a6 murder

[Steve]

As Graham (I think) keeps pointing out, and I agree with him, JH should not have been convicted on the evidence presented at the original trial and should not have been hanged, BUT fortunately the jury were vindicated by the DNA evidence.

Hello Victor

You have hit the nail on the head!

Kind regards,
Steve

[Victor]

Hi Steve,

I would not disagree with what you say.

One of the things that really irks me in cases like Hanratty/George is that if the Police disagree with a jury or appeal verdict, they can, and generally do, say something to the effect that "as far as we are concerned the quilty man got off and we are not prepared to look for anyone else".

To my mind, this is an absolute outrage. If a court finds the accused innocent then the Police should have a duty to get off their backsides and search for new evidence and find the guilty party.

In the case of the Dando murder the Police have effectively closed the case saying that until such time as any new evidence surfaces they will do nothing. Presumably they would have said the same had Hanratty been found not guilty in 1962.

The law of the land should require the Police to get out and find the evidence and not to let their predudice allow the real criminals to get away with murder.

Ansonman,

I take it from the above that you believe the police ought to be forced to continue investigating a little known case where the killer has been given the alias "Jack the Ripper" then?

What a complete and utter waste of police time and taxpayers money. If you rate the Historical significance (which I do) or whatever then get a University to investigate using their money.

[reg1965]

Just to go on from this:

If there had been the least indication that incompetence or dishonesty could have led to JH's DNA being identified on that knicker fragment (presumably in the absence of any trace of the original semen evidence), does anyone here believe that JH's legal team would a) have been given their own piece for testing by independent experts, or b) not have raised their own serious objections?

Nobody has to know a thing about DNA to consider this question, so no excuses please.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi caz
just a few thoughts on this.

To my knowledge the prosecution had no choice but to allow the defence to perform their own tests. This was because the only evidence produced by the prosecution was the DNA. No prosecution witnesses were called to refute the appellants other (non DNA related) grounds.
The case was referred to the court of appeal by the CCRC who knew about the match with Hanrattys DNA. It could have been thrown out at that stage by the CCRC if the DNA evidence was truly that overwhelmingly convincing. But they (CCRC) also considered the defences grounds of appeal and felt so strongly that the grounds carried sufficient weight that the case must go back to appeal.
So whether the DNA evidence was iffy or not doesn't enter it; it was the only thing the CPS had as a case. If that wasn't used then the appeal would have no prosection argument and therefore no case. The CPS would have been in real bother trying to refute the apellants other grounds. These were casually and convieniently thrown out by the judges. There in lies serious discrepancies between the CCRC and the Court of Appeal's view as to the appelants non DNA grounds.
The CCRC was also slapped on the wrist for spending time and money on such old case (ie an irritating and downright inconvient case to the establishment)
For the defence was Dr Martin Evison (senior lecturer in Forensic Biological Anthropology in the Department of Forensic Anthropology at The Medico Legal Centre in Sheffield) who advised the defence who did raise their own serious objections due to contamination. Who carried out tests for the defence, I don't know. Anyone throw any light on this?

As a final point.
I imagine that as time has gone on more and more DNA experts are available to defense cases, how many where truly available at the time (1999-2002). There are certainly many more today. This was shown in Hoey (2007). In that case LCNDNA was discredited as the unvalidated technique it is. Who helped develop LCNDNA? Dr Jonathan Whitaker of FSS the same man who appeared for the prosecution in Hanratty (2002) and said that the judges should rely on the DNA. Oops!

Regards
Reg

[reg1965]

Here is an article about Dr Jonathan Whitaker

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2005/apr/23/workandcareers.jobsandmoney

I like the bit where he says;

"There is nothing better than seeing the outcome of your work in the newspaper or on Crimewatch or getting a conviction of someone who has been truly awful," he says.

I'm glad to hear that he is not just in it for the money.

and also

The Forensic Science Society is looking at setting up an accreditation scheme for university courses, so that prospective applicants can tell the good from the bad.

I don't think students would get much useful help from him since his comeuppance in Hoey! :-(

All the best
Reg

[JamesDean]

As to 3, there is still no reasonable explanation as to how, if we are talking only about bodily fluids, the trouser wash would contain any DNA - other than urine of course if he was not wearing underwear, but urine is mostly water with urea and other impurities and little DNA.

