a6 murder

[caz]

It is difficult to say how Mr Earl comes to a conclusion that even without Storie's identification the case against Hanratty is strong at all.

Strong? Far from it.

No scientific evidence, purely circumstantial evidence that could be explained by alternative scenarios and a rag tag band of bad character witnesses a few of whom were looking to wriggle out of getting convicted themselves, on various neferious charges.

So how does this compare with the mythical case against Alphon, who wasn't recognised by Storie?

Or is there a third man anyone would prefer the police to have fitted up?

Someone committed this horrendous crime and someone paid for it. Nobody in their right mind would have wanted the wrong person to pay for it, or the case to remain unsolved, leaving such a dangerous man free to live his life. So it could only come as a blessed relief to be satisfied that the right man was taken out of society back in 1962. And yet it seems that some people will only be satisfied with a conclusion that the establishment framed an innocent man and let the killer walk. I can't imagine a worse outcome, personally. But there's no accounting for taste.

It all seems backwards somehow. Surely a stronger case must now be made against Alphon if Hanratty is ever to be cleared of all suspicion and the establishment found guilty. It's a tall order, but it's a way forward if that's really where the truth lies.

Love,

Caz
X

[SteveS]

Ron,

You know full well that that was not the reason Foot wrote his book on the Bridgewater case.

The men were innocent and were eventually released.

Similarly to the A6 case another man was always suspected but when the police have nabbed someone and they have been given life sentences it is easier for the authorities to stick to the status quo.

The case only really became open once more when the foreman of the jury went on News at Ten claiming that he thought the men were indeed innocent.

Tony.

Hi Tony

Excellently put mate. Hubert Spencer was without much doubt the murderer of Carl Bridgewater.

As Simon also correctly pointed out, using the case of Colin Wallace, Foot was only interested in questioning cases and to doubt the veracity of the verdicts where he had good reason to do so. This was always irrespective of the convicted persons and thier social standing.

In fact he, like the rest of us was quite happy that psychopaths such as Ian Brady, Peter Sutcliffe and Donald Neilsen were put away for good.

I find it hard to believe that some on here seem to think that Footie perhaps had 666 tattooed behind his left ear or had horns and cleft feet or some other such nonsense.

I think that the problem stems from a lack of ability in some people that prevents them from seperating Foot's writing from his political views. But it obviously goes deeper than that, as these fools saw and still do see Foot as being a dangerous subversive! Sad.

I didn't see any right of centre commentators coming out to support the miners who were convicted in kangaroo courts during the strike of 1984/85.

It is easy to attack people who hold extreme personal views and to use that as an argument against their integity etc as Victor has done here recently. In fact, Victor's view that Foot's integrity and reliability is in question because Victor and his chums say so, just goes to show the extent of Victor's ignorance and arrogance as far as other peoples views are concerned.

Take care mate.
Email me on that other matter when you have time.

[RonIpstone]

Someone committed this horrendous crime and someone paid for it. Nobody in their right mind would have wanted the wrong person to pay for it, or the case to remain unsolved, leaving such a dangerous man free to live his life.

Hello Caz,

But is that not what the evidence suggests almost happened? There was no evidence that Alphon had stayed in Room 24 of the Vienna Hotel in which the spent gun cartridge cases had been found, so some was manufactured by the Police leaning on Nudds and getting him to change the content of his statement.

That there was no conspiracy, or at least one in which the Police were involved, to frame Hanratty is demonstrated by the fact that the Police ignored Jimmy Ryan, the last Caucasian occupant of Room 24, and made Alphon the prime suspect. A conviction against Alphon would be impossible without an identification from Val Storie, so the case against Alphon collapsed and the Police had to look elsewhere. The misidentification by Valerie Storie did weaken her evidence. Nudds' evidence would likewise be suspect and the jury could not be certain that the last Caucasian occupant of Room 24, prior to the discovery of the cartridge cases, was Hanratty.

This was not a strong case. It was a case which had become riddled with doubt mainly due to the cops trying to fit up Alphon. If the cops had tried to fit up Alphon earlier in the investigation then there would be a fair chance that they would accord Hanratty a similar honour. The trial judge, Mr Justice Gorman, did not think it a strong case and seems to have summed up for an acquittal.

