a6 murder

[Victor]

Ok line up the absence of finger prints with the rest of the evidence.

No Julie, the absence of fingerprints on the cartridge cases is not evidence, the lack of forensics from the car is not evidence. It only becomes evidence if someone can clearly demonstrate that it should be there, was appropriately looked for, and categorically not found. To do that you need to absolutely eliminate the possibility of the gunman wearing gloves - which you cannot.

The cartridges were found weeks after the murder. There is no evidence they date from the night before the murder. There is no evidence that they were not placed there after the murder.

I agree that the cases were found a couple of weeks after the murder, and that they were ballistically linked to the murder weapon. There is no direct evidence as to when they were left, hence the investigation of the last occupants of that room - which strongly suggests that Hanratty as the last caucasian occupant of that room, and furthermore in that bed, left them there the night before the murder. True it does not eliminate the possibility that Nudds or France or someone else planted them there in order to frame Hanratty, but before the Police had connected him to the crime.

KR,
Vic.

[Victor]

Your Carl Sagan like mantra is all very well but, as far as we know, all of this evidence has been destroyed (cases, the gun and ammo and the car) and is now irrelevant to any future argument.

Hi Derrick,

How can the trial evidence be irrelevent? It probably has been destroyed, although there was mention of the car way back on the thread or possibly pre-crash, so I'm not certain that has been. Therefore I agree it can't be re-investigated but that doesn't make it irrelevent.

I note that now Alphon has been dead for 18 months, Paul Foot's missing cartridge cases have still not materialised... And the mantra applies here too, that fact in isolation doesn't prove Alphon innocent.

Hopefully the FSS have not destroyed their LCN data from 1998.

I very much hope so too.

KR,
Vic.

[Victor]

Just found this link...http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obit...-Swanwick.html

Which after a brief synopsis of the Hanratty case, it says of Swanwick...

He took great pains to prepare his cases, as was reflected in the meticulous way he presented them in court. As a cross-examiner he was courteous, yet often surprisingly deadly. A reticent and compassionate man, he would often be as upset by a conviction when prosecuting as he was when defending.

Not quite the image that Woffinden and Foot paint of him.

KR,
Vic.

[jimarilyn]

Just an observation here. The arrogance and condescending manner of a certain poster [no, not you Victor] continues to astound me. That person [ a great admirer of James Gordon Brown incidentally ] obviously knows better than the rest of us. Seems like nazism is alive and well and dwelling in the mind of an extreme right-wing thinking person. What truly puzzles me is why that person feels the need to stick around and continue to insult other people's intelligence. What is that person's agenda I wonder? Speaking personally if I was 100% convinced of someone's guilt I wouldn't be wasting precious time on a murder thread insulting other people's intelligence, I would move on with my life and find something more constructive to do.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Ron,

Two things stand out. First, that Jim, a man of normal reasoning and intelligence, when asked where he was, made no mention of being in the Rhyl guest house. In fact he only introduced the subject of Rhyl and its part in his alibi when his lies about spending the night of 22/23 August 1961 in Liverpool were about to be exposed by the prosecution at his trial. Anyone of normal reasoning and intelligence would have worked out (1) that casual criminal acquaintances would not have given him a fraudulent alibi for such a high profile crime which had caused universal revulsion and (2) that it would be necessary for his defence to be effective for his defence team to have as

