a6 murder

[jimarilyn]

Hi Viv,

I always enjoy your posts.
Having read that Wiki definition it's becoming much clearer to me. Well as clear as mud anyway.

Allelujah for the 'day of the locus'. Hope we don't get plagued with them though.

Think I'm going a bit 'loco' trying to understand some of this scientific technical jargon.

[babybird67]

hmmm...

I am creeping back quietly in the hope that there is no one behind the door waiting to bash me over the head with something heavy.

It is good you have come back Limehouse; if this is a reference to my post, though, please remember you metaphorically bashed me over the head first, so it’s a bit disingenuous to play the victim on this point, especially as I said clearly in my last post it was the end of the matter as far as I was concerned and that I did not bear you any ill will.

I have been keeping an eye on the debate recently and I must say, I have been very impressed. I would particularly like to focus on Graham's key questions because I think that, when you set the very contentious DNA evidence aside, there are aspects to this case that remain unanswered and should have been explored further before the trial.

I agree Graham has always asked pertinent and interesting questions the implications of which I will address below. Which part of the DNA evidence are you referring to as ‘contentious’ by the way? As far as I was aware, the DNA was not particularly contentious since Counsel for the Crown and for the Hanrattys both agreed it was enough to exclude Alphon as the A6 murderer, and my understanding is that the Hanratty Counsel had to concede that it confirmed that Hanratty’s semen was the source of the DNA there.

Firstly, did Dixie France have any hand at all in the events surrounding the A6 case apart from his friendship with Hanratty?

I wondered this at first but looking at the evidence, there is none which suggests he had any involvement in the case, either prior to the murder or after it, so I have to conclude he did not.

Several scenarios are possible:

Interesting use of the word ‘scenario’; the speculation required to deflect focus away from the evidence we have of Hanratty’s involvement onto innocent onlookers always reminds me of a fictional dramatisation.

Dixie obtained the gun, thinking that Hanratty was going to use it to obtain a large amount of cash. When he realised just what Hanratty had allegedly done, he killed himself, unable to endure the guilt of Gregsten's death and Valerie's injuries and also the guilt of introducing Hanratty into his household.

If this scenario were true, and Dixie had obtained a gun for Hanratty, would that not cast doubt on your reference to “what Hanratty had allegedly done”? Does it not make the allegations that Hanratty actually was guilty of the crime more plausible, if we believe Dixie supplied a gun to him, or are we suggesting the gun was provided to him but still is not evidence that he committed the A6 crime? Any argument which has Dixie committing suicide because of guilt at procuring a gun, basically has to accept the logical consequence of the scenario, that the gun he provided to Hanratty was used by Hanratty to murder one person, and to coerce another during an act of rape, and attempted murder, leading to overwhelming guilt on Dixie’s part. So, do we believe Hanratty had a gun at all or are we still believing he did not? Or are we only using the gun and its possible origins as something to bash the dead Dixie around the head with, whilst failing to think through the implications of the scenario in regard to Hanratty’s guilt?

Dixie disposed of the gun and in doing so framed Hanratty. He perhaps did so because he was being leaned on for some reason. He killed himself because Hanratty was his mate.

If we accept this scenario, we must accept that Dixie knew the real A6 killer, who some of us are also arguing was not Hanratty so someone else entirely, and was given the gun by this killer, who left no trace of himself at all, anywhere, not least on the rape victim‘s knickers. But apparently Dixie knew this person much better than Hanratty, because Dixie was so concerned to protect this person he was willing to frame a family friend whom he had taken under his wing and shown kindness to. No evidence of this other person exists anywhere. If there were such a person I think someone would have been able to demonstrate a connection between him and Dixie to corroborate such a scenario, but as there is no evidence supporting this scenario, I think we have to conclude it is just speculation.

c) Dixie had no hand in the A6 events at all but was shocked to think that his friend may have been involved. He was depressed because he saw hilself as a failure in general and no particular good to his family.

That’s the conclusion the evidence leads to and the one I currently subscribe to, unless some actual evidence turns up to disprove it.

Was there a Hanratty, Ewer, Anderson connection?

No evidence of one.

Well, if you believe that Hanratty was hired, here is an obvious possibility.

