a6 murder

[SteveS]

Oh dear did I strike a nerve. Why not try presenting a argument to support your bizarre alegations because I clearly demonstrated your hypocrisy on 5 opinions. Try matching that with 5 examples of my illogic. Or get yourself an even bigger label of LIAR.

KR,
Vic.

Don't worry Jim, I'll go for 6.
Anybody want to trump me on that?

[Victor]

It would only need the imagination of an arrogant career scientist like Dr Johnny Whittaker to select any allele peak, however small or stochastic, and try and fit it to reference profiles of first Hanratty's family and then Hanratty himself.
If you have done any research into the wretched Whittaker and his court testimonies, you would perhaps start to have a few qualms about the safety of anything that passes his lips.

One slight problem with that theory Steve, if Whittaker had done as you suggest them there's a 50% chance with Mrs Hanratty, and approx 50% with Michael that fiddling the results to match one of them would rule James Hanratty out as the rapist.

KR,
Vic.

[Limehouse]

There has been much heated debate in recent days and, sadly, it has all turned unpleasant again.

I would, once again, like to make one or two comments regarding the position I hold concerning Hanratty because I feel that some people hold similar views and it might help others to understand our feelings. Then, I would like to make a few contributions to the debate that might get it back on a more reasoned footing.

From a very young age, I grew up with the conviction that Hanratty had been unjustly hanged. This was based mainly on over-heard adult conversations, and later, through reading around the topic. Now, don't get me wrong, I grew up in a family that believed people should be punished for their crimes (although my family did not believe in capital punishment) and, although broadly socialists, my family did not believe in 'soft touches' and would have condemmed Hanratty's criminality.

So, whereas I do not fully comply with the view that Hanratty was a chirpy cockney lad who 'did a bit of burglary, but only from those that could afford it' neither do I believe he was a sex offender and a cold-blooded murderer. Now, just because I do not believe that Hanratty was capable or guilty of murder, it does not follow that I have any hostility for Valerie. For me, it's not as straight forward as 'if you're for Hanratty, you must be against Valerie'.

Now, let me return to a piece of evidence that has been discussed in recent days, the significance of which leads to other vital pieces of evidence.

The gloves
I want to examine the significance of the black gloves that Louise Anderson testified went missing from her home.

We all know that VS stated the killer wore gloves. We also know that Hanratty claims he never wore gloves when he went out stealing, he always used a hanky to wipe prints from surfaces (it didn't work, he was often caught due to finger prints!). However, in order to tie Hanratty to the crime, it had to be established that it is possible he wore gloves on that night – thus Louise Anderson helpfully claims to have lost some gloves.

However, the gun was found with a hanky wrapped around it. That also helpfully ties in with Hanratty because it was his self-confessed trade mark and he even identified it in court as his own.

So, what happened to the gloves? After all, the police had a lot of material evidence related to the crime – the gun, the cartridges, a hanky – abandoned after the crime, cartridge cases helpfully left in the room occupied by a suspect just before the crime – but no gloves? Where are they?

I believe the gloves story to be a fiction created to provide a vital link between Hanratty, the non-glove-wearing criminal, and the criminal himself who did wear gloves. Louise Anderson alone could provide that link because:

Hanratty had stayed at her house and could therefore be attributed with an opportunity to obtain the gloves
Anderson could be leaned on to provide such evidence in return for ammunity from prosecution for receiving stolen goods.

The gloves issue also adds an additional problem for me concerning the crime because obtaining them in advance of the crime suggests an element of premeditation. Of course, it could be argued that the premeditation was simply armed robbery and not what actually resulted – but in reality, I feel that Hanratty would have gone out and purchased gloves had he wanted them, perhaps claiming them to be for his mother or a girlfriend, rather than stealing them form a friend.

Incidently, would gloves meant for Louise Anderson's hands have fitted Hanratty? Men have much larger hands than a woman, surely?

[Graham]

Good post, Julie.

I've kept out of the recent nastiness - my policy is not to get involved.

The thing about gloves is that Juliana Galves of The Vienna claims that she saw a pair of gloves on top of the stuff in Alphon's suitcase. I always felt that this was manufactured by Acott to implicate Alphon, following VS's revelation that the killer wore gloves. I've also wondered if Juliana's presence in England was illegal, and that Acott maybe used this to convince her to help him nail Alphon. As far as I can remember nothing more was made of it.

