a6 murder

[RonIpstone]

It's important to remember that the purpose of taking a sample from the clothing was simply to confirm the blood group of the rapist, nothing more significant than that. We shall probably never know the precise nature of what tests, if any, Dr Grant carried out. He may not have tested anything, simply excising a portion of crotch for future use if deemed necessary. If he considered that the police lab had correctly identified the rapist blood group then he may not have tested any portion of the fragment that he took away. We don't know exactly what he did or did not do, unless anyone has specific information on what happened to the samples taken by Dr Grant. We can't just assume that he tested the fragment and found rapist seminal fluid on it unless there is documentary evidence to support this view.

It's also important to understand that the fragment that Dr Grant took is not the fragment that was stored in a police file. They are two distinct fragments.

James

Quite so. But Docs Lincoln and Evison would have said so if there was no prospect of obtaining the rapist's DNA from the fragment.

I have always thought that a piece was cut from Val's knickers and half was used by Doc Grant and the other half was retained on file and the latter was the bit that was tested for DNA.


Ron

[Tony]

Be fair Graham - with regard to the debate about how Hanratty spoek - it was a very important deciding factor in making up Valerie's mind. Having pondered for twenty minutes - she asked each man in the line-up to speak and it was Hanratty's 'finking' instead of 'thinking' that apparently made up her mind. Other wintesses - called and not called at the trial - made reference to a man peddling watches or asking directions - who may very well have been Hanratty - and whose accent seemed to vary but the distinguishing features for some of those witnesses was London and Irish - both of which Hanratty was exp[osed to. It is not undreasonable to assume that he may have varied his accent slightly according to whom he was speaking. Hanratty's speech is very relevant to the whole case.

Hi Julie,

The voice or dialect is as you say quite an important aspect when viewing Valerie Stories evidence.

She only saw the gunman for a second or two but listened to him for hours.

In the first ID parade she picked out a totally innocent man who had nothing to do with the case. So Alphon was off the hook but Hanratty was soon on it.
Because of her first ‘go’ and failure her powers of identification must be seen as suspect.
In between the first and second ID parades she would have been updated by Acott as to what was going on.
We do not know to what extent.
On the second parade Hanratty stood out because of his dyed hair. Acott may have said that the suspect had dyed hair before she saw the men.
She looked at them for 20 minutes or so; she says she recognised Hanratty immediately but strung the parade out and then asked if they could speak.

If Hanratty was the killer and, if has as just been said he could speak in a type of Welsh, Scottish, Irish etc when it came to his turn to speak and maybe the others prior to him did not speak with a Cockney twang then why did he not use one of his numerous other dialects.

Tony.

[JamesDean]

Thanks James. That is one of the matters I have been trying to ascertain.Can you provide a source for this statement please?
Norma

Hi Norma,

This taken directly from the 2002 appeal judgment:

116. As a result of correspondence between James Hanratty’s then solicitors and the
DPP, arrangements were made for the pathologist, Dr Grant, to have access to
James Hanratty’s intimate samples and also to certain of the exhibits. It appears
from the records that Dr Grant examined the green jacket and trousers on
28 December 1961 and Valerie Storie’s slips and knickers the following day. It
was on this latter occasion that a portion of the crotch area of the knickers was
removed and thereafter, as seems clear, stored separately from the other
exhibits including the knickers from which it had been excised. As also seems
clear, a fragment of the excised portion was retained by the laboratory having
first been placed in a small envelope made of cellophane and sellotape which
was in turn put into a small brown envelope and the small envelope into a
larger envelope before being treasury tagged to a laboratory file. It was so
placed when rediscovered in 1991.

I think it's clear from the above that the excised portion of knicker was divided into two parts (fragments); the fragment that Dr Grant stored somewhere and the fragment that was retained on file in the laboratory and was the subject of the subsequent DNA tests.

It is interesting to note that the portion of the crotch area that was removed is only mentioned to have been stored separately from the other exhibits, including the knickers from which they had been removed. There is no mention of any tests being carried out or even a mention of Dr Grant having taken that portion away with him.

