Murderer Jeremy Bamber loses bid to leave maximum-security prison

Murderer Jeremy Bamber has had his bid to be transferred from his maximum-security prison to a lower grade facility rejected.

Bamber, 59, is serving a life sentence for the murder of his adoptive parents Nevill and June, his sister Sheila Caffell and her six-year-old twins Daniel and Nicholas at White House Farm, Essex, in 1985.

He has always protested his innocence.

Bamber was trying to overturn a decision made by the High Court in March that decided not to downgrade his status as a Category A inmate, or to direct that an oral hearing on the issue take place.

Category A prisoners are considered the most dangerous to the public and held in maximum security conditions.

At a remote hearing in October, lawyers acting on Bamber’s behalf asked Mr Justice Julian Knowles to approve the go-ahead for a full hearing of his claim, arguing that the decision was ‘unreasonable’.

However, in a ruling earlier today, the senior judge refused Bamber permission to bring the challenge.

In his judgment, Mr Justice Julian Knowles said: ‘I have concluded that permission must be refused on the basis that neither of the grounds of challenge advanced on behalf of the claimant is arguable.’

Previously, Bamber’s lawyer had argued that an independent psychologist’s report had revealed he had met the test for downgrading a Category A prisoner and that these conditions were ‘no longer necessary’ for managing him.

He also argued that the decision not to downgrade Bamber from Category A was ‘unreasonable’ as it ‘substantially misrepresented’ the opinion given by the independent psychologist.

Bamber pleaded not guilty in the initial court case and claimed his sister, who suffered from schizophrenia, shot her family before turning the gun on herself.

However, one of the major points for the prosecution declared that her arms would not have been long enough to reach the ­trigger if the ­silencer – which was spattered with her blood – was ­attached to the ­rifle.

The story, which made headlines for its extreme nature at the time, was dramatised in ITV’s White House Farm in February, with Bamber portrayed by Freddie Fox.

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