a6 murder

[P.L.A]

The car’s mileage

Greetings one and all

Sometime on 22nd August before picking Miss Storie up from work at Langley, at a time and place unknown, Gregsten put three gallons of petrol into his car and recorded in his logbook that the mileage was 51875.

When the vehicle was found in Redbridge, the reading was 52107.

The car had therefore travelled 232 miles in the period.

Peter

[P.L.A]

Mr. Kerr

Greetings one and all

As it seems to be open season on F-W on the thread, what about John Kerr?

I get the impression that he deliberately airbrushes Sydney Burton out of history.

If this is so, what does it say about him?

As a witness at the trial he would have only seen Hanratty whilst giving his own evidence.

With a name like John Michael Bryan Leslie Kerr he may have one or two quirks.

Peter

[Steve]

Sometime on 22nd August before picking Miss Storie up from work at Langley, at a time and place unknown, Gregsten put three gallons of petrol into his car and recorded in his logbook that the mileage was 51875. When the vehicle was found in Redbridge, the reading was 52107. The car had therefore travelled 232 miles in the period.

This is what the Court of Appeal had to say in 2002 on the subject of mileage readings and alleged sightings of the Morris Minor:

The seventh ground of appeal concerns the fact that (not disclosed to the defence) there were other reported sightings of the Morris Minor car during 23 August 1961 in different parts of the country and evidence that a different light grey Morris Minor had been parked directly opposite where Mr Gregsten's car was recovered. This evidence consists of the following:


At 6.30am on Wednesday 23 August, William Lee saw a grey Morris Minor being driven by a man wearing a woollen pom-pom hat on the A6 near Matlock in Derbyshire. He wrote the registration number down as 847 BHN which was the registration of Michael Gregsten's car in the boot of which there was such a hat (although there is no evidence that the murderer otherwise was seen wearing it).


At 12 midday on the same day, John Douglas, a petrol pump attendant at a garage at Birstall, north of Leicester, made a mental note of the registration number of a bluish grey car as 847 BHN occupied by a man and a woman. The man spoke with a southern accent which sounded to him as coming from Somerset.


Other sightings of a car with the registration number 847 BHN were noted at 1.00pm between Hitchin and St. Ippollits (which would mean that the car stayed in the vicinity of Bedford all morning) and at 5.25pm in Coventry (which given the time the car was seen by the police in Avondale Crescent is simply not possible).


Doreen Milne said she parked her grey Morris Minor in Avondale Crescent at 8.15am opposite where Michael Gregsten's car was subsequently found without recalling any car parked opposite hers. Margaret Thompson saw police interest around what she called a grey Morris 1000 at 8.00pm and reported that it had not been there at 5.30pm when she passed with her three year-old son.

Needless to say, the sightings in Matlock, Coventry and north of Leicester are inconsistent with the Morris Minor being seen in Eastern Avenue, near Avondale Crescent, or in Avondale Crescent by 7am although it is somewhat difficult to visualise for what purpose the gunman might have made these trips and then returned to Ilford (as he must have done) using a car which he would have known the police would be seeking as soon as Michael Gregsten was identified and the car he was driving ascertained.


There is no doubt at all that this material would fall to be disclosed by contemporary standards: the contrary is not suggested. In our judgment the names and addresses of these witnesses also fell to be disclosed under the more restrictive regime described in R v Bryant & Dickson. We are not in a position to say why that did not occur although DS Acott may have discounted these identifications, at least in part, because of other material which was also not disclosed (and about which the appellant also complains).


Unknown to the defence at the trial was the fact that a record was kept by Michael Gregsten of the mileage when he put petrol in the car. On 22 August 1961, the odometer was recorded as 51,875 miles. When the vehicle was recovered in Avondale Crescent, the police noted the odometer reading to be 52,107 miles. Thus, 232 miles had been travelled in the period which elapsed. Depending on when petrol was put in the car, this may have included Michael Gregsten's driving that day (57.4 miles) but must include the drive from the cornfield at Dorney Reach to Deadman's Hill on the A6 (58-65 miles) and, at the very least, the minimum distance from the A6 to Avondale Crescent, Ilford (48.6 miles). We say 'at the very least' because there is, of course, no direct evidence of where the gunman went having left Valerie Storie for dead on the A6 and neither do we know that, in any event, he took what present investigation reveals would then have been the shortest route. These distances are comfortably within the distance which, if the record is correct, the odometer recorded.


