a6 murder

[Steve]

Hi Tony,

I think the important point about identification witnesses is that you are never going to be able to shake the most important one. She's convinced and has now been proved right.

Tony and Victor

That is the crucial point. Miss Storie is adamant that Hanratty was her attacker! Whatever anyone may say about the validity or otherwise of witness identification, she was the only surviving witness. And I have made the point previously that she listened to the gunman's voice for several hours, so her identification was far from being only visual.

Kind regards,
Steve

[reg1965]

Reg

So this would explain why Harry Hirons picked out parade extras - he didn't serve Gregsten at all, and therefore didn't see the gunman!

KR
Steve

Hi Steve
I agree he did not identify Gregsten.
Why then was he taken as a witness to two identity parades. The answer was that he positively identified the car when shown it as being the one that stopped for fuel.

The Regent garage attendant that night, John Ward could not remember a Morris Minor stopping for fuel that night.

This puts VS's passage of events into question with regards to the route taken. The distance between the two garages was between 10 and 15 miles.

Cheers
Reg

[Victor]

This puts VS's passage of events into question with regards to the route taken. The distance between the two garages was between 10 and 15 miles.

I'm quite prepared to give a woman who has a gun pointing at her head a bit of slack as to exactly where the car went.

[Tony]

Tony and Victor

That is the crucial point. Miss Storie is adamant that Hanratty was her attacker! Whatever anyone may say about the validity or otherwise of witness identification, she was the only surviving witness. And I have made the point previously that she listened to the gunman's voice for several hours, so her identification was far from being only visual.

Kind regards,
Steve

Victor and Steve,

Will you answer this honestly for me?

Was Miss Storie 100% convinced that when she ID’d Michael Clark that he was the gunman? Or do you think she perhaps thought: “Well I’m not sure but he’ll have to do. If I’m wrong perhaps they will let me have another go”.


Tony.

[Steve]

Hi Reg

I think perhaps that Hirons was Acott's pet witness. I don't think he saw anything, but he was very willing to get involved. I suppose he had his own reasons.

Valerie's version of the route is correct. I know that part of London very well, and I know the Slough area. (Come to think of it with all the travelling I do I know everywhere very well!) The route she described is the logical route one would take, firstly towards the Hanratty family home, if that was his original plan, simply to get a lift back to his parents’ house. And secondly towards Bedford, if that is where the gunman finally decided to head towards. Remember Hanratty also had connections with Bedford.

Kind regards
Steve

[Victor]

Victor and Steve,

Will you answer this honestly for me?

Was Miss Storie 100% convinced that when she ID’d Michael Clark that he was the gunman? Or do you think she perhaps thought: “Well I’m not sure but he’ll have to do. If I’m wrong perhaps they will let me have another go”.


Tony.

Hi Tony,

To be honest, I simply don't know. I don't know enough details of exactly what happened at both ID parades, and what was said to her before them to be able to say one way or the other.

Maybe as her rapist wasn't in the first ID parade she went for the one who seemed closest, who knows. I don't think anyone is really qualified to say for sure exactly what she was thinking and how she was feeling. We can speculate sure.

How would you feel if you'd just been told your never going to walk again?

[Steve]

Victor and Steve,

Will you answer this honestly for me?

Was Miss Storie 100% convinced that when she ID’d Michael Clark that he was the gunman? Or do you think she perhaps thought: “Well I’m not sure but he’ll have to do. If I’m wrong perhaps they will let me have another go”.

Tony.

Tony

She had been shot and was very poorly.

If that wasn’t enough she had been abducted for several hours, witnessed the man she was in love with being shot in the head inches away from her, raped, herself shot several times and left for dead in the middle of nowhere. How she survived I do not know. She must have been in shock and very traumatised.

I just think she can be forgiven for making a mistake in the identification process. I doubt she was given much guidance, probably just wheeled into a big room with several strange men, one of whom quite possibly had been her attacker. She must have been terrified out of her mind!

Also, as I said a couple of posts ago, the sound of the gunman’s voice played a large part in her identification and no-one spoke at that first identity parade.

KR
Steve

[JIMBOW]

Petrol station(s) stopped at

As a result of the interchange of posts between Reg 1965 and Steve, I am quite confused about (a) just how many times they stopped for petrol and (b) if only once, which station was it?

In post #1876 Reg believed it to be a Shell station (584) in Kingsbury. Steve's post #1881 stated that it was, in fact, a Regent station near Heathrow airport (and he followed this up in #1883 with a current photograph of same - love those pics, Steve!). Reg appeared to agree with this (in his post #1884) but yet, in post #1892, refers to a distance of 10 - 15 miles between 'the two stations'. Can someone clarify this? I seem to recall it being well covered in Foot's book but do not have this with me at present.

Also, Reg, what do you mean in post #1872 when you say you 'still think that an investigation into Gregstens work at the time is at least worth following up'? Is it that you think the nature of his work was such that it would have been compromised by any scandal and so some arm of the Intelligence service got involved in some way? Serious question and not meaning to be at all confrontational, I assure you. In fact, same goes for the earlier question about the petrol stations - just need clarification.