James

[Natalie Severn]

Tony,
There were national news bulletins and newspaper reports ,that Valerie must surely have been aware of and several of them referred to the suspect having "dyed hair"---to the extent that Acott had thought to have skull caps for each man in the id parade-- but in the event it didn"t happen .Others in the line up have since spoken out about how Hanratty stood out much more prominently than anybody else with hair "like a carrot in a bunch of bananas".
Acott was at the parade and apparently said "Well Done" to Valerie,which is also a bit worrying--indicating something quite skewed for the qualification of an "objective observer".

Has anybody read the links referring to how DNA can disappear if there was "insufficient" left on the fragment----as could so easily have happened if the seminal fluid of the rapist had been "targeted for testing" and "scraped off' by a spatula for analysis from the crotch piece.Its the very first time I have ever seen it written Ron,that Dr Grant cut the excised piece in half,as you suggest, all I have ever seen written is that Grant -----"excised a small piece of cloth from the crotch area of the knickers and threw the rest of the Knickers away' which brings me back to my point.How much of the rapist"s DNA did he "remove" for Blood group analysis,?He must have at the very least "tested" that piece of cloth to see what the stain on it was comprised of?

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks James.I couldnt find that reference for some reason---but stand corrected, the piece does indeed seem to have been cut into two pieces--one to be stored--the other kept somewhere by Dr Grant.
Best N

[Derrick]

Hello Derrick,

I do not profess to be a scientist and a lot of what you have written has gone completely over my head. I am therefore ill-equipped to comment on your post, but that is not going to stop me.


I did peruse your post carefully and I am at a loss to understand why you say I did not. If you are saying that I wrote something similar to that which you had written, then I can go back to April of this year where I expressed similar thoughts; yet I did not accuse you of not paying attention to my earlier work.

Now the gravamen of your argument against the DNA tests is LCN mixed profile interpretation is invalid. I noticed that you have said this four times and each time it has been in bold type. Now this is where my ignorance comes to the fore, are you saying that 'invalid' means 'of no effect' in other words worthless? And are you also saying that Hanratty's DNA was not present in any shape or form, whether as a contaminant or as a primary source (through his seminal fluid)?

Now then, do you accept that VS's DNA was present?
And the same with MG?
I assume that you do not for the same reason you do not accept that Hanratty's DNA was detected and profiled, namely LCN mixed profile interpretation is invalid.

So are you saying that the three profiles thrown up by the tests, Jim, VS and MG could have been the profiles of any three people in the whole wide world, for example yourself, me and say Norma? Do the boffins when they perform theses tests have the DNA profiles that they are looking for to hand, and then look at the test results and the meaningless graphs and say, "bingo, there's Jim's DNA and there's Val's etc"? In other words, they have a preconceived notion of what they are looking for, and the results are interpreted in that light?

Or, do they, the boffins, test the material, in the present case the knicker fragment, isolate or try to isolate DNA profiles and having done so then try to match the profiles so isolated with profiles already on file?

What I am trying to get at is that if the testing produced profiles of VS and MG whose DNA was more than likely to be there, then why should the third profile so isolated be open to question?

As to the evidence, my view is:

1 Val's evidence was compromised by the first (Alphon) id parade;

2. There was circumstantial evidence that Hanratty had possession of the murder weapon in the Vienna on the night before the murder;

3 That evidence was compromised by Acott getting Nudds to change his statement;

4. The rest of the prosecution evidence was not enough to hang a man.

If Jim had not left the safety of the dock he might well be alive today.
But
5. A changed alibi is worse than no alibi and to change it when he did was bound to excite the suspicion of even the most dim and stupid jury;

6 I am convinced that Jim did not stay in Ingledene for the oft cited reason that to have stayed at Ingledene would have meant sleeping in an attic with a bath and Hanratty's accommodation was a rear room with a sink and a window with curtains;

7. The jury heard the evidence and did not believe Hanratty.

8 The DNA tests decisively tip the balance in favour of guilt.

And that is where we started.

