a6 murder

[Tony]

Hi Tony,

Hang on a bit - if I recall aright, the DNA blokes on the 'Horizon' programme I watched the other night said that there was only one male DNA on the knickers and that it matched the DNA on the hankie, the DNA from Hanratty's family, and the DNA from his remains. I won't even pretend to know owt about DNA, and only drop in on the other thread for a look-see once in a while. But that's how I've always understood it re: the DNA. No Gregsten's, no Alphon's. Just Hanratty's.

Been a long time since I visited Dorney - I once walked from Taplow Station to the cornfield and back on a hot day and it nearly did me in. But by car from the Old Station to the cornfield can't be more than about 5 minutes. I believe that they originally parked in Hunterscombe Lane, which isn't far from the entrance to the cornfield in Marsh Lane.

Cheers,

Graham

Hello Graham,

I’m with you on one thing pal, I don’t understand DNA. Let’s leave that to Reg and Johnl. Where are they by the way?

Well I do think Gregston’s DNA, whatever that is, was found on Valerie’s knickers and I quote from the appeal:


“The knickers arrived at the Metropolitan Police Laboratory (MPL) on 23 August 1961 where they were examined by Dr Nickolls, the director and his assistant, Henry Howard. They were found to be stained with seminal fluid in the area of the crotch and at the back for five inches upwards from the crotch. Vaginal fluid from Valerie Storie was also present. There were smaller quantities of seminal fluid of blood group AB assumed to have come at some earlier stage from Michael Gregsten.


Moreover, we would also have to suppose that Valerie Storie's DNA had remained in its original state, or at least detectable, and had escaped being overridden by DNA from James Hanratty. The same would have to be true of the DNA attributed to Michael Gregsten.”

I might be totally wrong here but aren’t the ‘authorities’ saying sex took place between VS and MG. And later that evening between VS and the gunman (I agree identified by the Appeal Court as James Hanratty). If they left the pub at 9.00 went to park up, then were disturbed and had to move on to the cornfield and were accosted at about 9.30 then when did the act take place between VS and MG? Was it perchance on the instructions of the gunman?

Tony.

[Graham]

The knickers arrived at the Metropolitan Police Laboratory (MPL) on 23 August 1961 where they were examined by Dr Nickolls, the director and his assistant, Henry Howard. They were found to be stained with seminal fluid in the area of the crotch and at the back for five inches upwards from the crotch. Vaginal fluid from Valerie Storie was also present. There were smaller quantities of seminal fluid of blood group AB assumed to have come at some earlier stage from Michael Gregsten.

Hi Tony,

Senior moment for me, I'm afraid. You're right. The other stains were group O as I recall, which was Hanratty's blood group. Ah well, it's been a long day...

I might be totally wrong here but aren’t the ‘authorities’ saying sex took place between VS and MG. And later that evening between VS and the gunman (I agree identified by the Appeal Court as James Hanratty). If they left the pub at 9.00 went to park up, then were disturbed and had to move on to the cornfield and were accosted at about 9.30 then when did the act take place between VS and MG? Was it perchance on the instructions of the gunman?

I would have to say that the cornfield's favourite, in spite of my previous post, but who honestly knows except Valerie Storie?

Cheers,

Graham

[Victor]

Hi Tony,

Senior moment for me, I'm afraid. You're right. The other stains were group O as I recall, which was Hanratty's blood group. Ah well, it's been a long day...

Yes, O the most common type which includes Hanratty and Alphon (but not me)

Those 2 paragraphs Tony quoted are very significant for the DNA evidence because.

1. They imply that MG's DNA was found, but don't explicitly state it.
2. They don't say MG's DNA was positively identified from his family or remains.

But that's for the other thread...

KR,
Vic

[Limehouse]

Ok, I'm going to be rather indelicate now in order to help clear up the mystery of how Gregsten's seminal fluid might have got onto Valerie's knickers and the time frame within which they had to do the deed.