The jury, of course, had the advantage of seeing the witness give their evidence live in the witness box. The jury members must have taken a very dim view of Hanratty and his alibi, and must have decided that beyond reasonable doubt Hanratty was not in Rhyl and therefore must have been elsewhere, and that elsewhere was in the back of Gregsten's aunt's Moggie Minor.

Ron

[Limehouse]

Hello Caz,

But is that not what the evidence suggests almost happened? There was no evidence that Alphon had stayed in Room 24 of the Vienna Hotel in which the spent gun cartridge cases had been found, so some was manufactured by the Police leaning on Nudds and getting him to change the content of his statement.

That there was no conspiracy, or at least one in which the Police were involved, to frame Hanratty is demonstrated by the fact that the Police ignored Jimmy Ryan, the last Caucasian occupant of Room 24, and made Alphon the prime suspect. A conviction against Alphon would be impossible without an identification from Val Storie, so the case against Alphon collapsed and the Police had to look elsewhere. The misidentification by Valerie Storie did weaken her evidence. Nudds' evidence would likewise be suspect and the jury could not be certain that the last Caucasian occupant of Room 24, prior to the discovery of the cartridge cases, was Hanratty.

This was not a strong case. It was a case which had become riddled with doubt mainly due to the cops trying to fit up Alphon. If the cops had tried to fit up Alphon earlier in the investigation then there would be a fair chance that they would accord Hanratty a similar honour. The trial judge, Mr Justice Gorman, did not think it a strong case and seems to have summed up for an acquittal.

The jury, of course, had the advantage of seeing the witness give their evidence live in the witness box. The jury members must have taken a very dim view of Hanratty and his alibi, and must have decided that beyond reasonable doubt Hanratty was not in Rhyl and therefore must have been elsewhere, and that elsewhere was in the back of Gregsten's aunt's Moggie Minor.

Ron

Excellent post Ron.

There are also aspects of the case against Hanratty that suggest the Crown was not so confident of securing a conviction and this must surely be why, after allocating the case to the Old Bailey, it was returned to Bedford, much more local to the crime, and thereforee much more likely to secure a conviction.

[Limehouse]

Hi Steve,

I base my opinion of Foot on my assessment of his output, and for a man with obvious extreme left wing views, I agree that he undoubtedly bends the truth to suit his ideology, for example, his "one bushier eyebrow" and the whole eye-colour of the rapist debacle. At least Woffinden accepts the ridiculousness of those arguments.

KR,
Vic.

Why would someone with 'obvious left-wing views' need to bend the truth to suit their ideology particularly? How does having a left-wing ideology differ from having a right-wing ideology in terms of examining evidence as it presents itself to one?

And in no way does Woffinden accept Foot's assessment of the eye-colour as ridiculous. Woffinden carefully deconstructs Foot's conclusions most respectfully but does not agree with Foot's conclusion. Remember though, that when Foot was writing his book, he did not have the advantage of the Internet and the benefiit of documents available online, including newspaper archives. The police MOST definitely, early on in the search for the killer, stated that the suspect's eyes were brown. Alphon had brown eyes. They put him on an identity parade. They would not have done so if they knew for certain that the suspect's eyes were blue at that stage. If it was a debacle. it was one started by the police.

[RonIpstone]

I agree that Footie's daft political views have no bearing on any of the cases that he wrote about. His public school education and his champagne communism are matters which should be kept out of this debating forum, save to say that his perception of the middle classes might be somewhat off the mark. For instance, that Janet Gregsten and Bill Ewer might have been minded to pay a sum not unadjacent to £5,000 to Alphon to frighten Michael Gregsten and Valerie Storie apart, seemed to Foot to be a reasonable scenario in which middle class people might find themselves. That in 1961 for £5,000 one could buy a couple of decent semis, or a couple of the new supercars of the age, the E-type Jaguar, did not seem to register with Foot in assessing the likelihood of such a tri-partite deal being struck between the solidly middle class Mrs Gregsten and Mr Ewer and the middle class drop out, Alphon.

