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  • On Monday August 21st 1961 James Hanratty told the France familly that he was going to Liverpool that evening, ostensibly to visit an aunt.

    On that same evening he also told his friend Ann Pryce at the Rehearsal Club that he was travelling up to Liverpool.

    Sidetracked from his intended Liverpool trip that Monday evening and discovering that it was too late to travel he obtained accommodation for the night at the Vienna Hotel because the Broadway House Hotel was fully booked up.

    He had bed and breakfast at the Vienna Hotel, leaving there sometime around 8.30am or 9.00am.

    He volunteered to police that he absent mindedly travelled to Paddington first instead of Euston Station.

    Michael da Costa, a very observant and publicity shy young actor, stated that he clearly remembered seeing James Hanratty at Euston Station on that Tuesday morning.

    James Hanratty stated that when he arrived at Lime Street Station, Liverpool, and handed in his pigskin case at the left luggage department he remembered being served by a man with a withered hand.

    Peter Usher, who fitted that description almost to a tee (he had two fingers missing from his left hand) remembered serving someone who resembled James Hanratty. Usher said that this man asked Usher to put his name on the ticket which he did not do because the ticket was already numbered. Usher recalled that the man mentioned the name "Ratty with the initial N or J"

    Some time later that afternoon/early evening, according to James Hanratty, he entered a sweet shop on Scotland Road where he asked the lady behind the counter if she could direct him to a Carlton/Tarleton Avenue/Street/Road whatever.. Hanratty said the woman told him he had come too far, that this was Bankhall. Anyone who knows the Liverpool Scotland Road area would know that Bankhall is the general area where that particular sweet shop was located.

    Mrs Olive Dinwoodie ( "a perfectly respectable and responsible citizen" according to Acott)
    corroborated Hanratty's story almost verbatim. She served behind the counter of that sweetshop for just the two days, the Monday and the Tuesday. She stated that the man who asked for the directions looked very like James Hanratty and came into the shop around the time that Hanratty said he had.

    According to Hanratty he made his way back to Lime Street station where he had left his luggage. Before catching the Rhyl bus at the side of Lime Street Station he tried to gain access to Reynold's Billiard Hall. His intention was to try and sell a gold wrist watch he had
    stolen. The owner of the Billiard Hall, Robert Kempt, stopped him from doing so. Although unsure of the exact date Kempt indeed recalled such an incident taking place and his story too corroborated Hanratty's almost verbatim.


    The point I am making is that James Hanratty told friends on the Monday evening of his intentions to travel up to Liverpool. He could have told them he was going to Bristol, Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester or absolutely anywhere in the UK, but no, he tells them he is going to a place [ Liverpool ] where, lo and behold, at least three separate witnesses [Peter Usher, Mrs Olive Dinwoodie and Robert Kempt] place him ( or a doppelganger ) on the Tuesday afternoon/early evening. And whose stories corroborate Hanratty's almost to a tee.

    And then there is his arrival in Rhyl later that evening and all those honourable and trustworthy Rhyl witnesses who remember meeting and speaking with him that evening or the next day.

    And some people would have us believe the Liverpool/Rhyl alibi is make believe. lol.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by jimarilyn View Post
      Usher recalled that the man mentioned the name "Ratty with the initial N or J"
      He was probably confusing Jim's alibi with another work of fiction, Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows.

      The point I am making is that James Hanratty told friends on the Monday evening of his intentions to travel up to Liverpool. He could have told them he was going to Bristol, Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester or absolutely anywhere in the UK........
      Even to his most trusted confidants Jim was most unlikely to say he was off to the sticks armed to the teeth.

      lol.
      Lol indeed. Aunt in Liverpool indeed.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by RonIpstone View Post
        He was probably confusing Jim's alibi with another work of fiction, Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows.



        Even to his most trusted confidants Jim was most unlikely to say he was off to the sticks armed to the teeth.



