a6 murder

[Victor]

Good evening Norma,

Valerie"s first description of the gunman was not initially consistent.

Absolutely inaccurate. The first description issued by the police was inconsistent with subsequent police descriptions, and that is as much as you can say.

Valerie sat down and helped to construct the first identikit picture of the gunman---that is the picture on the left.It bears a surpising similarity to Alphon-feature by feature and looks nothing like Hanratty.

That is entirely subjective, and Charlotte France told Hanratty the identikit looked like him, and she knew him better than you or me and was made shortly after it was issued.

Her first verbal description was given to the undergraduate from Oxford University,who had first found her, Mr John Kerr.According to Mr Kerr, Valerie told him the gunman had"staring eyes and light,fairish hair.

John Kerr who also thought Valerie's name was "Mary" and they'd "picked up" a hitch-hiker!

And what exactly was his description of the "policeman" that he gave his initial notes to?

However after Kerr had given his evidence which was close to the trial opening at Ampthill ,the magistrates asked if the form could be produced----there wasa pause and a flurry and the magistrates told the court they were not available.Eventually some of the traffic forms were found with another person"s writing on them but no sign of the description. The defence ,we are told , gasped in astonishment.

[sarcasm]Oo-er theatrics, just what was needed at that moment[/sarcasm]

Anyway about an hour after talking to Mr Kerr Valerie made another statement to Chief Inspector Whiffen and Woman Inspector Arnett , of the Bedfordshire Police.No record exists outside the Home Office of that statement all we have is the description released to all newspapers and to televisionthat the killer was aged about 30.5ft 6 ins of medium build,wearinmg a dark suit. He has dark hair, pale face and deep set brown eyes Evening News August 23rd; all national and provincial newspapers August 24th.

Come on Norma, that television appearance is on the Panorama and Horizon programmes on the bbc website and U-Tube and the Inspector mumbles and says "deep set, not very deep set"

I will come back to the discepancies but here I think its worth mentioning that it was on the basis of the lost initial description in court that day, that set of one of the chief investigators into this case Mr Jean Justice.

Jean Justice wasn't an investigator, let alone a chief investigator. He was present at most of the public sessions of the trial and formed a different opinion to the jury.

He smelt something wasnt right from the start and devoted the rest of his life to trying to fathom the truth.

No. He formed an opinion and spent the rest of his life trying to prove that he was right, and didn't survive to see the DNA results which proved him dead wrong.

In the end he was convinced the gunman was Alphon all along as he confessed several times

He convinced Alphon he was guilty and spent a huge amount of time and money provoking Alphon into confessing. Even to the point of getting himself institutionalised. So a mentally unstable man tried to prove another mentally unstable man didn't rape and almost kill someone and kill another. Hmmm... Are you trying to claim he didn't have an vested interest?

KR,
Vic.

[Victor]

The evidence that Anderson gave completely contradicted that of the prosecutions case so was to all intents and purposes worthless but she was still called. Her evidence of the scratches on Hanratty's face being the prima facie example. No one else saw the scratches after the murder. So it was total B*ll*cks.
I'm in total agreement with Norma. You are just making this up as you go along Victor. As far as I can see none of what you have posted so far as I've been on here is true. I am struggling to keep up with the number of errors that you have made. Are you a Troll by the way?

Clive,

I don't want this to turn into a slanging match and have not insulted you so why are you resorting to personal insults? Norma and Julie (amongst others, but particularly them) respond reasonably to my posts and make valid points.

The style and tone of your posts lead me to suspect you are another sock-puppet for SteveS and Reg, and I sincerely hope this is not the case.

Please contest my points as I make them by quoting what you are referring to and demonstrate where I have made an error that I have not subsequently admnitted to.

KR,
Vic.

