a6 murder

[Graham]

Your'e right there old man! Seriously though and in deference to my elders I came to know Paul Foot's work through his writings for Socialist Worker and The Daily Mirror in the 1980's. It was, though, his articles and books on miscarriages on justice that most interested me.

I'll give you 'old man', yer young rip...I always respected Foot as an investigative journalist, but his SWP meanderings left me stone cold, I'm afraid.

I can't really disagree with anything in Miller's letter to The Guardian.

I don't see how Hanratty was obviously in the Slough area. You say it yourself. No witnesses. Unless you count Valerie Stories flawed identification of her assailant.

He was obviously in the Slough area because that's where the car was parked. VS's i.d. is not, in my opinion, flawed. For all we know JH might have spent the day at someone's house near Dorney Reach. Who knows?

Michael da Costa's evidence is the same as the Rhyl Witnesses' evidence: never could be, and never can be, proven beyond all doubt.

Example: I was in Coventry today, but unless my car or my face was caught on CCTV, I have absolutely no way of proving where I was, as my visit to that engaging city didn't involve me meeting with or speaking to anyone, with the sole exception of a bloke in a garage and I'd bet a pound to a pinch of s**t that even if I went back tonight he wouldn't recognise me. I didn't use my credit-card at the garage, so no proof of presence there.

Re: VS's testimony, I need to have a good read but unfortunately don't have my books at the moment - not backing out, just need a refresher in that area.

Cheers,

Graham

Must go and polish me zimmer...catch you all later.

[SteveS]

Hello Graham,

Leonard Miller wrote a letter to the Guardian in May 2002. Perhaps this is what Steve is referring to.
Mr Miller even leaves his e-mail address.

This letter can be viewed in the following link.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2002/may/14/guardianletters2

atb

Joseph

Hello Joseph

You beat me to it my friend.

It is interesting to note, I'm sure that will agree, that Mr Millers letter was published on the 14th May 2002, four days after the Court of Appeal upheld Hanratty's conviction.

Mr Millers book was published on 25th October 2001, and without any mention in the national media I must add. But, even so, both Foot and Woffinden had read it if Reg1965 is to be believed. He said this in his post:

Hi Tony
From what Bob said, him and Foot were too busy pissing themselves laughing to bother. Apart from that I don't know. Why bother arguing with an idiot I suppose.
He did say that in one passage of the book, Miller uses, to discredit the Rhyl alibi, the fact that a bookies was a few doors down from Ingledene and that if Hanratty had been there then he would have mentioned it and been in for a bet. Bob told me that Hanratty did mention it in his testimony! Maybe that gives you your answer, Millers letter wasn't worth replying to.

I'll ask him next time if I remember.

Take care
Reg

ps that email address for Miller is no longer valid. I tried and got a failed delivery message.

Thnx
Steve

[SteveS]

Michael da Costa's evidence is the same as the Rhyl Witnesses' evidence: never could be, and never can be, proven beyond all doubt.

Same weight applied to Miss Stories testimony I hope.

Must go and polish me zimmer...catch you all later.

Graham follow this link and buy yourself another one

http://www.scootamart.co.uk/mobility/walking-aids/walking-frames/index.html

Thnx
Steve (Yikes! Crash helmet in place)

[jimarilyn]

Michael da Costa

Michael Da Costa, an actor, saw a man he thought was Hanratty on the same train from Euston that day. He recognized his dyed hair, important inasmuch as men who dyed their hair was rare. More importantly though it was another person who commented on unusual looking hair. This person seems to be placing Hanratty going north instead of west.

Hi Steve,

Michael da Costa it would seem is a very interesting character. A young actor in his mid to late twenties at the time, he was convinced that it was Hanratty whom he saw at Euston Station on August 22nd 1961. He comes across (to me anyhow) as a decent and trustworthy person.

Interestingly enough he has an entry on the very impressive IMDB website.....

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0196065/

I have attached a still photo of him from a 1968 episode of "The Saint" entitled "The People Importers" in which he played a doctor. The quality is not that good, I took it with my trusty old mobile phone camera as the episode was being shown on an ITV website a couple or so months ago.


regards,
James

[Graham]

That's Tony Hancock, surely!!!

