a6 murder

[reg1965]

Hi James et al,

I think the real problem for Paul Foot is that his surprising notion isn't all that surprising...


All that's needed to buy an alibi is some details of what happened - for example, the "Tarleton Road" or "green bath" detail - then let the witnesses fill in the rest for themselves. You might remember something that happened but can you acurrately recall someone you met briefly 6 months before. All you remember is the general details such as someone came in and asked about Tarleton Road - it was a man - yeah, he looked something like Hanratty...

Also, how much more money do you want wasted on this case? I certainly don't consider it money well spent having investigation after inquest after review - as with Princess Di - when the DNA evidence is so conclusive.

KR,
Vic.

It all sounds very convincing doesn't it..a bought alibi and bobs your uncle freedom here we come. Didn't quite work out like that did it though!
If JH had bought an alibi for Liverpool and then Rhyl WHY DIDN'T HE USE IT AT THE TRIAL FROM THE OUTSET!!!!!!!!

A very confused Reg!

[reg1965]

Hi All
The fact that degradation and contamination is possible, which the court of appeal admitted (paragraph 124). Then in paragraphs 125 & 126 why were they not open to the possibilty that VS and MG's DNA may have survived and any other DNA may have degraded and become contaminated. This is possible. And to further hammer home the point not IMPOSSIBLE! The bus cleaner must have and others may have touched the hanky...so their DNA has obviousy degraded to a point were it wasn't detected (or has been incorporated into the sequence of JH's DNA that was. It seems reasonable to suggest that JH's hanky was appropriated for the bus drop and the dropper wore gloves.)
There is surely the possiblity that every person living has similar strand sequences seeing as we all share a similar DNA pattern as opposed to Chimpanzees who share about 98-99% similar DNA for instance! It was Bonzo who did it after all from behind the picket fence!
Also, how and by whom were the DNA tests carried out. The police in conjuction with the governments own lab thats who? And probably to a agenda. Many geneticists before have warned about the validity of DNA profiling in criminal cases for the purpose of expediency in gaining a conviction.
One of the final points in the ruling warns the CCRC of wasting time with an old case.
Very scientific and in the spriit of justice I don't think!!
Reg

[reg1965]

Oral ID

Hi Limehouse
I agree with most of the things that you post but in posts 1505 and 1507 you present a contradiction, namely:-

#1505
Fair enough Reg, but in all reality, if all the men at the line up had been required to speak, I bet most of them would have had a distinctive London accent.

and then,

#1507 Hi Steve,

How right you are. The RAF were not recruiting many cockneys in those days!

We do not have any evidence one way of the other as to the accents that any of the other Stoke Mandeville parade members may have had.
Alphon on the first parade was not asked to speak and was not picked out.
Beside this, Acott demanded skull caps for each member of the second (JH) parade but the plods in charge didn't follow this order and Acott said to VS, after she picked out JH, said 'Well Done'!!! This ID evidence should have been ruled inadmissable at the trial. I do not know much about Michael Sherrard or Emmanuel Kleinman but between them they seem to have taken their eyes of off the ball on too many occasions.
Reg

[Steve]

It all sounds very convincing doesn't it..a bought alibi and bobs your uncle freedom here we come. Didn't quite work out like that did it though!
If JH had bought an alibi for Liverpool and then Rhyl WHY DIDN'T HE USE IT AT THE TRIAL FROM THE OUTSET!!!!!!!!

A very confused Reg!

Reg

Do you think perhaps that Hanratty was at first trying to build a plausible alibi from previous experiences in Liverpool? Perhaps when that was proving to be a hopeless cause he changed his alibi to Rhyl and again incorporated previous experience into his story?

Kind regards,
Steve

[Limehouse]

Hi Limehouse
I agree with most of the things that you post but in posts 1505 and 1507 you present a contradiction, namely:-

#1505
Fair enough Reg, but in all reality, if all the men at the line up had been required to speak, I bet most of them would have had a distinctive London accent.

and then,

#1507 Hi Steve,

How right you are. The RAF were not recruiting many cockneys in those days!