Oh yes, hired to split up the couple, I mean drive them together…which one was it again? The problem with the ‘if you believe’ scenarios, is that they begin back to front; they begin with a motive and try to fit the evidence into a scenario which supports that motive. Similar methods are seen in the suspect theories on the Ripper threads; a suspect is chosen and then ‘evidence’ prioritized or ‘found’ to support the theory. I think it is a mistake to look at any crime this way. We have to look at the evidence and listen to what it is telling us, even if it is telling us something we really don’t want to believe.

However, why didn't the police investigate this possibility more thoroughly? After all, it seems to provide a motive…. The promotion of a motive that suggested a 'hit man' hired to separate them was not in keeping with the way the prosecution was crafted.

There were certainly flaws in the investigation, no doubt about that. The pouncing on Alphon being the major one. But it is a mistake in my opinion to speculate on a motive and then try to fit the evidence around that motive. It makes more sense to look at the extant evidence, and try to investigate who was responsible for the crime based on that evidence, and if the motive is not clear or explicable to a rational mind, we must accept that the person capable of committing murder and then raping a young woman at gunpoint next to the bleeding body before trying also to murder her, is perhaps not a rational mind that can explain itself in a way in which those of us who are not capable of this sort of crime can understand.

Not every human action is explicable, understandable, knowable; I appreciate the recognition of this fact is disconcerting to some of us, myself included; that the reality of being murdered or raped for no other reason than you were in the wrong place at the wrong time is deeply disturbing, and therefore we seek to rationalise and explain everything in terms which would make it comfortable for us to lie to ourselves that we are not personally at risk. It would be very comforting to think there was a conspiracy to split up two ‘immoral’ lovers who were deliberately targeted, and it makes a good (fairy ) story, but we have to drag our minds back to the evidence and there is not one single piece of evidence which supports the conspiracy theory. None at all. Of course if we subscribe to the conspiracy theory, we can argue, well, there wouldn’t be, it has all been covered up, but in the light of many recent exposures of miscarriages of justice that have been highlighted on this thread, one would have to ask oneself why Hanratty is such a special case to the Establishment that the ‘truth’ of his 'innocence' would be too damaging to come out…he really isn’t that special a case, in my opinion. The truth of the matter is that he was guilty; it really is as simple as that; the evidence cannot lead me to any other conclusion.

So there is no evidence of a conspiracy theory but what there is, is evidence to support is that Hanratty was changing his M.O. to include armed robbery, and his inexperience with the gun, as he played the self-confessed ‘cowboy’, led to a tragic accidental shooting, for which he knew he would hang if convicted; he therefore raped the second victim and attempted to kill her to eliminate the only witness to his crime. That’s why his semen is on her knickers, mixed with her vaginal fluids in a distribution experts tell us is ‘typical’ of an act of sexual intercourse having taken place. What’s more, there is no other DNA there, other than MG’s. There is no possible rational way, anyone other than James Hanratty raped Valerie Storie; Valerie said so, the DNA vindicated her. Once again to personalise it, if my daughter came home raped, and not only did she pick the man out, but that same man’s semen was on her knickers and picked up by forensic evidence, I’d be furious if that wasn’t considered enough to convict on. We would have to ask just how high the bar of proof needs to be raised to convict someone of rape…must we, for example, actually catch them doing it before a conviction can be safe, if their physical forensic fingerprint at the scene of the crime, on the victim’s knickers, is not enough to convict on?

Did both Alphon and Hanratty use the Rehearsal Club?

No evidence Alphon did.

Certainly, I think the club played a significant role in the A6 events, but only in so much that Hanratty's involvement in the club and the people he met there may have left him open to being framed.

I’ve addressed this point earlier, but again, why would Dixie, who had shown special kindness to Hanratty to the point of including him in his family as ‘Uncle Jim’, then frame that person for a murder he did not commit, in favour of someone who he must have known less well because there is no trace of this person in Dixie’s life?

Where was Hanratty in the days following the crime? What a fantastic question - and one that has occupied a lot of time in my thoughts. Was he in Liverpool and Rhyl? Well, wintesses swear he was but they are rather dismissed (unlike the much more shady witnesses such as Anderson, Nudds and Langdale, whose testimonies must have swayed at least some of the jury).

