a6 murder

[Victor]

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?

Hi Steve,

I'm very shortsighted and without my lenses or glasses I have no trouble reading, or recognising a face from short distances such as a couple of feet, much longer than that and it gets blurred, but short distances are fine. Such is the nature of shortsightedness.

Did Storie perjure herself during her testimony?

Absolutely not.

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.

Ah, the Sandra Lean "No Smoke" argument. I got the book from christmas, and wasn't at all impressed, Simon Hall and Susan May are the only 2 obvious mis-carriages, the others are debateable. The inclusion of Sion Jenkins made me doubt the thoroughness of the author, for example, in Derek Christians case, she kept pointing out the number of witnesses who said the car was white not silver when in reality there were only 2 eyewitnesses to the crime and one said white, and the other silver or white.

KR,
Vic.

[caz]

...I would be on pretty safe ground to state that Hanratty hanged because he had a London accent and nothing more.

It would have come as no crumb of comfort to the family of Mr Clark, should he have hanged...

...This was not, all things considered, Stories finest hour, taking into account the fact that she gives very few interviews.

Will you listen to yourself, Steve?

Really, I'm shocked at the level of ignorance shown above, not to mention the lack of compassion for a young woman whose finest hours were all behind her - thanks to a man whose DNA on her knickers and his hankie proved he was guilty beyond all reasonable doubt.

If you seriously think the 'good old days' saw identity parade volunteers hanged by witnesses who picked them out by mistake, then why should anything you say be taken seriously?

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?

Clearly not enough for Valerie to pick out Alphon. And of course, Limehouse, if all the men on that first parade resembled Alphon to some extent anyway, bang goes the argument that Clark must have been singled out because Valerie saw a particular likeness between him and Alphon, and could be forgiven for confusing the two. It's equally possible that Clark was the one who least resembled Alphon in the line-up and most resembled her absent attacker. When I wrote this previously, in a post summing up some of last year's arguments, you very kindly described my post as 'brilliant' and seemed to concede this point. Have you changed your mind?

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.

But to be fair, Hanratty did have the eyes she had described. If he was the only one on this line-up whose eyes were large enough, icy-blue enough and staring enough, to be the man she remembered, it was to her credit that she took her time on this occasion, even if she was 99.9% certain this was him, and asked to hear his voice, to remove the 0.1% of doubt from her own mind. If she had been far from sure, then Hanratty, for all she knew, could easily have turned out not to be the suspect, but just making up the numbers like Clark had been previously. But Hanratty was the suspect, he had the right eyes, the right voice and she was sure. He wasn't only picked up by the police because of those eyes, any more than it was only because he had a London accent.

I'm sure the police were frustrated to begin with, if they were confident they had their man in Alphon, but their star witness wasn't telling them what they wanted or expected to hear. I'm sure they could even turn Valerie's "blue" eyes "brown", imagining that it was Alphon in that car and she was a bit confused and simply mistaken because of the trauma she had suffered.

In short, she could have stuck to her story while the police were seeking to tweek it to fit with their own hazel-eyed suspect. If so, it didn't work and they were forced to go with Storie's story and let her help them get the right man. Some people here want it to have been the other way round, with Valerie describing Alphon to start with and the police manipulating things until she describes Hanratty instead. Valerie was made of sterner stuff and when she was presented with the man who raped her, she knew it.

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.

Not only that, Ron, but you'd know that any one of the people who saw you and spoke to you in Rhyl could vouch for you and save your neck. So what do you do? You unaccountably tell nobody about going to Rhyl, giving nobody the chance to save you, until you've already come across as a liar with something ghastly to hide and it's all too late. Not much point relying on a campaign to prove you went to Rhyl if you're lying beneath the sod by then.

Maybe Hanratty should have been found unfit to plead. He wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, was he?

