Case No: 20011745 S1
Sitting on 29 October 2025
Royal Courts of Injustice The Strand, London W2A 2LL
29/10/2025
IN THE MATTER OF THE APPEAL OF:
REX
-v-
JEREMY BAMBER
Grounds of Appeal: SINGLE GROUND – TIME OF DEATH OF THE FIVE DECEASED
This Court heard full submissions on 29 October 2025.
Mr. G. Di Stefano appeared for the Appellant, Mr. Bamber.
Mr. D. Mendacitie KC appeared for the Crown.
Mr Mendacitie made no submissions in this matter and when pressed by the court simply stated that on a number of occasions the appellant has been before the court and refused. He remained neutral and was confidant that the court would come to the right and safe decision.
This appeal proceeded on one Ground only: that the time of death of the five victims at White House Farm is incompatible with the Crown’s case against Jeremy Bamber, and that the medical and forensic evidence—both historic and newly adduced—fundamentally undermines the conviction.
The essence of the Ground is that the victims were killed at a time when Mr. Bamber was with police officers, and that fresh medical opinion now places the time of death wholly inconsistent with him being the perpetrator.
The Court has reviewed the original pathology material, the photographs, the police statements, and the newly submitted medico-legal opinion authored by an Italian physician and supported by a second expert, Dr. Andrea Cavalli MD. The Court has also considered the issues raised regarding (i) the staging of the crime scene and repositioning of Sheila Caffell’s body and rifle, and (ii) the collapse in integrity of the blood-flake/sound moderator evidence.
The conviction is more than 35 years old, yet the scientific record must be measured against contemporary standards of proof. If the medical evidence shows that the time of death makes the offence impossible, the conviction cannot be sustained.
II. THE MEDICAL EVIDENCE ON TIME OF DEATH
Professor Vanezis (then “Vinicius”), the state pathologist, failed to state any time of death for any of the five victims.
This omission violates foundational forensic standards: determining approximate time of death is one of the first obligations of a forensic pathologist. His failure left the Crown’s chronology untested and unanchored.
No rigor mortis findings, no hypostasis measurements, no body temperature readings, and no chrono-thanatological data were recorded. This deficiency leaves the original conclusions medically unsupported.
The fresh medical report, reviewing photographs and police evidence, identifies three essential points:
(a) Modest blood quantity inconsistent with hours-old death
The photographs taken at 08:30–09:00 show only a modest quantity of blood on the right side of Sheila’s neck, inconsistent with bleeding that began “hours earlier.”
This is expressly stated at:
(i)BAMBER medico ENG
(ii)BAMBER MEDICAL OPINION
The doctor notes that if death had occurred several hours before discovery, the blood would show pronounced smearing, pooling, and drying. It does not.
(b) Liquid blood still present at 07:34
A police officer observed liquid blood discharge at approximately 07:34.
Liquid blood at that time cannot correspond to a death many hours earlier; post-mortem coagulation would ordinarily have occurred.
This is again confirmed at:
(i)BAMBER medico ENG
(ii)BAMBER MEDICAL OPINION
(c) The time-of-death estimate
The fresh forensic opinion concludes:
“the moment of death may be placed within a time span not superior to two hours from the discovery of the corpse itself.”
—
(i)BAMBER medico ENG
(ii)BAMBER MEDICAL OPINION
Discovery occurred 07:34.
Thus estimated time of death: approximately 05:30–06:00.
Jeremy Bamber was with the police from approximately 03:00–03:30 onwards.
If the victims died around 05:30–06:00, then it was scientifically impossible for him to have committed the killings.
The Court accepts the fresh medical evidence as persuasive, internally consistent, and grounded in standard forensic principles. It directly contradicts—and indeed excludes—the prosecution’s timeline.
III. SCENE MANIPULATION AND REPOSITIONING OF SHEILA CAFFELL
Though not necessary to the final result, the Court addresses the evidence regarding the staging of Sheila’s body and the rifle, because it substantially undermines the general reliability of the original investigation.
The following material establishes that Sheila’s body was moved, and the rifle removed and replaced:
– Dr. Craig’s 08:44 account describes Sheila’s right hand loosely over the butt of the rifle.
– A fingerprint corresponding to Sheila’s right ring finger was later found on the right-hand face of the butt.
– Yet in the official photographs, her hand is not on the butt, the rifle is reversed, and the ejection port faces downwards—rendering the photos inconsistent with ballistic reality.
This is fully documented in:
ISSUE ONE CCRC
The Court finds:
The crime scene photographs are not an accurate representation of how Sheila was found.
