a6 murder

[Tony]

I need your help please.

Hello everybody,

Can anyone, particularly on the ‘Hanratty did it’ side of the fence, tell me when Valerie Storie decided on the second ID parade that Hanratty was her man? What gave him away and do you think Valerie was 100% honest in her account of both parades at the trial and since?
What do you think was the one thing that enabled her to point her finger at Hanratty and has her evidence always been consistent?
I await your views with interest.

Incidentally and just as an aside did you know that the alleged Liverpool comedian Alexei Sale’s father was staying at Ingledene during the week of the murder?

Tony.

[PC49]

Hello everybody,

Can anyone, particularly on the ‘Hanratty did it’ side of the fence, tell me when Valerie Storie decided on the second ID parade that Hanratty was her man? What gave him away and do you think Valerie was 100% honest in her account of both parades at the trial and since?
What do you think was the one thing that enabled her to point her finger at Hanratty and has her evidence always been consistent?
I await your views with interest.

Incidentally and just as an aside did you know that the alleged Liverpool comedian Alexei Sale’s father was staying at Ingledene during the week of the murder?

Tony.

Hi Tony,
From one who happens to be on the same side of the fence as you, I hope this will still be constructive.
I believe that Valerie Storie appears to have based her selection on speech. As it would seem that Hanratty was the only line-up member with a london accent, well.......................!!
Call me a cynic if you like, but I'm afraid I've never been convinced about her attitude to nailing someone for the crime. The very fact that she was so sure she'd picked out the right man first time around, makes me very dubious about her whole approach to the process. I can't help the nagging feeling that when Hanratty was put in the frame, she became hell bent on making him pay the full penalty. Her serialisation in a magazine soon after the execution tends to bear this out.
Incidentally, that revelation about Alexei Sayle's father is a real surprise - where did that come from??
All the very best,
PC49

[jimarilyn]

Milky thoughts

Evening all (no it's not George Dixon)

The morning after the murder a gunman forced his way into the home of Audrey Willis.
The same gunman did a repeat act less than 2 days before James Hanratty's execution (who said lightning doesn't strike twice ?)
Her description of this man was that he had a long and thinnish pale face, a sallow complexion, and deep-set brown eyes. He had dark brown hair (smoothed back) which was receding at the sides and was aged about 30 (wonder who this reminds me of ?).
This gunman asked her for a glass of milk, which she duly gave.
The day previously (23rd of August) the murder car stopped outside Nevill & Griffin's dairy (probably on the gunman's instructions) to buy some milk from a milk machine (but nobody had any sixpenny pieces).
If they were two different gunmen, they sure did like a glass/carton of milk.

regards,
James.

[reg1965]

Incidentally and just as an aside did you know that the alleged Liverpool comedian Alexei Sale’s father was staying at Ingledene during the week of the murder?

Hi Tony
Joseph Sayle, NUR official. Room 4. 21st to 24th.
Don't mention charity week at the Emirates. Bloody Gael Clichy....what a total muppet...great player though...still sick as a tropical bird.
Reg

[jimarilyn]

Hello everybody,

Incidentally and just as an aside did you know that the alleged Liverpool comedian Alexei Sale’s father was staying at Ingledene during the week of the murder?

Tony.

Although I'm a Liverpudlian myself I have to agree with you Tony, Alexei is as funny as the proverbial toothache.

regards,
James

[reg1965]

Hello everybody

I posted the "old " thread previously; thought it had disappeared and was delighted to see it had been reformed..it took a while to plough through all the excellent messages..many thanks to everyone and am so glad to see this topic is alive and well!!!

I was at school on Bedford as the A6 case was hotting up and Paul Foot's book was launched in the year that I left (1971). John Kerr was at the same school but left before me so unfortunately I did not really know him.

I was firmly in the JH innocent/PLA guilty/Paul Foot/Bob Woffinden/Mystery of Deadman's Hill camp until the DNA result in which I have acquiesced (accepted reluctantly). I am now a JH guilty/Leonard Miller/Valerie Storie man but it does not mean I do not have nagging doubts. I hope you do not mind me giving some of my thoughts which are foremost in my mind about this intriguing case.

I always thought Dixie France was the key man in the case..the "arranger" who obtained the gun and framed Hanratty. His suicide haunted me..now I think he was a tortured soul..the photo of him with his family suggests a man who wanted respectability but was unable to be the provider without resorting to being on the fringes of the underworld. Hanratty being charged and he and his family being dragged into court was the last straw for this (probably) clinically depressed person.