Lets be clear here Ron: when Hanratty discovered from his cousin,Eileen Cunningham , who met him in the street, that the police had been to see his parents house about a housebreaking in Ruisip he was more than a bit bothered and decided he must have left his finger prints on a window sill.Because of previous offences with regard to property ,this would mean he would go to prison for a full five years if they caught him.This meeting with his cousin was on the 23rd September ,and do bear in mind that this was while Acott was still 100% convinced they had caught the A6 gunman and the murderer was Peter Alphon.[It was the day before Valerie identified the A6 gunman as Michael Clark, an RAF man ,as Michael Gregsten"s killer and her rapist and attacker,and not Peter Alphon.
So prior to the police ---this in accordance with Insp,Acott"s later testimony in any way linked "Ryan"[Hanratty]up or were in any way interested in Ryan/Hanratty according to Acott ,the police had been round to his mum and dad"s house asking about his whereabouts in connection with a housebreaking in Ruisip.
Hanratty went "on the run" 44 days after the A6 murder and while the police were vpleased with themselves that they had in custody the man they thought was the A6 killer ,Alphon .Hanratty thought the police were after him only because of the finger prints he thought he must have left on a Ruislip house during the housebreaking, referred to by Eileen Cunningham on
23rd September.
And if you think you would be composed,Ron, and "thinking straight" when you suddenly realised ,only a week or two later, that they were now after you not for a housebreaking in Ruisip which was bad enough but for a murder you had had nothing to do with, you might have panicked,rung the police from a safe distance to try to find out what the heck was going on---blurted out---"but I was doing so and so"----realised you had been both in Liverpool and Rhyl that week trying to sell off stuff but not really remembering exactly when you were doing what!But the lie about the 3 men in Liverpool was "carefully noted" and followed up by police . You rang your best mate---in his case Charles France who not only told you to "turn yourself in" but had the police in his living room at very the time you were ringing ready to trace your call!
Next off he rang several newspapers---"I had nothing to do with this A6 murder" he yelled to Barry Harding at the Mirror etc etc
All perfectly understandable to me,Ron.Panic is a perfectly understandable reaction when your best friends frequent the Soho underworld and you think are being framed for a murder that has caused a national outcry!If he had acted cool calm and collected at such news it would have been much more significant--and very much in keeping with psychopathic behaviour actually!

Norma

[Natalie Severn]

Just found this link...http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obit...-Swanwick.html

Which after a brief synopsis of the Hanratty case, it says of Swanwick...


Not quite the image that Woffinden and Foot paint of him.

KR,
Vic.

However very much the image Sherrard gives,Vic.But lets not forget Swanwick in particular was man born with every privilege,every advantage --- a silver spoon in his mouth at birth and the best education money could buy.Contrast this with the opportunities presented to Hanratty who had left school as a child,ie before he was fifteen and after an education-if you can call it that ,that was so disrupted and minimal it had left him without reading and writing skills and the only way out of a life of poverty was housebreaking.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Vic,

No Julie, the absence of fingerprints on the cartridge cases is not evidence, the lack of forensics from the car is not evidence. It only becomes evidence if someone can clearly demonstrate that it should be there, was appropriately looked for, and categorically not found. [B]To do that you need to absolutely eliminate the possibility of the gunman wearing gloves - which you [/B]cannot.

But it can only be speculation or "conjecture" if no finger prints were found on the car or on the cartridge cases to link them to Hanratty.It certainly is not concrete evidence that he had handled them.
Talking of gloves, Juliana Galves told police on 13 September after Nudds had been sacked that she had seen Alphon with a pair of black ladies gloves lying on top of his suitcase and which he hurriedly tried to hide.
Juliana and her husband had reported the theft by Nudds of £5 to Crocker several days before her statement to police on 13th September. She didnt like Nudds, finding him and Snell utterly lazy and she didnt trust him after discovering Nudds had lied to her about being sick early on in his appointment-he had only started there when he had got out of jail in early August .and she helped Crocker, search for more thefts by Nudds from the Vienna Hotel on 11th September-which was when Crocker discovered the used cartridge cases.
All of it that connects Hanratty to the car and hotel is pure speculation because Juliana Galves even roundly contradicts the theory that Hanratty had ever spent the night in room 24.She asserts that this room hadnt been "slept in" since 16th August,and that even Mr Rapur had not "slept in " Room 24---he had been in there only for about 5 minutes and had then been moved to the room next door ---room 25,which was probably where Hanratty stayed judging by her statement of 13 September.

The time line is so wrong over the Vienna Hotel, the 36 bus link and Hanratty.
He stayed there on 21st.He then left on the morning of 22nd. Ok---if he took 36 bus that day 21st to Queensway,the murder weapon had not been used---nor had the cartridges so far as we know since nobody heard a gun going off in the hotel.
But its the bus that lets the theory down. Alphon may have deposited the gun on 23rd,for it to have been found on 24th August, and he might well have placed it there just after leaving the Vienna Hotel,after walking towards the 36 bus stop and taking the gun and 60 cartridge cases on board and wrapped in a hanky he had fortuitously "found' at the hotel,and all of which he placed in his suitcase before leaving the hotel. That time line works.He gets off wherever it was -after lifting the back seat up and depositing the amunition-- then lopes off to the next hotel,The Alexandre where he scares the life out of everybody looking like he is having some kind of breakdown.
The timeline for Hanratty does not work ,certainly not if he was by then in Liverpool followed by Rhyl but neither does it work if as the prosecution alleged he did so after abandoning the car..For it to work he would have had to have gone back on himself after the murder towards the Vienna Hotel[Westwards] where he was not going to stay---therefore towards an area that was way out of his way! Why on earth would he do that?It doesnt add up.

