Crime writer's verdict on Jeremy Bamber and the White House Farm murders

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It's nearly three decades since the notorious murders at White House Farm
Three generations of family were killed in Essex in crime that shocked UK
Adopted son Jeremy Bamber was convicted for murders and jailed for life
Bamber has always protested his innocence and is planning fourth appeal

By Carol Ann Lee For The Mail On Sunday

Published: 16:09 EST, 11 July 2015 | Updated: 09:43 EST, 13 July 2015

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'Oddball': Jeremy Bamber as he looks today

It is nearly three decades since the notorious murders at White House Farm – the killing of three generations of a single family in rural Essex that shocked Britain.

At first, police thought Sheila Caffell, a mentally disturbed former model known as Bambi, had shot her parents and six-year-old twin sons before turning the gun on herself.

But her adoptive brother Jeremy Bamber was arrested weeks later on the sensational testimony of an estranged girlfriend, who claimed that he was consumed by hatred for his family and wanted to get his hands on their fortune.

Despite repeatedly protesting his innocence – he is planning a fourth appeal and there remain glaring anomalies in the case against him – Bamber, jailed for life, has been told he will never be released. Now with the 30th anniversary of the murders fast approaching, crime writer Carol Ann Lee has meticulously re-investigated the case with Bamber’s full co-operation.

She has interviewed new witnesses, discovered the truth about a catalogue of police blunders at the scene, and revealed furious rows among detectives and rising tensions in the Bamber family. And she suggests, after three years of research, that only one person could have been the murderer…

White House Farm in Tolleshunt d’Arcy lay unusually silent and still in the grey morning light. Out of sight of the sprawling brick farmhouse, the narrow Essex lanes were blocked by police. People living in cottages a few hundred yards away had been told to stay indoors.

At 7.34am on August 7, 1985, Acting Sergeant Peter Woodcock raised his sledgehammer and splintered the back door. Two armed colleagues – PCs Laurence Collins and Kenneth Delgado – rushed past him into the kitchen, where they discovered a scene that would dominate the news for weeks.

The body of 61-year-old farmer and magistrate Nevill Bamber was hunched next to the Aga, a pool of blood coagulating at his feet. There were signs of a struggle: overturned chairs, smashed crockery and fragments of lampshade were strewn about.

Mr Bamber had been shot eight times. Inching through the house, PC Collins used an extending mirror to peer up on to the upstairs landing. There he saw the body of Nevill’s wife June, also 61, in the bedroom doorway with a gunshot wound between her eyes.

From under the couple’s antique brass bed came a whimper. Tentatively, Collins moved the eiderdown aside and saw June’s little brown and white dog quivering with terror. Then the officers found Sheila Caffell, the Bambers’ daughter, lying on the floor next to June’s Bible.

Innocents: Sheila with her twins Daniel, left, and Nicholas, who were killed in their beds

Sheila was a striking brunette who had modelled using her nickname, Bambi. She had two bullet wounds to the throat from a rifle which lay across her body, its barrel against her jaw.

Although the carpet was spattered with blood, the soles of her feet were spotlessly clean. In the next room lay the bodies of Sheila’s six-year-old twins, Daniel and Nicholas.

Both had been shot several times in the head. The officers stood for a moment, overcome despite their professionalism. Woodcock told me: ‘The bedclothes on both beds were not unduly disturbed, no more than would be normally expected from a sleeping child.’

As soon as the house was declared safe, Chief Inspector Terrie Gibbons called over Sergeant Chris Bews, who had been the first officer on the scene, telling him: ‘They’ve found everybody dead, including the sister. It looks like she killed them all – she’d got a gun. Let Jeremy know.’

Bews strode across the farmyard to speak to Jeremy Bamber, the sole surviving member of the family, who had raised the alarm that night. The control room at Colchester police station had passed Bamber’s message to Bews at Witham police station, telling him that a man in his 20s had rung about a call he’d had from his father, who was in a panic because the daughter had gone mad.

Bews was told: ‘There might be firearms involved so get out there and have a look. The son will meet you at the house.’

When Bews arrived at the farm, Bamber told him that Nevill had called in a panic and told him Sheila had gone berserk with a gun.

His sister, he added, had recently received hospital treatment for schizophrenia and was used to handling weapons. Bamber was standing behind a police car, smoking a cigarette. ‘I’m afraid it’s bad news,’

Bews told him, gently. ‘There’s no hope for any of them. They’ve all been shot.’ There was a flicker in Jeremy’s expression. ‘Do you want to sit down?’ Bews asked. Bamber replied: ‘No, I’m all right.’ He then began to cry. Few questioned the accepted version of events.

Police surgeon Dr Ian Craig arrived at 8.25am, consulted with the senior officers present and agreed that there ‘didn’t appear to be any doubt about the murder/suicide aspect’. Detective Chief Inspector Thomas ‘Taff’ Jones was next on the scene, He looked at Sheila’s body for some time while discussing the position of the gun, her wounds and the Bible.

