a6 murder

[Natalie Severn]

Victor,
Mrs Betty Davies still lives in Rhyl.She has not altered her view that the young man with dark hair was the same young man who Margaret Walker and Ivy Vincent saw knocking on doors trying to get a B&B,late in the evening of Tuesday 22nd August 1961.She believes that man was James Hanratty.
Nobody knows who did this "police sketch" you seized on---rather than being prepared to consider the whole post.In any case it certainly wasn"t a "photo" but in any case Mrs Davies believes the man was the same man with the streaky dyed hair who Margaret Walker and Ivy Vincent had seen.

[Natalie Severn]

when said cockney geezer type is being confused for a Welsh/Scots person in Mrs Dinwoodie's shop you mean?

and which reinforces , linguistically, Mrs Dinwoody"s perception,like that of many people in 1961 who rarely moved away from their linguistic roots, that anybody using a different dialect and accent "spoke funny"[were virtually foreigners]---"He spoke funny" were the words used by Mrs Dinwoody"s granddaughter, about the young man asking the way to Carlton or Tarleton Road.

[Graham]

Mrs Betty Davies still lives in Rhyl.She has not altered her view that the young man with dark hair was the same young man who Margaret Walker and Ivy Vincent saw knocking on doors trying to get a B&B,late in the evening of Tuesday 22nd August 1961.She believes that man was James Hanratty.

Right then - that's it! Hanratty really was in Rhyl! Nothing to do with Mrs Jones being shown just the one photo (by Gillbanks, who should have known better), and her identifying it as our Jim. Or Margaret Walker, who said she had seen photos of our Jim in the paper after the trial, and naturally recognised him instanty. Oh sorry, I'm forgetting her 'family event' which made her sure of the precise date of her encounter with this bloke. With regard to Ivy Vincent, not even Woffinden seems very certain of her worth.

The Rhyl "Alibi" is so much rot. Had he signed a visitor's book, contacted his mate Terry Evans, left a possession of his that could postively be identified, then fine; but he didn't. He told a whopper. He should have stuck to his original Liverpool Alibi and basically challenged the jury to destroy it.

Graham

[Natalie Severn]

Hanratty said that there was a green bath at the top of the house, not specifically in the attic.

I've stayed in more B&B's over the years than I can shake a stick at, and unless a B&B is in a place the size of the House Of Usher, even during a single night's stay you can get a pretty good idea of who your fellow guests are. And no-one - no-one - who was traced and who agreed that they stayed at Ingledene during the week in question said that they could recall anyone matching Hanratty's description.

If Swanwick was upper-crust, then what was Sherrard? Was his old man a dustman?

Almost the whole lie to the Rhyl Alibi can be traced to Joe Gillbanks. Joe was sent by the defence to Rhyl to investigate. He said the first thing he did was to find Terry Evans, and he said he found him easily, presumably because Evans was such a well-known Rhyl character at the time. Now, if Joe could find Evans so easily and quickly, why couldn't Hanratty, who after all had met him before and knew the places he hung out?

Graham

First of all Graham,I myself would not say "I stayed in an attic" if the room also had a bed in it and was otherwise furnished.Mrs Jones kept a scrupulously clean guest house.Hanratty would not have been put up in a tip of an attic!

Regarding your point about B&B"s I have also stayed in lots and lots of B&B"s and have very rarely seen anybody other than those who came down to breakfast.I have heard people coming in etc but not seen them before I left.

Michael Sherrard was a bright young barrister but he was not from the same upper middle class background as the privately educated Oxbridge graduate,Swanwick.

The people I have spoken to in Rhyl are quite appalled by the way the various witnesses were ignored.Mr Dutton,a highly respectable,well to do business man was affronted,having never wanted to get involved in the first place but having felt duty-bound when he read about it and read moreover, only in February 1862,just days before the trial ended,that the man was under sentence of death.
Mr Dutton said he was approached by a smartly dressed young man with hair that looked a bit oddly "coloured ",on the morning of 23rd August, trying to sell him a gold watch - quite an unusual incident.He like the other witnesses who came forward never understood why his evidence was ignored.

I think it very possible Hanratty was embarrassed to have to seriously try to hunt Terry down .His taxi wasnt there that week and as Hanratty had let Terry down over the job he had found him at the fairground and had walked off with Terry"s new shoes,he was taking a chance on Terry wanting to be bothered with him again .Quite a few people did not want to get involved or were prepared to come forward.How did Hanratty know Terry would be willing to be friends with him again? It wasn"t so easy when he couldnt just track him down in the crowd at the fairground .

