Did the Right Man Hang

[OneRound]

Doh! I am so sorry. I think, in my head, OneRound registered as OneBullet which became OneShot. As I say, Doh!

Meanwhile, the short answer to your question about the lack of an appeal is I just don’t know, over and above the fact that the highly-respected and knowledgable Kevin Winters felt it was strange. I could rattle off a theory or two but none with the support of any evidence.

Thanks, Gordy.

Never a problem with the name.

Take care,

OneRound

[etenguy]

Hello Etenguy and thanks for your interest. Hopefully. I have PM’d you. As I’ve already mentioned, my tech skills are not the best.
g

Thanks Gordy. You nailed it.

[GordyAdair23]

Doh! I am so sorry. I think, in my head, OneRound registered as OneBullet which became OneShot. As I say, Doh!

Meanwhile, the short answer to your question about the lack of an appeal is I just don’t know, over and above the fact that the highly-respected and knowledgable Kevin Winters felt it was strange. I could rattle off a theory or two but none with the support of any evidence.

[OneRound]

Hi Gordy - I'm sorry your health isn't good but pleased and not surprised that you retain your positive outlook.

One question on the case. As mentioned on this thread previously, do you know or have any thoughts as to why an appeal against conviction wasn't made?

Btw, the name's not Oneshot (although you calling me that made me smile) but OneRound - a kind of tribute to Danny Green's majestic performance as the character of that name in the wonderful film The Ladykillers and a bit of a dig at the Court of Appeal in their judgement of the Hanratty case in which they claimed to see everything ''in the round '' and imo did anything but. Now, how about a series on the A6 murder? That would get you broadcasting into the day and night!

Very best wishes,
OneRound

[GordyAdair23]

Hello Etenguy and thanks for your interest. Hopefully. I have PM’d you. As I’ve already mentioned, my tech skills are not the best.
g

[etenguy]

Hello. Can I firstly thank you all for your interest in the series and for your comments which I have found to be interesting and generally fair.

Many of the points and concerns that you raise are very familiar to me, having exercised my mind for many months while we were putting this series together.
Perhaps interest has faded, but if you would like to raise any questions with me, I will do my best to answer them. There are still facts and information that I am not in a position to put on the record here any more than I was in the series itself but I will try my best and go as far as I reasonably can.

Perhaps I can clear up one issue more or less straight away; the glove supposedly stuffed into the neck wound.
The reason this did not feature was simply because we do not believe it ever happened.
It seems to have been a mistake in an early newspaper report which then resurfaces several times. I know from my own time in newspapers that, once an error like that gets a foothold, it can be very hard to get rid of.
Hopefully (technical ability permitting) I have attached the relevant pages from the transcript of the trial, a document which I had opened under freedom of information legislation.
Best Regards
Gordy

Hi Gordy

Can I thank you for an interesting series which kept us intrigued, as you can tell from this thread. Thank you, also, for explaining about the glove in the neck wound.

Also appreciate your kind offer to discuss the case here with us.

I did wonder, in light of the information you have but are not able to make public just now, whether you think it likely a further episode might be made which includes some of that detail or whether the reasons you cannot put the information on record are likely to last for some years?

[GordyAdair23]

Hello Oneshot and Herlock. My health, I’m afraid, does continue to deteriorate. It’s possible the gene therapy slowed that deterioration a bit, but it was unable to halt it. It remains what Michael J Fox rather neatly describes as The Gift That Keeps On Taking.
That said; I’m still working, I’m still able to do many things, and still enjoying a quality of life many people would be glad to have.
G

[Herlock Sholmes]

I’ll certainly second OneRound’s question. Hope you’re well Gordy?

[OneRound]

Gordy - thanks for your characteristically courteous post and offer to answer questions.

First things first (and I trust you won't mind me asking as your health was more than once referred to during the broadcasts), how are you doing, sir?

Best wishes,
OneRound

[GordyAdair23]

https://postimg.cc/gallery/vnbMpfY

Hello. Can I firstly thank you all for your interest in the series and for your comments which I have found to be interesting and generally fair.
Many of the points and concerns that you raise are very familiar to me, having exercised my mind for many months while we were putting this series together.
Perhaps interest has faded, but if you would like to raise any questions with me, I will do my best to answer them. There are still facts and information that I am not in a position to put on the record here any more than I was in the series itself but I will try my best and go as far as I reasonably can.
Perhaps I can clear up one issue more or less straight away; the glove supposedly stuffed into the neck wound.
The reason this did not feature was simply because we do not believe it ever happened.
It seems to have been a mistake in an early newspaper report which then resurfaces several times. I know from my own time in newspapers that, once an error like that gets a foothold, it can be very hard to get rid of.
Hopefully (technical ability permitting) I have attached the relevant pages from the transcript of the trial, a document which I had opened under freedom of information legislation.
Best Regards
Gordy

[moste]

Also really good .Check out Mark John Maguire on YouTube , excellent narrator and covers famous cases and not so famous .I’m watching/listening to the ‘William Herbert Wallace’ case next

[etenguy]

Hi Eten,

Good points.

We might also ask why would Minnie, if she had been inclined to suicide, have done it at the side of a road? A more likely suggestion perhaps (and I really do mean perhaps) is this, and it includes an abortion which accounts for the rumour. Maybe Courtenay’s well connected family made arrangements for Minnie to have an abortion and tried to pay her off so that she kept her mouth shut? Then either she found that she couldn’t go through with it and arranged to meet Harold or she’d arranged to meet Harold so that he could take her for the abortion? Either of these scenario’s and the upshot was Harold meeting up with a distraught and hysterical Minnie. Perhaps she’d even brought a knife to make a desperate suicide gesture? She threatens to tell everyone about Harold trying to force her into an abortion and Harold panics or loses his temper or both and cuts her throat? He then panics at what he’s done and uses the glove to try and stem the flow of blood which doesn’t work. She dies and Harold just throws away the knife and goes.