Why ‘must’ they have swayed some of the jury? We are not party to what evidence presented the jury found convincing and which they did not. Don’t forget that the jury had the real Valerie and Hanratty before them as actual witnesses. We don’t have the benefit of that. It is much easier to weigh up the veracity of somebody you actually know than to do it from a distance based on written records alone. None of us here, to my knowledge, has access to the 600,000 word transcript of everything presented at the original trial, and are at a disadvantage from that point as well. We must remember that judges do not takes written testimony from witnesses for a reason…that the ability for the defence and prosecution to cross examine those witnesses must be present. Hanratty and Storie were both cross examined in person; there is no way we will ever be a party to that; there is no way we can ascertain how powerful their testimony was to the jury members, what non-verbal indications of their characters they imparted to that jury. That is why I feel Andrew’s contention that we are ‘jury members in 2009’is not particularly convincing; we aren’t qualified to put our judgements on a par with the jury for the reasons I have explained. At best, we are just armchair analysts, doing our analysis from imperfect and incomplete second hand assessment of the trial passed down to us from other second hand assessments of the trial. We have to be careful for that reason, I think.

By the way, is it consistent to portray Nudds, Anderson and Langdale as 'shady' witnesses, yet fail to apply the same standards to Hanratty himself? Didn't he share the common elements of being shady...criminal past, dishonest behaviour etc, or is there some other aspect of shadiness that the first three have that you don't consider Hanratty shared?

The point that concerns me is, if the prosecution insist Hanratty was not in Rhyl then where was he? Who saw him? Why didn't the police issue a request for hotels and guest houses to check their records for a J Ryan? Why didn't anyone come forward who could testify that Hanratty stayed somewhere else on those nights? After all, such a request originally led to Alphon and thus Hanratty so why didn't a similar request reveal a similar result?

He was in Bedford raping Valerie Storie. His semen stains on her knickers prove that. Who saw him? Valerie Storie saw him. She was there. I believe her. A similar result regarding hotels could never have been revealed since Hanratty was not in any boarding house in Rhyl. He was committing a horrendous crime in Bedford.

As an aside, for those people truly interested in miscarriages of justice and contentious D.N.A work, I suggest you check out the Kercher case…I’m surprised I haven’t seen anyone on this thread commenting over there already, considering the passion with which Hanratty’s innocence, against all the evidence, is argued for. I know the case has certainly risen the passions within me and may well join that discussion shortly, although I have to say I think Ally, Archaic, JennyL, John and others are doing a sterling job of exposing the suspect evidence gathering that has gone on in that case.

Message for Steve:

How is your campaign to free Peter Voisey coming along? I keep expecting notice of your petition to have his conviction declared unsafe to hit my pm box but I guess you must be too busy right now.

[Stewart P Evans]

Frustrating

Hi Peter,
I think SPE was cryptically pointing to Acott's colleague Kenneth Oxford in his post.
I find SPE's first sentence in that post quite interesting.
Just like Tony, I'm very puzzled as to what it could have been that Baz and Oxo claimed they found in Jimmy's room at Sycamore Grove.
SPE's being far too cryptic in my opinion.
There's been far too much secrecy over the years in this case and tons of evidence not disclosed.
Just think, when I'm 109 years old I might be able to view some of Charlie France's voluminous suicide notes which were scattered all over the floor of the room in that Doss house in Acton.

No, there was not a cryptic reference to Kenneth Oxford, a person whom I have never met.

I realise how frustrating my remarks may seem. I have thought about this long and hard and feel that there is no solid reason not to share it. In a way I felt it was unfair to Hanratty as it is hearsay and not something I witnessed myself. However, the information did not come to me in an official way and I have not seen, or been in touch with, my old friend for several years now.

So with the caveat that I can qualify or explain this information no further, I was told that the material found on the search revealed that Hanratty was very highly sexed in a perverted way and that this evidence, whatever it was and however obtained (e.g. was it a lawful search?), was not admissible as evidence at the trial.

[Graham]

Hi James,

"Until the DNA results were published, I'd have bet my sweet bippy that Hanratty had been stitched up for the A6 murder. And I think that goes for 99% of the people taking an interest in this crime."

