a6 murder

[Victor]

Skillet's identification is contradicted by the evidence put forward by Blackhall.

Hi Derrick,

How does Blackhall contradict Skillet?

I believe that Blackhall doesn't corroborate Skillet, but likewise doesn't contradict him either, certainly the "3 stripes on the bumper" part of his evidence confirms they encountered Gregsten's aunt's car.

KR,
Vic.

[Limehouse]

Hi Derrick,

How does Blackhall contradict Skillet?

I believe that Blackhall doesn't corroborate Skillet, but likewise doesn't contradict him either, certainly the "3 stripes on the bumper" part of his evidence confirms they encountered Gregsten's aunt's car.

KR,
Vic.

It seems that Blackhall reported his encounter with the MM the following day - 24 August - after it had been reported in the press that the car had been recovered in Redbridge. He immediately identified the car by its torn window label and stripes on the bumper. However - was he shown the car or did he give a statement describing the car and its distinctive characteristics? If he was shown the car - he may well have been lead - perhaps by police asking him if he remembered the stripes on the bumper and the torn label.

Personally - if I was watching the movements of a car that kept jumping lanes and driving as erratically as this car appeared to be - I doubt if I would have noticed things like the bumper or a label in the wondow - epecially if it involved looking at several locations on the car as well as watching the driving. I'd be much more likely to note the registration number.

As I've previously stated - is it likely that the murderer would have been doing so much to draw attention to himself via his driving when he had a man's blood splattered all over the inside of the car and quite possibly a murder weapon in his possession?

Did Skillet and Blackhall really see Gregsten's car or was it another MM entirely? Afterall they were common enough in those days.

[Natalie Severn]

Blackhall wound down the window on the passenger side and got a much closer,and presumably longer, look at the MM driver.Consequently it was Balckhall who rang the police in the first place ,assisted with the identikit and certainly at first it was Blackhall who was seen as the main witness-though that changed.
Blackhall attended the first identity parade and picked out a man who could not possibly have been the murderer "and a man who,in Skillett"s original testimony on oath ," did not look anything like" Hanratty .Moreover ,Mr Blackhall attended the identity parade on which Alphon stood at New Scotland Yard on September 23rd,while Mr Skillett who was on holiday did not.The police appear then to have not considered Skillett"s evidence as crucial,as they did not wait for him to return, and it meant that Skillett never had a chance to look at Peter Alphon on an identity parade .
Mr Blackhall had been to the parade-this is what he said :
" I appreciate the very serious duty of attending an identity parade,I recognise that unless I could identify with certainty it would be wrong to identify anybody on the parade,....I did my best to fulfill my duty.

By the trial,Mr Blackhall had changed his recollection of these matters:

I was taken from my employment and rushed to Scotland Yard .I was the first one through into the yard .I was given no instructions whatsoever and I just picked out the chap who I though looked like the chap in the car [Vol.1V,p34]

When Foot was writing his book in 1971 Blackhall"s account of the parade wasas follows:
We were taken there on a Saturday afternoon, rushed down there and I was the first to go and look at the line.No one told me anything specific-I was just asked to go down and touch anyone I recognised.I walked down the line and there was a fair haired man in the line who looked something like the man in the carso I touched him.I made to go on down the line but the policeman stopped me and wheeled me out I wasnt even completely clear I could only touch one man.One of the other witnesses I think it was the Hotel manager *touched two blokes.They let him do it,but I was wheeled off as soon as I had touched one
I remember that Alphon was standing at the end of the line ,wearing a navy blazer andan open necked shirt.I am sure I would have picked him if I"d gone down to the end of the line. HE DID LOOK LIKE THE MAN IN THE CAR.

For Victor-: [writing in 1971 Paul Foot adds}:
"Mr Skillett today is "quite satisfied in my own mind " that he picked the man in the car,while Mr Blackhall is adamant the man in the car was not Hanratty .
According to Mr Backhall when they left the trial on Jan 25th 1962,after giving evidence,they walked slowly over to Skillett"s car."Well," said Skillett,"[according to his friend], "it must have beenHanratty because otherwise the police would never have arrested him."