Maybe, just maybe, Valerie wore some unwashed panties that Gregsten had previously stained - maybe the night before?

[reg1965]

Ok, I'm going to be rather indelicate now in order to help clear up the mystery of how Gregsten's seminal fluid might have got onto Valerie's knickers and the time frame within which they had to do the deed.

Maybe, just maybe, Valerie wore some unwashed panties that Gregsten had previously stained - maybe the night before?

Hi Limehouse
...and being a tad bit more indelicate yet to suppose that her previously unlaundered undergarments had an O secretor deposit from another admirer? Again only Miss Storie could tell us that.
Subtle as ever
Reg

[Graham]

Those 2 paragraphs Tony quoted are very significant for the DNA evidence because.

1. They imply that MG's DNA was found, but don't explicitly state it.
2. They don't say MG's DNA was positively identified from his family or remains.

Hi Vic,

You know, when I'm able I'll look again at that 'Horizon' programme about the DNA, because I really can't recall any of the boffins specifically stating that MG's DNA was found on the knickers. Your two points above seem to confirm that.

Let's keep the simple DNA stuff on this thread, eh? The other thread's way above me. And I say that with some reluctance, being a qualified scientific bloke.

The more this case is discussed here, the more little gems of information are revealed.

Hi Reg,

Where you bin? What you most delicately stated reminds me that VS had some laundry in her duffel-bag, as far as I can recall. Could it be that she changed her underwear, and that the exhibits produced in court came from two pairs of knickers? Just a thought, and nothing more.

Where Steve?

Cheers,

Graham

[Tony]

Hi Vic,

You know, when I'm able I'll look again at that 'Horizon' programme about the DNA, because I really can't recall any of the boffins specifically stating that MG's DNA was found on the knickers. Your two points above seem to confirm that.

Let's keep the simple DNA stuff on this thread, eh? The other thread's way above me. And I say that with some reluctance, being a qualified scientific bloke.

The more this case is discussed here, the more little gems of information are revealed.

Hi Reg,

Where you bin? What you most delicately stated reminds me that VS had some laundry in her duffel-bag, as far as I can recall. Could it be that she changed her underwear, and that the exhibits produced in court came from two pairs of knickers? Just a thought, and nothing more.

Where Steve?

Cheers,

Graham

Good evening to you Graham,

It’s good to see you are back on our side. I’m sure Reg1965 and Jimarilyn welcome you back as equally and enthusiastically as do I.

I shall drink to your very good health this evening, Sir.

Tony.

[Tony]

Ok, I'm going to be rather indelicate now in order to help clear up the mystery of how Gregsten's seminal fluid might have got onto Valerie's knickers and the time frame within which they had to do the deed.

Maybe, just maybe, Valerie wore some unwashed panties that Gregsten had previously stained - maybe the night before?

Ooh Limehouse,

You are awful but I do like you.

Tony.

[reg1965]

Hi Reg,

Where you bin? What you most delicately stated reminds me that VS had some laundry in her duffel-bag, as far as I can recall. Could it be that she changed her underwear, and that the exhibits produced in court came from two pairs of knickers? Just a thought, and nothing more...

Hi Graham
As you said it was just a thought and I agree that it doesn't seem likely. We only have VS's testimony to go on and what we can only imagine fills in the rest.
The narrative and time frame that VS gives would leave little room for changing her undies.

Thanks
Reg

[JamesDean]

Photos

An interesting collection of photos ... no doubt you have already seen them but worth another look. Click on each photo to enlarge.

http://www.gettyimages.com/search/search.aspx?eventId=72131601

[Graham]

Good evening to you Graham,

It’s good to see you are back on our side. I’m sure Reg1965 and Jimarilyn welcome you back as equally and enthusiastically as do I.

I shall drink to your very good health this evening, Sir.

Tony.

Hi Tony,

Au contraire, mon ami. From time to time I like to look at things from the opposing point-of-view. You can drink my health by all means (as I'm doing right now) but I am and always will be - at least until that one vital, inarguable piece of evidence turns up, as I suspect will never happen - a Jimdiditite.

