a6 murder

[Limehouse]

Hi Julie,



As far as I'm aware they obtained DNA from Valerie herself and from one or both of Gregsten's sons. They also obtained DNA from Peter Alphon.

Graham

Thanks Graham.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Graham,

How do you know? If every small-time crook knew it, then why did Hanratty bother telling Dixie France about it?

It has been stated numbers of times that people knew about it.I knew about the back seat thing myself as a kid-we all did and I was at a convent! But Dixie was into fencing stuff not nicking it Graham.

[Natalie Severn]

Then how come Hanratty positively and definitely identified it as his? So far as I know it's never been stated that the hankie was monogrammed, but it may have been and if it was would have fitted in with Hanratty's dandyish nature. There must have been something about the hankie which allowed him to recognise it as his. And let's be honest, if he had his wits about him, he'd have said he'd never seen it before in his life

As far as I know Hanratty was shown a perfectly plain hanky by Mr Swanwick when he was asking him about the bus..Instead of taking time to think he said yes.
Look I am not saying it wasnt his hanky.With all the tampering with evidence that went on the obtaining of one of Hanratty"s hankies must have been the easiest thing in the world---from the prison laundry where he was on remand.My whole point here is that evidence was withheld,tampered with ,fiddled with by the police, Graham.

[Natalie Severn]

Re: the cartridge cases, I always thought it odd that when Acott told Hanratty about them being found, Hanratty's first question was "What size are the bullets?" Not something like "Dunno wot you're talkin' about, guv".

Sherrard totally refused to believe Acott with regard to the alleged bullet story.
Sherrard -Do you really tell the jury upon your oath that the man"s answer was,"What size were the bullets,Mr Acott?"
Acott: I do indeed.That is one of the most remarkable statements I have ever had to record.....
Sherrard
..."and it brings capital murder to his doorstep does it not?"
Acott: Yes.Here were the bullets almost in his possession.
Sherrard: Bullets?
Acott: Well cartridge cases.

Sherrard had also said to Supt Acott:

Sherrard: Mr Acott,do you agree that the care and fairness with which an investigation is conducted may be a reliable pointer to the reliability of the result?
Acott: Yes
Sherrard: I have to suggest to you,and I want it to be quite clear,that your inquiries in this matter were neither careful nor fair,and were in many respects distinguished by inaccuracy.

[babybird67]

As far as I know Hanratty was shown a perfectly plain hanky .

Quite. As far as we know? How do we know what hankie he was shown? I've never read anywhere what sort of hankie it was. All we know is that the defendant admitted he was the owner of it, and the DNA confirmed that as it had his mucus on it.


Look Norma explain this to me....


in the 60s when this rape was committed there was the rapist's semen on the knickers because it was blood typed as type O (not Gregsten's) yes? Where did this semen disappear to when the DNA tests were carried out later?

[Natalie Severn]

Jen,
I am unable to find the name of the doctor who cut the piece off the knickers in December 1961 but will look for it another time. meanwhile I think this post may be helpful for you to understand my position with regards to this matter,
Best,
Norma

......." The 'jimdiditites' think that it puts Hanratty's guilt beyond reasonable doubt even though, in reality, the testimony from FSS is nothing but hearsay, since we only know what they claimed to have found, but not what they actually did find, since the destruction of the sample means that there is now no way of checking the results.

To use an analogy, imagine if something similar had happened with (say) ballistic evidence:

Prosecution expert: 'Yes, the bullet definitely came from the suspect's gun'
Defence barrister: 'I see. Can we have the bullet so our expert can check your findings?'
Prosecution expert: 'Err...sorry, we destroyed it during testing. You'll just have to take our word for it'

Once the gales of laughter in court had subsided, the case would be immediately dismissed.

The problem with the DNA evidence is that FSS are prosecution experts, who depend on this for their livelihood and are extremely unwilling to work on behalf of the defence. They are not impartial witnesses, turning up to give the court the benefit of their scientific knowledge. The DNA evidence in the Hanratty case is not in any sense 'scientific' because one of the fundamental principles of science is that all experiments must be repeatable, so a one-off test such as this cannot be considered as anything more than hearsay.

