a6 murder

[Limehouse]

Right. So now the argument is ANYONE who spoke with anything other than a local accent could have been the person in the shop? It was Mrs Dinwoodie herself i believe who stated she thought the person she spoke to had a Welsh or Scots accent, neither of which is remotely like Cockney.

Seriously, the Rhyl/Liverpool alibis could be used to strain vegetables, they are that full of holes.

And we seriously have the same Hanrattyites arguing on the same thread that his accent prejudiced him in a line up when Storie asked the suspects to speak because he was so recognisably Cockney, yet the same man spoke so differently to Mrs Dinwoodie that he sounded either Scottish or Welsh.

I don't know why the Police hunting Jo's killer are bothering with DNA evidence there will be people arguing for her murderer's innocence even when forensic proof is obtainable. I think we should just let all alleged murderers go. Why bother? EH?

If Mrs Dinwoodie said 'Welsh or Scots' then she was clearly unused to hearing different accents as they are also quite different from each other. Therefore - it is not surprising she didn't recognise a Cockney accent (actually - it was a London accent - not Cockney and London accents do differ).

In Bedfordshire - a broad London accent would be much more recogniseable - it being further south but it would certainly have prejudiced Hanratty if he had been the only one with a London accent in the line-up.

Why are you bringing another case into the argument? What has the Bristol case to do with the Hanratty case? Are they going to hang her killer?

[babybird67]

and which reinforces , linguistically, Mrs Dinwoody"s perception,like that of many people in 1961 who rarely moved away from their linguistic roots, that anybody using a different dialect and accent "spoke funny"[were virtually foreigners]---"He spoke funny" were the words used by Mrs Dinwoody"s granddaughter, about the young man asking the way to Carlton or Tarleton Road.

Right. So now the argument is ANYONE who spoke with anything other than a local accent could have been the person in the shop? It was Mrs Dinwoodie herself i believe who stated she thought the person she spoke to had a Welsh or Scots accent, neither of which is remotely like Cockney.

Seriously, the Rhyl/Liverpool alibis could be used to strain vegetables, they are that full of holes.

And we seriously have the same Hanrattyites arguing on the same thread that his accent prejudiced him in a line up when Storie asked the suspects to speak because he was so recognisably Cockney, yet the same man spoke so differently to Mrs Dinwoodie that he sounded either Scottish or Welsh.

I don't know why the Police hunting Jo's killer are bothering with DNA evidence there will be people arguing for her murderer's innocence even when forensic proof is obtainable. I think we should just let all alleged murderers go. Why bother? EH?

[Natalie Severn]

Hanratty said that there was a green bath at the top of the house, not specifically in the attic.

I've stayed in more B&B's over the years than I can shake a stick at, and unless a B&B is in a place the size of the House Of Usher, even during a single night's stay you can get a pretty good idea of who your fellow guests are. And no-one - no-one - who was traced and who agreed that they stayed at Ingledene during the week in question said that they could recall anyone matching Hanratty's description.

If Swanwick was upper-crust, then what was Sherrard? Was his old man a dustman?

Almost the whole lie to the Rhyl Alibi can be traced to Joe Gillbanks. Joe was sent by the defence to Rhyl to investigate. He said the first thing he did was to find Terry Evans, and he said he found him easily, presumably because Evans was such a well-known Rhyl character at the time. Now, if Joe could find Evans so easily and quickly, why couldn't Hanratty, who after all had met him before and knew the places he hung out?

Graham

First of all Graham,I myself would not say "I stayed in an attic" if the room also had a bed in it and was otherwise furnished.Mrs Jones kept a scrupulously clean guest house.Hanratty would not have been put up in a tip of an attic!

Regarding your point about B&B"s I have also stayed in lots and lots of B&B"s and have very rarely seen anybody other than those who came down to breakfast.I have heard people coming in etc but not seen them before I left.

Michael Sherrard was a bright young barrister but he was not from the same upper middle class background as the privately educated Oxbridge graduate,Swanwick.

The people I have spoken to in Rhyl are quite appalled by the way the various witnesses were ignored.Mr Dutton,a highly respectable,well to do business man was affronted,having never wanted to get involved in the first place but having felt duty-bound when he read about it and read moreover, only in February 1862,just days before the trial ended,that the man was under sentence of death.
Mr Dutton said he was approached by a smartly dressed young man with hair that looked a bit oddly "coloured ",on the morning of 23rd August, trying to sell him a gold watch - quite an unusual incident.He like the other witnesses who came forward never understood why his evidence was ignored.

