a6 murder

[Graham]

Norma

I don't know if you are forgetting, but Ron accepts that the DNA proves Hanratty is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. He is not alone.

He, and for that matter the others who believe the same, are hardly going to believe, or more to the point, admit to accepting, anything that places Hanratty anywhere other than in Dorney Reach around dusk on the 22nd August 1961.

The problem with this forum is that two sides are so entrenched that not even a re-enactment of Hiroshima will shift it. Personal insults have been chucked around like confetti. It has, perhaps sadly, run its course.

Ron said, sometime back, that he just wants to discuss the reasons why Hanratty did it, with others that believe the same as him. He set up a thread on which to do this. Good luck to 'em I say.

But it will mean nothing to me as I am convinced that James Hanratty was not in that car when Michael Gregsten was slain.

Regards
Derrick

Derrick,

you are, of course, absolutely right. I can never be convinced that Hanratty wasn't guilty, and his supporters can never be convinced that he wasn't innocent. It was a crazy, weird, screwed-up case right from the start, and Sherrard never spoke a truer word than when he referred to it as 'dripping with coincidence'. To be honest, I'm not sure if I've actually got anything more to add to this debate - like others, I've stated my case and my beliefs many times over the years, as have the Jimmites, and to date neither camp has succeeded in winning a convert. As I said recently, unless by some miracle new evidence comes into the public domain, I can't see the stalemate resolving itself. What do others think? Is it time to call it a day? Or are there areas of the case that can be debated and discussed without fists flying?

Graham

[jimarilyn]

Lol indeed. Aunt in Liverpool indeed.

You seem to have overlooked what I had written (or typed) in my post........."ostensibly to visit an aunt".

Yes you are correct, he did indeed have an aunt who resided in Liverpool whom he had not seen for several years.

[Derrick]

But then he never did go there---as any Londoner with an ounce of nous knows---no suited and booted, streetwise Londoner would have gone anywhere near a cornfield in "Slough"--- of all places ---to do " stick ups".For crying out loud----you sometimes talk like a bunch of country bumpkins ! James Hanratty would rather have been seen dead than have gone to a cornfield to highjack a "Morris Minor" and spend six hours in it dressed to the nines because he was hot with lust for Valerie Storie . Get over it.Whoever it was it was not James Hanratty.

Norma

I don't know if you are forgetting, but Ron accepts that the DNA proves Hanratty is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. He is not alone.

He, and for that matter the others who believe the same, are hardly going to believe, or more to the point, admit to accepting, anything that places Hanratty anywhere other than in Dorney Reach around dusk on the 22nd August 1961.

The problem with this forum is that two sides are so entrenched that not even a re-enactment of Hiroshima will shift it. Personal insults have been chucked around like confetti. It has, perhaps sadly, run its course.

Ron said, sometime back, that he just wants to discuss the reasons why Hanratty did it, with others that believe the same as him. He set up a thread on which to do this. Good luck to 'em I say.

But it will mean nothing to me as I am convinced that James Hanratty was not in that car when Michael Gregsten was slain.

Regards
Derrick

[Natalie Severn]

He was probably confusing Jim's alibi with another work of fiction, Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows.



Even to his most trusted confidants Jim was most unlikely to say he was off to the sticks armed to the teeth.



Lol indeed. Aunt in Liverpool indeed.

Even to his most trusted confidants Jim was most unlikely to say he was off to the sticks armed to the teeth.

But then he never did go there---as any Londoner with an ounce of nous knows---no suited and booted, streetwise Londoner would have gone anywhere near a cornfield in "Slough"--- of all places ---to do " stick ups".For crying out loud----you sometimes talk like a bunch of country bumpkins ! James Hanratty would rather have been seen dead than have gone to a cornfield to highjack a "Morris Minor" and spend six hours in it dressed to the nines because he was hot with lust for Valerie Storie . Get over it.Whoever it was it was not James Hanratty.

[RonIpstone]

Usher recalled that the man mentioned the name "Ratty with the initial N or J"

He was probably confusing Jim's alibi with another work of fiction, Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows.

The point I am making is that James Hanratty told friends on the Monday evening of his intentions to travel up to Liverpool. He could have told them he was going to Bristol, Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester or absolutely anywhere in the UK........

Even to his most trusted confidants Jim was most unlikely to say he was off to the sticks armed to the teeth.

lol.

Lol indeed. Aunt in Liverpool indeed.

