Jeremy Nevill Bamber (born Jeremy Paul Marsham; 13 January 1961) is a British convicted murderer. He was convicted of the 1985
White House Farm murders
The White House Farm murders took place near the village of Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex, England, United Kingdom, during the night of 6–7 August 1985. Nevill and June Bamber were shot and killed inside their farmhouse at White House Farm along ...
in
Tolleshunt D'Arcy,
Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...
, in which the victims included Bamber's adoptive parents, Nevill and June Bamber; his adoptive sister, Sheila Caffell; and his sister's six-year-old twin sons, Daniel and Nicholas Caffell. Returning a majority guilty verdict, the jury found that, after committing the murders to secure a large inheritance, Bamber had placed the rifle in the hands of his 28-year-old sister, who had been diagnosed with
schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social withdra ...
, to make the scene appear to be a
murder–suicide
A murder-suicide is an act in which an individual murder, kills one or more persons either before or while suicide, killing themselves. The combination of murder and suicide can take various forms:
* Murder linked with suicide of a person with a ...
.
Bamber is serving
life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...
with a
whole life tariff
In England and Wales, life imprisonment is a sentence that lasts until the death of the prisoner, although in most cases the prisoner will be eligible for early release after a minimum term set by the judge. In exceptional cases, however, a ju ...
, meaning that he has no possibility of parole.
[David James Smith]
"And by dawn, they were all dead"
''The Sunday Times Magazine'', 11 July 2010
webcite
. He has repeatedly applied unsuccessfully to have his conviction
overturned or his whole life tariff removed; his extended family remains convinced of his guilt.
[ The ]Criminal Cases Review Commission
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) is the statutory body responsible for investigating alleged miscarriages of justice in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. It was established by Section 8 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995 and bega ...
(CCRC) referred the case to the Court of Appeal
A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of t ...
in 2001, which upheld the conviction in 2002. The appeal was rejected and the CCRC rejected further applications from Bamber in 2004 and 2012, with the commission stating in 2012 that it had not identified any new evidence or legal argument capable of raising a real possibility that his conviction would be quashed.[Eric Allison]
"Jeremy Bamber murder appeal bid thrown out
''The Guardian'', 26 April 2012. On 10 March 2021, a new application was lodged with the Criminal CCRC for a referral to the Court of Appeal.
Early life
Adoption, education
Jeremy Bamber was born Jeremy Paul Marsham at St Mary Abbots Hospital
St Mary Abbots Hospital was a hospital that operated from 1871 to 1992 at a site on Marloes Road in Kensington, London.
History
The hospital building, which was designed by Alfred Williams as a workhouse infirmary and built by John T. Chappell, ...
, Kensington
Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London.
The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...
, London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, to Juliet Dorothy Wheeler (born 1938 in Leicester
Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands.
The city l ...
), a vicar
A vicar (; Latin: ''vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pref ...
's daughter who had had an affair with British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
Sergeant Major
Sergeant major is a senior non-commissioned rank or appointment in many militaries around the world.
History
In 16th century Spain, the ("sergeant major") was a general officer. He commanded an army's infantry, and ranked about third in the ...
Leslie Brian Marsham (born 1931 in Tendring
Tendring is a village and civil parish in Essex. It gives its name to the Tendring District and before that the Tendring Hundred. Its name was given to the larger groupings because it was at the centre, not because it was larger than the other ...
, Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...
), a controller at Buckingham Palace
Buckingham Palace () is a London royal residence and the administrative headquarters of the monarch of the United Kingdom. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is often at the centre of state occasions and royal hospitality. It ...
. Wheeler gave the baby up for adoption in 1961, the year of his birth, through the Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
Children's Society
The Children's Society, formally the Church of England Children's Society, is a United Kingdom national children's charity (registered No. 221124) allied to the Church of England.
The charity's two governing objectives are to:
# directly improv ...
. Nevill and June Bamber adopted Bamber when he was six months old. It was only after his conviction that his biological parents were told by reporters that Bamber was their son. They were by then married to each other and working at Buckingham Palace.
The Bambers were wealthy farmers who lived in a large Georgian
Georgian may refer to:
Common meanings
* Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country)
** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group
** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians
**Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
house at White House Farm, near Tolleshunt D'Arcy in Essex. Nevill was a local magistrate
The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judici ...
and former RAF
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
pilot. In 1957, four years before adopting Jeremy, the couple had adopted a baby girl, Sheila.[Scott Lomax, ''Jeremy Bamber: Evil, Almost Beyond Belief?'', The History Press, 2008, 67–68.]
