a6 murder

[Graham]

Hi All,

I have to be honest, up front: I still follow this thread, but I'd more or less made up my mind to back off for a while, as it's really getting nowhere. Trouble is, the A6 kinda gets ya...

Earlier today I began to re-read Foot for the first time in a while, and almost at once I picked up on Foot's point that much of the press coverage stated that Valerie had described her attacker's eyes as brown. At the same time, he says that nearly all of the press coverage referred to her and Gregsten as picking up a hitch-hiker. The fact that most of the early reportage couldn't even get the name of Dorney Reach right seems to have been glossed over, but the point I'm trying to make is this: the early reports spoke of brown eyes and a hitch-hiker. Those supporting JH's innocence would I expect point to this as evidence that Valerie's attacker had brown eyes; will they also point to this as suggesting that she got the mode of abduction wrong and that their attacker didn't tap on the window of the car at Dorney Reach, rather that he was a hitch-hiker they picked up somewhere during a drive around the countryside?

Did Valerie get two key facts wrong? Or did the press get two key facts wrong? So would someone care to comment on this?

Graham

[Limehouse]

Hi Graham,

yes, I would like to comment but I fully expect to be jumped on heavily - but never mind - here it goes.

The hitch-hiker story was most likely told out of sensitivity to the other people involved in the story. VS would not want her parents publically shamed by her relationship with MG (even though they were probably aware of, or suspected that the realtionship was more than platonic, they would not want that publicised for all to feast on). At the same time, MG's wife and children would have been humiliated. Perhaps there was even an element of self-preservation. After all, even when the hitch-hiker story was found to be in error, the idea that they were 'planning an event for their colleagues' persisted.

Additionally, in the early hours of news of the event breaking, reporters would not have jumped to any conclusions regarding decency and would have 'played safe' concerning such details.

Finally, again, the police may have preferred that people believe the hitch-hiker or the 'planning an event' story in order to secure the largest amount of public sympathy and cooperation that could be achieved so that people would come forward and identify the killer/rapist. Additionally, they would also have wanted to publically protect VS and MG's family and friends from humiliation.

I would like to add that in suggesting these points, I am in no way judging VS and MG. Whatever they were doing in the car, they did not deserve what happened to them. However, givenhe attitudes and values of the time, it is only natural that all those involved would want to have played down exactly what the couple were doing in the car at the time of the abduction.

[richardnunweek]

Hi Limehouse,
We are talking about 1961, not the previous century, and morals were not that victorian then, and by personal sixties experience, I can assure you that the police, or press were not that sensitive.
I believe it was well known that Michael and Valerie were carrying on, and suppressing that would have been fruitless.
I very much doubt that the average man in the street, would have hid his face in horror at the very thought of hanky panky going on in a stationary motor car, I seem to recall the zodiacs/consols, were well known for cozy encounters.
Naturally not from personal experience.......
Regards Richard.

[Limehouse]

Fair enough Richard, but we are talking about a young single female and a married man with two children, not two single youngsters having a frolick in the back of the car.

I maintain that the hitch-hiker story eminated and persisted, along with the 'planning an event' story to protect the 'innocent' parties and also to ensure maximum sympathy for the victims. I think I am correct in saying that the true nature of the relationship was only revealed at the trial and was not in public circulation even many years later.

[larue]

hi Limehouse

I maintain that the hitch-hiker story eminated and persisted, along with the 'planning an event' story to protect the 'innocent' parties and also to ensure maximum sympathy for the victims. I think I am correct in saying that the true nature of the relationship was only revealed at the trial and was not in public circulation even many years later.

i have always thought that the 'hitch-hiker' story was a piece of mis-reporting or a misunderstanding, of a statement made by VS.

the 'planning an event' story just sounds to me like the lamest excuse for being caught, maybe not exactly 'in flagrante delicto', [but then, how do we know?] but, nonetheless, in an extremely compromising position.

i am sure that the police and prosecution team would have been keen to present their star witness in the most favourable light, e.g. of unimpeachable character, and getting caught having a bit of naughty in the back of an old moggie with a married man would not exactly have helped that impression!

[Limehouse]

The blue eyes/brown eyes debate

It has been suggested that the 'brown eye's' description originated from Kerr. However, it seems that far from given an unrealiable and dithery account of his conversation with Valerie, he took reasonable steps to ensure accuracy.

In his statement he states "she gave me certain details which I wrote down" he then goes on to describe how he wrote down the number of the car (creectly) but got her name wrong. Later, when an ambulance man tells Kerr she has told him her name is Valerie, Kerr goes back to Valerie to clarify this.

