a6 murder

[simon]

Hello Jimarilyn - and, wow, thanks for that speedy and interesting reply.

I wish I'd known it was a Charles Marowitz production, because I was in a play he directed in 1980 and I'd have had the chance to talk to him about it!

[jimarilyn]

Hello Jimarilyn - and, wow, thanks for that speedy and interesting reply.

I wish I'd known it was a Charles Marowitz production, because I was in a play he directed in 1980 and I'd have had the chance to talk to him about it!

Hi Simon,

I'd come across that review a couple or so months ago. It's interesting to note that the author of the play, Andrew Carr, blamed Marowitz for the play's failure. I don't suppose there's much chance of a revival of this play 32 years later, alas.

[reg1965]

Hi,
Having dimly remembered that there was once a play called Hanratty In Hell, put on at a London fringe theatre, I've just checked via google. The only mention I can find is that it was performed at the Open Space Theatre in 1976 and that Alphon was played by Kenneth Colley. Anybody know anything about this ?

Simon

Hi Simon
I too was searching the net when I came across a reference to a 'television' (it says C4) production called 'The Real Hanratty' where Alphon was played by a chap called Charlie Buckland.

URL http://www.newperspectives.co.uk/con...=2&cast=1#cast

I have tried to find some more information about this but as yet to no avail. I will continue to search a bit more..any info anyone?
Reg

[reg1965]

What changed your mind

Hi Vic
Now we are on the correct thread.

What were your doubts as to JH's guilt and what changed your mind about it?

Regards
Reg

[P.L.A]

The A6 Charges

Hanratty was charged with murder by Superintendent Barron at Ampthill Police Station. The rape and attempted murder charges were added at the start of the committal proceedings.

He was committed for trial on all three charges.

However, the law of the land between 1912 and 1964 meant that a defendant couldn’t be tried for murder, or murders, and any other offence at the same time.

The 1962 trial clearly fell under this dictate.

Moreover, at the end of the Bedford trial, Lord Gorman ruled that the lesser charges should remain on file.

Peter.

[P.L.A]

The Lesser Charges

The lesser A6 crimes couldn’t be held in reserve in case of a not guilty verdict on the murder charge.

It is a basic principle of English law, even under Double Jeopardy, that once acquitted, a person can not be tried for the original, or any other crime, based on “substantially the same evidence” that led to the original not guilty verdict.

A person acquitted of burglary couldn’t be re-arraigned on a charge of causing criminal damage to the property. That would be cheating.

With Neville Heath, the second murder charge was held in reserve. That could have been proceeded with without any reference to the first crime.

Peter.

[Victor]

Hi Vic
Now we are on the correct thread.

What were your doubts as to JH's guilt and what changed your mind about it?

Regards
Reg

My doubts as I've expressed many times on this thread are that there was lots of evidence withheld from the defence which makes it look like the police (Acott in particular) was very worried about whether he could get a conviction - his behaviour made me think he was being one of the usual "he's a small time crook, he must be capable of rape and murder" types.

I was (and remain) unconvinced by the Rhyl supposed eyewitnesses and from reading the statements it appears to me like JH was in Rhyl earlier in the year and cobbled together an alibi from his knowledge of the place. The Ingledene not having him in the log book is only mildly suspicious because lots of private landlords and landladies offer "no questions for cash" services - or did in the sixties and seventies.

The hanky/gun/back seat of a bus, just seems too convenient

The driving skills of JH are relevant, but I don't think it's been proved that JH was a good driver.

The lack of blood traces found on anyone is surprising, especially when it seems to have been established that JH's hepworth suit was what he was wearing at the time.

I have doubts about John Kerr's evidence amongst others, but the doubts seem to focus on the police record keeping - I've no idea when taped interviews became common practice. There's just something not right about the circumstance surrounding VS's rescue that are not adequately explained by the concern for her wellbeing. Someone (competent) should have taken charge of the situation.

Of course the thing that changed my mind was my examination of the reports concerning the DNA evidence. I've been wracking my brains to see how this could be overcome and nothing I've investigated has managed to overturn the conclusions of the Appeal Court in regard to the DNA - I strongly disagree with them about the withholding of evidence from the defence being inconsequential though.

[reg1965]

Hi All and in reply to Victor especially
Cheers Victor for being so gracious and sporting in putting forward your doubts.

In the spirit of quid pro quo, whether you like it or not, I will give my doubts.

1) Motive - say no more.
2) Forensic evidence (1961) - none in car, none on gun itself and none on cartridge cases.
3) Identification evidence - Original photofit was not like JH at all. All picked out innocent men originally. VS's one glimpse possibly without glasses. VS's fading memory. Unfair identity parades (not asked to speak, asked to speak. No skull caps)
4) Prosecution witnesses - A more motley crew of villains couldn't have been assembled in one room before! Bar Frances family who should have been spared this grotesque procedure. (Although they did fill in the Monday for JH)
5) Circumstantials - Gun on bus with hanky, cartridge cases in room 24. Ummmm! I agree. either fanciful, both times beggars belief (to quote a well worn phrase!)
6) The Rhyl alibi - I believe that this is too compelling and is certainly a damn sight more so than what was giving against JH. Identification is, as I posted before, notoriously unreliable when taken in isolation and must be corroborated. All witnesses make mistake and get things wrong and this fact must be used when weighing up both sides of the argument.
7) Government intransigence over the years - Much disquiet about the verdict started almost immediately. Why were documents withheld even after the execution? Why did the subsequent police inquiries not carry out their remit to the fullest degree?
8) Non-disclosure of evidence - What has been released recently could be just the tip of the iceberg. I believe that if JUST THE MILEAGE OF THE CAR had been heard in court at the time JH would have been acquitted. It might even had been thrown out at Ampthill.

