Author guest post from Helen Saxton.

True miscarriages of justice are the stuff of nightmares. One cannot imagine being locked up for months, years, decades, for something which you did not do. The sheer unfairness of it must be simply unbearable.

Peter Sullivan is Britain’s longest serving known victim of a miscarriage of justice having spent 38 years in prison for the murder of Diane Sindall before being released in 2025 following new DNA testing. Perhaps more famously Barry George was convicted of the murder of Jill Dando in 2001 before being acquitted following a retrial in 2008. One might say he was lucky to have been incarcerated for ‘only’ 7 years in comparison to Sullivan.

Jeremy Bamber has been in prison for almost 40 years (at the time of writing) for the murder of his parents, sister and nephews in 1985. He has always maintained that his sister, Sheila, killed the family and then turned the gun on herself. If he were ever to be released, he would earn the dubious title of exceeding Sullivan’s record. However, his numerous attempts at appeal have repeatedly failed, and it is therefore unlikely that this will become a reality.

The very nature of these contentious cases means they are not open and shut, black and white, cut and dried. If they were, then the likelihood of a miscarriage of justice occurring in the first place would surely be greatly reduced. The reality is that they often hinge on circumstantial evidence and partial or inadequate forensic samples which are open to scientific interpretation. And with that comes a frustrating but undeniable fact; nobody can ever know for certain what happened, apart from the perpetrator.

However, it’s easy to see why some people become vociferous campaigners for those they believe to have been incarcerated unfairly; it’s not necessarily to do with a personal connection to the prisoner but perhaps a horror of imagining themselves in that particular situation and a drive to right a perceived wrong, often going hand in hand with a desire to expose a corrupt system. If the prisoner is innocent, this is admirable, but if not, then what? And what are the traps people fall into when trying to disprove a case which has already been proven?

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias, or actively searching out the evidence which proves a pre-conceived theory, is something we are all guilty of to a certain extent, but it’s particularly prevalent in true crime investigations. It’s similar to ‘cherry picking’ evidence; for example, out of 1000 pieces of evidence, 999 might point towards guilt, and one might throw a shadow of doubt. While the singular evidence can’t be discounted and may of course prove to be the key to innocence, the real danger comes in discounting the other 999 and hedging all bets on the one, rather than looking at the bigger picture.

An example from Jeremy Bamber’s campaign might be that some witnesses allegedly reported seeing only one wound on Sheila’s neck when her body was discovered while several policemen on the scene at the time are documented as reporting there were two wounds. The latter implies that she did not shoot herself (and shifts the guilt to Jeremy) whereas the former might substantiate the claims that she killed her family before turning the gun on herself. However, Jeremy’s supporters will often discount the latter in favour of the former.

Mental Gymnastics

Let’s say the one piece of evidence versus the 999 is not as convincing as it could be. In Jeremy’s case his campaign team have seized on a handwritten message logged by a civilian phone operator which they say prove that Nevill Bamber, Jeremy’s father, called the police himself on the night of the murder which, if true, would prove irrefutably that Jeremy is innocent. On the surface, this is compelling stuff, until you realise that this conclusion has been reached simply because of the way the written message has been worded, which is at best open to interpretation. The mental gymnastics required to turn a written phrase into ‘cast iron’ proof are quite impressive, given the fact that the person who took the call has never suggested he spoke to Nevill and had no reason to be involved in a decades-long cover up. It’s tenuous at best; one might say it’s possible he called, but not plausible.

Occam’s Razor

Occam’s Razor states that of two competing theories, the simpler explanation of an entity is to be preferred; essentially, it’s usually the more simple and obvious set of circumstances which is correct.

For example, because of another ambiguous entry in the logs, Jeremy’s supporters have suggested that Sheila was unconscious when the police entered the building that night, suddenly gained consciousness and then ran upstairs and shot herself without being seen or heard by the numerous officers on site. This is far less likely than the alternative; that one of the officers mistakenly recorded finding a female body on entry, initially mistaking Nevill for a female.

It’s easy to get carried away on the wave of other successful appeals but just because Peter Sullivan and Barry George are miscarriage of justice victims, it doesn’t necessarily follow that Jeremy is. Despite the fact that no one will ever know for sure whether or not Jeremy Bamber killed his family apart from Jeremy himself, one campaigner has stated that even if he admitted to the murders, they would want to see the evidence to prove it, so strong is their conviction that he is innocent.

And what if they’re right?

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