A6 Rebooted

[Graham]

Good point, Nick. The police may or may not have seen anything suspicious in the acknowledge fact that Ewer and Mrs Anderson knew each other - why shouldn't they, they were in the same business, after all? Ewer appeared to run - at least on the surface - a legit business dealing in antiques and buying at auctions on behalf of third parties. I'm sure the 'umbrella repair' side of his business was a very minor side to his operation. Anderson, on the other hand, was known as a receiver of stolen goods. One of the ongoing beliefs, rightly or wrongly, that has existed since almost the beginning of the A6 debate, is that the police did a 'deal' with Anderson - they wouldn't shop her for receiving so long as she gave them information regarding Hanratty.
She certainly wasn't charged.

It seems to me that although she knew, and did 'business' with, Hanratty, she was frightened of him and thought him slightly odd, especially when he proposed marriage to her (she was over twice his age). In light of this, she introduced him to a 'suitable' girl (Mary Meaden) in the hope that he would transfer his love interest. After he committed the A6 murder Hanratty disappeared for a couple of days, and it wouldn't surprise me if he holed up with Anderson. She was plainly ill-at-ease at the trial, where she admitted to Charlotte France that she was aware that Hanratty possessed a gun and even knew where he kept it. So far as I'm aware Anderson never revealed this information to the police, but Charlotte France did, yet no further action was taken and her statement wasn't passed to the defence or used by the prosecution. Odd. (Someone I am sure will correct me if I'm wrong about this).

Somehow it is assumed by certain parties that because Ewer and Anderson knew each other, and Anderson knew Hanratty, then Ewer also had to know Hanratty. He quite plainly did not. As I posted previously, if Ewer knew all along who Hanratty was, and was part of a conspiracy to frame him, then why did he traipse around London trying to find out who the 'smartly dressed young man' was when he knew already?

Graham

[NickB]

Update to my previous post about the court transcript ...

It was not Ewer who had approached Anderson, but a defence solicitor.

https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=oNxAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=A6cMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3439%2C3159502

[NickB]

After he committed the A6 murder Hanratty disappeared for a couple of days, and it wouldn't surprise me if he holed up with Anderson.

I believe in her News Of The World interview she said he confessed to her a few days after the murder. This suggests it was not between dumping the car and the gun, but after coming back from sending the telegram. The France family said they did not see him until the Saturday, leaving Friday unaccounted for.

Patt's evidence sounds like the man who came on the bus at 6.10am had been sleeping rough.

[Graham]

Could be, Nick. I also recall that according to France Hanratty had said something to him along the lines that he 'had done something bad, something that scares'. I don't have my books with me just now, so can't locate this in context. But Hanratty must have been somewhere between dumping the car and arriving in Liverpool - maybe he just booked into a doss-house somewhere. We'll never know. But it certainly seems that he did indeed confess to the crime.

Graham

[Alfie]

Alphon at the Vienna Hotel

Afternoon all -

Alphon got dragged into the case (and firmly locked into the imaginations of the conspiracy theorists) because of his Aug 22-23 stay at the Vienna, which became a focus of police investigations after Oct 11 when the cartridge cases were found in Room 24.

Statements by the crucial witnesses changed over time - probably as a result of Acott leaning on them (they all seemed to have been vulnerable in some way to police pressure) - as the cops focused ...

... first on Ryan (as the occupant of Room 24)

... then on Alphon (because Ryan was at that time untraceable? Because Alphon was a rough match for the Identikit? Because as a loner/oddball/drifter Alphon fitted the cops' idea of a maniac murderer? Any other reasons?)

... then finally on Ryan once more when the identity parades ruled Alphon out.

To my mind, then, what was said during the pre-police contamination interviews is crucial. In particular:

Alphon's interview with Sgt Kilner at Blackstock Road on Aug 27.

The information passed to police by the "hotel manager" that same day.

And Mrs Galves statement to Harrow Road police on Sept 6.

Anybody have them in full or know where I could find them?

Of lesser import, but still significant in terms of establishing Alphon's movements, are Galves statement of Sept 13 and the first statements by Nudds and Snell on Sept 15.

Annoyingly, Foot and Woffinden only give what they consider to be the highlights of these important statements. Does anybody have the full versions?

