Bible John: A New Suspect by Jill Bavin-Mizzi

[New Waterloo]

I have an understanding about ID parades but not from 1969. Please forgive me if most of you know this but they can be a bit hard to get your head round. ID parades are about positioning a suspect (somebody you have some suspicion about not merely a person who fits the description of an offender) into a group of ‘stooges’ who are paid a small amount of money and look similar to the suspect you have in custody. A positive ID adds weight to the evidence you already have obtained about your suspect.

Official parades are officiated by officers or staff who have not been involved in the investigation. This is to avoid suggestions that witnesses were led to pick a particular person or given information about the suspect in other words to avoid bias and corruption. Or accidental disclosures to witnesses.

it is not a case of lining up people who fit the description to see who is picked out. The idea is to see if the police suspect can be picked out of the line up.

casual ID procedures are just fishing trips, wandering around trying to find the offender. The danger is that if you show a photo of a person to a witness as a single photo and the witness says yes thats him my understanding is you lose the chance of a formal ID later. Why? Because you have shown a photo and this could influence the result in a subsequent official line up.

Beattie was very close to Jeannie and should really stay away from any official ID procedure I would think.

I will try and dig something ip about ID procedures in 1969. I may have just said a load of rubbish but I think its about right.

NW

[cobalt]

HS said:

Stonehouse to Wishaw is 17 miles. Stonehouse to Hamilton is just 7 miles.

The distance from Stonehouse to either Hamilton or Wishaw is about the same, around 8 miles. But his point about the three Moylans employees all living within 10 miles of each other is very likely correct. (Ten players from the Celtic football team which won the European Cup in 1967 were born within 11 miles of Glasgow.)

Beattie was very close to Jeannie and should really stay away from any official ID procedure I would think.

That's standard procedure these days and probably was back in 1969 as well. In my experience as a 'stooge' in an ID parade around the time of the BJ murders the parade was managed by an experienced station sergeant. No detectives involved in the burglary were seen by any of us. We had to give our names and addresses which were written down in the record, and sign that we had received payment.

Maybe Herlock has identified a problem of holding two ID parades around the same time. You obviously cannot show the witness the same 'stooges' as you did for the first parade since it would be obvious who the suspect actually was second time round. That might explain why Smith was not formally paraded- they didn't have enough suitable stooges.

Despite all the procedural requirements, I find it hard to believe that an experienced detective like Beattie would not have taken the opportunity to grill a suspect inside Partick Marine once he had been identified. His absence seems very odd.

[New Waterloo]

Hi Cobalt yes agreed. I see what you are saying and even not being picked out doesn't override other evidence you may have. Professional curiosity would kick in and Beatty would be very interested in this man. He would probably speak to Jeannie afterwards and her negative result (but almost there) wouldn't close the case against him.

It would probably be that new ID parades with fresh stooges could be held with other witnesses, and there were several. Barrowland staff, clippie on bus, taxi driver. I suppose it could weaken any future court case but this was a murder. Its still a mystery why there seemed a lack of well common sense.

NW

[New Waterloo]

Just been looking at the Bank of England calculator (what money was worth then and now comparison)

Inflation calculator | Bank of England

I have been thinking. For 1969 £10 seems quite a lot for George Puttock to hand over to Jeannie for the taxi. According to them it would work out as £146 which doesn't seem right to me. None the less considering a pint of beer was about 30p I suppose £10 was a lot

Not really sure what that means. There would certainly be enough to buy some alcohol somewhere (more than that stated by Jeannie)

Can anybody give us an idea of costs of say pack of cigs, beer, rent money etc to get an idea please

NW

[barnflatwyngarde]

Just been looking at the Bank of England calculator (what money was worth then and now comparison)

Inflation calculator | Bank of England

I have been thinking. For 1969 £10 seems quite a lot for George Puttock to hand over to Jeannie for the taxi. According to them it would work out as £146 which doesn't seem right to me. None the less considering a pint of beer was about 30p I suppose £10 was a lot

Not really sure what that means. There would certainly be enough to buy some alcohol somewhere (more than that stated by Jeannie)

Can anybody give us an idea of costs of say pack of cigs, beer, rent money etc to get an idea please

NW

Hi NW, I had it in my head that the money that George gave to Jeannie that night wasn't £10, but 10 shillings.

Samson and Crow's book confirms that it was 10 shillings.

[New Waterloo]

That makes sense. Thanks Barnflat

[barnflatwyngarde]

HS said:

The distance from Stonehouse to either Hamilton or Wishaw is about the same, around 8 miles. But his point about the three Moylans employees all living within 10 miles of each other is very likely correct. (Ten players from the Celtic football team which won the European Cup in 1967 were born within 11 miles of Glasgow.)



That's standard procedure these days and probably was back in 1969 as well. In my experience as a 'stooge' in an ID parade around the time of the BJ murders the parade was managed by an experienced station sergeant. No detectives involved in the burglary were seen by any of us. We had to give our names and addresses which were written down in the record, and sign that we had received payment.

Maybe Herlock has identified a problem of holding two ID parades around the same time. You obviously cannot show the witness the same 'stooges' as you did for the first parade since it would be obvious who the suspect actually was second time round. That might explain why Smith was not formally paraded- they didn't have enough suitable stooges.

Despite all the procedural requirements, I find it hard to believe that an experienced detective like Beattie would not have taken the opportunity to grill a suspect inside Partick Marine once he had been identified. His absence seems very odd.

Hi Cobalt,
I agree with your comments on ID parades.
There was a pub in my area that was only about 50 yards from the police station.

It was common for police to come into the pub and ask for some volunteers to stand in an ID parade.
There was no attempt to look specifically for people of a certain size, hair colour, build etc.

I too appeared in an ID parade, and was done in front of a sergeant and a constable or two.
No high ranking officers were present.
But yes you are right in thinking that surely Joe Beattie would want to there to see a prime suspect in an ID parade.

[cobalt]

Samson and Crow's book confirms that it was 10 shillings.

Absolutely. To break a fiver back then was a big deal. I never saw an actual £10 note until several years later. When the UK miners won a pay rise in 1974 they saw their first £10 notes and called them 'Arthur Scargills.'

The cigarette machine incident at the Barrowland is linked to the taxi fare home for Jeannie and Helen. A 20 packet back then cost around 10/- and since they would have known the taxi fare to be around £1 presumably they did not have enough money for fags as well. In stepped Bible John with his offer to pay for the taxi home and off went Jeannie to the machine. So BJ earned their gratitude on two fronts as a result, which no doubt pleased the women at the time. Given later comments made by Jeannie I think the two women viewed BJ as a bit of a soft touch and maybe BJ was cunning enough to play along with this.

[barnflatwyngarde]

On page 117 of Crow and Samson's book " Bible John: Hunt for a Killer", the authors discuss John Irvine McInnes's wife Helen (Ella).

Helen remarried and took the surname of her new husband Rolfe Thornqvist.

According to Crow and Samson, Rolfe Thornqvist was replying to reporters about his wife's marriage to McInnes when he said:

"It is all history and no-one would involve her anyway. This is all in the past.
They interviewed her at the time.
If there had been any thought she knew anything, they would have inquired into it.
Obviously the police knew she had nothing to do with it".
(my emphasis)

If this report is accurate, it adds another strand to the belief that police, for whatever reason(s) had John Irvine McInnes firmly in their sights to such a degree that they felt the need to interview his wife.