[babybird67]

and which reinforces , linguistically, Mrs Dinwoody"s perception,like that of many people in 1961 who rarely moved away from their linguistic roots, that anybody using a different dialect and accent "spoke funny"[were virtually foreigners]---"He spoke funny" were the words used by Mrs Dinwoody"s granddaughter, about the young man asking the way to Carlton or Tarleton Road.

Right. So now the argument is ANYONE who spoke with anything other than a local accent could have been the person in the shop? It was Mrs Dinwoodie herself i believe who stated she thought the person she spoke to had a Welsh or Scots accent, neither of which is remotely like Cockney.

Seriously, the Rhyl/Liverpool alibis could be used to strain vegetables, they are that full of holes.

And we seriously have the same Hanrattyites arguing on the same thread that his accent prejudiced him in a line up when Storie asked the suspects to speak because he was so recognisably Cockney, yet the same man spoke so differently to Mrs Dinwoodie that he sounded either Scottish or Welsh.

I don't know why the Police hunting Jo's killer are bothering with DNA evidence there will be people arguing for her murderer's innocence even when forensic proof is obtainable. I think we should just let all alleged murderers go. Why bother? EH?

[Limehouse]

Right. So now the argument is ANYONE who spoke with anything other than a local accent could have been the person in the shop? It was Mrs Dinwoodie herself i believe who stated she thought the person she spoke to had a Welsh or Scots accent, neither of which is remotely like Cockney.

Seriously, the Rhyl/Liverpool alibis could be used to strain vegetables, they are that full of holes.

And we seriously have the same Hanrattyites arguing on the same thread that his accent prejudiced him in a line up when Storie asked the suspects to speak because he was so recognisably Cockney, yet the same man spoke so differently to Mrs Dinwoodie that he sounded either Scottish or Welsh.

I don't know why the Police hunting Jo's killer are bothering with DNA evidence there will be people arguing for her murderer's innocence even when forensic proof is obtainable. I think we should just let all alleged murderers go. Why bother? EH?

If Mrs Dinwoodie said 'Welsh or Scots' then she was clearly unused to hearing different accents as they are also quite different from each other. Therefore - it is not surprising she didn't recognise a Cockney accent (actually - it was a London accent - not Cockney and London accents do differ).

In Bedfordshire - a broad London accent would be much more recogniseable - it being further south but it would certainly have prejudiced Hanratty if he had been the only one with a London accent in the line-up.

Why are you bringing another case into the argument? What has the Bristol case to do with the Hanratty case? Are they going to hang her killer?

[Limehouse]

Hanratty said that there was a green bath at the top of the house, not specifically in the attic.

I've stayed in more B&B's over the years than I can shake a stick at, and unless a B&B is in a place the size of the House Of Usher, even during a single night's stay you can get a pretty good idea of who your fellow guests are. And no-one - no-one - who was traced and who agreed that they stayed at Ingledene during the week in question said that they could recall anyone matching Hanratty's description.

If Swanwick was upper-crust, then what was Sherrard? Was his old man a dustman?

Almost the whole lie to the Rhyl Alibi can be traced to Joe Gillbanks. Joe was sent by the defence to Rhyl to investigate. He said the first thing he did was to find Terry Evans, and he said he found him easily, presumably because Evans was such a well-known Rhyl character at the time. Now, if Joe could find Evans so easily and quickly, why couldn't Hanratty, who after all had met him before and knew the places he hung out?

Graham

Hi Graham - nice to see you back posting.

Where is the acctic if not at the top of the house? Hanratty might not have been familiar with the word 'attic'.

I have stayed in B&Bs in Yorkshire and Devon and one or two other places and have never paid the slightest interest in the other guests except if they have been sitting at a nearby table for breakfast and have said 'good morning' or something similar. I would just about be able to recall whether they were young or middle-aged or elderly and that is about it. I would not be able to describe them in detail other than their approximate size when sitting at a table (i.e. plump or slim).

I agree that Hanratty should never have introduced the Rhyl alibi so late in the day. He should have admitted he had been in both Liverpool and Rhyl right from the start. I think the reason he didn't mention Rhyl at first was that he was sure the people he saw in Liverpool would confirm his presence and that it would all be cleared up very quickly. He was less confident about the people of Rhyl - except perhaps for Terry Evans and he maybe didn't really want to send the police looking for Terry because he felt guilty about his behaviour the last time they met.

[Natalie Severn]

Seriously, the Rhyl/Liverpool alibis could be used to strain vegetables, they are that full of holes.