Also, JH's last letters to his family also haunted me. I hope the explanation I put forward does not offend anyone but I think that JH had mild, if not acute, schizophrenia. This terrible condition was not seriously recognised at the time of the case..I had a member of my family (maiden Aunt) who was similarly afflicted and the only "cure" was shock treatment with no remedial treatment or analysis. I have to say (again without speaking ill of people) that she was capable of being in TOTAL denial of any wrong things that she had done..she could look you straight in the eye and tell untruths. That explains the last letters to me.

Finally..what DID JH do on the 22nd August in the hours between getting a train from Paddington and 9.30 p.m.?? If only we could trawl through archives and see if any burglaries had been reported..what was on at the cinemas..whether anything untoward was reported at the Bear Hotel Maidenhead??? Any ideas??

Well I've rambled on long enough but this is only part of what I have to get off my chest after all this time!!!

Have a good evening everybody

Hi Mav
I meant to reply to you last week but have had a mare of a time what with one thing or another and I just plain forgot. Please excuse me.

Paragraph 3
I was shocked initially by the DNA anaysis evidence but remained sceptical because of my wholehearted belief in the sweetshop and Rhyl alibi's. I have never given up believing that Hanratty was innocent but it has not been until recently that, with some brilliant help from posters here such as Dupplin Muir, JamesDean and jimarylin and especially outside from Professor Allan Jamieson that I have rewarded for being sceptical about the DNA testimony given.
I do not know how many copies of Miller (2001) were actually printed. Copies change hands for about 50 quid from what I have seen. Miller may have several box fulls left that he is knocking out for a decent markup on the Ł12 that I paid to Zoilus Press. I have not found a review of it in a national publication bar Amazon, one of which is mine...guess which one?
Miller, who was once a believer in Hanrattys innocence, changed his view completely because he was blinded by the DNA results.
He then goes and writes a book trying to now get the evidence to fit in with his new found belief. He does this by not referencing adequately (which, as he is an academic, is beyond belief) and by hoping that his readership is lazy enough to not check where he has gotten material from and in what context it originally appeared. This is most apparent when one considers the leeway he allows the prosecution case as opposed to the defence. Hanratty's alibi is taken apart bit by bit. This is an old trick and one should not fall for it. Any alibi or witness testimony can be pulled apart in anyway if subjected to minute scrutiny. It is the full weight of the alibi as a whole that must be considered.

Paragraph 4
As Hanratty was in Rhyl at the time of the stick up at Dorney Reach, then what Valerie Storie says about what the gunman says of himself certainly looks like a ruse to implicate Hanratty. France would have known as much about Hanratty as anyone at that time I suppose. He knew about the back seat of a bus and where Hanratty had stayed on the 21st. Who knows?
Could France have been the gunman? He was in his early forties and didn't look much like either Alphon or Hanratty.
So if he was involved then we have a conspiricy. And what motive drove the purpose. A madcap scheme that could land someone at the end of a piece of rope? I don't think so. Whatever happened, France ended up dead in a rented flat just after Hanratty's appeal.
Was Alphon the gunman? Who knows?
Has he really disclosed anything that only the real killer would know. Justice suggests that a sexual motive may have played a part and that this comes from Alphon. Valerie Storie suggests, in her testimony of the route, that certain places were unsuitable to stop at.

paragraph 5
All I know is that when Hanratty was asked to answer questions under oath he answered in a coherent way. Miller is the only place that I have read of all the horrors of Hanratty's nightmare childhood. From where he got these notions only the lord knows.

paragraph 6
He was in Liverpool at about 5pm and in Rhyl at 8:19pm if that is any help here. The helicopter may have been being readied but surely the CAA would have records of light aircraft movements at any one time whether on Merseyside or in London (any help here?)

Nice to have you aboard all the same!

Regards
Reg (aka The Incredible Hulk...well this week anyway! I ate all the pies.)

[Tony]

Evening all (no it's not George Dixon)

The morning after the murder a gunman forced his way into the home of Audrey Willis.
The same gunman did a repeat act less than 2 days before James Hanratty's execution (who said lightning doesn't strike twice ?)
Her description of this man was that he had a long and thinnish pale face, a sallow complexion, and deep-set brown eyes. He had dark brown hair (smoothed back) which was receding at the sides and was aged about 30 (wonder who this reminds me of ?).
This gunman asked her for a glass of milk, which she duly gave.
The day previously (23rd of August) the murder car stopped outside Nevill & Griffin's dairy (probably on the gunman's instructions) to buy some milk from a milk machine (but nobody had any sixpenny pieces).
If they were two different gunmen, they sure did like a glass/carton of milk.

regards,
James.