[Natalie Severn]

Victor -come on yourself!You have in no way proven that the LCN DNA tests are trustworthy.You have attempted to prove they are totally reliable by several sort of "blinding with science" tracts but it doesnt mean these tests are reliable---just because you say so Victor-particularly not when the US wont use them because of their "unreliability" and nor will most European courts.
The more I read about this case ,the less trust I have in what went on.Reading through the entire Hawes Report is just like being given a lesson in whitewash---exactly like what went on with Scott Henderson"s "inquiry into the Timothy Evans case in 1955 which found the hapless Timothy Evans guilty.No I dont trust these secretive procedures and to be perfectly honest, not in such a very bizarre case as this is .Right from its very beginning its secrets-its concealment by the authorities of what was going on between its adulterous victims,the spectacle of the desperately miserable and hurt wife,[and Victor I do not like the idea of a young woman colluding with an unfaithful man to cheat on his wife which lessened any chance of their reconcilliation ] and then the strange release of double identikits to the press---neither one looking remotely like the other---lokk closely folk and be honest- then the "conveniently lost description of the undergraduate from Oxford who had nothing whatever to gain by being deceitful ,John Kerr"s notes---I see we readily believe the thoroughly corrupt witnesses Nudds and Langland , while we cast gross aspersions on the testimony of John Kerr-----but the muddled recollections are somehow sacrosanct! Nudds could not even get his testimony straight for goodness sake about who stayed where, when ,in the Vienna Hotel -Nudds - fresh from a nine year prison term, for crying out loud! Oh yes you believe him ok---ofcourse-!So no,against such a backdrop of deceit,betrayal,lies and gangster"s evidence, I most certainly mistrust the tests results on semen found on the one segment of knicker sample of 2002 ---just as I mistrust how we are told it got there in 1961. But no---- there have never been miscarriages of Justice. Colin Stagg was never "set up" by a police woman - the Guildford 6 never happened,Timothy Evans was a murderer-hanged for it-he was.

[Victor]

You have in no way proven that the LCN DNA tests are trustworthy.You have attempted to prove they are totally reliable by several sort of "blinding with science" tracts but it doesnt mean these tests are reliable---just because you say so Victor-particularly not when the US wont use them because of their "unreliability" and nor will most European courts.

Good morning Norma,

I've responded to specific concerns about the LCN process and quoted the most current assessment of it's reliability - the Reed\Reed and Garmson judgment from 2009, which says LCN is reliable provided the sample size is above 100-200pg.

The more I read about this case ,the less trust I have in what went on.Reading through the entire Hawes Report is just like being given a lesson in whitewash

Most reports are viewed as a whitewash by the losing side, but that doesn't mean they are wrong.

No I dont trust these secretive procedures and to be perfectly honest, not in such a very bizarre case as this is .Right from its very beginning its secrets-its concealment by the authorities of what was going on between its adulterous victims

How do you know the authorites concealed the adultery? And can you catergorically state that the adultery was concealed? It wasn't made public, but that doesn't mean it wasn't revealed to the Police.

the spectacle of the desperately miserable and hurt wife,[and Victor I do not like the idea of a young woman colluding with an unfaithful man to cheat on his wife which lessened any chance of their reconcilliation ]

Janet Gregsten was hurt as anyone widowed in such a gruesome manner would be, but I quoted her words from Woffinden, and she appeared to accept Mike's adultery as beneficial to her marriage.

and then the strange release of double identikits to the press---neither one looking remotely like the other---lokk closely folk and be honest

Which was explained, the two were irreconcilable so the police released both. One from the surviving victim, and the other from other witnesses. What would you have done in Acott's situation?

I've also linked to an article which discusses the reliability of identikits, and the ones issued are not vastly dissimilar to photos of Hanratty, and Charlotte France for one contemporaneously acknowledged they resemble Hanratty.

then the "conveniently lost description of the undergraduate from Oxford who had nothing whatever to gain by being deceitful ,John Kerr"s notes

To pinch a quote from Shawshank Redemption, it's decidedly inconvenient that the notes were lost because then the error-prone Kerr would be less of an issue.

I see we readily believe the thoroughly corrupt witnesses Nudds and Langland , while we cast gross aspersions on the testimony of John Kerr

Nudds and Langdale have dubious histories, and their testimonies are suspect as a result, but not definitely wrong.

John Kerr is error-prone, and that casts a shadow over his testimony especially when he contradicts other testimony, such as Valerie.

Nudds could not even get his testimony straight for goodness sake about who stayed where, when ,in the Vienna Hotel

Don't believe Nudds. Just accept Hanratty when he says he spent the night in the Vienna. That links him to the room where the cartridge cases were found.

I most certainly mistrust the tests results on semen found on the one segment of knicker sample of 2002 ---just as I mistrust how we are told it got there in 1961.

