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began last week, though, younger viewers might have only vaguely recognised the name of its
inscrutable central character, Jeremy Bamber, who Fox has the unenviable challenge of
portraying.

‘The name rang a bell, but I didn’t really know why, or what happened until I read the script,’ says
Fox, who at 30 is the youngest of the sprawling acting clan, including father Edward and sister
Emilia. ‘I’m dyslexic so I read quite painstakingly slowly, but it was so engaging I just stayed up all
night. The story itself is slightly stranger than fiction.’

It really is, and deserves a primer for the uninitiated. On 6 August 1985, Nevill and June Bamber
were shot and killed at their farmhouse in Tolleshunt D’Arcy, Essex, along with their 28-year-old
adoptive daughter, Sheila Caffell, and her six-year-old twin sons, Daniel and Nicholas.

Two faces of a crazed killer CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES
That night the police were alerted by Nevill and June’s 24-year-old adoptive son, Jeremy Bamber
(he was no blood relation to Sheila). He lived a few miles away and rang the local station to let
them know he’d received a panicked phone call from his father, saying Sheila – a part-time model
who had recently been diagnosed with schizophrenia – had ‘gone berserk’ in the house with one of
his shooting rifles.

In the small hours, Bamber met the police near the farm and waited with them until armed
support arrived. When officers eventually entered the house, they found five bodies. What had
happened seemed, initially at least, tragically obvious: given the call Nevill had made to his son,
coupled with the fact the rifle was found lying on Sheila, it was reasonably assumed she must have
killed her parents and children before turning the gun on herself.

But a few weeks later came an extraordinary development. Bamber’s ex-girlfriend, Julie Mugford,
told the police that he had implicated himself in the killings. Crucial evidence soon supported her
claim, and a potential motive was identified in the £436,000 (worth £1,267,012 today) family
fortune and land he’d stand to inherit. Bamber’s insouciance looked suspicious, too. And in
October 1986, a jury found him guilty of slaying his own family.

He received five life sentences, upgraded in 1994 to a whole life sentence – meaning he would
never be released. Today, after two lost appeals and 33 years, Bamber is still in Wakefield prison,
still maintains his innocence, and still captures the public imagination.