The most impressive evidence of sighting must surely be that of Mr Lee in Matlock. The straight-line distance from Deadman's Hill to Matlock and then to Redbridge is estimated at 268 miles. That itself exceeds the 232 miles record and takes no account of the trip from Dorney Reach to Deadman's Hill. A route planner puts that total distance as 333.3 miles. Thus, if the odometer readings are correct, this identification must also be flawed. Mr Sweeney makes the same point about the identification north of Leicester.

[Steve]

With a name like John Michael Bryan Leslie Kerr he may have one or two quirks.

A tad unfair, old chap! You can't help the names your parents give you.

[P.L.A]

What's in a name?

Greetings one and all

True, a person can't help the name their parents give them.

But a name like that must say something about his mother and father, and thus Kerr's formative years.

All good fun to think about.

Peter

[Graham]

Hi All.

John Kerr is definitely a well-spoken chap, but that doesn't mean to say he acted in any way other than totally correctly. It must have been a hell of shock to him to discover what he did. With regard to Sydney Burton, apparently he was an elderly farm-labourer who was on his way to work, and Paul Foot implies that he was not too bright; he saw Valerie on the ground, then walked on until he came to Kerr, who he told that "there's a woman in trouble" at the far end of the lay-by. Kerr went to look, and presumably Burton ambled off to work and out of history. I don't know if he was ever called as a witness, but it has to be assumed that the police traced him and interviewed him.

Regarding the Morris and its recorded mileage, no doubt about it that good old Acott pulled a fast one on the defence. But on the other hand I've never been fully convinced of any of the sightings of it prior to its being found in Avondale. There were thousands of grey Minors chugging around in 1961, and it's only human nature to react to a police description of such a car by thinking, "Wow, I saw one that day...", etc., etc. One other small point, in those days when you bought petrol someone actually served you at the pump, and I would suggest that the merest glance into the car would reveal rather a ghastly sight. I can't see that even Hanratty would take the chance to stop for fuel.

Actually, unless I'm mistaken, we can account for about 170 of those 232 miles - as Steve points out, Gregsten's mileage prior to reaching the cornfield and then the journey to Deadman's Hill, and from there to Ilford. Only about 60 miles unaccounted for, and maybe JH got lost, drove around for a while 'finking' about things, whatever. Without a map to hand, I'd be hard-pressed to drive the best direct route from Clophill to Ilford.

Odd that Alphon never had anything to say about the car and where it had been driven...I'd have thought he'd have seized upon the opportunity.

Cheers,

Graham

[Steve]

Sydney Burton photographed in November 1961.

[Steve]

Peter's friend John Kerr.

[Steve]

Mr Justice Gorman

[Sam Flynn]

Mr Justice Gorman

...the famous "Levitating Judge"

[jimarilyn]

18 year old John Kerr interviewed on ITN news 23rd August 1961

Hi,

While on the subject of John Kerr and Christian names it's interesting to observe (after Sidney Burton) that a John Michael should discover the body of a Michael John.

Footage of an interview with Kerr on the morning of the murder was shown on Bob Woffinden's 1992 TV documentary "Mystery at Deadman's Hill." Here is an almost 100% verbatim transcript of that short 20 second interview :-

INTERVIEWER : "Was Miss Storie able to say anything ?"

JOHN KERR : "Yes, she was pretty coherent considering the fact that she'd obviously been badly wounded."

INTERVIEWER : "What did she say ?"

JOHN KERR : "Well she was able to give a description of the man, she was able to tell me who she was, ..er she was able to say that ...er a gunman had held them up ... er at Slough, ...er er rather she'd picked him up at Slough and that they held them (?)..held them up and shot her"


Apart from being (understandably I think under those circumstances) a little hesitant in his replies, Kerr comes across quite well. Although impressions can be false he does have an air of having had a privileged up-bringing (he was an Oxford undergraduate).

I'd love to know where that important traffic census form disappeared to !

[Steve]

I'd love to know where that important traffic census form disappeared to !

Maybe, one day, it will turn up in someone's attic ....

[Graham]

The picture of Justice Gorman looks like the cast of Iolanthe wandering by mistake onto the set of Pirates of Penzance...

Graham

[Steve]

Mr Justice Gorman

The young policeman standing respectfully to attention as he passes by ... those were the days!

[jimarilyn]

Peter's friend John Kerr.

Are you sure this isn't John Cleese from the "Ministry of silly walks"