I don't.

But no---- there have never been miscarriages of Justice. Colin Stagg was never "set up" by a police woman - the Guildford 6 never happened,Timothy Evans was a murderer-hanged for it-he was.

And here you have blundered right into ridiculousness. It undermines the value of your other comments.

KR,
Vic.

[NickB]

What heightened and prolonged Janet Gregsten’s agony were the allegations in Foot’s book, according to her son in this interview.

[Natalie Severn]

Advice given to FBI by DNA scientists publication number01-26

continued from above--- of the Laboratory Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation].

Hi Victor,Clive,Nick etc,
I must explain that both computer AND wireless internet connection are now playing up so I am having to post one small piece at a time.Anyhow here goes:

Vic,I acknowledge your superior understanding of DNA - its advantages and pitfalls etc -and admit that as a chemist your understanding of its functions and the scientific language that accompanies it will be much more familiar to you than to myself and others following this thread.

However,the conclusions of the Budowle document itself were that caution should be undertaken when attempting LCN typing....that the success rate is low; often the results cannot be interpreted or are meaningless for the case .The method CANNOT be used for exculpatory purposes. However Low Copy number DNA for single source samples where exogenous DNA can be removed and for typing human remains LCN typing may be applicable ......but on degraded samples it is virtually worthless.
Great caution and consideration are advised.

Clearly it is not without its pitfalls.We know next to nothing about the LCN DNA Test except it was a small sample size of 42 year old cloth which was found in a drawer---we know nothing whatever about what its history was initially----.The last piece of advice in the article for the FBI is the following:
Limitations should be disclosed to all involved including lab personnel,supervisors,police,lawyers,the court,the public otherwise misunderstandings may arise as a result of its limitations.

Will turn to other points you make in a minute.
Norma

[Natalie Severn]

re Miscarriages of Justice Gareth Peirce and the Guildford Four

Victor,
Regarding your last comment in your last post to me above: In a book which can be found in any library by Gerry Conlan,one of the Guildford Four cleared after fifteen years of charges of murder,Conlan explains how through the diligent research of a woman lawyer named Gareth Pierce,much previous evidence was found that never saw the light of day in court.Crucially, an alibi was traced named Charles Burke, a green grocer, the discovery of this alibi alone revealed a sea of of stuff which had not been disclosed at court.Gareth Pierce"s first task had been to see whether the police had followed up each and every lead and after a painstaking search ,she found that the police had found Charles Burke,they had got his statement "before" the trial, and the prosecution had witheld evidence from the defence. The is an important legal point : The prosecution had a legal duty to tell the defence this and they did not.In fact another file was found with a label which read "Not to be disclosed to the defence" - and in it another copy of Charles Burke's statement .The case was subsequently quashed.Gerry Conlan walked free after 15 years inside for murder.[The rest of the Guildford Four did too].All this is to be found in the book "Proved Innocent" by Gerry Conlan and copies of the book are in most UK libraries.
Now the argument was that they had been framed and I dont want to get into this anymore than giving specific evidence of a crucially important statement by an alibi being witheld , for whatever reason,and what this amounts to in law.
In the case of James Hanratty I cited a document that a perfectly innocent witness, the first man to find Valerie Storie ,John Kerr,then a young student at Oxford University,had passed to the police containing notes he made about Valerie Storie"s parent"s address and her description of the gunman.This description never made its way to court---they said it had never been given to them but bits of it were later found with somebody else"s annotations on it----and just like Mrs Jones Mr Kerr was made to look as though he was inventing it.
These couple of examples are the tip of the iceberg in this extraordinary case ofcourse!

