It’s a Sabotage

Bent Cops vs The Beastie Boys

You're scheming on a thing that's a mirage.
I'm trying to tell you now, it's sabotage

There are thousands of pages and millions of words across screenplays, scripts, blogs, newspaper stories, magazine articles, books, discussion forums, podcasts, Youtube videos and social media pages on the conviction of Jeremy Bamber.

And now this Substack too.

Millions of words have been spoken, written, read - affidavits, court transcripts, lab reports, videotaped interviews, newspaper articles, and now even blogs - but what do they really tell us?

Errol Morris, A Wilderness of Error, 2012

There must be millions of people who think they know the case and Jeremy Bamber. But how many really do?

There are two distinct camps.

The ‘guilty as charged’ camp relying on the strength of the original trial and 2002 appeal statement; and the miscarriage of justice camp relying on new evidence and disclosure from 2011.

And never the twain shall meet.

Until 2020 I was in the former camp. I mean here was a man who has been in prison for almost 40 years. We just don’t lock up innocent people for that long in this country now do we?

I was afraid of something more chilling - that MacDonald was innocent. I wondered if people needed him to be guilty because the alternative was too horrible to contemplate.

Errol Morris, A Wilderness of Error, 2012

A few weeks of digging into the evidence, access to the 350K sheets of documents released under the expiration of PII in 2011 and interviews over several years with ex-detectives, from Essex and the Met; detectives who had been at the coalface of corruption in the 80’s and 90’s, my opinion changed.

Essex Police are as bent as fuck.
Former senior Met detective, 2023

Looking at the Bamber case through a monocle of the original trial and 2002 appeal judgement it’s impossible to see the big picture. It’s only when you put on an Apple Vision Pro and see the new evidence, now sitting with the CCRC, that you get to experience a more rounded, 360º view. A view of cover-up and endemic corruption that was rife within the police across the entire country back in the 70’s and 80’s.

It’s such a cliché that The Beastie Boys made light of it in one of their most famous tracks. They perfectly summed up the attitude of three hard-ass detectives paying homage to the 70’s movie & TV cops - the likes of Starksy and Hutch, Serpico, Popeye Doyle, Buddy, LT, Harry Callahan, plus so many more. With a bit of interview room beatings thrown in for good measure.

Everyone loves a tough cop until you’re on the wrong side of one.

I wanted to see what was the cause of some of the most infamous miscarriage of justice cases in British history, back in the Bodie and Doyle era, and see if there really was some truth in the portrayal of these fictional cops.

Much like Mike D, Ad-Rock and MCA; in Bamber’s case it was the venal triumvirate of Cook, Jones and Ainsley. As you’ll see from the case examples below It’s often only a handful of wannabe Jack Regan types who are responsible. They get the ball rolling then make sure everything and everyone else slots into place.

Because everything was skewed evidence, because people wouldn't bring it to light to cover up their mistakes in the investigation.

All of the evidence proves that.

There’s photos missing. There are documents that have been redacted. We’ve all watched ‘Life on Mars’, that’s pretty much how policing was then.

They pretty much had carte blanche.

They could do what they wanted.

Jeremy Bamber, talking to journalist David James Smith

West Midlands Serious Crime Squad ‘having a quiet word’.

BIRMINGHAM 6

Overview:

The Birmingham pub bombings took place on 21 November 1974 and were attributed to the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). Improvised explosive devices were placed in two central Birmingham pubs: the Mulberry Bush at the foot of the Rotunda, and the Tavern in the Town – a basement pub in New Street. The resulting explosions, at 20:25 and 20:27, collectively were the deadliest attacks in the UK since World War II (until surpassed by the Denmark Place fire in 1980); 21 people were killed (ten at the Mulberry Bush and eleven at the Tavern in the Town) and 182 people were injured. Six Northern Irishmen, who were travelling home from attending the funeral of an IRA member, were convicted.

Conviction:

Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975.

Number of Failed Appeals:

2

Winning Appeal:

14 March 1991.

Time Served:

16 Years

Police Force:

West Midlands Serious Crime Squad

Police MO:

Fabrication and suppression of evidence, torture, forced confessions.¹

Police Officers Prosecuted:

0

The police told us from the start that they knew we hadn't done it. They told us they didn't care who'd done it. They told us that we were selected and that they were going to frame us.

Paddy Hill, Birmingham 6

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Surrey Police

GUILDFORD 4 & MAGUIRE 7