Graham

[john]

Nudds and Snell say and this one of the few things they did not change, that he left the infamous Vienna at 0930 walking towards Paddington.
So

Either he caught a train at Paddington to Slough area and wandered around Berkshire countryside as writen above or he did not go straight there-which begs the question-where and with whom (and that would suggest premidation). Why on earth would Hanratty wait all day to go and raid some houses on a night. In those days of fuller employment it was easier to burgle etc during the day and his record of burglaries largely reflect that-during daylight hours. apart from not one single sighting in London-it would not have been beyond the powers of Acott to have produced someone to have evidenced he was in London or Berkshire that afternoon-after all look at the Langdale evidence-
They, even did not dare to do that.
The prosecution had its hand full with Olive and Grace evidence of where he was on the Tuesday.

So we have
Either he is wandering around the fields and lanes for twelve hours getting increasingly depressed as Miller theorises
or
he is in Berkshire stacked up somwhere for twelve hours-think of the pre meditated implications of that and the accomplice that suggests
or
he is London onwards from 0930 and then later in the day in a city of 8 million with rather distinctive hair and also either the gun is in his bag when leaving the Vienna and he wandering around for twelve hours with it-his childish nature would suggets to me that he would not have waited twelve hours to use it! or he gets the gun from somewhere later in the day-and that would make the supplier of the gun an accessory to the fact surely?
goes to Berkshire by train or bus as car again suggests pre medication and waits until approx 2130 hours to pounce on the car in the middle of field by accident.

The prosecution during the trial never ever tackled this-they dare not and Sherrard did not either. i suspect he felt ambushed by the Hanratty Rhyl change alibi. Hanratty was not well served by this failure.

Now I admit the DNA evidence does worry me. Thus the above does of course does not make Hanratty innocent of the crime but the scenario if he did do it surely to you all now must suggest that this is not a loner wandering the lanes depressed and fed up because he has not achieved any burglaries any day with his gun.

I doubt we shall ever know the following but it suggests many other questions rather than the manic depressed loner discovering a car by
accident on at 2130 hours midweek in a very quiet lane.

How did he get there-car would suggest premeditated and outside help
What if there was he doing all the time until 2130 hours. And if it was him outside Nellies at approx 1400 hours-then for the remaining five and half hours wandering where?

I believe that if he did do the murder-and I am far from convinced, the hand of Ruth Ellis lurks here i.e. someone else was heavily involved.

Increasingly as I look at the defence I am not impressed with Mr Sherrards' cross examinations etc. I appreciate that is contrary to the professional authors who all write it was terrific. An astute barrister surely would have made great play of where is lack of the evidence of Hanratty wandering the fields and why. Valerie did not identify him until in the car. And no one at all being anywhere near the field in the day time The defence job was to do that,(they lamentably ignored this) and the prosecution had no evidence at all to show that he was in those lanes during the day.

[Limehouse]

I absolutely agree with you on all points John. Keep up the good work.

[Graham]

It was never known, and it will never be known, precisely what JH did between leaving the Vienna and tapping on the car's window. As his pockets were apparently full of bullets then (as I suggested before) it may be that he only picked up the gun that day from someone in or around Slough (obviously, if this was the case, then it was highly unlikely to have been JH who placed the cartridges at the Vienna).

JH says he went by train to Liverpool. He was never able to prove this. Even so, I still believe that had he stuck to his Liverpool Alibi, he could well have been acquitted. I also believe that one of the reasons he switched to the Rhyl Alibi was that his Liverpool friend (whose name I can never remember) refused to support him. I sometimes think that his defence were rather naive regarding his alibi - not that they'd have considered 'inventing' supportive evidence; rather they didn't fully utilise the evidence they had.

I can't accept that JH wandered around the countryside. No way. Not in his character. When he went on his travels it was nearly always with some purpose in mind. I suspect he spent the day with some unknown person at that person's house and went out at dusk with the intention of using his new toy. Maybe he decided to start his career in armed-robbery at the bottom and rob the occupants of a small car. Had that gone well, maybe he'd have moved up to a posh car, a house, a bank, whatever. Who knows? Maybe he'd been in the Dorney area before and knew it as a quiet spot where lovers parked their cars. Again - who knows? How did he get to the cornfield? I'd say he walked there from the main road - I've done it myself (years ago, before you say anything, young Steve, when I was fit!). I agree, if he went there by car, then some sort of assistance is suggested. But again - who knows?