A curious anomaly to me is Galves and Nudds both saying that Durrant/Alphon phoned the Vienna on the morning of Aug 22 to book a room. Yet Alphon in his statement to police on Aug 27 says he was in Southend that morning, went to the Broadway House in the evening, and only went on to the Vienna because that hotel was full.

Were Galves and Nudds mixing him up with another phone booking (Mr Bell, perhaps?). I'd be grateful if somebody could explain that discrepancy.

Cheers

Alfie

[NickB]

When Alphon said (27-Aug) that he was transferred from the Broadway House Hotel, I doubt he had found out about the transfer arrangement and deliberately fed it as a lie. So I think Galves was wrong in her first statement (6-Sep) to say Alphon phoned at about 11.30am to make a direct booking. This was the infamous ‘composite’ statement, and Galves clarified subsequently that “Mrs Glickberg told me” about the call. My conclusion is that Snell was confused and that another guest had phoned at 11.30am.

Regarding Galves 13-Sep statement saying “Room 24 was not occupied from 16 August till today”, Mansfield said: “it is legitimate to infer that the hotel register had been altered to conceal the entry in relation to Ryan”

Woffinden says Galves 20-Sep statement “directly confirmed the veracity” of Nudds second statement. This is untrue. First, it was given the day before. Second, it says “at about 10pm, just before I went to bed, I told the Glickbergs that their guest, who was expected to arrive late, could occupy Room 6” - so Alphon had not yet arrived at 10pm.

However the 20-Sep statement posed a lot of questions arising out of Galves acceptance that Alphon had phoned in the morning, so it can be seen as the precursor to Nudds Second Statement. But on the crucial matter of Alphon’s arrival it differed.

After Storie had not picked out Alphon, “Acott re-interviewed Juliana Galves, who seemed to have nothing of substance to add to her earlier statements.” If her 20-Sep statement had agreed with Nudds second, she would have had to change it. By standing by her contention that Alphon had not yet arrived at 10pm, Acott could now re-interview Nudds and Snell and get them to come into line.

[Graham]

The impression I always had of Acott vis-a-vis The Vienna Hotel was that he thought Nudds, Snell and Mrs Galvez could be manipulated and shaped like lumps of putty until they had effectively supported his suspicion (and that's all it was) that he had nabbed the A6 killer. The police were under intense pressure at the time to clear up the A6 Case, and quickly.

Alphon himself said that the interrogation he underwent at the hands of Acott and Oxford was intense and frightening, but he seemed to have been made of sterner stuff than is often realised by some posters to this thread.

I do recall reading somewhere that Mrs Galvez was actually in this country illegally, and if this is the case then it's a fair chance that she was heavily leaned upon.

Graham

[NickB]

Graham,

Presumably it was due to police manipulation that Galves, in her 13-Sep statement, said Rapur was in room 24 “for about five minutes before being transferred”.

The reason she gave was that Heppenstall left soon after Rapur arrived, thereby allowing Rapur to move into the single room 25 immediately instead of moving there after one night as previously intended. But why would Heppenstall leave before staying for the one night he had booked?

At the committal Galves went back on her 13-Sep statement and said that Rapur had stayed in room 24 for the whole night.

---

Something I have just noticed about Nudds second statement ...

He says that upon Alphon’s arrival:

"He was given the key to his room and was shown to the room by my wife.”

But if Snell had shown Alphon to his room, Nudds wouldn’t have been there to see him put his suitcase on the armchair where the cartridge cases were found.

So later he changes it to:

“I and my wife took him to room No. 24 and gave him the key to that room.”

[Alfie]

Valerie's description of the gunman's eyes

Continuing to plough through Woffinden ...

Forget it, the query I had was answered a couple of pages later by Woffinden.

[Alfie]

Sunday Times article

Anybody know whether a published story resulted from the Sunday Times acquiring the first statement of Valerie Storie, made on the morning of the crime to DS Rees and WDC Woodin?

Woffinden mentions that the paper acquired the statement, I think in April 1974, during the course of Ewer's libel action but there's no footnote to say where the excerpts that he quotes came from.

[Alfie]

Alphon's movements on the Sat, Sun, Mon before the murder

Woffinden has me scratching my head - again.