Hmm,

That’s very interesting. I don’t recall anyone else making that connection before.
I bet Reg, Superman that he is, will know Peter Alphon’s latest cholesterol levels.

Tony.

[Tony]

Hi Tony,
From one who happens to be on the same side of the fence as you, I hope this will still be constructive.
I believe that Valerie Storie appears to have based her selection on speech. As it would seem that Hanratty was the only line-up member with a london accent, well.......................!!
Call me a cynic if you like, but I'm afraid I've never been convinced about her attitude to nailing someone for the crime. The very fact that she was so sure she'd picked out the right man first time around, makes me very dubious about her whole approach to the process. I can't help the nagging feeling that when Hanratty was put in the frame, she became hell bent on making him pay the full penalty. Her serialisation in a magazine soon after the execution tends to bear this out.
Incidentally, that revelation about Alexei Sayle's father is a real surprise - where did that come from??
All the very best,
PC49

A very good afternoon to you PC49,

Thank you for your reply to my post 2521.

I had rather expected a reply from the other side of the fence but you have answered for them.

It has always been firmly stated that Valerie was an honest, reliable and completely truthful witness by those who believe in Hanratty’s guilt and they forgive her error in picking another man from an earlier parade. Vic will tell you she was under pressure to pick ‘someone’ out; others will say she picked out Michael Clark by mistake and if she had heard him speak then she would not have picked him out. Well maybe.
But in court she reluctantly admitted that Clark bore a fair resemblance to Alphon. Now when and who by Alphon was eventually pointed out to Valerie for this comparison has, as far as I am aware, never been explained.
At the trial she said she could not remember what Clark looked like. She also said she did not know that she could ask the men to speak. (This I suggest was for the benefit of the jury because she said she recognised Hanratty by voice alone).

On the second parade after 20 minutes she eventually, as we know, picked Hanratty. We know from Jimarilyn’s post, in which he quotes Antony Luxemburg that it took twenty minutes. We also know that the parade was grossly unfair because of Hanratty’s hair colour and that he was almost certainly the only cockney on the parade.

In Today magazine a few weeks after Hanratty had been executed Valerie Storie said:
“I had waited for twenty minutes knowing that this man who had trampled my life underfoot like a worm was suffering in that empty thing he called his soul.”

So according to that Miss Storie did not even need to ask them to speak she had recognised the man with the orange hair immediately. Then why go into court and say it was the voice that gave him away?
Because that now sounded more convincing than a visual identification. She had failed on that count once before. Now her powers of observation were open to doubt and the defence could have exploited that; and she could not say to the jury that he looked entirely different from everyone else because of his hair. So the voice had it.

Now was the honest, reliable and completely truthful Valerie lying in court or lying in Today magazine?

I know we will never know but I wouldn’t be surprised if that second ID parade was well rehearsed by Acott and Valerie and Valerie knew who Acott wanted her to choose.

Tony.

PS: Jimarilyn tells us that Michael Clark emigrated to Australia. Well he’s done mighty well for himself; he scored a century against India earlier today.

[jimarilyn]

A very good afternoon to you PC49,

Thank you for your reply to my post 2521.

I had rather expected a reply from the other side of the fence but you have answered for them.

It has always been firmly stated that Valerie was an honest, reliable and completely truthful witness by those who believe in Hanratty’s guilt and they forgive her error in picking another man from an earlier parade. Vic will tell you she was under pressure to pick ‘someone’ out; others will say she picked out Michael Clark by mistake and if she had heard him speak then she would not have picked him out. Well maybe.
But in court she reluctantly admitted that Clark bore a fair resemblance to Alphon. Now when and who by Alphon was eventually pointed out to Valerie for this comparison has, as far as I am aware, never been explained.
At the trial she said she could not remember what Clark looked like. She also said she did not know that she could ask the men to speak. (This I suggest was for the benefit of the jury because she said she recognised Hanratty by voice alone).

On the second parade after 20 minutes she eventually, as we know, picked Hanratty. We know from Jimarilyn’s post, in which he quotes Antony Luxemburg that it took twenty minutes. We also know that the parade was grossly unfair because of Hanratty’s hair colour and that he was almost certainly the only cockney on the parade.

In Today magazine a few weeks after Hanratty had been executed Valerie Storie said:
“I had waited for twenty minutes knowing that this man who had trampled my life underfoot like a worm was suffering in that empty thing he called his soul.”

So according to that Miss Storie did not even need to ask them to speak she had recognised the man with the orange hair immediately. Then why go into court and say it was the voice that gave him away?
Because that now sounded more convincing than a visual identification. She had failed on that count once before. Now her powers of observation were open to doubt and the defence could have exploited that; and she could not say to the jury that he looked entirely different from everyone else because of his hair. So the voice had it.