We do not have any evidence one way of the other as to the accents that any of the other Stoke Mandeville parade members may have had.
Alphon on the first parade was not asked to speak and was not picked out.
Beside this, Acott demanded skull caps for each member of the second (JH) parade but the plods in charge didn't follow this order and Acott said to VS, after she picked out JH, said 'Well Done'!!! This ID evidence should have been ruled inadmissable at the trial. I do not know much about Michael Sherrard or Emmanuel Kleinman but between them they seem to have taken their eyes of off the ball on too many occasions.
Reg

Hi Reg,

Well I admit, it sounds like a contradiction, but in fact I was working on the assumption that the men in the line up were selected from men off the streets of London who fitted the visual description. Had I known they were selected from an RAF base, I would not have assumed they'd probably all have cockneyish accents. Even today, RAF recruits tend to be slightly better educated (and generally slightly more well-spoken) than the man-on-the-street and this was more so back in 1961. I know this from personal experience as I have taught RAF recruits on our local RAF base.

[Victor]

It all sounds very convincing doesn't it..a bought alibi and bobs your uncle freedom here we come. Didn't quite work out like that did it though!
If JH had bought an alibi for Liverpool and then Rhyl WHY DIDN'T HE USE IT AT THE TRIAL FROM THE OUTSET!!!!!!!!

A very confused Reg!

Why...because he was in the process of buying or inventing it from details of previous visits - he's a lying, cheating crook remember. The very fact that his alibi kept changing suggests to me he was making the whole thing up!

As for the DNA "we would have to suppose that the DNA of the rapist, also of blood group O, had either degraded so as to become undetectable or had been masked by James Hanratty's DNA during the course of a contaminating event. Moreover, we would also have to suppose that Valerie Storie's DNA had remained in its original state, or at least detectable, and had escaped being overridden by DNA from James Hanratty. The same would have to be true of the DNA attributed to Michael Gregsten."

That says it all for me - the contamination was so selective that it wiped out the actual rapists DNA and replaced it with Hanratty's, but didn't do the same to MG or VS - theoretically possible yes, but it's also theoretically possible for me to win the lottery twice a week, every week for the rest of my life!

[Limehouse]

I suppose there is one thing those of us who are sceptical about the DNA evidence should consider. The evidence apparently found three matches (depending on whose account you read): Gregsten's, Miss Storie's and apparently Hanratty's. Even if we conclude that Hanratty's DNA got there by contamination - there should still be another person's DNA detectable - the real murderer.

[simon]

Which kind of says it all, doesn't it ?!

[Graham]

Which kind of says it all, doesn't it ?!

So you would think, Simon....but don't hold your breath.

Cheers,

Graham

[Steve]

August 22nd

If anyone is looking in on this thread this evening please spare a thought for Miss Valerie Storie, and remember Michael Gregsten. It was 47 years ago tonight that they both suffered the appalling ordeal that we all deliberate over.

[Graham]

If anyone is looking in on this thread this evening please spare a thought for Miss Valerie Storie, and remember Michael Gregsten. It was 47 years ago tonight that they both suffered the appalling ordeal that we all deliberate over.

Correct, Steve, and well said. And also spare a thought for the two Gregsten sons, whose lives have been sadly blighted.

I'd almost forgotten, to be honest, as today is also the anniversary of the Battle of Bosworth Field, and Richard III is another of my interests.

Cheers,

Graham.

[reg1965]

Under the back seat of some bus!

