Killer Bamber offers £1m reward

Jeremy Bamber has always proclaimed his innocence

Convicted murderer Jeremy Bamber has offered a £1m reward to anyone with fresh evidence that proves his innocence.

In a letter posted on his personal website, Bamber, 41, said he could "guarantee" the payout for any new information which could secure his release from prison.

His offer comes nine days after three senior judges rejected his appeal against his 1986 convictions.

Bamber was jailed for life for killing five members of his family in Essex.

Nevill Bamber had struggled with his attacker

The reward letter was written from his prison in Cambridgeshire and the sum would be negotiated in writing through his solicitors, the message said.

It would be paid to "any witness, police, ex-police or member of the public whose evidence adds the vital proof to anything you see on my website", Bamber promised.

One of his claims on the website is that police "contaminated" the crime scene.

He has protested his innocence after being convicted at Chelmsford Crown Court of the murders of his parents, sister and her twin six-year-old sons.

He shot dead his parents Nevill and June, both 61, six-year-old twin nephews Nicholas and Daniel, and sister Sheila Caffell at White House Farm in Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex, in the early hours of August 7, 1985.

Blood

At his appeal, Bamber blamed his schizophrenic sister and tried to cast doubt on scientific evidence.

Bamber's lawyers claimed new DNA evidence proved that blood on a silencer found in a cupboard did not belong to Sheila.

They said she could have killed her parents and then removed it before shooting herself.

Detectives initially suspected that Sheila, who had not been taking her medication for schizophrenia, had murdered her parents and sons before turning the gun on herself.

But three days after the shootings, a cousin of Bamber's discovered the silencer apparently with Sheila's blood on it.

Four weeks later, Bamber's girlfriend Julie Mugford told police he had often boasted to her he was going to kill his parents.

Bamber would have inherited almost £500,000 from his parents' estate.