a6 murder

[Tony]

Hello Larue,

Ted Kleinman a solicitor who was a long time friend of Michael Sherrard instructed him to act for Hanratty during the Committal Proceedings. Because of his past record they thought Hanratty to be innocent. It was touch and go as to whether the case would be sent for trial but it did.
Sherrard and Hanratty had become very close and when Sherrard told Hanratty he needed a leader at the trial he (Hanratty) was close to tears and said he did not want anyone other than Sherrard.
Sherrard told him he would be with him throughout but the man to defend Hanratty should be Victor Durand. “He is much better than me” said Sherrard.
Hanratty would not have it he had faith in the man he had.

Sherrard pleaded with Hanratty: “Victor Durand is a star; he is a Recorder at Bedford Assizes so he has local knowledge. He really is the best”
He convinced Hanratty but before Victor Durrand could take over the case he was suspended because of matters in another trial (he was actually and quite ironically defending the Commissioner of Police).

So Hanratty got his wish and Michael Sherrard appeared for him.

Michael Sherrard admits that he became very involved with James Hanratty and concedes that things would have been handled differently by Durrand. Durrand would have kept his distance; he would not have gone to visit Hanratty in the cells every day. That would have resulted, probably, in Hanratty being unable to change his alibi. Durrand would have been able to influence Hanratty not to give evidence.


There were a lot of mistakes in the defending of James Hanratty and this coupled with underhand police tactics meant he was doomed from the off.

Tony.

[Graham]

Emmanuel Kleinman (was he known as Ted, Tony?) was recommended to the Hanratty family by their GP, and he took on the case (and demanded £100 up front - a small fortune in those days). He applied for and was granted legal aid and chose Sherrard to defend JH, but I don't know whether he was, as Tony states, a close friend of Sherrard's. Kleinman doubtless was an effective lawyer, but I believe he let his client down in the second (?) ID parade when he didn't insist upon all the people on the parade wearing a hat of some sort to cover their hair - and JH's was pretty noticeable at the time.
(Sorry, I can't get to my books just now to check this - we're having a belated Spring Clean here, and the place is upside-down...)

Michael Sherrard has always come across as a humane, sensitive and above all an extremely good man, and his reaction to the DNA results very clearly showed his distress at the news.

Kenneth Oxford wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes as a high-ranking copper in 2009. He was "old school" through and through, and not a man to be trifled with. He was also involved in the Profumo Scandal, another high-profile case of the 1960's not noted for its sensitive police-work - Stephen Ward was hounded, literally, to death by The Establishment at the time. But the 1960's were times of huge change in British society, and the police were given more or less a free hand to 'stop the rot'. I myself was collared in 1967 in the centre of Brum merely because I had long hair and hippie-style clothes, which apparently offended the upholders of the Law, who held me in a shop doorway for half an hour until I managed to satisfy them that I wasn't a big-time drug-dealer intent on bringing down the State. The Sixties was a great and exciting time to grow up in, but you had to watch yourself....my good friend was nicked during an anti-Vietnam demonstration near the US Embassy in London, and claimed he was on the receiving end of a sound thumping.

I wouldn't say that JH was 'doomed from the off', though. He made two massive errors - one in changing his alibi mid-way through his trial; had he stuck to the Liverpool Alibi I think things would have gone better for him. Sherrard made him sign a statement to the effect that his change of alibi was his decision and his alone. And two, insisting upon taking the witness stand. Foot and Woffinden both make the point that he was every bit Swanwick's equal, but no way was he ever that.

Cheers,

Graham

[Graham]

I just found this on Private Eye's website:

Paul Foot, an investigative journalist, editor and left-wing campaigner, worked variously for the Daily Record, the Daily Mirror, The Guardian and Private Eye. He was involved in many high-profile campaigns throughout his illustrious career, including the Birmingham Six, the Bridgewater Four and the John Poulson scandal. His accolades include the Journalist of the Year, the Campaigning Journalist of the Year, the George Orwell Prize for Journalism and in 2000 he was honoured as the Campaigning Journalist of the Decade. Paul Foot died in 2004 at the age of 66.

