a6 murder

[JamesDean]

What we do know, however, is that the jury took an awful long time deliberating and the very fact that they came back to ask the judge the meaning of reasonable doubt must mean that at least one of them had doubts. The judge told them that they could forget the term reasonable doubt in this case they must be certain.

It seems odd to me that the jurors then went back and however many, perhaps only one, of them after having asked to have reasonable doubt explained to them and then being told reasonable doubt did not apply here they soon became absolutely certain that Hanratty was guilty.

Hi Tony,

Someone on the jury had a doubt or the question would never have been asked. Was it peer pressure back in the jury room that persuaded the doubter(s) to change their mind? I can't see any other reason why the doubter(s) would suddenly become convinced of Hanratty's guilt. This is one aspect of the jury system which I find fault with; that a persuasive character can tilt everyone else towards the verdict he or she has decided is correct. It happens all the time in normal life; it happens or forums like this one!

Regards
James

[Graham]

Hi Tony,

The poor buggers were probably suffering from jury-room fatigue after 12 hours debate - but then again, a man's like was at stake. Yet as you say the sheer length of the deliberation strongly suggests that there must have been a good deal of doubt in at least some of the minds of the jurors, plus of course the sheer volume of evidence they'd been expected to absorb during the longest criminal trial in British history. I just hope that after such a marathon session they dodn't just give the prosecution the 'benefit of the dioubt', so to speak.

I remember the Carl Bridgwater Case very well, and Paul Foot did a wonderful job.

Cheers,

Graham

[caz]

Hi All,

Jury members are only human and there can be a subtle but important difference between having a tangible reason to doubt a defendant’s guilt and questioning whether the prosecution has presented a watertight case against him. Unfortunately, an unverifiable alibi, following on from a false one, not only weakens his defence, but it also does the prosecution’s job and supports a case that he was at the scene of crime. Anyone facing the death penalty in 1961 would surely have appreciated how vital it would be for the jury to believe he was elsewhere at the time, regardless of the onus being on the prosecution to prove he was in one place and one place only.

For all we know, none of the jury may have doubted he was there when they went off to consider their verdict. The lingering doubts, which must have been overcome one way or another, may have related more to the way the case was built up than any feelings that he might actually be innocent.

I wonder if the landlady got to read any of these pages before the police came around to confiscate them ? With the benefit of hindsight it's a pity she didn't have the wits about her to keep half of them !

If only James Hanratty could come back for a day perhaps he could break into whatever drawer/locker/safe these potentially vital writings are hidden away in!

As you say they could hold the key to unlocking this great mystery.

Hi jimarilyn,

Do you think any evidence that could have seriously undermined the guilty verdict would have been ‘hidden away’ for someone to stumble upon at some point in the future? Surely it would have been destroyed and some excuse made, if the object was to cover up a miscarriage of justice, or they would have found some way of using it if it contained ‘vital’ information that could put a wrong right or confirm that right was done.

I tend to agree with Peter that people who commit suicide don’t usually do so because of one tragic circumstance in their lives, or because they have made one tragic mistake. People survive the most horrific personal tragedies. It’s usually a combination of factors that leads - often over a long period of time - to a complete breakdown, by which time the person is incapable of thinking of anyone or anything other than no longer having to ‘think’ at all, or to ‘be’. I suspect those ‘vital writings’ might reflect such a state of mind and not offer much in the way of useful insight into the A6 case.

I have a real and genuine reasonable doubt as to the validity of the DNA evidence as was presented to the Court of Appeal (2002).

Hi Reg,

But it’s only your opinion that your genuine doubt is also a ‘reasonable’ one. You were not there when the physical evidence was being examined, but if you doubt the validity of the DNA evidence as presented in 2002, the implication of this is that you don’t know what else might have been ascertained about the surviving knicker fragment in relation to the original findings of two men’s seminal fluid on the garment. Once you suggest the evidence itself was flawed in some way, it allows for flaws in the way it was presented at the appeal, and the possibility that opportunities were missed to tighten up the case even further.

I have always believed in Hanratty’s innocence, as do many others, but we are always at a disadvantage because of the way this case has panned out: Hanratty was arrested, tried, found guilty and executed. So no more from him. Then along came the DNA to ‘prove’ he did it.