You are not surely claiming that the prosecution witnesses---Nudds with his eleven "aliases"and three different statements or Roy William Langdale ,a notorious torturer of a fellow prisoner or France the ex con and sacked Soho strip club bouncer were three honest witnesses who gave testimony that was perfectly 'reliable are you? Or anything other than "full of holes" ?

By the way, Supt Acott certainly is on record as giving credence to Mrs Dinwoody---who he is on record as having considered eminently trustworthy.Mrs Dinwoody was quite sure it was Hanratty who came into her shop.Like a number of other potential witnesses, she didn"t like having to make statements or go to court but felt conscience bound to do so.So decent and honest a soul was she that Acott believed she was not only telling the truth ,but that consequently Hanratty must have taken the plane back from Liverpool to London to get to the Vienna for 11 pm on Monday 21st August!

I notice you again simply make generalised unsubstantiated statements such as "full of holes" without actually saying was precisely these such "holes" were.

[Natalie Severn]

Norma,

thank you for your views re: Valerie's selection of Michael Clark, etc. Perhaps you would now address Charlotte France's statement, made face-to-face to Hanratty, that one of the Identikits looked like him?

I remind you, that this is Charlotte, the long-suffering wife of Hanratty's friend Dixie, who did his washing and ironing for him, and let him sleep at her flat apparently whenever it suited him. And he was sitting, with her, in front of the TV when the Identikit picture came on the screen. This is not just any woman who might have run up against Hanratty once in a while, but a woman who knew him extremely well. And she said one of the Identikits looked like him. Or do you think that Charlotte had already been nobbled by Acott and was out to pin the A6 on Jim?

Graham

One of the great mysteries of this crime is the role played by the France family as witnesses for the prosecution,as they had been erstwhile "friends" and Dixie a "business partner" and mentor of James Hanratty.
Charles France presided over the gambling that took place in the Rehearsal Club,presiding therefore over the likes of Billy Hill,mentor to the young Kray"s,the most notorious "gang leader" and gangster in North London at the time.
France had worked there for years, and was a much older ,more seasoned criminal than Hanratty ,having been convicted of several crimes of theft and gambling in the mid 1930"s ,before Hanratty was even born. Moreover Hanratty was a relative "new boy" to the Rehearsal Club,having just got out of a three year spell in the nick.
It is a particularly strange thing for Charlotte to have said about these identikit pictures since neither look remotely like Hanratty who had a distinctive quiff---a widow"s peak which refuses to be "brushed straight back" and is a noticeable feature of anybody who has it.But even more strikingly Hanratty had a large,square jaw whereas both identikit pictures show a man with a much narrower jawline and almost pointed.
My view,as you know,is that Charles France played a role in framing Hanratty, his wife Charlotte may therefore have been encouraged to say this by Charles France.After all she was a main witness for the prosecution.

[Natalie Severn]

I don't know why the Police hunting Jo's killer are bothering with DNA evidence there will be people arguing for her murderer's innocence even when forensic proof is obtainable. I think we should just let all alleged murderers go. Why bother? EH?

At least they are dealing with DNA that is relatively fresh and not with contaminated DNA subjected to a controversial DNA LCN test result, based on a fragment of cloth along with Hanratty"s trousers hair samples,fibres and a broken vial that likely contained a wash of his semen!

[Limehouse]

I don't know why the Police hunting Jo's killer are bothering with DNA evidence there will be people arguing for her murderer's innocence even when forensic proof is obtainable. I think we should just let all alleged murderers go. Why bother? EH?

I really can't see why this case has been mentioned at all on this thread. How do YOU KNOW people will be arguing for the murderer's innocence? Are you suggesting that just because we have doubts about the Hanratty case - we will automatically apply the same reasoning to all murder cases?

Also - do you think all DNA evidence is the same? As Norma has pointed out - the DNA evidence in the Hanratty case was extracted decades after the murder and was analysed usingg LCN techniques. Not all DNA evidence is analysed using this technique.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by babybird67

I don't know why the Police hunting Jo's killer are bothering with DNA evidence there will be people arguing for her murderer's innocence even when forensic proof is obtainable. I think we should just let all alleged murderers go. Why bother? EH?

Julie,

I think BB is being ironic when she writes the above.

Norma has not 'pointed out' anything about the DNA, because she is not qualified to do so. She has made a statement based upon her own perception
and understanding regarding the condition of the materials which were analysed, but she has no proof whatsoever that the materials were contaminated in any way, and neither has anyone else. Until a fully-qualified, independent expert on DNA analysis is prepared to examine the A6 DNA evidence and publish his findings, I for am am perfectly comfortable with accepting the evidence as kosher. But of course, even if such an expert found in favour of the prosecution, it wouldn't be accepted by some people, would it? If Woffinden ever gets the tests repeated and they confirm that Hanratty was the A6 killer, no-one who supports Hanratty will accept it, will they?