He also concluded she had taken her own life. Jones was not a man to brook dissent. ‘Because Taff had made up his mind, it ceased to be a crime scene,’ one officer recalled. ‘Ordinarily, it would have been taped off, but too many boots had been in already.

Gunned down: Nevill Bamber and his wife June were also killed at White House Farm

I was ordered, “Get in there, get it sorted and the coroner’s report done.” ’ ‘Suicide Girl Kills Twins And Parents’ was typical of the following day’s headlines. More salacious coverage followed as the tabloids told stories about ‘Hell Raiser Bambi’, the ‘girl with mad eyes’, whom they claimed had been expelled from two schools before becoming a ‘top model’.

She had a wild social life that resulted in a £40,000 drug debt linking her to a string of country house burglaries. June Bamber was condemned as a religious fanatic.

But some officers doubted that Sheila had managed to overpower her 6ft 4in father and then commit suicide by shooting herself fatally in the throat – twice.

One was Detective Sergeant Stan Jones, who had been suspicious of Jeremy Bamber from the moment he set eyes on him. ‘We’re not happy with this bloke,’ he told his superior officer, Detective Inspector Robert Miller.

‘His demeanour, his answers to our questions – this ain’t a bloke grieving. This is an oddball, a guy who is not all he seems.’ Miller listened, then called Taff Jones. It was a short conversation: ‘Taff went into one and put the phone down on me,’ Miller told me.

At a meeting soon afterwards, Miller remembers Taff being ‘purple with rage’ and insisting: ‘It’s all tied up.’ ‘No, it’s not,’ replied Miller. ‘We’re not happy...’ Taff cut him dead, thundering: ‘You are going to be happy and that’s it.’ Stan Jones was determined to have his say. He listed his concerns:

At first, police thought Sheila Caffell (pictured), a mentally disturbed former model known as Bambi, had shot her parents and six-year-old twin sons before turning the gun on herself

Jeremy’s behaviour since the deaths; a strange call to his girlfriend Julie Mugford, which seemed to presage the shootings; the family’s certainty that Sheila was incapable of murder; Sheila’s remarkable cleanliness; and Jeremy’s appointments with a solicitor and accountant, which seemed premature for a man in mourning.

Taff batted aside each issue, but his team’s suspicions remained. At the funerals of Nevill, June and Sheila a week later, 250 people heard the vicar pray ‘for God’s mercy for Sheila, sadly and tragically Micky Barlow and said, “This bloke’s acting.”

Sure enough, I got a call from Jeremy’s teacher shortly afterwards.’ Jeremy’s former housemaster, William Thomas, told Miller: ‘It seemed to me that Bamber was acting.

My wife, who was watching the television with me, also made comments about it.’ Mike Ainsley, the detective who would eventually lead the investigation, watched the TV news coverage. ‘My wife pointed at Bamber and said, “He did it,” ’ he recalled.

Bamber’s behaviour also worried those who knew him. ‘Jeremy was terribly distraught throughout the service,’ his cousin David Boutflour remembered. ‘But when we got down the road and out of sight, Jeremy looked back at us and gave the biggest grin. It was chilling.

Peter, my brother-in-law, turned to me and said, “He did it, didn’t he?” ’ Two family friends described Jeremy cracking smutty jokes on the way to the crematorium. And at the wake at Bamber’s cottage, DI Miller recalled Jeremy ‘leaping deranged’. Jeremy – who had earlier set his video to record the funeral on the evening news – buckled at the knees as he left the church, his sobs picked up on the TV microphones. DI Miller, standing nearby, could barely hide his scorn.

He recalled: ‘I turned to [Detective Constable) Micky Barlow and said, “This bloke’s acting.” Sure enough, I got a call from Jeremy’s teacher shortly afterwards.’ Jeremy’s former housemaster, William Thomas, told Miller: ‘It seemed to me that Bamber was acting. My wife, who was watching the television with me, also made comments about it.’

White House Farm in rural Essex saw the killing of three generations of a single family - a crime that shocked Britain

Mike Ainsley, the detective who would eventually lead the investigation, watched the TV news coverage. ‘My wife pointed at Bamber and said, “He did it,” ’ he recalled. Bamber’s behaviour also worried those who knew him. ‘Jeremy was terribly distraught throughout the service,’ his cousin David Boutflour remembered.

‘But when we got down the road and out of sight, Jeremy looked back at us and gave the biggest grin. It was chilling. Peter, my brother-in-law, turned to me and said, “He did it, didn’t he?”’

Two family friends described Jeremy cracking smutty jokes on the way to the crematorium. And at the wake at Bamber’s cottage, DI Miller recalled Jeremy ‘leaping down the stairs, giving it all that. He opens his jacket and points to the label and says, “That’s me now – the Boss.”

That’s the sort of bloke we’re dealing with.’ Nevill and June Bamber married in 1949 and after failing to have children of their own, adopted Sheila in 1958 and Jeremy in 1961. Ever since, they had striven to instil the values of the pre-war world into them.