Whenever any point comes up your side says: “Ah but what about the DNA, what can you say about that then?” and we are effectively shot down. So it is obviously easier for your side because you, at this point in time, hold all the cards with the DNA evidence but that doesn’t mean we are forced to accept it.
There are so many things wrong with this case and that is why people like you and me and Jimarilyn are taking the time to keep on debating it. If everybody accepted the DNA this forum would not exist.

Hi Tony,

I respect your opinion but when and how did you go from believing the case against Hanratty had not been made to believing he was actually innocent of any involvement? In order to have ‘always believed’ he was innocent (as opposed to convicted on insufficient or unreliable grounds) you must have had a reason that went beyond gut feeling. If the evidence against Hanratty was not strong enough in your opinion, what evidence did you find strong enough to convince you that he did not commit - or better still, could not have committed - the rape and murder? What places him elsewhere, or places someone else at the spot, more powerfully for you than any forensic evidence to the contrary?

At least those who believe - reluctantly - that the DNA evidence has removed any doubt that the right man was taken out of society, have something seemingly solid behind that belief. Yet they are being knocked for accepting it, not by people who merely consider the conviction remains ‘unsafe’, due to concerns expressed about early DNA analyses (which would be fair enough in principle), but by those whose own beliefs would seem to rely wholly on the original case evidence to tell them that Hanratty was not the gunman.

That in itself does not appear to me to be a very reasonable position for the knockers to take.

Love,

Caz
X

[Tony]

Hi Tony,

Don't you think the above is a bit tautological?

"the defence point of view" is equivalent to "the point of view of the legal team representing Hanratty" therefore what you are basically saying is Hanratty sabotaged his own defence.

Vic

Hey Victor,

Can I thank you for introducing me to a new word? It will be a welcome addition to my vocabulary from now on.

I think I shall give it its first airing on Thursday night when I’m out with my mates. I shall slip it into the conversation at the earliest opportunity. I may even try it out on the landlord when I buy the first round. I’ll let you know on Friday what response I get, if any.

I think the point I was trying to make was that the ‘innocent Hanratty’ and if he was innocent he would be confident that no jury would convict him. He was used to courts and always pleaded guilty and on this count he pleaded not guilty and to him logically (oh no) he would be found not guilty. That’s how courts worked he would have thought.
When he realised that the police had brought in unlikely sources of information pointing to his guilt I think he panicked and only then, when his position looked really bad, did he tell the truth.

Tony.

[johnl]

Hi jimarilyn,

Do you think any evidence that could have seriously undermined the guilty verdict would have been ‘hidden away’ for someone to stumble upon at some point in the future? Surely it would have been destroyed and some excuse made, if the object was to cover up a miscarriage of justice, or they would have found some way of using it if it contained ‘vital’ information that could put a wrong right or confirm that right was done.

Hello Caz, I don't understand why people keep bringing up the matter of Dixie France's final letters, since Paul Foot was allowed to see them after being assured that they did not cast any doubt on the veracity of France's evidence. In spite of the undertaking that he gave not to comment upon them I cannot believe that he would have kept his mouth shut had anything casting doubt on Hanratty's conviction come to light

All the best
johnl

[Tony]

Hi All,


Hi Tony,

I respect your opinion but when and how did you go from believing the case against Hanratty had not been made to believing he was actually innocent of any involvement? In order to have ‘always believed’ he was innocent (as opposed to convicted on insufficient or unreliable grounds) you must have had a reason that went beyond gut feeling. If the evidence against Hanratty was not strong enough in your opinion, what evidence did you find strong enough to convince you that he did not commit - or better still, could not have committed - the rape and murder? What places him elsewhere, or places someone else at the spot, more powerfully for you than any forensic evidence to the contrary?

At least those who believe - reluctantly - that the DNA evidence has removed any doubt that the right man was taken out of society, have something seemingly solid behind that belief. Yet they are being knocked for accepting it, not by people who merely consider the conviction remains ‘unsafe’, due to concerns expressed about early DNA analyses (which would be fair enough in principle), but by those whose own beliefs would seem to rely wholly on the original case evidence to tell them that Hanratty was not the gunman.

That in itself does not appear to me to be a very reasonable position for the knockers to take.

Love,

Caz
X

Good evening to you Caz,

If I’m reading you correctly you say when did I go from believing Hanratty to be not guilty as opposed to not believing the case against him had not been made.