I mentioned that Dr Lincoln had been replaced by Dr Evison, so at the very least the Hanratty family had two boffins on the case and we have to assume that the best they could do was what they did which was to accept that Hanratty's DNA was present , but as a contaminant. I

f anyone with access to the test data and with suitable qualifications can come up with an explanation to explain away Hanratty's apparent guilt then we will all be ears. So far this has not happened, all we have had is Bob Woffinden writing in the Oldie saying that funding is needed for a fresh evaluation of the evidence. I think enough is enough but if anyone wishes to donate to the cause then they are welcome to do so. I do not expect a stampede though.

Ron

Ron
I agree with you when you say that nobody here has access to the actual DNA results.

But I must insist that those who are relying on the DNA evidence in Hanratty of 2002 must accept the findings of the Reed ruling of 2009 for LCN profiling.

Certain criteria must be met before LCN is acceptable, much of which comes from the Caddy report of 2008.

Briefly these include inter alia:
1) LCN testing must include a quantitation step.
2) Caveats must be given as to the limitations of the LCN technique below the stochastic threshold.
3) No assumptions can be made as to the source material of any DNA profiles garnered via LCN.
4) All DNA evidence, whether LCN or ortherwise must be viewed in accordance with any other evidence in a particular case.

But the most important point is that of the stochastic threshold itself. The Reed ruling says that this between 100 and 200 picograms. What the Reed judges fail to mention is that this threshold is for single source samples irrespective of whether LCN or SGM+ is used. Stochastic effects occur all the time in DNA profiling. The setting of a minimum quantity along with an established quantity cut off point (RFU level) makes SGM+ reliable for single source profiles.

In Reed only 2 paragraphs were given over to mixed profiles (#'s 50 & 51). Yet both of these paragraphs deal only with SGM+ profiling. The issue of mixed profile interpretation for LCN has been fudged by Reed (and also by Caddy). Therefore LCN mixed profile interpretation is still not valid for use as evidence in court.

True SGM+ mixed profiles are above the stochastic threshold (and recommended RFU level) but still cause problems for interpretation that cause problems for defence lawyers and juries to make sense of. Ron, you have mentioned that expert opinion is lacking here. Put yourself in a jury persons place in a difficult case involving DNA. How well do you think that you would be able to cope? Not very well I would think considering that you have admitted that most of the "buzz-words" and jargon let alone the fundamental aspects of the science have gone over your head.

In LCN mixtures if any one contributors DNA is below the stochastic theshold then problems occur. That is why LCN mixed profile interpretation has still not been validated by the wider scientific community. One lab may identify one set of alleles whilst another lab may identify something else altogther.

Ok, so where are we?

1) Quantitation only began to be carried out by the FSS in the summer of 2009. Therefore not done in Hanratty.
2) No caveats of the limitations of LCN were given by Dr Whitaker in Hanratty. In fact he went further and instructed Mr Sweeney that the court should rely on the DNA evidence.
3) The prosecution insisted that any contamination must be semen, which was grossly beyond what the LCN tests could discover.
4) The judges had already made up their minds that the DNA alone was overwhelming proof of Hanratty's guilt. This is most worrying.

So therefore as the DNA evidence in Hanratty was a LCN mixed profile, with any number of contributors DNA below the stochastic threshold, then no one can say that it goes very far at all to proving that Hanratty was the A6 murderer.

Your points about the case against Hanratty, bar the DNA, are salient and, I believe, the ones that really should be being discussed here.
Valerie Stories reliability as a witness.
The validity of the Hanratty identity parade.
The reliability of Skillett and Trowers eye witness testimony and identification.
The purely circumstantial evidence regarding the cartridge cases and the place where the gun was found.
Nudd's evidence needs to examined in light of the other Vienna staff's evidence.
The defendent at that time (1962) did not have to utter a word and I agree his change of alibi may have been a damning factor. But now, the Rhyl alibi is truly compelling when taken as a whole and compared to Hanratty's explaination of it to his defence team.

Finally Ron, if you truly think that "enough is enough" then what are you doing here?

Derrick

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks Derrick.I think I understood most of that ! Thanks for a really outstanding contribution to this elusive case.
Norma

[RonIpstone]

Finally Ron, if you truly think that "enough is enough" then what are you doing here?

Derrick

In saying enough is enough, I mean as the ancient Romans often used to mutter, "Interest reipublicae ut sit finis litium".

