a6 murder

[Graham]

BR,

Just because the identikit picture looked like Hanratty doesn't necessarily mean it was him

.

And conversely, just because some people think the identikit looked like Alphon doesn't mean to say it was him.

Graham

[Limehouse]

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

Hi Graham

Yes - Liverpool was a busy port both for passengers and cargo but I don't think the passengers would have been venturing much further than the railway station to make connections to other parts of the country.

The dock workers were drawn from Ireland and from Wales and perhaps cities such as Manchester and it is possible there may have been a few Londoners who had worked in the London docks and moved up to Liverpool when dock work became harder to find down south but I don't think there would have been lots of Londoners in the area. As a Londoner myself - my first visit 'north' was to the outskirts of Birmingham (Barton-Under-Needwood??) when I was about 18!

Incidently - a few posts back you took Norma to task over her interpretation of the DNA evidence and berated her for not being an expert. I think that was very unfair because the main point is that this was not a straight-forward extraction of DNA from a fresh deposit on a garment removed from the crime scene and stored appropriately. Remember - the first run of tests on the garments produced no or inconclusive results. A few years passed and then a new technique - very much open to question - was used but the history of where the garments had been and how they had been stored from the moment they were collected from the owners is open to question and it does not take an expert to question the results.

[Graham]

Hi Julie,

Incidently - a few posts back you took Norma to task over her interpretation of the DNA evidence and berated her for not being an expert. I think that was very unfair because the main point is that this was not a straight-forward extraction of DNA from a fresh deposit on a garment removed from the crime scene and stored appropriately. Remember - the first run of tests on the garments produced no or inconclusive results. A few years passed and then a new technique - very much open to question - was used but the history of where the garments had been and how they had been stored from the moment they were collected from the owners is open to question and it does not take an expert to question the results.

I wasn't berating Norma - I was just stating a fact. No-one who's posted to this thread is an expert on DNA - another fact. OK, one or two know more about it than I do, but that's not saying much.

The other point to make is that when the Hanratty family and his lawyers were pressing for a DNA test, I don't recall any of them complaining about the storage conditions and possible contamination until after the initial results were published. When the second set of results were published, obviously the **** hit the fan. And sorry to disagree, Julie, but I think it does take a qualified expert to properly question the results. Obviously the debate will continue.

Graham

[babybird67]

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!

Kindly provide evidence that the broken vial:

a/ contained a wash of anyone's semen, let alone Hanratty's;

and

b/ that any liquid whatsoever was able to break the laws of physics and contaminated fabric that was held within other materials that showed no sign or evidence of being touched by water whatsoever.

[babybird67]

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).

Right. So now someone who works in Liverpool and can't distinguish between Scots and Welsh must be 'clearly unused to hearing different accents.' How do you know what accents she was unused to and which ones she was used to? Rubbish as usual.

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.

A big IF which as usual your case relies on, as once again WE DONT KNOW.

You seem to be missing the point. I am asking how it is possible to argue consistently that a man with a cockney accent (as some of you claim) or a 'broad London accent' as you seem to prefer to call it, could be so cockney or broadly London one moment as to prejudice him if he speaks, and yet so not distinguishably a Londoner the next minute that he can be mistaken for someone coming from Wales or Scotland. I live in Wales and believe me there is no possible way the Welsh was of speaking and the London way of speaking could ever be confused. The same goes for Scots. And don't say, because Mrs Dinwoodie must have been bad at accents. That is lame and without evidence.

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?

Because it's topical, it's on my mind, and the first thing that sprang to mind when i saw the DNA possible breakthrough was the possibility of arguments like yours being used to undermine the pursuit of justice and leave dangerous killers on our streets.

[babybird67]

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" ?

For about the trillionth time, Norma, no i am not arguing anything about Nudds. You are the one trying to rely on Nudds to convict Alphon, even though you claim he is a liar! I treat him exactly as he is, a liar and criminal, and do not rely on anything he says. Nudds is not needed to prove that Hanratty was at the Vienna. Hanratty admits he was and signed the hotel register.