[Victor]

But it can only be speculation or "conjecture" if no finger prints were found on the car or on the cartridge cases to link them to Hanratty.It certainly is not concrete evidence that he had handled them.

Hi Norma,

The quote you have posted several times from Sherrard tries to use the lack of forensic evidence to support Hanratty's innocence, and this is utter nonsense. It's equivalent to using the lack of forensics to prove that no crime was committed.

All of it that connects Hanratty to the car and hotel is pure speculation...

Apart from the identification by 3 witnesses!

...because Juliana Galves even roundly contradicts the theory that Hanratty had ever spent the night in room 24.She asserts that this room hadnt been "slept in" since 16th August,and that even Mr Rapur had not "slept in " Room 24---he had been in there only for about 5 minutes and had then been moved to the room next door

It is sounding more and more like this non-native English-speaking witness has been bamboozled by a reporter. Where have you got this statement from?

Alphon may have deposited the gun on 23rd,for it to have been found on 24th August, and he might well have placed it there just after leaving the Vienna Hotel,after walking towards the 36 bus stop and taking the gun and 60 cartridge cases on board and wrapped in a hanky he had fortuitously "found' at the hotel,and all of which he placed in his suitcase before leaving the hotel. That time line works.He gets off wherever it was -after lifting the back seat up and depositing the amunition-- then lopes off to the next hotel,The Alexandre where he scares the life out of everybody looking like he is having some kind of breakdown.

I can see a glaring contradiction there - Alphon coolly and calmly fools all the bus staff and passengers, but has previously been dishevelled and "noticeable" in the Vienna, and goes on to be in the Alexandre!

KR,
Vic.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Victor,

The quote you have posted several times from Sherrard tries to use the lack of forensic evidence to support Hanratty's innocence, and this is utter nonsense.

The quote of Sherrard that I take it you mean,Vic, simply states that no finger prints, fibres , blood or hairs from Hanratty were found in that car---so there was no concrete, tangible evidence to link him to the car.

Apart from the identification by 3 witnesses!

Who were roundly contradicted by the people they were with---in each case!
Skillett by Blackhall; Trower was scoffed at by his pal Paddy Hogan when he said he had seen Hanratty !Couldnt have seen him---it was impossible as he arrived at his door far too late to have seen the driver---! And Sherrard and Kleinman demonstrated the impossibility of his alleged"sighting"by photographs of a plan with heights and distances .If the third witness you are talking about is Hiron---he recognised nobody!
Valerie initially said she recognised Michael Clark as Gregsten"s killer.
Witness statements that clarified nothing at all and went no way to incriminate Hanratty.

[jason_c]

Victor, theres no need to keep defending Alphon. He is not on trial, and is being used as a smokescreen by Hanratty supporters. Almost the entire evidence posted on here is hearsay and conjecture against him. If the evidence against Hanratty is supposedly weak, the evidence against Alphon is almost non existant.

If only there were DNA or eyewitness testimony against Alphon.

[Natalie Severn]

f the evidence against Hanratty is supposedly weak, the evidence against Alphon is almost non existant.

Oh Yeah! Like he confessed! [after a safe distance and after the death penalty had been abolished].

[Victor]

Victor, theres no need to keep defending Alphon. He is not on trial, and is being used as a smokescreen by Hanratty supporters. Almost the entire evidence posted on here is hearsay and conjecture against him. If the evidence against Hanratty is supposedly weak, the evidence against Alphon is almost non existant.

If only there were DNA or eyewitness testimony against Alphon.

Hi Jason,

I agree completely, I was just pointing out the gaping hole in Norma's suggestion above, for which I await her reply...

Oh Yeah! Like he confessed! [after a safe distance and after the death penalty had been abolished].

Hi Norma,

So did Stefan Kiszko and Sean Hodgson - both now freed by successful appeals and not forgetting John Humble!

In this case there's the comments in Hansard that several people had confessed - Lord Brockway I think.

KR,
Vic.

[Victor]

The quote of Sherrard that I take it you mean,Vic, simply states that no finger prints, fibres , blood or hairs from Hanratty were found in that car---so there was no concrete, tangible evidence to link him to the car.

Hi Norma,

From the way it is phrased 'not one hair', 'not one fingerprint', 'not one fibre', I infer a sense on incredulity that seeks to ridicule the verdict.

