Murderer Bamber refused legal challenge over maximum security status

Murderer Jeremy Bamber has lost a bid to bring a legal challenge over a refusal by the Prison Service to downgrade him from maximum security.

The 59-year-old is serving life after being found guilty of murdering his adoptive parents, Nevill and June, both 61, his sister, Sheila Caffell, 26, and her six-year-old twins, Daniel and Nicholas, at White House Farm, near Tolleshunt D'Arcy in Essex, in August 1985.

He has always protested his innocence and claims that Ms Caffell, who suffered from schizophrenia, shot her family before turning the gun on herself.

Bamber sought permission for a High Court challenge over a decision taken in March by the director of the long-term and high security estate - part of the Prison and Probation Service - not to downgrade him from a Category A inmate.

Category A prisoners are considered the most dangerous to the public and held in maximum security conditions.

At a remote hearing in October, lawyers for Bamber asked Mr Justice Julian Knowles to give the go-ahead for a full hearing of Bamber's claim, arguing that the decision was "unreasonable".

But in a ruling on Friday, the senior judge refused Bamber permission to bring the challenge.

In his judgment, Mr Justice Julian Knowles said: "I have concluded that permission must be refused on the basis that neither of the grounds of challenge advanced on behalf of the claimant is arguable."

In written documents before the court, Bamber's barrister, Matthew Stanbury,had argued that an independent psychologist's report, commissioned by Bamber's solicitors, had concluded he had met the test for downgrading a Category A prisoner and that these conditions were "no longer necessary" for managing him.