When he asked Valerie to describe the man she did so and he wrote down "He had big staring eyes, fairish brown hair, slightly taller than I am (Valerie)" Again, he tries to clarify points concerning the hair by asking her "Do you mean like my hair?" and Valerie answered "yes". This shows just how careful Kerr was in trying to get things right. It also shows that 'brown eyes' did not come from him.

Later that day, when Valerie was at the hospital, Gwen Woodin, a female dectective, is assigned to the case and asked to stay with VS and note down anything of value. Valerie was described by several sources as being lucid, not at all confused. An early description was issued "man about 25, smooth face, big eyes, smartly dressed, says 'fings' instead of 'things'. Still, at this stage, no mention of blue eyes - but we do have 'big eyes'.

Now, Gwen Woodin offered her notes to the investigating offociers when they came to interview Valerie later that day. They declined her notes and began a lengthy interview with Storie. The 'brown eyes' description seems to emerge following this interview and from this the description was issued to the press "Man about 30, 5'6'', proportionate build, dark brown hair, clean-shaven, brown eyes, fairly pale face, distinct East End of London accent".

On Tuesday 29 August, two photofit pictures of the suspect were released, made up from a description given by Valerie and that given by other witnesses. neither image resembled the other but it is clear that both images showed a man with dark eyes.

However, on August 31, the description of the suspect was amended to emphasise large staring icey blue eyes. Apparently, Valerie had given this description to police on 28 August.

Despite all this, Alphon was named as a suspect and eventually placed on an identity parade with Acott being fairly certain that this was the man. It is likely (and I have mentioned this before) that also on that parade were men who resembled Alphon (indeed, it was commented that the man actually selected did resemble Alphon). Alphon had brown eyes, the identity parade was held AFTER Valerie had made the 'blue eyes' description and yet, it seems, she did not feel confident enough to point out that when selecting a man from the line up. Acott was confident enough that Alphon was the man to publically name him - so how much of Acott's confidence was rubbing off on Valerie?

Additionally, at the line up where she selected Hanratty, it was not so much the blue eyes that prompted her to select him - but his voice. It took her twenty minutes, and when she had selected Hanratty, Acott gives her arm a squeeze and says 'well done'. Once again, it seems, Valerie had put her faith in Acott because he was so sure this was the right man.

What I am trying to demonstrate is that the brown eyes description did not originate from Kerr, but seems to have emerged as the result of a long interview with Valerie and the police. Days later, that description was amended, and yet when they name the prime suspect he does not resemble the amended description.

[NickB]

On the identity parade, I think Valerie did identify Hanratty from the eyes. The voice provided corroboration.

On 28-Apr-02, before the Court Of Appeal decision, she told the 'Mail on Sunday':
"I looked in his eyes and he looked in mine. I knew who he was and he knew that I recognised him. I had found the guilty person."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-111885/Hanratty-guilty-says-victim.html#ixzz0co3nurJ4

[Graham]

Been pretty busy today, but still ploughing on with my re-read of Foot, and I still can't pin-point any actual statement in which Valerie said that her attacker had brown eyes...I will read on. Strange how Foot reads so much better than Woffinden....

Something I noticed which I must've missed in previous readings of Foot: The Daily Mail reporter Owen Summers said on August 26th that, quote, 'police are considering a theory that though Gregsten and Miss Storie did not know the killer, he may have known them. The killer may have become attracted to Miss Storie after seeing her with Gregsten at some time', unquote. Foot comments that this is the only suggestion in print that there might have been some previous connection between the murderer and his victims. I am, of course, prompted to ask where did Owen Summers come by that particular piece of information?

Re: NickB's link, there is one slight error in the Daily Mail article - Hanratty was 'discovered', i.e., arrested, in Blackpool, not Rhyl.

Cheers,

Graham

[Limehouse]

On the identity parade, I think Valerie did identify Hanratty from the eyes. The voice provided corroboration.

On 28-Apr-02, before the Court Of Appeal decision, she told the 'Mail on Sunday':
"I looked in his eyes and he looked in mine. I knew who he was and he knew that I recognised him. I had found the guilty person."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz0co3nurJ4

This may well be the case Nick, but the article gives the impression that this recognition happened instantly, when in fact it took twenty minutes for Valerie to select Hanratty. During this time she walked up and down the line, looking at each man in turn. She did this for some minutes. She then asked them to speak.