[Natalie Severn]

In the Identity Parade of October 13th on which Hanratty stood [he was the only man,Hanratty later complained ,wearing "a dark suit" which everyone knew he had ] Mr Blackhall again attended and after only [U]one minute [/U picked out a dark haired man standing right next to Hanratty and identified this man as the man in the Morris Minor murder car.
Blackhall had been nearer to the MM than Skillett and was not having to drive and at the same time watch the road when he looked at the man in the MM.
Mr Skillett went first to the ID parade and said under cross examination,"Neither of the men on either side of the man I picked out looked anything like him"---------Mr Blackhall actually identified one of these two men as being the MM driver!!!
So in point of fact Skillett and Blackhall picked out men who looked quite different to each other, Victor .
There is more from the trial evidence about the colour of the man"s hair where we hear Mr Skillett first saying , on oath, at magistrates court that "the man"s hair was not dark and it was not light" and later at the trial changing his evidence [which fitted the prosecution case ]" I could not see it properly, not the colour of his hair...with the top of the car coming down on the hair you cannot tell the shade of hair" [Vol.1V p.26]
Mr Swanwick in his summing up for the prosecution made much of the "top of the car" obstructing Skillett"s view of his hair ,suggesting Skillett had therefore not been put off by Hanratty"s dyed tangerine coloured hair at the parade.
However,no mention was made of Skillett having changed his account of the colour of the man"s hair---each account being quite different yet made under oath.

However,Skillett had been "very surprised" Blackhall had picked out one of the men on either side of Hanratty----who,Skillett said,looked nothing like him!

[Limehouse]

Norma - did I read your post correctly - did Blackhall attend TWO identity parades? I've never noticed that before.

[Victor]

It seems that Blackhall reported his encounter with the MM the following day - 24 August - after it had been reported in the press that the car had been recovered in Redbridge. He immediately identified the car by its torn window label and stripes on the bumper. However - was he shown the car or did he give a statement describing the car and its distinctive characteristics? If he was shown the car - he may well have been lead - perhaps by police asking him if he remembered the stripes on the bumper and the torn label.

Hi Julie,

Those are pertinent questions, afterall, Olive Dinwoodie was discreditted because she was only shown the one picture of Hanratty and was lead.

Personally - if I was watching the movements of a car that kept jumping lanes and driving as erratically as this car appeared to be - I doubt if I would have noticed things like the bumper or a label in the wondow - epecially if it involved looking at several locations on the car as well as watching the driving. I'd be much more likely to note the registration number.

Another good point, but for how long do you remember specific registration numbers? I recall odd details or peculiarities, such as the label and stripes (for example) longer than the plates. Certainly the erratic driving would draw my attention to the car.

As I've previously stated - is it likely that the murderer would have been doing so much to draw attention to himself via his driving when he had a man's blood splattered all over the inside of the car and quite possibly a murder weapon in his possession?

It sounds very much to me like a panicked driver unable to prevent drawing attention to himself.

Did Skillet and Blackhall really see Gregsten's car or was it another MM entirely? Afterall they were common enough in those days.

They were common, but it was the right general area at the right general time, and the peripheral details were correct. I think that might be a coincidence too far in a case "sagging" with them.

KR,
Vic.

[Victor]

Blackhall wound down the window on the passenger side and got a much closer,and presumably longer, look at the MM driver.Consequently it was Balckhall who rang the police in the first place ,assisted with the identikit and certainly at first it was Blackhall who was seen as the main witness-though that changed.

Hi Norma,

Blackhall was the passenger, and Skillett the driver therefore Skillett had more reason to be observant of the road conditions whereas Blackhall might not be fully awake at that time of the morning on their usual trip into work. Blackhall was a couple of feet closer, although neither was distant.

The most significant point for me is that Skillett wanted to vent his frustration at the erratic driver for nearly colliding with them, so I presume that he got the better and longer look at the MM driver.

KR,
Vic.

[Natalie Severn]

Well Victor,that doesn"t square up really.It was not Skillett who went to the police the following day for example to report his sighting of the driver, it was Blackhall,nor was it Skillett who the police asked ,initially, to help to make up an identikit picture, it was Blackhall who was considered the important witness,certainly at the start.
Also you will know how difficult it is to control a moving car if you happen to take your eye off the road in front for more than a second, so I think myself that Skillett would have been unlikely to have scrutinised the drivers face that well and after a time lapse,in Skillett"s case ,of 7 whole weeks his memory of what can only have been a glimpse of the man would have been likely to have faded to a certain extent.

Norma

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Julie,
Yes, the first identity parade Blackhall attended was on 23rd September and was the one on which Peter Alphon stood and which Skillett did not attend because he was on holiday.So Mr Skillett never actually had a chance to look at Peter Alphon in an identity parade.
The second identity parade was the one on which Hanratty stood at Bedford Police Station on October 13th.
Both Mr Skillett and Mr Blackhall attended the parade ,as well as Nudds [who Blackhall had referred to as "the hotel manager" [ Nudds having been allowed to "touch" two people on the parade].What puzzled Blackhall was that as soon as he, Blackhall, had "touched" one man he was wheeled out by a policeman,so he didnt get to go the full length of the parade at all,which consisted of nine men, Alphon being the last but one on the parade, whereas Nudds had been allowed "two touches".
This does seem quite wrong to me,especially since Blackhall later claimed he was given no instructions .Surely he should have been taken down the full length of the parade of nine men and looked at each one of them before "touching" anyone?
Norma

[Victor]

Well Victor,that doesn"t square up really.It was not Skillett who went to the police the following day for example to report his sighting of the driver, it was Blackhall,nor was it Skillett who the police asked ,initially, to help to make up an identikit picture, it was Blackhall who was considered the important witness,certainly at the start.