(with due acknowledgment to Private Eye)

Strange that the A6 Case isn't mentioned....could it be that they who now run Private Eye are conceding that Paul Foot got it wrong....hmmm?

Only wondering...

Cheers,

Graham

[Victor]

i have proven by experiment, to my own satisfaction that her id of the gunman's eye color in the car is faulty, but then, you won't believe that, now will you?

Hi Larue,
What exactly do you mean by this? There are a number of different factors here and it can get confused. I'm completely satisfied that VS never mentioned anything other than blue eyes, with various qualifiers such as "icy" or "staring". The Identikit seems strange having dark eyes, but Hanratty's eyes can appear dark as demonstrated in various photographs. Both people selected at ID parades had blue (or bluish) eyes, although the search for Alphon with his hazel eyes is surprising, I think this is the police jumping to conclusions about Alphon's guilt and overextending themselves.

equally, there is a lot she has said that has not been proven to be true either. as far as i know, nobody has ever tried to prove or disprove her testimony. as i have said, her statements are taken on trust.

OK. Where do you start with VS testimony? She's not charged with any offence, she's the victim, and the statements I've quoted a few times from the judgment indicate her honesty is beyond doubt, although she may be confused\overwhelmed by the ordeal and be mistaken on some points as indicated by the 1st ID parade. Obviously the JimIsInnocent people seek to make the most of this and have inflated it beyond reason, helped by smearing over "adulterous harlot" stereotyped negativity.

Her statements are taken on trust because she has no reason to lie, so you need to invent one...The obvious first place is to make her out to be a revenge-filled, bitter, twisted whore who deserved what she got because she stole someoneelse's husband - and that trick has been tried and some seem to have fallen for it.

as an ex-student myself, i find this last statement rather offensive, and totally unrequired.

What do you find offensive? The suggestion that Oxford students are as problematic as those from other areas of the country, or the suggestion that students cause more than their fair share of problems?

I only raised this in response to James's suggestion that because John Kerr was a student from Oxford then that somehow means he's more intelligent and less likely to lie than VS. I find that suggestion offensive and unrequired, rather than my counter-argument.

Oh, and I'm an ex-student too, only I'm content to be classified as typical rather than insisiting on being described as "better" than anyone else.

KR,
Vic.

[Tony]

Interesting article. Have a look.

Hello everybody,

Just found this article which I have not seen before. It may be of interest to A6 fans. Well it will if you have not seen it before.

Vic, have a stiff drink before you read it.

Tony.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/the-hanratty-case-im-dying-tomorrow-please-clear-my-name-1285433.html

[Tony]

Hanging Hanratty!

This is really addressed to the Southern Softies who take part on here. Yes I mean you Graham and even Reg. Don’t tell your Ronnie I called him soft please Reg.

There is a production company in the London area known as The Bootleg Theatre Company (forgive my ignorance but I may have heard of it but have taken no notice whatsoever)

Shortly after the conclusion of the A6 trial the BLC wrote and presented a play based on a conversation between Hanratty and Alphon they invited Michael Sherrard to come and see the action; it explored all the unanswered questions that came out of the trial.

Michael Sherrard found it extraordinary: the two men discussing all the anomalies in the evidence. It brought back to him just how difficult it was to curb the optimism of Hanratty and his family given the lengths the police were prepared to go to secure a conviction.
The play added to Michael Sherrard’s concerns about the verdict.

Now I have just googled the BTC and they were still performing the play in 1997. It was called ‘Hanging Hanratty’ and I wondered if any of you Southern people went to see it. I attach below a link to the programme; I know if it had been on in Sheffield or Manchester I would have had a box seat. Somebody on here must have seen it.