PS Janet Gregsten was not prepared to divorce her husband .Mike had left her when she was pregnant with their second son,the year before the murder, and he returned home only shortly before his birth.Janet Gregsten said:"I wont say I wasnt affected by them [the affairs]I was-but I wasnt jealous.{Presumably the interviewer had asked her if she was jealous and she had denied it-extraordinary if she wasnt upset or jealous I must say-but then people may have begun to think she had been a jealous , vengeful wife and that would never have done----if you think about it Vic!}

[Natalie Severn]

Nick,
John Kerr did not say any such thing about a hitch hiker!That was how someone interpreted his statement saying:..........."I had a short coversation with her,asking her what had happened.She said ,"We picked up a man near Slough"she actually did say that,which is why it was originally thought to be a hitch hiker killing.
"She gave me certain details which I then wrote down.I had a clip board,with various pages from a census form,so I turned one over.I wrote down the number of the car,her name---I remember this especially because she said to me,as I thought, that her name was Mary Storie." "I asked her what the man was like and she said "He had big staring eyes,fairish brown hair,slightly taller than I am,and I am 5ft 3 I/2 inches
"I can remember the hair", Kerr recollected in 1991, "because I said to her,Do you mean like mine?-amazingly she said,"Yes".

Why do you need to disbelieve or discredit this man"s statement,Nick ---why did the prosecution ?What happened to his missing notes of Valerie Storie"s description ?

[Victor]

However,the conclusions of the Budowle document itself were that caution should be undertaken when attempting LCN typing....that the success rate is low; often the results cannot be interpreted or are meaningless for the case .The method CANNOT be used for exculpatory purposes. However Low Copy number DNA for single source samples where exogenous DNA can be removed and for typing human remains LCN typing may be applicable ......but on degraded samples it is virtually worthless.

Hi Norma,

Thank you for acknowledging my understanding of scientific language.

The reason that Dr Budowle and others believe that LCN cannot be used for exculpatory purposes is because effects such as allellic drop-in and drop-out are more likely to occur when using LCN, which means that peaks in the profile can theoretically move when the drop-in coincides with a drop-out, but I believe that is overcautious. The reason I believe that is because these effects are unpredictable and the chances of them repeatedly happening on the repeat runs of the analysis are negligible, especially when you need to morph one profile into another for up to 26 peaks. This has never been observed experimentally for 2 peaks in a sample. It's just so phenominally unlikely.

We know next to nothing about the LCN DNA Test except it was a small sample size of 42 year old cloth which was found in a drawer---we know nothing whatever about what its history was initially

The sample was found sealed in two envelopes and a cellophane and sellotape package in 1991, exactly how it was left in 1961.

KR,
Vic.

[Limehouse]

Hi Clive,

No. The corroborative evidence need not be forensic, and the lack of forensic evidence is absolutely not evidence someone was not there because forensic evidence can be obliterated by subsequent events if there was sufficient material to be detected in the first place.

KR,
Vic.

Evening my friends,

What? Can I believe what I am reading above?

So, the rapist's DNA COULD be obliterated by a 'subsequent event' such as contamination, evaporation, or such like??

[Limehouse]

Hi Clive,

The slugs in the Vienna were from the murder weapon, and were left there by someone, and as the DNA shows Hanratty was the rapist, and we know he occupied room 24 on the Monday night, it clearly demonstrates Hanratty very probably left the cases in that room.

Again, the DNA demonstrates Hanratty was the rapist and his hanky was found wrapped round the gun, hence makes it incredibly likely that he was the person who left it on the bus, but he could have given the gun wrapped in his hanky to Dixie France or someone else, who left it there.


Valerie gave evidence about the manner of speech of the killer before Hanratty was connected to the case, so the DNA identification of Hanratty and Hanratty's cockney dialect corroborate eachother.


KR,
Vic.

There is NO evidence what so ever that the slugs were left there the night before the murder. 'Very probably' is not acceptable evidence when a man's life is at risk.

Re the hanky, it is worth noting that testimony shows Hanratty carried a SPARE hanky to wipe down surfaces, and handle stolen goods. He felt this was safer than being found with gloves if stopped and searched. If Hanratty had used a hanky to dispose of the gun, it would have been a spare hanky, not one covered in his mucus. To me, the hanky is a dead give away that he did not dispose of the gun himself.

Re accents, are we to believe that Hanratty was the only man in southern England that night sporting a cockney accent?