I think I also said in subsequent posts that there was a political angle in the Hanratty Is Innocent campaign, right from the start. The A6 Murder happened at a time when people were beginning to challenge authority, and refused to take Establishment attitudes and diktats lying down. To some, Hanratty was seen as a simple working-class boy who'd been falsely accused and wrongly executed for a crime he didn't committ. I can't say I ever knowingly felt this way until Foot's book hit the market, and this was published at a time (early 1970's) when the Establishment was rocking at its foundations - miscarriages of justice were all the rage, and none so adept at publicising them as Paul Foot and Private Eye Magazine. I was a huge fan of both, and took the view that they spoke from the heart and well-researched their causes celebres. As, of course, Foot most certainly did. Like most people interested in true crime, I believed Foot and accepted his stated beliefs regarding the A6 Case. Until the DNA...

At the time of the 2002 Appeal I was no longer all that interested in the A6, but the DNA results came as a bombshell and renewed my interest big-time (as the DNA doubtless did for plenty of others). After the second set of results that positively i.d'd Hanratty as the A6 killer I was hooked, and immediately re-read Foot, Woffinden and any other book I could lay hands on, and then with more careful readings of these works the doubts began....

Did I believe that it was the police who stitched up Hanratty? Yes, I probably did - because there were serious questions being asked concerning the honesty, probity and indeed criminal activities of the police, especially the MEPO, and me being a good little anti-Establishment person viewed the police in general with a good deal of suspicion. Funnily enough, and in retrospect, I never really figured out why the police (or anyone else) should have stitched up Hanratty....but there again, conspiracy-theories and hidden-agendas were all the rage in the sixties and seventies...

Cheers,

Graham

[Stewart P Evans]

Tendentious

...
After the second set of results that positively i.d'd Hanratty as the A6 killer I was hooked, and immediately re-read Foot, Woffinden and any other book I could lay hands on, and then with more careful readings of these works the doubts began....
Graham

I totally agree, readable though Foot's book is, it's a prime example of anti-establishment sniping and is none too accurate in certain parts. The writing is tendentious and biased but it is a seminal work that many base their ideas of the case upon. Certainly a book for the gullible. Foot was a man with an agenda.

[RonIpstone]

Did I believe that it was the police who stitched up Hanratty? Yes, I probably did - because there were serious questions being asked concerning the honesty, probity and indeed criminal activities of the police, especially the MEPO, and me being a good little anti-Establishment person viewed the police in general with a good deal of suspicion. Funnily enough, and in retrospect, I never really figured out why the police (or anyone else) should have stitched up Hanratty....but there again, conspiracy-theories and hidden-agendas were all the rage in the sixties and seventies...

I have never subscribed to any theory that the Police were out to frame Hanratty, if they had been why would they have first sought Alphon for the crime?

Once they had Hanratty in their sights, they sought to obtain his conviction by means which were arguably unfair, but perhaps par for the course for those times.

[Tony]

I totally agree, readable though Foot's book is, it's a prime example of anti-establishment sniping and is none too accurate in certain parts. The writing is tendentious and biased but it is a seminal work that many base their ideas of the case upon. Certainly a book for the gullible. Foot was a man with an agenda.

And just what was PF’s agenda when he wrote ‘Murder at the Farm’?

That book, very similar in a lot of ways to the A6, resulted finally in the release of the men falsely imprisoned for the crime.

Tony

[jimarilyn]

I totally agree, readable though Foot's book is, it's a prime example of anti-establishment sniping and is none too accurate in certain parts. The writing is tendentious and biased but it is a seminal work that many base their ideas of the case upon. Certainly a book for the gullible. Foot was a man with an agenda.

Hi Stewart,

Nice to see you're a big Paul Foot fan.
That may well be your opinion, and of course like everybody else you are entitled to one. I have the complete opposite viewpoint and consider Paul Foot a very honest, indefatigable man who studied and investigated this case meticulously because he was convinced there had been a great miscarriage of justice. I'm sure that he did not come to this conclusion lightly.

His very impressive book is one for the truth seeker.

I rather think Acott was the man with an agenda.


A Gullible Traveller. (from Lilliput)

[P.L.A]

Foot and Acott

One thing that has always puzzled me about Paul Foot’s meticulous research into the case is why his book was published giving Acott’s Christian name as Robert. When I read the book in 1971, it was the first thing I noticed.

