Following the recent refusal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission to refer the case of Jeremy Bamber back to the court of appeal, his legal representatives, McKay Law have submitted a 13 page pre-action letter to the Commission requesting that they re-assess the case within 14 days.
The purpose of this letter is to advise the Commission that McKay Law have been instructed to issue proceedings against them for Judicial Review as a result of their failure to refer Jeremy Bamber’s case back to the Court of Appeal which was notified to him on 25th of April 2012.
The letter expresses legal concerns about the content of the Commission’s Statement of Reasons and Press Release on 25th April 2012 which stated: “matters of pure speculation or unsubstantiated allegation constitute neither new evidence nor new argument capable of giving rise to a real possibility that the court of appeal will quash a conviction. Neither can such a real possibility arise from the accumulation of multiple substantiated allegations.”
The letter from McKay Law states this was a “gross misrepresentation of the nature and content of the submission made” and further “risked substantially misleading the public as to the nature of those submissions. In particular, the submissions included opinions of eminent experts in their fields and under no circumstances was the Commission equipped or was it appropriate to express the view that it did.”
Extract of letter - Summary of the Grounds for Judicial Review
- That the Commission acted unlawfully in the sense that they applied the wrong test in determining whether to refer the case back to the Court of Appeal and/or failed to provide reasons as to why the test was not met
- That the Commission failed to either raise additional queries in respect of the preliminary reports of the experts provided to them in January 2012 and/or failed to carry out their own inquiries
- The decision was unreasonable in the sense that no public authority tasked with the function of reviewing whether the statutory test under the Criminal Appeal Acts 1968 was met could have reached the conclusion that the case should not have been referred back to the Court of Appeal in accordance with section 13 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995 (the real possibility test).
Read the Guardian article here media contacts wanting access to a copy of the letter of intent please contact our office officialbamber@live.co.uk alternatively contact simon.mckay@mckaylaw.co.uk
Follow us on twitter @bambertweets For more information on the case for innocence please visit our web site http://www.jeremy-bamber.co.uk