Now was the honest, reliable and completely truthful Valerie lying in court or lying in Today magazine?

I know we will never know but I wouldn’t be surprised if that second ID parade was well rehearsed by Acott and Valerie and Valerie knew who Acott wanted her to choose.

Tony.

PS: Jimarilyn tells us that Michael Clark emigrated to Australia. Well he’s done mighty well for himself; he scored a century against India earlier today.

Good afternoon Tony,

I'm going to be accused (by the possible owner of a nasal spray ?) of sycophantic behaviour, but I have to say your post was very impressive (excellent even !)
You know where I stand with regards to the reliability of Valerie Storie's evidence so I won't go there.
Louis Blom-Cooper in his 1963 book "The A6 Murder; Regina v. James Hanratty, The semblance of truth" tells us that he is a "Jimdiditite" ( to pinch the absent without leave Graham's expression). I have read this particular book and as Bob Woffinden states in his own book ( page 334 )...."He also impugned Valerie Storie's entire testimony, arguing that 'No trained judge could have placed much weight on her evidence.' "
So here we have someone from the other side of the fence stating that he didn't trust Miss Storie's testimony.
I don't believe for one moment that she was under pressure to pick someone out. She was (and probably still is) a feisty, strong willed and intelligent woman. It had been four and a half weeks since the murder and she was by this time well on the road to recovery from her bullet wounds. As has been mentioned many times over the last 47 years she picked out an innocent airman from a nearby RAF base. She admitted that Michael Clark resembled Peter Alphon, who was only a few feet away. Alphon looked nothing at all like James Hanratty so we can logically deduce that Michael Clark didn't look like Hanratty either. If Michael Clark looked nothing like James Hanratty how on earth did Miss Storie pick out Hanratty 3 weeks later ? For my money she was coached/coaxed by Basil Acott, she might even have been asked by Baz if she liked oranges.
At the earlier magistrates hearing in November/December 1961 at Ampthill, her evidence was for some reason heard "in camera" and not witnessed by those gathered in the courtroom. Just over a month or so later however, she was ushered into the courtroom at Bedford Assizes in a wheelchair. This must have played a large part in swinging it for her and gaining the sympathy vote of most of that jury.

regards,
James

[reg1965]

Hi all
One of the most important factors in all of the identification evidence has been the gunmans hair.
We know that Hanratty's hair at the time of the murder was very dark and unnatural looking. This was because Carol France had dyed it black just over a couple of weeks earlier. Mr Da Costa the actor spotted Hanratty at Euston because of his hair colour (he thought it was a wig). Mrs Walker and Mr Larman both commented on exactly the same thing about the state of his hair. Mrs Jones (albeit after talking to Evans, which was taboo) was unsure about Hanratty's picture (taken at the time of the trial) because his hair was very dark when she took him in.
Many others including Mrs Walker and Mrs Dinwoodie were thrown by photographs shown to them because of Hanrattys hair colour at the time.
Similarly, where in the descriptions given by Valerie Storie, Skillett and Trower is it mentioned how the gunmans hair resembled Hanrattys at the time?
The change of eye colour from brown to icy blue has seemed to take precedence over this very important piece of identification evidence which has been shown to be correct and proves Hanratty was not at Dorney Reach at the time of the stick up.

Regards
Reg (tonight Matthew I am going to be Crane Fly Man)

Ps. Tony....be a good chap and don't mention football until at least next Thursday

[reg1965]

Hi all
Another point I would like to raise among you good peeps is that of sightings of the gunman after the crime.
The Redbridge witness testimony is discredited by the non-disclosure of the mileage, Mr Drayton the milkman in Bedford together with conflicting views of when the car was actually first seen abandoned on Avondale Crescent.
Were there any reports at all of a man, with very dark, unnaturally looking hair and covered in blood in the Redbridge area at all between 7am and 7pm on the 23rd August 1961. If there were I am damn sure we would have heard about it in the original trial and if not then then certainly in the appeal of 2002.