Very recent postings on this thread show that Acott’s name was quite well known by the public at the time. When investigations such as the Worthing bank raid and A6 murder were in progress, many newspapers ran features telling us about Bob. His real name is Basil and his main hobby is growing roses. He lives in Surrey, travels into work by train and has his initials (BMA) embossed on his briefcase – these are the bits I can remember (well sort of) It must be said that some papers at the time referred to him as Robert. Got a feeling The Telegraph did.

I can’t see how Foot made such an error. He only got interested in the case in 1966, but presumably he would have read as many contemporary newspaper reports of the case as possible. Makes you wonder why Acott’s name didn’t come up in any of the author’s conversations.

Foot wrote to Acott and addressed him as either R or Robert. Acott’s reply to the author was signed B. Acott. I always had a theory that the former policeman did this deliberately in order that the book would be devalued by people who had lived through the crime. To have explicitly corrected the author may have added to the book’s authority when eventually printed. I know it’s probably rubbish, but it certainly worked on me. As soon as I saw the name Robert, the book lost a lot of value with me. Irrational, I know – but it was a long time ago.

When Foot told his readers that if the man Storie picked out on the first identity parade hadn’t had a good alibi, he could well have hung, I knew what sort of book I was reading.

Woffinden’s research was obviously meticulous, but he ended up giving the main character a middle name he never had.

Peter

[Limehouse]

Hi Julie,


I have always thought that at least France suspected that Hanratty had obtained a gun. Those suspicions would have been firmed up when the gun was discovered the day after the murder.

Would Dixie France have bought the story that Hanratty had to go to Liverpool to sell his ill-gotten assets? One would have assumed that there were enough dealers in London, and that Dixie could have put Hanratty in touch with at least one of them.

So if France suspected that Hanratty had a gun, and was not in Liverpool on the night of the murder, and the following day the murder weapon was found under the back seat of a bus, where Hanratty had claimed to dispose of his unwanted stuff, then France would have been right in suspecting Hanratty to be the killer. Whatever the discrepancies in the identikit picture might have been to distinguish the killer from Hanratty they were not sufficient to rule out Jim.

The place of the discovery of the gun, and Hanratty confiding in France that under the back seat of a bus is where he thought was a good place to dispose of his unwanted proceeds of burglary, was telling circumstantial evidence against Hanratty. It should be noted that Hanratty never disputed France's evidence on this point.

It might be said that placing the gun under the back seat of a bus was done to frame Hanratty. But I just cannot see that. What would be the point? For a start the 'framer' would have to have a reason to implicate Hanratty; none can really be seriously suggested. If Hanratty had gone to Liverpool and thence to Rhyl, the 'framer' must have been in ignorance of this, for what is the point of framing someone who might have a valid alibi, and be able to prove such?

In fact the discovery of the gun should have helped Hanratty with his alibi. The gun was (according to Edwin Cooke) left under the back seat of the No36A bus sometime between his inspection when cleaning the bus on the night of Wed 23 August and his night time inspection the following day. On the basis that the murderer left the gun, this would give Hanratty extra time to establish his alibi in north Wales or Liverpool. In other words, if he could not prove he was out of the London area on the night of the murder, evidence that he was out of London on 24 August 1961 when the gun was left could also exclude him.

As we know that Hanratty sent a telegram at 8.45pm on 24 August (the gun was discovered 180 miles away and 5 minutes beforehand) from a phone box outside Liverpool Lime Street Station. We also know that the No36A made two round trips that day. The first leaving 5.40am from Rye Lane and arriving at Kilburn at 6.32am; the return leaving Kilburn at 6.39am and arriving at Rye Lane (via Victoria Station) at 8.55am. The second left Rye Lane at 3.45pm going to Brockley Rise and Victoria and back to Rye Lane for 7.35pm.

The timing of the telegram would seem to exclude Hanratty from having travelled on the second journey mentioned above, and if he could have proved that he was in Rhyl or Liverpool in the morning of 24 August, this would have proved his innocence. That he could not leads one to assume that he stayed the night of 23 August somewhere in London, not too far from the No 36A bus route, and travelled on this bus early in the morning to somewhere (Paddington I think was one of the stops) and then to Euston, from where he caught a Liverpool train. During the day of the 24 August he tried to buy an alibi, which attempt failed, and travelled back to London overnight.

