On the 29th September 1985 a 24 year old man Jeremy Bamber was arrested at the Port of Dover and charged with shooting his entire family. His father 61 year old Neville his mother 61 year old June his sister 27 year old Sheila and her 2 twins 6 year olds Nicholas and Daniel.
On the 28th October 1986, Jeremy Bamber was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum tariff of 25 years. To mark his 28th year of wrongful imprisonment we want to trace one of the biggest issues in this case, that of money, and the testimony of key prosecution witnesses, as it was considered that money and the inheritance of the family assets was Jeremy's motive to kill everyone.
Julie Mugford, the girlfriend that Jeremy jilted for another woman not long after the tragedies, made up a story about a hit man, when she herself had been charged with theft, and this particular situation was acted by her to take revenge on an innocent man. She claimed in court that Jeremy had told her, that the hitman had told him, that he had shot Neville 7 times as the police reported, but Neville Bamber was actually shot 8 times. Julie Mugford arranged the deal with the News of the World before the trial for a 25 thousand pound payoff paid on his conviction only, and that sum was worth about 80k in todays terms. She did not sign the contract until minutes after the verdict was announced, when she was waiting with photographers and a journalist, and two police officers in a local hotel, and some of her statements and interviews remain under public interest immunity. Furthermore, Julie Mugford was granted immunity from prosecution provided that she gave evidence for the crown at Jeremy's trial. So much for fair justice.
Jeremy's parents, Neville and June Bamber were a wealthy and successful farming couple. June Bamber was the daughter of wealthy landowners, Lesley and Mabel Speakman. June's sister Pamela married a local man named Robert Boutflour, and they had two children, David and Anne, who also went into the farming business themselves. Later, Anne Boutflour married Peter Eaton, and they farmed Peter's share of the land which was jointly owned with his brother. Before Neville Bamber's death, Peter's father died and Peter's brother, John Eaton, had inherited half the land which he intended to sell to the Bambers. Concerned that their livelihood would be in jeopardy, Peter and Anne did not obtain financial help to purchase this land from Anne's parents, but instead made an approach to Anne's uncle, Neville Bamber, who bought the land from John, so that they were able still to farm the acreage until such time as they could afford to purchase it. This meant that when Neville Bamber died in the tragedy, his son Jeremy now owned unknowingly half of the Eaton's farm. Local gossip was retold about the land deal in police records. Apparently Neville Bamber had had a fight with John Eaton in a local pub over some land that Neville purchased, which Neville felt was vastly overpriced. The jury at Jeremy's trial was suspicious of the testimony of Robert Boutflour and relatives, asked the following question. If Jeremy Bamber was found guilty and imprisoned for many years, who would be the beneficiaries of the Bamber estate and monies? Could it be his uncle and family? A possible reason or motive for Robert Boutflour's statement about Jeremy's being able to kill his own parents. The Eatons and the Boutflours were, after all, the ones who found the only evidence which convicted Jeremy, the sound moderator. Mysteriously, this was in the very cupboard already searched by the police 3 days prior to the relatives finding it. The jury were told via a statement from Robert Boutflour that he was wealthy in his own right, but neither the jury, nor the defence knew anything about the secret land deal in which Jeremy now owned half of the Eatons' land. It was only in 1986, after the trial, when Peter Eaton told the truth about this deal to the Dickenson investigation, which was set up to explore the police handling of the case. Robert Boutflour had also disguised financial affairs from the court in a second way. Jeremy's grandmother Mabel Speakman, who had survived her husband Leslie, rearranged her will leaving a large part of her estate to June and Pamela, her daughters. Robert Boutflour told the jury that he and his wife owned the land that they farmed, but failed to mention that at the time of the tragedies, Mabel Speakman owned the land they farmed, not them. Which meant that once Mabel Speakman died, her estate would pass to June and Pamela. But as June was now deceased and Jeremy was her remaining next of kin, he would also unknowingly have owned half the land they farmed. This only became clear during the statements made by Robert Boutflour to the City of London police in 1991 when he discussed the fact that after his wife inherited the farm from Mabel Speakman, she gave her husband Robert his own equal share of the land they were farming, known as Carbonle's farm. Which meant that he was a wealthy land owner in his own right. This means that during the trial Robert Boutflour did not make it clear to the jury that at the time of the tragedy and during the weeks after, he did not own the land he was farming therefore he did have a very strong motive to lie to the jury as they had suspected. Owing to the Eatons' secret land deal, and if Mabel Speakman had died before her will was changed, Jeremy unknowingly, would have inherited the entire Bamber estate including half of the Eatons' farm and half of the Boutflours' farm, which would have put the relatives into a financially vulnerable position.