a6 murder

[Tony]

Hi Folks!

Sorry I've been a wafer so long (as the biscuit said to his missus).

I have just read through all the posts since my last visit and have been taking notes - so watch out on the morrow you 'orrible lot. Caz will have her say.

Lots of love,

Mrs Jimdiditite
XXX

Well Caz,

I can’t wait. I’ve only just arrived home and read yours, Vic’s and Jimarilyn’s posts. I also shall reply to Vic but, of course, after you dear lady. By the way Caz will I need a dictionary? Only joking Caz I really can’t wait. Well it’s off to bed now for me; pleasant dreams Caz.

Love, Tony.

[Victor]

I must say Victor that I'm shocked to read that until the very debatable DNA findings of 2002 you actually doubted Valerie Storie's evidence. Could you expand upon this by any chance, as you always come across in your posts as Miss Storie's champion ?
I'm intrigued as to what exactly it was about Miss Storie that you didn't believe.

regards,
James

Hi James,

I specifically said doubted rather than disbelieve because I previously found it hard to believe that she could be so definite in her identification of JH given the limited view of him, but as it turns out she was spot on, and so I've become slightly guilty about having doubted her for so long.

KR,
Vic

[PC49]

Hi James,

I specifically said doubted rather than disbelieve because I previously found it hard to believe that she could be so definite in her identification of JH given the limited view of him, but as it turns out she was spot on, and so I've become slightly guilty about having doubted her for so long.

KR,
Vic

Hi Victor,
By virtue of the fact that she had already been definite about Michael Clark, and had helped to compile an identikit picture that was nothing like James Hanratty, but an awful lot like Peter Louis Alphon, how could her testimony be ever classed as completely reliable?
Best regards.

[Victor]

Hi PC49,

She wasn't definite about Michael Clark, she specifically said she didn't know she could ask the line-up to speak.

It was asking the second line-up to speak that made her so definite that time.

KR,
Vic.

[caz]

...Bob Woffinden states in his book (page116)...In the course of the investigation, police had amassed quite a number of fingerprints and palm prints ---from the 36A bus, from Upper Richmond Road and, most importantly, from the MORRIS MINOR car and it's contents. As a result of their analysis, Scotland Yard experts were able to report categorically that none of the prints was Hanratty's

regards,
James

PS. Woffinden wrote "was" instead of "were"

Further to this Woffinden asks ....And whose were those unidentified fingerprints ? Were they matched with other suspects ? --Peter Alphon's, for example ? The jury was never told. To this day, the information has never been publicly revealed. (page 177)

regards ,
James

Hi James,

Firstly, re your PS, “was” is correct because it refers to “none” and not “prints”, as in “not one…was Hanratty’s”. I would have got round it with “none of the prints belonged to Hanratty”. But it should be “car and its contents” (no apostrophe!). That one drives me mad.

Anyway, the statements are loaded and ultimately meaningless if there is no evidence that any prints from the car belonged to a potential suspect, or if the killer could have avoided leaving any. What are we meant to take away from this? That Alphon’s prints were all over it, but the police failed to match any up with him? Or did they find a perfect match with their first suspect but thought “Oh dear, we can’t use it to put Alphon at the scene now because Valerie picked out some other chap who looks just like him. Never mind, we’ll just have to bury the fingerprint evidence and pretend we never found it and fit up that scumbag Hanratty instead. Should be a doddle - right blood group, and with a bit of luck no alibi and some planted evidence. He may not look anything like Alphon or the first bloke Valerie picked out but you can’t have everything. He’ll have to do.” Surely to goodness they could have made a case against Alphon stick if they had his prints at the scene, in addition to everything else that is supposed to add up to his certain guilt?

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.

Can we really? I don’t see the logic at all. All we know is that if Alphon was an apple, Hanratty was an orange. What you are doing here is relying on Valerie’s judgement that Alphon and Clark both looked like apples, and using it to prove that her judgement was so shot to pieces that she managed to pick an apple from the first line-up (Clark) and an orange from the second (Hanratty). That shoots your logic to pieces, because if she mistook an orange for an apple, then Clark could have been either.

Some of us are getting around to question the DNA and suggesting it is far too inaccurate. If the DNA is wrong then we are all back to square 1.

