Jeremy Bamber launches bid for evidence to be released

Jeremy Bamber in 1985 and in a later, undated photograph

Convicted murderer Jeremy Bamber has launched a High Court bid to secure evidence he says could clear his name.

Bamber, 59, is serving life in prison for killing five members of his family at White House Farm, Essex, in 1985.

Prosecutors said his sister Sheila Cafell's blood was found on a silencer, meaning she could not have committed the murders and then taken her own life - as Bamber argued in his defence.

His lawyers claim prosecutors did not disclose evidence of a second silencer.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) told the High Court that even if this second silencer existed it would not displace "overwhelming scientific evidence".

Bamber has pledged to continue to battle against his conviction

Bamber was found guilty in 1986 of murdering his adoptive parents Nevill and June, both 61, Ms Caffell, 26, and her six-year-old twins Daniel and Nicholas.

He has always maintained his sister, who had schizophrenia, shot her family and then herself.

During the remote hearing, Joe Stone QC, representing Bamber, said his client had been told this week of allegations of evidence destruction by the case's original senior investigating officer.

He also said blood-based exhibits from Ms Caffell's DNA were destroyed by Essex Police in February 1996, as part of what he described as "systematic destruction of core exhibits".

'Weight of evidence'

He argued evidence of a second silencer could "significantly undermine the prosecution case".

Annabel Darlow QC, for the CPS, said: "Even if, contrary to the overwhelming weight of the evidence, the existence of a second sound moderator was established, it would not displace those scientific findings.

"The existence of Sheila Caffell's blood deep within the sound moderator, in circumstances in which she could not physically have shot herself with the moderator attached, renders irrelevant the putative existence of further sound moderators."

This case is the latest legal action brought by Bamber in his long-running battle to clear his name.

Justice Julian Knowles deferred making a ruling in the case until next week due to "complexities" in the case.