He used the actual trip made, with one or two necessary variations, to assist him in his account of the imaginary trip made two days earlier. On the basis that Hanratty was guilty, this must have been what happened.

Hi Ron,

Interesting points indeed.

It is indeed possible that France suspected, or knew, that Hanratty had obtained a gun. Of course, when the murder weapon was found under the back seat of the bus so soon after the murder, France would naturally have started to wonder whether his friend was involved. However, would he has entertained serious suspicions about Hanratty's likely involvement? Would he, in all honesty, have welcomed Hanratty back into his home if he believed him to be guilty of such a sick crime? It begs two possible questions in my mind:

a) Did France obtain and dispose of the gun, unaware of the crime that had been committed, but in disposing of the gun, he did so in a way that is more likely to have been traced back to Hanratty than himself?

b) Did France obtain the gun, thinking Hanratty was going to pass it to someone else and later find out that it was in fact Hanratty who had possibly comitted the crime?

My point about the diposal of the gun in that way in order to frame Hanratty is based on an idea that Hanratty and France may have been involved in much deeper and shadier dealings but I am not willing to discuss that on the thread. However, perhaps Mr Evan's revelations in recent posts might be related to this idea.

Regards

Julie

[RonIpstone]

When Foot told his readers that if the man Storie picked out on the first identity parade hadn’t had a good alibi, he could well have hung, I knew what sort of book I was reading.

I hope Foot wrote 'hanged' and not 'hung'.

[Stewart P Evans]

Agenda

And just what was PF’s agenda when he wrote ‘Murder at the Farm’?
That book, very similar in a lot of ways to the A6, resulted finally in the release of the men falsely imprisoned for the crime.
Tony

I thought that the wording of my post was quite clear, it would seem that it wasn't.

Foot's agenda was to attack the establishment in any way that he could. In doing so such people convince themselves that they are right on the issue in question. Sometimes they do get it right; sometimes they are wrong. Unfortunately for him he got it wrong in the case of Hanratty. And, by the way, I thoroughly enjoyed Foot's book when I read it, he was a great writer.

[P.L.A]

Coincidences

Just discovered that Victor Terry was executed on my 9th birthday. No wonder I couldn't get to sleep that night !

Hi Jimarilyn

Now there’s a coincidence.

Another one in this case is that Terry raided the bank on the same day that Francis Forsyth and Norman Harris were simultaneously executed for the capital murder “in the course or furtherance of theft” of Alan Jee.

It’s probably a bit off topic here, but I always thought Harris was unfortunate to be found guilty of murder, let alone capital murder. The joint enterprise to mug Jee was clearly over when Forsyth went back and delivered the murderous assault in order to keep him quiet. This was in the furtherance of theft, so Forsyth had no chance. Harris’s conviction must have been very marginal.

Very similar to Derek Bentley, the joint enterprise was over when the murder took place. As Gordon Honeycombe wrote, ten years after Bentley we still hung somebody for just being there.

Harris’s name is on my list of people murdered by the Establishment, but Hanratty’s isn’t.

Another coincidence is that Terry knew Forsyth. Well that’s what we are told by the media, and the press like a good story. Anyway, they were both executed on the same gallows at Wandsworth.

Peter.

[RonIpstone]

Hi Ron,

Interesting points indeed.

It is indeed possible that France suspected, or knew, that Hanratty had obtained a gun. Of course, when the murder weapon was found under the back seat of the bus so soon after the murder, France would naturally have started to wonder whether his friend was involved. However, would he has entertained serious suspicions about Hanratty's likely involvement? Would he, in all honesty, have welcomed Hanratty back into his home if he believed him to be guilty of such a sick crime? It begs two possible questions in my mind:

a) Did France obtain and dispose of the gun, unaware of the crime that had been committed, but in disposing of the gun, he did so in a way that is more likely to have been traced back to Hanratty than himself?

b) Did France obtain the gun, thinking Hanratty was going to pass it to someone else and later find out that it was in fact Hanratty who had possibly comitted the crime?