What would be remotely ‘inaccurate’ about the three DNA profiles identified in this case? Don’t let others fool you with talk of guessing and doubts about reliability. There were no inconsistencies found with two males - one blood group AB, the other group O - both leaving their semen on the victim’s knickers on the night of the crime. Furthermore, no inconsistencies were found with the original verdict that JH was the rapist. We are not back to square one unless it can be shown that the DNA was ‘wrong’, inconsistent in some way with what the jury concluded, or at least consistent with someone else being the rapist. I suspect hell will freeze over before the forensic evidence can be made to look consistent with Alphon’s guilt.

If you like we are all back in the jury room today; some arguing for innocent some for guilty. I have never served on a jury so I have no first hand experience to call on. But I suspect jurors are called up at random from the electoral roll and there is no aptitude or intelligence test for them to take…

Hi Tony,

I have only served on a jury once, and on one trial, back in 1985 when I was a very civil servant. I’ll happily serve on this one, assuming Alphon won’t raise any objections and Hanratty can’t. If anyone else wants to object to an individual juror, I presume they would have to quit the jury and act for the defence or prosecution instead, forfeiting their say in any verdict.

Anyway, back in 1985 we decided that the defendant most probably did it, but found him not guilty because we were not entirely sure that the case hadn’t been made to look stronger than it actually was. There was a slight whiff of desperation and it wasn’t only coming from the defence. The youngster in the dock couldn’t read or write and it left a question mark over whether he fully understood what was going on or whether unfair advantage was being taken of him. We had to give him the benefit of what little doubt we had, and we also felt that even if he was guilty there was a fair chance that the whole experience might be enough to stop him pushing his luck in future, whereas throwing the book at him at such a tender age could have bred resentment and led to worse. I just hope he didn’t go on to let us down.

So I don’t think I can be accused of being an unashamed pawn of the establishment, waiting to pour cold water on anyone who dares to question the status quo. They’d better not start on the Beatles though, or I’ll get my jugs out.

The point is that this was a relatively very minor crime but we took our duty extremely seriously because a young person’s future was in the balance. I can’t see any group of individuals back in the good old days of the black cap arriving at a unanimous life or death verdict lightly or wantonly and feeling proud of themselves. They must have been as certain as they thought they could be that the man who had raped Valerie and killed Michael was the man they were condemning and nobody else, and that the case against him could not be shaken. I don’t believe they could ever bring back the death penalty in the UK, because I doubt they could rustle up a jury without someone who would refuse to find anyone guilty if it meant sending them to their death, either on principle or because they would always have doubts about the integrity of the evidence, however strong it might appear to be.

I haven’t got the relevant information to hand at the moment but I think that Hanratty said in one of his letters to his parents whilst he was waiting for the appeal that the businessman with the gold cuff links with a letter ‘E’ wrote to him in prison saying he was the man on the train on that day. I don’t know if anything was done about it. I’ll have to make further investigations. Unless someone can help me out.

Now this, if nothing else, rings alarm bells with me. If this businessman was for real, and genuinely wanted to help save an innocent man’s neck, a letter to the prisoner himself would have been next to useless. Maybe he wrote to the authorities as well but the story didn’t check out. Conspiracy theorists will no doubt say that nothing would have been done about it, but this vital witness could simply have gone to the papers and made someone sit up and listen. Of course, if he wanted to remain anonymous, he would hardly have written in the first place unless it was just to ease his own conscience. But then it could only have tortured the condemned man - a useless tease that couldn’t do him the least bit of good without any verification. It smacks of a tale told by a desperate man, who has to believe that someone somewhere is going to throw him a lifeline if he is going to make his family believe it too.

So much of the prosecution evidence could quite easily have been made to fit Alphon instead of Hanratty.

Wow, I do hope nobody here would try to make the evidence ‘fit’ Alphon in the same way they believe it was ‘made to fit’ Hanratty.

I'm trying very hard not to be biased, but it's exactly right about Reg. He never wavers from his opinions on the case, and backs them up with sound and logical facts. With complete objectivity, I must say that he is far more convincing than any of our friends across the fence.

Is this some kind of joke? If Reg posts with ‘complete objectivity’, someone else must be sharing his username and popping in with corkers like this:

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.

…and this:

Hi Nemesis
Blimey...you don't pull your punches do you?
Welcome aboard.

The mans name is Charles 'Dixie' France and his daughters name is Carole.

I agree with you that Alphon was the murderer.
As far as DNA is concerned, it was only a guess that Hanratty's DNA was on the evidence so to exclude Alphon on the same principles would seem perverse.