I think even the ‘Hanratty did it brigade’ will openly say that he should not have been convicted on the evidence in court (see some of Graham’s recent posts) and I agree with them on that. What is your position on this point, Caz?

And yes it follows that if I believe he was innocent then some other person must have been responsible and if he was not there he had to be somewhere else. We all know the sweet shop evidence and Rhyl.
If Miss Storie had not picked out Michael Clark, who she said in court looked like Peter Alphon, as her attacker but had picked out Peter Alphon, , then I feel the police would have had a much simpler and more convincing case and I don’t think the jury would have been out very long at all.

I am not now knocking nor have I ever knocked anyone for their belief in DNA in this case. It has been well documented and they are of course entitled to accept it; at the end of the day the Appeal Court accepted it. I just happen to think there may be something amiss here and we are here to debate it. I personally thought that the DNA evidence in the Colin Pitchfork case was amazing and he was convicted almost solely on DNA evidence but that was evidence gathered at the time not from something found somewhere after 40 years.

Love,

Tony.

[JIMBOW]

Hi Tony,

I remember the Carl Bridgwater Case very well, and Paul Foot did a wonderful job.

Cheers,

Graham

Graham, I cannot help but think that Foot was more than a little disingenuous in trying to portray Hanratty as a 'cheeky little Cockney sparrow', choosing to virtually ignore such charming character traits as his (Hanratty's) taking advantage of a 16-year-old girl, his callous abandonment of the window-cleaning business that his father had sacrificed his pension rights to start up and his seeming predilection for the services of, shall we say, 'professional ladies'.

I also think it appalling that when, as the years went by and it became more and more patently obvious that the victim's widow had had nothing to do with the murder, that Foot was not man enough to make some kind of apology to the lady in question for the undoubted grief he had caused her with his implications of her possible involvement.

I further think it a great pity that, having played a significant role in securing the overturning of the guilty verdict of the so-called 'Birmingham Six', he was unable to apply his undoubted investigative skills in assisting the authorities in finding just which IRA scumbags did then, in fact, murder 21 innocent people in Brum in '74. It would seem that, in Foot's eyes, there are different categories of 'innocent victims'.

Cheers,
Jim

[JIMBOW]

Hey Victor,

Can I thank you for introducing me to a new word? It will be a welcome addition to my vocabulary from now on.

I think I shall give it its first airing on Thursday night when I’m out with my mates. I shall slip it into the conversation at the earliest opportunity. I may even try it out on the landlord when I buy the first round. I’ll let you know on Friday what response I get, if any.

Tony.

Tony/Victor,

I wonder if, in this day and age of people being 'vertically-challenged',
'follicularly-challenged' etc;, could a person be 'tautologically-challenged'?

Tony, I await with interest the response from the landlord of your local. I have a feeling it may be unprintable, being somewhat 'Anglo-Saxon' in nature.

Regards,
Jim

[jimarilyn]

I don't understand why the onus is on the prosecution to prove he wasn't in Rhyl, surely the onus is on the defence to offer some evidence for the alleged alibi they proposed, which the prosecution then have the opportunity to refute.

The "burden of proof" is on the prosecution to disprove an accused's alibi. This possibly has something to do with the legal situation that a person is presumed "innocent until proven guilty".

Isn't it very strange that not one person ever came forward to place James Hanratty in the Slough area on 22nd of August 1961, whereas a few people claimed to have either seen Peter Alphon or someone remarkably like him in the area around Dorney Common that Tuesday evening ?

What is similarly very strange is the fact that not one person has ever claimed to have seen James Hanratty anywhere in the London (or Slough) area from about 9.30am Tuesday (22nd) until around 8am Friday (25th). Several witnesses however (of good repute) came forward to say they either saw James Hanratty or someone remarkably like him on a London to Liverpool train, in Liverpool and in Rhyl at the critical times.

Even Basil Acott was impressed with Mrs Olive Dinwoodie's (and her granddaughter Barbara's) testimony. So impressed was he in fact that at one point he even suggested the ludicrous possibility that there was an air service connecting Liverpool, London and Dorney, which enabled Hanratty to leg it out of that sweet shop (around 5pm) and head for Speke Airport (about 10 miles away) and then pay for an air ticket to Heathrow and from there somehow make it to Dorney Reach for around 9.30pm.