John - not sure what you mean by 'the hand of Ruth Ellis'. She confessed readily to the murder of her lover, didn't mount much of a defence (as there was at least one witness to the murder, what defence could there have been other than 'mitigating circumstances' or her mental condition at the time?), and refused to appeal.

What did for JH at his trial was:

- the change of alibi
- the poor quality of the Rhyl witnesses
- the confused presentation of the Dinwoody evidence
- JH's demeanor in the witness box (he is described by at least one person who was in court as 'cocky')
- Valerie Storie. She must have had a profound effect upon the jury, given her terrible ordeal and her obvious bravery.

I've always thought that had the trial taken place in Scotland, the verdict of the jury would almost certainly have been 'not proven' (i.e., we know you did it, but we can't prove it).

Cheers,

Graham

[caz]

Hi All,

It seems slightly odd to me that anyone would not have been highly delighted to be assured that the right man was hanged for this horrible crime, very possibly saving others from going through a similarly dreadful ordeal, had the pitiless swine got a taste for it.

Instead, many posters to this thread are evidently furious that Hanratty's conviction as a very dangerous man was finally declared safe and sound at the appeal, with the belt and braces of the DNA findings. I find that slightly worrying, because without any actual proof of innocence I would not want to be seen trying to defend a man who could have done such vile things that night.

The argument that the poster Caz puts forward, as I see it, can be summarized thus:

Those that see Hanratty as being innocent would not have batted an eyelid if the (LCN) DNA tests had found someone else as being culpable in the A6 murder and would have been jubilant at the miracles of modern science, to the extent that is infallible.

What I personally make of this, and what I think Caz is getting at, is that those who believe in Hanratty's innocence will do so at all costs and let the truth be damned.

Caz please correct me if I am wrong.

Hi Steve,

Apologies for the delay in responding to you.

I know that any other DNA result would have been paraded by certain posters here as absolute proof that Hanratty was innocent and someone else was therefore guilty. How do I know? Because even the result we are stuck with is interpreted as evidence that an innocent Hanratty's DNA got there by mistake and the rapist's DNA was absent. What more proof do I need that Hanratty would have been believed innocent by some people no matter what was indicated by further evidence?

The problem that this argument stems from, as I have noticed, is that Caz does not seem to understand the problems associated with LCN DNA testing and interpretation. These problems include;

The evidential samples must be shown by complete and unequivocal records that contamination could not have occurred.
No one can be excluded as a suspect as a result of an LCN test.
LCN mixed profiles cannot be interpreted reliably at present.

Interesting. So nobody should have been excluding the convicted man as a suspect, whatever the result had indicated, and yet that is exactly what some posters are doing.

DNA is after all just like any other piece of circumstantial evidence and must be weighed with any other evidence in a particular case.

It was. The DNA found belonged to the man who was convicted of the crime on the strength of the available evidence (no matter how weak we think the case was at the time), thereby confirming the original verdict. I have little doubt that if the same DNA evidence could have been produced during the trial, the verdict would have been reached much more quickly and never questioned. Also, an innocent man would have been a complete fool not to tell the truth about where he was at the time of this capital offence and stick with it rigidly.

I for one, putting 2 and 2 together and getting 4, via research, have severe reservations concerning anyone (Alphon for instance) who may have been found culpable beyond any doubt, using this technique as an evidential tool.

Well that's great, but nobody was found culpable beyond any doubt, just using this evidential tool. Hanratty was found culpable beyond reasonable doubt by a jury first. The evidential tool was simply used to hammer the final nails back into his coffin. Alphon was not picked out by the victim, was never on trial and no evidential tool has even begun to incriminate him. And he's the only other man who was anywhere near the frame.

As far as Alphon goes, no one will now ever know for sure whether he was the A6 murderer. Hanratty certainly wasn't if one is going to be truly fair with regard to empirical evidence and the presumption of innocence, coupled with a reasonable doubt as to guilt. Not at trial in 1962 or at appeal in 2002 has anybody proved, to me, anything of empirical worth to make Hanratty guilty of the A6 murder.

