Ex-detective says White House killer Jeremy Bamber is innocent

Ex-detective Mark Williams-Thomas says White House killer Jeremy Bamber is innocent and believes his sister ‘Bambi’ murdered family before she took her own life

• Mark Williams-Thomas said Bamber’s sister, Sheila Caffell, committed murders
• Ex-cop also revealed that he still writes to Jeremy Bamber who was jailed in 1986
• Bamber was found guilty of murdering his adoptive parents, sister and her twins 
• He has always protested his innocence and claims sister, ‘Bambi’, shot her family

An ex-detective has said that White House killer Jeremy Bamber is innocent and believes his sister ‘Bambi’ murdered her family before taking her own life. 

Mark Williams-Thomas – who helped expose Jimmy Savile’s sex crimes – also revealed he still writes to Bamber in jail.

He claimed that it was Bamber’s sister, Sheila Caffell, who committed the murders at White House Farm in Tolleshunt D’Arcy, Essex, in August 1985.

The former cop turned investigative reporter was speaking about the six-part ITV drama, ‘White House Farm’, which explored the horrific murders.

Bamber was jailed for life in October 1986 after being found guilty of murdering his adoptive parents Nevill and June, both 61, his sister Sheila, 26, and her six-year-old twins Nicholas and Daniel at their family home. 

He has always protested his innocence and claims Ms Caffell, who suffered from schizophrenia, shot her family before turning the gun on herself. 

Ex-detective Mark Williams-Thomas (pictured left) has claimed that Jeremy Bamber (right) is innocent and believes his sister ‘Bambi’ murdered her family before taking her own life

Bamber has always protested his innocence and claims Sheila ‘Bambi’ Caffell (pictured above), who suffered from schizophrenia, shot her family before turning the gun on herself

Mr Williams-Thomas said: ‘I don’t believe Jeremy Bamber murdered his family – I think his sister Sheila Caffell did it and then took her own life.

‘I write to Jeremy who is still in jail. I write to a few inmates.’

He also said the programme, which is now streaming on Netflix, portrayed Bamber as being ‘cocky’ and as someone who acted strangely after his family were killed.

He added: ‘There isn’t any one way of behaving in that situation. Sometimes people laugh out of nerves and shock.’ 

Bamber lost his bid to get himself downgraded from maximum security in October last year.

He had been pursuing a High Court challenge over the decision taken in March last year by the director of the long-term and high security estate – part of the prisons and probation service – not to downgrade him from a Category A prisoner, or to direct that an oral hearing on the issue take place.

Category A prisoners are considered the most dangerous to the public and held in maximum security conditions.

At a remote hearing in October, lawyers for Bamber asked Mr Justice Julian Knowles to grant permission for a full hearing of Bamber’s challenge, arguing that the decision was ‘unreasonable’.

White House Farm at Tolleshunt D’Arcy, near Maldon, in Essex, pictured, where Bamber is alleged to have shot dead his mother, father, sister and twin nephews in August 1985

Mark Williams-Thomas: Ex-detective who helped expose Jimmy Savile and believes the Madeline McCann case may never be solved

Mark Williams-Thomas is best known for helping to unmask Jimmy Savile as a paedophile in the ITV documentary ‘The Other Side of Jimmy Savile’.

Speaking about exposing Savile, he said: ‘Although Jimmy was dead at this point, his victims still lived in fear of him, especially due to his legacy. So, the hardest part was convincing people to tell me what happened.

‘I had to slowly build up people’s accounts and when all of their stories added up, despite not knowing each other, this created compelling evidence.’

The ex-detective, who served with Surrey Police from 1989 to 2000 and has worked on major missing persons cases during his career, also believes that the Madeleine McCann case may never be solved.

In his book Hunting Killers, he said: ‘The abduction of Madeleine McCann is one I’d put into the unsolvable category.

‘I believe Madeleine was the victim of an opportunistic criminal whose act was random – she wandered out of the apartment and into the path of this person.

‘The case hasn’t been solved simply because a crucial CCTV camera was turned off, meaning that whoever took Madeleine was not identifiable at the scene.’ 

He added that while he hopes there can be some kind of resolution in the long-running case – the statistics show that it will likely never be solved.

He said: ‘The sad reality is, this far on, the likelihood of Madeleine being alive now is incredibly slim.

