a6 murder

[Stewart P Evans]

Paul Foot

It cannot be denied that Paul Foot had a political agenda.

It was inevitable that if the DNA results supported the guilty conviction then Foot would cry 'contamination', as witness his "...could have been stored with..." and "...could have been contaminated." Then there's the staggering statement "...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." Meaningless - really? You can't argue with logic like that (note the hugely significant 'if').

Foot's bedrock argument is the discredited Rhyl alibi. Here we have the significant fact that Hanratty definitely lied, as witness his first claimed alibi (Liverpool). Hanratty did not suggest to anyone that he had stayed at Rhyl on the nights of 22 and 23 August 1961 until January 1962. This was after the trial had started and it had become obvious that the Liverpool alibi wouldn't stand up.

[Limehouse]

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.

That's a fair enough conclusion Stewart, and I cannot argue with your lines of reasoning or your delivery, but the way Simon Heffer expresses his take on the events is, I feel, insensitive.

[RonIpstone]

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.

Hi Julie,

Possibly, but I think that you only needed to be able to answer a few questions on what various road signs meant. It was not much more taxing than that, and there are plenty of illiterate drivers who have passed not only the ordinary driving test but PSV and HGV tests both now and in the 1960's.

My own bet is either the time it would take or the uncertainty of passing which sent him to the Republic, but no one seems to have ascertained which.

Regards

Ron

[Graham]

Simon Heffer's article, which I've read before, may be a bit heavy on invective, but for all that he was and is right. We are here in 2009 discussing and analysing a case that happened 48 years ago, before many of the posters to this thread were even thought of; probably before even their parents were born. I remember very vividly what life in Britain was like in the 1950's and early 1960's - there was an absolute and determined Social Order, and woe betide anyone - repeat, anyone - who dared question that Order. So it was that persons who broke the law in those days, especially those who took another life, were as a rule treated as harshy as possible within the constraints of the law. Thank God we've moved on, yet a quick scan of Internet information regarding the application of 'the law' in the USA will quickly show that not all societies have adopted the somewhat more liberal approach that now obtains in Western European societies.

But for all that, even at the time of the executions of Timothy Evans and Derek Bentley, there were rumblings - most of these rumblings came from the hoi polloi, but some at least came from those who perhaps a generation before would have counted themselves as fully-paid-up members of a reactionary Establishment. But recalling as I do the A6 Case when it happened, there was little real on-the-streets objection to Hanratty's conviction and execution. Hanratty was seen as a cold-blooded murderer and rapist, and he got his just desserts. As the sixties progressed, as the foundations of the Establishment were seriously challenged, matters changed somewhat. I began to be 'socially aware' around 1963, around the time of the Civil Rights movement in the USA, Joan Baez, Dylan, Ginsburg, and everyone else dedicated to overthrowing the Old Order, and I supported all of them and grew my hair long, too. In this country the absurd 'Lady Chatterley Trial' went very far in exposing the Establishment as a bunch of reactionary fools; the Profumo Affair did likewise.
And I guess to his credit it took an otherwise paid-up, wealthy member of The Establishment, one Jean Justice, to open the doors to what may have been a miscarriage of justice apropos James Hanratty. Paul Foot, who I have always respected, took up the cudgel, and he wielded it well enough courtesy of Private Eye, which had a far bigger circulation then than it enjoys now - and he was listened to. I listened to him. However, as has been subsequently proved, he was wrong. You can't win 'em all, and Paul Foot didn't win this one.

I guess that the one 'good thing' to come out of the A6 Case was, ultimately, the abolition of capital punishment - the A6 Case was most certainly debated
amongst the reformers. And so it should have been - I've lost count of the number of times I've stated on this thread that Hanratty should never have been convicted on the basis of the prosecution evidence produced at his trial. Yet had he been acquitted, the DNA has shown that a guilty man would have been released back into society, and who can tell what direction his life may have taken as a result? More crime - or would he have been sufficiently scared shitless to have turned over a new leaf? No-one knows and never will know now.

It doesn't do to apply early 21st century morals and social attitudes to something that happened nearly half a century ago, in a world that no-one under the age of about 60 could possibly recognise. Hanratty behaved and was punished according to the mores of his time; simple as that, but no less disturbing for that. That he has been shown to have been guilty is no real triumph or relief to those who condemned him or supported him - it is fact. He was guilty.

Sorry for the rant, but plainly this is something I do feel rather strongly about.

Graham

[Limehouse]

Graham,

An excellent post. I was three years old when the crime was committed and, as I have described before, I have vague recollections of some disquiet about the Hanratty verdict but it is true that interest gathered pace when more high-profile types began taking an interest in the case.