Are you seriously suggesting that more public money be thrown away on more DNA tests or evaluations? And even if you get round the DNA problem, you have the problem that the case was not determined on the DNA evidence alone. A further appeal is surely out of the question.

It is a bit hard on the Court of Appeal to ask it sitting in 2002 to apply the rules set out in a report delivered 6 years later and a case decided 7 years later, but let us remind ourselves what that court decided. First, that the DNA evidence was admissible at the insistence of the prosecution; second, that the DNA evidence indicated that Hanratty had been the rapist(or more accurately, no one other than Hanratty was the rapist); third, that there had been no irregularity in the trial process which made the trial fatally flawed; fourth, that the conviction was not unsafe; fifth, that the DNA evidence made a strong case even stronger; sixth, that the court did not really welcome old cases such as this one.


The Caddy report is all very well in dealing with the evidence that should be put before the jury, but Hanratty had had his jury trial, and they, the jury members, thought him a rapist and a murderer. Whatever else you might say about the DNA it did nothing to contradict the jury's verdict.

Now you may be right with your scientific mumbo-jumbo, but to my mind the opportunity to discredit the DNA evidence in the Hanratty case has passed and will never come again, and that is what I mean by enough is enough.

Ron

[Natalie Severn]

Ron,
A brief "re-cap" of this case:Its worth reiterrating what Michael Sherrard said in May 2002, after the 2002 appeal judgement was rejected ,largely because of the LCN DNA tests.Sherrard is now one of the most respected and distinguished QC"sin the country and he was then James Hanratty"s trial barrister:

"MICHAEL SHERRARD QC : I really couldn't bring myself to take in that those who had concealed the evidence in a capital case could have been as wicked as that.

MICHAEL SHERRARD: The public were cheated, the system was cheated. I don't regard myself as having been cheated. I, I'm really an intermediate player, but Hanratty was hanged. He was cheated. If the other material that was not disclosed to us would have made the difference, so it, it's fair to say that there seems to be a strong argument at least for saying that the trial was fatally flawed and the word fatal has a real significance in this context.[Michael Sherrard QC 16th May 2002]

Quite frankly I never read of a case so laden with bizarre "coincidences"and I don"t think many other people have either .Coincidences such as Alphon and Hanratty said [by Nudds] to have been in the same room 24 at the Vienna Hotel . Alphon last seen by Juliana Galves-the only reliable witness in the VIenna Hotel , 'disshevelled" in Vienna Hotel room on 23rd August, just 10 hours after the killing with a pair of black gloves like those the killer wore lying on top of his suitcase ! He was ofcourse the first to be arrested and was suspected as far back as August 27th because he was thought to be behaving in a suspiciously crazy manner---and the man who later "Confessed"] and Hanratty [who protested his innocence to the last and was hanged for the crime] both men having being been found to have stayed in the same Vienna Hotel---Hanratty on the 22nd August and Alphon over the 22/23 August period when his movements have never been accounted for.
The testimony relied upon by the prosecution in court---apart from that of the sole witness Valerie Storie who only glimpsed his face for a second or two ,came from Soho gangsters-all apparently believed to be "telling the truth" --yet those Hanratty witnesses who were decent ordinary members of the Rhyl or Liverpool community remain tainted by accusations of being "fantasists"!

[RonIpstone]

MICHAEL SHERRARD: The public were cheated, the system was cheated. I don't regard myself as having been cheated. I, I'm really an intermediate player, but Hanratty was hanged. He was cheated. If the other material that was not disclosed to us would have made the difference, so it, it's fair to say that there seems to be a strong argument at least for saying that the trial was fatally flawed and the word fatal has a real significance in this context

Hello Norma or Natalie,

We have been over this before. The people Sherrard says were cheated were only cheated IF the other material that was not disclosed to [ the defence] would have made the difference. Sherrard goes on to say that there was a strong argument at least for saying that the trial was fatally flawed. In fact the strong argument was made and was rejected.

