a6 murder

[NickB]

The guest house is on Google maps at ‘60 Kinmel Street, Rhyl’. It is a pebble-dashed private house now (opposite the Windsor) but you can see a ‘60 Ingledene’ sign above the front door.

[Victor]

Hi Norma and Nick,

There was a discussion some time about Ingledene and Kinmel Street, I think Jimarilyn made a trip there to take some photots, but it might have been someone else. In that discussion it was mentioned that the houses on Kinmel street have been re-numbered since 1961.

KR,
Vic.

[john]

There were 12 fingerprints taken from the car in Avondale Crescent. We do not know who they belonged to at all. You can bet that if one had been Hanratty's then the world would have known about it.

We do not know or indeed anyone left apart from Miss Storie what Michael Clark looked like. There are discrepancies between Acott and Dr Rennie's descriptionns.

We do not know or indeed anyone apart from the POLICE and Henry Parry what Henry Parry, landlord at the Windsor Hotel said in his statement at the time of the investigation. Not made months afterwards That was never give to the defence or his name revealed to them at the time of the trial.
If he had said anything against Hanratty, as I have written before you can bet that would have been used by Swanwick.

What is inarguable by pro or against is that the 1996 review headed by Matthews (I cannot remember his Police rank without looking it up) recommended that there has been strange going on in the case and that the case to go back to the new review body set up.They would not have done that if the case was so watertight in inspection for the prosecution. Matthews and his colleagues, I suspect would have access to all the paperwork etc which no else has ever had, prosecution counsel included!!!

Yes, I know the DNA's will say about that. But at the time in 1996 Matthews and his team were not aware of this and made their recommendations and indeed accepted eventually by the Government of the time for a retrial of the evidence. Thus in coldy and calculatingly looking at the evidence they had in front of them which would have been everything (bar the future DNA results), they decided to recommend what previous investigations had not.

Nimmo and cohorts had never looked at evidence from Avondale Crescent, the evidence of Trower and Blackhall et al ( as in the best traditions of police practice , that was not their brief at the time) and examined it critically which Matthews must have concluded on balance has discrepancies at the very least in their statements compared to the actual evidence he uncovered.

Foot/Millar/Justice/Russell/Blom-Cooper/ and all and indeed I would suggest Swanwick and Sherrard and others have only ever concluded their thoughts on but I think a fraction of the evidence in this case that has come into the light.

[caz]

Hi Vic and Caz,

Point of information:

At 11am on 24th September 1961 at Guy"s Hospital Valerie Storie POSITIVELY IDENTIFIED from a parade of TEN different men the man she thought the A6 killer. She thought Michael Clark was her RAPIST and HER LOVER"S KILLER .He was a RAF Airman . Full stop[as Colin would say eh Caz!]

Will you please stop shouting facts at us, Nats, when it is patently obvious that we already know.

The fact that the victim picked an innocent man, but did not recognise Alphon from Adam, is easily explained by the fact that there was never a case for either of them, or anyone else on that first parade, being the 'right' man. For all the faults you think she had, she could hardly have got the right man if he wasn't even there.

The fact that she thought Clark was the man who had spent hours in that car with her before raping and shooting her should warn you how much caution is needed with the Rhyl witnesses who thought Hanratty was a man they had seen or talked to only briefly, six months previously, and in circumstances where they wouldn't expect to see him ever again or need to remember him.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I was in Rhyl today talking to the sales lady who works on the book counter in the main book store here.She remembered the case very well."No Hanratty couldnt have done it---he was here in Rhyl when it happened-people came forward who saw him" she said.

Oh well that's that, then. Valerie, looking Hanratty in the eye and hearing him speak, and being certain this was the man in the car with her for hours that night, simply can't compete with this. And we can throw the DNA evidence in the bin too. The evidence of the book lady from Rhyl is obviously reliable and not contaminated in any way.

We can all go home and look forward to the next appeal which will surely follow as a result of this powerful new evidence.