[jimarilyn]

On Monday August 21st 1961 James Hanratty told the France familly that he was going to Liverpool that evening, ostensibly to visit an aunt.

On that same evening he also told his friend Ann Pryce at the Rehearsal Club that he was travelling up to Liverpool.

Sidetracked from his intended Liverpool trip that Monday evening and discovering that it was too late to travel he obtained accommodation for the night at the Vienna Hotel because the Broadway House Hotel was fully booked up.

He had bed and breakfast at the Vienna Hotel, leaving there sometime around 8.30am or 9.00am.

He volunteered to police that he absent mindedly travelled to Paddington first instead of Euston Station.

Michael da Costa, a very observant and publicity shy young actor, stated that he clearly remembered seeing James Hanratty at Euston Station on that Tuesday morning.

James Hanratty stated that when he arrived at Lime Street Station, Liverpool, and handed in his pigskin case at the left luggage department he remembered being served by a man with a withered hand.

Peter Usher, who fitted that description almost to a tee (he had two fingers missing from his left hand) remembered serving someone who resembled James Hanratty. Usher said that this man asked Usher to put his name on the ticket which he did not do because the ticket was already numbered. Usher recalled that the man mentioned the name "Ratty with the initial N or J"

Some time later that afternoon/early evening, according to James Hanratty, he entered a sweet shop on Scotland Road where he asked the lady behind the counter if she could direct him to a Carlton/Tarleton Avenue/Street/Road whatever.. Hanratty said the woman told him he had come too far, that this was Bankhall. Anyone who knows the Liverpool Scotland Road area would know that Bankhall is the general area where that particular sweet shop was located.

Mrs Olive Dinwoodie ( "a perfectly respectable and responsible citizen" according to Acott)
corroborated Hanratty's story almost verbatim. She served behind the counter of that sweetshop for just the two days, the Monday and the Tuesday. She stated that the man who asked for the directions looked very like James Hanratty and came into the shop around the time that Hanratty said he had.

According to Hanratty he made his way back to Lime Street station where he had left his luggage. Before catching the Rhyl bus at the side of Lime Street Station he tried to gain access to Reynold's Billiard Hall. His intention was to try and sell a gold wrist watch he had
stolen. The owner of the Billiard Hall, Robert Kempt, stopped him from doing so. Although unsure of the exact date Kempt indeed recalled such an incident taking place and his story too corroborated Hanratty's almost verbatim.


The point I am making is that James Hanratty told friends on the Monday evening of his intentions to travel up to Liverpool. He could have told them he was going to Bristol, Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester or absolutely anywhere in the UK, but no, he tells them he is going to a place [ Liverpool ] where, lo and behold, at least three separate witnesses [Peter Usher, Mrs Olive Dinwoodie and Robert Kempt] place him ( or a doppelganger ) on the Tuesday afternoon/early evening. And whose stories corroborate Hanratty's almost to a tee.

And then there is his arrival in Rhyl later that evening and all those honourable and trustworthy Rhyl witnesses who remember meeting and speaking with him that evening or the next day.

And some people would have us believe the Liverpool/Rhyl alibi is make believe. lol.

[BiffityBiff]

Who knows? I wouldn't want to speculate too much about it - the other thread is here, or the whole collection of threads here


KR,
Vic.[/QUOTE]


Thanks Victor. I'll check them out when time permits.

[Black Rabbit]

Due to server issues and various other tasks, we are behind in responding to Report Posts so this warning comes delayed, however it will carry for the future.

Do not accuse other members of being a sock puppet on the boards. If you have a suspicion, contact the administrator. Leveling accusations against other posters and destroying their reputation based solely on your own suspicions and without any proof is the equivalent of slander.

If you have a suspicion, report it to the administrator. Do not decide to take vigilante justice when there is every possibility you could be wrong and you have blackened someone without evidence.

A poster may well be a sock puppet, there is no way to fully prevent re-registers, however without evidence, do not accuse. The administration is the only means of gathering evidence, and when we have it, we will act.

Once again: Do not accuse someone of being a sock puppet on the open forums. Report it to the administration.

Editing to add: We are getting more report posts from this thread than 90 percent of the Jack the Ripper threads. If you cannot treat each other with more respect on this subject, it will be closed.

Good call Admin, 'twas getting rather ridiculous in here!

[tji]

Hi Nats


No worries.

Tj

[Natalie Severn]

tji Hi Nats

Thanks for the point of information Trevor.I am surprised .