I wish certain people on this thread would stop accepting as gospel truth certain aspects of the A6 Case which are plain conjecture.

Such as Mrs Dinwoody being unable to recognise a cockney accent?!? This at a time when the vast majority of people on radio and TV spoke either with received pronunciation or a southern counties/London accent - regional accents in those days were not encouraged in the media, especially the Beeb. Of course, now someone might suggest that Mrs D didn't possess a TV or even a radio, so how would she know anything about any accent that wasn't local?



Graham

[Black Rabbit]

Norma,

thank you for your views re: Valerie's selection of Michael Clark, etc. Perhaps you would now address Charlotte France's statement, made face-to-face to Hanratty, that one of the Identikits looked like him?

I remind you, that this is Charlotte, the long-suffering wife of Hanratty's friend Dixie, who did his washing and ironing for him, and let him sleep at her flat apparently whenever it suited him. And he was sitting, with her, in front of the TV when the Identikit picture came on the screen. This is not just any woman who might have run up against Hanratty once in a while, but a woman who knew him extremely well. And she said one of the Identikits looked like him. Or do you think that Charlotte had already been nobbled by Acott and was out to pin the A6 on Jim?
Graham

Just because the identikit picture looked like Hanratty doesn't necessarily mean it was him.
See below, as pointed out previously in post 6663, other than hairstyle (which is easily changed), a remarkable similarity.

Identikit pictures are not foolproof, an identikit picture of one of the below would almost certainly fit the other.

I give you Tracey Thorn from 'Everything But The Girl' and our old friend Mr Alphon.

[Limehouse]

Originally Posted by babybird67


Julie,

I think BB is being ironic when she writes the above.

Norma has not 'pointed out' anything about the DNA, because she is not qualified to do so. She has made a statement based upon her own perception
and understanding regarding the condition of the materials which were analysed, but she has no proof whatsoever that the materials were contaminated in any way, and neither has anyone else. Until a fully-qualified, independent expert on DNA analysis is prepared to examine the A6 DNA evidence and publish his findings, I for am am perfectly comfortable with accepting the evidence as kosher. But of course, even if such an expert found in favour of the prosecution, it wouldn't be accepted by some people, would it? If Woffinden ever gets the tests repeated and they confirm that Hanratty was the A6 killer, no-one who supports Hanratty will accept it, will they?

I wish certain people on this thread would stop accepting as gospel truth certain aspects of the A6 Case which are plain conjecture.

Such as Mrs Dinwoody being unable to recognise a cockney accent?!? This at a time when the vast majority of people on radio and TV spoke either with received pronunciation or a southern counties/London accent - regional accents in those days were not encouraged in the media, especially the Beeb. Of course, now someone might suggest that Mrs D didn't possess a TV or even a radio, so how would she know anything about any accent that wasn't local?



Graham

Hi Graham - fair points and well put but I still can't accept your argument re regional accents. I am not saying Mrs Dinwoody definitely could not recognise regional accents - but that - if she couldn't tell Welsh from Scottish she might therfore not be able to identify a London accent. You are right to point out that in the media at the time received pronunciation dominated (and it is a fact that received pronunciation originated in the south) but really - dialects such as Hanratty's would only have really been heard in dramas and would have been greatly exagerated as they were rarely played by people who actually possessed those accents.


Julie

[Graham]

Hi Graham - fair points and well put but I still can't accept your argument re regional accents. I am not saying Mrs Dinwoody definitely could not recognise regional accents - but that - if she couldn't tell Welsh from Scottish she might therfore not be able to identify a London accent. You are right to point out that in the media at the time received pronunciation dominated (and it is a fact that received pronunciation originated in the south) but really - dialects such as Hanratty's would only have really been heard in dramas and would have been greatly exagerated as they were rarely played by people who actually possessed those accents.


Julie

Hi Julie,

OK, point taken re: difference between Welsh and Scots. But I wonder if, when Mrs D was questioned, she came out with something like "His accent? Welsh, Scots, how would I know? I hardly spoke to him", or something like that.

However, would I be correct in saying that in those days, because it was a major port, Liverpool was much more cosmopolitain than it is now, and people from all over the UK would be in and out of it?

Yes, it always makes me cringe when I hear actors trying to reproduce regional accents - some can do it, of course, but not many. They come across like Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins.

Graham