A further problem with the testimony from FSS is the question of why the sample was destroyed. The only plausible reason that occurs to me is that there was so little DNA that it took the entire specimen to get enough to test. However, there is a major difficulty with this: if there was so little DNA, then it makes it much more probable that it is the result of contamination since (by the law of averages) you are more likely to get a small amount of contamination than a large amount. Yet Dr Whitaker and his merry men didn't mention this. In effect, in this scenario, we are only talking about a few cells, and these could have been transferred in any number of ways. For FSS to ignore this is a clear indication of a pro-prosecution bias. This bias also means we cannot accept their assurance that the DNA came from sperm rather than (say) skin-cells.

On the other hand, if there were large amounts of Hanratty's DNA on the sample, why didn't FSS just cut off a sliver and save the rest? I doubt if even Dr Whitaker would be arrogant enough to believe that the methods used at FSS are the ultimate in DNA testing, and we will doubtless see much more sophisticated techniques in the future. As a further observation, I have noticed that samples in other cases have also been destroyed by FSS's tender ministrations, so I have come to believe that such destruction is a deliberate policy, disguised as part of the testing procedure, and intended to prevent anyone checking the results.

Questions have also arisen about Whitaker's testimony in other cases. In reporting Bradley Murdoch's appeal against his (unjust) conviction for killing Peter Falconio, even that well-known hotbed of bleeding-heart liberals, the Daily Mail, was happy to characterise Whitaker's testimony as 'junk science' (I know they're quoting someone else, but they don't attempt to refute it).

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-563626/Joanne-Lees-spotlight-dramatic-new-evidence-free-man-convicted-killing-boyfriend.html

Even when FSS was part of the Home Office it was hardly a paradigm of honesty and reliability, but since it has been privatised the situation has become much worse. At least in the past the public could ask (however vainly) for some kind of impartial oversight, but nowadays such suggestions are met with anguished squeals of 'commercial confidentiality' which prevent any examination of FSS's results and methods. You might also consider why the government has always fought tooth-and-nail against the idea of having a truly independent forensic service, because if the scientists were actually impartial it wouldn't matter who controlled the laboratory.

To summarise, those who take the DNA evidence seriously are putting their trust in a system which has a long and inglorious history of forensic scientists going into the witness-box and lying through their teeth to ensure a conviction, from Spilsbury through to Skuse, Cameron and Meadow, with a 'Mention in Despatches' for Paul Britton after his sterling efforts to help the police fit-up Colin Stagg. Believing in the probity of FSS is akin to believing in the tooth-fairy or Santa Claus: it's a matter of faith and not amenable to rational argument.

DM

[Natalie Severn]

The bogus pathologist,Dr Patel, who has been hauled over the coals for professional misconduct and who gave evidence that is now highly suspect about Ian Tomlinson a few months ago falls into this category of officialdom where they tried to pull the wool over everybody"s eyes.However ,once the media got hold of it all hell began to break loose ----thank God we still have press freedom---to some extent......it hasnt done anything yet to redress the financial injustice regarding compensation but maybe the family will have to wait awhile yet.

[babybird67]

Norma

where did the rapist's semen go that was there in the 60s and could be blood typed, yet, if it wasn't Hanratty, was totally eradicated from the sample in modern times?

[RonIpstone]

Jen or BB67,

I, too, am unable to offer any new information in reply to your pertinent question, but the following when read with Dupplin Muir's observations give some idea as to how evidence, especially forensic evidence, can be bent to meet the demands of the governing classes.

Ron

Comrades, over the past few months I may have inadvertently given the impression that I thought that James Hanratty was a vicious killer and a sadistic rapist who got his just deserts when hanged at Bedford Prison in April 1962. In fact nothing could have been further from the truth.

