Emily Bolton spent much of her early career righting wrongs in the American legal system.

You may think there would be more chance of being wrongly convicted in America, but our confidence in the robust nature of the British legal system could be misplaced, as Emily is finding plenty to keep her busy this side of the pond. 

She previously told the WDM: “In America where I used to work, defence investigation is built into the practice model. But here the system relies on the police to investigate on behalf of the defence as well as the prosecution.
“It’s really a conflict of interest, the fox is guarding the hen house.”

A new documentary on Channel 5, Jeremy Bamber: Proof of Innocence – The Missing Phone Call, goes into detail about inconsistencies in the case.

Bamber, now 65, is serving a whole-life sentence for the 1985 White House Farm murders in Essex. He was convicted of shooting his adoptive parents Nevill and June, his sister Sheila Caffell, and her twins, six-year-old Daniel and Nicholas.

Bamber has always maintained that his sister had killed everyone before turning the gun on herself.

He was convicted mainly on the strength of a silencer found in the house, containing blood of his sister’s type. The jury believed his sister could not have shot herself with the silencer attached – the gun would have been rendered too long for her to pull the trigger.

However the documentary raised many questions over the silencer – it wasn’t attached to the gun when police found it on Sheila’s body.

The blood in the silencer, which was discovered in a box under the stairs, also matched Sheila’s uncle. And tests by ballistics experts appear to show the bullet holes in Sheila’s flesh could not have been made with a silencer attached.

One silencer had been shoved in a drawer back at the police station. Another, with different patterns on the end, is also said to have been among the evidence.

Letters written by Sheila were described on the programme as ‘a clear suicide note’.

There are also questions over a 999 call allegedly made from inside the farmhouse at 6.09am, when Bamber was outside with police.

Other examples of poor police practice were also alleged – the Detective Inspector in charge of the case Ron Cook is alleged to have picked up the gun from Sheila’s body before the scene had been processed.

However, Essex Police asserts the right person was convicted of the killings.

An appeal failed in 2002, meaning Bamber can only rely on the Criminal Cases Review Board (CCRB) to try to bring this new evidence to light and win his freedom.

Emily, who is now a director of Objection, a non-profit group fighting cases of injustice, told the programme the evidence pointing to Bamber’s innocence was ‘particularly potent’.

Watch at channel5.com/show/white-house-farm-murders-jeremy-bamber-is-innocent