Who were roundly contradicted by the people they were with---in each case!
Skillett by Blackhall; Trower was scoffed at by his pal Paddy Hogan when he said he had seen Hanratty !

As I've commented before I don't think these witnesses contradict eachother, although the mis-identifications are a cause of concern.

If the third witness you are talking about is Hiron---he recognised nobody!

No, Valerie, the 3rd person who positively identified Hanratty.

Valerie initially said she recognised Michael Clark as Gregsten"s killer.
Witness statements that clarified nothing at all and went no way to incriminate Hanratty.

She admitted she had made a mistake, and despite the naysaying by Foot and Woffinden, was a desperately ill woman.

KR,
Vic.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Vic,

She admitted she had made a mistake, and despite the naysaying by Foot and Woffinden, was a desperately ill woman.

I haven"t read anything by Foot certainly or by Woffinden-so far anyway, to suggest they thought Valerie was anything other than a desperately ill woman-or that suggests a lack of sympathy for her terrible injuries and ordeal.The problem,when you attempt to deal with what appears to some of us to have been a faulty trial and therefore a miscarriage of justice,over Jamers Hanratty's execution, is that it can "appear" that your sympathy lies only with the man who was executed .I have great sympathy for Valerie,who was a young woman of 22 with her whole life in front of her and who has shown immense courage and resilience in the face of what life threw at her.
Best
Norma

[Natalie Severn]

Victor, theres no need to keep defending Alphon. He is not on trial, and is being used as a smokescreen by Hanratty supporters. Almost the entire evidence posted on here is hearsay and conjecture against him. If the evidence against Hanratty is supposedly weak, the evidence against Alphon is almost non existant.

If only there were DNA or eyewitness testimony against Alphon.

You must surely be joking here Jason?

Re: eye witness testimony:

Have you not read about Mrs Lanz who knew the couple, extremely well by sight as she ran the pub they frequented,The Old Station Inn? Two weeks before Hanratty was executed she had positively identified Alphon as having seen him in her pub "several times" before the murder.
How this happened was as follows :Leading up to Hanratty"s execution,the son of a rich Belgian Diplomat , Jean Justice, who had trained as a lawyer but not practised, became convinced of Hanratty"s innocence.As part of a "honey trap" he befriended the recently released original suspect,Peter Alphon and Jeremy Fox [a lawyer friend of Justice"s] and Peter Alphon had gone to the "Old Station Inn " for a drink , a few weeks prior to Hanratty"s execution and prior to Charles France committing suicide,which he did the day after Hanratty"s appeal was rejected .Charles "Dixie" France complained bitterly in his suicide notes that he was a victim of a sustained campaign of abuse and telephone calls."If Hanratty dies,you die" was the theme of the caller.On the morning of March 17th Justice rang Alphon to tell him that France had committed suicide."Thats made my day" replied Alphon.
At the Old Station Inn all three, Justice Fox and Alphon , were seen drinking together by Mrs Lanz.Justice let Alphon and Fox leave before him while he paid for drinks and spoke to Mrs Lanz.She told Justice that " the one with the guiness" had been in her pub on several occasions the previous Summer.The day after the murder,before any suspect had been found ,Mrs Lanz had told the press she had often seen Michael and Valerie in her pub."They used to come in every night but never at weekends" she told them.

more eye witness testimony re Alphon " :
It wasnt just Mary Lanz who had witnessed Alphon in the area.Mr Fogarty-Waul had seen him in Marsh Lane on several occasions and had even given him a lift on one of them to half way down the lane.He had also seen him at the Slough Dog track.

more "discounted" eye witness testimony:
Stanley Cobb, Elsie Cobb his wife and their next door neighbour Frederick Newell saw a man passing their gate ,he wore a dark suit,was aged about 27 and carried a white carrier bag,the top of which was rolled over.He had very dark eyes and his dark hair was brushed back and "seemed to be receding from his forehead".
Moreover Newell had seen him on at least two previous occasions
which ties in with Forgarty Waul"s sightings.
The Cobbs and Mr Newell contacted the police on 29th August since nobody had been round to interview them and they lwere very struck by the similarity of the photofits released on 29th August .They lived in two adjacent houses only 100 yards or so from where the MM was parked.
Their sightings were on the 22nd but at 2,30 in the afternoon and they thought this was why the police had discounted their statements.They were never asked to attend the identity parades.As a result, there has astonishingly never been any evidence placing the suspect in Dorney Reach that day.