Reg
(Crane Fly Man is a very poor superhero! He keeps getting his legs pulled off by horrible spotty little turds who should know better! We were all young once though I suppose )

[jimarilyn]

Hi all
One of the most important factors in all of the identification evidence has been the gunmans hair.
We know that Hanratty's hair at the time of the murder was very dark and unnatural looking. This was because Carol France had dyed it black just over a couple of weeks earlier. Mr Da Costa the actor spotted Hanratty at Euston because of his hair colour (he thought it was a wig). Mrs Walker and Mr Larman both commented on exactly the same thing about the state of his hair. Mrs Jones (albeit after talking to Evans, which was taboo) was unsure about Hanratty's picture (taken at the time of the trial) because his hair was very dark when she took him in.
Many others including Mrs Walker and Mrs Dinwoodie were thrown by photographs shown to them because of Hanrattys hair colour at the time.
Similarly, where in the descriptions given by Valerie Storie, Skillett and Trower is it mentioned how the gunmans hair resembled Hanrattys at the time?
The change of eye colour from brown to icy blue has seemed to take precedence over this very important piece of identification evidence which has been shown to be correct and proves Hanratty was not at Dorney Reach at the time of the stick up.

Regards
Reg (tonight Matthew I am going to be Crane Fly Man)

Ps. Tony....be a good chap and don't mention football until at least next Thursday

You make very good and telling points Reg about Hanratty's hair colour at the time of the murder. It wasn't brown or even dark brown it was jet black. Just 5 or 6 days before the murder his cousin Eileen Cunningham saw him in Willesden but didn't recognise him on account of his "absolutely jet black" (her own words) hair.
Christopher Larman said his hair was black and Margaret Walker said it was dark. Both of these witnesses commented that it was either streaky/tacky or bronze coloured in some parts, due no doubt to the dye beginning to fade and Hanratty's natural auburn colour showing through at the roots.


regards,
James.

PS. Tony, don't mention Spurs. I watched the match this evening and the Reds just threw it away. Serves us right for not taking all those chances. I know how Reg must have felt on Wednesday. Keane, Arbeloa, Babel and Dossena are a complete waste of space. 18 million quid for Keane !! Glad to get that off my chest !

[Tony]

You make very good and telling points Reg about Hanratty's hair colour at the time of the murder. It wasn't brown or even dark brown it was jet black. Just 5 or 6 days before the murder his cousin Eileen Cunningham saw him in Willesden but didn't recognise him on account of his "absolutely jet black" (her own words) hair.
Christopher Larman said his hair was black and Margaret Walker said it was dark. Both of these witnesses commented that it was either streaky/tacky or bronze coloured in some parts, due no doubt to the dye beginning to fade and Hanratty's natural auburn colour showing through at the roots.


regards,
James.

PS. Tony, don't mention Spurs. I watched the match this evening and the Reds just threw it away. Serves us right for not taking all those chances. I know how Reg must have felt on Wednesday. Keane, Arbeloa, Babel and Dossena are a complete waste of space. 18 million quid for Keane !! Glad to get that off my chest !

The article below is by Richard Ingrams on 10th February, 2007. It was in his column Richard Ingram’s week in The Independent. From the last paragraph he might know a bit more than any of us.

Tony.

PS: Reg, is there any truth in the rumour that your aluminium goalkeeper is in training for the part of the Tin Man in The Wizard of OZ?

Unconvinced by the evidence
I have been rereading Who Killed Hanratty? by my great friend Paul Foot, first published in 1971. James Hanratty, a petty criminal, was hanged in 1962 after being found guilty of the so-called A6 murder of Michael Gregsten and the attempted murder of his girlfriend Valerie Storie. I was amused to be reminded that it was I who initially launched Paul on his lifelong crusade to establish Hanratty's innocence when I passed on to him some material submitted to Private Eye.
Over the years the Hanratty saga involved several books, TV programmes, parliamentary debate and government inquiries. It all came to a climax in 2002 when the case was again referred to the Court of Appeal, but the judges ruled that on the basis of DNA evidence Hanratty had indeed been the A6 murderer.
The press reaction was most interesting. Without referring to the now-forgotten details of the case, almost everybody took the court's judgement as the final word on the subject. DNA, which few of us understand, had established Hanratty's guilt. Foot was even patronised in some quarters for having wasted years on a misguided crusade.
At the time he wrote Who Killed Hanratty? Paul was unable, for considerations of libel, to spell out the full story. Even so no reader of his book could be left in much doubt about Hanratty's innocence. Which only makes one wonder about the uncritical faith invested in this mysterious substance called DNA.

[simon]

I don't think it should be assumed that Richard Ingrams is a member of the 'JH is innocent' team. He wrote a short book about Paul Foot, in which he expressed the view that his old friend was probably mistaken.

[reg1965]

I don't think it should be assumed that Richard Ingrams is a member of the 'JH is innocent' team. He wrote a short book about Paul Foot, in which he expressed the view that his old friend was probably mistaken.

Hi Simon
Any chance of telling us what the book was called and year of publication so we can check it out?
Reg