Murderer Jeremy Bamber has had a bid for ballistics evidence which he claims could set him free rejected by the High Court.
The 59-year-old is serving life behind bars for the 1985 killings of his adoptive parents Nevill and June, both 61, his sister Sheila Caffell, 26, and her six-year-old twins Daniel and Nicholas.
A senior judge blocked his request for access to 27 documents from the Crown Prosecution Service which he says could help guns expert Philip Boyce decide whether a second silencer was at the scene of the crimes.
Bamber claims schizophrenic Sheila killed the family and shot herself.
Prosecutors at his 1986 trial said she could not have reached the trigger if the silencer was attached.
But Bamber’s lawyers claim the CPS has not disclosed material about a second silencer which is said to have been found at White House Farm, Essex.
They argue it is relevant to his latest attempt to overturn his conviction.
Joe Stone QC, representing Bamber, told a remote High Court hearing last week
that “it now seems almost certain that there is a second sound moderator” – evidence he suggested could “significantly undermine the prosecution case”.
The court also heard Carol Ann Lee – author of a book on which a recent ITV drama about the killings, White House Farm, was based – had been given “a number of sensitive case documents” by former detective superintendent Michael Ainslee, who is said to have later destroyed the items.
They were wanted for a submission to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which will then decide whether to refer the case to the Court of Appeal.
But judge Mr Justice Julian Knowles dismissed the latest legal action in Bamber’s battle to clear his name.
He ruled: “I am unable to say that the CPS erred in law in refusing to make the disclosure sought.
"I am not readily able to accept the existence of a second sound moderator is capable of affecting the safety of the claimant’s convictions.”
