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Jeremy Bamber fails in High Court bid to release new evidence in White House Farm murders

Jeremy Bamber, who is currently serving a life sentence and has lost his third appeal for freedom. - Andrew Hunter/PA Media
Jeremy Bamber, who is currently serving a life sentence and has lost his third appeal for freedom. - Andrew Hunter/PA Media

The High Court has dismissed a bid by Jeremy Bamber to release evidence that he said could lead to his convictions  for the murders of five family members being overturned.

Bamber, 59, is serving a lifelong prison sentence after being found guilty of murdering his adoptive parents Nevill and June, his sister Sheila Caffell, and her six-year-old twins Daniel and Nicholas at White House Farm, Essex, in August 1985.

The prosecution argued at Bamber’s trial in 1986 that Ms Caffell could not have reached the trigger to kill herself if the silencer was attached to the murder weapon.

Bamber’s lawyers claimed that the Crown Prosecution Service had not disclosed material about a second silencer which was said to have been found at White House Farm

Joe Stone QC, representing Bamber, suggested that the new evidence could “significantly undermine” the case of the prosecution.

But giving judgement remotely on June 5, Mr Justice Julian Knowles dismissed the latest legal action.

“I am unable to say that the CPS erred in law in refusing to make the disclosure sought,” he said.

"The facts are that the moderator which was found had Ms Caffell's blood in it, and she could not have shot herself when the sound moderator was attached to the rifle."

The judge described the case - investigated by police for 35 years - as “massively complex” due to the amount of evidence involved.

A previous appeal by Bamber was rejected by the Court of Appeal in 2002, and he also had a High Court challenge turned down in 2012.