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!

Again, i have never said Mrs Dinwoodie was anything other than honest and trustworthy. Reliability is another matter. I believe she certainly served a man who asked for directions. I believe that man spoke with the accent she STATED that he did, and was either Scottish or Welsh, certainly Celtic of some sort, and that that man was NOT Hanratty.

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

I'm sorry i didn't realise that every single post i made on the subject i had to re-state all the holes: here's some for starters:

the fact that there were two alibis...he couldn't have been innocently in two places at once;

timings for Liverpool don't match;

timings for Rhyl don't match and indeed alleged witnesses say they saw Hanratty before he states he was in the area;

impossibility of him doing all the activities he states he did in the allotted timescales;

the leaving the suitcase doesn't match;

allegedly staying in Ingledene, but description of the room he stayed in not matching the description of the room the landlady states the guest himself stayed in;

not a single other guest remembering seeing him there;

the Scots/Welsh accent of an 'broadly spoken Londoner';

those are just off the top of my head Norma but i did start a thread on the Rhyl alibi and there may well be other examples on there.


Happy straining.

[babybird67]

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?

It wouldn't surprise me.

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.

So what? It was conclusive. There is no possible way that contamination caused the results that were found. You would have to be arguing for a case of contamination coupled with eradication, a physical impossibility. There will never be such a clear cut case of DNA evidence being correct. THAT is why it disturbs me when it is questioned and undermined, and why it worries me that the same sort of ridiculous arguments could be used to undermine justice.

[Limehouse]

[QUOTE=babybird67;162161]Right. So now someone who works in Liverpool and can't distinguish between Scots and Welsh must be 'clearly unused to hearing different accents.' How do you know what accents she was unused to and which ones she was used to? Rubbish as usual.

A big IF which as usual your case relies on, as once again WE DONT KNOW.

You seem to be missing the point. I am asking how it is possible to argue consistently that a man with a cockney accent (as some of you claim) or a 'broad London accent' as you seem to prefer to call it, could be so cockney or broadly London one moment as to prejudice him if he speaks, and yet so not distinguishably a Londoner the next minute that he can be mistaken for someone coming from Wales or Scotland. I live in Wales and believe me there is no possible way the Welsh was of speaking and the London way of speaking could ever be confused. The same goes for Scots. And don't say, because Mrs Dinwoodie must have been bad at accents. That is lame and without evidence.


I am not missing the point at all. You are missing the point. In Bedfordshire and places closer to London - especially at that time - people were more accustomed to hearing London accents than people living further north - who encountered London accents less often. Therefore - it is perfectly possible for a person in Liverpool not to instantly recognise a broad London accent.

It is clear that Valerie could identify a broad London accent because she described the attacker as 'having a Cockney accent'. That is why she asked the membvers of the line-up (after deliberating for 20 minutes) to speaK. Now - it is strongly argued (and I think it is mentioned in one of the books - I'll check later) that Hanratty's accent stood out because he was the only London-based man in the line-up.

As for your 'rubbish as usual' comment - it is perfectly clear that someone based in Liverpool would hear Welsh particularly - and Scottish accents possibly - more often than they would hear London accents. If the lady in question could not distinguish between Welsh and Scottish - it is reasonably safe to assume she does not have a good ear for accents. That is a perfectly logical conclusion.

[Derrick]

...The other point to make is that when the Hanratty family and his lawyers were pressing for a DNA test, I don't recall any of them complaining about the storage conditions and possible contamination until after the initial results were published. When the second set of results were published, obviously the **** hit the fan...