My point about the diposal of the gun in that way in order to frame Hanratty is based on an idea that Hanratty and France may have been involved in much deeper and shadier dealings but I am not willing to discuss that on the thread. However, perhaps Mr Evan's revelations in recent posts might be related to this idea.

Regards

Julie

Hello Julie

I cannot see that whoever disposed of the gun, even if he had not been the murderer, would have been unaware of the shooting on Deadman's Hill the previous day.

If France had been complicit in supplying Hanratty with the gun then France would not want the gun to be traced back to him. Also if Hanratty had been the murderer he would have to have met with France some time between the early morning of 23 Aug and early afternoon on 24 Aug to return to him the gun.

So is it credible that France supplies a gun to Mr. X (i.e. not Hanratty) who commits the murder and returns it to France who disposes of it on the bus? If the purpose of this was to lead the Police to Jim Hanratty, then why did France not tell the Police that Hanratty had a propensity for disposing of unwanted property on buses?


As to France welcoming back Hanratty into his family, we cannot be sure of Dixie's mental state throughout all this. Would he have had the nerve to go to the cops? Would he have been robust enough to refuse Hanratty admission to his house? Perhaps not.

It is also possible that Dixie did not get the news of the discovery of the gun until after Hanratty had returned from Liverpool and re-established himself in the France household. The gun was found five minutes before Hanratty's telegram from Liverpool on 24 Aug, Hanratty says that he was back in the France household by about 9.00 a.m the following day. If that be the case Dixie might not have known of the gun's discovery until Hanratty had got his foot through the door. Unless of course Dixie had put the gun on the bus!

My own view, for what it is worth, is that Hanratty put the gun under the back seat of the No 36 bus shortly before going to Euston to catch a train to Liverpool. He most probably stayed the night of 23 August 1961 unnoticed in a cheap hotel/ doss house in the Paddington area, rising early and disposing of the gun, going to Euston and then to Liverpool.

Regards

Ron

[Limehouse]

Hello Julie

I cannot see that whoever disposed of the gun, even if he had not been the murderer, would have been unaware of the shooting on Deadman's Hill the previous day.

If France had been complicit in supplying Hanratty with the gun then France would not want the gun to be traced back to him. Also if Hanratty had been the murderer he would have to have met with France some time between the early morning of 23 Aug and early afternoon on 24 Aug to return to him the gun.

So is it credible that France supplies a gun to Mr. X (i.e. not Hanratty) who commits the murder and returns it to France who disposes of it on the bus? If the purpose of this was to lead the Police to Jim Hanratty, then why did France not tell the Police that Hanratty had a propensity for disposing of unwanted property on buses?


As to France welcoming back Hanratty into his family, we cannot be sure of Dixie's mental state throughout all this. Would he have had the nerve to go to the cops? Would he have been robust enough to refuse Hanratty admission to his house? Perhaps not.

It is also possible that Dixie did not get the news of the discovery of the gun until after Hanratty had returned from Liverpool and re-established himself in the France household. The gun was found five minutes before Hanratty's telegram from Liverpool on 24 Aug, Hanratty says that he was back in the France household by about 9.00 a.m the following day. If that be the case Dixie might not have known of the gun's discovery until Hanratty had got his foot through the door. Unless of course Dixie had put the gun on the bus!

My own view, for what it is worth, is that Hanratty put the gun under the back seat of the No 36 bus shortly before going to Euston to catch a train to Liverpool. He most probably stayed the night of 23 August 1961 unnoticed in a cheap hotel/ doss house in the Paddington area, rising early and disposing of the gun, going to Euston and then to Liverpool.

Regards

Ron

Hello again Ron,

In describing thse possibilities, I am not acually offering theories, I am just trying to explore Graham's questions about the true connection between Hanratty and France. Did France have a role in the A6 crime, other than his friendship with Hanratty? That is what I am exploring.

Because of France's suicide, there is a tendency to think of him as a bit of a lame duck, perhaps someone under Hanratty's spell, but I am not so sure that is the case. They appear to have been close friends and Hanratty was certainly made welcome in their home, but I am convinced that France was not in a 'passive' realtionship with Hanratty and that he had dealings with much bigger fish. I read recently that France had, in the past, been known for being able to obtain guns but I can't remember where I read it and will have to return to my books to check that one out.

Julie