a6 murder

[Tony]

Tony,



Obviously no-one in 1962 could pre-empt forensic development in the future,
and it has to be assumed that every last drop of evidence available by the-then techniques had been squeezed out of the exhibits.

As an aside, Gorman also gave a summing-up that was reckoned to be very favourable to the defendent, but the jury still found him guilty....

Cheers,

Graham

A very good late evening to you Graham,

Obviously I agree with you that: “no-one in 1962 could pre-empt forensic development in the future”.

But the fact remains that every single exhibit in the trial was taken into the jury room. Hanratty’s handkerchief, part of VS’s knickers, were all ‘laid out' before the jury who could have handled them and passed them round or whatever they wanted to do with them.

They could have been handled by the eleven jury members, the Clerk to the Court and goodness knows how many other people.

Sleep tight, Graham.

Tony.

[P.L.A]

But the fact remains that every single exhibit in the trial was taken into the jury room. Hanratty’s handkerchief, part of VS’s knickers, were all ‘laid out' before the jury who could have handled them and passed them round or whatever they wanted to do with them.

They could have been handled by the eleven jury members, the Clerk to the Court and goodness knows how many other people.

Sleep tight, Graham.

Tony.

............but only Hanratty's DNA was found on them. Maybe DNA transfer by touching doesn't last that long - why wasn't Edwin Cooke's DNA found on the hankerchief? Suggests to me that the DNA was extracted from the nasal fluids.

Peter

Peter.

[jimarilyn]

............but only Hanratty's DNA was found on them. Maybe DNA transfer by touching doesn't last that long - why wasn't Edwin Cooke's DNA found on the hankerchief? Suggests to me that the DNA was extracted from the nasal fluids.

Hi Peter,

If the DNA was extracted from Hanratty's nasal fluids this means that the handkerchief in which the Enfield.38 was wrapped up was a soiled one.

In court Hanratty admitted that the handkerchief (whatever number exhibit it was) that was passed to him was indeed his own. I seriously doubt that he recognised it from any mucus stains. There must have been some identifying feature on the handkerchief (perhaps the initials JH) for Hanratty to confirm that it was one of his.

I don't know how many handkerchiefs Hanratty owned but it is known that Charlotte France did his washing. There must have been several soiled handkerchiefs of his in her laundry basket, thus providing ample opportunity for Dixie France to nick one.

I strongly believe that Dixie was the person who planted the revolver under the back seat of that 36a bus. I believe he did this to try to incriminate his friend (for reasons we can all guess at). The incriminating factor obviously would be the handkerchief, otherwise anything else ( eg. newspaper, plastic bag, a rag, etc.,) would have been good enough to wrap the gun up with.

regards,
James

[reg1965]

Hi guys and gals (oops Jimmy Saville has dropped by!)

The Court of Appeal judgement in 2002 makes much of the lifecycle of the fragment of knicker and the hanky until they were delivered into the hands of the FSS in 1995. (p111)

No other mention is made of how these garments were handled and when each was tested and in what order they were processed and under what conditions.

It would be interesting to know these facts, as James pointed out in his post #3058 from the article he linked to:-

Mr Stewart also asked Dr Whitaker if his high-tech lab would allow items of evidence to lie about together in open bags.

Dr Whitaker said: "I would hope to avoid that but there have been cases where it has happened."

There was the possibility of contamination, transfer of DNA from one item to another, he agreed.

Unless someone from the FSS could post on here how the DNA tests were actually carried out that would satisfy this one way or the other we will never know.

But; we have Dr Whitaker confessing lax lab procedures and therefore another avenue of opportunity for DNA contamination. Also it is not possible to detect the origin of the tissue that supplied any contaminant in any case; therefore it would be impudent to state explicitly it had to be semen.

As I have stated before I think that Dr Martin Evison, the defence's sole expert witness to counter the DNA evidence in 2002 was out of his depth. His major field of expertise was dinosaur DNA and not forensic LCN DNA.

Yours always
Reg

[reg1965]

...why wasn't Edwin Cooke's DNA found on the hankerchief?...

Hi Peter
Where would the FSS have gotten a profile of Mr Cooke from to test a profile against? No mention is made of Mr Cooke's DNA being extracted in any way!