Graham

[Limehouse]

Good post, Julie.

I've kept out of the recent nastiness - my policy is not to get involved.

The thing about gloves is that Juliana Galves of The Vienna claims that she saw a pair of gloves on top of the stuff in Alphon's suitcase. I always felt that this was manufactured by Acott to implicate Alphon, following VS's revelation that the killer wore gloves. I've also wondered if Juliana's presence in England was illegal, and that Acott maybe used this to convince her to help him nail Alphon. As far as I can remember nothing more was made of it.

Graham

Hi Graham,

Your comments seem to reinforce the idea that the police were desperate to link a glove-wearing killer to the suspect favoured by them at the time.

When you consider these points, and others that have been discussed in recent days, for example, the contention that Nudds was prepared to change his statement to fit the particular suspect that police were pursuing at the time, it highlights how determined the police were to nail a person for this crime at any cost. Of course, it was important to put the man responsible behind bars, but in doing so with apparent dis-regard for truth and integrity, is it any wonder that people are still discussing the crime almost fifty years after the event?

Enjoy the rest of your evening. I'm off the partake in some rather good fruit wine.

[RonIpstone]

I am inclined to agree that if in any case and especially in a capital case there is a reasonable suspicion that the Police have manufactured or tampered with the evidence, then the jury should have reasonable doubt and acquit. The simple reason being that if one knows that part of the evidence is tainted, how can one be sure that the rest is not likewise tainted?

It seems to me that the evidence against Alphon was manufactured by Acott when he obtained Nudds's second statement. It is possible that Galves's statement that she saw gloves in Alphon's suitcase could have likewise been the product of Acott's fertile imagination rather than of Galves's recollection of events. If Acott was prepared to 'assist' Galves in her recollection, then why should he not do the same with Louise Anderson and help her locate her missing gloves?

That Anderson did not lose her gloves does not mean that Hanratty did not do as has been suggested and buy his own. It is well documented that Hanratty did not use gloves when housebreaking, he preferred to dust down with a hanky where his dabs might have been. This is just about practical in an empty house where he would have the time. If he had just help up a bank or post office he could hardly go around cleaning up the fingerprint evidence in front of a crowd of recently robbed bank or post office workers. Hanratty's rise up the criminal ranks to armed robber meant he would have to forgo his principles and start wearing gloves.

Even someone as monumentally stupid as Jim Hanratty must have known that with a loaded gun someone was liable to be hurt or killed and in the event of the latter there was a possibility that Jim would hang. This would have provided an additional reason for the adoption of the wearing of gloves.

So why did the jury find Jim guilty? We should not forget that the jury was empanelled from the voters of Bedford. I have spent a good deal of time writing about the football club, Luton Town, more popularly known as the Hatters and have come to know the club's fans reasonably well. Luton, a Bedfordshire town, is 20 miles or so further south than its county town, Bedford, and many Hatters hail from Bedford, which does not have a League team of its own. My assumption is that the 1962 jury members, in intellectual capacity and thought processes, were not too dissimilar from the Hatters that I have encountered recently. There were one or two bright ones, but overall I would have to say that most were somewhere between dim and stupid.

I would therefore hazard a guess that notwithstanding the lack of mental facilities available to it, the jury rightly concluded that Hanratty had not stayed in Mrs Jones's B&B, and from this it deduced that Jim had not stayed in anyone's B&B in Rhyl. It seemed to me that when they had found the hapless Mrs Jones the defence investigators stopped looking for other B&B proprietors who might have accommodated Jim.

If Hanratty had not been in Rhyl, then, as everyone has to be somewhere, in the mind of the jury, he would have to have been the abductor at Dorney Reach.

If the jury had approached the question from the other direction and asked whether beyond reasonable doubt the prosecution had proved that he had been the Dorney Reach abductor? Then with Acott's fiddling with the evidence and VS first and wrong identification, it is difficult to see how it could have given a positive answer to that question.

