The legal team of Jeremy Bamber, who has served 41 years in prison for murdering five members of his family, has challenged Wakefield prison’s decision to ban him from talking about his case to the media and long-term supporters.
His lawyers have issued a claim for judicial review against the secretary of state for justice and the governor of the category A high-security prison, arguing that it is violating his right to free speech and obstructing his access to justice.
Bamber, aged 65, was convicted of murdering his adoptive mother and father, his stepsister Sheila Caffell and her twin six-year-old boys. He has always protested his innocence.
Earlier this year, the prison banned him from writing to and phoning journalists and members of his campaign team. Although the wholesale ban on communication has been eased, letters and emails discussing any aspect of his case are not being forwarded, and Bamber is still unable to communicate with journalists and the campaign team by phone.
Without giving a specific explanation for the decision in Bamber’s case, the Prison Service cited “the need to protect victims from serious distress and maintain confidence in the justice system” as the basis for such restrictions in general.
Initial newspaper reports of the 1985 massacre at White House Farm in Essex, England, called it a murder-suicide, stating that Bamber’s sister, Caffell, who was also adopted and had recently been admitted to hospital with schizophrenia, had killed her family members and then herself.
Bamber became a suspect a month later after his former girlfriend Julie Mugford gave a statement to Essex police soon after he ended their relationship stating he had told her he was planning the murders. It emerged later that Mugford had agreed to sell her story to the News of the World for £25,000 if Bamber was convicted, and that it was agreed she would not be charged with burglary and drug-related offences if she gave evidence against Bamber.
Relatives also told Essex police that he was behaving suspiciously and they believed he was guilty. His uncle, Robert Boutflour, provided the police with a narrative of how he thought Bamber had carried out the murders. The relatives went on to inherit the family’s considerable estate.
The restrictions on Bamber’s communication with the media and his campaign team have arisen at a time when media interest in Bamber’s case is growing. Last year, a six-part New Yorker podcast, Blood Relatives, discovered new evidence suggesting that his conviction was unsafe. Earlier this year, the Guardian commissioned the esteemed forensic physician Prof Jason Payne-James to examine the injuries from the crime scene. He concluded that a silencer had not been used in the shooting of Caffell.
The silencer (which was discovered three days later in a downstairs cupboard by his relatives) played a crucial role in determining Bamber’s guilt during the trial. The prosecution alleged that if a silencer had been used to shoot Caffell, Bamber had killed her because Caffell’s arms were not long enough to shoot herself in the throat with the extension added to the rifle and she would have been unable to walk downstairs from the bedroom to replace the silencer in the cupboard.
In his summing up, Mr Justice Drake said it was “inconceivable” that Caffell could have shot herself with the silencer attached, and if the jury was convinced beyond reasonable doubt it was attached during the fatal shots “on that fact alone” they could convict Bamber. The jury returned a 10-2 majority guilty verdict.
The right of prisoners claiming a miscarriage of justice to contact the media, including by telephone and interview, was established in the UK through a 1999 case in which Ian Simms and Michael O’Brien – both convicted of murder – successfully argued that a “blanket ban” on journalists interviewing prisoners violated the prisoners’ rights to free speech and obstructed access to justice.
O’Brien was subsequently exonerated, with the help of journalists and campaigners. Bamber will be represented by Tim Owen KC, who was the junior council in the landmark Simms and O’Brien ruling.
Bamber’s lawyer, Mark Newby of Jordans Solicitors, said that the restrictions had come at a “significant moment”, with Bamber having a live application before the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the body responsible for referring potential miscarriages of justice back to the court of appeal. He pointed out that the submission “has been informed by significant investigative journalism”.
Newby said: “This is an important claim which raises serious questions about the ability of a prisoner maintaining his innocence to communicate with journalists and supporters at a critical stage of his case. Out of respect for the process, we do not propose to discuss the detail of the challenge while the question of permission is before the court. We will say more at the appropriate time.”