Love,

Sarcaztic Caz
X

[caz]

Look Nats, why not imagine you are making a case for Alphon being the rapist and gunman and see how far you get before you find yourself in danger of making exactly the same sort of evidential leaps and errors that you think others have made in the case against Hanratty?

No positive id from the victim; not the merest sniff of forensic evidence putting him anywhere near the scene.

How are you going to proceed from there without making things ten times more "iffy" than they looked before?

Love,

Caz
X

[Victor]

Hi John,

There were 12 fingerprints taken from the car in Avondale Crescent. We do not know who they belonged to at all. You can bet that if one had been Hanratty's then the world would have known about it.

The killer wore gloves, so there's no reason to think his prints would be there. Presumably Gregsten's boys and aunt, and anyone else who'd been in the car recently could have left their fingerprints, including the police officers.

We do not know or indeed anyone left apart from Miss Storie what Michael Clark looked like. There are discrepancies between Acott and Dr Rennie's descriptionns.

Woffinden spoke to Clark's aunt and gave another vague description.

KR,
Vic.

[CliveEnglish]

Hi John,


The killer wore gloves, so there's no reason to think his prints would be there. Presumably Gregsten's boys and aunt, and anyone else who'd been in the car recently could have left their fingerprints, including the police officers.


Woffinden spoke to Clark's aunt and gave another vague description.

KR,
Vic.

Hello Victor
Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the killer take at least one glove off before raping Valerie Storie? So there is no reason why he couldn't have placed a bare hand somewhere in the rear of the car.
Because it was not particularly significant before that the DNA was announced, it has since troubled me that no semen was found on the back seat of the car at the time. How many couples have had sex and not left the notorious wet patch on the sheets? Being the gent I am I always volunteer to sleep on the couch after that.:-O
Also Mr Clarks aunt said that Mr Clark had mousy hair. This is extremely significant as Hanratty at the time of the murder had very dark streaky looking hair and at the identity parade Hanratty's hair was bright orange.
Clive.

I think the World Cup is just starting to warm up. The French and Germans beaten and a great game has just finished 2 apiece between Slovenia and the USA. Countdown to England's make or break game starts here. Haway the lads, again!

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Caz,
Several matters concerning Alphon cause me to wonder about him.The first one is to do with his bank statements which revealed that some £7,500 had been paid into his bank account following the murder.Only some £2,500 could have come from the stories he sold to the press, it has been calculated ,so who was it who paid him £5,000 -an enormous sum of money in those days when you could buy a new house much less? It was paid in the Autumn after the murder, 1961, in £1,000 installments ,so who paid it and why?
On the face of it ,it looks very much like he was paid to commit the A6 murder.
It was also reported by several witnesses that he acted extremely nervously,hurriedly and strangely both at the Vienna Hotel when he was seen late morning after the murder [23rd] at the Vienna Hotel and this nervous behaviour clearly continued up until Peter Sims ,the manager of the next hotel he stayed at, from 23rd August ,the Alexandra Court Hotel,in fact it was precisely because people had become suspicious of his nervy erratic behaviour there that they apparently complained to the manager. Finally Juliana Galves ,the hotel manager ,when she knocked on his door late morning on 23rd,saw on top of his suitcase a pair of black nylon gloves!

Best
Norma

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks John for that input.Yet more angles to chase up!

Clive and Victor,
the gloves are another aspect of the case where at the very least the killer appears to have been very mindful of hiding his fingerprints- something Hanratty had never bothered to do.

Nick,
Are you sure its now number 60?

Best
Norma

[NickB]

Nick,
Are you sure its now number 60?

Yes. The posts referred to by Victor say it is, and give details of how the numbering changed. The 'Ingledene' sign above the door is further confirmation.

[Natalie Severn]

Yes. The posts referred to by Victor say it is, and give details of how the numbering changed. The 'Ingledene' sign above the door is further confirmation.

Thanks Nick but how strange - number 19 currently has "Engledene" written on it!
Anyway I must go and take a look at the correct "Ingledene"!
Best
Norma

[CliveEnglish]

the gloves are another aspect of the case where at the very least the killer appears to have been very mindful of hiding his fingerprints- something Hanratty had never bothered to do.

