference in telephone log. see doc 2
It is necessary to appreciate that the police officers who entered the house have all written sworn Witness Statements saying that they took their time when searching the house. They did not rush. After searching the back of the house downstairs and upstairs they then searched the kitchen stairs and the room (unused) that the stairs led to, then the rest of the ground floor. Before going up the front stairs they brought in a periscope gadget and used that before venturing upstairs. The point in mentioning this is that the tactical firearms team have made it clear that they took between ten and fifteen minutes to search the rest of the house before venturing upstairs. Therefore the 07.40 reference in document 5/55 can only be referring to bodies found in the kitchen because 07.40 is only five minutes after the police entered the house and they have sworn that they had not gone up the front stairs for at least another five minutes and so would not have known at this point that anyone else was dead.
On the same document it states:
08.10 ‘house now thoroughly searched by firearms team now confirmed another 3 bodies found’ see doc 3
This entry confirms that the tactical firearms squad took a considerable time to search upstairs at the front of the house and discover the other bodies. Two bodies discovered in the kitchen at 07.37 (radio log entry), 07.40 (doc 5/55 entry) and 07.38 (telephone log entry). Other deceased reported dead 08.09 (radio log) and 08.10 (doc 5/55). Had they have been discovered sooner then that information would have been radioed in or entered in the various incident logs being kept at the scene or control room but no such earlier reference exist. see doc 3
The only conclusion that can be reasonably drawn from the 08.10 entry in doc 5/55 ‘that a further 3 bodies found’ is that only 3 bodies were discovered upstairs. This fits with the police finding two bodies in the kitchen, making a total of five. The difficulty now is that there is clear proof that two bodies were in the kitchen prior to 09.30 when only one appears in the crime scene photographs. So what happened between 08.10 when two bodies were downstairs and three upstairs and 09.30 when this changed to one body downstairs and four upstairs?
Essex Police are unlikely to ever admit what actually happened that morning when they entered White House Farm. They cannot expect people to believe that officers Bonnet and Milbank, along with the unnamed officers who wrote documents 5/55 and 5/53 are all so incompetent as to write down completely the wrong information and all get it wrong in exactly the same way, or that Nevill Bamber was mistaken for a woman and the other body referred to cannot be accounted for. There would appear to be ample grounds now for an inquiry into the misinformation being put out by Essex Police in order to muddy the waters when evidential proof has now been found that is in stark contrast to the case put forward at the original trial and subsequent appeals.
Evidence is also now mounting to prove that page one of the radio log was rewritten on the back of the telephone log in order to obscure the fact that office Myall and officer Bews reported back to the incident room that they had seen a person moving in the window of the master bedroom. The audio tape recording of these radio messages have been requested from the Crown Prosecution Service and Essex Police under the Freedom of Information Act. These recordings do exist as there are no records or authorisation to state otherwise. Once these are handed over, which under the new law should be within twenty days, then we will be able to prove that the radio log was edited to remove the visual identification by officers Myall and Bews of a person alive at the window of the master bedroom on first arrival.
However, even if these audio recordings are not handed over – and they will not be given willingly, then document 5/53 proves the first page of the radio log was rewritten, as does the Witness Statement of PC Milbank. Document 5/53 states:
03.55 ‘pc Bews pc 1509 (Myall) and son Jeremy recce house’ see doc 4
The rewritten first page of the radio log starts:
04.02 from CA7 – ‘duty sgt, 1 pc and Mr Bamber left veh and approaching house on foot, veh parked out of site (sic)
The telephone log states that car CA07 (Saxby, Myall and Bews) radio in as arriving at the farm at 03.48 so it is odd that this entry does not appear in the radio log because car CA07 must have radioed in their arrival, so why did the radio operator not record this?
It is also odd that there is a seven minute discrepancy between the incident log recording when the house was first investigated and the radio log entry. What has not been appreciated is that there were three approaches made to the house, the first by pc Bews, pc Myall and Jeremy Bamber who went to the front of the house and on the second only as far as the side of the house then the third by pc Myall and pc Bews without Jeremy Bamber. It would appear that document 5/53 records the first and third trips and the radio log records the second, having been rewritten to edit out the first because of what pc Myall and pc Bews reported seeing.
Confirmation of this fact comes from officer Milbank in his Witness Statement 18th July 2002, he states that the phone’s were monitored in the force information room and this is where the phone log would be written up. The radio’s however were being monitored in the control room and so the radio logs would be written up in that room. If the control room wanted to contact him in the information room they did so via a radio link. The officer writing up the phone logs and the officer writing up the radio logs were in different rooms so how did the first hour and a half of radio information come to be on the back of this telephone log instead of the proper radio log forms as the other 14 pages are? Did the radio operator keep running from room to room each time a message came in so he could write it on the back of the telephone log? He could not have taken it with him as there are entries on this telephone log up to 04.58. Forensic tests would be able to prove that this front page of the radio log has been rewritten but Essex Police absolutely refuse to have the pages from the radio log submitted for forensic analysis, having been repeatedly requested to do so for the last 18 months.
There have been further developments regarding other issues mentioned in last months News Update, however these developments are at a sensitive stage and we are unable to publicise them at the moment. The outcome of these enquiries will be posted here as soon as we are able to.
There is immense pressure being brought to bear on the appropriate authorities to have my case referred to the Court of Appeal. If you believe that this should happen then please write to your MP, the Home Secretary or the Lord Chief Justice and voice your views as the sooner a referral is made the sooner justice can be done.
Doc 1
Doc 2
Doc 3
Doc 4
