a6 murder

[simon]

My own hunch about Ingrams is that he still feels great loyalty to his old friend Foot, but isn't as totally convinced about Hanratty's innocence.

[CliveEnglish]

Confusion

Good evening Limehouse
Are you a fan of cricket or football by the way?
I tended to feel that Hanratty would have salted the gun and cartridges away in a left luggage office and picked them up just before setting off. Hence going to Paddington Station. Many problems though exist with this theory one of which is that of the 2 spent slugs found at the Vienna. Why would Hanratty have had them and then leave them there? So it seems logical that he must have broken the gun in his room, to reload, and forgotten about the slugs. It is also surely illogical that Hanratty would have carried several boxes of ammo around all day without a holdall or bag to keep them in. He didn't have any luggage when he held up the Morris car. He would have also faced a great deal of trouble carrying that amount of gear around for well over a day before disposing of it on the bus. But going back and forth to left luggage offices would quite likely arouse suspicion. Yet as I said noone sees him in London for at least 3 days after the murder. It is most perplexing Hastings!
The gun being found fully loaded is again strange.
Another thing that bothers me is if Hanratty unwittingly left the cartridge cases in the Vienna he surely must have been wearing gloves because no fingerprints were found. So my point is this. If he was careful to wear gloves then why did he leave the used slugs behind? And again why leave one's own hanky wrapping a fingerprint free gun and ammo on a bus?
Caz replied to my posts and I am sure that I have failed to put my point across as well as I could, again! All I was trying to say was that I truly believe that as Hanratty was the A6 killer he must have acted alone. This may or not be proveable by his protestations of innocence but I believe he acted alone. Limehouse says that Hanratty may have feared for his family's safety from reprisals if he took others with him. Well Hanratty didn't squeal and still the Hanratty family suffered completely unwarranted attention from Peter Alphon on at least 3 occasions.
The more I think about this case the more unfathomable it gets.
Clive

[Victor]

It has been mentioned before that, if the killer took all of the cartridges with him that night, he must have had quite a bulge in his pockets, what with the gun and six boxes of cartridges. Come to think of it, why would anyone carry so many cartridges with them? Did they come with the gun as a whole package, and if so, did the killer pick this up from somewhere just before the attack? If the killer did not carry all of the cartridges found on the bus around with him that night, where did he hide them and how did he collect them again afterwards for disposal? Is this where France fitted into the picture?

Hi Julie,

I think it's enitrely possible that Hanratty didn't have all the boxes of bullets with him, instead he gave the gun back to France wrapped in his hanky and France dumped the gun and all the cartridges he had as soon as he found out what it had been used for - hence the 24 hour delay before the gun was disposed of.

I have also wondered before why the killer went out with a loaded gun. He could have acheived quite a convincing armed raid with an empty gun and then rattle a few cartridges around in his pocket or show them to his captors in order to ensure compliance.

I don't think an empty gun would have given Hanratty as much reassurance and confidence as a loaded weapon. Nor would that thought necessarily occur to the "mentally deficient" Hanratty.

Then there is the issue of the gun beiong loaded when found. The killer, quite obviously, re-loaded the gun just before, or sometime after, driving away from the layby. Or did he? If he did, this indicates that the events (a double killing for all he knew, and a rape) did not unduly bother him as he was willing to re-load the gun for further use. But did he??

As I've mentioned before, he had to re-load before shooting VS, so it's a second re-loading that your referring to here.

Finally, we know that Hanratty used a hanky to wipe away prints from homes he raided and we know that he disposed of unwanted loot under the back seat of a bus.

Which also means that Hanratty regularly went equiped with a hanky just for that purpose.

Moreover, the gun and cartridges were in police care soon after the attack - but the cartridges did not turn up at the Vienna hotel until several weeks after the attack.

No. The cartridges were not discovered at the Vienna until several weeks after the attack, that does not imply that they weren't there until then.

Now, ask yourself, did Hanratty ever leave his hanky at the scene of a crime prior to these events? Did he ever leave a hanky with loot he had abandoned on a bus prior to the attack? No. So, why should he do so after a major, major crime?

But the hanky wasn't found at the scene, it was found with the gun. And if he had wiped his prints from the gun, he wouldn't want to handle it afterwards or that would render wiping it pointless. Especially if he'd handed it on to France or someone else to dump for him. They'd want to keep their prints off it too.