Hi Victor

It's my understanding that there was a semen stain on JH's trousers and the trouser wash was to extract that into a solution. No one knows what happened to the trouser wash and even the prosecution have never denied it's existence.

The fragment of knicker was stored for decades in conditions that would be unacceptable for the storage of DNA. No blame on that score as no precautions were deemed to be necessary in those days for obvious reasons. However, I understand that DNA evidence should be kept frozen and dry. It should not be stored in plastic bags as this encourages moisture to form and DNA degrades quickly when in contact with moisture. The fragment was stored in cellophane and presumably at room temperature or higher; not ideal conditions for the preservation of DNA evidence.

One thing I'm not sure of is whether the defence had a small fragment for them to test independently. I'm suspecting not as it would seem that the original fragment was very small and part of that had been used in the 1995 tests that had not revealed any DNA whatsoever. If the defence did have a portion of the fragment then was it tested? The only test I am aware of is the one carried out by the FSS.

Regards
James

[ansonman]

Taxing times

Ansonman,

I take it from the above that you believe the police ought to be forced to continue investigating a little known case where the killer has been given the alias "Jack the Ripper" then?

What a complete and utter waste of police time and taxpayers money. If you rate the Historical significance (which I do) or whatever then get a University to investigate using their money.

Victor,

The point I was trying to make is that where an appeal results in the aquital of an innocent man, the Police should not be allowed to simply close the file because they disagree with the appeal outcome.

In the league table of wasted tax payers money, criminal investigations would, I suspect, be very near the bottom.

I assume you are not a Northern Rock customer/shareholder.

Regards,

Ansonman

[Victor]

Victor,

The point I was trying to make is that where an appeal results in the aquital of an innocent man, the Police should not be allowed to simply close the file because they disagree with the appeal outcome.

In the league table of wasted tax payers money, criminal investigations would, I suspect, be very near the bottom.

I assume you are not a Northern Rock customer/shareholder.

Regards,

Ansonman

I believe that the police apply for a ruling of "perverse verdict" and if this is accepted (I don't know by whom) then they consider the case closed.

There obviously comes a point in any investigation where they have exhausted all lines of enquiry and the effort of seeking extra evidence is disproportionately high.

Stewart Evans may be able to provide extra insight into this as an ex-policeman, and I believe there a couple of others who regularly use these boards.

ps - No, I have no involvement with NR.

[Victor]

Hi Victor

It's my understanding that there was a semen stain on JH's trousers and the trouser wash was to extract that into a solution. No one knows what happened to the trouser wash and even the prosecution have never denied it's existence.

The fragment of knicker was stored for decades in conditions that would be unacceptable for the storage of DNA. No blame on that score as no precautions were deemed to be necessary in those days for obvious reasons. However, I understand that DNA evidence should be kept frozen and dry. It should not be stored in plastic bags as this encourages moisture to form and DNA degrades quickly when in contact with moisture. The fragment was stored in cellophane and presumably at room temperature or higher; not ideal conditions for the preservation of DNA evidence.

One thing I'm not sure of is whether the defence had a small fragment for them to test independently. I'm suspecting not as it would seem that the original fragment was very small and part of that had been used in the 1995 tests that had not revealed any DNA whatsoever. If the defence did have a portion of the fragment then was it tested? The only test I am aware of is the one carried out by the FSS.

Regards
James

Hi James,

Thank you for your clarification - and I agree that the prosecution have never denied it's existance, but equally "the broken vial" has never been proven to be that trouser wash. The obvious question that crops up is Was a DNA test done on the residue of that broken vial?

Your third para is basically what I asked in my previous post.

As for DNA storage, moisture can only form if there is a route for air to enter, as encasing in plastic is one way of keeping things dry. I completely accept that the items were not stored in a ideal way - but the profiles of MG and VS were also found which is why the evidence is accepted.

Reg - re your first Whitaker quote, I think that's called "recognition" pretty much everyone likes it in their jobs - I do.

And LCN / PCR technichiques give excellent results - it's just the interpretation that's problematic. All the technique does is magnify your sample to a proportion where you can detect it - including that of the technician who does the work if they've contaminated it - and a lot of work is needed to sort out where those contaminants come from.

[JamesDean]

Hi James,

Thank you for your clarification - and I agree that the prosecution have never denied it's existance, but equally "the broken vial" has never been proven to be that trouser wash. The obvious question that crops up is Was a DNA test done on the residue of that broken vial?