Foot had some fantastic views both political and on human nature.

[Limehouse]

I agree that Footie's daft political views have no bearing on any of the cases that he wrote about. His public school education and his champagne communism are matters which should be kept out of this debating forum, save to say that his perception of the middle classes might be somewhat off the mark. For instance, that Janet Gregsten and Bill Ewer might have been minded to pay a sum not unadjacent to £5,000 to Alphon to frighten Michael Gregsten and Valerie Storie apart, seemed to Foot to be a reasonable scenario in which middle class people might find themselves. That in 1961 for £5,000 one could buy a couple of decent semis, or a couple of the new supercars of the age, the E-type Jaguar, did not seem to register with Foot in assessing the likelihood of such a tri-partite deal being struck between the solidly middle class Mrs Gregsten and Mr Ewer and the middle class drop out, Alphon.

Foot had some fantastic views both political and on human nature.

Hi Ron,

Foot must surely have been unaware that, middle-class the Gregten's may have been, but they were very short of money.

Is it fair to assume he was a champagne socialist? After all, he could surely not have helped the circumstances in which he was born and which school was chosen for him by his parents. Is there any evidence that he drank champagne and enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle? I don't really know what he did outside his writing. Did he have a champagne socialist reputation?

[Victor]

But is that not what the evidence suggests almost happened? There was no evidence that Alphon had stayed in Room 24 of the Vienna Hotel in which the spent gun cartridge cases had been found, so some was manufactured by the Police leaning on Nudds and getting him to change the content of his statement.

Hi Ron,

I think you might have that the wrong way round, the Police put pressure on Nudds and he manufactured the evidence to try and score some brownie points with them, or he cracked under the pressue and said what he thought they wanted to hear. So Acott takes this as his major lead and goes after Alphon.

That there was no conspiracy, or at least one in which the Police were involved, to frame Hanratty is demonstrated by the fact that the Police ignored Jimmy Ryan, the last Caucasian occupant of Room 24, and made Alphon the prime suspect. A conviction against Alphon would be impossible without an identification from Val Storie, so the case against Alphon collapsed and the Police had to look elsewhere. The misidentification by Valerie Storie did weaken her evidence.

At this point the major lead collapses and the next "Ryan" is the new major lead. Nudds' fabrications become plain and he's dragged back in to establish the truth...

Nudds' evidence would likewise be suspect and the jury could not be certain that the last Caucasian occupant of Room 24, prior to the discovery of the cartridge cases, was Hanratty.

But this time the prevention of collusion between Nudds and Snell means the truth, the 3rd statement, which basically says the 2nd statement is a pack of lies and the 1st is true.

This was not a strong case. It was a case which had become riddled with doubt mainly due to the cops trying to fit up Alphon. If the cops had tried to fit up Alphon earlier in the investigation then there would be a fair chance that they would accord Hanratty a similar honour.

And if the cops didn't fit up Alphon, then they wouldn't fit up Hanratty, and if as you say the doubts were "mainly due to the cops trying to fit up Alphon" but they didn't, then the doubts vanish... i.e. it's a strong case.

The trial judge, Mr Justice Gorman, did not think it a strong case and seems to have summed up for an acquittal.

He certainly highlighted the possibilities you outlined.

The jury, of course, had the advantage of seeing the witness give their evidence live in the witness box. The jury members must have taken a very dim view of Hanratty and his alibi, and must have decided that beyond reasonable doubt Hanratty was not in Rhyl and therefore must have been elsewhere, and that elsewhere was in the back of Gregsten's aunt's Moggie Minor.

And we don't have that advantage, hence it's harder to believe thinks like how emphatically VS believed Hanratty was the one who raped her.

KR,
Vic.

[RonIpstone]

Hi Ron,


Is it fair to assume he was a champagne socialist? After all, he could surely not have helped the circumstances in which he was born and which school was chosen for him by his parents. Is there any evidence that he drank champagne and enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle? I don't really know what he did outside his writing. Did he have a champagne socialist reputation?