Like many puzzles, I sometimes wonder if we A6 Casers sometimes don't see the wood for the trees. Have we all overlooked something? And when I say 'all', I mean everyone from Paul Foot down. The bald facts of this case are that a gunman kidnapped a couple, killed the man, and raped and attempted to kill the woman, with no known motive. My own gut-feeling is that it was totally random, and that the elements of what some see as a conspiracy, or at least a deep mystery, are purely coincidental.

Yet after all these years of reading books, subscribing to this thread, reading the books again, debating, arguing, having a few drinks, I still don't understand why. I am very, very inclined to believe that the whole basis of why lies with Hanratty's personality, behavioural tendencies, and his background. Yet - let's be honest about this - Hanratty was a crook, not a very successful one, he was technically on the run at the time of the A6 Case, but he did what he did with no previous conviction for violence of any kind. Anti-social maybe; violent, no. There were worse characters around than he at the time: real hard-boiled types who'd think nothing of sticking a gun in someone's face in exchange for that person's worldly goods, but to hold up the occupants of a simple run-of-the-mill Morris Minor in a field? Had it been a Bentley, yes, well, fair enough; he could've played the highwayman of old and relieved them of jewellery, watches, cash, God knows what. A proper Dennis Moore.

I don't buy, never did, and never will, the theory that he was 'sent' to the cornfield. It doesn't add up. If someone wanted to sort Gregsten out, then I rather think a swift grab of the lapels behind a pub and a muttered yet unmistakeably direct threat might have had the desired effect - and it would have been hugely less expensive and less complicated.

I used to know a bloke way back, nice enough character, but a real rogue who was totally unable to enter a shop or a garage without nicking something. Just bits and pieces, but he was addicted to thieving. He'd rather have made a quid dishonestly than £20 honestly. That bloke reminds me in a way of Hanratty - he just couldn't help doing what he did. He used to get caught regularly, but within a few days was back at it. He couldn't stop. But unlike Hanratty, he never moved on to 'greater' things. I wonder if obtaining the gun convinced Hanratty that he was moving up a notch or two, perhaps into the rarified atmosphere of the real East End hard-knocks he probably modelled himself upon.

I really do think that once Hanratty had started the ball rolling that night he was totally unable to stop it.

Anyway, excuse the speculation. Just tossing a few little bits of tinder into the fire, that's all.

Cheers,

Graham

[caz]

Hi Graham,

Might it not change the way we look at potential motive if we knew that Hanratty had indeed forced himself on to France's barely legal daughter? As someone else said, when you've killed once it's supposed to be much easier to kill again. Would the same apply to rape? Hanratty was said to be highly sexed, and sex has always been motive enough for many a rape and murder, although there is of course many an exception too.

I just feel that if Hanratty had begun to see women in the same way he saw anything else that could do him a good turn, like cash, watches and cars, it makes sense if he came across what he perceived to be a courting couple in a car and thought "Bingo! Now I have this new toy I can enjoy the spoils". I suspect that what happened next can be explained by the gunman grabbing his opportunity without thinking things through properly beyond the fact that the gun would give him the upper hand and get him whatever he wanted.

Regarding Alphon’s claim that he forced the couple to couple, why on earth would Valerie have been too embarrassed to say so, when telling the police that the man with the gun had raped her after shooting Gregsten?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi all,

An interesting post was submitted (27th April 2007) on the old thread by a John B of Hereford. I quote him as follows :-

I remember this murder so well. I was at an impressionable age and secret trysts between married people were only for The News of the World. There was a strong rumour in many of the pubs along the Caledonian Road in North London (it runs from King's Cross to Holloway Road) that Hanratty was innocent and that people who knew it and could prove it would not step forward. This stayed with me and my acquaintances for many years and the DNA results came as a big surprise.