Jim, as he liked to be called, was a lovable and valued member of the working class society in which he lived. It is believed that Jim was executed on the direction of the now disgraced Harold Macmillan with the full assistance and approbation of his dutiful lieutenant and lapdog of the rich, Richard Austen Butler, known to the capitalist right wing press and others as Rab. It is believed that Supermac, as the Old Etonian Macmillan liked to be known, ordered the execution of Hanratty to deflect publicity away from the disgraced Tory government which he knew was in the offing as a result of the the Minister for War's sexual indiscretions. That the Profumo affair reared its ugly bourgeois head in 1963 only shows how important it was for the evil capitalist government to have Hanratty judicially assassinated in the previous year.

Yet this evil plot against the man of the people, Jim, did not stop with the Tory establishment and its nasty oppressive government. Claret swigging Woy Jenkins and Farmer Sunny Jim when obtaining the reins of power in the evil Wilsonian government refused to assist the Hanratty family in their quest for that which is every free born worker's right to have endless inquiries to establish that their worthy eldest son was not a vicious and incompetent murderer.

Brothers, this unsatisfactory state of affairs has continued through successive oppressive right wing and neo-right wing regimes and the treasured memory of James 'Jim' Hanratty remains tainted with the unsubstantiated allegations dreamed up by Supermac all those years ago. There is now hope that the new politics of Dave Cameroon and Cleggy will bring forward the 'Justice' demanded by the people. Not since the aftermath of the Great War has the Liberal Party had its grubby hands on the levers of power, so we will see whether the Lib Dems (as the Liberal Party likes to be known) are like all the oppressive regimes since 1962 or whether it will do the decent thing and let Jim off.

Power to the people.

Comrade Ron

[Limehouse]

Following on from Ron's (as usual) highly amusing lampooning of those who hold genuine beliefs - I wonder which 'lapdog of the rich' (to use Ron's well-chosen words) was responsible for allowing Lord Lucan to escape justice and stay allusive for so so long?

I wonder which 'lapdog of the rich' made it possible for Ernest Saunders to be the only known living person to recover from Alzheimer's disease after being released from prison early - apparently completely unaware of his own name -only to live out a perfectly lucid existance for many years to come?

[babybird67]

.With all the tampering with evidence that went on the obtaining of one of Hanratty"s hankies must have been the easiest thing in the world---from the prison laundry where he was on remand.My whole point here is that evidence was withheld,tampered with ,fiddled with by the police, Graham.

How could this be possible when Hanratty/Ryan wasn't even in the frame for the murder when the hanky was found wrapped around the weapon a day or so later? Hanratty wasn't even on the radar at that point. Are you really suggesting Alcott and co decided to imagine someone called Hanratty was really a guy called Ryan and really had stayed in the same hotel as the guy who was to become their main suspect...and stole a handkerchief...from where? To wrap around the murder weapon so they could later discover he existed and frame him?

Seriously, you need to look at the timings of events and see how the investigation involved....how the EVIDENCE led them to Hanratty...how the scenarios you are suggesting are totally impossible in the time frame.

[babybird67]

quite Ron

Jen or BB67,

I, too, am unable to offer any new information in reply to your pertinent question, but the following when read with Dupplin Muir's observations give some idea as to how evidence, especially forensic evidence, can be bent to meet the demands of the governing classes.

Ron

After all, we know the authorities never admit when they have got it wrong...they don't grant pardons or appeals for anyone do they? No, they stubbornly uphold injustices wherever they go...


I mean, why can't a man convicted three times be perfectly innocent after all, down to damning DNA evidence...showing he had sex with the victim...irrefutably...so irrefutably even the defence team concede it is true...let him off I say...bless his cotton socks....dear old Jim who wouldn't harm a fly because nobody previously convicted of a violent attack could possibly be capable of one could they? LOL!

[Natalie Severn]

re:Guardian on role of forensics in altering findings

Jen or BB67,

I, too, am unable to offer any new information in reply to your pertinent question, but the following when read with Dupplin Muir's observations give some idea as to how evidence, especially forensic evidence, can be bent to meet the demands of the governing classes.