James

[jimarilyn]

Graham, I cannot help but think that Foot was more than a little disingenuous in trying to portray Hanratty as a 'cheeky little Cockney sparrow', choosing to virtually ignore such charming character traits as his (Hanratty's) taking advantage of a 16-year-old girl, his callous abandonment of the window-cleaning business that his father had sacrificed his pension rights to start up and his seeming predilection for the services of, shall we say, 'professional ladies'.

I also think it appalling that when, as the years went by and it became more and more patently obvious that the victim's widow had had nothing to do with the murder, that Foot was not man enough to make some kind of apology to the lady in question for the undoubted grief he had caused her with his implications of her possible involvement.

I further think it a great pity that, having played a significant role in securing the overturning of the guilty verdict of the so-called 'Birmingham Six', he was unable to apply his undoubted investigative skills in assisting the authorities in finding just which IRA scumbags did then, in fact, murder 21 innocent people in Brum in '74. It would seem that, in Foot's eyes, there are different categories of 'innocent victims'.

Cheers,
Jim

Hi Jimbow

Methinks somehow that you're not a great admirer of the very admirable and courageous Paul Foot.

I feel you're assuming a lot re. the relationship between James Hanratty and Carole France. How do you know Carole was not the instigator, after all it takes two to tango (or even tangle). Carole gave birth to a son either in late 1962 or early 1963 (it couldn't have been Hanratty's child for obvious reasons) when she was only 17 years old. It would seem from this that she was somewhat experienced sexually speaking.

That's a very sweeping statement of yours (the whole second paragraph). You don't know whether or not Janet Gregsten was involved in any way. Personally I don't feel she was involved but I just don't know for certain. Also you don't know what Paul Foot might have said to Mrs Gregsten in their meetings.

regards

James

[JIMBOW]

Hi Jimbow

Methinks somehow that you're not a great admirer of the very admirable and courageous Paul Foot.

I feel you're assuming a lot re. the relationship between James Hanratty and Carole France. How do you know Carole was not the instigator, after all it takes two to tango (or even tangle). Carole gave birth to a son either in late 1962 or early 1963 (it couldn't have been Hanratty's child for obvious reasons) when she was only 17 years old. It would seem from this that she was somewhat experienced sexually speaking.

That's a very sweeping statement of yours (the whole second paragraph). You don't know whether or not Janet Gregsten was involved in any way. Personally I don't feel she was involved but I just don't know for certain. Also you don't know what Paul Foot might have said to Mrs Gregsten in their meetings.

regards

James

Hello Jimarilyn,

I know that, as late as 2004, members of the Gregsten family and, in particular, Anthony, were still 'very upset by Foot's campaign'. I therefore don't think it at all conceivable that Foot offered any kind of apology or atonement for the stain on Ms. Gregsten's character. I also think it highly unlikely that a 16-year-old would have been 'the instigator'; far more likely to have been the crafty and worldly-wise Hanratty.

As for the 'admirable and courageous' Paul Foot, if he was all that admirable and courageous, why could he not have expended the same kind of energy that he used to overturn the conviction of the so-called 'Birmingham Six' towards helping to apprehend the 'real' IRA bombers, thereby bringing at least some small crumb of justice/comfort to the families of the 21 victims. I suppose, in that respect, he was no worse than all the other so-called 'investigative' journalists; just don't give a shite about those who we know, for sure, are certainly victims.

Regards,
Jim

[Tony]

Hello Jimarilyn,

I know that, as late as 2004, members of the Gregsten family and, in particular, Anthony, were still 'very upset by Foot's campaign'. I therefore don't think it at all conceivable that Foot offered any kind of apology or atonement for the stain on Ms. Gregsten's character. I also think it highly unlikely that a 16-year-old would have been 'the instigator'; far more likely to have been the crafty and worldly-wise Hanratty.

As for the 'admirable and courageous' Paul Foot, if he was all that admirable and courageous, why could he not have expended the same kind of energy that he used to overturn the conviction of the so-called 'Birmingham Six' towards helping to apprehend the 'real' IRA bombers, thereby bringing at least some small crumb of justice/comfort to the families of the 21 victims. I suppose, in that respect, he was no worse than all the other so-called 'investigative' journalists; just don't give a shite about those who we know, for sure, are certainly victims.

Regards,
Jim

A very good morning to you Jimbow,

Terrible weather here at the moment.