There was little sympathy then for the woman; don't know why but some things stay with you. Don't know what to believe now.

regards,

James

Hi jimarilyn,

Two points here:

If the slightest doubt in a juror’s mind is a reasonable doubt, the strongest rumour is still only a rumour. If any of the pub goers had any actual information about the people or their proof, they too failed to step forward and take this strong rumour to the next level.

The only way for anyone to have proved Hanratty innocent would have been to provide a verifiable alibi for him, or proof against another individual.

I have a very, very vague memory of reading in a tabloid years ago that it had been suggested Alphon belonged to British Intelligence....

Good God, Graham. Makes you wonder if he would have been following a convoluted script and acting his socks off to orders, or the loosest cannon ever employed as an agent. I’m finking of his reported lapse into ‘finking’ just for starters.

Hi Tony,

Many thanks for your kind responses to me and many apologies for taking so long to get back to this thread!

Valerie Storie did not pick out Alphon on the first ID parade but she possibly came within a whisker of doing so. He was after all the suspect and the police at that time were surely convinced that they had their man. If she had picked him out she would not be “my same less than reliable Valerie Storie”. She would have been very reliable.
She would have picked out the police’s suspect and presumably Acott would have grabbed her by the arm and said: “Well done”.
She would then be pleased to have identified Alphon and would have presumably gone to court and given the evidence against him that would have led to his execution and would presumably still be saying today: “I know who was in the car and now I have settled my score with Alphon”

I see what you mean, but I think you missed a point I was trying to make. Your whole argument relies on Valerie Storie not having been reliable enough to pick out the right man (which would be fair enough if the DNA evidence had not appeared to confirm that she did get it right in the end). She only had a chance to pick out the right man if and when he was actually there. And if she had picked out Alphon, you don’t know that the DNA evidence was not already in place to question her reliability 40 years later. Her reliability was what it was and she did fail to pick out Alphon. A miss is as good as a mile, and this witness who ‘possibly came within a whisker’ of being ‘very reliable’ and picking out the right man is the same witness who is meant to have been very unreliable indeed, for going on to pick out two wrong men who looked nothing like each other. I just don’t think you can have it both ways. If she was very reliable she picked the right man. If she didn’t pick the right man, she was not reliable at all.

Imagine for a moment that Alphon had been hanged instead of Hanratty and Alphon supporters had then campaigned against his conviction. Barring a conspiracy to plant Hanratty’s DNA on the hankie and knickers to make him guilty, what do you think would have been the result of the appeal, all else being equal?

I strongly suspect that Alphon’s name would have been cleared and Hanratty would finally have gone down in history as the murderer, with few querying the result.

Whether the DNA evidence revealed the rapist’s identity or not, it was the campaign for justice that invoked it, and it’s all we have. The campaigners didn’t wave any flags about the integrity of evidence gathered so long ago when they were eager for the tests to be done and presumed they would prove conclusively that someone other than Hanratty was guilty. But that didn’t happen, so if Hanratty hadn’t paid the ultimate price in 1962, he would still have paid 40 years later, with Alphon still ending up in the clear.

It’s a wee bit late to protest, when the result goes the wrong way, that tests one has campaigned long and hard for never had a chance of being reliable, given the age, handling and storage of the surviving evidence.

I'll post here a quote taken from a debate in the commons re the Hanratty trial...

Quote:
There were three identifications of Hanratty
reported at the trial. There were five identifications of other people by leading Crown
witnesses.

...Any comments?

Hi James,

Just a quickie regarding the above extract from the quote you provided:

Do you know how many individuals featured in the five identifications? It would not necessarily be significant unless the same person featured in two or more of them.

On Crimewatch, we regularly hear of scores of calls from the public, suggesting different names for a particular offender, but it’s the same name cropping up more than once or twice that always makes the police sit up and take notice. It would be misleading to compare three identifications of one person with five, or even thirty-five identifications, if each involved a different person, and make something of the fact that the ids not featuring a particular suspect outnumbered the ones that did.