Ron

All you are doing here is being deliberately provocative,are you hoping one of us will rise to the bait to the extent of getting one of us banned with all this talk about "sock puppets? Is that your game?
With regards to the 1961 trial I have cited chapter and verse of what Michael Sherrard QC had to say in 2002 and as recently as 2009 about what went on at that trial viz a vis police fiddling and tampering with witnesses statements also regarding withheld and crucial evidence eg the other Redbridge witnesses ,never called, over the sighting of the Morris Minor in Avondale Crescent which was found at 6.30 pm.
Ok. I was unable to find,last night , the quote I needed to illustrate how I think the tiny piece of 42 year old cloth , used for DNA evidence in the 2002 ruling, may not ever have had the rapists DNA on it,simply because the rapists semen was lost when the piece of cloth was removed from the knickers.For all we know that particular semen may only have been on the slips.It could have been anywhere since ,in the aftermath of the horific ordeal that had been experienced by Valerie, her underclothing was said to be twisted in a curious way when she arrived at the hospital.

So I drew attention to my whole position regarding this case,which is that I believe there had never been any solid evidence against James Hanratty , that in the case of the Vienna Hotel, the "evidence" is a lot of criminal nonsense,which relied on the word of Nudds.In fact the whole case turned [apart from the evidence of VS] on the evidence of two narks, Roy William Langdale and George Richard Nudds [alias Baker,Bartlett Beaumont,Glickberg,Itter,Knight] , both long term criminals detested among the criminal fraternity.
So, in my opinion, it had all been very likely to have been manufactured by those who found in James Hanratty a "patsy" on whom to pin blame.
I reminded posters that Duplin Muir in his post called into question the whole role of forensic experts called in on behalf of the prosecution, and he cites examples from several past injustices.
I am posting the Guardian Newspaper"s recent research into the case of the forensic pathologist Dr Patel who examined the body of Ian Tomlinson.Here we have precisely the sort of thing that can and does happen.This has been front page news in allnewspapers as it caused a furore,due to the wide publicity given to Ian Tomlinson"s death.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/16/ian-tomlinson-pathologist-misconduct-allegations

Best

Norma

[Natalie Severn]

After all, we know the authorities never admit when they have got it wrong...they don't grant pardons or appeals for anyone do they? No, they stubbornly uphold injustices wherever they go...


I mean, why can't a man convicted three times be perfectly innocent after all, down to damning DNA evidence...showing he had sex with the victim...irrefutably...so irrefutably even the defence team concede it is true...let him off I say...bless his cotton socks....dear old Jim who wouldn't harm a fly because nobody previously convicted of a violent attack could possibly be capable of one could they? LOL!

What violent attack was James Hanratty ever convicted of Jen? This is actually the main reason I believed Hanratty was innocent.

Hanratty had no record of violence .He had never been convicted of a violent crime.
Norma

[babybird67]

What violent attack was James Hanratty ever convicted of Jen? This is actually the main reason I believed Hanratty was innocent.

Hanratty had no record of violence .He had never been convicted of a violent crime.
Norma

HI Norma

there is always a first time. It is ridiculous to suggest because one hasn't before been convicted of violence one is incapable of it. There has to be a first time for there to be a first conviction. It completely defeats logic to argue otherwise. Ian Huntley had no convictions for violence...he murdered two little girls. John Christie had no previous convictions for violence...he was obviously innocent then of the multiple murders of women wasn't he. I don't think Peter Sutcliffe had been convicted of violent crime before being caught...obviously another Police fit up there....come on, really think about the logic behind the stand you are taking? Please?


But there was semen on the knickers when tested for DNA. It was the part of the knickers worn by Valerie after the rape. Semen was there. It was Hanratty's. How could his have been present but nobody else's, when we know somebody else's was there in 1960? Do you really think a Police investigation is so incompetent as to throw away the part of the knickers that actually had the forensic evidence on? Come on...please...listen to yourself.

We all know there are sock puppets operating on this thread...it's totally obvious...and I bet sock puppet's said friends all know exactly who we mean?