The plot, if it did all go to plan as you say, must have meant that Gregsten was to be murdered and Valerie Storie only wounded, leaving her to misidentify Alphon yet pick out Hanratty. This discounts the theory of the plot to split MG and VS! It follows that if Ewer wanted MG dead at a price then he certainly got it.
Why was Alphon subsequently given such lenient treatment at subsequent court appearances? The attack on Hanrattys mother comes to mind most! He was even awarded damages!
Whatever happened, Hanratty was put in the frame from the off because of the planting of the gun on the bus.

Reg

Extremely entrenched views are becoming quite apparent...

You don’t say, Reg.

Or was it the other Reg who said it - the completely objective one spotted by an observant PC49, on one of his rare appearances?

Just where Alphon drove to immediately after leaving Miss Storie for dead remains open to conjecture and speculation. My guess is that he slipped into the Vienna Hotel while the hotel staff were busy serving breakfasts.

Don’t you start, James! This is nothing but conjecture and speculation.

Someone had better come up with some proof against Alphon sharpish - something capable of beating the socks off everything ever thrown Hanratty’s way, and meeting the ‘guilty beyond reasonable doubt’ standard you find so lacking in his case, or you will all stand accused of denying Alphon a fair trial and treating him to the same rotten justice that you claim was dished out to Hanratty.

Why is it ok to make unsupported accusations of rape and murder against a man who is still alive and was never put on trial, but the worst kind of evil to suggest that the man who was convicted and hanged for this horrible crime may actually have been guilty of it, and the DNA evidence only points in his direction?

You can demolish any set of witnesses to an alibi by picking holes in each one separately but that would mean all cases would soon collapse for lack of evidence.
Taken together, JH's Rhyl alibi is complete and takes some shifting.

I assume you meant the other way round, Reg. Demolishing an alibi is what allows the defendant to be found guilty. One piece of documentary evidence for JH’s claimed trip to Liverpool or Rhyl would have given him the complete alibi that no case for the prosecution could have shifted, and this one would have collapsed for lack of evidence instead of convincing the jury that he was lying and the witnesses were simply mistaken.

It also has to be said that Valerie did manage to pick out a man who had the right blood group to be her rapist. I realise that group O + is very common (although I have seen UK figures that suggest it’s 37%, with group A + only just behind at a very respectable 35%). But if the idea is that Hanratty was an innocent man set up to get a quick conviction (and semen from his trousers accidentally and very unfortunately found its way onto a rapist-free - but not AB group semen-free - knicker fragment, via an early contamination incident, and was still able to produce a profile 40 years later) they’d have had to find someone else jolly quickly if his blood group had not conveniently been O like the real killer’s, but the slightly less widespread A for instance.

And what about the planting of the gun and so on? If someone not connected to the authorities did this to implicate Hanratty, would they have known at the time that he and the rapist shared the same common blood group, or did they just hope for the best and not even give it a second thought?

And then I suppose if it had all gone A positively pear-shaped, the prosecution evidence would have been ‘made to fit’ some other poor bugger instead - presumably after taking the required blood sample from him and giving Valerie a pair of comedy pebble glasses to wear.

Yes, the conspiracy theory to get Alphon off the hook and someone else - anyone else - on it, is all starting to look like a realistic proposition.

Well, it does when I’m wearing these comedy pebble glasses.

Without them it looks like a lot of billhooks.

Love,

Caz
X

[Sherlock]

Hello everyone

I haven't yet had a chance to read all of the posts in this thread in detail, but I gather that it is very possible that Hanratty was indeed the A6 killer in view of the DNA evidence presented at the appeal.

Assuming that Hanratty did murder Michael Gregsten and rape Valerie Storie, is there anything in his background, as far as it is known, which suggests that he was capable of rape and murder? I am aware that he had comitted other offences prior to the A6 murder, but had he, for example, ever been previously linked with sexual offences or serious assault?

It has also been suggested that he went into denial after comitting the crimes. Does this mean that he could not cope with the enormity of them and blotted them out of his mind, convincing himself that he had nothing to do with them?

Also, assuming that he was the murderer, could any case have been made for a verdict of guilty but insane, or was he merely an evil man?

I apologise if these points have been covered earlier, but as I say, I have not yet had time to read all of the postings in detail. At the moment, I do not have any definite opinion as to Hanratty's guilt or innocence, but I assume that the DNA evidence makes it much more likely that he was guilty.