Evening Norma

The prosecution felt impelled to try to establish that Hanratty was in possession of a pair of black gloves that they were ready to rely on very dubious evidence from Louise Anderson to achieve it. It is well known that Hanratty never wore gloves so there is no reason whatsoever that he should have started wearing them for this particular outing.
Also the prosecution introduced other evidence to try to link Hanratty which with hindsight is plainly wrong when compared with the facts.
For instance the evidence of Harry Hirons is a complete red herring but links the fuel station that the car stopped at to near to Hanratty's home. But the car stopped at was a Regent gas stand near London Airport as Valerie Storie quite explicity stated.
The location of the notorious roadworks changed from initial statements to magistrates court to trial and helped to further incriminate Hanratty.
According to Valerie Storie the killer said call me Jim, yet this has since been shown to be not what Valerie Storie really believed.

I am certain that these points all helped to convict Hanratty.

Acott was also, to be frank, misleading over the seizure of the Vienna Hotels books. Non disclosed police records show that Acott could not have been in possession of them for a full nine days, as he said at trial, before the 20th September when DSgt Oxford records them as having been removed. This may have not incriminated Hanratty and the books may not have been tampered with but it is surely another worrying aspect of the case as is the entry of a "deposit" from Alphon on the morning of the 22nd for £1 7s 6d.
Clive

Are England having a laugh or what. Worst performance I have even seen. Why didn't Heskey do what he does best and fall over just outside the oppositions box?

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks Clive,
Yes,I certainly noticed the roadworks ploy and the garage mix up! Absolutely !
But hey,the entire case rests so much either on the statements of seasoned ex convicts OR the fence, Louise Anderson.It doesnt make sense that the police first arrested Alphon -after a call from the hotel he was staying in saying they had an erratic oddball who never came out of his room and who may be the A6 the murderer! Then , hey presto - blow me down, the police discovering Alphon wasnt actually their man but there was a man who had been in the same Vienna hotel with him in the next room the previous night who had "returned and was probably-then definitely,their man because like an idiot he had left the gun cartridge cases there[ by mistake]-and they had been found by an "ex-gunner"-who recognised their importance instantly!.......and can you believe-out of all the men in the entire UK, they had found their man! Moreover he had left the gun wrapped for them ---in HIS hanky [no sign of any finger prints anywhere-none whatsoever but the gun was wrapped---like a pressie on the number 36a bus- "Hanratty- he planting clues so cops could get him! Please-let me believe its a joke!
And whose evidence suggested this?What a crew--- Louise Anderson"s, France"s and that of Snell and Nudds![Capped with a nice bit of made up trial evidence from one of the filthiest gangsters in 50"s and 60"s London crime -Roy Langdale!

But what I really want to know, Clive, is who filtered £5,000 into Alphon"s bank account that Autumn and why?Do you think Alphon was paid to stay in those two hotels so he could stomp round in the second hotel ,frightening everyone in it with his wild mutterings---maybe even spelling it out: "I did the A6 job! So they cottoned on got the cops , thereby leading them to Hanratty-- was this maybe part of the five grand he got paid or was he blackmailing those who he knew were complicit in the cover up?How much do you reckon France got for the fairy story about the 36 A bus? He topped himself as a result of something didnt he and really why on earth would the killer do that? Why not leave it in a bin or the Thames or whatever but surely not Hanratty"s favourite hiding place and with all that ammunition too and not a single finger print of Hanratty"s?

[NickB]

I think to say there was “no reason whatsoever” for him to wear gloves on a hold-up is (like “no evidence anywhere”) a slight exaggeration.

I don’t see how Harry Hirons’s evidence helped to convict if he wasn’t called to give it.

It is interesting how:
- Valerie’s recollection is taken to be reliable on selected occasions only, like the garage.
- Valerie’s mistaken first id casts doubt upon her second, yet Hanratty’s false first alibi casts no doubt upon his second.
- The perceived ingrained unreliability of those in the case with criminal connections does not apply to Hanratty who was a full time criminal.