Jim Hanratty charged his father with clearing his (Jim's) name. Paul Foot set out to show not only that Jim did not do it, but Alphon did it. The Criminal Court of Appeal would have let Jim off even if Jim had done it but there had been a fatal flaw in his trial. Some on this forum argue that Jim did not do it and he did not have a fair trial. I do not know if anyone subscribes to the view that Jim did it, but did not have a fair trial and so should be let off. In my opinion, and this is the only one that counts, we should leave the legal technicalities to my learned friends in the Strand and just argue whether Jim did it or did not do it. In other words Jim should not be acquitted on a legal technicality, but as he would have wanted it, he should be acquitted on all the evidence and have his name cleared. Unfortunately for Jim and his supporters the DNA evidence means Jim did it.

[jimarilyn]

Now, let me return to a piece of evidence that has been discussed in recent days, the significance of which leads to other vital pieces of evidence.

The gloves
I want to examine the significance of the black gloves that Louise Anderson testified went missing from her home.

We all know that VS stated the killer wore gloves. We also know that Hanratty claims he never wore gloves when he went out stealing, he always used a hanky to wipe prints from surfaces (it didn't work, he was often caught due to finger prints!). However, in order to tie Hanratty to the crime, it had to be established that it is possible he wore gloves on that night – thus Louise Anderson helpfully claims to have lost some gloves.

However, the gun was found with a hanky wrapped around it. That also helpfully ties in with Hanratty because it was his self-confessed trade mark and he even identified it in court as his own.

So, what happened to the gloves? After all, the police had a lot of material evidence related to the crime – the gun, the cartridges, a hanky – abandoned after the crime, cartridge cases helpfully left in the room occupied by a suspect just before the crime – but no gloves? Where are they?

I believe the gloves story to be a fiction created to provide a vital link between Hanratty, the non-glove-wearing criminal, and the criminal himself who did wear gloves. Louise Anderson alone could provide that link because:

Hanratty had stayed at her house and could therefore be attributed with an opportunity to obtain the gloves
Anderson could be leaned on to provide such evidence in return for ammunity from prosecution for receiving stolen goods.

Some astute observations about Louise Anderson Julie. I too firmly believe that gloves story was an invention designed to throw suspicion on Hanratty. Likewise a remark she made at the trial. She told the court and jury that when Hanratty visited her at her antiques shop on Saturday, August 26th, he had scratches on his left cheek which she thought were from razor cuts. It doesn't take a genius to appreciate the reason for including this unwarranted and potentially incriminating remark (regardless of whether it was true or not).

During her testimony at the Bedford trial on January 29th 1962 she stated that she "was frightened of the man" and that she "was forced to give him money". This completely contradicts what she said three short months earlier when the police were looking for Jimmy Ryan. She spoke glowingly then of Hanratty to Mirror reporter Edward Vale when he went around to interview her. Not difficult to guess what had happened in the intervening 3 months to cause her to make this amazing u-turn.

It's very interesting to note that Mrs Anderson paid Hanratty [over a period of a couple of months] about £600 for jewellery etc., he handed over to her. A very tidy sum indeed for 1961.
This would suggest that she was not strapped for cash. I wonder if it was all her own money or if some came from a nearby friend who was in the same line of business

[jimarilyn]

It's very interesting to note that Mrs Anderson paid Hanratty [over a period of a couple of months] about £600 for jewellery etc., he handed over to her. A very tidy sum indeed for 1961.
This would suggest that she was not strapped for cash. I wonder if it was all her own money or if some came from a nearby friend who was in the same line of business

I'm referring of course to William Alfred Ewer. Loved to have seen his bank statements for the 12 month period from July 1961.

[caz]

You contend something that was known at trial in 1962.

Well done for noticing that, Steve. Pity you were too busy thinking about my photo to notice that this was precisely my point. My mother's photo is watching you now so look out. I may be a soft touch but she wasn't.

Hanratty was a known liar at his trial and gave the jury a too-late alibi they were convinced was bogus. I was comparing this fact with the completely unsupportable, desperate and foul beyond belief contention that Valerie Storie lied her way to getting an innocent man hanged for this crime.

With 'illuminating insight' like that, I'm rather glad you don't have anything nice to say about me either. I'd feel sick to my stomach.

When the DNA is reexamined, it will without much doubt show a mixed profile that shows stochastic effects and be considered truly inconcusive. So all bets will off as to the so called acceptance, by all parties, of Alphon not being the A6 killer.