Love,

Caz
X

[RonIpstone]

In short, she could have stuck to her story while the police were seeking to tweek it to fit with their own hazel-eyed suspect. If so, it didn't work and they were forced to go with Storie's story and let her help them get the right man. Some people here want it to have been the other way round, with Valerie describing Alphon to start with and the police manipulating things until she describes Hanratty instead. Valerie was made of sterner stuff and when she was presented with the man who raped her, she knew it.

Hello there Caz,

Some good (brilliant) points you have made above. Yet for my own part if I had been a member of the jury I would have been inclined to discount the evidential value of the second identification parade because of the erroneous identification on the first.

It was clear that in the first parade Valerie Storie thought she had to identify someone, and she did. There is no reason to assume that she did not have the same thought processes during the second parade. The argument runs that during the second parade Hanratty stood out like a carrot in a bunch of bananas to such an extent that anyone could have identified him as the police suspect. He had obviously badly dyed hair and when he opened his mouth to speak, his accent betrayed him further. Added to which Hanratty by all accounts was extremely nervous and agitated by the possibility of being identified by VS (I accept that there was nothing the police or VS could have done about this.)

All the above would lead me to believe that VS identified whom she thought was the police suspect and the one most likely to have been here assailant a month earlier.

That Hanratty got himself convicted was due to the jury totally disbelieving any part of his Liverpool/Rhyl alibi. Once the jury had accepted beyond reasonable doubt that Hanratty was not in the north-west of England or in North Wales on the night in question, then he must have been elsewhere. Notwithstanding the deficiencies in the identification evidence of Valerie Storie, the jury must have accepted that 'elsewhere' was Dorney Reach and then Bedfordshire in the car and company of Michael Gregsten and Valerie Storie.

In this regard the jury and Valerie have been proved correct by the DNA. The right result would seem to have been achieved by the wrong reasoning. In that the prosecution have to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt, it is not for the defendant to assert in any way his innocence. Yet it was Hanratty's failure to prove his alibi that lead to his conviction and death. If he had not gone into the witness box he might still be with us today.

Ron

[caz]

Yet it was Hanratty's failure to prove his alibi that lead to his conviction and death. If he had not gone into the witness box he might still be with us today.

Hi Ron,

Then thank goodness he did go into the witness box, or more innocent victims could have suffered at his hands.

Your post highlights for me the uphill - nay vertical - struggle still facing those trying to argue for Hanratty's innocence. This is a million miles away from arguing that the original conviction, based on less than we know now, was shaky.

The point is, we have additional evidence to work with now, which can only do one of two things: take away the shakiness forever, for those of us who reluctantly or otherwise accept the DNA findings, or leave it shaky, for those who see fit to reject them. It doesn't, and can't, help anyone to prove that Valerie got it wrong and picked out a man who was in Rhyl after all. It's a wee bit late for anyone to say that Hanratty still doesn't have to prove his own innocence. Someone else, from the court of personal opinion, will have to do that for him, by coming up with more evidence than we have at present, or he stays guilty, according to Valerie, the law and science.

[And I've just noticed my terrible spell of 'tweek'. It'll take me a week to live that down. ]

Love,

Caz
X

[RonIpstone]

[And I've just noticed my terrible spell of 'tweek'. It'll take me a week to live that down. ]

Hello Caz,

[I won't mention it, if you don't mention my 'lead' instead of 'led' error.]

Back to the A6, I confess that until the DNA evidence was made known I was in the 'Jim did not do it' camp. There was in my view sufficient doubt to seriously question the safety of the jury's conviction. All that changed with the 2002 forensic evidence which proved that only Hanratty could have committed the rape.

However, I was glad that the DNA showed Hanratty to be guilty for the sake of Valerie Storie. I am sure that whatever else Valerie might have said she must have had some doubt that she might have sent an innocent man to his death. The forensic evidence will have dispelled those doubts (if any) in her mind and her conscience should be clear.