        Lol indeed. Aunt in Liverpool indeed.
        Even to his most trusted confidants Jim was most unlikely to say he was off to the sticks armed to the teeth.
        But then he never did go there---as any Londoner with an ounce of nous knows---no suited and booted, streetwise Londoner would have gone anywhere near a cornfield in "Slough"--- of all places ---to do " stick ups".For crying out loud----you sometimes talk like a bunch of country bumpkins ! James Hanratty would rather have been seen dead than have gone to a cornfield to highjack a "Morris Minor" and spend six hours in it dressed to the nines because he was hot with lust for Valerie Storie . Get over it.Whoever it was it was not James Hanratty.

        Comment


        • Originally posted by Natalie Severn View Post
          But then he never did go there---as any Londoner with an ounce of nous knows---no suited and booted, streetwise Londoner would have gone anywhere near a cornfield in "Slough"--- of all places ---to do " stick ups".For crying out loud----you sometimes talk like a bunch of country bumpkins ! James Hanratty would rather have been seen dead than have gone to a cornfield to highjack a "Morris Minor" and spend six hours in it dressed to the nines because he was hot with lust for Valerie Storie . Get over it.Whoever it was it was not James Hanratty.
          Norma

          I don't know if you are forgetting, but Ron accepts that the DNA proves Hanratty is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. He is not alone.

          He, and for that matter the others who believe the same, are hardly going to believe, or more to the point, admit to accepting, anything that places Hanratty anywhere other than in Dorney Reach around dusk on the 22nd August 1961.

          The problem with this forum is that two sides are so entrenched that not even a re-enactment of Hiroshima will shift it. Personal insults have been chucked around like confetti. It has, perhaps sadly, run its course.

          Ron said, sometime back, that he just wants to discuss the reasons why Hanratty did it, with others that believe the same as him. He set up a thread on which to do this. Good luck to 'em I say.

          But it will mean nothing to me as I am convinced that James Hanratty was not in that car when Michael Gregsten was slain.

          Regards
          Derrick

          Comment


          • Originally posted by RonIpstone View Post
            Lol indeed. Aunt in Liverpool indeed.
            You seem to have overlooked what I had written (or typed) in my post........."ostensibly to visit an aunt".

            Yes you are correct, he did indeed have an aunt who resided in Liverpool whom he had not seen for several years.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by Derrick View Post
              Norma

              I don't know if you are forgetting, but Ron accepts that the DNA proves Hanratty is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. He is not alone.

              He, and for that matter the others who believe the same, are hardly going to believe, or more to the point, admit to accepting, anything that places Hanratty anywhere other than in Dorney Reach around dusk on the 22nd August 1961.

              The problem with this forum is that two sides are so entrenched that not even a re-enactment of Hiroshima will shift it. Personal insults have been chucked around like confetti. It has, perhaps sadly, run its course.

              Ron said, sometime back, that he just wants to discuss the reasons why Hanratty did it, with others that believe the same as him. He set up a thread on which to do this. Good luck to 'em I say.

              But it will mean nothing to me as I am convinced that James Hanratty was not in that car when Michael Gregsten was slain.

              Regards
              Derrick
              Derrick,

              you are, of course, absolutely right. I can never be convinced that Hanratty wasn't guilty, and his supporters can never be convinced that he wasn't innocent. It was a crazy, weird, screwed-up case right from the start, and Sherrard never spoke a truer word than when he referred to it as 'dripping with coincidence'. To be honest, I'm not sure if I've actually got anything more to add to this debate - like others, I've stated my case and my beliefs many times over the years, as have the Jimmites, and to date neither camp has succeeded in winning a convert. As I said recently, unless by some miracle new evidence comes into the public domain, I can't see the stalemate resolving itself. What do others think? Is it time to call it a day? Or are there areas of the case that can be debated and discussed without fists flying?