Reducing the three of Hanratty down to one is fine as long as like is compared with like and at least one of those other five ids can be considered more reliable than the victim’s.

Finally for now, a question just for those claiming that Hanratty was innocent (as opposed to convicted without the necessary proof):

If the only way for Hanratty to be innocent is if Alphon did it, what is the strongest evidence against Alphon, and does it amount to the proof beyond reasonable doubt that you believe is still lacking in Hanratty’s case? In short, if you can’t make a case that would ensure the safe conviction of Alphon, are you not engaged in exactly the same process of injustice that you believe Hanratty was made to suffer - this time towards a man who cannot be connected via forensics to the crime, no matter what you do with the DNA evidence?

Love,

Caz
X

[reg1965]

Hi all
I am not necessarily a 'jimdidntdoitite' but I am positive, in asmuch as innocent until proven guilty, that Hanratty was innocent of the charges; given the evidence presented at trial in 1962, what has been uncovered since and in appeal in 2002 viz the DNA, as it was the only evidence entered by the prosecution.
From the vast number of posts here it seems obvious that the vast majority of the regular posters to this thread have at least some doubts about the original trial verdict. I haven't heard many 'Hanratty definitely did it from the outset' views here.
The main plank of the prosecutions case in 1961 was Valerie Storie and that Hanratty had bought his Liverpool Alibi.
No forensic evidence implicating a third party was found at the scene of the crime either at Deadmans Hill or in the car in Avondale Crescent bar the semen stains on Valeries Knickers and slip.
The rest of the case for the prosection was purely circumstantial, however much you argue its individual or collective integrity.
Firstly other identification as in the Redbridge sightings. DS Acott already knew that these witnesses were wrong because he had had the mileage figures and statements from other sightings elsewhere. Especially the milkman in Bedford who saw the car at 5:25 the same morning.
Secondly, the gun on the bus and the cartridge cases at the Vienna. The gun was put on the bus, as the police suspected at the time, as being during the afternoon/evening run of the 24th. Hanratty sent a telegram to the Frances' from Liverpool no later that 20:45. No one saw him on the bus and he would have had to have planted it that afternoon and then gone to Liverpool by train. The conductor on that second run of the 36A saw a man that resembled Alphon get on and sit upstairs at about 18:30. The handkerchief was Hanratty's, he said so in court. He also admitted to talking to Dixie about the back seat of a bus.
The cartridge cases was a damning piece of evidence when placed in context with the rest of the prosecution case. I don't buy it personally. I believe it was planted.
Thirdly, other prosecution witnesses. These were called, on the whole, to show what a wicked and evil man Hanratty is. The most important of which were;
Louise Anderson - FENCE. (previous good friend)
Langdale - RECIDIVIST AND LIAR
Nudds - DITTO
Dixie France - PETTY CROOK (previous good friend)
France family (previous good friend)

The Liverpool alibi (Mrs Dinwoodie) was not undermined by the prosecution. In fact it was established by their witnesses who placed Hanratty in London on the 21st that the sightings must have been the 22nd. The prosecution could only suggest that the alibi had been bought.

Valerie Stories evidence is flawed, however confident or implacable she seemed to be. Her first description and the photofits distributed did not resemble Hanratty. It soon changed with regard to eye colour, but Alphon was still brought in and a brown eyed man picked out. Mr Acott wrote this in the back of his notebook.
Valerie stated that her 'memory of the man was fading' a while before she then picked out Hanratty at another parade. He didn't look like her original description and his hair colour at the time of the murder would have been very dark (and streaky) after Carol France had dyed it a few weeks earlier. His hair colour at the parade has been described as 'vivid orange'! The only thing that we can summise is that it was his voice that got him identified. We are not sure whether Valerie was told she could ask the men to speak on either parade.
Her account of what the gunman said during the ordeal doesn't link convincingly to Hanratty. Even the 'call me Jim' admission was dismissed by Valerie when she said 'I didn't think that that was his real name'.
The route taken as Valerie testified, was not quite correct. Harry Hirons, the Kingsbury garage attendent filled the car, he identified it as being so, rather than it being filled at the Regency near London Airport. The attendent swore he had not had a Morris Minor car in during his shift.