The testimony relied upon by the prosecution in court---apart from that of the sole witness Valerie Storie who only glimpsed his face for a second or two ,came from Soho gangsters-all apparently believed to be "telling the truth" --yet those Hanratty witnesses who were decent ordinary members of the Rhyl or Liverpool community remain tainted by accusations of being "fantasists"!

You really will have to stop making these wild accusations which are not supported by the facts. The prosecution called many witnesses who were not Soho gangsters, off the top of my head, how about the forensic science witnesses, the Redbridge witnesses, the bloke who discovered the gun, the bloke who discovered the spent cartridge cases and even Acott himself. They all might have been wrong or mistaken, they may all have had an agenda which did not include the whole truth, but they were not Soho gangsters.

Ron

[JamesDean]

Bob Woffinden, from insidetime issue February 2010

I don't know if this has been posted before so apologies if it has. This is a thought provoking article written by Bob Woffinden in the February 2010 edition of 'Inside Times - The National Newspaper for Prisoners' and is well worth reading. He is commenting on LCN DNA and refers to the Hanratty case as follows:

"The Forensic Science Service maintains that there have been no convictions on LCN DNA evidence alone. Yet it seems to me that there are many cases where such evidence has been crucial. For example, in the still-controversial case of James Hanratty (who was executed for murder in 1962) the LCN DNA is the only extant evidence; everything else has been discredited."

Full article here:

http://www.insidetime.org/articleview.asp?a=665

[NickB]

"The Forensic Science Service maintains that there have been no convictions on LCN DNA evidence alone. Yet it seems to me that there are many cases where such evidence has been crucial. For example, in the still-controversial case of James Hanratty (who was executed for murder in 1962) the LCN DNA is the only extant evidence; everything else has been discredited."

The pertinent phrase in that quote is “it seems to me that”.

Woffinden was instrumental in instigating the DNA tests and approved of them. He was looking forward to the results and hoped that they would trigger the case being returned to the appeal court - whose verdict would settle the matter.

Only when the DNA tests did not give the result he wanted did he turn against them.

[Derrick]

An article about the reliability of DNA evidence given in court from the Daily Mail today

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1302156/DNA-fingerprinting-wrong-results.html

This particular extract is especially worrying when looking at the Hanratty case.

The chances of two people having the same DNA fingerprint are between 800,000 and one billion to one. But there are concerns that increasing reliance on tiny samples of blood and saliva, often from more than one person, leaves interpretation open to the scientist's judgment.

It is interesting to note that the FSS are bigging up their reputation when so much controversy surrounds LCN (Hoey/Caddy/Reed) and that (apart from Holland and New Zealand) no other country would countenance LCN as being anywhere approaching reliable for use as evidence in courts of criminal law.

It appears that people are starting to come to their senses and are beginning to realise that DNA profiling is as subjective and prone to human error as any other forensic science. The clients of these services, usually the police, have a vested interest in getting, what is commonly termed, "a result".

The last quote is also worth noting;

'A case is never hung solely on DNA evidence. The Crown Prosecution Service is very clear that nothing will go to court on just DNA evidence.'

In the Hanratty appeal case of 2002 the Crown Prosecution Service put forward nothing else but LCN DNA evidence. No other rebuttal evidence was entered.

[NickB]

The last quote is also worth noting;
In the Hanratty appeal case of 2002 the Crown Prosecution Service put forward nothing else but LCN DNA evidence. No other rebuttal evidence was entered.

But doesn't "nothing will go to court on just DNA evidence" mean the court case overall (i.e. 1962-2002) rather than an individual appeal?

[Derrick]

But doesn't "nothing will go to court on just DNA evidence" mean the court case overall (i.e. 1962-2002) rather than an individual appeal?

Nick
The CPS's statement to me is very clear; "The Crown Prosecution Service is very clear that nothing will go to court on just DNA evidence." Note court in the singular.

The first sentence of that section "A case is never hung solely on DNA evidence." refutes the Appeal ruling of 2002 where the judges said that the DNA alone was certain proof of Hanratty being the A6 murderer, which is now in contravention of the Caddy reviews findings. Plus the original case against Hanratty, contrary to what the judges in 2002 thought, was not at all strong.

The appeal of 2002 got it completely wrong and it is time to put it right.

Derrick