Those days were harsh. I remember being shocked solid to read that Christopher Craig's brother received 12 years for a robbery, the proceeds of which amounted to a few pounds. Likewise, those involved in the Great Train Robbery received huge sentences (at least, the 'rough types' involved did - not the bent middle-class criminals though!).

In some ways, although I would not wish to return to anything like those days, and certainly not capital punishment, I do think that these days criminals often receive inadequate sentences for really horrible, sick crimes. I have read of five year sentences being handed to young thugs whose violent actions resulted in the death of another person - and then their legal representatives go on to challenge the sentence as 'excessive'!

[Graham]

Hi Julie,

a while back, I got into a bit of a beery conversation with a recently-retired copper (West Midlands based). He was a hard bugger, but told me straight that the persons he sometimes had to deal with seemed to to have absolutely no conscience or awareness of what they'd done whatsoever. He told me of some thug who'd mugged a bloke for a few quid, and who appeared to have no real understanding that what he'd done was wrong - he didn't deny what he'd done, he just couldn't see why he he was being grilled about it in a Birmingham police-station. My ex-copper friend said he could only put it down to a total lack of social education on the part of both parents and schools, and to the terrible egotistical "Me-Me-Me" attitude which gives young people the belief that they can do what the hell they like to who the hell they like, with no sense of shame or responsibility. Needless to say, my ex-copper friend was a staunch proponent of the return of capital punishment together with the re-education of those who task it is to administer the law and its consequences. Bloody good luck to him in a lost cause, I'd say....well, not capital punishment, actually, but the other bit certainly.

Graham

[burkhilly]

Excellent posts Graham. Loved your description of 50s and 60s Britain which is very relevant to the discussion. Although we all know times have changed, it's useful to have a description of how it was way back then!

[SteveS]

Is that really necessary, Steve?

I thought so because if I put what I really thought of Heffer it would look something like this ******* **** ******* **** ****.
Hope that clears that up .

Prove it.

I won't waste my breath on proving anything to you. As I quoted your reluctance to question anything important in this case what good would it do expend unnecessary energy on a pointless exercise in your case. eh?

I wouldn't hold your breath.

I would say the same to you. But I fear you may choke on your claret intake .

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

Like Babybirds disgraceful attack on Julie?

Talking of Babybird. It is strange that she has not replied to my post and my challenge over the validity of her arguments.

So Babybird67 are you going to REAPPRAISE WHAT YOU KNOW OF THIS ASPECT OF THE CASE based on the full quote from that interview? If it is to you, as you say, VERY VERY IMPORTANT then what do we make of the rest of your arguments?

To Julie (Limehouse)
Please Don't go. stay and put forward your most welcome and reasoned arguments on this thread.

Seeing as she got the subject of Alphon and his withholding of the whereabouts of his belongings and Miller's research credentials totally wrong, I am perhaps not surprised.

Her lack of reply to this is further compounded by the fact that she previously accused others of not addressing her arguments. She therefore appears to be a hypocrite.

[Hatchett]

Hello Steve,
I sympathise with your position in trying to argue Hanratty’s innocence when it is a documented fact that he was again found guilty through DNA evidence. Must be something like a person who believes the world is the flat looking at a globe.

But I do not believe that this entitles you to denigrate the integrity of people who see the world as it really is.

I have been reading this thread for a long time, and I, along with others, have seen the personal attacks that have been made in the past. I think it is wrong for you to call a natural response against this, such as Baby Bird’s, a disgraceful attack.

Baby Bird outlined the attacks that had been made on her, and the hurt and frustration that his had caused her. Those attacks were posted and are on public record.

I also do not believe that it is in the best interests of reasoned debaters to calls someone a hypocrite.

If you can’t win the argument, then give up.
Don’t resort to denigrating the personalities of people who disagree with you.

[Graham]

Hi Hatchett,

well said!

I repeat, I don't want to get involved in personal spats on this or any other thread on the Casebook forum, so I refrain from adding to such matters.

However, why people like SteveS should resort to such gutter language when they are unable to convince others of their own assumed absolute rightness, or when they encounter posters whose stance on the subject differs from their own, was, is and always will be a mystery to me. The Ripper Diary was another classic example of this. If SteveS thinks he can convince me of his rightness by insulting me, then he is totally wrong. He has in reality added nothing to the A6 debate. The same as others before him, SteveS has lost any credibility he may once have had, so far as this thread and this poster is concerned.

Graham

[RonIpstone]

I have always thought that once someone descends to personal abuse in a debate, it amounts to an admission that he has lost the argument.

[P.L.A]

Think yourself lucky

I enjoyed the postings that put the A6 case into a perspective of it’s own time when the word of authority meant everything.