Tony.

http://www.inse1.co.uk/issues/inSE1-02.pdf

[simon]

Hi Graham,
The reason Private Eye don't refer to the A6 Murder is probably because the other Foot campaigns mentioned all ended in the desired result !

Hi Tony,
Interesting to hear about Hanging Hanratty, and I wonder how similar it is/was to that other play, previously mentioned, called Hanratty In Hell ? I wonder who wrote them ?

Simon

[Tony]

Victor's post 3769

Victor,

I have been busy contributing to this thread and I am sorry but I missed your own post number 3769.

I can only speak for myself but I sincerely do have tremendous sympathy for Valerie Storie. Nobody and I mean nobody, goes for a night out and expects to come home in an ambulance after being raped and shot and unable to walk for the rest of their lives. That should go without saying. But at the end of the day she was one of the three or four major players in this mystery and surely we are entitled to analyse her evidence. If not we may as well close the thread down.

I think you have gone way over the top with your response to Larue and when has anyone ever on here used the terms to describe Valerie as you suggest they have done?
The answer is, simply they have not. You are entirely responsible for that descriptive language and you are on your own.

Maybe you should consider apologising to Larue. He did not deserve your response.

I feel I should almost apologise on your behalf but won’t.

Tony.

[burkhilly]

I've not been on the thread for the last month or so, due to work commitments etc, although I have been keeping my eye on it!

A question to all you knowledgeable people: I've been right the way thru the thread, and seem to recall that on the evening in the hours leading up to the murder, there are were no witnesses who saw JH in the area. Is this correct?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

[Rob63]

I've not been on the thread for the last month or so, due to work commitments etc, although I have been keeping my eye on it!

A question to all you knowledgeable people: I've been right the way thru the thread, and seem to recall that on the evening in the hours leading up to the murder, there are were no witnesses who saw JH in the area. Is this correct?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

Thats correct, no witnesses to put him in the area.

[Victor]

Vic, have a stiff drink before you read it.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/th...e-1285433.html

Hi Tony,

Old, out-of-date, full of errors and supposition expressed as fact.

Mildly humourous considering the actual outcome.

KR,
Vic.

[jimarilyn]

This is really addressed to the Southern Softies who take part on here. Yes I mean you Graham and even Reg. Don’t tell your Ronnie I called him soft please Reg.

There is a production company in the London area known as The Bootleg Theatre Company (forgive my ignorance but I may have heard of it but have taken no notice whatsoever)

Shortly after the conclusion of the A6 trial the BLC wrote and presented a play based on a conversation between Hanratty and Alphon they invited Michael Sherrard to come and see the action; it explored all the unanswered questions that came out of the trial.

Michael Sherrard found it extraordinary: the two men discussing all the anomalies in the evidence. It brought back to him just how difficult it was to curb the optimism of Hanratty and his family given the lengths the police were prepared to go to secure a conviction.
The play added to Michael Sherrard’s concerns about the verdict.

Now I have just googled the BTC and they were still performing the play in 1997. It was called ‘Hanging Hanratty’ and I wondered if any of you Southern people went to see it. I attach below a link to the programme; I know if it had been on in Sheffield or Manchester I would have had a box seat. Somebody on here must have seen it.

Tony.

http://www.inse1.co.uk/issues/inSE1-02.pdf

Hi Tony,

Some very interesting posts from your good self recently concerning Michael Sherrard. I'd never heard of that play until you mentioned it. Just googled it, it seems as though it received excellent reviews. I wonder what the chances are of it being revived ? I definitely would have gone to watch it had I known about it at the time.

regards,
James

PS. Does Sherrard have much to say in his autobiography about the A6 murder ?

[Tony]

Hi Tony,

Some very interesting posts from your good self recently concerning Michael Sherrard. I'd never heard of that play until you mentioned it. Just googled it, it seems as though it received excellent reviews. I wonder what the chances are of it being revived ? I definitely would have gone to watch it had I known about it at the time.

regards,
James

PS. Does Sherrard have much to say in his autobiography about the A6 murder ?