The only book on the case I have dipped into is that by Woffinden, but I have not read it from cover to cover, and am unsure of its reliability or otherwise.

As I understand it, Hanratty was subject to the death penalty as he had used a firearm for the murder, which was a capital offence under the terms of the Homicide Act of 1957. If, for example, he had bludgeoned Gregsten to death, he would instead have received life imprisonment, unless the crime had been construed as murder in the furtherance of theft as he had taken the car, which was also punishable by the death penalty under the act.

Perhaps other contributors can clarify these points for me.

regards SHERLOCK

[jimarilyn]

Hi Caz

Thank you for your prompt reply to my posts of October 27th. I wish I could call you Sweet Caroline but from the somewhat vitriolic nature of parts of your post I think that would not be appropriate.
Although tempted to respond to large portions of your marathon post I will restrict myself ( in the interest of brevity ) for the time being to those segments that involve me.

Firstly, my posts (see 2457 and 2458) that you quote from were in response to Victor's post (2454) where he states erroneously that ...."not one fingerprint, hair or fibre from any other person was found either, other than MG and VS". You also conveniently omitted the first 5 words of my post which read "Absolutely not so Victor. As"
Regarding the discovery or not of any of Alphon's prints in the car it's illuminating to quote Alphon's own words on the matter......"THERE CAN'T HAVE BEEN ANY FINGERPRINTS IN THE CAR OTHERWISE MINE WOULD HAVE GIVEN ME AWAY"
Alphon told PC Ian Thompson that he was baffled as to why the police never asked if he ever used gloves.

Re. my post (2529) of November 1st ( took me a while to locate this post) from which you quote a couple of lines, I totally disagree with you. You might not be able to see any logic but a lot of other people probably will. Ok, supposing Alphon and Hanratty were a couple of fruits (to use your puzzling analogy, although why Hanratty has to be an orange rather than say a peach or a pear just doesn't add up ) it doesn't mean that Michael Clark is an apple just like Alphon. Clark may have been a green or red pepper depending on the colour of Alphon's apple. Some green and red peppers resemble some green and red apples but they can never be said to resemble orange oranges.

Finally re. my post (2580) from a couple of weeks ago who am I to disagree with the great man himself. I'm not accusing Alphon of something he himself denies. Alphon confessed (many times) to murdering Michael Gregsten and raping and then shooting Valerie Storie. My accusations against Alphon, contrary to what you say, are NOT unsupported, they are indeed supported by Alphon's own words (and a lot more besides !) . Alphon accuses himself and there is plenty of material out there to support his claims of being the A6 murderer.

I hope my nose doesn't annoy you, I couldn't bear going around noseless....my reading glasses just wouldn't stay on.


regards,
James

[jimarilyn]

Hi All,

Is everyone on this thread suffering from writer's block ?


regards,
a disappointed James



PS Don't believe the 3.51 time of this post. It's not even midnight yet.

[PC49]

Hi James,

Firstly, re your PS, “was” is correct because it refers to “none” and not “prints”, as in “not one…was Hanratty’s”. I would have got round it with “none of the prints belonged to Hanratty”. But it should be “car and its contents” (no apostrophe!). That one drives me mad.

Anyway, the statements are loaded and ultimately meaningless if there is no evidence that any prints from the car belonged to a potential suspect, or if the killer could have avoided leaving any. What are we meant to take away from this? That Alphon’s prints were all over it, but the police failed to match any up with him? Or did they find a perfect match with their first suspect but thought “Oh dear, we can’t use it to put Alphon at the scene now because Valerie picked out some other chap who looks just like him. Never mind, we’ll just have to bury the fingerprint evidence and pretend we never found it and fit up that scumbag Hanratty instead. Should be a doddle - right blood group, and with a bit of luck no alibi and some planted evidence. He may not look anything like Alphon or the first bloke Valerie picked out but you can’t have everything. He’ll have to do.” Surely to goodness they could have made a case against Alphon stick if they had his prints at the scene, in addition to everything else that is supposed to add up to his certain guilt?



Can we really? I don’t see the logic at all. All we know is that if Alphon was an apple, Hanratty was an orange. What you are doing here is relying on Valerie’s judgement that Alphon and Clark both looked like apples, and using it to prove that her judgement was so shot to pieces that she managed to pick an apple from the first line-up (Clark) and an orange from the second (Hanratty). That shoots your logic to pieces, because if she mistook an orange for an apple, then Clark could have been either.



