Some hints to the CCRC about the Jeremy Bamber case

As reported by CCRC Watch previously, (see here and here) the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) is aware that journalist Heidi Blake reported her conversation with former Essex Police officer Nicholas Milbank in an article released on 29^th  July 2024. It was immediately apparent that Milbank’s admission that he received a 999 call from White House Farm at 06:09 on 7^th August 1985 provided Jeremy Bamber with a cast-iron alibi and among many parties (including CCRC Watch) who asked the CCRC to investigate urgently and interview Milbank was Jeremy Bamber himself:

“We asked that the CCRC appoint an independent investigator to go and speak to Mr Milbank about what he’d told The New Yorker magazine. The CCRC refused our request, thereby losing the opportunity to hear Mr Milbank’s evidence."

Unforgivably, the CCRC left Essex Police to take the initiative, and they wasted no time in seemingly bullying the terminally ill Nick Milbank on 10^th September 2024 into refuting what Heidi Blake reported.[1] The police seem to have persuaded Milbank to suggest that he didn’t know that Heidi Blake was a journalist working for The New Yorker magazine, (not that her status or employment is relevant to his denials or, indeed, his revelations). The fact is, he readily and willingly discussed the case with Heidi Blake.

However, now that a podcast has been released giving the full conversation between Milbank and Blake, the police contention that Milbank was somehow ‘tricked’ into his admissions are found to be baseless.

In the podcast (outlined below) Milbank shows no signs of being ill and no reluctance in outlining his role in receiving a 999 call at 0609 from Sheila Caffell. Indeed, he seems quite cheerful and helpful in providing information. It does seem implausible that he claims that the phone call was of no real significance to him and his memory may be suspect. After all, this was the most shocking mass killing in the history of Essex Police and he had a pivotal role just prior to the discovery of the bodies.[2] Milbank was just 27 years old at the time of the White House Farm (WHF) killings, and however many incidents he has dealt with in the meantime, surely the tragic WHF event was the most dramatic moment of his career. Anyway, he did seem to remember pretty well what happened despite claiming that it was just another call!

So, CCRC, what should you do now?

1. Face up to the fact that you have been wrong about Jeremy Bamber from the outset and numerous CCRC staff have reached the wrong conclusions over many years – there is no avoiding this.

2. The CCRC should have interviewed Milbank immediately after The New Yorker magazine article was published, irrespective of whether you were provided with an audio file to listen to. It is your job to investigate these kinds of issues, not demand that evidence is handed to you on a plate.

3. Recognise that you had a duty of care towards Nicholas Milbank and you should have secured his testimony before he could be bullied into signing a statement under duress.

4. Recognise that there was a 999 call at 0609. In The New Yorker podcast Milbank repeatedly confirms that there was a 999 call at 06:09 and he received the call and kept the line open, listening to noises, for one hour and 21 minutes. Milbank was under no duress when he participated in a phone conversation with Heidi Blake and anything he allegedly said to Essex Police in September 2024 must be regarded with suspicion.

5. You must obtain the relevant Operation Stokenchurch documentation. This will provide further information about what the investigation discovered about the 999 call.[3]

6. You must assume that witness statements made by Inspector Burrell and BT operator Jean Rowe may very likely have been falsified in light of the fact that Milbank’s witness statement about the incident was forged.

7. You should assume that Milbank advised officers at WHF that a 999 call had been made from inside the farmhouse and seek documentation and evidence to support this.

8. Acknowledge that Milbank’s spoken testimony exonerates Jeremy Bamber and requires his release from prison as soon as possible, with the CCRC able to expedite his release.

9. Recognise that what Milbank has said implies that much of the evidence used to convict Jeremy Bamber is false. In particular, the so-called blood in the silencer evidence (see here), the forensic evidence (see here and here) and testimony regarding the sequence of telephone calls. The testimony of PC Michael West at Chelmsford Police station, in particular, cannot be truthful. Interview PC’s Cracknell and Norcup to confirm that the phone call at 03:26 was from Nevill Bamber, not Jeremy Bamber.

Finally, accept that it is inevitable that there will be an extensive enquiry into the reasons for Jeremy Bamber’s wrongful conviction and try to make amends for the role of the CCRC in almost 40 years of wrongful imprisonment.

Below is a transcript of the discussion between Heidi Blake and Nicholas Milbank (available on Spotify)

Blood relatives Episode 5

999 call at 0609 (my emphases)

• Heidi Blake (HB) introduced herself to Nick Milbank (NM) by saying: "Basically, I'm just wondering whether you might be willing to have a chat with me about it and just make sure I'm not completely barking up the wrong tree with the stuff I'm looking at."