Hi James,

There is just one chapter devoted to the A6 case and it is very interesting.
Michael Sherrard comes across as liking Hanratty and felt he should have been found not guilty. In fact he doubted if the case would even go to trial at one point.
He said the gaolers who sat with Hanratty in the condemned cell whilst awaiting execution were in tears on the morning of the execution.

I’ll send you a copy of the relevant chapter later this week.

Tony.

[jimarilyn]

I've not been on the thread for the last month or so, due to work commitments etc, although I have been keeping my eye on it!

A question to all you knowledgeable people: I've been right the way thru the thread, and seem to recall that on the evening in the hours leading up to the murder, there are were no witnesses who saw JH in the area. Is this correct?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

Hi Yvonne,

Your input has been missed lately, I hope it's not too long before you resume posting again as your posts are always impressive and insightful.

You're absolutely correct, no one has ever come forward to say that they saw Hanratty (or even anyone who looked like him !) in the Taplow/Dorney Reach area on August 22nd 1961, which contrasts sharply with sightings of Alphon/Alphon lookalikes on that day.


regards,
James

[Victor]

I can only speak for myself but I sincerely do have tremendous sympathy for Valerie Storie. Nobody and I mean nobody, goes for a night out and expects to come home in an ambulance after being raped and shot and unable to walk for the rest of their lives. That should go without saying. But at the end of the day she was one of the three or four major players in this mystery and surely we are entitled to analyse her evidence. If not we may as well close the thread down.

Hi Tony,
I've said this before on this thread, several times... By all means examine and question VS evidence but people need to stop saying or implying things like:-
1. John Kerr is a more reliable witness than VS.
2. VS is a habitual liar (concerning her affair with MG) and therefore untrustworthy.
3. VS ever said her rapist had brown eyes. There is no evidence for this.
4. VS and the police conspired to frame Hanratty, whether Baz&Oxo presurising VS into changing her description or fiddling the ID parades.

VS evidence is open for examination and analysis because she may have got confused about some of the details because of the traumatic ordeal she had been subjected too. The identification of Michael Clark is evidence of the trauma, it is not evidence that VS is lying or out-for-revenge or attempting to pervert the course of justice.

I think you have gone way over the top with your response to Larue and when has anyone ever on here used the terms to describe Valerie as you suggest they have done?
The answer is, simply they have not. You are entirely responsible for that descriptive language and you are on your own.

There's a difference between using the words that I did in that post and implying them and yes the words are strong. Here's a bunch of quotes illustrating what I mean:-

Are you implying that VS is a dependable paragon of virtue ? I hardly think so.

How Victor can say that VS was a much more reliable witness than John Kerr defies belief.

I most definitely don't take as gospel every word which has been uttered from VS's mouth.

she had deceived her parents

and pretty much all the rest of that post.

After inexplicably doubting that Oxford has student problems...

We all know that he and Acott hid information which was to Hanratty’s advantage from the defence and I wonder if he did anything with the cartridge cases he had from the day after the murder. Remember two cartridge cases turned up inexplicably three weeks after the murder at The Vienna.

The following two quotes distort the truth to a large degree, in fact they could be taken as allegations of police corruption.

For me personally John Kerr comes across as a much more reliable witness than Valerie Storie. He was constant and much more consistent. He knew his own handwriting intimately and exactly what he had written on the back of a census form and he wasn't going to be fobbed off by a police forgery.

"The rozzers conveniently misplaced

I call this a "Shawshank" moment after the book and film. The form wasn't "conveniently misplaced" it was inconveniently misplaced because if it had been found then John Kerr's evidence could have been completely undermined, only James and Reg are using it to undermine VS instead without corroboration, it's just his word against hers.

On the other hand, you've not replied to my post #3756, maybe you'd like to apologise for:-

But I suppose you can convince yourself it was six months if you want to and it serves your purpose.

KR,
Vic.