MASS murderer Jeremy Bamber has made a fresh bid for freedom and is hoping to be granted a third appeal.

James Hore

MASS murderer Jeremy Bamber has made a fresh bid for freedom and is hoping to be granted a third appeal.

Bamber, now 48, was jailed in 1986 for killing his adoptive parents, Nevill and June, his sister, Sheila Caffell and her two young sons, Nicholas and Daniel.

They were all found with bullet wounds at a remote farmhouse at Tolleshunt D'Arcy, near Maldon in August 1985.

Bamber has always protested his innocence and has now completed new submissions of evidence to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) which will decide if he is granted an appeal hearing.

Edmund Lawson QC, who was junior defence counsel at the original trial at Chelmsford Crown Court in 1986, has provided an accompanying letter to the submissions, claiming there is a “real possibility” a miscarriage of justice took place.

However, last night, members of the Bamber family said he was just “clutching at straws” saying the forensic evidence proved he was guilty.

The new submissions to the CCRC calls for an investigation into alleged new photographic evidence.

In documents shown to the EADT/Evening Star, Mr Lawson states: “Notwithstanding the trial verdicts and the adverse conclusions at the previous appeals (reached, it seems, without the benefit of all the available evidence), there remains, in submission, a real possibility at least that justice miscarried.”

Police initially thought Ms Caffell was responsible for the killings at White House Farm before turning the gun on herself.

However, when surviving members of the family discovered a silencer from the murder weapon tucked in a gun cupboard, suspicion fell on Bamber who stood to inherit the family fortune.

Bamber was convicted on a majority verdict and given five life sentences in 1986.

Karen Boutflour , who is married to Bamber's step cousin, David, said last night: “It is just horrendous, every time it comes back again.

“I think it is right that people are able to try to prove their innocence, but we certainly don't think he is innocent - in fact we know he is not innocent.

“When they had the last appeal, when the police went through everything, there was nothing else to be looked at and the forensic reports showed it has Jeremy.”

Other family members have spoken in the past of their fears should he be released.

His cousin, Ann Eaton, who lives in the farm where the killing spree took place on August 7, said: “I think Jeremy Bamber is a psychopath.

“He has no conscience and should remain in prison for the rest of his life. If he is ever let out, heaven knows what would happen to the rest of my family.

“We would just be picked off, one-by-one. We know that - it is more than just a fear, we know it.”

Mrs Eaton moved into White House Farm five years after the murders took place.

The CCRC will review the evidence and a decision on whether Bamber is granted an appeal could be made later this year.