At best, yes - 'inconcusive'. It wouldn't eliminate Hanratty or even begin to incriminate anyone else, would it? Alphon would not be an inch nearer the frame. With no prospect of a guilty verdict ever being reached against anyone else, the only chance would be to try and fit Alphon up good and proper. Now there's irony for you.

Lastly for now, how do you think any of the 'ordinary' people in Rhyl could have known beyond reasonable doubt that they had seen Hanratty, and on the relevant date? Were they shown a series of similar photos, from which they were able to single him out? Or were they shown only a photo of Hanratty, and only when his new alibi needed support and these 'ordinary' folk had heard all about him in the media anyway? "Yes, I'm sure I saw him here in Rhyl that day" is pretty meaningless if the latter was the case. Anyone could have said as much by the time of the trial, without having a clue whether they really saw the man in the photo, or just someone vaguely similar, on that crucial day in August.

But then we've seen on this thread how easy it is for ordinary people to convince themselves of anything, if they start from a position of having very little faith in the justice system and tend to see miscarriages of justice everywhere.

Love,

Caz
X

[SteveS]

One slight problem with that theory Steve, if Whittaker had done as you suggest them there's a 50% chance with Mrs Hanratty, and approx 50% with Michael that fiddling the results to match one of them would rule James Hanratty out as the rapist.

KR,
Vic.

There is no problem with my theory at all Victor.

You are rolling out the same old disproved argument that someone can be ruled out of an LCN profile, that you have been using from the start of the argument on here. You are as wrong now as you have been from the beginning.

Whittaker, once he has a reference profile to work with (eg Mary or Michael) will just try and fit what he can and explain the rest away as drop-in or drop-out and call ludicrous odds against it not being someone else's relative.

Whittaker and LCN's co-developer Dr Peter Gill know for certain that they could have made just about anybody guilty of the A6 murder, when they have a reference profile to work to. One better have a damned good alibi these days as the general public (along with defence lawyers and judges) are so taken in by the fallacy of DNA as being the "Gold Standard" of evidence. The argument against this fallacy has only really just started and will continue apace for a good few years to come.

It actually started in this country in 2007, when Whittaker tried to do the same thing to Sean Hoey until he was found out fiddling the figures by Dan Krane and Allan Jamieson. Whittaker got a severe reprimand from the judge Mr Weir who said of him:

He was most unwilling to accept that the continuing absence of international agreement on validation of LCN (unlike SGM+)or the variations in the way in which it was being implemented in different countries should be any impediment to the ready acceptance by any court of the Birmingham approach. I found him inappropriately combative as an expert witness and his unwillingness to debate constructively the various matters put to him was unhelpful in the extreme.

(my bold)

Returning to this case. It was another 4 years before the Hanratty appeal was actually heard at the CACD in April 2002. So what were the CPS and the FSS doing during this extraordinarily long period of time, if, as they contend, they had a cast iron profile of Hanratty and Hanratty alone? They were obviously scratching around for additional evidence against Hanratty which doesn't exist and thinking of what to do in the absence of such.

So the Home Office had to sanction the exhumation of Hanratty to allow the FSS to do another fiddle of the interpretation at the last minute. To give it some effect in the public's mind, in advance of the actual appeal hearing, this was leaked to the Sun and The Mail who both proclaimed the result of Hanratty's guilt by DNA evidence as official. It would be interesting to know who leaked the story and whether any money changed hands.

The FSS's report, which was all the defence saw in Hanratty in 2002, is no good in these cases anyway. One needs the EPG's produced from each run along with the analyst's bench notes and an independent set of tests to validate and corroborate. This is what Jamieson and Krane did in Hoey. Independent tests can now not be done for the obvious reason of lack of evidence yet the EPG's and notes are what Woffinden is raising funds to acquire and have reexamined.

It may not lead to another appeal but the publication, in a national newspaper, of the results along with a full explaination of what the FSS did in Hanratty would certainly cause a fair amount of uproar.

[SteveS]

...But then we've seen on this thread how easy it is for ordinary people to convince themselves of anything...

How true.

You, Victor, Graham, RonIpstone, BabyBird67 and several others have all convinced yourselves that LCN DNA is 100% reliable and cannot be argued against as being anything but. This is for one reason and one reason only; someone else has told you so.

