Jeremy Bamber

Forensic Science Service (FSS) scientists gave evidence for both prosecution and defence in the failed Jeremy Bamber appeal, reinforcing its reputation for impartiality and as an independent provider of forensic expertise.

After a high profile trial in 1986, Bamber was convicted of the shooting of his adoptive parents, June and Neville Bamber, his adopted sister, Sheila Caffell and her six-year-old twins. Bamber has always protested his innocence claiming that Sheila was responsible for their deaths before committing suicide.

The case was unusual in that it was common ground that only two explanations for the five killings were possible. The first was the prosecution case that Jeremy Bamber entered the Essex farmhouse owned by his mother and father at night and shot the five members of his family with a legally-held rifle. At the heart of the original prosecution case was evidence that Sheila’s blood was in the sound moderator, or silencer, of the murder weapon. If so, she could not have shot herself then put it in a cupboard downstairs.

The second, the defence case, was that Sheila, who had a history of psychiatric illness, had shot the four members of her family with the rifle and then committed suicide. In the initial stages the police thought it likely that the second explanation was correct. Some officers, however, thought that some of the findings were inconsistent with this explanation and members of the Bambers’ extended family did not believe that it was consistent with their knowledge of Sheila.

Bamber’s case was referred back to the Court of Appeal in 1998 by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates possible miscarriages of justice. The appeal was based on 15 grounds – the majority relating to documentation and other evidence which it was suggested was not made available to the defence before or at trial, some serious allegations were also made against the police to suggest there was evidence of a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice by deliberately concealing evidence helpful to Bamber’s case. However, the appeal was centred on new DNA evidence and an attack on the original blood testing evidence. This led to further forensic work being carried out by a number of FSS scientists.

Bamber’s QC, Michael Turner, claimed the original defence team had been misled by a former FSS scientist into believing that the whole of a blood flake recovered from the silencer had been mixed in solution before being subjected to blood grouping tests. It had, but had been broken first into four pieces before being dissolved in water.

A forensic scientist gave evidence for Bamber’s team claiming that dissolving the whole flake might have prevented the detection of a mixture of blood types which could have shown that the original flake was a mixture of blood from June and Neville Bamber.

Bamber’s case was that fresh DNA evidence from the silencer backed this theory after a DNA profile was obtained from the baffle plates inside the silencer. There were 17 of these cup-shaped plates which, when put together, help to absorb the sound when a gun is fired.

Although the baffle plates had been originally examined by scientists in 2000, it was agreed that they’d wait for a year until the latest supersensitive tests - DNA Low Copy Number (DNA LCN) - could be used.

When these baffle plates were swabbed a strong female profile was obtained along with minor male contributions. The court heard that the profile could not have come from Sheila Caffell and further attempts to identify the source were attempted.

The victims’ reference samples had been destroyed by Essex Police 10 years after the trial, so there were no profiles available for direct comparison purposes.

The situation was further complicated because the gun and silencer had been put back together and dissembled making it possible for trace evidence to be transferred from one area to another.

Statistical tests on a DNA profile from June’s sister were carried out to give an indication of whether this unidentified female profile could be from June. The Appeal Court was told that, based on the profile of her sister, there was strong evidence to support the assertion that this female profile was from June. However, it wasn’t possible to find out whether this DNA originated from blood, or other cellular material, or say how it got there or when.

The court then heard how several other areas inside the silencer had also been subjected to DNA LCN tests and complex mixtures obtained. Senior forensic scientists for both the prosecution and the defence said they couldn’t exclude Sheila Caffell from being a contributor to the mixtures. However, because of the complexity of the mixed profiles it had not been possible to statistically evaluate the significance of these findings.

One of them went on to explain that the FSS had carried out experiments involving computer simulation to determine the average number of bands that might be shared by chance in a three-person mixture. These experiments indicated that as many as 13 could be shared by chance alone. However, in this case, all but three of the 20 bands from Sheila’s profile were represented in the mixture, providing positive evidence to support the opinion that DNA from Sheila was present. However, as it couldn’t be determined whether this DNA came from blood, the evidence was effectively neutral and therefore not helpful to either side.

The original firearms work was carried out by an FSS firearms expert, who used the available information to try and determine in which order the 27 shots were fired. This was not presented to the court because counsel recognised there was an element of speculation. Also some firing tests to determine the likelihood of finding discharge residues on Sheila Caffell, performed originally, were repeated.

The three judges said they had “no doubt” the verdicts were safe and rejected all 15 points on which Bamber had made his case for freedom.