This would at least provide a root for the ‘died during an abortion’ story and the supposed influence of powerful people?

Maybe.

That sounds very plausible to me, Herlock.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock

I found that part of your post quoted above of particular interest. This point is easily overlooked as it was not explored in the programme. It leads to some questions.

Abortion theory
If poor Minnie was killed by chloroform during an abortion attempt (which at 8 months pregnant is unlikely), why would the doctor/nurse/Harold cut her throat before transporting her body? I can think of no good reason to do this - surely if you were going to try and stage a suicide attempt (or stage an attack and murder), you would cut her throat where the body was found. I, therefore, think it unlikely that the glove was pushed into the throat wound in what would have been a vain attempt to keep the car free from blood. So why was the glove there?

(Staged) Suicide
I find the idea this was suicide or a staged suicide hard to believe too, with the knife found some 14 feet away. But again, the glove against the throat does not suggest suicide - who would cut their own throat and then try and stem their own blood.

Murder
The glove in the wound suggests to me that murder was committed where the body was found. I think the most likely scenario is that Minnie vainly tried to stem blood loss after her throat was cut.

Hi Eten,

Good points.

We might also ask why would Minnie, if she had been inclined to suicide, have done it at the side of a road? A more likely suggestion perhaps (and I really do mean perhaps) is this, and it includes an abortion which accounts for the rumour. Maybe Courtenay’s well connected family made arrangements for Minnie to have an abortion and tried to pay her off so that she kept her mouth shut? Then either she found that she couldn’t go through with it and arranged to meet Harold or she’d arranged to meet Harold so that he could take her for the abortion? Either of these scenario’s and the upshot was Harold meeting up with a distraught and hysterical Minnie. Perhaps she’d even brought a knife to make a desperate suicide gesture? She threatens to tell everyone about Harold trying to force her into an abortion and Harold panics or loses his temper or both and cuts her throat? He then panics at what he’s done and uses the glove to try and stem the flow of blood which doesn’t work. She dies and Harold just throws away the knife and goes.

This would at least provide a root for the ‘died during an abortion’ story and the supposed influence of powerful people?

Maybe.

[etenguy]

One point that caught my attention from the start but was never discussed was the fact that a glove had been pushed into Minnie’s throat wound. Was someone trying to stem the flow of blood? Was someone trying to make sure that there was no blood in his car?

Hi Herlock

I found that part of your post quoted above of particular interest. This point is easily overlooked as it was not explored in the programme. It leads to some questions.

Abortion theory
If poor Minnie was killed by chloroform during an abortion attempt (which at 8 months pregnant is unlikely), why would the doctor/nurse/Harold cut her throat before transporting her body? I can think of no good reason to do this - surely if you were going to try and stage a suicide attempt (or stage an attack and murder), you would cut her throat where the body was found. I, therefore, think it unlikely that the glove was pushed into the throat wound in what would have been a vain attempt to keep the car free from blood. So why was the glove there?

(Staged) Suicide
I find the idea this was suicide or a staged suicide hard to believe too, with the knife found some 14 feet away. But again, the glove against the throat does not suggest suicide - who would cut their own throat and then try and stem their own blood.

Murder
The glove in the wound suggests to me that murder was committed where the body was found. I think the most likely scenario is that Minnie vainly tried to stem blood loss after her throat was cut.

[Herlock Sholmes]

As most posters will know there can’t be many less conspiracy orientated posters than me. I groan when I hear the word but obviously conspiracies do occur and people do cover things up. Like Gordon, and I’m guessing most on here, I struggle most with the notion of someone being hanged in HC’s place.

I believe that his height was taken by Pierrepoint at 5’7” but they found him on a ship’s manifest listed at 6.’ Surely he’d have been measured though when he was admitted to prison but I can’t recall if this was mentioned or not? I doubt if it was mentioned on the show because it would have been so important. 5’7” on entry would have meant the wrong man admitted to prison!

Oral history and rumour are often interesting and sometime can contain an element of truth and this maybe the case here? Maybe it wasn’t a straight forward murder and bits of the story leaked out and down the years.....you know how it goes. The first part of the story (the botched abortion) is more feasible. For example, the interview with the old lady Betty. On the face of it she seemed perfectly with it mentally and appeared to be genuinely relating what she knew (doesn’t mean that she couldn’t have been mistaken of course) She said that one of the children that found the body was her friend Olive who’d been hiding in the bushes. She said that Olive saw a car pull up, driven by a red-faced man with a reclining woman. Betty felt that her friend had seen someone dump the body but no more was said. It’s not impossible but it’s impossible to prove.

One point that caught my attention from the start but was never discussed was the fact that a glove had been pushed into Minnie’s throat wound. Was someone trying to stem the flow of blood? Was someone trying to make sure that there was no blood in his car?

It was also surprising that, given the nature of this murder, the Jury recommended clemency...which the Judge rejected of course.

For me it’s one of those cases where you have to say that there’s not enough strong evidence to convince but there are reasons for not being convinced. What I would say though is that I think it at least possible that there might have been more to this case than has surfaced. Sadly it’s unlikely ever to surface. An interesting story though and a well put together documentary.