I think it very possible Hanratty was embarrassed to have to seriously try to hunt Terry down .His taxi wasnt there that week and as Hanratty had let Terry down over the job he had found him at the fairground and had walked off with Terry"s new shoes,he was taking a chance on Terry wanting to be bothered with him again .Quite a few people did not want to get involved or were prepared to come forward.How did Hanratty know Terry would be willing to be friends with him again? It wasn"t so easy when he couldnt just track him down in the crowd at the fairground .

[Graham]

Mrs Betty Davies still lives in Rhyl.She has not altered her view that the young man with dark hair was the same young man who Margaret Walker and Ivy Vincent saw knocking on doors trying to get a B&B,late in the evening of Tuesday 22nd August 1961.She believes that man was James Hanratty.

Right then - that's it! Hanratty really was in Rhyl! Nothing to do with Mrs Jones being shown just the one photo (by Gillbanks, who should have known better), and her identifying it as our Jim. Or Margaret Walker, who said she had seen photos of our Jim in the paper after the trial, and naturally recognised him instanty. Oh sorry, I'm forgetting her 'family event' which made her sure of the precise date of her encounter with this bloke. With regard to Ivy Vincent, not even Woffinden seems very certain of her worth.

The Rhyl "Alibi" is so much rot. Had he signed a visitor's book, contacted his mate Terry Evans, left a possession of his that could postively be identified, then fine; but he didn't. He told a whopper. He should have stuck to his original Liverpool Alibi and basically challenged the jury to destroy it.

Graham

[Natalie Severn]

when said cockney geezer type is being confused for a Welsh/Scots person in Mrs Dinwoodie's shop you mean?

and which reinforces , linguistically, Mrs Dinwoody"s perception,like that of many people in 1961 who rarely moved away from their linguistic roots, that anybody using a different dialect and accent "spoke funny"[were virtually foreigners]---"He spoke funny" were the words used by Mrs Dinwoody"s granddaughter, about the young man asking the way to Carlton or Tarleton Road.

[Natalie Severn]

Victor,
Mrs Betty Davies still lives in Rhyl.She has not altered her view that the young man with dark hair was the same young man who Margaret Walker and Ivy Vincent saw knocking on doors trying to get a B&B,late in the evening of Tuesday 22nd August 1961.She believes that man was James Hanratty.
Nobody knows who did this "police sketch" you seized on---rather than being prepared to consider the whole post.In any case it certainly wasn"t a "photo" but in any case Mrs Davies believes the man was the same man with the streaky dyed hair who Margaret Walker and Ivy Vincent had seen.

[babybird67]

apart from...

I imagine that a cockney geezer type like Hanratty would have stood out big time in a Welsh town back then

Like, as they say, a sore thumb.

when said cockney geezer type is being confused for a Welsh/Scots person in Mrs Dinwoodie's shop you mean?

[Natalie Severn]

[/U]

Yes - indeed Norma - it is interesting that one of the indentikits was composed - in conjunction with the police - by Blackhall - not Skillett. The police seemed to be considering Blackhall's description as more reliasble than Skillett.

Hi Julie,
Yes the police did in fact consider Blackhall to be the most reliable of the two for several weeks.It was Blackhall who had gone and reported the incident. But all that was when they had Alphon under arrest and had him in custody and appear to have been convinced he was the gunman. But Blackhall actually had some very interesting things to say about queer goings on regarding the identifications.He was apparently whisked out before he had even got to the end of the line where Alphon was standing! He had only seen four men and for some reason decided to indicate a man who he thought "looked like" Alphon.He says he was a bit overwhelmed and nervous,.Anyway he paused and pointed to this other man and was immediately rushed out.I will find the exact quote over the weekend if you are interested.
After this Alphon was eliminated from their enquiries.

[Graham]

Mrs Jones explained this perfectly well.As the guest house was full they fitted Hanratty in.He had breakfast in the room at the back where they themselves had breakfast.It had just two tables and from that room there was a view of the back yard which Hanratty described accurately to his barrister.Hanratty also described Ingledene exactly.A house with no front garden----unlike those in Kinmel Street South---which had a green bath in the attic.
When people stay in B&B they are not likely to see anyone else unless they all have breakfast together in the morning.Even then breakfast is usually between 7 and 9 and by the time the first lot of people have had breakfast and gone out, the last lot are only just beginning to wake up!
More ignorance on behalf of the middle class prosecution who didn"t know how the other half lived or what staying in a B&B was like!Swanwick was from an entirely different background to Hanratty---much more prosperous and privileged.

Hanratty said that there was a green bath at the top of the house, not specifically in the attic.

I've stayed in more B&B's over the years than I can shake a stick at, and unless a B&B is in a place the size of the House Of Usher, even during a single night's stay you can get a pretty good idea of who your fellow guests are. And no-one - no-one - who was traced and who agreed that they stayed at Ingledene during the week in question said that they could recall anyone matching Hanratty's description.

