page_title: White House Farm murders
section_title: Prosecution case
hierarchical_section_title: White House Farm murders / Trial, October 1986 / Prosecution case
caption_attribution_description: English: Cropped version of File:Head Street, Goldhanger, to White House Farm, Tolleshunt D'Arcy.jpg Head Street, Goldhanger (marked as A) and White House Farm, Pages Lane, Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex (marked as B).
context_page_description: The White House Farm murders took place near the village of Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex, England, during the night of 6–7 August 1985. Nevill and June Bamber were shot and killed inside their farmhouse, along with their adopted daughter, Sheila Caffell, and Sheila's six-year-old twin sons, Daniel and Nicholas Caffell. The only surviving member of June and Nevill's immediate family was their adopted son, Jeremy Bamber, then 24 years old, who said he had been at home a few miles away when the shooting took place.
  The police at first believed that Sheila, diagnosed with schizophrenia, had fired the shots then turned the gun on herself. But weeks after the murders Jeremy Bamber's ex-girlfriend told police that he had implicated himself. The prosecution argued that, motivated by a large inheritance, Bamber had shot the family with his father's semi-automatic rifle, then placed the gun in his unstable sister's hands to make it look like a murder–suicide. A silencer the prosecution said was on the rifle would have made it too long, they argued, for Sheila's fingers to reach the trigger to shoot herself.
context_section_description: The trial, which lasted 18 days, opened on 3 October 1986 before Mr. Justice Drake and a jury of seven men and five women at Chelmsford Crown Court. The prosecution was led by Anthony Arlidge QC, and the defence by Geoffrey Rivlin QC, supported by Ed Lawson QC. The Times wrote that Bamber cut an arrogant figure in the witness box. At one point, when prosecutors accused him of lying, he replied: "That is what you have got to establish."
  The prosecution case was that Bamber, motivated by hatred and greed, had left White House Farm around 10 pm on 6 August 1985, after dining with his family, to drive to his home in Head Street, Goldhanger. Later, perhaps in the early hours of the morning of 7 August, he had returned to the farm on his mother's bicycle—which he had borrowed a few days earlier—cycling along a route that avoided the main roads and approaching the house from the back. He had entered the house through a downstairs bathroom window, taken the rifle with the silencer attached, and gone upstairs. He had shot June in her bed; she had managed to walk a few steps before collapsing and dying. He had shot Nevill in the bedroom too, but Nevill was able to get downstairs where he and Bamber fought in the kitchen, before Bamber shot him four times, twice in his temple and twice in the top of his head. He had shot Sheila in the main bedroom, next to her mother, and had shot the children in their beds as they slept.
  Bamber had then arranged the scene to make it appear that Sheila was the killer, they said. He discovered that she could not have reached the trigger with the silencer attached, so he removed it and returned it to the gun cupboard, then placed a Bible next to her body to introduce a religious theme. After removing the kitchen phone from its hook, he left the house via a kitchen window, perhaps after showering, and banged the window from the outside so that the catch dropped back into position. He had then cycled back to Goldhanger on his mother's bicycle. Shortly after 3 am, he had telephoned Mugford, then the police at 3:26 am to say he had just received a frantic call from his father. To create a delay before the bodies were discovered, he had not called 999, had driven slowly to the farmhouse, and had told police that his sister was familiar with guns, so that they would be reluctant to enter.
  The prosecution argued that Bamber had not received a telephone call from his father, that Nevill was too badly injured after the first shots to have spoken to anyone, that there was no blood on the kitchen phone that had been left off the hook, and that Nevill would have called the police before calling Bamber. They also argued that, had Bamber really received such a call, he would have dialled 999, alerted the farm workers, then made his way quickly there himself.
  The silencer played a central role. It was deemed to have been on the rifle when it was fired, because of the blood found inside it. The prosecution said the blood had come from Sheila's head when the silencer was pointed at her. Had she discovered that she could not shoot herself with the silencer attached, the court heard, it would have been found next to her body; she had no reason to return it to the gun cupboard. That she had carried out the killings was further discounted because, it was argued, she had not recently expressed suicidal thoughts; the expert evidence was that she would not have harmed her children or father; she had no interest in or knowledge of guns; she lacked the strength to overcome her father; and there was no evidence on her clothes or body that she had moved around the crime scene or been involved in a struggle. In particular, her long fingernails had remained intact.
caption: A: Bamber's home in Head Street, Goldhanger 51°44′45″N 0°45′21″E﻿ / ﻿51.745857°N 0.755881°E﻿ / 51.745857; 0.755881
  B: White House Farm, Pages Lane, Tolleshunt D'Arcy. 51°45′33″N 0°48′12″E﻿ / ﻿51.7591°N 0.8032°E﻿ / 51.7591; 0.8032
exif: {"Image Tag 0x000B": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image Software": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image DateTime": "2020:07:24 07:00:51", "Image ExifOffset": "2242", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "96", "Thumbnail YResolution": "96", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4516", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10764", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2020:07:24 07:00:21", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2020:07:24 07:00:21", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "40", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "40", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}