Hi Norma,

It would certainly appear to be the case that Blackhall should have been a better witness, but in the end he wasn't. Maybe he was not fully awake at that time, or is just a not very observant person compared to Skillett.

Also you will know how difficult it is to control a moving car if you happen to take your eye off the road in front for more than a second, so I think myself that Skillett would have been unlikely to have scrutinised the drivers face that well and after a time lapse,in Skillett"s case ,of 7 whole weeks his memory of what can only have been a glimpse of the man would have been likely to have faded to a certain extent.

I know that many people are capable of all sorts of things whilst driving, hence the laws over the past few years banning people from talking on mobiles, &tc.

Also I think they caught up with the MM at a roundabout hence Skillett got Blackhall to wind down his window so Skillett could castigate the erratic driver meaning that he would be scrutising the target of his abuse.

KR,
Vic.

[NickB]

Nudds having been allowed to "touch" two people on the parade

If Blackhall was the “first to go” on the Alphon id parade, he could not have heard at that point about any other witness being allowed to touch two people.

[Natalie Severn]

It would certainly appear to be the case that Blackhall should have been a better witness, but in the end he wasn't. Maybe he was not fully awake at that time, or is just a not very observant person compared to Skillett.

Hi Vic,

We don"t know that.For example what then do you make of the following contradiction in his evidence?:

Before magistrates in the magistrates court his sworn deposition reads:
"When I saw him in the Morris Minor ,his hair was not dark and was not light "
and when cross-examined before the magistrates, Mr Skillett said: The man in the Morris Minor had hair about browny colour"

At the trial however,Mr Skillett"s evidence had changed:
"I could not see it properly the colour of his hair....with the top of the car coming down on the hair you cannot tell what colour it was."

He also changed his evidence at the trial about the two men on either side of Hanratty,one of whom Blackhall identified as the driver."The first one",he said,"Did not look like him,but the third one,the features were there but it was not right." Yet when cross examined at the magistrates court Mr Skillett had said:
Neither of the men on either side of the man [Hanratty] I picked out looked anything like him.If Mr Blackhall picked out someone standing to his left or to his right ,it would surpise me.

Also I think they caught up with the MM at a roundabout hence Skillett got Blackhall to wind down his window so Skillett could castigate the erratic driver meaning that he would be scrutising the target of his abuse.

You may be right about the roundabout,Vic---I would need to look it up,but I don"t think you can second guess here who was the most observant.Mr Skillett seems quite muddled over whether he saw sufficient of the man"s hair to know its colour so its possible he was muddled over other important features that he thought he had memorised.Maybe neither man could remember the driver clearly after several months.

[Natalie Severn]

If Blackhall was the “first to go” on the Alphon id parade, he could not have heard at that point about any other witness being allowed to touch two people.

Quite right,Nick.He related this later in an interview on August 2nd 1970.

[Derrick]

Hair

It is remarkable that 2 of the Rhyl witnesses met a man with exactly the right hair colour and condition that Hanratty would have had at the time of the A6 murder a few hours before the hold up at Dorney Reach. Yet Valerie, Trower and Skillet gave hair colour and condition that does not square with Hanratty's.

His hair was dyed black some 3 weeks before the murder by Carole France. On the weekend following the murder, Carole suggested that his hair be redyed because his natural ginger was obviously growing back.

From this then the man in Rhyl at the time was Hanratty and the killer/Redbridge driver had blue or brown eyes and brown hair based on Valeries evidence and the identikit pictures.

The killers hair was certainly not "very dark and streaky looking", based on the evidence we have.

Derrick

[RonIpstone]

It is remarkable that 2 of the Rhyl witnesses met a man with exactly the right hair colour and condition that Hanratty would have had at the time of the A6 murder a few hours before the hold up at Dorney Reach.

What are we to make of the fact that all but two of the Rhyl witnesses did not notice the unusual two tone colour of Hanratty's Barnet?

Mrs Jones's evidence might have been more impressive if she had said that the young gentleman to whom she had provided accommodation had a most unusual hair colour. Mrs Dinwoodie's account might have been more persuasive of Hanratty's innocence if she had likewise commented on the strange hair colour. And so on and so forth.