              Graham
              We are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture and hypothesis. - Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure Of Silver Blaze

              Comment


              • I think its time to call it a day,Graham.Well on here anyway!
                All the Best,
                Norma

                Comment


                • I think there may be some mileage left if everyone tries to be civil.

                  I still think there is room for debate concerning the possibility that there is a completely unexplored candidate out there.

                  Comment


                  • something else i dont understand is...

                    the justice system is based on the premise 'innocent until proven guilty.'

                    To continually question a verdict after three separate examinations of the evidence is perverse. It says, I want to change the justice system so that it is 'innocent forever, despite trials, appeals and guilty verdicts.' One has to ask, at what point does one draw the line?

                    Hanratty has been found guilty by eleven laymen and by judges. There has been no conflict of verdict. All three verdicts by disparate groups of people have been guilty. It is disenfranchising victims of crime, for whom the justice system one would have thought exists, to keep perversely undermining a judgement which has been made three times. Nobody should be forced to go through a lifetime of cross examination like Ms Storie has...her only 'crime' was to be the one surviving victim of Hanratty's despicable crime. That original crime is bad enough; it is my honest belief that people who continue to support Hanratty despite the evidence and the judgements become, metaphorically, nothing better than his accomplices. I'm sorry but that is my honest view and it continues to offend and upset me.
                    babybird

                    There is only one happiness in life—to love and be loved.

                    George Sand

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by babybird67 View Post
                      Hanratty has been found guilty by eleven laymen and by judges. There has been no conflict of verdict.
                      Yes---but....
                      The 1961 trial had been set to go ahead in the Old Bailey because intense local interest and the risk of bias was considered likely to deprive Hanratty of a fair trial.As it was the defence team were shocked to be told it was to take place in Bedford after all--- just two weeks before the case was to be listed when they appeared at the Old Bailey ,fully expecting it to begin there.

                      Michael Sherrard:"I was left with suspicions that there had been manoeuvring behind the scenes for the trial to take place in the court where the prosecution was most likely to succeed".The decision was not negotiable.So the case was transferred.
                      The eleven just men you refer to are described thus by Michael Sherrard in his autobiography Wigs and Wherefores, of 2009:
                      "They[the Bedford jury] turned out to be exactly as described to this novice: all male.middle class,white,property owning gentry.From the outset,they appeared to be all too likely to live up to the bedford reputation of being of the notoriously,hard nosed hang-"em ,flog "em school of justice."............

                      regarding the Rhyl witnesses who came forward towards the end of the trial;

                      "The Police were in Rhyl before I had finished reading my statement"

                      and of the judge in Hanratty"s trial he has this to say:
                      ....."The judge,Mr Justice Gorman,"was bursting himself to indicate to the jury that he did not think the case was strong enough"............
                      He gave the jury a perfectly good direction:


                      Mr Justice Gorman
                      "He does not have to prove his alibi.The failure or otherwise of the alibi does not make him guilty"




                      And after the 2002 ruling:

                      :MICHAEL SHERRARD: The public were cheated, the system was cheated. I don't regard myself as having been cheated. I, I'm really an intermediate player, but Hanratty was hanged. He was cheated. If the other material that was not disclosed to us would have made the difference, so it, it's fair to say that there seems to be a strong argument at least for saying that the trial was fatally flawed and the word fatal has a real significance in this context.

                      Norma
                      Last edited by Natalie Severn; 12-08-2010, 10:11 AM.

                      Comment


                      • What on Earth!!!

                        I have enjoyed this debate immensely over the years and I have become friends, I hope, with some on here. I hope I have added something and maybe at times entertained you.

                        I do not believe James Hanratty was guilty and I strongly suspect that the case is not over just yet. There should be further developments soon from what I hear.

                        I have not contributed for some time because of the nastiness of the replies.

