a6 murder

[Victor]

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?

Hi Ron,

If it was Mr X and not Hanratty, then the gun must have gone back to France after the crime, so that France could wrap it in one of Hanratty's dirty hankies before dropping it on the bus, thereby intentionally framing Hanratty and simulatenously inviting him back into the family home and allowing his daughter to re-dye Jim's hair. That's stretching credible way beyond breaking point.

KR,
Vic.

[Stewart P Evans]

2001 Piece

Did many of you see this April 2001 piece by Simon Heffer in the Daily Mail?

[Stewart P Evans]

Part 2

Part 2 of the Heffer article -

[Stewart P Evans]

Part 3

Part 3 of the Heffer article -

[Stewart P Evans]

Part 4

Part 4 of the Heffer article -

[Stewart P Evans]

Part 5

Part 5 of the Heffer article -

[Stewart P Evans]

Part 6

Part 6 of the Heffer article -

[Stewart P Evans]

Headline of Heffer Article

Here's the headline of the Heffer article -

[SteveS]

Hi Stewart

I would get over the newbie thing you dangle at the end of the posts. You are in with the grown up lads now.

I go with Foot any day over that slug Simon Heffer. Here is Foots own take on that reptilian excuse for a human being that is Simon Heffer.

Hanratty was innocent
By Paul Foot
HANRATTY WAS GUILTY - OFFICIAL trumpeted the Sun newspaper last Wednesday. HANRATTY WAS GUILTY parroted the Daily Mail on Thursday.
The Sunday Telegraph followed up with a long piece by Simon Heffer, the Tory propagandist recently appointed as Jack Straw's adviser on sentencing policy. Heffer sensitively linked the Sun and Mail stories about James Hanratty, who was hanged in 1962 for the A6 murder, to last month's murder of Sarah Payne, and his own yearning for the return of capital punishment. The news about Hanratty, Heffer exulted, has disposed of the argument "that the criminal justice system has proved far too accident-prone to make execution a 'safe' punishment".
Let's start with that word from the Sun headline: OFFICIAL. The news about recent DNA tests in the Hanratty case was not official. It came from a leak to the Sun.
The criminal cases review commission referred the Hanratty case to the court of appeal last year with staggering new evidence that the case against Hanratty had been rigged. The commission was well aware of DNA evidence linking Hanratty to the crime and did not discount it. Nor did it rule out the possibility that exhibits on which the DNA tests were based - fragments of knickers and a handkerchief - could have been stored with material taken from Hanratty, and could have been contaminated. The commission concluded: "It is impossible to draw any firm conclusion as to the current evidential integrity of the exhibits of the cloth examples in this case. The known (and unknown) aspects of the history of those items must be weighed in the balance."
The new evidence brought to us by the Sun - that the DNA odds are a billion to one that Hanratty was guilty - does not alter the basic point, that if the exhibits tested were contaminated with items connected with Hanratty, the results are meaningless. Indeed, the greater the sensitivity of the tests, the greater the likelihood of their picking up a contaminant.
I think I can detect myself in Simon Heffer's diatribe against "liberal campaigners who have spent a generation concocting and establishing 'evidence' of Hanratty's innocence". Thirty-four years ago, when working for, er, the Sunday Telegraph, I became convinced of Hanratty's innocence. The chief reason was the mountain of evidence which emerged after the execution that while the murder was being committed near Bedford, Hanratty was 200 miles away in Rhyl.
This had been his alibi evidence at trial, but it was tainted by the fact that he switched his original story - that he was in Liverpool. He could indeed produce powerful evidence that he gone to Liverpool - but during the trial suddenly asserted that he had gone on to Rhyl and stayed two nights in a boarding house. The late change damaged Hanratty's credibility, and the case became worse for him as the prosecution filled up the boarding house with other guests.
The coincidence remained that Hanratty's detailed description of the boarding house exactly fitted Ingledene, then at 19 Kinmel Street, Rhyl. There was a green bath in the attic, as he alleged, and the landlady confirmed that a young Londoner looking like Hanratty had stayed two nights there. The guests produced by the prosecution did not exclude the possibility that Hanratty stayed one night in the attic with the green bath, another in a regular guest bedroom.
In the late 60s I interviewed 14 witnesses who, with varying degrees of certainty, supported Hanratty's story, including Margaret Walker, a landlady in a neighbouring guest house, who was certain of the date a young man looking like Hanratty came to her house looking for lodgings. It was the night of the A6 murder. The more the inquiries went on, the firmer became Hanratty's alibi.
It was, in the light of all this, impossible to believe that Hanratty had not been to Ingledene. Did he go there at some other time? I went through his known movements for every week after his first visit to Rhyl in July 1961. All the subsequent weeks could be accounted for. None of the various (secret) police inquiries since, nor the (secret) Hawser inquiry in 1974, nor the criminal cases review commission has come up with a single substantial piece of evidence to refute the Rhyl alibi. Unless I see such evidence, I prefer to stick with the view that if there is DNA to show that a man staying in Rhyl committed a murder 200 miles away, there is something seriously wrong with the DNA. That will be the approach of the Hanratty family lawyers at the court of appeal where the matter will be argued out, I imagine, at a higher level than that reached by the crime reporters of the Sun and the Mail or by Jack Straw's new noose-happy Tory sentencing adviser.