Keepoing quiet, but begging his family to get at the truth, may have been his way of saving them from a possible revenge attack if, and I stress, if, he had been part of a criminal gang involved in the crime.

Why only "if he had been part of a criminal gang"? Why do you stress that the same wouldn't hold true if he'd committed the crime alone?

KR,
Vic.

[Victor]

Well Hanratty didn't squeal and still the Hanratty family suffered completely unwarranted attention from Peter Alphon on at least 3 occasions.

Hi Clive,

Which 3 occasions are you referring to? The Justice-provoked fracas at the tube station, the offer of compensation, and what other?

Are you a fan of cricket or football by the way?

The Hamilton-Button tussle is much more interesting to me!

KR,
Vic.

[CliveEnglish]

Hi Clive,

Which 3 occasions are you referring to? The Justice-provoked fracas at the tube station, the offer of compensation, and what other?


The Hamilton-Button tussle is much more interesting to me!

KR,
Vic.

Hello Victor
There are more than 3 distinct occasions documented in Woffinden which is where I, and I would imagine most others, get most of the information about the case from. Although I haven't the inclination to copy out reams of text that others can quite easily read for themselves, here are the pages I found the information on.
Page 329 for Alphons compensation offer to James Hanratty Snr on the first anniversary of the murder (22nd August 1962)
Pages 329-30 for Alphon's assuault on Jean Justice and Mary Hanratty, the day after his compensation offer.
Pages 342-3 for Alphons calls to the Hanratty home in 1965 and Alphon's confession in the street to Michael Hanratty. This was apparently around the time of the abolition of Capital Punishment.

Good Evening Simon
I found this article by Richard Ingrams in the Independent of 7/2/09

The name Peter Alphon will mean nothing to today's generation. But because I was a close friend of Paul Foot, who spent years investigating the A6 murder of 1961, for which James Hanratty was later hanged, I lived with the name Alphon almost as closely as he did.

The A6 killer – apparently proved to be Hanratty by recent DNA tests – murdered Michael Gregsten and raped and attempted to murder his girlfriend Valerie Storie, after holding them up with a gun in their car in a field near Taplow.
Alphon was the police's first suspect and he bore a marked resemblance to the original identikit picture produced with the help of Valerie Storie. But it was Hanratty, a small-time crook who had prison sentences for house-breaking and stealing cars, who was later charged and eventually hanged.
The case would have been forgotten had it not been for Alphon's subsequent behaviour, all of which suggested a man suffering acute feelings of guilt. In phone conversations with Paul and other campaigners he spoke obsessively about the case, frequently incriminating himself. In 1967 he called a press conference and announced that he was the murderer. Previously he had even visited Hanratty's parents and offered to compensate them for the loss of their son.
Aside from the details of the evidence was the obvious point that the murderer had been an excitable and unbalanced man, unable to control his sexual urges. The description fitted Alphon but not Hanratty.
The DNA tests of 2002 were generally accepted as proof of Hanratty's guilt. But Paul Foot continued to believe in Hanratty's alibi which he had personally checked out. Any hope that Alphon might finally reveal the truth has now gone. He died in a London hospital last month, following a fall at his home.

I think the most interesting statement is the one I have emboldened. He uses the word apparently so perhaps he is not quite so sure about Hanratty's guilt.

As Ingrams has published an article in this months Oldie by Woffinden on the case and put it on the cover it would seem that Ingrams is still convinced of Hanratty's innocence. I haven't read it yet but will try to get a copy on Saturday. Is it available at WHSmiths?

Graham doubts that The Oldie would print a counter view. He also doubts that anyone is really interested in the A6 murder anymore, apart from those who post here. So it shouldn't make much impact then, under that logic. But perhaps someone from here could write a letter to The Oldie putting Ingram and Woffinden straight on Hanratty's guilt.

