a6 murder

[jimarilyn]

Preferential treatment from courts again for Alphon

Article about the attack on Mrs Hanratty and Jean Justice by Peter Alphon on 23rd August 1962.

[jimarilyn]

Billy Ewer not as hard up as has been made out ?????

This article, from November 11th 1969 speaks for itself. So much for being a humble Umbrella repair man.

[Steve]

This article, from November 11th 1969 speaks for itself. So much for being a humble Umbrella repair man.

Jimarilyn, this is a fascinating newspaper clipping, but it doesn't point one way or the other to Bill Ewer's financial standing. The last line of the article says he was buying on behalf of a third party, so he wasn't using his own money.

[jimarilyn]

Jimarilyn, this is a fascinating newspaper clipping, but it doesn't point one way or the other to Bill Ewer's financial standing. The last line of the article says he was buying on behalf of a third party, so he wasn't using his own money.

I was half expecting a reply like this. Perhaps the anonymous buyer was none other than Ewer himself, who was probably in his late 50's around this time. I wouldn't trust Ewer as far as I could throw him. I find it hard to trust liars...

[jimarilyn]

Article about the attack on Mrs Hanratty and Jean Justice by Peter Alphon on 23rd August 1962.

Prone to a bit of the rough stuff eh ? He comes across as a bit of a misogynist methinks (apart from his dear mum Gladys). Wonder how many other helpless females he attacked in the early sixties ?

[P.L.A]

Val and John (second attempt)

I wasn’t suggesting there was any malicious intent from John Kerr. The points I was trying to make and illustrate, and not very successfully were:

- How easy it is for incorrect detail to get into the public domain.

- Perhaps Valerie’s memory wasn’t at it’s freshest at this moment in time. If it was, then she seemed to have difficulty articulating what was in her mind.

- Because of this, maybe the importance of the missing census form is being overstated.

- The piece of paper with the car’s registration letters and number sets reversed may, after all, be what John handed over. There is possibly a valid explanation as to why he didn’t recognise the handwriting on it as his own.

- The fact that both parties may well have been in some degree of shock or other, should not be understated.

Peter

[Steve]

Hello Peter

I understand the points you are making. The A6 murder is possibly an object lesson in how to ensure that incorrect detail and mis-information reaches the public domain!

As for Valerie’s memory on that morning I happen to believe that she was driven to stay alive by her determination to bring the gunman to justice, and that her memory would have been spot-on at that time.

You could be right about the importance of the missing census form being overstated, but I don’t believe that the subsequently-discovered document was the one that John Kerr wrote his notes on. He would have known his own handwriting, and could have had no reason to lie about the document.

I do agree about both parties being in shock; Valerie would certainly have been traumatised by her vicious attack and one has only to talk to today’s emergency response personnel who deal with casualties on a daily basis to understand how a young man would have been affected by the discovery of a murdered man and a badly wounded woman.

Kind regards,
Steve

[Limehouse]

I would agree with the above, Steve, and let's not forget, this was a very young man. It must have been horrific to have to deal with such a crisis and even appearing in court as a witness must have been an ordeal.

[larue]

maybe the importance of the missing census form is being overstated.
Peter

hi Peter

this is of course quite possible, however, i think it's not so much what was in this document that counts, as the very fact of it being dissapeared which is significant.

re my post #315

[Steve]

Hi Larue

I agree that the loss of the document is of great significance and I have always thought it disappeared more through incompetence than any deliberate attempt to conceal or lose evidence.

What you say in your post 315 about that first item of documentary evidence being as important as a death-bed confession, had Valerie Storie not survived, is of course true. Given the confusion about the colour of the gunman’s eyes, if that document had been available to Acott and his team, and if it included a description of his eyes being anything other than blue, there is a good chance that Hanratty would never have been charged with the murder, let alone convicted.

Miss Storie, though, has always maintained that her description of the gunman right from that first very description given to Kerr in the lay-by included the eyes being blue. I think it is true to say that the ‘brown eyes’ description originally came about through a police mistake. It probably gained more prominence than it deserved through the efforts of the Hanratty-is-innocent campaign.

For my money the loss of this document made no real difference to the eventual outcome of the investigation and of the trial, but does demonstrate how much went wrong in this case from the very start. Which is the point you make in your own posts.

Kind regards,
Steve

[Graham]

Concerning the apparent 'loss' of Kerr's hand-written statement taken at the time he discovered Valerie, I agree that in the overall scheme of things, and the subsequent investigation, it didn't amount to much. Yet I have this feeling that, as the investigation became tighter and narrowed down to Hanratty or Alphon, the police became rather more circumspect about evidence which might have seemed contradictory; I believe that immediately after their interview with Charles France they decided that Hanratty was Suspect No 1, and took pains to preclude any contradictory evidence. Perhaps if Hanratty's defence had been more on the ball, so to speak, they'd have demanded a copy of Kerr's statement before the trial began.

I think we can excuse John Kerr, under the circumstances, for his failure to demand a receipt from the police for his original statement.

Cheers,

Graham

[Steve]

I think we can excuse John Kerr, under the circumstances, for his failure to demand a receipt from the police for his original statement.

Hi Graham

This made me smile. I think today, just about, I would ask (maybe demand) a receipt from Plod for an important document. Certainly not in 1961 - in those days we had respect for the police and for their integrity. I guess that John Kerr handed over the document in full and certain belief that he was doing the right thing, and that here was a man in uniform (and in authority) who would be a safe custodian of this important evidence. He would have had no question in his mind that this was the right and proper thing to do.

Until, of course, a little later when he was given a hard time for being there at the time!

Kind regards,
Steve

[Graham]

Hi Steve.

I think John Kerr would have given as good as he got from Plod! But you're right - in those days the police were totally above board....

Cheers,

Graham

[larue]

in those days the police were totally above board....

Cheers,

Graham

you what!!???

[Tony]

Hello Graham and indeed all contributors to this forum which I came across a few days ago.
I was 10 years old at the time of the A6 murder and funnily enough I lived on the A6 but in Derbyshire.
When we went to play out that summer my mother used to say: “Be back by eight, they still haven’t caught the A6 murderer yet”. In our naïve and innocent young days we thought the murderer was hiding out somewhere on our road. We didn’t know it ran virtually the length of the country. I can remember my Dad and Granddad discussing it in the car on the way to the football. I can remember JH being arrested but can not recall the execution.
I became somewhat obsessed with the case in 1971 when Paul foot’s book was serialised in, I think, the Sun newspaper. He convinced me of Hanratty’s innocence. I have copies of all the main books except for Miller’s which I only found out about whilst reading this discussion. I am trying to locate a copy at the moment.
I hope I can join in and add to the discussion. I still have serious doubts about Hanratty’s guilt and so obviously have concerns about the DNA but then Michael Hanratty and Bob Woffinden seem to have remained silent since the results were made public.

One thing you may be able to help me with is the monies paid into Peter Alphon’s bank account shortly after the murder. We know it was over £7,500.00 and some would have come from press interviews but what of the majority of it? Has there ever been a satisfactory explanation as to where it came from? Somebody said it would be the equivalent of £100,000.00 in today’s money.
Well I don’t know how actual money values have increased but a friend of mine bought a bungalow in 1961 for £1,500.00 and those houses today sell for £300,000.00 or thereabouts. His wages as a qualified gas fitter were £11.00 per week. So £7,500.00 could have bought 5 bungalows and the current value would be £1,500,000.00
So Alphon had an enormous amount of money from somewhere and I would suggest he didn’t have enough stake money to win it at the dogs. So where did it come from?

Tony