At the appeal in 2002 the only evidence produced by the prosecution was DNA anaysis evidence. The technique used was LCN DNA (low copy number). It was pioneered by Dr's Gill and Whitaker at the FSS (forensic science service) to try to solve cold cases.
It has since been discredited on the grounds of not being validated by international standards bodies. Among its main defects is the inability for its results to be ratified by third party examination.
A review was carried out to investigate the viability of LCN but its conclusions have left the door open for its continued use.
The amount of DNA required for testing by this technique is microscopic and because of this, the opportunity for contamination is vastly increased. It has been shown through the lifecycle of the tested evidence that real windows of opportunity for contamination exist, let alone the degree of degradation that may occurred over the last 40 years.

Other evidence that has come to light between the trial and appeal has not dissuaded me one inch. In fact the Rhyl alibi is just more compelling evidence in favour of Hanratty's outright innocence of the crime. A dozen or so people in a small seaside town swear that Hanratty was there on the 22nd and 23rd of August 1961. All witness testimony is open to inexactitude and that should be applied to both sides, the prosecution and the defence. And therefore 12 people against 1 swearing he was in one place or the other is rather irresistable.

I cannot bring James Hanratty back. But I feel that a great miscarriage of justice has been done and that it should be righted.

Reg

[caz]

Hi Reg,

I think we all agree that there are many problems with the original case evidence. We could disregard the gun evidence because it could have been planted. We could disregard Valerie's as unreliable. But if we are agreed that there is nothing - and I do mean nothing - to this day, to make a case against Alphon that would even get to court, I'm wondering where you can go, because there is nobody else to take Hanratty's place and someone was responsible and should have been taken out of society. I believe he must have been, one way or another. It doesn't work to say that Hanratty must still be presumed innocent in law until you find him guilty beyond your idea of reasonable doubt. He has already been found guilty in law. Your only option now is to find the evidence you need to prove someone else must have done it.

I keep coming back to this, but I don't believe the man who did that to VS and MG could have blended seamlessly back into society without committing any more offences of a similar nature. Neither was he likely to have stuck himself out there like a sore thumb in a glare of publicity and not come a cropper at some point. The man who committed that crime was not exactly brain of Britain, was he?

Unfortunately, evidence can be planted against a guilty man just as easily as it can against an innocent one. So disregarding it doesn't clear Hanratty, nor can it be used against Alphon. And if VS picked out two men who were nothing like each other physically, she can't be relied on to tell us that one of them resembled a third man. Once we have agreed to disregard her evidence against Hanratty, it also has to be disregarded concerning the man she thought looked like Alphon. We have no way of judging, without more evidence, whether her attacker looked - or sounded - like Hanratty or Alphon or someone else entirely. It's not even 50-50 because Alphon was there and escaped her gaze and was not asked to speak. If he had been, would she have recognised his voice or known instantly that it wasn't him?

Back to the DNA briefly, you wrote:

'It has been shown through the lifecycle of the tested evidence that real windows of opportunity for contamination exist, let alone the degree of degradation that may occurred over the last 40 years.'

But we know that JH's and VS's DNA (if not MG's) must have survived degradation for 40 years, unless you are suggesting it could have arrived on the hankie or knickers at some point after 1962. Surely that narrows your window of opportunity right down to a contamination event very close to the beginning of that lifecycle, the traces of which degraded slowly enough over the next four decades to oblige with JH's profile in time for the 2002 appeal - and no other potential rapist DNA detectable.

I'm afraid it's a stretch too far for me unless someone can come up with something tangible that can seriously undermine the results or put Alphon in the frame over Hanratty.

Love,

Caz
X