Clive

Can't say I have much time for motorsports. My thinking is that they are a public R&D/advertising effort by the major automotive engine manufacturers.
I would like to see more horse and cart racing. Very eco friendly and a fantastic manure resource for growers of fruit and veg! A drayman's point to point with free samples sounds good to me:-)
I prefer sports that rely as less as possible on technology. Why Phil Taylor hasn't been knighted by now is a mystery to me. How can a Briton who has completely dominated his sport for the last 2 decades and been World Champion 15 times not get the nod? It may be the beer gut, tattoo's and working class connotations that does it I suppose, shame. Snooker stars such as Ray Reardon, Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry suffer too for some strange reason. Every Con Club I've ever been in has at least 1 snooker table, some even have a darts board!
Anyway back the World Cup....So....Come on England. Best of luck guys. Fingers and every else crossed they bring the cup home again.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Folks,
I havent long been back from holiday but have been to library and read up on case again.It would seem to me that the witnesses against Hanratty are almost all very profoundly suspect and corrupt starting with Nudds,a man with a startling record of criminality , changing his evidence several times about whether it was Alphonse [aka Durrant ]who was last in room 24 at the Vienna Hotel on the fateful night or Hanratty[aka Ryan] who was last in the room, Nudds was a man who appears to have continuously been treated relatively leniently latterly asa result of having provided prison officers with the crucially "helpful information" that he suddenly remembered that Hanratty[aka Ryan] came back to room 24 afterwards---how convenient to all concerned!Ditto Roy Langdale,who alone among Hanratty"s final prison "companions"---he very briefly spoke to Hanratty during exercise ---was conveniently "overheard" by prison staff telling another inmate on their way to court that while in the same "hospital" as Hanratty he had told him he WAS the A6 the murderer.This was in distinct contrast to Hanratty"s known associates in prison, Nicolai Blythe David Emery and William Aldred who insisted that Hanratty always maintained his innocence fervently to everyone inside.
Langdale was another prison "informer" or mole who managed to get many of his multiple convictions reduced on appeal,as indeed he did the very next day after he had given his "report"!
No the evidence against Hanratty stinks in my opinion -at least from the moment Valerie Storie* misidentified one of the "volunteers" in the identity parade as the killer and not Alphon who was then deleted from the case.Interesting that on the very day this happened [23rd September] Alphon had been identified as the man carrying out a vicious attack on a [Swedish] woman named Meike Dalal,who said the man who attacked her had said to her"Listen,I am the A6 murderer and I want some money"..............Sounds like he was telling the truth-at least At least he was properly charged with causing grievous bodily harm that time anyway!

* I am not in any sense suggesting here that Valerie wasnt acting in good faith in all the evidence she gave.Simply that her horrendous five hour ordeal took place in almost complete darkness and the only time she caught a glimpse of the killer was when a car "s headlights briefly lit his face-so she may be in error.

[Victor]

I havent long been back from holiday but have been to library and read up on case again.

Hi Natalie,
I hope you had a gerat break. Which book(s) did you read? Foot, Woffinden, Justice, Miller, Blom-Cooper, Lord Russell, something else?

It would seem to me that the witnesses against Hanratty are almost all very profoundly suspect and corrupt starting with Nudds

It's not just the prosecution witnesses who are corrupt, there's Hanratty himself, Terry Evans\Starr, and maybe also Grace "Miracle" Jones. Although (other than Hanratty) Nudds and Langdale are the most suspect. Other prosecution witnesses (Skillet, Trower) are not corrupt.

changing his evidence several times about whether it was Alphonse [aka Durrant ]who was last in room 24 at the Vienna Hotel on the fateful night or Hanratty[aka Ryan] who was last in the room

It's a small point, but I believe that Peter Alphon's father had anglicised his name by dropping the "se", so Peter himself wasn't an Alphonse.

Nudds first and third statements are essentially identical and point to Hanratty being in Room 24, the only piece of evidence linking Alphon to room 24 is the withdrawn and utterly bizarre second statement with the convoluted shenanigans about a late message being left on the desk and Alphon switching his room due to a late cancellation, for which there is no corroboration other than Snell - Nudd's "wife" who had collaberated on the second statement.

that he suddenly remembered that Hanratty[aka Ryan] came back to room 24 afterwards---how convenient to all concerned!

That's incorrect, Hanratty was never claimed to have switched rooms, it's the second statement that has Alphon switching rooms, and I'm glad you share the incredulity over how convenient that was to put Alphon in the frame.

Ditto Roy Langdale,who alone among Hanratty"s final prison "companions"---he very briefly spoke to Hanratty during exercise

Langdale is also a "convenient" and suspicious witness, but the DNA evidence confirms Hanratty's guilt, so maybe Langdale was telling the truth.

Interesting that on the very day this happened [23rd September] Alphon had been identified as the man carrying out a vicious attack on a [Swedish] woman named Meike Dalal,who said the man who attacked her had said to her"Listen,I am the A6 murderer and I want some money"..............Sounds like he was telling the truth-at least At least he was properly charged with causing grievous bodily harm that time anyway!