Excuse me but am I missing something here; isn’t it the job of the police to apprehend
and arrest wrongdoers, take them to court and take them to prison if found guilty?
If the police get it wrong, and sometimes they do you know, then the man’s friends and supporters will feel they have a duty to try to prove his innocence. They do not have a duty to go out and apprehend the true perpetrators of the crime. If they come across evidence that points to others being responsible they then do have a duty to inform the police. But the police usually take the stance: “we’ve got our man, he’s inside doing life and we’ve got better things to do, go away”
Paul Foot was able to assist in freeing the Carl Bridgewater gang by challenging the evidence that had been given in court. He had no duty or resources to open a completely new investigation; he had no police powers to interview anyone he might have suspected. He had no powers of arrest. They could simply tell him to get lost.
Paul Foot was simply trying to right a wrong.

I agree it is very unfortunate for families who have had a loved one murdered when the person originally found guilty is released years later with a pardon. They must feel justice has not been done but I’m sure they wouldn’t want an innocent person sitting in a cell for years just so that they could say: “well at least the police got someone.”

Perhaps you think Judge Denning was right in the following part of his obituary:

In retirement, always ready to furnish journalists with a quote, he ran into even more controversy for ill-judged remarks in interviews. In one he told how donning his black cap to pass a death sentence had never troubled him.
He added: "We shouldn't have all these campaigns to get the Birmingham Six released if they'd been hanged. They'd have been forgotten and the whole community would have been satisfied."
Just a thought.

Tony.

[jimarilyn]

Excuse me but am I missing something here; isn’t it the job of the police to apprehend
and arrest wrongdoers, take them to court and take them to prison if found guilty?
If the police get it wrong, and sometimes they do you know, then the man’s friends and supporters will feel they have a duty to try to prove his innocence. They do not have a duty to go out and apprehend the true perpetrators of the crime. If they come across evidence that points to others being responsible they then do have a duty to inform the police. But the police usually take the stance: “we’ve got our man, he’s inside doing life and we’ve got better things to do, go away”
Paul Foot was able to assist in freeing the Carl Bridgewater gang by challenging the evidence that had been given in court. He had no duty or resources to open a completely new investigation; he had no police powers to interview anyone he might have suspected. He had no powers of arrest. They could simply tell him to get lost.
Paul Foot was simply trying to right a wrong.

Hi Tony,

That's an excellent point you make about Paul Foot. With very limited resources he did amazing work in trying to right miscarriages of justice. Did Jimbow expect him to do all the police's work for them I wonder ?

regards,

james

[Victor]

Hey Victor,

Can I thank you for introducing me to a new word? It will be a welcome addition to my vocabulary from now on.

I think I shall give it its first airing on Thursday night when I’m out with my mates. I shall slip it into the conversation at the earliest opportunity. I may even try it out on the landlord when I buy the first round. I’ll let you know on Friday what response I get, if any.

No problem, I like the word myself but don't get enough opportunities to use it. I especially like Torpenhow Hill and must thank QI for introducing it to me.

I think the point I was trying to make was that the ‘innocent Hanratty’ and if he was innocent he would be confident that no jury would convict him. He was used to courts and always pleaded guilty and on this count he pleaded not guilty and to him logically (oh no) he would be found not guilty. That’s how courts worked he would have thought.
When he realised that the police had brought in unlikely sources of information pointing to his guilt I think he panicked and only then, when his position looked really bad, did he tell the truth.

Tony.

I've read comments about Hanratty's arrogance before, but I find it hard to believe that the original Liverpool alibi involving "fences" would be preferable to anything else unless he was counting on some "honour amongst thieves" and it was fabricated.

[P.L.A]

Paul Foot

I have a great deal of respect for Paul Foot and his likes and admire a lot of the campaigning work he carried out. I just think that he got it all wrong with Sunny Jim.

At the end of his life he was still convinced of Hanratty’s innocence, but had great doubts about Alphon’s guilt.

He only ever met Janet Gregsten once. That was at her home in Cornwall not long before she died. After years of refusing to talk to the author, she eventually wrote to him requesting a get together. This was in response to a letter she had received from good old Peter. In it, the first suspect asked the widow if she would meet him in Ireland to discuss the case.

As a follow-up, Foot met Alphon to discuss his proposed trip to Ireland – and it was at this stage that he started to have great doubts about the man’s involvement in the crime.

Peter.