The crucial question of whether Jeremy Bamber received a telephone call from his father to say his sister had gone berserk with a gun came under the spotlight at the Court of Appeal today.
Michael Turner QC, for Bamber, who is serving life for the murders of five members of his adoptive family at their Essex farmhouse home nearly 17 years ago, told three judges in London that this was one of three key points the jury was asked to decide before returning the verdicts.
On the fifth day of Bamber's appeal against conviction, Mr Turner said the prosecution's case at his trial at Chelmsford Crown Court in October, 1986, was that such a call had not been made.
Bamber had alerted police in the early hours of August 7, 1985, that his father had telephoned him to say his sister Sheila Caffell had gone crazy with a gun.
When police burst into White House Farm in Tolleshunt D'Arcy, in August 1985, they found the scene of a massacre.
Bamber's mother June, 61, and six-year-old nephews Nicholas and Daniel were shot dead in their beds.
His father Nevill, 61, was found slumped downstairs, while his sister Sheila Caffell, 27, a model nicknamed Bambi, was found by her parents' bed.
Detectives initially suspected that Miss Caffell, who suffered from mild schizophrenia and who had not been taking her medication, had murdered her parents and sons before turning the gun on herself.
They arrested Bamber, who stood to inherit almost £500,000 from his parents' deaths, nine weeks later when he returned from a holiday in France.
Mr Turner today told Lord Justice Kay, Mr Justice Wright and Mr Justice Henriques that one of the three significant points the trial judge, Mr Justice Drake, asked the jury to decide was: Was there ever any call in the middle of the night from Nevill Bamber to the defendant?
The QC said the "principal contest" at trial was whether or not Jeremy Bamber had telephoned his then girlfriend, Julie Mugford, before he telephoned the police.
The key factor related to the timing of that call.
Mr Turner was taking the judges through a series of statements dealing with that issue.
The case continues
Published Thursday October 24, 2002
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