Roly Pargeter

and during the school holidays Jackie, Anthony and Roly would all stay at White House Farm. When Roly left school he too moved home to Ibiza and eventually became involved in the new age/hippy movement. In later years he lived in London (between 1972 and 1974) and had become involved with the drug scene, which he openly admitted to in his witness statement.[1] It was at this time he moved into White House Farm and was employed by Nevill. Jeremy was still at school but remembers that he saw Roly a lot during his school holidays and would often work with Roly on the farm land. Jeremy and Roly got along well together though were quite the opposite of each other. Roly was still very much a hippy and sported long hair and dyed shirts.

In 1976, Roly married a Portuguese woman and at that time lived in both Portugal and Ibiza. Within a short period they had a daughter but the marriage did not work out as they had hoped and after three years they separated and in 1982/83 were divorced. Roly moved to London but made occasional visits to see his daughter in the following years.

Roly again returned from overseas and stayed with the Bamber’s. Jeremy recalls that Nevill and June had discovered that Roly had been smoking cannabis while living at the farm and asked him to leave. Nevill probably took the cannabis resin from Roly and it is probable that this could have been the cannabis seen by the relatives in the safe on the 10^th of August 1985.[2] Nevill organised for Roly to move to Scotland and become a Lumber Jack working for the Forestry Commission. After the move Roly lost contact with the Bamber family. Occasionally though, Jackie or Anthony would mention him in conversation, but Jeremy cannot recall seeing him again after he stopped working on the farm.

Prior to Jeremy being held on remand in 1985, Roly had been living in a commune in Butleigh Somerset. Roly learned of the tragedies at White House Farm through a telephone call with his mother, who by this time had divorced Reg, re-married and lived back in England. Roly keenly followed the story in the newspapers and he accepted that Sheila had killed her family. Whilst giving a statement to Essex Police he stated:

“I am a very religious person and whilst I believe that Jesus existed, I also meditate and relate to religion as holy séance. I also believe that I am psychic within myself, which is regarding my own life. I am not psychic as a medium would be.”

He spoke briefly to Jeremy on several occasions after the tragedies to offer his support and suggested to Jeremy that he should take a holiday to Ibiza but Jeremy didn’t go.

On 24^th September 1985, Roly went to see a psychic medium who lived at Bexley Heath as he thought she would be able to

answer questions for him regarding things he had read in the newspapers. She stated that the killer was, “A black man of West Indian or African decent lives in New Cross.” She went on to tell him that this short, stocky man beat Nevill after he had shot him. She went into some detail about the involvement of the man amongst the drug scene and stated he was a part of an organized group who trafficked drugs into a small airport in the South of England and from there the drugs were transferred to a small aircraft and dropped on the farm land from where they would be collected. Believing what the medium had told him, Roly gave all this information to Essex Police in a statement dated 26th September 1985. Essex Police, for the most part, ignored the information but they did make enquiries regarding low flying aircraft in the area. Nevertheless, the psychic also said that, “Ann’s [Eaton] intentions are selfish.”

In 1991, Roly set up an organisation in Glastonbury, “Exploring Truth, Mysteries and New Frontiers”, who meet to discuss crop circles, UFO’s and other mysteries.

Author: Y. Hartley

[1] Roland Pargeter Statement 26.09.85. PDF, Pg.2

[2] Holmes 36.205) Ann Eaton COLP Draft 14.09.01: PDF, ”We found some cannabis resin, letters about Roly, we disposed of the resin,