Likewise nowhere is it said from where VS or MG's profiles were obtained to compare their DNA!

Forensic DNA testing, done properly, can only say for certain that a person can be excluded from being a part of the profile obtained. Therefore, on any inclusion, its result can only be said to be probabilistic. Pragmatically DNA profiling can only help to convict when combined with other evidence to show that a suspect is guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

In LCN this is not possible. This is because LCN is used below stochastic thresholds (sub 125pg of original DNA) Effects such as allelic drop in and out and many others occur than cannot be reproduced between replicates to truly exculde a given profile.

Food for thought I hope!

Take care
Reg

[Sara]

I think it's fairly agreed on here that the original conviction was gained due to Storie's identification of Hanratty (although she admitted she'd seen him only fleetingly and she had previously picked out another man with total certainty)

I wonder what would have happened had she come up against Judge Tabor:

http://current.com/items/89711126/judge_prevents_witness_from_testifying_because_she_s_too_believable.htm

It seems his learned friends agree with him!

[P.L.A]

Hi Peter
Where would the FSS have gotten a profile of Mr Cooke from to test a profile against? No mention is made of Mr Cooke's DNA being extracted in any way!

Take care
Reg

Hi Reg

My understanding is that only Hanratty's DNA was found on the hankerchief, so there was no need to get anything from Cooke - there was nothing unaccounted for to compare his profile with.

My point was - although it is fairly certain that Cooke handled the hankerchief, forty years later his DNA wasn't on the cloth. We know his wasn't, because only Hanratty's was.

Peter.

[jimarilyn]

I think it's fairly agreed on here that the original conviction was gained due to Storie's identification of Hanratty (although she admitted she'd seen him only fleetingly and she had previously picked out another man with total certainty)

I wonder what would have happened had she come up against Judge Tabor:

http://current.com/items/89711126/judge_prevents_witness_from_testifying_because_she_s_too_believable.htm

It seems his learned friends agree with him!

Hi Sara,

An interesting case. Judge Tabor it would very much seem is of the school "that eye-witness testimony is notoriously unreliable" (unless corroborated by other supporting evidence).

I suspect that had he been the judge in the A6 murder trial he might well have dismissed Miss Storie's identification of Hanratty on the following grounds :-

a) She had positively identified an entirely innocent airman (Michael Clark) 3 weeks earlier.
b) She apparently had poor eyesight without her glasses.
c) She had a very fleeting glimpse of her assailant in the dark interior of a Morris Minor at night.


It's revealing to hear what Judge Tabor's colleagues had to say about the case :-

"But leading criminal lawyers said Judge Tabor was right.
Ian Kelcey, chairman of the Law Society's criminal law committee, said victims of violence can mistakenly identify their assailants even when they are certain they are right.
He said: 'There is a precedent that says if identification is based on a fleeting glimpse then it is not sufficient on its own.
'Usually it would be allowed alongside corroborating evidence, such as fingerprints or fibres from clothing.'
Lawyer Julian Young said: 'There is no law requiring corroboration, but if identification is based on a fleeting glimpse of a stranger then the general principle is that the evidence must be treated very carefully.' "
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This reminds me of an incident I had less than a year ago while I was driving to Formby.
I was driving along Park Lane in Netherton when about 20-30 yards ahead a car shot out from a side road on the left (turning right). I was rattled a little by this near miss and got a good view (albeit for only a few seconds) of the male driver.
He was about 30'ish and had one of those smirks on his face as if he knew exactly what he was doing but was couldn't care less. The image of this man's face stayed in my mind for the next 10 or 15 minutes, but then after I'd reached my destination and had other things to do and distract me , this image began to fade. An hour later it had faded completely.
I use this true incident to illustrate that (in my case at least) momentary glimpses of complete strangers are insufficient to make an identification. A ten minute face to face encounter with a complete stranger however is something entirely different.

regards,
James

[reg1965]

Hi Reg

My understanding is that only Hanratty's DNA was found on the hankerchief, so there was no need to get anything from Cooke - there was nothing unaccounted for to compare his profile with.

My point was - although it is fairly certain that Cooke handled the hankerchief, forty years later his DNA wasn't on the cloth. We know his wasn't, because only Hanratty's was.