That's an incredible misunderstanding of the legal situation. Hanratty first lost the presumption of innocence when the original guilty verdict was returned. The jury felt there was no reasonable doubt. The appeal supported their feelings. So nobody has to prove to you that Hanratty was indeed the vile creature who destroyed one life and ruined another. You now have to prove that the jury and the appeal not only produced an unsafe verdict, but an incorrect one. Presumption of innocence is very far from proof of innocence. Every criminal is presumed innocent before a guilty verdict. You want Hanratty to be presumed innocent after not one, but two guilty verdicts. That's a tall order and it's unlikely to happen.

DNA in criminal cases, far from being the Gold Standard of evidence, is being seen more and more for what it really is. That is it is nothing more than just a piece in the jigsaw puzzle. It is just another forensic technique as fallible as all the others. Contrary to this though it seems, more and more, that the prosecuting authorities want to do less and less actual investigating and detective work and rely, more and more, on DNA evidence to gain a conviction. That should worry everybody.

That does worry me. But not in the A6 case, where the authorities did investigate and their detective work, coupled with the victim's recognition of her rapist's voice, and Hanratty's inability to tell a straight story about where he was and when (even though his life depended on it), was enough to gain the conviction, many years before DNA could be used to support or undermine it.

As for innocence, every defendent is, surely, innocent until proven guilty. The presumption of innocence is paramount to our system of justice. (Although Jack Straw and his band of elves will probably destroy that too) The jury foreman is not asked whether they find the defendent guilty or innocent but guilty or not guilty. A subtle difference though and I am sure that you would agree with it. Innocence therefore is presumed unless the jury find otherwise.

Precisely.

And the jury did find otherwise. You and I were not there.

Also, the foreman is asked whether they find the defendant guilty or not guilty on the evidence examined by the jury. That is subtly different again from 'not guilty' meaning he could not have done it.

Love,

Caz
X

[Victor]

Why not try 70% or 14%. Unless you supply us with the reference for that fact then we only have your say so on the matter. If it is 6% then LCN will be well below the 1% mark for sure.

Hi Steve,

The 6% came from one of the reviews of LCN, the link for which is on the DNA thread.

Where's your evidence or a reference for your last sentence quoted above? Logically a more sensitive test on the same samples will give more profiles, therefore greater results than 6%, but that would be comparing like for like which can't actually be done from the results available.

The proportion of tests which give a result is virtually meaningless, certainly in regard to how valid the technique is. For example, the results could be skewed by operator error (someone not taking the samples correctly) and profiles run on effectively blanks, which with 100% accuracy would give no profile, yet would lower the 6% figure.

KR,
Vic.

[Victor]

It was never known, and it will never be known, precisely what JH did between leaving the Vienna and tapping on the car's window. As his pockets were apparently full of bullets then (as I suggested before) it may be that he only picked up the gun that day from someone in or around Slough (obviously, if this was the case, then it was highly unlikely to have been JH who placed the cartridges at the Vienna).

Hi Graham,

Exactly, if the only person he met was the person who supplied the gun then there isn't going to be any evidence of what he did because whoever that is isn't likely to come forward.

KR,
Vic.

[Victor]

I read a post on here somewhere that Leonard Miller wrote an open letter to a national newspaper challanging Paul Foot and Bob Woffinden to answer his questions over Hanratty's diagnosis as being a latent psychopath by 2 doctors.

Where did Mr Miller get this information from in the first place and why wasn't this testimony used by the prosecution to bolster the case against him? Mr Sherrard thought the Crowns use of the testimony of Roy Langdale was scraping the barrel, after all?

Hi Steve,

I believe Brighton Hospital doctors expressed an opinion like that when Hanratty passed out and was taken to A&E. Obviously the proscution wouldn't want to present evidence suggesting Hanratty was incapable of standing trial, it would be up to the defence to do that, and (I think) Hanratty didn't want that to happen.

KR,
Vic.