Alphon was charged with assaulting Meike Dalal, but was found not guilty. In any case there were multiple confessions to the murder so singling out one and saying that one must be true is of little significance.

* I am not in any sense suggesting here that Valerie wasnt acting in good faith in all the evidence she gave.Simply that her horrendous five hour ordeal took place in almost complete darkness and the only time she caught a glimpse of the killer was when a car "s headlights briefly lit his face-so she may be in error.

Do you not think that the ordeal she endured would be a powerful aid to her memory, specifically the details. It's true she made a mistake on the Alphon ID parade, but then the guilty party wasn't a member of that parade.

KR,
Vic.

[caz]

But Nats, the victim was in the car with her attacker for hours, terrified by what was happening, and no doubt sensing all manner of things about him beyond the brief 'glimpse' you've singled out, including his own apprehension about how this was all going to end.

So I submit that when Valerie finally found herself once again in that same man's presence - during the police line-up - that was when she would have known, beyond doubt, that he was the one responsible for her long and horrific, up close and personal ordeal. All her senses would have been alerted; she would not have been relying on the evidence of her eyes alone.

And of course, it didn't happen when she was presented with Alphon. The revelation couldn't happen until the real man responsible was put in front of her, and it came with Hanratty in the second line-up. Would she really have risked singling out a second entirely innocent man, if she couldn't be 100% sure this time? Did she pick out two innocent men, and manage to miss the guilty one entirely?

The DNA evidence says no.

Judging each case on its merits, I have to favour the rape victim's own convictions, coupled with the very specific and very hard to dispute DNA findings in the A6 case, over the opinions of a handful of message boarders, who have shown themselves to be less than 100% objective when it comes to miscarriages of justice and the rotten establishment in general.

Sources matter.

Love,

Caz
X

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Vic,
Yes we had a fantastic holiday-Greece ,Istanbul,Corsica,Sicily and its a bit of a downer coming back but that will settle.
First of all the FBI former chief laboratory scientist,Dr Budowle testified in a recent case at the Court of Appeal that the type of DNA testing termed LCN -[low copy number ]gave too many unreliable results and the FBI itself would not any longer consider it safe to rely on such evidence.Indeed ,it has never been used in either in the US or in the majority of jurisdictions in continental Europe.So what we actually have with regards to Hanratty"s profile being obtained from the handkerchief and gun found under the back seat of a London bus,two days after the crime,it a piece of evidence likely to have been contaminated in the first place given a highly questionable LCN DNA result.
It is not only necessary now to have the amount of material "quantified" as currently demanded for any such test to be considered even remotely reliable and to therefore obtain a fair result---but also to have
a totally fresh evaluation of the DNA evidence presented.
Will address your other points later Vic----I have scanned through several books actually as well as taken some on loan .
Cheers
Norma

[Limehouse]

Good evening Limehouse
Are you a fan of cricket or football by the way?
I tended to feel that Hanratty would have salted the gun and cartridges away in a left luggage office and picked them up just before setting off. Hence going to Paddington Station. Many problems though exist with this theory one of which is that of the 2 spent slugs found at the Vienna. Why would Hanratty have had them and then leave them there? So it seems logical that he must have broken the gun in his room, to reload, and forgotten about the slugs. It is also surely illogical that Hanratty would have carried several boxes of ammo around all day without a holdall or bag to keep them in. He didn't have any luggage when he held up the Morris car. He would have also faced a great deal of trouble carrying that amount of gear around for well over a day before disposing of it on the bus. But going back and forth to left luggage offices would quite likely arouse suspicion. Yet as I said noone sees him in London for at least 3 days after the murder. It is most perplexing Hastings!
The gun being found fully loaded is again strange.
Another thing that bothers me is if Hanratty unwittingly left the cartridge cases in the Vienna he surely must have been wearing gloves because no fingerprints were found. So my point is this. If he was careful to wear gloves then why did he leave the used slugs behind? And again why leave one's own hanky wrapping a fingerprint free gun and ammo on a bus?
Caz replied to my posts and I am sure that I have failed to put my point across as well as I could, again! All I was trying to say was that I truly believe that as Hanratty was the A6 killer he must have acted alone. This may or not be proveable by his protestations of innocence but I believe he acted alone. Limehouse says that Hanratty may have feared for his family's safety from reprisals if he took others with him. Well Hanratty didn't squeal and still the Hanratty family suffered completely unwarranted attention from Peter Alphon on at least 3 occasions.
The more I think about this case the more unfathomable it gets.
Clive

Hi Clive,

I am a football fan and I support Peterborough United as I have lived in the city for over 20 years. I formally supported Leyton Orient as I come from north east London.