On page 423 he says: "In the statement to Kilner, Alphon said: ‘I have been asked by police to give details of my movements since Monday, 21 August ... I spent the weekend at Southend but did not stay at an address as I slept under the pier ... on Monday, I left Southend at about 5 pm ...’"

Woffinden then accuses Alphon of lying, because, according to the testimony of a pawnbroker, Victor Reader, "On Mon lunchtime, Alphon was at a pawnbroker’s in Shepherd’s Bush."

I've learnt not to trust Mr Woffinden's ...'s, so I did some checking.

Much earlier in his book, on pp. 46-7, Woffinden says this: "When asked [by Kilner] to account for his movements during the previous week, Alphon said that he had spent the weekend of the 19th/20th at Southend, and slept under the pier. On the Monday, he had come into London to go to the dog-track, but had then returned to Southend and slept under the pier again."

So, by one account he left Southend about 5pm on Monday, by another he slept the night there under the pier?

As the first account is Alphon's and in quote marks, I'm inclined to think that Woffinden has again played fast and loose with the omitted words and has distorted Alphon's meaning in so doing.

Does anybody have a transcript of Alphon's interview by Kilner?

In any case, it seems entirely feasible that Alphon might have visited a Shepherd Bush pawnbroker that Monday, and it also seems clear that Woffinden accusing him of lying is itself, er ... a lie?

[NickB]

And then there is Margaret Walker.

On page 281 Woffinden says: “Her original statement, which was sent to Scotland Yard, has never been released.” But then on page 363 he says: “The Nimmo file included Margaret Walker’s original statement, made on 8 February 1962” and quotes from it.

Regarding her 19-Feb-62 statement to Gillbanks he quotes her saying Hanratty was very much like the young man who visited her, but then adds “She was in fact, naturally circumspect.” How circumspect was revealed by Roy Jenkins in a 1967 written answer saying she “made a statement in which she declined to give a definite identification.”

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1967/nov/01/hanratty-public-inquiry#S5CV0753P0_19671101_CWA_3

[moste]

Does anybody have a transcript of Alphon's interview by Kilner?


Woffinden does I believe!

[Graham]

Here's another of Woffinden's examples of playing games with the truth, as highlighted by Leonard Miller:

The interviewing (interrogation?) of Alphon by Acott was featured in Woffinden's book, which is fair enough. But our Bob wasn't really all that up front. When Acott asked Alphon if he had any clothes stored away in various places [ref: possible blood stains], Alphon according to Woffinden replied:

Yes, but they are in hotels and pawnbrokers and I'm not telling you where they are.

Acott: I shall have every pawnbroker visited and I shall probably find them. Have you got any bags or cases?

Alphon: No

In fact, the transcript of that interview reads:

Alphon: Yes, but they're in hotels and pawnbrokers and I'm not telling you where they are.

Acott: I shall have every pawnbroker visited and I shall probably find them.

Alphon: All right, I've a pair of trousers in Thompson's on the Uxbridge Road.

Acott: Have you got any bags or cases?

Alphon: No

This is quite plainly intended to show that Alphon appears, per Miller, to be 'suspiciously devious and unco-operative, when in fact he was being quite open and helpful'. Alphon told the Daily Express that his 'interrogation' lasted about seven hours and included the old 'good cop/bad cop' routine. He said that by the time it ended he felt utterly exhausted and defeated. Acott, on the other hand, said that it had been a 'mild interview' and much shorter than Alphon claimed. Given that by now Acott had the press and the Judiciary breathing down his neck, who would you believe?

Woffinden was, and is, perfectly free to believe that the A6 killer was indeed Peter Alphon, and to promote that belief, but it does seem that he was prepared to bend things just a bit to prove his belief.

It's a strange thing, but my copy of Woffinden is much more worn and 'thumbed' than my copy of Foot's book - mainly because the index in Woffinden's book is so much better than in Foot's!

Graham

[cobalt]

'A pair of trousers in Thompson on the Uxbridge Road' is hardly the same as being 'open and helpful.' Why were they there, when, and for what purpose? Was this regular behaviour by Alphon? I thought his mother did his laundry.

Underwear? Socks? Shoes? Jacket? Shirt? Handkerchief?

It seems to me that Alphon was throwing Acott a crust.

Why was a man subsidized by his family, a man who often stayed in hotels, sleeping under a pier? Why not go home and stay with his folks?