What would be remotely ‘inaccurate’ about the three DNA profiles identified in this case? Don’t let others fool you with talk of guessing and doubts about reliability. There were no inconsistencies found with two males - one blood group AB, the other group O - both leaving their semen on the victim’s knickers on the night of the crime. Furthermore, no inconsistencies were found with the original verdict that JH was the rapist. We are not back to square one unless it can be shown that the DNA was ‘wrong’, inconsistent in some way with what the jury concluded, or at least consistent with someone else being the rapist. I suspect hell will freeze over before the forensic evidence can be made to look consistent with Alphon’s guilt.



Hi Tony,

I have only served on a jury once, and on one trial, back in 1985 when I was a very civil servant. I’ll happily serve on this one, assuming Alphon won’t raise any objections and Hanratty can’t. If anyone else wants to object to an individual juror, I presume they would have to quit the jury and act for the defence or prosecution instead, forfeiting their say in any verdict.

Anyway, back in 1985 we decided that the defendant most probably did it, but found him not guilty because we were not entirely sure that the case hadn’t been made to look stronger than it actually was. There was a slight whiff of desperation and it wasn’t only coming from the defence. The youngster in the dock couldn’t read or write and it left a question mark over whether he fully understood what was going on or whether unfair advantage was being taken of him. We had to give him the benefit of what little doubt we had, and we also felt that even if he was guilty there was a fair chance that the whole experience might be enough to stop him pushing his luck in future, whereas throwing the book at him at such a tender age could have bred resentment and led to worse. I just hope he didn’t go on to let us down.

So I don’t think I can be accused of being an unashamed pawn of the establishment, waiting to pour cold water on anyone who dares to question the status quo. They’d better not start on the Beatles though, or I’ll get my jugs out.

The point is that this was a relatively very minor crime but we took our duty extremely seriously because a young person’s future was in the balance. I can’t see any group of individuals back in the good old days of the black cap arriving at a unanimous life or death verdict lightly or wantonly and feeling proud of themselves. They must have been as certain as they thought they could be that the man who had raped Valerie and killed Michael was the man they were condemning and nobody else, and that the case against him could not be shaken. I don’t believe they could ever bring back the death penalty in the UK, because I doubt they could rustle up a jury without someone who would refuse to find anyone guilty if it meant sending them to their death, either on principle or because they would always have doubts about the integrity of the evidence, however strong it might appear to be.



Now this, if nothing else, rings alarm bells with me. If this businessman was for real, and genuinely wanted to help save an innocent man’s neck, a letter to the prisoner himself would have been next to useless. Maybe he wrote to the authorities as well but the story didn’t check out. Conspiracy theorists will no doubt say that nothing would have been done about it, but this vital witness could simply have gone to the papers and made someone sit up and listen. Of course, if he wanted to remain anonymous, he would hardly have written in the first place unless it was just to ease his own conscience. But then it could only have tortured the condemned man - a useless tease that couldn’t do him the least bit of good without any verification. It smacks of a tale told by a desperate man, who has to believe that someone somewhere is going to throw him a lifeline if he is going to make his family believe it too.



Wow, I do hope nobody here would try to make the evidence ‘fit’ Alphon in the same way they believe it was ‘made to fit’ Hanratty.



Is this some kind of joke? If Reg posts with ‘complete objectivity’, someone else must be sharing his username and popping in with corkers like this:



…and this:





You don’t say, Reg.

Or was it the other Reg who said it - the completely objective one spotted by an observant PC49, on one of his rare appearances?



Don’t you start, James! This is nothing but conjecture and speculation.

Someone had better come up with some proof against Alphon sharpish - something capable of beating the socks off everything ever thrown Hanratty’s way, and meeting the ‘guilty beyond reasonable doubt’ standard you find so lacking in his case, or you will all stand accused of denying Alphon a fair trial and treating him to the same rotten justice that you claim was dished out to Hanratty.

Why is it ok to make unsupported accusations of rape and murder against a man who is still alive and was never put on trial, but the worst kind of evil to suggest that the man who was convicted and hanged for this horrible crime may actually have been guilty of it, and the DNA evidence only points in his direction?