Nevill was popular and easygoing, but June struggled with late parenthood and was treated in hospital for depression and a nervous breakdown. She found solace in her faith. Sheila and Jeremy got on relatively well, but they reacted differently to being told at the age of seven that they were adopted.

Sheila felt pressured to demonstrate her gratitude, while Jeremy declared himself unbothered. But after he was sent to board at Gresham’s School in Norfolk soon afterwards, his contemporaries recall a burgeoning arrogance.

James Carr, manager of the Bamber family’s Osea Road caravan park, found Jeremy thoroughly disagreeable: ‘He was growing up to be quite a nasty piece of work. Even at a young age he would tell me I was just an employee.’

James’s son Robert recalled Jeremy ‘could be very cruel to animals and he used to take great delight in throwing stones at waterhen chicks and hitting farm animals with sticks. He did not have a warm relationship with his parents.’

But Jeremy’s close friend Brett Collins said there might be a reason for his demeanour: ‘When Jeremy was 11 he was sexually molested by older boys and that deeply affected him.’

Meanwhile, in the summer of 1975, shortly after her graduation from Lucie Clayton’s modelling school in London, Sheila announced that she was pregnant by art student Colin Caffell, She was 18. Colin wanted to marry, but Sheila was cautious.

To their surprise, Nevill and June reacted more calmly than Colin’s parents. But shock had tempered June’s first response. When they arrived at White House Farm a few days later, the tension was palpable.

June declared that sex before marriage was sinful before urging Sheila, against her wishes, to have an abortion. Seething with anger, June branded Sheila ‘the Devil’s child’.

The words snagged like hooks in Sheila’s mind, and in time she would come to ‘hang her psychosis on them’, according to psychiatrist Dr Hugh Ferguson’s chilling phrase. But during the intervening years the family smoothed out some of its problems.

Sheila and Colin married and had the twins in 1979. After they divorced, the twins lived primarily with their mother, but in March 1985, Sheila was diagnosed with schizophrenia and admitted to a private psychiatric clinic.

Nicholas and Daniel moved in with their father and remained with him after Sheila was discharged. Despite their lingering doubts about Sheila’s modelling lifestyle, both Nevill and June told friends in the run-up to the family get-together how much they were looking forward to having Sheila and the twins stay for the week, and Colin drove them to Essex from London.

After the killings, the murder-suicide theory continued to dominate the police inquiry, despite an inconvenient discovery by Jeremy’s surviving relatives, who found the rifle’s silencer in a cupboard at the farm. It bore red paint linked to scratches on the mantelpiece near where Nevill had been found.

A tearful Bamber with girlfriend Julie at the funerals in St. Nicholas Church, Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex

It also had blood from the same blood group as Sheila, suggesting she couldn’t have gone downstairs to put away the silencer after shooting herself. Nevill’s long-term assistant, Barbara Wilson, who has never spoken before, was also certain that Sheila had not killed her children. She still recalls Nevill making a chilling observation after a row with Jeremy: ‘I must never turn my back on that young man,’ he told her.

Barbara said she felt overwhelming relief when Jeremy was arrested. ‘Jeremy killed them. I knew it in my heart and he knew it too. But that’s why I still didn’t dare say a word against him. I thought, “If I say something, and he gets off…” I was terrified.’

Soon after the murders, Jeremy began selling antiques from the farmhouse and his sister’s flat in London, ostensibly to raise funds to pay for death duties. Soon afterwards, he split up from his girlfriend Julie Mugford, who by her own admission was struggling to come to terms with knowing that Bamber was a murderer.

She told police an extraordinary story that Jeremy, a heavy cannabis user fuelled by hatred and greed, had been plotting to kill his family for at least 18 months and had hired an assassin to carry out the murders for £2,000. Bamber had called Julie on the evening of the murders, saying: ‘It’s tonight or never.’

Detectives quickly established that the alleged hitman (a local plumber) had a solid alibi and concluded that Bamber had committed the murders himself. He had admitted to stealing almost £1,000 from the family caravan site six months earlier ‘to prove a point’.

Julie’s flatmates recalled that Bamber had professed a vehement hatred of his family. In her testimony, Julie said Jeremy had ended their relationship when she became too upset at having to conceal the truth about the shootings. Bamber dismissed her claims as the bitter fulminations of a jilted woman. Seven weeks after the murders, he was charged and, despite his sometimes persuasive denials, was later convicted.

He has professed his innocence ever since. However, the psychiatrist engaged by Bamber’s defence team said that his very real belief that he had not committed the murders was a prime reason for diagnosing him as a psychopath.

Concluding that he did kill his family and had suppressed the knowledge until it no longer existed, he added: ‘If ever there was a psychopath, it’s Jeremy Bamber.’

© Carol Ann Lee, 2015 l The Murders At White House Farm, by Carol Ann Lee, is published by Sidgwick & Jackson on July 30, £16.99. Order your copy for £12.74 at www.mailbookshop. co.uk, with free p&p until July 26.