As the DNA was faked, and Foot, like all of us Innocence types were disappointed, we still await further developments that I am sure will come to light. This story is not over.

Thnx
Steve

[Limehouse]

This is obviously not the correct thread to say so but Heffer's take on the Bentley case made me feel slightly sick.

In every sense of the word, Bentleys execution was an injustice - even the widow of the policeman who died thought so. To say that those who fought for a pardon did so out of sentimentality is grossly offensive.

[RonIpstone]

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

Hello Julie,

I agree that if Hanratty committed the crime then the source of the gun could involve France whether directly or indirectly. Even if Dixie did not assist in providing the gun, the question is whether Hanratty could keep it secret from Dixie that he had got the weapon?

One other aspect of the case which I feel has never been given sufficient attention is the decision of Hanratty to go to Ireland for his driving licence. This decision seems to have been taken at the France household with information supplied by the Frances that you could get an Irish driving licence without any form of test. One assumes that Dixie France made the necessary booking arrangements etc.

But how reasonable a course of action for Hanratty was going to Ireland?

I have always assumed that Hanratty needed some official document to show he could drive so that he could get his Sunbeam on HP. But is this the case? And if Hanratty was a proficient driver why not take a test in England? Again I had assumed that there might have been some delay between applying for a test and the actual test, coupled with the doubt that one might not pass it. But, from memory, none of the books seem to explore this.

I accept that there was a delay of about 10 days between the return of Hanratty from Liverpool and his trip to Ireland, so it probably was not just a case of France wanting Jim out of his house.

Regards

Ron

[RonIpstone]

Hi Ron,

If it was Mr X and not Hanratty, then the gun must have gone back to France after the crime, so that France could wrap it in one of Hanratty's dirty hankies before dropping it on the bus, thereby intentionally framing Hanratty and simulatenously inviting him back into the family home and allowing his daughter to re-dye Jim's hair. That's stretching credible way beyond breaking point.

KR,
Vic.

Hello Vic

I agree, very inconsistent behaviour and hardly credible.

[Stewart P Evans]

Bentley

This is obviously not the correct thread to say so but Heffer's take on the Bentley case made me feel slightly sick.
In every sense of the word, Bentleys execution was an injustice - even the widow of the policeman who died thought so. To say that those who fought for a pardon did so out of sentimentality is grossly offensive.

I don't think that it can be denied that Bentley's execution was wrong. But the point that is made is that as the law stood at that time (1953) he was involved in a criminal act that carried the death penalty, even though he did not actually shoot the policeman. It proves the old saying that the law can be an ass.

[Graham]

I go with Foot any day over that slug Simon Heffer. Here is Foots own take on that reptilian excuse for a human being that is Simon Heffer.

Is that really necessary, Steve?

As the DNA was faked

Prove it.

we still await further developments that I am sure will come to light. This story is not over.

I wouldn't hold your breath.

Some of the stuff I read on this thread is totally beyond belief...

Graham

[Limehouse]

Hello Julie,

I agree that if Hanratty committed the crime then the source of the gun could involve France whether directly or indirectly. Even if Dixie did not assist in providing the gun, the question is whether Hanratty could keep it secret from Dixie that he had got the weapon?

One other aspect of the case which I feel has never been given sufficient attention is the decision of Hanratty to go to Ireland for his driving licence. This decision seems to have been taken at the France household with information supplied by the Frances that you could get an Irish driving licence without any form of test. One assumes that Dixie France made the necessary booking arrangements etc.

But how reasonable a course of action for Hanratty was going to Ireland?

I have always assumed that Hanratty needed some official document to show he could drive so that he could get his Sunbeam on HP. But is this the case? And if Hanratty was a proficient driver why not take a test in England? Again I had assumed that there might have been some delay between applying for a test and the actual test, coupled with the doubt that one might not pass it. But, from memory, none of the books seem to explore this.

I accept that there was a delay of about 10 days between the return of Hanratty from Liverpool and his trip to Ireland, so it probably was not just a case of France wanting Jim out of his house.

Regards

Ron

Is it possible that Hanratty was afraid of not passing the test due to his inability to read and understand the Highway Code? Is this why he decided to get an Irish Driving Licence? I know that in those days there were just a few questions based on the Highway Code rather than the longer theory test taken today, but as i remember it, you were still required to revise quite a lot using the little book as you never knew what you might be asked.