Putting this into perspective – I had well settled into retirement in the UK when the opportunity presented itself for me to live and work in Saudi Arabia for a year or two. So seven months ago I dragged myself out of retirement and arrived in the desert kingdom.

The following two links give a feel for what the rule of law is like here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8342005.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8295020.stm

Not a place to get on the wrong side of authority.

I have no intention of going to Chop Chop Square on a Friday to witness the public floggings and beheadings.

My only brush with the police was towards the end of Ramadan when I was waiting to be picked up from Riyadh airport after a weekend break in Kuwait. A passing Saudi gave me about half a dozen dates and I started to eat them. Officers appeared from nowhere. Everything was OK, but not a pleasant experience.

Peter

[Limehouse]

Thank you, Peter, for reminding us that we live in relative freedom. For example, we have the right to express our views, even if they clash with the views of others. That is why it is so important to be respectful.

I think some tougher punishments for the sick behaviour of some of our citizens would be welcome. For example, that poor woman who was driven to kill herself and her daughter in a burning car because of torment from local yobs should have been able to call upon the law to put an end to her treatment as soon as it started. I can't describe the disgust I feel towards her tormentors.

[babybird67]

For Limehouse

Thank you, Peter, for reminding us that we live in relative freedom. For example, we have the right to express our views, even if they clash with the views of others. That is why it is so important to be respectful.

I absolutely agree that we have the right to express our views; however, freedom of speech does not equate to freedom to abuse. Continually denigrating the person rather than trying to refute the arguments is merely abuse, and should not be tolerated, either in the ‘real’ world or in cyber space, in my opinion.
　
I don’t know if you saw my question to you earlier in response to some of the points Graham had brought up regarding legitimate questions still to be answered regarding the Hanratty case, as the thread was moving very quickly at the time, but I would really like to know something so I shall ask again.

Several contributions of yours to this thread have given us a list of what you term ‘shady’ witnesses; I’m happy to be corrected, but from recollection, you have only ever included in this list witnesses for the prosecution such as Nudds, Langdale and Anderson, even Ewer who did not even appear as a witness. I’d like to ask you why you deem Anderson ‘shady’, presumably for receiving stolen goods, yet never, to my knowledge, refer to Hanratty himself as ‘shady’ in terms of his witness testimony, even though he was the provider of those stolen goods? They were surely two halves of one whole aspect of a shady encounter, and if we are going to point out shady activities, we really need to apply the same standards to both sides, do we not?

Why do you consider Langdale, a convicted criminal, ‘shady’, yet you do not refer to Hanratty himself or his testimony as shady or doubtful, even though he too was a convicted criminal in much the same league as Langdale?

Of course I may be wrong and you may well have said that you approach the testimony of Hanratty with the same reservations as that with which you approach the prosecution witnesses that you list, and if so and I have missed it, can you please point it out for me; if you have not, could you please explain the logic and reasoning behind this approach so that I might try to understand it?

(I’m on record as discounting Langdale’s testimony, by the way, I think it was nonsense; that doesn’t mean Hanratty was telling the truth about not being involved in the A6 crime though.)

I note in post number 4430, you also state:

Hi Caz, Steve, everybody,

I don't think it is being suggested that the scientists falsified the results.I am no scientist (far, far from it) but what I understood Steve eas suggesting was that the methods of testing could be questioned, given the age of the samples and other factors concerning the passage of time.

Steve has recently posted this:

I don't have any more to say on the DNA in Hanratty other than that in my opinion the results were faked to suit the Crowns position.

And this:

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.

　
So I believe you may be mistaken; Steve is at least one person who does think the DNA results were deliberately faked or falsified in order to frame Hanratty, and has gone on record saying so. You might also like to note that when asked by Graham to prove these accusations, or even provide a shred of evidence to support them, he responded with this personal slur on Graham:

I won't waste my breath on proving anything to you. As I quoted your reluctance to question anything important in this case what good would it do expend unnecessary energy on a pointless exercise in your case. eh?

Why he thinks Graham is the only one who would be interested in seeing such evidence, if there is any, is anyone’s guess, and since this thread is supposed to be for discussing the Hanratty case and taking everyone’s understanding of it forwards, if he has such evidence to back up his claims, there is no reason in the world to with-hold it.

If there is no such evidence then of course the accusation is worthless.

[SteveS]

Hi All

I would like to state unreservedly that my last post to Graham was uncalled for and would like to think that I can assuage any offence caused by its inference or intent by this unconditional apology to Graham and anyone who may have been upset by it.

I would also like to state that I wish this forum and all it's underlying threads to operate in a civilised and cooperative state to the end that the A6 murder be discussed and that forthwith all mention of past and present personal differences be put aside and never mentioned again by anyone.

Thnx
Steve