Too many other little bits and pieces that just add to the main points above.

These are without getting into the whole sticky mess that is Peter Louis Alphon.

If, as Michael Mansfield stated at the appeal that, the DNA does, beyond any doubt of contamination show that JH was the murderer and rapist then I will take it on the chin and say that I am truly convinced. But that would still fly in the face of the all evidence that has been disclosed and that which has not. (unless of course it truly is a goverment cover up). As yet I do not rule out the possiblity of contamination and I don't agree with the appeal court ruling on many other points.

In fact this is the most bizarre and fascinating criminal case that there has ever been.

Kind regards
Reg

[Victor]

To respond to your specific points:-

1. Motive - need it be more complicated than robbery? Or theft of the car because he needed transport? I agree there's nothing conclusive, but then there's nothing significant for JtR either.

2. Forensics - they did get some though - blood type on VS underwear for one.

3. ID - from all appearances VS is adamant she got the right man. Your comment about the unfair ID parades is strange, I've read that in the first one VS didn't know she could ask them to speak, so it's a police failing not a VS failing.

4. Prosecution witnesses - are you saying Dixie France is legit? Wasn't he a notorious fence? I know he killed himself afterwards and we need to be a bit sensitive, but he hardly seeems whiter than white.

5. Circumstantial evidence - it all just seems way too convenient. The gun on bus tale is fanciful. The cartridges in the Vienna a couple of days later, not being cleared in the meantime. But coincidences can happen.

6. Rhyl - why the change of alibi??

7. Government intransigence - documents withheld for privacy rules, the 50-year or 100-year (or whatever number they seem to think up). JH was convicted by a jury of his peers, unless some compelling new evidence comes up there's no need to re-investigate. Lord Longford and Myra Hindley spring to mind. People used to have the protection of the double-jeopardy rules when they were acquitted, so why not when they are found guilty?

8. Non-disclosure taints the case badly and I agree that he should never have been hung, but non-disclosure doesn't necessarily imply corruption and framing.

9. PLA seems like a nutjob who got himself involved unneccessarily in an attempt to make a buck, but then there's lots of those in JtR soem of whom got locked up for it. He appears to be the Walter Sickert of the A6 murder.

[Graham]

Hi all.

One of the weirdest (and to my mind most disturbing) aspects of the A6 Case is the suggestion that "someone" hired JH in an effort to break up the relationship between Gregsten and Storie, because of that "someone's" desire for Gregsten's wife, but that the scheme went wrong. We all know that that "someone", the famous 'Central Figure', was William Ewer, who had known Janet Gregsten for years. If Ewer had really set his sights on Janet, then really all he had to do was possess his soul of a little patience and she'd have been available to him, had she been so minded, as her marriage was well on the rocks. Gregsten was living apart from Janet at the time of his death, was a serial womaniser, didn't take life too seriously, etc., etc. I just cannot accept that Ewer (or, to be honest, anyone else) would hire someone like JH to put the arm on the somewhat naughty husband of the woman he, supposedly, fancied. It makes no sense whatsoever. And this, of course, is compounded by Alphon's claim - when he was wearing his A6 killer's hat, that is - that he had been given the job as it wasn't one for any 'East End tiddler', i.e., James Hanratty. Who Alphon, of course, still wearing the above hat, framed for the murder....

As Janet freely admitted, she and Ewer did end up having an affair - bit more than an affair, actually, as it lasted until 1969, so if Ewer really was the notorious 'Central Figure' of A6 legend, he got his way in the end, and must have regretted all that lolly he supposedly fed into Alphon's bank account.

For my money, the real intrigue and mystery of the A6 Case begins after the crime, and no way prior to it. Hanratty's appearance in the cornfield was coincidence - tragic though it turned out to be - pure and simple.

Cheers,

Graham

[simon]

But Graham - what sort of scheme would that have been anyway ? To break up M and V because you wanted M's wife ?? It doesn't make sense. Why not do something to bring the two closer together, in that case, making it more likely that Janet would become available ?

As I suggested in an earlier posting, it's much more likely that a nightmare event such as this WOULD have brought Mike and Valerie closer together...so the 'make them break up' theory doesn't hold water as far as I'm concerned.

'Terrify the two of them so much that they form an unbreakable bond'...well, I don't believe that was the plan either - but at least there's a bit more logic to it.