If Swanwick was upper-crust, then what was Sherrard? Was his old man a dustman?

Almost the whole lie to the Rhyl Alibi can be traced to Joe Gillbanks. Joe was sent by the defence to Rhyl to investigate. He said the first thing he did was to find Terry Evans, and he said he found him easily, presumably because Evans was such a well-known Rhyl character at the time. Now, if Joe could find Evans so easily and quickly, why couldn't Hanratty, who after all had met him before and knew the places he hung out?

Graham

[Graham]

Norma,

thank you for your views re: Valerie's selection of Michael Clark, etc. Perhaps you would now address Charlotte France's statement, made face-to-face to Hanratty, that one of the Identikits looked like him?

I remind you, that this is Charlotte, the long-suffering wife of Hanratty's friend Dixie, who did his washing and ironing for him, and let him sleep at her flat apparently whenever it suited him. And he was sitting, with her, in front of the TV when the Identikit picture came on the screen. This is not just any woman who might have run up against Hanratty once in a while, but a woman who knew him extremely well. And she said one of the Identikits looked like him. Or do you think that Charlotte had already been nobbled by Acott and was out to pin the A6 on Jim?

Graham

[Victor]

Yes - indeed Norma - it is interesting that one of the indentikits was composed - in conjunction with the police - by Blackhall - not Skillett. The police seemed to be considering Blackhall's description as more reliasble than Skillett.

Hi Julie,

Wasn't Skillett on holiday and not available to contribute?

KR,
Vic

[Limehouse]

A mistake that Valerie Storie could so easily have made again--------and this time it would cost Hanratty his life.

You have seen the photofits.Does it require a great deal of spatial intelligence to see that one of them is a dead ringer for Alphon? Everyone else can see its self evident.Yet Valerie Storie composed most of that particular Identikit.The one that did not look like Alphon was composed by Blackhall who said that in fact the man in the Morris Minor who he and Skillett saw at the roundabout looked far more like Alphon >Moreover he stated that the man in the MM "looked nothing like Hanratty"

Yes - indeed Norma - it is interesting that one of the indentikits was composed - in conjunction with the police - by Blackhall - not Skillett. The police seemed to be considering Blackhall's description as more reliasble than Skillett.

[Natalie Severn]

Let's not conveniently ignore the fact that Charlotte France, when she was watching TV with Dixie and JH, said how much one of the photofits resembled Hanratty, when they were shown. Sometimes this seems to be rather pushed to one side....

And until someone can produce a photo of Michael Clark, I don't see why we continue to be concerned about VS's picking him out on the ID parade. She made a mistake, that's all. An ID parade is merely part of the police's investigative procedure, not the final proof of a person's guilt or innocence.
And VS never stated that Clark was her attacker - she just implied that in her judgment he resembled her attacker, and it was the job of the police to confirm or deny that he could have been involved.

Graham

A mistake that Valerie Storie could so easily have made again--------and this time it would cost Hanratty his life.

You have seen the photofits.Does it require a great deal of spatial intelligence to see that one of them is a dead ringer for Alphon? Everyone else can see its self evident.Yet Valerie Storie composed most of that particular Identikit.The one that did not look like Alphon was composed by Blackhall who said that in fact the man in the Morris Minor who he and Skillett saw at the roundabout looked far more like Alphon >Moreover he stated that the man in the MM "looked nothing like Hanratty"

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Norma,

What about Alexei Sayle's dad who definitely stayed in the Ingledene becasue he signed the guest book? He was there alone on a Union trip, so presumably with other union people - so there could be lots of single men around Rhyl at that time!


So lots of places were full meaning that potentially lots of people would be wandering around looking for accomodation, and it'd be a long search seeing as so many of them were full.

KR,
Vic.

Mrs Jones explained this perfectly well.As the guest house was full they fitted Hanratty in.He had breakfast in the room at the back where they themselves had breakfast.It had just two tables and from that room there was a view of the back yard which Hanratty described accurately to his barrister.Hanratty also described Ingledene exactly.A house with no front garden----unlike those in Kinmel Street South---which had a green bath in the attic.
When people stay in B&B they are not likely to see anyone else unless they all have breakfast together in the morning.Even then breakfast is usually between 7 and 9 and by the time the first lot of people have had breakfast and gone out, the last lot are only just beginning to wake up!
More ignorance on behalf of the middle class prosecution who didn"t know how the other half lived or what staying in a B&B was like!Swanwick was from an entirely different background to Hanratty---much more prosperous and privileged.

[Victor]

And as Alphon looks nothing like Hanratty, therefore as I said, Michael Clark bore no resemblance to Hanratty whatsoever

Hi Derrick,

Really? I think they're not that dissimilar.

KR,
Vic