[Limehouse]

Been pretty busy today, but still ploughing on with my re-read of Foot, and [B]I still can't pin-point any actual statement in which Valerie said that her attacker had brown eyes[B]...I will read on. Strange how Foot reads so much better than Woffinden....Graham

Hi Graham, As described in my explnantion above, it seems as if this brown eyes description emerged following Valerie's long statement to senior investigating officers soon after the events. However, in earlier conversations with Kerr and with Gwen Woodin (a police officer assigned to sit with VS in hospital in the early hours after the event) she does not seem to have mentioned borwn eyes, as their careful notes show. As we know, the police rejected the offer of using Gwen's notes and they seem to have 'lost' Kerr's so they were relying on notes made during this nine hour statement.

Did Valerie describe brown eyes during this interview or were they just bad note takers? Well, by August 28, the description had been amended to 'icy blue eyes' after further talks with Valerie so it is possible that at that point she corrected a mistake made by the note-taker days earlier. Interstingly, the mistake was not corrected publically (ie an amended description of the suspect publically announced and circulated) until August 31. Despite this revised description, police still issued two photofit images that did not show pale eyes and they still persued Alphon so it seems the police did not have a huge amount of faith in important details of Valerie's description possibly not due to Valerie's unreliability but because of their own arrogance.

[NickB]

... it took twenty minutes for Valerie to select Hanratty.

In court Valerie said that she had delayed selecting him because she wanted to be sure, after making the mistake in the earlier identity parade.

However it is claimed earlier in this thread that in ‘Today’ magazine, a few weeks after Hanratty had been executed, she said:
“I had waited for twenty minutes knowing that this man who had trampled my life underfoot like a worm was suffering in that empty thing he called his soul.”

[NickB]

500 pages!

[SteveS]

500 pages!

mine says 125 pages!

[SteveS]

Hi All
The Rhyl alibi eventually became the central plank of Hanratty's defence.

We have heard much from others on here who have accused the Rhyl witnesses of lying (for whatever reason, Warhols 15 minutes for example) or that their testimony doesn't dovetail with Hanratty's timings of the events etc.

But had Hanratty said he arrived in Rhyl in the morning, or even the afternoon then I would accept that the alibi was a dead duck.

But for anyone to try to remember where they were, who they spoke to AND MOST IMPORTANTLY at an ABSOLUTELY PRECISE time, when it didn't seem important AT THE TIME to them, is difficult to say the least.

I challange all of you try to remember where you were last August 22nd (2009) at around 7-9pm. I couldn't, but I don't keep a diary...and nor did Hanratty or any of the Rhyl witnesses. Yet their COMBINED COLLECTIVE memory of events that occurred at that particular time TOTALLY backed up Hanratty's alibi. And that was for the 22nd-23rd August and no other time.

Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable as we have seen with Storie.

Storie was there in the car and couldn't say for certain what the assaillant looked liked, only that he said fink instead of think. But this is now understood to be for the basic fact that she did not have her glasses on when she had the only glimpse of the murderer whilst in the BACK SEAT of the car. As she is shortsighted how could she?

As an aside STORIES TIMINGS of when she and Gregsten left the pub and settled in the cornfield are dubious to say the least.

To compound her difficulty in identification she was obviously not believed by the CIO on the case, which lead the police to initially go after Alphon and then fit up Hanratty.

At trial in Bedford, Stories silence over her reticence contained within the non-disclosed statements she had made, the true nature of her relationship with Gregsten and Acott's deceptions sent Hantatty to the gallows.

Did Storie perjure herself during her testimony?

You tell me?

As an aside and what happens in cases where serious charges are brought, just the fact that the DPP (now CPS) had gotten somebody up in court must have instilled the thought of "well they have got them in court (with enough evidence) so they must be guilty" within the jury.

Thnx
Steve

[RonIpstone]

I challange all of you try to remember where you were last August 22nd (2009) at around 7-9pm.

Hello there Steve

I think I was watching the footie on the box. The Baggies were playing the Tractor Boys with a 5.20pm kick off, and there was some Spanish footie starting a 9.00 pm, Barcelona playing Athletico Madrid. W.B.A. won the former 2-0 and Barça the latter 3-0.

But I take your point, and I have to say that my recollection has been 'refreshed' by looking at the footie fixture lists, and my evidence would be to the effect that I had no real recollection of the date in question except to say that it was nothing out of the ordinary, and that being the case the fore mentioned is what I would have done.

On the other hand, if on that date I had travelled from London to Liverpool by train and thence to Rhyl by local bus and once at Rhyl I had spent an evening looking for digs, eventually dossing down in an attic with a bath (green), then I dare say that my recollection of the day might be a good deal clearer.

Ron