[SteveS]

So why did the jury find Jim guilty? We should not forget that the jury was empanelled from the voters of Bedford. I have spent a good deal of time writing about the football club, Luton Town, more popularly known as the Hatters and have come to know the club's fans reasonably well. Luton, a Bedfordshire town, is 20 miles or so further south than its county town, Bedford, and many Hatters hail from Bedford, which does not have a League team of its own. My assumption is that the 1962 jury members, in intellectual capacity and thought processes, were not too dissimilar from the Hatters that I have encountered recently. There were one or two bright ones, but overall I would have to say that most were somewhere between dim and stupid.

Blimey, are you going to put yourself forward if the position of the Lord Mayorship of Luton ever becomes a possibility?

I can even give you a campaigning slogan - "Its my opinion that counts, you bunch of dimwitted yokels!"

As the Kaiser Chiefs say "I predict a riot."

[Limehouse]

Unfortunately for Jim and his supporters the DNA evidence means Jim did it.

Evening Ron,

For me, the DNA evidence does not mean that Hanratty did it at all. Let's examine the facts a little closer. Certainly, it appears that Hanratty's DNA is present on the portion of VS's underwear that was tested in 2002. But does that prove Hanratty was at the crime scene? No other forensic evidence found at the crime scene links Hanratty to the crime. If Hanratty's DNA had been deposited on the portion of underwear through contamination, the real killer's DNA could be missing because:

- it was never desposited on the underwear in the first place (VS took her knickers off
- it was on the portion of underwear that was not tested

Afterall, if a killer's DNA and other forensic evidence (hair, skin, sweat, saliva, semen) can be missing from the actual crime scene it is possible (although, I admit, unlikely) that it could be missing altogether.

Did the nurses or doctors take a vaginal swab and retain this for testing? That would have been much more reliable than a portion of underwear stored for decades lord-knows how. Even if you argue that the items were stored separately for all those years, it does not rule out contamination during the trial when items were placed on a bench in close proximity.

I know all of the clever scientifically-trained posters are now going to jump on my suggestions with complicated ewxplanations as to how wrong I am - but scientists do not always get it right. As an example, as a child I suffered terribly from eczema. I was given every steriod cream known to medical science and screamed in pain everytime the cream was applied as it seemed to burn through my sore skin. I begged my parents and the doctors to 'let me have the nice-smelling sticky cream that makes my skin feel better'. That cream was a coal-tar-based cream that soothed the skin and seemed to heal it. However, nobody listened to a seven year old. They just kept on forcing steroid cream onto my skin and, can you believe it, giving me valium-like medicine to 'calm me down'. The eczema plagued me into my twenties until I decided enough was enough and threw away the steroids. I bought a tub of Pseudocream, a coal-tar-based cream and within weeks my eczema was under control. The prevailing scientific opinion at the time was that steriods were the best thing for my condition but they were wrong.

I know I have diversified, but I just wanted to make a point about the sometime arrogance of scientists.

And by the way, science is often 'controlled' by businesses who have particular agendas.

[Limehouse]

With reference to the jury being made up of people local to Bedford, close the the scene of the crime, as I have previously mentioned, this is another example of how the trial was manipulated in an effort to prejudice Hanratty.
I can't imagine why the defence didn't kick up more of a stink.

[Natalie Severn]

How true.

You, Victor, Graham, RonIpstone, BabyBird67 and several others have all convinced yourselves that LCN DNA is 100% reliable and cannot be argued against as being anything but. This is for one reason and one reason only; someone else has told you so.

Remember too that Barry George was released because the DNA evidence proved unsound.
And in 1962 the "cross contamination "of under garments and Hanratty"s handkerchief ,both before and during his trial would have been more than likely---something that would be very unlikely today.

Add to that the case of Colin Stagg where he was virtually framed by a plain clothes policewoman posing as an " admirer", and we can certainly see several factors emerging suggesting the possibility of an error in conviction.This is all quite apart the issues now under discussion re gloves /colour of eyes/another man"s confession, lack of sufficient rigor in the investigation into Hanratty"s movements by police etc.Its by no means a case where all doubt has been removed about Hanratty"s guilt.