I assume you meant the other way round, Reg. Demolishing an alibi is what allows the defendant to be found guilty. One piece of documentary evidence for JH’s claimed trip to Liverpool or Rhyl would have given him the complete alibi that no case for the prosecution could have shifted, and this one would have collapsed for lack of evidence instead of convincing the jury that he was lying and the witnesses were simply mistaken.

It also has to be said that Valerie did manage to pick out a man who had the right blood group to be her rapist. I realise that group O + is very common (although I have seen UK figures that suggest it’s 37%, with group A + only just behind at a very respectable 35%). But if the idea is that Hanratty was an innocent man set up to get a quick conviction (and semen from his trousers accidentally and very unfortunately found its way onto a rapist-free - but not AB group semen-free - knicker fragment, via an early contamination incident, and was still able to produce a profile 40 years later) they’d have had to find someone else jolly quickly if his blood group had not conveniently been O like the real killer’s, but the slightly less widespread A for instance.

And what about the planting of the gun and so on? If someone not connected to the authorities did this to implicate Hanratty, would they have known at the time that he and the rapist shared the same common blood group, or did they just hope for the best and not even give it a second thought?

And then I suppose if it had all gone A positively pear-shaped, the prosecution evidence would have been ‘made to fit’ some other poor bugger instead - presumably after taking the required blood sample from him and giving Valerie a pair of comedy pebble glasses to wear.

Yes, the conspiracy theory to get Alphon off the hook and someone else - anyone else - on it, is all starting to look like a realistic proposition.

Well, it does when I’m wearing these comedy pebble glasses.

Without them it looks like a lot of billhooks.

Love,

Caz
X

Geez, is there any need for so many caustic & vitriolic comments?
If that's what "love" is Caz, I wouldn't like to get on the wrong side of you!

[caz]

Morning James

I think the times got buggered up in the move to the new server. We can edit our options via our User CP (at the top of the page) to add or subtract the appropriate number of hours from GMT to make the time on our posts match the one on our clocks. I’ll be doing mine when I see what the time says on this post.

Many thanks for responding to all the points I addressed to you.

Regarding the discovery or not of any of Alphon's prints in the car it's illuminating to quote Alphon's own words on the matter......"THERE CAN'T HAVE BEEN ANY FINGERPRINTS IN THE CAR OTHERWISE MINE WOULD HAVE GIVEN ME AWAY"
Alphon told PC Ian Thompson that he was baffled as to why the police never asked if he ever used gloves.

Yes, very illuminating. The man sounds a lot like a certain Mike Barrett, who once wanted everyone to believe he was the world’s greatest forger. The world is full of Mike Barretts I’m afraid, and you really have to recognise the psychology, read between the lines and not allow yourself to be taken in while you are busy not being taken in by the crafty old ‘Establishment’.

Read those words again carefully. You made them large enough. It’s classic Barrett speak. “Everyone will believe I must have been the forger otherwise how did I know a, b or c?” But of course when you start to analyse a, b and c he’s not giving you anything that amounts to inside knowledge of his own involvement. Doesn’t matter whether they found any prints in the car or not. The bottom line is that Alphon’s were not there to ‘give him away’ and he knows why, so if he wants everyone to believe he was really there he has to bluff. What use would it be to ask Alphon if he ever “used gloves”, if his prints were not found? If he says he never uses them and they believe him, no evidence. If he says he always wears them and they believe him, still no evidence. If he’s lying it makes not a jot of difference.

Re. my post (2529) of November 1st ( took me a while to locate this post) from which you quote a couple of lines, I totally disagree with you. You might not be able to see any logic but a lot of other people probably will. Ok, supposing Alphon and Hanratty were a couple of fruits (to use your puzzling analogy, although why Hanratty has to be an orange rather than say a peach or a pear just doesn't add up ) it doesn't mean that Michael Clark is an apple just like Alphon. Clark may have been a green or red pepper depending on the colour of Alphon's apple. Some green and red peppers resemble some green and red apples but they can never be said to resemble orange oranges.

Hmmm. I only used apples and oranges to keep it simple.

Have it your way: your aim is to demonstrate that Valerie made a complete pig’s ear of it by choosing a pepper the first time (Clark) and a pear the second (Hanratty). But you only have Valerie’s word for it that Clark resembled a pepper (Alphon) - the same witness who makes a pig’s ear out of selecting similar fruit and veg. So you are turning her own comparison between Clark and Alphon into a silk purse to suit your argument.