Hi Julie,

In asking the questions which you pose, you are inviting me to debate matters which I think should be kept out of this argument. But to clarify one matter, you do not have to drink champagne to espouse 'champagne communism'. One could drink 21 years old single malt Talisker whisky (my tipple, as it happens) and still be a champagne communist or socialist (which I am not, as it also happens). Hope this helps.

Ron

[RonIpstone]

I think you might have that the wrong way round, the Police put pressure on Nudds and he manufactured the evidence to try and score some brownie points with them, or he cracked under the pressue and said what he thought they wanted to hear. So Acott takes this as his major lead and goes after Alphon.

No, I have got it the right way round. Nudds told the truth in his first statement as he had no reason to lie. He was given a reason to lie when making the second statement as it was made clear to him that he would be helping the Police to solve the A6 Murder. Acott and Oxford were after Alphon and Nudds' first statement was very inconvenient.

At this point the major lead collapses and the next "Ryan" is the new major lead. Nudds' fabrications become plain and he's dragged back in to establish the truth...


But this time the prevention of collusion between Nudds and Snell means the truth, the 3rd statement, which basically says the 2nd statement is a pack of lies and the 1st is true.

Well the way I read it is that the Police knew of Nudds' fabrications because they had caused him to make them.

And if the cops didn't fit up Alphon, then they wouldn't fit up Hanratty, and if as you say the doubts were "mainly due to the cops trying to fit up Alphon" but they didn't, then the doubts vanish... i.e. it's a strong case.

This depends on the view one takes of Nudds' second statement. My view is that Nudds had given a truthful first statement, truthful because although he was an inveterate liar, on this particular occasion he had no reason to lie. What did it matter to him that Alphon slept in Room 6 or 24? Why did the Police think he had lied in the first statement? Why not put Alphon down the pecking order of suspects and go after the last person to have occupied Room 24? The answer is laziness or a profound belief that there could not have been two viable suspects staying in the same hotel, or perhaps a combination of the two. Whatever the reason they (Acott and Oxford) decided to take the decision to concentrate on Alphon rather than Ryan/Hanratty. It is clear that if Alphon had not been in Room 24 he could not have dropped the spent cartridges, it would therefore have made sense to bring in the man who according to Nudds' first statement could have dropped thoses cartridge cases.


Ron

[Victor]

Why would someone with 'obvious left-wing views' need to bend the truth to suit their ideology particularly? How does having a left-wing ideology differ from having a right-wing ideology in terms of examining evidence as it presents itself to one?

Hi Julie,

I believe that it's the extreme nature of the views, rather than the subject of the views, that causes a person to tolerate "bending the truth" to a more extreme level. Furthermore, the natural direction of the change of view would be towards one's natural inclinaction, or ideology.

And in no way does Woffinden accept Foot's assessment of the eye-colour as ridiculous. Woffinden carefully deconstructs Foot's conclusions most respectfully but does not agree with Foot's conclusion.

Woffinden concludes Foot is wrong, he knocks away a major plank of Foot's argument, which to me makes Foot's conclusion ridiculous.

The police MOST definitely, early on in the search for the killer, stated that the suspect's eyes were brown.

Absolutely, on TV. And VS is emphatic that it did not come from her, she consistently had the view that the killer's eyes were blue and corrected the police as soon as she was aware of that mistake.

Alphon had brown eyes. They put him on an identity parade. They would not have done so if they knew for certain that the suspect's eyes were blue at that stage.

True, a major reason that Alphon was suspected was his brown eyes (and later his coincidentally type-O blood). The wide dissemination of the erroneous description makes it look a lot worse than it is.

If it was a debacle. it was one started by the police.

It was only heightened from mistake to debacle because of Foot hyping it up.

KR,
Vic.

[RonIpstone]

It was only heightened from mistake to debacle because of Foot hyping it up.

Hello Victor,

That depends on one's viewpoint. If you are to be hanged as a result of someone else's mistake, you would be inclined to regard that mistake as a debacle.

Happily Hanratty was the culprit and was rightly hanged.