Hi all
Consider the statement "Under the back seat of a bus is a good place to disposed of useless stuff". It was supposedly uttered by Hanratty to Dixie France. It was used in evidence against Hanratty at his trial.
Suppose it was true. Therefore Hanratty knew the difference from unwanted goods and stuff that was far more valuable (at least bought by Louise Anderson, and for many hundreds of pounds, in 1961 a huge sum of money)
Surely therefore Hanratty would have not have placed something so incriminatingly valuable as his (if he did it) gun in a place that was only useful for getting rid of unwanted tat!
I do not dispute the hanky was Hanratty's. But if the real killer didn't plant the gun on the bus then somebody else did. Therefore by definition you have a conspiricy. This may have begun before or after the murder.
Coming back to the fencing of Mrs Anderson. It seems that Hanratty was making good money (from Anderson and others) from robberies before the murder and after it (Hanratty corrobarrated this from the evidence of the Black Jacket (from stanmore?) and the Fisher Wembley dogs outing after the probable sale of the diamond ring).
Surely Alphons behaviour after the murder, lack of alibi and refusal to surrender his clothing is at odds with that of Hanratty.
Hanratty may have been a lousy driver (prangs etc are well documented) but would he have been so enept as to have Valerie Storie show how the gears of a Morris Minor worked. Applying common sense and the fact that Hanratty was a known car thief it is unlikely that he would not have just taken control of the car and left as soon as possible, however much trouble he would have had with the controls. In fact the killer probably thought that both of the victims were dead, so who would care what the level of driving was, just get away.
If one was inventing an alibi from places that one had visited some time before then it would be almost impossible to uphold this alibi unless corroboration was made as to the alleged location and time among other things. Similarly if one was totally unaware of the charges that would be made against one at a later date then the places that had been visited some time earlier could have had really little significance in the previous sceme of things and little details fade away.
Re: previous posts regarding Valerie Storie and the fact that she is still alive and that some things/opinions (whatever they may be) should be withheld out of respect. Does this mean that any issue cannot be discussed until all of the protaganists are shuffled off this mortal coil.

Regards
Reg

[reg1965]

Hi All
I hadn't seen Steve and Grahams previous posts b4 I posted my last one.
I too would like to think back 47 years ago today at about this time 20:20 when Valerie and Mike where at on their way to The Old Station Inn at Taplow. Who could believe that 47 years later we would still be discussing the ins and outs of that journey and its upshots which has fascinated people from all walks of life, toffs such as Paul Foot, Russell and Blom-Cooper to the general populace with equal splits of informed opinion.
Reg

[reg1965]

Why...because he was in the process of buying or inventing it from details of previous visits - he's a lying, cheating crook remember. The very fact that his alibi kept changing suggests to me he was making the whole thing up!

I have no problem with Hanratty being a lying, cheating crook inasmuch as he gets his just desserts for those crimes! He may have been inventing an alibi but buying it...If he was in the process of buying an alibi whislt on trial we have another conspiricy, buying an alibi, and the channels needed to initiate this from behind bars!

Reg

[Graham]

Reg,

I've often thought that JH was ill-advised to admit to telling Dixie about the back seat of a bus. Had he kept his trap shut on this one, and had Dixie raised the subject, it would almost certainly have been disregarded as heresay. Yes, had JH been thinking rationally, he'd have chucked the gun in the Thames (or maybe off Southend Pier, as I believe Alphon said in one of his many contradictory statements). However, and thinking on, why on earth would he have wanted to wrap the gun in anything?. Did he wrap his other 'disposables' before putting them under various back seats? This brings me round (again) to my albeit faint suspicion that, for whatever reason, he gave the gun to Dixie to dispose of, and Dixie had one of JH's dirty hankies.
Yet - in 1961 there was no DNA, so unless Dixie was possessed of remarkable prescience, why should Dixie wrap the gun in JH's hankie? Did the hankie have a JH monogram or something?

I reckon what happened was that JH got onto the 36A bus, used his hankie to wipe away fingerprints from the gun, and dumped both hankie and gun + ammo under the seat, and that was that. He was, as he always said, very careful about wiping away fingerprints.

Re: Alphon, after the ID parade in which he wasn't recognised, and after Acott had been obliged to drop him as a suspect, he could, within reason, say what he liked about his 'involvement' in the crime. And anyway, he did have an alibi - he was zzzing at The Vienna at the time. The police never cracked that.

With regard to Valerie Storie's still being with us, I always take the view that none of us on this thread can be 100% certain who reads our postings. I, for one, would quickly add that her evidence in any case is not open to question. She told the truth. Full stop.

The reason (at least, the reason I subscribe to), why after 47 years we're still discussing the A6 Case, is that it is hard to see how Hanratty was convicted on the evidence presented at his trial - and, equally important, what was his motive for what he did?

Cheers,

Graham