Regards,
Simon

[Graham]

Nevertheless, Simon, that was the situation hinted at by Woffinden, that the A6 Crime was all down to the 'Central Figure's' infatuation with Janet Gregsten. I thought it was rot when I first read it years and years ago, and I still think it's rot now. To give Foot and Woffinden their due, they were both journalists, and I suppose such a scenario must have appealed to them.

I think if the A6 Case were subject to any such Mills & Boone scenario, then you could at least give a shred of credence to someone wishing Gregsten to be 'punished' for his infidelity, but even that is total crap as far as I'm concerned.

Ewer was obviously not the man to seriously piss off, as he successfully and rightly sued a paper for libel.

The other point, which has been made before both my myself and at least one other poster to this thread, is that MG and VS spent the earlier part of that evening parked elsewhere in the vicinity, and only moved to the cornfield later on - presumably for increased privacy. So if JH met them there 'by appointment or arrangement', which one out of MG and VS made the 'appointment' with him? Did one of them say to the other, "Right, it's ten past nine, time we went to the cornfield?" Course not.

Cheers,

Graham

[Limehouse]

Hi Graham,

I can see why you would think that such a scheme doesn't make sense but then - how much sense does the crime itself make? It is because the crime as it stands on its own seems so pointless and motiveless that people look for another explanation. Add to that the point that if Hanratty was guilty, it was, as much as we know of him, out of character for him to use violence or even to appear in person to the victims of his crimes (he was a person who crept into people's homes when they were out). Further, if the crimes seem out of character for Hanratty, the material evidence against him at the time of the trial certainly seems to have been conveniently and strategically placed.

I am not sure that I go along with the idea that Ewer orchestrated the crime so that he could possess Janet, but I do wonder whether Hanratty was hired, not to kill the couple, but perhaps to punish them or frighten them and it all went horribly wrong. It does sound over the top and fanciful, but if the evidence had not been so neatly and artifically produced I probably wouldn't have these doubts.

[caz]

If, as Michael Mansfield stated at the appeal that, the DNA does, beyond any doubt of contamination show that JH was the murderer and rapist then I will take it on the chin and say that I am truly convinced. But that would still fly in the face of the all evidence that has been disclosed and that which has not. (unless of course it truly is a goverment cover up). As yet I do not rule out the possiblity of contamination and I don't agree with the appeal court ruling on many other points.

Hi Reg,

Great post! You gave it a good go and I’m mighty pleased to see you softening just a wee bit and allowing for the possibility of the DNA evidence being sound enough to have identified the rapist and therefore the murderer. I think we all agree, with hindsight, that it would be a “good thing” if the dangerous man who did this was indeed the one who was taken out of society back in 1962 (although the manner of his taking out, ie capital punishment, is another debate entirely!), even if the evidence used to do it was insufficient, unsatisfactory or downright corrupt. That can never be a “good thing” of course, which is why such a fuss was rightly made.

But taking this right back to basics, someone raped and murdered that night and apparently didn’t go on to commit any more similar offences. Something stopped him or he stopped voluntarily. Also, the only person in 1961 in a position to know who pulled the trigger was the gunman himself. Conspiracy and cover-up theories are all very well, but they depend on other people knowing (or at least presuming) who actually held up the couple and therefore who didn’t.

If, for instance, there had been some plot against MG and VS, the man paid to do the deed could, purely hypothetically, have chickened out and persuaded another man to do it without anyone else’s knowledge. This second man could then have got cold feet and passed on the job to a third… and so on. The last man in the chain would still be the only one who really knew, while all the rest would only think they know.

Anyway, I digress. My main point is that the evidence used to convict Hanratty in 1962 could be rotten to the core, and the conviction well and truly unsafe. But unless those who supplied that evidence were in a position to know (not in the legal ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ sense, but really know) who was or wasn’t the gunman, it wouldn’t even come close to establishing that the original guilty verdict was wrong. The DNA revelations, whether you like them or not, could only ‘fly in the face’ of all that rotten evidence if there is something in it that shows Hanratty could not have committed the crime or that someone else did. The DNA evidence is either unsafe, as many of us believe the original conviction was on the evidence available at the time, or it renders that conviction safe as houses.

So it still all comes back to that wretched DNA I’m afraid, and whether the results could reasonably have been obtained through incompetence or conspiracy, thus making the evidence unsafe.

And it still wouldn’t show that someone other than Hanratty was the guilty man.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

One Careful Owner

Hi All,

There is a rather obvious motive, of course, for a highly sexed man who had no thought for the feelings of strangers, when invading their private property and taking whatever took his fancy.

It would be the same basic mentality to see a bit of posh back in 1961, willing to indulge in naughties in a car with an older man who was unlikely to be her husband. The curious observation made by the gunman after raping VS about her not having had much sex (as if he had expected her to respond as she would have done with the other man??) could be significant if he had convinced himself that she was no better than she should be and there for the taking - just like the watches and jewellery he could help himself to, courtesy of insecure homes and too many careless owners.

The man's mindset may have been a terrifyingly naïve one: get the other man out of the way for long enough and he could get what he had. But the man kept coming back and the desire kept getting stronger.

Love,

Caz
X