That the jury thought Hanratty guilty is evidenced by its verdict. There were others who were connected with the trial who might have had a different view. First, it seems that Mr Michael Sherrard must have thought that it was a good idea for Jim to leave the relative safety of the dock to go into the witness box to give his evidence. Although this decision was initially made on the basis that Hanratty was going to say he was in Liverpool throughout the time the crime was taking place, it tends to indicate that Mr Sherrard thought his man not guilty.

Second, the judge himself, Mr Justice Gorman, seemed to sum up for an acquittal. This is not to say he thought that Hanratty had not commited the offence, but that he thought that the prosecution had not proved its case to the requisite standard.

There were of course others Lord Russell, Paul Foot and Bob Woffinden who took up the Hanratty cause post mortem. And were it not for their excellent books on this subject the case would have faded into obscurity (which might not have been a bad thing). I just wish that Paul Foot had had the sense to concede defeat to the forensic evidence.

Ron

[Limehouse]

Will you listen to yourself, Steve?

Really, I'm shocked at the level of ignorance shown above, not to mention the lack of compassion for a young woman whose finest hours were all behind her - thanks to a man whose DNA on her knickers and his hankie proved he was guilty beyond all reasonable doubt.

If you seriously think the 'good old days' saw identity parade volunteers hanged by witnesses who picked them out by mistake, then why should anything you say be taken seriously?



Clearly not enough for Valerie to pick out Alphon. And of course, Limehouse, if all the men on that first parade resembled Alphon to some extent anyway, bang goes the argument that Clark must have been singled out because Valerie saw a particular likeness between him and Alphon, and could be forgiven for confusing the two. It's equally possible that Clark was the one who least resembled Alphon in the line-up and most resembled her absent attacker. When I wrote this previously, in a post summing up some of last year's arguments, you very kindly described my post as 'brilliant' and seemed to concede this point. Have you changed your mind?



But to be fair, Hanratty did have the eyes she had described. If he was the only one on this line-up whose eyes were large enough, icy-blue enough and staring enough, to be the man she remembered, it was to her credit that she took her time on this occasion, even if she was 99.9% certain this was him, and asked to hear his voice, to remove the 0.1% of doubt from her own mind. If she had been far from sure, then Hanratty, for all she knew, could easily have turned out not to be the suspect, but just making up the numbers like Clark had been previously. But Hanratty was the suspect, he had the right eyes, the right voice and she was sure. He wasn't only picked up by the police because of those eyes, any more than it was only because he had a London accent.

I'm sure the police were frustrated to begin with, if they were confident they had their man in Alphon, but their star witness wasn't telling them what they wanted or expected to hear. I'm sure they could even turn Valerie's "blue" eyes "brown", imagining that it was Alphon in that car and she was a bit confused and simply mistaken because of the trauma she had suffered.

In short, she could have stuck to her story while the police were seeking to tweek it to fit with their own hazel-eyed suspect. If so, it didn't work and they were forced to go with Storie's story and let her help them get the right man. Some people here want it to have been the other way round, with Valerie describing Alphon to start with and the police manipulating things until she describes Hanratty instead. Valerie was made of sterner stuff and when she was presented with the man who raped her, she knew it.



Not only that, Ron, but you'd know that any one of the people who saw you and spoke to you in Rhyl could vouch for you and save your neck. So what do you do? You unaccountably tell nobody about going to Rhyl, giving nobody the chance to save you, until you've already come across as a liar with something ghastly to hide and it's all too late. Not much point relying on a campaign to prove you went to Rhyl if you're lying beneath the sod by then.

Maybe Hanratty should have been found unfit to plead. He wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, was he?

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

No, I have not changed my mind. What my posts over the past few days have been trying to highlight is the origin of the 'brown eyes' description which some have claimed came from Kerr. I have done some careful research and tracked back through statements and interviews that VS took part in from her discovery following the crime to August 31 when the 'blue eyes' description was released to the public. What I have been trying to show is that the investigating officers were ignoring important evidence given by VS to Kerr and to Gwen Woodin before the senior investigating officers took a long statement from her in the early hours and days following the crime. I can summarise as follows:

1. Kerr took careful notes, and even though he initially got Valerie's name wrong, he returned to her to clarify her correct name - showing that his notes were thorough, not hasity scribbled. He noted down Valerie's description of the suspect and this included brown hair but no mention was made of the colour of the eyes.

