License to Prosecute
The UK law does not apply if it assists Jeremy Bamber, neither do Human Right's Laws on retrospective sentencing.
An indictment is the license that allows the Crown to prosecute its citizens. This document is the authority necessary to take someone before a court to face charges. It has to be valid, because without an indictment a person cannot be prosecuted.
· Jeremy Bamber was committed for trial on 7th May 1986.
· The indictment was signed by Mr Wilson on the 4th June 1986
By looking at section 1-224 it can be seen that
‘A bill of indictment shall be preferred – (a) Where a defendant has been committed for trial, within a period of 28 days commencing with the date of committal."
Meaning that from the date that Jeremy Bamber was committed for trial the Crown had only 28 days to apply for a license that would allow them to prosecute him. By checking on a calendar May consists of 31 days including the date of the committal. As section 1-224 page 98 (Archbold) states.
7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 25th 26th, 27th, 28th, 29th, 30th, 31st May, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th June.
Twenty nine days. The crown only had until the 3rd of June to apply for this indictment. They applied out of time by twenty four hours.
Chapter 1 of Archbold section 1-1 states.
1. A criminal trial in the Crown court cannot start until there is a valid indictment. IF an indictment is invalid then ALL proceedings there on, including guilty pleas, will be a nullity R v Newland
Definition of nullity – The state of being legally invalid. Null and void, worthless, not legally binding.
Even if someone has pleaded guilty to an offence, if it is discovered at some later date that the indictment was invalid because it was obtained out of time, when all the judgements and proceedings there on become a nonsense and they must be set aside.
There are no excuses.
The trial judge does have legal remedies available to him to rectify matters if this faulty indictment issue is discovered during a trial.
But, as can be seen from the letter dated 24th May 2004 Sir Maurice Drake confirms that HAD any such concerns been raised at trial he would have made the necessary rulings that would have allowed the trial to go ahead.
But, he made NO such rulings and therefore it can only be viewed that because the indictment was wholly invalid the trial should not have proceeded without the necessary rulings from him.
The facts are such that Jeremy Bamber’s conviction is a nullity because the Crown did not have any legal authority to prosecute him because the indictment was preferred out of time. The trial verdict is a nullity, the appeal judgements from 1988 and 2002 are a nullity and the conviction of Jeremy Bamber for 24 years is completely illegal, a sham and nullity.
However, the CPS/DPP and CCRC have all variously stated that of course a valid indictment was necessary, but in Jeremy Bamber’s case this doesn’t count and so nothing has been done. The law doesn’t apply if it assists Bamber.
The issue is a simple one, if your license to drive a lorry ran out yesterday and you were caught driving a lorry today the Police would charge you with a driving offence and the CPS would prosecute you.
If your road tax ran out yesterday and a Police officer pulled you over and found it to be out of date you would be charged with driving without a road license.
If you got married in a Church and it was discovered that the marriage license was invalid – you would not be married.
This is the same situation with a legal indictment, it has to be obtained within 28 days of a committal for trial. Failure to do so renders all subsequent matters to be illegal with no room for exceptions and ‘rules is rules’ but how embarrassing this is to the state – so it is easier to dodge the issue and just pretend that in this case it doesn’t matter.
The truth is that the Crown DON’T have a valid conviction but then the Law does not apply to Jeremy Bamber. Is this British Justice today?