                        To the Jimdiditites you have your victory; as you keep saying your case is proved beyond doubt. Yes you are indeed right in the eyes of the law, system call it what you want.
                        But as can be seen by the content of this case life is very short so why do you waste your time debating with us, the flat earthers, as you like to call us?
                        Would you really spend hours debating with the flat earth society? I don’t think so. Something about this case must cause you some concern.

                        Surely you must have better things to do with yourselves than engage with us (who you must think are idiots).
                        You have your victory so why do you continue?

                        It is beyond me.

                        Tony.

                        (Justice for the 96)

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by Tony View Post
                          I have enjoyed this debate immensely over the years and I have become friends, I hope, with some on here. I hope I have added something and maybe at times entertained you.

                          I do not believe James Hanratty was guilty and I strongly suspect that the case is not over just yet. There should be further developments soon from what I hear.

                          I have not contributed for some time because of the nastiness of the replies.

                          To the Jimdiditites you have your victory; as you keep saying your case is proved beyond doubt. Yes you are indeed right in the eyes of the law, system call it what you want.
                          But as can be seen by the content of this case life is very short so why do you waste your time debating with us, the flat earthers, as you like to call us?
                          Would you really spend hours debating with the flat earth society? I don’t think so. Something about this case must cause you some concern.

                          Surely you must have better things to do with yourselves than engage with us (who you must think are idiots).
                          You have your victory so why do you continue?

                          It is beyond me.

                          Tony.

                          (Justice for the 96)
                          You echo my thoughts completely Tony. It is beyond my comprehension too why the dyed in the wool jimdiditites (who have recently been re-named jimmites by a couple of them) spend so much valuable time and energy expounding the 'establishment' view. If I were among their ranks I certainly wouldn't be wasting precious time trying to convince any doubters that officialdom were right. Either they are just argumentative by nature or they too have their doubts [without admitting it] that the very convenient and timely DNA LCN findings of 2002 are just a little too pat, given what is now known about that technique. They'll have to wait until the cows come home (whatever time that will be) before convincing me.

                          Your input and humour have been much missed, I know you've been a very keen student of this enigmatic case for almost 40 years and your knowledge and understanding of it are second to none.

                          I'm a proud flat-earther, as are a lot of folk who live in Holland. My local golf course is far from flat though, I must admit. Unlike the playing surface at Anfield which is very even.

                          regards,
                          James
                          Last edited by jimarilyn; 12-08-2010, 05:09 PM.

                          Comment


                          • Welcome back Tony. It's nice to see you posting again. We all used to be able to have a civil debate - both sides - but sadly no more.

                            I've got some ideas swirling round my head so may be I'll PM them to a few people to see what they think.

                            Meanwhile - keep the faith!

                            Julie

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by Tony View Post
                              I have enjoyed this debate immensely over the years and I have become friends, I hope, with some on here. I hope I have added something and maybe at times entertained you.

                              I do not believe James Hanratty was guilty and I strongly suspect that the case is not over just yet. There should be further developments soon from what I hear.

                              I have not contributed for some time because of the nastiness of the replies.

                              To the Jimdiditites you have your victory; as you keep saying your case is proved beyond doubt. Yes you are indeed right in the eyes of the law, system call it what you want.
                              But as can be seen by the content of this case life is very short so why do you waste your time debating with us, the flat earthers, as you like to call us?
                              Would you really spend hours debating with the flat earth society? I don’t think so. Something about this case must cause you some concern.

                              Surely you must have better things to do with yourselves than engage with us (who you must think are idiots).
                              You have your victory so why do you continue?

                              It is beyond me.

                              Tony.

                              (Justice for the 96)

                              To ensure these boards arent completely dominated by Hanratty defenders. Otherwise, the threads would be as impartial as a Paul Foot book.

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by Tony View Post

                                I do not believe James Hanratty was guilty and I strongly suspect that the case is not over just yet. There should be further developments soon from what I hear.
                                We all here waiting for the further developments.

                                Ron
                                (Justice for all)

                                Comment

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