2. Gwen Woodin, the woman detective assigned to sit with Valerie at the hospital immediately follwing her admission to hospital also took careful notes that included a description of the suspect - agin, no mention of eye colour - but the eyes are described as large.

3. Police mislaid Kerr's original notes and senior investigating officers dismissed Gwen Woodin's offer of her carefully recorded notes. Following a lengthy interview with Valerie, a description of the killer was released and at this stage, the brown eyes description is released.

4. Shortly after this, on August 28, the descrition was amended to blue eyes following more time spent with Valerie. However, this new descrition was not released to the public until August 31.

5. Despite this amended descrition, police persued Alphon (you can't blame them, he was their only suspect and he was behaving oddly and fitted the original description of the killer - let's face it - they were desparate).

What I am attempting to highlight is that the police were, at every stage, following their own line of enquiry and largely failing to take account of careful evidence gathered by early communicators with Valerie and were also failing to take account of what Valerie was telling them early on in the enquiry.

Valerie put her faith in Acott's assurances that they had got their man when Alphon was in the line up and she put her faith in him again when she selected Hanratty.

[Victor]

What my posts over the past few days have been trying to highlight is the origin of the 'brown eyes' description which some have claimed came from Kerr.

Hi Julie,

I do not think the Brown eyes came from Kerr, although that remains a possibility, as the mistake over the name suggests. I think it probably came from Morgan along with his "deep set...er...not very deep set" comment.

1. Kerr took careful notes, and even though he initially got Valerie's name wrong, he returned to her to clarify her correct name - showing that his notes were thorough, not hasity scribbled. He noted down Valerie's description of the suspect and this included brown hair but no mention was made of the colour of the eyes.

I agree that this helps to confirm that Kerr's final description was accurate, although it also indicates that he had to double-check everything and his initial statements are suspect.

3. Police mislaid Kerr's original notes and senior investigating officers dismissed Gwen Woodin's offer of her carefully recorded notes. Following a lengthy interview with Valerie, a description of the killer was released and at this stage, the brown eyes description is released.

I don't agree that police mislaid Kerr's notes, as you've shown he needs to double-check everything, and that verification is absent.

4. Shortly after this, on August 28, the descrition was amended to blue eyes following more time spent with Valerie. However, this new descrition was not released to the public until August 31.

There's no evidence that Valerie saw the description the police issued, nor that she had the opportunity to correct the error if she was aware of it.

5. Despite this amended descrition, police persued Alphon (you can't blame them, he was their only suspect and he was behaving oddly and fitted the original description of the killer - let's face it - they were desparate).

Absolutely, Nudds 2nd statement is the one that put Alphon firmly back in the frame, and we know how reliable Nudds is.

What I am attempting to highlight is that the police were, at every stage, following their own line of enquiry and largely failing to take account of careful evidence gathered by early communicators with Valerie and were also failing to take account of what Valerie was telling them early on in the enquiry.

Again spot on, Valerie was not "out of the woods" she still had to face further operations to save her life and the police were under immense pressure to make some progress.

Valerie put her faith in Acott's assurances that they had got their man when Alphon was in the line up...

...but the police were "barking up the wrong tree" and the pressure for any sort of result forced them to wheel Valerie in front of an ID parade with the best suspect they could come up with, and she selected someone with "blue~ish eyes" in preference to Alphon - which is immensely telling.

...and she put her faith in him again when she selected Hanratty.

But this time, she did select someone with large, icy-blue, staring eyes... The best suspect they had at that time. And Acott's congratulations came after she selected Hanratty. From a group of 13 men that Woffinden concedes between 1 and 4 spoke with a Cockney accent, and were all "ginger~ish".