What I meant when I said that Hanratty may have feareed for his family is that he may have feared they would be harmed physically if he revealed the names of anyone involved in the A6 crime for which he took the whole balme. I am not offering this as a solid theory, just speculating.

Yes, as you say, there is so much more to the crime than is suggested by the evidence offered at the trial.

You seem very convinced that the DNA evidence confirms Hanratty asw the killer but I am not so sure. It does not seem a very reliable from of DNA testing and I feel the Hanratty case is special, in that the outcome of the testing would not have resulted in someone being released from jail. A 'Hanratty did not do it' outcome would still see Hanratty dead and would have caused more trouble than it was worth risking for the perception of British Justice.

Have a good evening.

[Limehouse]

Hi Folks,
I havent long been back from holiday but have been to library and read up on case again.It would seem to me that the witnesses against Hanratty are almost all very profoundly suspect and corrupt starting with Nudds,a man with a startling record of criminality , changing his evidence several times about whether it was Alphonse [aka Durrant ]who was last in room 24 at the Vienna Hotel on the fateful night or Hanratty[aka Ryan] who was last in the room, Nudds was a man who appears to have continuously been treated relatively leniently latterly asa result of having provided prison officers with the crucially "helpful information" that he suddenly remembered that Hanratty[aka Ryan] came back to room 24 afterwards---how convenient to all concerned!Ditto Roy Langdale,who alone among Hanratty"s final prison "companions"---he very briefly spoke to Hanratty during exercise ---was conveniently "overheard" by prison staff telling another inmate on their way to court that while in the same "hospital" as Hanratty he had told him he WAS the A6 the murderer.This was in distinct contrast to Hanratty"s known associates in prison, Nicolai Blythe David Emery and William Aldred who insisted that Hanratty always maintained his innocence fervently to everyone inside.
Langdale was another prison "informer" or mole who managed to get many of his multiple convictions reduced on appeal,as indeed he did the very next day after he had given his "report"!
No the evidence against Hanratty stinks in my opinion -at least from the moment Valerie Storie* misidentified one of the "volunteers" in the identity parade as the killer and not Alphon who was then deleted from the case.Interesting that on the very day this happened [23rd September] Alphon had been identified as the man carrying out a vicious attack on a [Swedish] woman named Meike Dalal,who said the man who attacked her had said to her"Listen,I am the A6 murderer and I want some money"..............Sounds like he was telling the truth-at least At least he was properly charged with causing grievous bodily harm that time anyway!

* I am not in any sense suggesting here that Valerie wasnt acting in good faith in all the evidence she gave.Simply that her horrendous five hour ordeal took place in almost complete darkness and the only time she caught a glimpse of the killer was when a car "s headlights briefly lit his face-so she may be in error.

Hi Norma,

Glad you had a good break.

I agree with all that you say above, except that I am unsual in that whereas I doubt that Hanratty carried out the A6 attack, I also doubt that Alphon did so. However, Alphon had luck on his side, whereas Hanratty did not.

Alphon's father worked for the police at Scotland Yard - apparently in a clerical capacity - so that might explain how Alphon got off so lightly. I believe his mother did several manual jobs and I wonder how she got the money to give to Alphon so regularly?

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Caz,
While currently engaged in trying to look up the backgrounds of various witnesses in this case ---I will try to summarise a judge"s caution to the jury in his summing up with reference to the reliability of the process of identification where a victim has been severely traumatised in a sexual attack.In the case of a Scottish man, John McGranaghan,the judge reminded the jury of the Turnbull guidelines,introduced in 1977 after the Devlin report.This particular judge drew attention to the effect which terror might have on the three women"s reliability as witnesses of identification....
In each case three victims of these sexual assaults were with their assailant "for a considerable period in conditions of prevailing but not unbroken darkness".Of the three women concerned two believed they had correctly identified the man by his voice and accent.But they had not---none of them had identified the correct assailant and in this case the analysis of semen stains showed their identification in each case was totally unsafe. But McGranaghan had been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment even though the routine scientific analysis of the semen stains on each of their beds had proved that he could not posibly have committed those offences.Moreover the first victim even referred,as Valerie Storie had done,to the indelible impression that the assailants eyes had left on her.But in all three cases they were completely mistaken.McGranaghan had served ten yearsfor a crime he had had nothing to do with ---on appeal all counts were quashed.Case of John McGranaghan,30 October 1991,Lord Justice Glidewell,Mr Justice Hodgson and Mr Justice Buckley.
Best
Norma

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Norma,

Glad you had a good break.