In short, all you have shown is that she needed something other than physical appearance before she could be certain that the pear in the second line-up was the one. And we knew that already - she needed the pear to speak. What she did not do was to pick the pepper (Alphon) from the first line-up. It doesn’t matter whether Clark looked like a pepper, pear or pumpkin. I very much doubt that she would have picked Clark if there was no easy way for her to distinguish between him and another man in the line-up. Put it this way - what would any witness do if they stuck identical twins in the line-up? Eeny Meeny Miny Moe?

Finally re. my post (2580) from a couple of weeks ago who am I to disagree with the great man himself. I'm not accusing Alphon of something he himself denies. Alphon confessed (many times) to murdering Michael Gregsten and raping and then shooting Valerie Storie. My accusations against Alphon, contrary to what you say, are NOT unsupported, they are indeed supported by Alphon's own words (and a lot more besides !) . Alphon accuses himself and there is plenty of material out there to support his claims of being the A6 murderer.

Ooh another classic - the Mike Barrett false confession excuse. What does the truth matter? Why bother with trivial matters like justice for the victim, or evidence beyond the word of the person you already have down as guilty, who would no doubt have sung a different song had his prints been all over that car and had he been the one in the dock?

“The bugger said he did it and that should be good enough for anyone.”

Not good enough for Valerie.

Not good enough for Michael.

Not good enough for their friends and families.

Not good enough for the historical record.

Frankly, I’m appalled.

Love,

Caz
X

PS To PC49: no need to quote my whole post again just to say that! And you might have a wee bit more consideration for the admin of this site who have requested us not to overuse the quote function in this way.

[PC49]

Hi PC49,

She wasn't definite about Michael Clark, she specifically said she didn't know she could ask the line-up to speak.

It was asking the second line-up to speak that made her so definite that time.

KR,
Vic.

Hi Victor,
Sorry, I'm not being pedantic but, if she wasn't sure, why pick him out?
After all, a man's life was at stake, and for someone who had recently been so close to death herself, maybe she should've taken a lot more care with her selection of the supposed offender.
Rightly or wrongly, I can't shrug off the persistent feeling that she was a lot more of a tougher character than portrayed, and was determined that "someone" should pay for the heinous crime against her, and her lover.
Regarding the second attempt, if Hanratty was the only man in the line with a london accent, surely he was the one that was going to be selected anyway?
Best regards.

[PC49]

Sorry Miss,
I will now go away and duly chastise myself severely!!

[caz]

Have fun PC49.

One question to ponder:

What would everyone involved in making the evidence fit Hanratty (and I do mean everyone - from the very beginning right through to the very bitter end) have done if he had been among the 35% of the UK population with blood group A instead of the 37% with O?

Love,

Caz
X

[PC49]

Have fun PC49.

One question to ponder:

What would everyone involved in making the evidence fit Hanratty (and I do mean everyone - from the very beginning right through to the very bitter end) have done if he had been among the 35% of the UK population with blood group A instead of the 37% with O?

Love,

Caz
X

No, I don't recommend it Caz - it ain't much fun!
Your question is completely hypothetical, as blood type frequency in the UK for Group O is approximately 40% anyway. Therefore your question isn't one that can be answered, as you well know.
Regards.

[jimarilyn]

Good beforenoon Caz,

Re. your post 2620....

Just what is it your appalled by, I'd really like to know ?

I have to say I find your post very patronising indeed ( now, now, James and PC49 you mustn't be taken in by Peter's false confessions, he was only doing it for publicity and attention.....take no heed of all that silly evidence that points to him.... Caroline knows best. There's no such thing as a true confession, there are only false ones)

You have a way with words ( am I the only one who finds himself having to re-read some of your sentences two or three times in order to grasp some of the things you're trying to say ?) but at the end of the day (probably midnight) you place too much faith in our "crafty establishment" and all their works and utterances. They would never dream of misleading the public would they ? They never have hidden agendas do they ? No, not our glorious establishment. Our glorious establishment is infallible, there's no way an innocent man can ever be executed, external forces would somehow come into play and intervene to prevent this. All establishments are infallible. Try telling that to the millions of innocent people executed by the Nazis in Auschwitz, Dachau and all the other extermination camps. Some 2,000 years ago a great and innocent man was hung on a cross by the establishment of the day.

I suggest you obtain copies of all seven books published about the A6 murder (one of which is a work of fiction) and read and study them closely. You may well come to a different conclusion.

regards,
James