As the document concludes:
“The photo’s were not crime scene photo’s but crime staged photo’s…”
—
ISSUE ONE CCRC
This manipulation further erodes the integrity of the case against the appellant.
Again, though unnecessary to the decisive point of time of death, the Court notes the near-total destruction of the credibility of the moderator-blood evidence.
The blood flake was tested to destruction without retaining any portion for defence analysis.
The laboratory:
– Performed subgrouping before even establishing whether the sample was blood or human blood.
– Violated mandatory sequencing protocols.
– Allowed lab technicians (not the presenting expert) to carry out tests without disclosure.
– Produced a flake whose characteristics could never be replicated.
This is set out extensively in:
ISSUE TWO CCRC
The Court notes that the 2002 Court of Appeal already found the flake “unique” and irreproducible—an extraordinary forensic anomaly.
Given the trial judge’s repeated assertions that this evidence “could, on its own, lead you to the conclusion that the defendant is guilty,” the exposure of its unreliability removes one of the central pillars of the Crown’s case.
Further Note: Polygraph Test, Secretary of State Intervention, and Statutory Inconsistency
A further and independent matter that ought to have caused serious alarm within the Ministry of Justice arose when Mr. Bamber successfully passed a full polygraph examination conducted at Full Sutton Prison on 19 April 2007. The certified report by Terence J. Mullins BSc (Hons), UK Polygraph Services, confirms that Mr. Bamber was asked three key questions:
(i) “Did you shoot your family on the 7th August 1985?”
(ii) “Did you shoot 5 members of your family on 7th August 1985 with an Anschütz rifle?” and
(iii) “Were you present inside the house when 5 members of your family were shot with an Anschütz rifle?”
He answered No to each, and the examiner expressly concluded “No Deception Indicated (NDI),” meaning the responses were truthful.
—Evidence at:
hpsc12
(letter dated 20/4/07, signed by Mullins).
This result was highly material. Parliament, through the Criminal Justice Act 2003, expressly authorises the use of compulsory polygraph testing for individuals released on licence, recognising its evidential and predictive reliability in safeguarding the public. Yet when an incarcerated prisoner passes such a test—particularly one whose conviction has long attracted serious controversy—the statutory principle underpinning polygraph use becomes inverted: if lie-detector evidence is sufficiently reliable to monitor those at liberty, then it’s clear and unequivocal exculpatory result for someone still imprisoned should have triggered immediate ministerial scrutiny. Mr. Di Stefano formally wrote to the Secretary of State for Justice seeking intervention; although the correspondence was acknowledged and said to be under consideration, no action was ever taken. That failure represents a second alarm bell which should have rung loudly and independently, pointing toward a grave miscarriage of justice.
Additionally, the Court notes the evidence that Caroline A. Bayford on the 20 October 2020 at13.25 – 12.25 BST engaged directly with Professor Vanezis on to clarify the longstanding omission of any stated time of death in the original pathology. Initially, he appeared willing to discuss the matter; however, the moment it became clear that her inquiries concerned Mr. Bamber and, specifically, the chronology of death, Professor Vanezis immediately became unavailable and ceased further communication. Such an abrupt withdrawal by the very pathologist whose duty it was to provide an authoritative time-of-death estimate—yet who failed to do so—ought to have raised profound concerns years ago. When considered cumulatively with the scene-staging evidence, the compromised forensic record, and the now-established impossibility of the Crown’s timeline, this conduct represents yet another warning sign pointing to what may be one of the most serious miscarriages of justice in modern British criminal history.
This Court must decide one issue and with his usual candour and gusto Mr Di Stefano put it to us in this frank manner:
Does the fresh medical evidence on time of death make it scientifically impossible for Mr. Bamber to have committed the murders?
The answer is yes.
The victims died well after Jeremy Bamber was with the police—a verified alibi corroborated by multiple officers. There is no possible way, on the fresh evidence, for him to have been the killer.
Where new evidence demonstrates factual impossibility of guilt, a conviction cannot stand and must be quashed.
Both domestic jurisprudence and international standards of justice reject a conviction where:
– the forensic evidence is fundamentally flawed,
– the scene was manipulated,
– and the time of death excludes the defendant entirely.
The failure of Professor Vanezis to state a time of death, combined with:
– staging of the scene,
– scientifically compromised blood evidence, and
– misrepresentations to the court,
renders the original investigation “unsafe” in the literal sense: unsafe to rely upon.
For the reasons set out above, the Court holds:
The appeal is allowed.
The conviction of Jeremy Bamber is hereby quashed.
A direction of acquittal is entered.
So ordered by this Court on 2 December 2025.