I agree with all that you say above, except that I am unsual in that whereas I doubt that Hanratty carried out the A6 attack, I also doubt that Alphon did so. However, Alphon had luck on his side, whereas Hanratty did not.

Alphon's father worked for the police at Scotland Yard - apparently in a clerical capacity - so that might explain how Alphon got off so lightly. I believe his mother did several manual jobs and I wonder how she got the money to give to Alphon so regularly?

Me too Julie.I think it fairly unlikely that either Alphon or Hanratty was the killer.Puzzling a bit over the Ewer libel case and also who this unnamed "central character" was in such a cabal of criminals and perjurers !I must admit though,Alphon troubles me slightly -he seems to share certain features with the Brixton bomber,David Copeland,who was also a massive attention seeker,Nazi sympathiser and "man with a mission"!

[Graham]

Me too Julie.I think it fairly unlikely that either Alphon or Hanratty was the killer.Puzzling a bit over the Ewer libel case and also who this unnamed "central character" was in such a cabal of criminals and perjurers !I must admit though,Alphon troubles me slightly -he seems to share certain features with the Brixton bomber,David Copeland,who was also a massive attention seeker,Nazi sympathiser and "man with a mission"!

So if you don't think the A6 killer was either Hanratty or Alphon, can you please enlighten us as to who you think it might have been?

Ewer was the 'Central Figure' as mentioned anonymously by Foot and by name by Woffinden, but the suggestion that he was the 'brains' behind the A6 Case is completely unsupported by fact or evidence.

You say that Alphon 'troubles you slightly' - to anyone with a reasonable knowledge of the A6 Case he is a huge source of 'trouble'. His presence in the case is by way of sheer coincidence, yet Alphon being Alphon he took full advantage of his position and milked it for all it was worth. He doubtless was an attention seeker, he claimed to be a Fascist, but quite what his 'mission' in life was, I've never been able to fathom.

I note you haven't replied to Vic's question regarding what books you've been reading on the case. So which books have you read/are you reading?

Graham

[Victor]

In the case of a Scottish man, John McGranaghan,the judge reminded the jury of the Turnbull guidelines,introduced in 1977 after the Devlin report.

Hi Norma,

The McGranaghan case is examined in detail in Appendix One of Woffinden, and seems to be a heavy source for your comments. Undoubtedly identification testimony can be highly dubious, a recent link on this thread gave a value of 3% (I seem to remember) for people recognising identikit images of celebrities - the University of Stirling rings a bell with me.

I've just seen this article http://www.straightdope.com/columns/...cted-criminals concerning the accuracy of Identikit images and was somewhat surprised to see the images of known offenders and the lack of similarity to the photographs http://chicago.straightdope.com/mugs...comparison.htm

If the images are that innaccurate then it's unsurprising that the Identikit pictures VS et al made differ from Hanratty's photographs.

Hi Julie,

However, Alphon had luck on his side, whereas Hanratty did not.

Or as Woffinden put it in the Oldie article, Alphon gave himslef up to the police, whereas Hanratty made a run for it and got nicked in Blackpool (or words to that effect). Counter-intuitively Woffinden implies that this means that Alphon was smart enough to do the unexpected, whereas Hanratty a career-petty criminal reacted in the expected guilty manner, but guilty of being a criminal, not guilty of the crime.

A 'Hanratty did not do it' outcome would still see Hanratty dead and would have caused more trouble than it was worth risking for the perception of British Justice.

What trouble? Derek Bentley and...

George Kelly and Mahmood Hussein Mattan can be added to the list.

http://forejustice.org/wc/george_kelly.htm

http://www.innocent.org.uk/cases/georgekelly/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmood_Hussein_Mattan

What is so different about Hanratty that he can’t be added to the list?

Peter

I'm not going to comment on the LCN DNA stuff, it's open to debate, but only a minority of scientists who have been specifically employed to find loopholes in LCN have commented against it. Dr Budowle is one, Jamieson another.

KR,
Vic.