I came across a sticker just like this a few years ago. Even then the case of Jeremy Bamber was a long running and worrying affair but I thought he'll at least win his appeals and this injustice will soon be over. But Mr Bamber, convicted in 1986 of the murders of his parents, his sister and her six-year-old twin sons is still behind bars and years later there are still stickers on cars ... I don't know if he did what he's accused of, I do know there's abundant evidence (the suicidal, schizophrenic sister with access to the gun, for example, and shockingly doubtful forensics; you know how it all goes in these cases) to make the conviction troublesome to say the least and where's there's reasonable doubt, so the old myth goes, you must acquit ... Thirty three years is damn long time to do for any crime, an eternity for an innocent man. There are stories that new evidence will gain a release in the near future but hope is, perhaps, best kept in a jar and not let loose upon the world ...
Still when I was a child back in the sixties he would no doubt have been hanged for such a heinous crime and that, for those who like finality in these things, would have put an end to all doubts ... there's more if you can face it to read here.
I followed the trial in the news & it seemed so obvious that the Crown had made no kind of case against Bamber that the verdict came as a colossal shock. The key point to me is that the prosecution's prime piece of forensic evidence, a silencer, failed to show up in a police search. It was found later, by the family, who stood to inherit if Bamber was convicted...
ReplyDeleteEven the remote chance of exoneration with new evidence is enough reason, in my mind, to abolish the death penalty. You can compensate for years behind bars, but not a hanging.
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