Sincerely,
Jim

[jimarilyn]

Hi Tony,

I think the important point about identification witnesses is that you are never going to be able to shake the most important one. She's convinced and has now been proved right.

Hi Victor,

I take it you mean Miss Sterie. VS claims she only saw the face of her rapist fleetingly for a few seconds during the almost 6 hours that Mike and her were held hostage. I very seriously doubt this. Even if true, and she only saw him for a few seconds, she could see the way the gunman had his hair. This must have registered very strongly with her when she compiled her identikit photo of him 5 or 6 days later. The hair depicted in this identikit photo is exactly the way PLA wore his hair, slicked back. The eyes were depicted as being dark coloured, not pale coloured and it couldn't have been James Hanratty because he couldn't slick his hair back like that because of a widow's peak.

It's an amazing coincidence that of all the 9 million or so people living in London in 1961 that she compiles an identikit which is incredibly like the first police suspect in the case. I wonder what the odds are on this ?

[jimarilyn]

How would you feel if you'd just been told your never going to walk again?

Hi Victor,

I was in this very situation in 1975 when I was just 23 years old, having fractured my cervical spine in a RTA while working as a bus conductor. Thanks to the Grace of GOD and after a period of 4 months hospitalisation and a further period of convalescence I was able to make an almost full recovery.

[reg1965]

Hi Vic

I take it to mean that they considered the possibility of contamination, examined the mechanism by which such contamination would have occured and dismissed it as highly unlikely.

Are you referring to the judges comments or the respondents view?

Yes, provided that such contamination exists and persists - and it was looked for and not found.
The point is that only the bodily fluids have persisited for 40 years - nasal fluid (on hanky) semen and vaginal fluid on knickers!

PCR has been able to extract DNA from 10,000 year old mummies where the body would have been drained of all fluids; and even 40,000 mammoths. The whole point of PCR/LCN is that it can detect microscopic pieces of DNA from thousands of years ago. It is also one of its drawbacks in that contaminants are too easily incorporated into the mix.

Reg

[Steve]

As a result of the interchange of posts between Reg 1965 and Steve, I am quite confused about (a) just how many times they stopped for petrol and (b) if only once, which station was it?

Sincerely,
Jim

Hello Jim

They stopped just once for petrol, at the Regent garage near the airport. My picture is of the site as it is today - very different to how it would have been in 1961. I don't believe they stopped at the Kingsbury petrol station, and I don't think Hirons had anything to add to the case. I believe he joined the A6 murder committee, so perhaps he found the case fascinating. (Can't blame him for that - I think we all find it fascinating!)

Kind regards,
Steve

[reg1965]

Hi Reg

I think perhaps that Hirons was Acott's pet witness. I don't think he saw anything, but he was very willing to get involved. I suppose he had his own reasons.

Valerie's version of the route is correct. I know that part of London very well, and I know the Slough area. (Come to think of it with all the travelling I do I know everywhere very well!) The route she described is the logical route one would take, firstly towards the Hanratty family home, if that was his original plan, simply to get a lift back to his parents’ house. And secondly towards Bedford, if that is where the gunman finally decided to head towards. Remember Hanratty also had connections with Bedford.

Kind regards
Steve

Hi Steve
If Hirons was Acotts pet witness then why wasn't he called as a prosecution witness? I'll tell you why. Hirons put Stories witness evidence some way off course. This was only found out by the plod when he [Hirons] failed to pick out Hanratty! What reasons would he [Hirons](a very elderly gentlement of eighty) have then for getting involved? You tell me!
As for the rest... let us just picture the scene:
Knock knock (on the window of of a Morris Minor parked in a field near Taplow)...call me Jim, I'm desperate I've done the lot and I have a gun. Just give me a lift back to mum and dads no questions asked! Plus theres a gas station at the end of the road but just tell the busies you went to the Regent near London airport to fill up! I am still desperate and have an aunt in Bedford but don't tell anyone that either!

Bizarre

Reg

[Steve]

Hi Reg

Please don't take this the wrong way, I really do not want to cause offence, but would you mind making those points again? I think you are saying something quite interesting, but it is almost as if you are talking too fast! (It's probably just me not being able to read!)

Kind regards,
Steve

[reg1965]

Hello Jim

They stopped just once for petrol, at the Regent garage near the airport. My picture is of the site as it is today - very different to how it would have been in 1961. I don't believe they stopped at the Kingsbury petrol station, and I don't think Hirons had anything to add to the case. I believe he joined the A6 murder committee, so perhaps he found the case fascinating. (Can't blame him for that - I think we all find it fascinating!)

Kind regards,
Steve

Hi Steve
They certainly stopped at least once - at the Shell at Kingsbury Circle. The car may have also stopped at the Regent, London Airport, but no evidence exists to corrobatate this.
I didn't know that Hirons had joined the A6 Committee. Could you let me have some more information about this, even if it is only where you first heard it from.

Much obliged
Reg