KR,
Vic.

[RonIpstone]

What I am attempting to highlight is that the police were, at every stage, following their own line of enquiry and largely failing to take account of careful evidence gathered by early communicators with Valerie and were also failing to take account of what Valerie was telling them early on in the enquiry.

Hello Julie,

Alphon was first questioned on 27 August 1961 after having been reported by the manager of the Alexandra Hotel of behaving oddly and suspiciously. Part of Alphon's alibi for the night of the crime was that he was staying at the Vienna Hotel, which fact was confirmed to the satisfaction of the Police.

The officer investigating Alphon at the time contacted the incident room at Bedford to say that the suspect matched the circulated description apart from Alphon's height (5'10") whereas the description had the murderer as being 5'6".

It may well have been that the discrepancy in height was sufficient to deflect suspicion away from Alphon during the first investigation of his alibi, but this was to change when the cartridge cases were discovered by Mr Crocker on 11 September 1961 and forensic tests showed that they had been fired by the murder weapon.

The Police had a suspect in Alphon, who as at 27 August ticked all the boxes (they probably would not have used that cliche in 1961) apart from height and a connection could be made between him, the Vienna and the murder weapon. I suspect that in the euphoria of the discovery of the cartridge cases the Police overlooked the change of description of the brown to blue eyes which had occurred since Alphon was first interviewed in the same way that they overlooked the fact that Alphon was 4 inches taller than the murderer and that he had not stayed in Room 24 where the cartridge cases had been discovered.

If the Police had started from scratch on 11 September they would have asked themselves who could have left the cartridge cases in Room 24? And from the list of suspects compiled by answering that question they could have asked Valerie Storey to see if she could identify her rapist. It might be that as an occupant of Room 6 Alphon might have been able to gain access to Room 24. It might be that the rooms at the Vienna were so insecure that all the residents of the hotel could easily gain access to all the rooms in the hotel. But the person or persons most likely to leave items behind in Room 24 would be guests who had been allocated and stayed in that room. For that reason Mr Acott felt it was necessary to move Alphon from Room 6 into Room 24 and so we have Nudds's second statement which implicates Alphon.

Therein lies the real scandal of the A6 murder investigation, not that Hanratty was convicted but that Alphon came within a whisker of being charged with murder. That might be hyperbole, as Valerie in effect had a guess as to which of those on the first identification parade was the murderer, then the odds would have been about 11-1 against she being 'correct' and picking Alphon.

Paul Foot made many complaints that the authorities refused a public inquiry into the Hanratty conviction. That his pleas were rejected, Foot attributed to a desire on the part of the Establishment to wrongfully uphold Jim's conviction at all costs. I believe that an independent inquiry was resisted for the reason that the circumstances surrounding the taking of Nudds's second statement would have to be scrutinised by such an inquiry, and that such scrutiny would not reflect well on Acott and Oxford.

Ron

[Graham]

Just a comment:

I'm re-reading Foot bit by bit when I get the time, and it's glaringly obvious to me that Nudds was heavily leaned upon by Acott to come up with his second statement to implicate Alphon. Nudds himself stated that he was subjected to a grilling he had formerly associated only with films, and for a hardened criminal like him to come out with such a comment can only fortify the impression that Acott and Oxford had the strong lights turned on him, if not the lead-filled socks. And I agree with Ron that they did so to strengthen their case against the only suspect they then had.

One other thing that seems to have gone un-noticed by and large, until Ron mentioned it, and that's the relative height of Alphon and Hanratty. Valerie quite plainly stated that her attacker wasn't much taller than she, i.e., maybe 5' 6" at the most, when Alphon was 5'10". That fact seems to have become a bit lost amongst all the debate about eye-colour and so forth.

Graham

[NickB]

... Alphon came within a whisker of being charged with murder.