Ron

[Victor]

No, I have got it the right way round. Nudds told the truth in his first statement as he had no reason to lie. He was given a reason to lie when making the second statement as it was made clear to him that he would be helping the Police to solve the A6 Murder. Acott and Oxford were after Alphon and Nudds' first statement was very inconvenient.

Hi Ron,

So why would that make it more likely that Acott told Nudds to lie in his 2nd statement rather than Acott pushing Nudds too hard and making him say anything to get them off his backs?

Well the way I read it is that the Police knew of Nudds' fabrications because they had caused him to make them.

Some police undoubtedly thought Acott put to much pressure on Nudds, and caused Nudds to crack and start lying , but it's Acott opinion that matters and he was under pressure from the media, the government and the public to get a quick result, so he leant heavily on Nudds to get every scrap of the truth, but got the pack of lies 2nd statement.

This depends on the view one takes of Nudds' second statement. My view is that Nudds had given a truthful first statement, truthful because although he was an inveterate liar, on this particular occasion he had no reason to lie. What did it matter to him that Alphon slept in Room 6 or 24?

Exactly, it didn't matter where Alphon stayed, and Nudds could switch it as his whim took him.

Why did the Police think he had lied in the first statement?

Did they? They could just have been pressing them for more details as the cartrige cases proved a definite link between the murder and the Vienna.

Why not put Alphon down the pecking order of suspects and go after the last person to have occupied Room 24? The answer is laziness or a profound belief that there could not have been two viable suspects staying in the same hotel, or perhaps a combination of the two. Whatever the reason they (Acott and Oxford) decided to take the decision to concentrate on Alphon rather than Ryan/Hanratty.

It's an inescapeable fact that both the suspects had stayed at the Vienna around the time of the murder, and the police had more information about Alphon than they had about someone known to them only as "suspect J Ryan". They more actively pursued (partly because they had more to go on) and had more success apprehending Alphon.

It is clear that if Alphon had not been in Room 24 he could not have dropped the spent cartridges, it would therefore have made sense to bring in the man who according to Nudds' first statement could have dropped thoses cartridge cases.

And they did as soon as they could... A chase to Ireland only delaying them, until they eventually caught him in Blackpool.

KR,
Vic.

[Victor]

Hello Victor,

That depends on one's viewpoint. If you are to be hanged as a result of someone else's mistake, you would be inclined to regard that mistake as a debacle.

Happily Hanratty was the culprit and was rightly hanged.

Ron

Hi Ron,

If you are to be justly hanged and are managing to delay this fate because the police are distracted by someone else, you might view that mistake quite literally as a lifeline.

KR,
Vic.

[Victor]

I find it hard to believe that some on here seem to think that Footie perhaps had 666 tattooed behind his left ear or had horns and cleft feet or some other such nonsense.

Hi Steve,

I doubt Foot's integrity, why should that imply I think he was the devil? He just made a pact with him.

I think that the problem stems from a lack of ability in some people that prevents them from seperating Foot's writing from his political views. But it obviously goes deeper than that, as these fools saw and still do see Foot as being a dangerous subversive! Sad.

IF Foot couldn't hold extremeist views without that subverting his integrity then that's a shame, because it taints his otherwise sterling work on Carl Bridgewater.

It is easy to attack people who hold extreme personal views and to use that as an argument against their integity etc as Victor has done here recently.

Holding Foot as an example of someone who maintains their integrity whilst holding extremist views, is delusional, because the DNA proves Foot's overarching conclusion was wrong in this case, therefore his arguments are wrong. This naturally raises the question as to whether he manipulated the evidence to suit his inaccurate arguments.

In fact, Victor's view that Foot's integrity and reliability is in question because Victor and his chums say so, just goes to show the extent of Victor's ignorance and arrogance as far as other peoples views are concerned.

Foot's integrity and reliability is called into question because DNA proves Hanratty was guilty, which means his arguments are wrong. If his arguments are wrong his reliability is extremely doubtful.

It's Foot's arrogance by refusing to accept he was wrong that eclipses mine easily.

KR,
Vic.