Peter.

Hi Peter
As Hanratty admitted it was his during the trial then one would expect his DNA to be found.
As LCN was used to produce a profile the amount of surviving DNA was microscopic and open to contamination and the results would be subject to the stochastic effects I have mentioned.
Mr Cookes DNA may have survived and fromed part of a mixed profile irrespective of what the FSS said at the appeal.

Regards
Reg

[P.L.A]

The Handkerchief

Are we sure that Hanratty handled the handkerchief whilst in the witness box and acknowledged that it was his?

Where does this information come from?

There are a couple of things that suggest to me that this didn’t happen – the main one being that Hanratty’s team didn’t mention it at the second appeal. If he had knowingly handled the handkerchief in such circumstances then the DNA found on would hardly be a major plank in the Crown case. The same is true if it was common ground that the handkerchief was Hanratty’s.

The claim is also at odds with what Mrs. France said in an interview in the mid sixties.

Peter

[jimarilyn]

Are we sure that Hanratty handled the handkerchief whilst in the witness box and acknowledged that it was his?

Where does this information come from?

Hi Peter,

These are two very good and important questions.

I have for some time been under the strong impression that Hanratty was handed the handkerchief while in the witness box to determine whether or not it was one of his. Am I mistaken in this assumption ?

I've just done a quick search of the indexes of Paul Foot's and Bob Woffinden's books for any mention of the said handkerchief. Both books say that the gun and ammunition were found under the handkerchief, which implies that the handkerchief was placed loosely on top of them (for whatever reason).

Re. the hankie, the Court of Appeal said that it was examined at the time for blood and semen, and none being found was put to one side.

Does anyone have any definite information with regards to the handkerchief ?


James

[jimarilyn]

I have for some time been under the strong impression that Hanratty was handed the handkerchief while in the witness box to determine whether or not it was one of his. Am I mistaken in this assumption ?

Hi All,

Strunt submitted one very very impressive post (May 25th 2007), which alas seems to have been his only post.
The following extract is taken from it :-


"The fact is that PCR can pick up sweat and Hanratty appears to have handled that handkerchief during his evidence. It has always been agreed he sweated a good deal in the witness box. Surely the most that can be said about the DNA is that one possible explanation of it is that Hanratty was guilty but another is that it got there during storage and handling after the crime. It is equivocal."


regards,
James

[P.L.A]

As I have stated before I think that Dr Martin Evison, the defence's sole expert witness to counter the DNA evidence in 2002 was out of his depth. His major field of expertise was dinosaur DNA and not forensic LCN DNA.

Yours always
Reg

Hi Reg

Did Evison appear at the appeal, or was he someone the media found to give the alternative view? Did he have any official status, or was he just a commentator?

Patrick Lincoln was the official Hanratty family observer when the first DNA tests were carried out, and he appears to have been involved in writing at least one book about PCR (he was the editor). Don't know whether he was involved in the later A6 testing.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Forensic-Profiling-Protocols-Methods-Molecular/dp/0896034437

Peter

[Victor]

I have for some time been under the strong impression that Hanratty was handed the handkerchief while in the witness box to determine whether or not it was one of his. Am I mistaken in this assumption ?

Does anyone have any definite information with regards to the handkerchief ?

Hi James,

Two very important questions, leading to a couple of others:

Why did the hanky escape the fate of the rest of the exhibits (they were destroyed)?
Was it removed from it's bag and actually physically handled by anyone? The appeal judgment says it almost certainly wasn't.

And of course - if so many people handled it, and LCN is so sensitive, then why was only Hanratty's DNA found?

KR,
Vic.

[Tony]

A6 Book Prices.

Hello everyone,

Have you seen the price of the A6 books on Amazon and indeed any book supplier?

I used to buy Foot and Woffinden regularly and give them out to all sorts of perplexed people.

Amazon has a second hand Woffinden hardcover available at £155!!! What is going on?

Is it anything to do with this discussion forum? Are the books hoarded, are they scarce or have they suddenly become very expensive for some reason?

I have just ordered the Hawser report into the case and that knocked me back 25 quid but checking today I seem to have got myself a bargain as they are on offer at more than twice that price.

Tony.