I do not think Alphon was in danger. Not only was he too tall and brown eyed, he had the wrong voice. Although there was no voice test on his identity parade, Valerie would have heard him speak eventually.

However after the trial Alphon was found guilty by the ‘Jim did not do it’ campaign, who based much of their case on his ‘confession’.

[Andrew]

Height

From the Judgment, May 2002:
39. At this stage, before continuing the chronology of the investigation, it is sensible to say something about James Hanratty and to provide a summary of evidence of his proved movements up to the time of his arrest. He was born on 4 October 1936 and was thus aged 24 at the time of the killing and 25 at the time of the trial. He was 5ft. 7in. to 5ft. 8in. in height and had blue eyes. His hair was brushed back without a parting but he had what is sometimes described as a “widow’s peak,” or tuft in the centre of his forehead, which he wore forward (although when he gave evidence, he accepted that before his last sentence he had worn it back). He had a London accent. He pronounced “th” as “f”. His blood group was group O and he was in addition a group O secretor.
Regards
Andrew

[Graham]

I do not think Alphon was in danger. Not only was he too tall and brown eyed, he had the wrong voice. Although there was no voice test on his identity parade, Valerie would have heard him speak eventually.

However after the trial Alphon was found guilty by the ‘Jim did not do it’ campaign, who based much of their case on his ‘confession’.

Which carries about as much weight as Mike Barrett's repeated confessions re: the Ripper Diary. He always inserted something into his 'confessions' that was plainly wrong, given the known facts about the case. Like, he stated he shot Gregsten only once.

Graham

[caz]

What I am attempting to highlight is that the police were, at every stage, following their own line of enquiry and largely failing to take account of careful evidence gathered by early communicators with Valerie and were also failing to take account of what Valerie was telling them early on in the enquiry.

A very nice post, Limehouse, and the above quote from it suggests we are on the same page here.

I think Valerie did all she could reasonably have done in the circumstances to give a consistent description for the police to work with. She was not responsible for how closely they adhered to it in those early days when she was still gravely ill and Alphon had just fallen into their laps. They were trying to knock the square peg of their suspect's hazel/brown eyes into the round hole of her rapist's blue ones until she was able to force the issue by: a) not recognising Alphon in the line-up and b) reinforcing her blue-eyed description. Alphon had to be dropped - if reluctantly - but Hanratty filled the gap.

Maybe it's not so surprising that many people got a sense from the way the case progressed that the police had just been going all out from the start to get someone for this horrendous crime, using whatever tricks they had in their early 1960s box. But far from a weak and impressionable Valerie being sucked into a murky web of police lies and corruption, resulting in an innocent man being hanged, it seems that she was the one who steered them back out of that web and onto the right path - the one that would bring them, 40 years later, into the dazzling light of the real killer's DNA.

Love,

Caz
X

[Victor]

If the Police had started from scratch on 11 September they would have asked themselves who could have left the cartridge cases in Room 24? And from the list of suspects compiled by answering that question they could have asked Valerie Storey to see if she could identify her rapist.

Hi Ron,

The above would throw up 2 suspects, Hanratty and an Indian gentleman, and of those two I think one can very safely be eliminated without even bothering with the ID parade for him.

KR,
Vic.

[RonIpstone]

Hi Ron,

The above would throw up 2 suspects, Hanratty and an Indian gentleman, and of those two I think one can very safely be eliminated without even bothering with the ID parade for him.

KR,
Vic.

Hello Vic,

I agree that the Indian chap could be eliminated without the need for and ID parade.

If the cartridge cases could have been left in Room 24 on the night before the murder, then they could have been left there possibly days, weeks or months before the murder. Moreover could it have been safely assumed that the cartridges had been left by a resident who had been allocated Room 24? Might a guest from another room have had access to Room 24? Were there any male hotel workers with access to this room?

But Hanratty as the last occupant (other than the Indian) of this room before the discovery of the cartridge cases must have been the prime suspect not Alphon.

Ron