Hi Graham
In the early 1990's it was the Home Office, under advisement from forensic scientists who said that the exhibits couldn't be tested under the current DNA techniques of SLP (single locus probe) or RFLP (restricted fragment length polymorphism) because of the degraded state of the available material.
It wasn't until STR testing became standardized in 1994 that smaller amounts of DNA could be tested using PCR ampflication. When the NDNAD came online then the Hanratty tests were done.
The only differences between the 1995 and 1998 tests were the 4 additional loci examined (10 instead of 6) and the 6 additional PCR cycles (34 instead of 28).
There were 2 main reasons why Hanratty's defence in 2002 were unable to counter the DNA evidence.

1. All of the experts conversant with LCN DNA worked for the FSS and therefore the prosecution.
2. Very little was known about the problems associated with LCN in 2002. It has only been in the last 5 years that the problems have been widely publicized.

Derrick

[Limehouse]

Hi Graham
In the early 1990's it was the Home Office, under advisement from forensic scientists who said that the exhibits couldn't be tested under the current DNA techniques of SLP (single locus probe) or RFLP (restricted fragment length polymorphism) because of the degraded state of the available material.
It wasn't until STR testing became standardized in 1994 that smaller amounts of DNA could be tested using PCR ampflication. When the NDNAD came online then the Hanratty tests were done.
The only differences between the 1995 and 1998 tests were the 4 additional loci examined (10 instead of 6) and the 6 additional PCR cycles (34 instead of 28).
There were 2 main reasons why Hanratty's defence in 2002 were unable to counter the DNA evidence.

1. All of the experts conversant with LCN DNA worked for the FSS and therefore the prosecution.
2. Very little was known about the problems associated with LCN in 2002. It has only been in the last 5 years that the problems have been widely publicized.

Derrick

Did Hanratty's family even know the conditions under which the items were stored and how much handling they had been subject to before storage?

[Limehouse]

If Hanratty lied about Liverpool and Rhyl....

then why did he admit that he had told Charles France that' under the back seat of a bus was a good place to hide unwanted loot from a burglary'? Why - when challenged - didn't he just say 'I never said any such thing'. And why - when shown his hanky in court - didn't he just deny it was his? Surely denying these things would have given the prosecution a much harder time? They would have had a much harder time connecting Hanratty with the crime without that evidence - and yet Hanratty told the truth. Why?

[Natalie Severn]

Kindly provide evidence that the broken vial:

a/ contained a wash of anyone's semen, let alone Hanratty's;

and

b/ that any liquid whatsoever was able to break the laws of physics and contaminated fabric that was held within other materials that showed no sign or evidence of being touched by water whatsoever.

a]what else was a glass vial with a rubber stopper , of the kind kept in a chemistry lab ,likely to contain in that particular drawer,since we know that a "wash" was done on Hanratty"s trousers by the police pathologist and since other item"s taken from Hanratty such as his trousers were also in the drawer and several "forensic" materials that had been kept viz hair samples etc all such fibres known to have been taken from Hanratty"s person when he was in custody?

b]You are mistaken here.The brown paper envelope the fragment of knicker was kept in had been sealed in the normal way and was found to have come apart at the edges "at some time" and then resealed itself----as paper and glue do when brought into contact with water.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Graham

There were 2 main reasons why Hanratty's defence in 2002 were unable to counter the DNA evidence.

1. All of the experts conversant with LCN DNA worked for the FSS and therefore the prosecution.
2. Very little was known about the problems associated with LCN in 2002. It has only been in the last 5 years that the problems have been widely publicized.

Derrick

Thanks Derrick---at last somebody getting to the crux of the syndrome of partiality that has dogged this case!The prosecution has acted as judge and jury without even a semblance of neutrality throughout every single appeal.Who says the law is neutral ?

[Derrick]

Did Hanratty's family even know the conditions under which the items were stored and how much handling they had been subject to before storage?

Hi Julie
Yes. Bob Woffinden and Geoffrey Bindman were instrumental in rediscoverying them in the early 1990's.

Derrick

[Limehouse]

Hi Julie
Yes. Bob Woffinden and Geoffrey Bindman were instrumental in rediscoverying them in the early 1990's.

Derrick

Thanks Derrick.