• Nicholas Milbank (NM): "Yeah, to be honest, yes, I was, I was on the telephone, but it was back in the 80's, my recollection of it. I mean, I'd taken millions and millions of phone calls since then and to be honest, in those days it was just another, just another phone call."

• HB: comment: "Just another phone call!"

• NM: “From what I remember it was a case of someone ringing 999 and me answering it and then I just was hearing background noises and then police entering the build(sic) or room. I don’t think there was any actual conversation, but I really don’t remember much about it at all to be honest”

• HB: “Were you in the Control Room and picked up a 999?”

• NM: “Yes.” “Yeah, yeah, in the central Control Room in Chelmsford.” “I do dispatching most of the time but on that occasion I was call taking and, but, yeah and obviously it came from the 999 system”

• HB: “So a call came in, and it was from the farmhouse itself?”

• NM: “Yeah. ” "If you get a phone call where it’s technically an abandoned call because people either aren’t – it’s technically an abandoned call because people either aren’t speaking or there’s someone who’s in fear or danger or, whatever, our policy is to stay on the phone with them until the police arrive. And then as the police officers would get there, they’d pick up the phone and say, yeah, we’re here now. And so I could then hang up the phone call and go straight to the next 999 call.

• HB: “Right, OK, yeah, that makes sense”

• NM: “And so I say I just sat there with the phone open to see if anyone did say anything or I heard anything”.

• HB: “And you could hear sort of movement in the background?”

• NM: ”As far as I can remember, there was, yes, a movement or voices in the background. I’m, not sure I actually spoke to anybody.”

• HB comment: "So Nick Milbank was saying not only did someone dial 999 from inside the Manor that morning before police entered the property, but when he answered, he heard apparent signs of life inside, movements, maybe even speech."

• NM: “Who actually made the phone call, I don’t know”

• HB comment: "This conversation was becoming more and more surreal because Nick Milbank did not seem to realise the gravity of what he was telling me."

• HB: “I’m just trying to get my head round some of this new stuff and that it does seem like if it’s true that because, you know, that the way it all went down was apparently, you know, Jeremy claims there was a call from his dad to him at 3.00 in the morning saying come round, your sister’s gone berserk with a gun and he went round to the farmhouse and they got there at about 3:48 in the morning and then from that point on, he was stood outside with the police and the police didn’t enter until 7:30 am. So if there was a call from inside the farmhouse, it sort of doesn’t quite make sense that, you know, that would have happened. And because that would indicate that someone was alive and they’re basically, you know, they’re all dead by the time”.

• NM: “Well, obviously, yeah, yeah”

• HB comment: "Well obviously, Nick Milbank said, someone was alive in there. The police hadn’t entered the property until 7:30 am, so Milbank had been listening in for an hour and 21 minutes before the bodies were found. And he’d heard noises that might have been crucial clues to what was going on in there”.

• HB “And so did it sound like, because I think there was meant to be a bit of a struggle in the kitchen. Did it sound like a commotion or did it just sound like, you know.”

• NM: ”Didn’t sound like no, it was just movement, you know, movement really, I don’t know. I can’t remember but I’ll be guessing sort of either a door opening, closing or a chair being moved or, you know, there was some noise or some sort of movement and, then all of a sudden, you know, there were police, sounds of police. I think someone picked up the phone and said it’s OK, we’re in now, well we’re here now, whatever. And I said, oh that’s fine and put the phone down. I’m guessing it was a police officer that picked up the phone. And so obviously there was no longer the need to leave the 999 call open”.

• HB comment: "Who could have made this call. Nevill, June and the twins had all been shot in the head at close range. If someone was alive inside the house after the police turned up, it could only have been Sheila, who was found dead inside the locked Manor holding the murder weapon."

By Bill Robertson

Bill Robertson has researched alleged miscarriages of justice for around 20 years and advised on several cases, including the most recent application to the CCRC by Jeremy Bamber.

Please let us know if you think that there is a mistake in this article, explaining what you think is wrong and why. We will correct any errors as soon as possible.

References

[1] Misspelling his surname twice as Millbank.

[2] It is utterly implausible that police officers at WHF were unaware that Milbank had received the 999 call, and it explains why the police continued to use a loud hailer to try to make contact with Sheila Caffell. At 05:25 it was reported via radio that: "The firearms team are in conversation with a person from inside the farm.” It also suggests that the reason for summoning ambulances to WHF around 06:30 was probably related to the 999 call – in other words, that Milbank did have a conversation with Caffell that he has not admitted to in his conversation with Heidi Blake.

[3] It will also implicate the Metropolitan Police in a shameful deception and will illustrate that the Metropolitan Police knew that Bamber was innocent in 2002.