Bamber attended St Nicholas Primary, followed by Maldon Court, a private prep school. In September 1970 he was sent to Gresham's School
Gresham's School is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school (English Independent school (United Kingdom), independent Day school, day and boarding school) in Holt, Norfolk, Holt, Norfolk, England, one of the top thirty International Bac ...
, a boarding school in Holt
Holt or holte may refer to:
Natural world
*Holt (den), an otter den
* Holt, an area of woodland
Places Australia
* Holt, Australian Capital Territory
* Division of Holt, an electoral district in the Australian House of Representatives in Vic ...
, Norfolk
Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...
. Bamber left Gresham's with no qualifications, much to Nevill's anger, but managed to pass seven O-levels
The O-Level (Ordinary Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education. It was introduced in place of the School Certificate in 1951 as part of an educational reform alongside the more in-depth ...
at The Sixth Form
In the education systems of England, Northern Ireland, Wales, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and some other Commonwealth countries, sixth form represents the final two years of secondary education, ages 16 to 18. Pupils typically prepare for A-l ...
College in Colchester
Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian.
Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colches ...
, which he left in 1978. Brett Collins claims Bamber had sexual relationships with men and women, finding that his good looks and charm made him popular with both.
Work
After leaving school Nevill financed a trip for Bamber to Australia, where he took a scuba diving course, and to New Zealand. In New Zealand, according to Collins, Bamber was "ripped off" by a would-be heroin
Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a potent opioid mainly used as a recreational drug for its euphoric effects. Medical grade diamorphine is used as a pure hydrochloride salt. Various white and brow ...
dealer in Auckland
Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...
. Bamber reportedly boasted of smuggling heroin overseas and broke into a jewellery shop to steal two expensive watches, one of which he gave to a girlfriend in the UK. One of Bamber's cousins claimed that he ended up leaving New Zealand in a hurry after friends of his had been involved in an armed robbery
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or by use of fear. According to common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the perso ...
.[Powell 1994, 47–48.]
Bamber returned to the UK and worked in restaurants and bars, including a period as a waiter in a Little Chef
Little Chef was a chain of restaurants in the United Kingdom, founded in 1958 by entrepreneur Sam Alper, who was inspired by American diners. The chain was famous for the "Olympic Breakfast" – its version of a full English – as well as it ...
on the A12; but he later agreed to return home and work on his father's farm.[ Although Bamber reportedly resented the low wages, he was given a car and lived rent-free in a cottage his father owned at 9 Head Street, ]Goldhanger
Goldhanger is a village and a civil parish on the B1026 road in the Maldon District, in the English county of Essex.
Goldhanger had an agricultural museum and has a church dedicated to St Peter. Goldhanger is at the head of a short creek, on th ...
, from his family's farmhouse at White House Farm. He also owned eight percent of his family's caravan site, Osea Road Camp Sites Ltd., in Maldon
Maldon (, locally ) is a town and civil parish on the River Blackwater, Essex, Blackwater estuary in Essex, England. It is the seat of the Maldon District and starting point of the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation. It is known for Maldon Sea ...
.[Lomax 2008, 68–69. For the cottage in Goldhanger]
"R v Jeremy Bamber"
Royal Courts of Justice, 12 December 2002, para 18. A few weeks before the murders, Bamber broke into and robbed the caravan park; this was only revealed following the murders, when he admitted to the robbery after his girlfriend Julie Mugford came forward as a witness against him.
White House Farm murders
Bamber claims he alerted police to the shootings at around 3:30am on 7 August 1985. He contests to have told them Nevill had telephoned him to say that Bamber's sister, Sheila Caffell, had gone "berserk" with Nevill's rifle. When police entered the farmhouse at White House Farm, Caffell was found dead on the floor of her parents' bedroom with the rifle up against her throat. June was found in the same room. Caffell's six-year-old twin sons, Nicholas and Daniel, were found in their beds in another upstairs room, while Nevill was found in the kitchen downstairs. The family had been shot a total of twenty-five times, mostly at close range.[
Sheila had spent time in a ]psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociative ...
undergoing treatment for schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social withdra ...
months before the murders. The police believed that she was responsible until Mugford told them Jeremy had implicated himself.[ The ]prosecution
A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal trial ...
argued that there was no evidence that Bamber's father had telephoned him, stating that Nevill was too badly injured to have spoken to anyone; that there was no blood on the kitchen phone; and that he would have called the police, not Bamber. They also argued that the silencer was on the rifle when the shots were fired and that Caffell's reach was not long enough to hold the gun and silencer at her throat and press the trigger. In addition, Sheila was not strong enough, they said, to have overcome Nevill in what appeared to have been a violent struggle in the kitchen. They also argued that the fact she had shot herself twice in her apparent suicide attempt was evidence that she was not the killer.