It's Tracy actually but no worries, I am sure I have been called worse...just last weekend in fact, but that's a different story


Tj

I am so sorry Tracy! It must have been the pattern of your three initials' tji ' and beginning with "t" I thought you were Trevor Bond who posts as 'tnb'!
Shall be more careful in future.
Cheers
Norma

[Admin]

Due to server issues and various other tasks, we are behind in responding to Report Posts so this warning comes delayed, however it will carry for the future.

Do not accuse other members of being a sock puppet on the boards. If you have a suspicion, contact the administrator. Leveling accusations against other posters and destroying their reputation based solely on your own suspicions and without any proof is the equivalent of slander.

If you have a suspicion, report it to the administrator. Do not decide to take vigilante justice when there is every possibility you could be wrong and you have blackened someone without evidence.

A poster may well be a sock puppet, there is no way to fully prevent re-registers, however without evidence, do not accuse. The administration is the only means of gathering evidence, and when we have it, we will act.

Once again: Do not accuse someone of being a sock puppet on the open forums. Report it to the administration.

Editing to add: We are getting more report posts from this thread than 90 percent of the Jack the Ripper threads. If you cannot treat each other with more respect on this subject, it will be closed.

[jimarilyn]

I wasn't going to respond to this post but I hate blatingly mis-leading statements.......

Hi James,

Lies, damn lies and statistics...

I seriously doubt there are only 4 posts where Norma makes that mistake, and of course I repeatedly pointed out the error which is why it was corrected.

Which just goes to show how wrong [yet again] you are. Use the search button and you'll find out for yourself that i don't deal in lies.

[RonIpstone]

One could have a swab of 3 or more persons DNA and have 300pg's of DNA. Yet each contributor's DNA weight in pg's could be 100pg's. All the profiles are then subject to stochastic effects as the primers are likely to fail to anneal properly to their base pair in the PCR process.

By "each" do you mean each and everyone of the three or more contributors or do you mean a single one of the contributors?

If you mean the former then what you are saying is a mathematical impossibility in the case of more than three contributors.

I you mean the latter, then the figure of 100 pgs would seem to be meaningless in the context of the present debate.

To apply your cod science to the instant case, we have a sample which, if Hanratty is not guilty, should contain the DNA of four people, yet the tests which have been completed have only detected the DNA of three people. What I understand you to be trying to say is that for there to be a valid DNA profile, each of the four people who have contributed to the sample should have contributed 200 pgs of DNA.

Now as I understand the tests the boffins have been able to discover the DNA of only three people, to wit VS, MG and JH. The tests do not show that there was a fourth unidentifiable contributor. Your argument is that the DNA of the rapist was not detected because of insufficient DNA material. But common sense alone would indicate that the rapist's DNA would be there in abundance compared to the DNA which might have theoretically be transferred to the sample by contamination.

It seems to me that you are rubbishing the DNA tests by assuming that there was a fourth contributor, namely the rapist and murderer, and saying that his profile was not obtained because there was insufficient of his DNA to generate a profile. The sample in question could have consisted of 1200 pgs of material, but you could still trash the results by saying that the rapist's DNA was not detected because there was less than 200 pgs of his DNA material. All sensible people take the view that the real rapist's DNA was not detected because it was not there except in the form of the DNA of James Hanratty.

[Derrick]

That link is from 2007 and is superceded by the 2009 Reed/Reed/Garmson ruling.

Reed & Reed just confirms the limitation of LCN by acknowledging the stochastic effects associated with it.

So by that recognition where is LCN today?

It was only used where the starting quantity of DNA was likely to be in the stochastic region anyway. With quantitation being required for LCN then no LCN tests can be carried out. SGM+ can be used reliably with as little as 250pg at 28 PCR cycles for single samples.

So to now call any test in evidence in court as LCN is to immediately call into question it's reliability.

No mention is made in Reed & Reed of mixed profiles and the starting template quantity for each of the contributors. Mixed profile interpretation for LCN type tests has still not been validated by the Forensic Regulator Andrew Rennison.

One could have a swab of 3 or more persons DNA and have 300pg's of DNA. Yet each contributor's DNA weight in pg's could be 100pg's. All the profiles are then subject to stochastic effects as the primers are likely to fail to anneal properly to their base pair in the PCR process.

LCN was no different in 1998 as it is today. <200pg Template and 34 PCR cycles.

Derrick

[tji]

Hi Nats

Thanks for the point of information Trevor.I am surprised .


It's Tracy actually but no worries, I am sure I have been called worse...just last weekend in fact, but that's a different story


Tj