Miscarriage of justice victim threatens contempt of court action after convicted killer is denied access to journalists

Martin Shipton

A victim of one of Wales’ most notorious miscarriages of justice has threatened to take the Prison Service to court after a convicted murderer was denied the right to communicate with journalists.

Michael O’Brien, one of three men who spent 11 years in jail after being wrongly convicted of killing Cardiff newsagent Phillip Saunders, said a case he took to the House of Lords meant it was unlawful for high security Wakefield Prison to block Jeremy Bamber from contact with the media.

Bamber has served more than 40 years in prison for shooting dead five members of his family at White House Farm in Essex in 1985. He has always protested his innocence.

The 65-year-old has long relied on telephone interviews and exchanges of letters with journalists as a way to draw attention to his case. But his campaign group has told the Guardian he is no longer allowed to send letters to journalists, nor receive them, nor is he allowed to talk to reporters by phone. He was last granted a face-to-face interview with a journalist in 2010.

Without giving a specific explanation for the decision in Bamber’s case, the Prison Service cited “the need to protect victims from serious distress and maintain confidence in the justice system” as the basis for such restrictions in general.

The ban comes at a time when the case has received prominent media coverage. Last October, the New Yorker magazine released Blood Relatives, a six-part podcast series questioning the safety of the convictions.

Initial newspaper reports of the massacre called it a murder-suicide, stating that his sister, Sheila Caffell, who like Bamber also adopted and had recently been hospitalised with schizophrenia, had killed her family members and then herself.

Bamber became a suspect when his former girlfriend gave a statement to Essex Police soon after he had ended their relationship stating he had told her he was planning the murders. It emerged later that she had agreed to sell her story to the News of the World for £25,000 if Bamber was convicted.

In February 2026, Prof Jason Payne-James, a specialist in forensic and legal medicine, told the Guardian he did not believe a silencer had been used in the shootings, a finding that appears to undermine a central tenet of the prosecution’s case. At the trial, Justice Drake told the jury that if they believed the silencer was used it would be sufficient ground to convict Bamber because Caffell’s arms were not long enough to shoot herself in the throat with the extension added to the rifle.

Unlawful

His campaign group told the Guardian that Bamber, who is in the high-security category A prison HMP Wakefield, believes the ban on him communicating with the media is unlawful.

The right of prisoners claiming a miscarriage of justice to contact the media, including by telephone and interview, was established in the UK through a 1999 case, in which Michael O’Brien and another convicted murderer successfully argued that a “blanket ban” on journalists interviewing prisoners violated the prisoners’ rights to free speech and obstructed access to justice.

A spokesperson for the Jeremy Bamber Innocence Campaign said: “The ban that the prison has imposed is a sign the authorities are determined to do anything to prevent Jeremy exposing the misconduct, and mistakes that led to his wrongful conviction.

“Wakefield prison has taken this dramatic step in direct contravention of the Ministry of Justice rules, which allow prisoners contact with the media ‘when making serious representations about their own conviction’. It seems to be no coincidence that just as the mass of new exculpatory evidence in his case is receiving a lot of media attention, the prison decides that he can no longer make representations to the media.”

Bamber’s legal team has indicated it will take the prison to judicial review if the ban is not lifted.

‘Blanket bans’

A Prison Service spokesperson said: “Prisoners’ access to the media policy does not provide blanket bans. Any restriction on communication requires justification and will take into account factors such as the need to protect victims from serious distress and maintain confidence in the justice system.”

Mr O’Brien told Nation.Cymru he had got to know Bamber well when they were in prison together, had studied his case and was 100% certain that he is innocent.

His letter to the Governor of Wakefield Prison states: “I write to you in connection to the case of Jeremy Bamber who many onlookers and campaigners like myself and as a former victim of miscarriage of justice myself believe he is innocent.

“When I was in prison the Home Secretary and Prison Governors deliberately tried to stop Journalists from visiting me in prison and I won my case of freedom of speech against both in the House of Lords in July 2005.

“It has been brought to my attention by Jeremy Bamber and his other campaigners that you are refusing to comply with the House of Lords judgement that prisoners maintaining their innocence have a right to have visits from journalists and report on their case.”

Mr O’Brien went on to refer to Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.”

‘Prison rules’

His letter continues: “I am not interested in any of your so-called prison rules that unlawfully interfere with prisoners’ rights under Article 10, the right to free speech, but I am concerned that you are indeed breaking the law and are in contempt of court for denying Jeremy Bamber the right to speak to journalists. I also note you have done this to other prisoners maintaining their innocence and it is a common occurrence by the MOJ

“I am considering bringing legal action over this flagrant abuse of my House of Lords judgement and I will hold you in contempt of court. I will be speaking to my legal advisers about this in due course.

“All the arguments about [causing distress to] the victim’s family have been aired in court and you lost those arguments. I would like a legal explanation as to why in 2026 you are still interfering with the rights of prisoners having journalists to visit them as Lord Steyn said in my judgement that journalists play a significant role in finding new evidence, and denying prisoners access to the media is denying them access to the courts.

“I would be interested to know your legal rationale in regards denying access to prisoners their fundamental basic human rights to access to the media.”