Bamber's defence team have unsuccessfully challenged the evidence over the years. They alleged that a police log suggested that Bamber's father had indeed called the police that night and that the silencer may not have been on the gun during the attacks.[Eric Allison, Mark Townsend]
"Gun experts raise doubts over Jeremy Bamber murder verdict"
''The Observer'', 4 February 2012. The evidence about the silencer was unreliable, they argued, because the silencer was found in a farmhouse cupboard by one of Bamber's cousins three days after the murders.[
]
Life in prison
Jeremy Bamber is currently confined at HM Prison Wakefield
His Majesty's Prison Wakefield is a Prison security categories in the United Kingdom, Category A men's prison in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. The prison has been nicknamed the "Monster Mansion" du ...
. Whilst there, he has worked as a peer partner, which involves helping other prisoners to read and write, and won several awards for transcribing books in the prison's braille
Braille (Pronounced: ) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who are Blindness, blind, Deafblindness, deafblind or who have low vision. It can be read either on Paper embossing, embossed paper ...
workshop. In 2001, ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' alleged that he had been treated with indulgence at HM Prison Long Lartin
HM Prison Long Lartin is a Category A men's prison, located in the village of South Littleton (near Evesham) in the Wychavon district in Worcestershire, England. It is operated by His Majesty's Prison Service.
History
Long Lartin was opened a ...
, Worcestershire
Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...
, where prisoners were given the key to their cells. Among the allegations claimed that he studied for his GCSE
The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a particular subject, taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. State schools in Scotland use the Scottish Qualifications Certificate instead. Private sc ...
in Sociology and Media Studies, had a daily badminton
Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players pe ...
lesson, and drew pictures of supermodels in an art class, which he later sold through an outside agent.["Murder most foul, but did he do it?"]
''The Times'', editorial, 18 March 2001.
A group of outside supporters has formed around Bamber, and he has reportedly developed several close relationships with women since his conviction. He defended himself on one occasion from a knife attack by another prisoner by using a broken bottle, and on another received twenty-eight stitches on his neck after being attacked while making a telephone call. In 1994, Bamber called a radio station from Long Lartin prison to declare his innocence.[
]
Legal actions
Bamber launched two unsuccessful legal actions while in prison to recover a share of his family's estate. His grandmother had cut Bamber out of her will when he was arrested, and most of the inheritance went to June's sister.["Bamber claims £1m from family"]
BBC News, 18 August 2003; John Ezard
"Murder family sued by killer"
''The Guardian'', 19 August 2003. In 2004, Bamber went to the High Court again to claim a share of the profits from the Bambers' caravan site in Maldon. He had retained his shares after his conviction, but had sold them to pay the legal costs arising from his claim on his grandmother's estate. The court ruled that he was not entitled to any profit from the site because of his conviction.
In January 2012, Bamber and two other British prisoners, Peter Moore and Douglas Vinter, lost a case before the European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a ...
, in which they argued that whole-life imprisonment amounts to degrading and inhuman treatment. In July 2012, they were granted the right to appeal that decision. In July 2013, the Court's Grand Chamber ruled in their favour, holding that there must be sentence review with the potential of possible release.["Killers' life terms 'breach their human rights]
BBC News, 9 July 2013.
On 10 March 2021, a new application was lodged with the CCRC for a referral to the Court of Appeal. The submissions contained new evidence not previously considered by the Courts. Initially, eight issues, each containing multiple grounds of appeal, were lodged, with another two added before the end of the year. In October 2022 it was reported that Bamber's legal team had sent the CCRC ten new items of evidence, which they claimed cast doubt on the prosecution's contention that the burns on Neville Bamber's back were caused by a rifle.
See also
* ''White House Farm'' (TV series)
* Bain family murders
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bamber, Jeremy
1961 births
Living people
20th-century English criminals
British mass murderers
Criminals from Essex
English adoptees
English people convicted of murder
English prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment
People convicted of murder by England and Wales
People educated at Gresham's School
People from Maldon District
Place of birth missing (living people)
Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by England and Wales