Suspicious Timing...

I later heard from his campaign team that Bamber had not received the letter because HMP Wakefield had banned him from receiving mail and email from journalists.

However, the campaign team said he was not allowed to email a response saying how much he liked the tree because he had also been banned from sending letters and emails to journalists. The campaign group says he is now banned from all forms of correspondence with the media.

Bamber has been writing to journalists since he was jailed in 1985. This is how we have learned about many of the inconsistencies, errors and failings in the initial investigation that make many of us believe his conviction is unsafe at the very least. It’s also how we’ve learned about crucial evidence that has been destroyed in the intervening years. So why would HMP Wakefield stop him now?

Because they can - the Labour Party troubles are good cover after all. 

It’s hard to believe that it is unconnected to the coverage his case has received over the past couple of years.

Yes, it is.  

This month the Sun ran an interview with Michael O’Brien, one of three men wrongly convicted of the 1987 killing of Cardiff newsagent Phillip Saunders, who spent time in jail with Bamber and is convinced he is innocent. O’Brien became a seminal figure in ensuring that prisoners who claimed they were wrongfully convicted had access to the media to make their case. A number of high-profile convictions have been overturned at the court of appeal in recent years. In 2023, Andrew Malkinson was cleared after spending 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit. In 2025, Peter Sullivan had his murder conviction quashed after spending 38 years in prison, which is believed to be the UK’s longest wrongful imprisonment. Not surprisingly, these wrongful convictions have led journalists to focus on other potential miscarriages of justice.

When you’re digging for gold and find some, naturally you keep digging! 

The most high profile of these cases are Bamber and Lucy Letby, who was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others. If either of these convictions were to be overturned, it would cast a huge shadow over whether the British justice system is fit for purpose.

There already is a huge shadow over it. It was cast by Michael O’Brien.  

Without giving the Guardian a specific explanation for the decision in Bamber’s case, the Prison Service said it does not issue blanket bans and cited “the need to protect victims from serious distress and maintain confidence in the justice system” as the basis for restrictions on communication. But the Simms and O’Brien ruling states that limitations on communications that are considered “necessary” and “proportionate” to protect the rights of others, including victims, must be justified individually. In Bamber’s case we have seen no such justification.

And you will not see any. Because there isn’t one they could admit to.