Hi Victor,

I agree we will never know what happened to the trouser wash and the fate of the vial is speculation as nobody knows if it was in the same package as the fragment or not. All the same it's a possibility that can't be excluded. I don't believe the fragments (of broken vial) in the package were tested and there were also some broken slides but in the judgment they simply speculate as to what may have been on the slides. They obviously didn't carry out any tests on them.

As far as contamination goes, again it's all down to speculation and it was the lack of any definite likely mechanism of contamination that persuaded the appeal judges to discount it as a reasonable possibility. Again, likely or not, it's still a possibility. We don't have any proof that the knickers and JH clothes never came into any direct or indirect contact prior to the excision of the fragment from the knickers. It is believed that the said items were examined separately but nonetheless they may have been examined on the same worksurface even if not at the same time.

Regards

[reg1965]

Reg - re your first Whitaker quote, I think that's called "recognition" pretty much everyone likes it in their jobs - I do.

And LCN / PCR technichiques give excellent results - it's just the interpretation that's problematic. All the technique does is magnify your sample to a proportion where you can detect it - including that of the technician who does the work if they've contaminated it - and a lot of work is needed to sort out where those contaminants come from.

I think that it could also be called 'advertising' as the FSS is a 'For Profit Government Agency'

LCN does not give excellent results. If it did it would have been validated by wider bodies other than the people who developed it!

Have a look into how a DNA profile of a director of the FSS was found on evidence in the Falconio/Lees/Murdoch case!

Reg

[Tony]

Ansonman,

I take it from the above that you believe the police ought to be forced to continue investigating a little known case where the killer has been given the alias "Jack the Ripper" then?

What a complete and utter waste of police time and taxpayers money. If you rate the Historical significance (which I do) or whatever then get a University to investigate using their money.

Hello Victor,

Well I don’t think the police should be still investigating Jack the Ripper but sometimes they do drop clangers big style.

On the court steps after the judge threw out the case against Colin Stagg for the dreadful murder of Rachel Nickel the police announced while Colin Stagg was standing only yards away; “We are not looking for anyone else in this case”
In other words Stagg did it but he’s got away with it.

No forensic or any other evidence against Colin Stagg but ‘the case is closed’.
Why? Because an expert criminal profiler tried to set Stagg up using a policewoman who intimated she would have a sexual relationship with Stagg in return for a confession. Quite rightly the judge kicked the case out. But the criminal profiler was still adamant it was Stagg he even considered a comparison with a case not too far away; where a young mother and her child had been murdered in a frenzied knife attack. No this man couldn’t possibly be a suspect; absolutely not.
Result nothing for ten years and then later this year there is to be a trial of this new suspect for the murder.

Tony.

[reg1965]

From the BBC Horizon transcript found at

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/a6murdertrans.shtml

MICHAEL HANRATTY: They were all put in the same box. Jimmy's stuff, Valerie Storie's stuff, all into the same box. Taken away, brought back the next day. The investigating officer had to display it all on a table. He had the underwear, he had the handkerchief. There was nothing about DNA then. He had no gloves, no mask, anything. Now to me the guidelines of all this evidence, which they reckon proves Jimmy's without any doubt, has been done. To me I don't feel it is proper evidence because it hasn't been kept under the guidelines of what DNA is today.

Reg

[timsta]

Who ordered the hit?

To my mind, the key to cracking this case lies in answering the following question:

Who ordered the hit on Gregsten, and why?

Timsta

[simon]

Hitman ?

Dare I mention Lionel Miller without getting howls of rage in return ?

He asserts that VS and MG had only sporadically visited that cornfield, thus making it very unlikely that a hitman would have chosen to lie in wait for them. Do we know if this is true or not ?

The more I read these postings, the more I believe that Steve has got it right, and that Dixie was involved after the crime. It's his suicide - and the reason originally given for it..' shame at having introduced JH to his household'...that has always intrigued me. There simply must have been more to it than that ; I think he was the one who planted the gun, fingered JH, and felt remorse afterwards. (Well, it's as good a theory as any of the others!)

[Tony]

To my mind, the key to cracking this case lies in answering the following question:

Who ordered the hit on Gregsten, and why?

Timsta

Hmmmm,

I think you might get a few replies to that and I doubt if any of them will be more than one sentence.

Tony.