[Graham]

Hi Vic,

Whoever supplied the gun to JH must have been crapping his pants...accessory to murder and a long, long spell in clink beckoned. I don't think that JH was ever asked in court regarding the source of the gun - if I'm correct, then I find that slightly odd. The police must have grilled him about it, and I wonder if in fact he may have owned up. There wasn't any secondary trial connected with the A6 Case, but there was a suicide, as we all know. The same person to whom JH admitted telling about the back seat of a bus...a person with definite underworld connections. Pure supposition though, and can't be supported by any known fact or any evidence, but intriguing all the same.

Re: JH's mental health, apart from his examination at Brighton, didn't he undergo some kind of craniological examination when he was younger?

Cheers,

Graham

Cheers,

Graham

[john]

The 'Ruth Ellis' reference is that she actually pulled the tirgger but was given the gun on the day whilst in an very emotional state-told where her lover was and at what time and driven there by the man - i cannot recall is name without looking it up but later he took care of her son as some sort of recompense. This is well known.

I do not suggest that James was highly emotional but no one can explain and it is rather important what he was doing then if he was not at Liverpool/Rhyl. Someone must have known that he was going out to do a robbery with a gun.
But why go to Dorney reach and at that time of night hope you will find a car-take it over and then hope no one will see you and if not successful i.e. no cars that night-get back to London ok on the public transport system. As Valerie et al do not refer to the gunman having a bag at all when arriving at the car-Hanratty according to Nudds/Snell left the Vienna with a bag and the man at Nellies at 2pm was carrying a bag then presumably dumps in the lane/the field sbefore waiting another 5 and half hours.
A quiet lane suddenly becomes the M1 that day.

I do not suggest and logically think that it was the Ewer theory of conspiracy to get rid of Gregsten for lust. There may well be another rason but I need to think about this-(sounds familiar) as i believe Alphon was cleverly a 'latcher on to' info and Jean Justice to get money intially but someone's else 'hand' is in this murder very heavily.

I can see the argument for Hanratty actually pulling the gun etc, though I do not belive this. What i cannt buy at all is that he is at that field at 2130 hours midweek by pure acident. If he wanted to try out his gun at dusk etc then there are rather lot of places in London-North London for example
Barnet-Stanmore etc with large well to do incomes.

A lonely field in an area that did not have in the lane well-to-do houses is bizarre and not logical.

[jimarilyn]

Increasingly as I look at the defence I am not impressed with Mr Sherrards' cross examinations etc.

Hi John,

I think Sherrard's inexperience (he was a junior counsel and had not taken silk at the time) at a murder trial told against him. From all that I've read and studied about the A6 murder, the consensus of opinion is that Sherrard performed much better at the Committal proceedings at Ampthill than he did a month or so later at the actual Bedford trial.

Just two instances where I feel Sherrard was very remiss are.... (1) Why did he not challenge Valerie Storie's account of her being tied up by the gunman and (2) Why did he not insist on being provided with a photograph of Michael Clark.

In the first instance why did he not ask Miss Storie where the gun was (and what Mike Gregsten was doing) while the gunman was binding her hands with Gregsten's tie and a piece of rope.

Storie's puzzling testimony on this matter is as follows....

"He (the man) said 'I want to kip, but first I must tie you up. What about cutting that rug up ?' We told him we had nothing to cut it up with. So he said to Mike, 'Let me look in the boot of the car to see if you have any rope'. He made Mike get out of the car, go with him to the boot, and there was a small piece of rope in the tool kit which he took. They got back into the car again, Mike in the driving seat and the man in the back still pointing the gun at us. He told Mike to hand over his tie, which Mike did, and he told me to turn around and face him and put my hands together in front of my body so that he could tie my wrists. As he put the tie against my wrists I held them apart, so that although he thought he was tying them up very tightly, it was in fact loose when I did put my arms together. Having tied my wrists with the tie, he then proceeded to do the same with the piece of rope, tying one end of it to the car door handle...When he had finished tying me up he said to Mike, 'I have got to find something to tie you up with' and I said, 'Why do you not tie us up together, just leave us outside and tie us up, and then you can go'."

In the second instance I find it incredible that Sherrard did not demand of the police that they produce either Michael Clark in person or at least a photograph of him for comparison purposes with Alphon. Even Alphon himself admitted that Michael Clark resembled him. And we all know that Valerie Storie mentioned the resemblance on at least two occasions.

regards,
James