The Establishment Will NEVER Admit They Got This One Wrong

Essential to the case against Jeremy Bamber is the question of whether or not a silencer was used in the killings, then removed from the rifle and hidden. If so, it was argued in court, Sheila Caffell was clearly not the killer.

It's something I've come to belive more and more, the more I read about this case.  

When Justice Drake, who died in 2014, said the silencer only contained blood belonging to Caffell he misled the jury.

And shockingly, that isn't enough these days to ensutre an appeal succeeds. Nor was it just one slip. 

There was also a second blood group found in the baffles that didn’t match any of the deceased’s blood groups, or Bamber’s, although it was a potential match for David Boutflour. The jury were told none of these facts. On multiple occasions during his summing up, Justice Drake said that the blood in the silencer was a match “for Sheila alone”.

And when you look at the performance of Essex Police, the incompetence of the judge is matched and surpassed! 

Essex police announced that they had found a “heavily bloodstained silencer hours after the gruesome massacre” at a press conference on 16 September 1985. This was reported in at least a dozen newspapers, including on the front page of the Daily Mirror. The police now claim they never said this.

Yes, and they have never faced any consequences for such a blatent lie. So what else to do but go on lying: 

At the trial, David Boutflour said the police had not seized his silencer before the trial. But in the New Yorker’s epic 2024 investigation into the Bamber case, he told journalist Heidi Blake that they had taken it away for “months and months” before the trial, supporting the claim that Essex police were in possession of more than one moderator before the 1986 trial, despite their 40 years of denials.

This is why the Establishment will never, ever grant an appeal; this case shows, perhaps more than any other, the abject incompetence of the tools and institutions of the establishment. 

The only chance he has of the authorities admitting the trial was flawed will be after he and everyone else in the case is long dead.

Well, Maybe We Shouldn’t Believe those Who Want Us To Stop Questioning...

When it comes to the Lucy Letby case, there are two parallel universes. In one, the question of her guilt is settled. She is a monster who murdered seven babies and attempted to murder seven more while she was a nurse at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016. In the other universe, Letby is the victim of a flawed criminal justice system in which unreliable medical evidence was used to condemn and imprison an innocent woman.

Probably not for the first time… 

These extremes are both disturbing and bewildering. One of them is wrong - but which? Who should we believe?

Well, I know who doesn’t earn my attention- the ones who are denying there’s any doubt and waving their child’s shroud around to try to ensure there is no retrial. 

The families of the infants say there is no doubt. Letby was convicted after a 10-month trial by a jury that had considered a vast range of evidence. They say Letby's defenders are picking on small bits of evidence out of context and that the constant questioning of her guilt is deeply distressing.

Well, tough.  

Ultimately, the question of whether Letby's case should be re-examined by the Court of Appeal now lies with CCRC. They have the task of studying Mark McDonald's expert reports. If he is successful and Lucy Letby's case is referred back to the Court of Appeal - that is ultimately where the expert evidence on both sides will face a true reckoning.

And frankly, that’s long overdue.  The days of saying ‘We’ll, the justice system slwsys get it right first time’ are long over.