‘Unfortunately, in almost every case of stranger child abduction, within the space of 24 hours the child is dead.’

In written documents before the court, Bamber’s barrister Matthew Stanbury said an independent psychologist’s report, commissioned by Bamber’s solicitors, concluded he had met the test for downgrading a Category A prisoner and that these conditions were ‘no longer necessary’ for managing him.

He argued the decision not to downgrade Bamber from Category A was ‘unreasonable’ as it ‘substantially misrepresented’ the opinion given by the independent psychologist.

He also said that ‘fairness required an oral hearing’ over whether Bamber should be downgraded, for reasons including the fact that he ‘has served 35 years without ever having an oral hearing, and the passage of time means that a risk assessment is more difficult without a face-to-face assessment’.

He had an appeal against his convictions dismissed by the Court of Appeal in 2002, and also had a High Court challenge to the Criminal Cases Review Commission’s (CCRC) refusal to refer his case for another appeal rejected in 2012.

Mr Williams-Thomas served with Surrey Police from 1989 to 2000.

He was speaking to That’s Life’s Crime Scene magazine this month where he also claimed Oscar Pistorius did not murder his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.

He said: ‘I am the only independent observer who has heard Oscar’s personal account away from the courts, and I do not believe he is a murderer.

‘I found him incredibly polite and caring, and he is deeply religious.

‘He thought there was an intruder in his home, and I think that people need to be aware of what home security is like in South Africa.

‘Home invasions are extremely common, with intruders often entering when residents are sleeping.

‘Think about Oscar’s vulnerability. He was incredibly famous and both of his legs were amputated – he would have experienced heightened anxiety if he thought there was an intruder in his home.

‘There was no delay in between the shots, therefore he wouldn’t have heard Reeva’s screams.

‘I have seen Oscar two times since he has been in jail and he is deeply remorseful for what happened – he was absolutely in love with Reeva.’

The ex-cop also believes Michael Jackson was not a paedophile and that the Madeline McCann case may never be solved. 

Bamber in a file photo dated October 2002. He lost his bid to get himself downgraded from maximum security in October last year

He added: ‘Unless a body is found or there is video material, then I don’t think the case will get solved. 

‘It is very common for senior investigators to get so caught up with one suspect, that their vision becomes tunnelled and focused on finding evidence of that person being guilty.’

Speaking about exposing Jimmy Savile as a paedophile, he said: ‘Although Jimmy was dead at this point, his victims still lived in fear of him, especially due to his legacy. So, the hardest part was convincing people to tell me what happened.

‘I had to slowly build up people’s accounts and when all of their stories added up, despite not knowing each other, this created compelling evidence.’

The White House Farm murders that shook Britain 

The brutal murder of two angelic boys, their mother and their grandparents at a secluded farmhouse in the Essex countryside in August 1985 was one of those awful stories that sticks in the mind.

Not least because at first everyone thought the killer was in fact one of the victims.

Schizophrenic Sheila Caffell, the adopted daughter of Nevill and June Bamber, was initially accused of shooting dead her parents and her six-year-old twins Daniel and Nicholas, then turning the gun on herself.

Sheila Caffell, adoptive sister of Jeremy Bamber, with twin sons Daniel and Nicholas, six

The adoptive parents of Bamber, Nevill and June, pictured above

Police thought it was an open and shut case, until suspicions grew around Sheila’s brother Jeremy Bamber, who would have received a large inheritance.

He told the police his father had called him at his home nearby on the day of the murders to say Sheila had a gun and had gone ‘berserk’, but those suspicions led to Jeremy being charged with the five murders, and in 1986 he was given a life sentence.

This case defined its era in so many ways. It was the first multiple murder case like this and mistakes made by the police resulted in huge changes. It was also defining because of the way Sheila and her mental health issues were treated.

The police initially believe Jeremy’s story that his sister had gone mad. However their suspicions were soon raised. 

Detective Sergeant Stan Jones was among the officers who hadn’t been convinced by Bamber and claimed he had informed senior officers that they ‘had not been happy’ with the way Bamber had carried himself. 

Bamber was later arrested and charged with the murder of his parents, sister and her twin boys. 

A year later he was convicted of all five murders and sentenced to life in prison. Since then he has appealed against his life sentence several times and has spoken out, protesting his innocence. 

He is a category A prisoner at HMP Wakefield in Yorkshire.

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