[Limehouse]

Victor -come on yourself!You have in no way proven that the LCN DNA tests are trustworthy.You have attempted to prove they are totally reliable by several sort of "blinding with science" tracts but it doesnt mean these tests are reliable---just because you say so Victor-particularly not when the US wont use them because of their "unreliability" and nor will most European courts.
The more I read about this case ,the less trust I have in what went on.Reading through the entire Hawes Report is just like being given a lesson in whitewash---exactly like what went on with Scott Henderson"s "inquiry into the Timothy Evans case in 1955 which found the hapless Timothy Evans guilty.No I dont trust these secretive procedures and to be perfectly honest, not in such a very bizarre case as this is .Right from its very beginning its secrets-its concealment by the authorities of what was going on between its adulterous victims,the spectacle of the desperately miserable and hurt wife,[and Victor I do not like the idea of a young woman colluding with an unfaithful man to cheat on his wife which lessened any chance of their reconcilliation ] and then the strange release of double identikits to the press---neither one looking remotely like the other---lokk closely folk and be honest- then the "conveniently lost description of the undergraduate from Oxford who had nothing whatever to gain by being deceitful ,John Kerr"s notes---I see we readily believe the thoroughly corrupt witnesses Nudds and Langland , while we cast gross aspersions on the testimony of John Kerr-----but the muddled recollections are somehow sacrosanct! Nudds could not even get his testimony straight for goodness sake about who stayed where, when ,in the Vienna Hotel -Nudds - fresh from a nine year prison term, for crying out loud! Oh yes you believe him ok---ofcourse-!So no,against such a backdrop of deceit,betrayal,lies and gangster"s evidence, I most certainly mistrust the tests results on semen found on the one segment of knicker sample of 2002 ---just as I mistrust how we are told it got there in 1961. But no---- there have never been miscarriages of Justice. Colin Stagg was never "set up" by a police woman - the Guildford 6 never happened,Timothy Evans was a murderer-hanged for it-he was.

Bravo!

[Limehouse]

It's great to see so much debate going on........and welcome to the new posters! I do pop into the thread most days just to see if there's anything new that's come to light.

Let's be honest, if is wasn't for the DNA results there would still be many doubts about JH's conviction. But the fact is that most people believe that the DNA results were conclusive proof that "Jim did it".

Me? Still sitting on the fence with some reasonable doubt!

Great to hear from you Yvonne! We don't hear enough!

[Limehouse]

Natalie

I do not think Hanratty did it.
But think about what you write.
In pilloring Ewer and Janet and Valerie for their extra marital afairs, remember that James had sex with Carol France, unprotected sex in a back street against a wall and she was 16 year old, barely legal age. This is not a relationshoip of a girlfriend of long standing.
She was the daughter of Parents who had on the surface up to that time been good to him and Hanratty knew that there would be trouble. His own words "her father would go potty if he knew"

I increasingly believe that Charles France did find out there has been sex between the two of them and that affected his subsequent behaviour towards Hanratty. The '3rd figure' was not such a factor with him I think as the fact that Carol had been 'violated' by 'Uncle Jim'.
Remember some time after the trial Carol France took an overdose of iron tablets. Why would she have been particularly stressed about the trial etc? Her parents, yes as they gave evidence but Carol's evidence was just factual and not contested by Swanwick or Sherrard.

Good stuff John, but although I agree that Dixie would have been unhappy about his daughter's liaison with Hanratty, and although Hanratty took shocking liberties, we have to look at this event in the context of the times. At 16 years old or a little older, many girls got married, often to older men. By that age many had already been at work for at least a year. Today, we are horrified (well I am, at least) by the idea of sex in a back alley against a wall but back then many young people did not have somewhere private to go to perform. Having said that, he could at least have hired a hotel room for the night.

To me, Hanratty's sexual behaviour was little different from many free young men of the time and it is to his credit that he freely admitted, under no pressure, that this event took place. He even had the grace to refer to having been 'intimate with her' rather than using the terms often reserved for such liaisons in those days.

[Natalie Severn]

The sample was found sealed in two envelopes and a cellophane and sellotape package in 1991, exactly how it was left in 1961.

a]Can you give your source for this Victor as it contradicts Woffinden"s claim about the way the sample appeared in the forensic science laboratory in Lambeth in 1991?

b]While I certainly do acknowledge the advantage your background as a chemist gives in terms of understanding scientific jargon and LCN DNA,surely you are not claiming Vic, to be in the same league as a leading expert in LCN DNA and a former chief laboratory scientist with the FBI in Washington ? No disrespect but we are talking about a very high level of expertise here ,a scientist with international recognition when referring to Dr Budowle,wouldnt you agree? Best Norma