a6 murder

[larue]

Hi all.

I heard it mentioned that in the UK there is one CCTV camera per every 14 members of the population, i.e., if this figure is correct, about 425000 of the buggers. If that is the case, how come the police were never able to nail anyone for burgling my mate's shop? I also read recently that, in addition to all the static speed-cameras we have to contend with, there are 3500 mobile speed-camera vans plying our roads. On top of this, we may well have to cope with a very intrusive ID card system, together with the (to my mind frightening) suggestion that ALL mobile-phone calls and texts, and ALL e-mails, will be recorded. This is scary, if true. Before too long you won't be able to park your car down a quiet lane to have a leak (or a quiet snog) against a tree.

Cheers,

Graham

you must be kidding mate!!! never mind a quiet lane, soon you won't be able to go to your own bathroom without some nosy bastard watching you.

i'll bet those tin-pot military dictatorships don't have as many spy cameras as this land fit for heroes. i reckon that figure of 425000 is way too low. watched a uk doc while living in the usa, reckons if you include shop cctv with civic cams road cams and speed cams, there are over 500000 in the london area alone.

i doubt it would have been this bad if hitler had won...

[larue]

Do you think Bob and Ken would have been happy with all this technology? They probably found investigating the A6 murder a lot easier.

Peter

yeah, they could just have sat on their butts pushing buttons.

[Limehouse]

A bit off topic I know but I have to add my views about being watched etc. CCTV cameras helped the investigation into the bombings on 7/7 and probably helped to prevent other attacks.

Re David Davies and his resignation and, for that matter John Major shooting his mouth of about lengthy detentions with out charge. Back in 1971, the Northern Ireland Prime Minister, with the support of Edward Heath, the Uk Prime Minister, approved internment without trial for IRA terrorists and suspected terrorists. These people were imprisoned for YEARs without trial. The situation was the same - people suspected of terrorism against the state and its people being held for security reasons. I see no difference. I am not totally in favour of it, but I can see why it might be necessary to hold someone for 40+ days whilst an investigation takes place.

I think the Conservative Party had better be careful how loud it shouts about this incase other people, like me, have long memories.

[larue]

Yes, it would be a doddle to solve today, even PC Plod would have had his man within seconds.

CCTV cameras in Rhyl, plus Euston, Paddington, Liverpool and Taplow railway stations. DNA analysis of fresh exhibits, including the back seat of the bus and spent cartridge cases. ESDA testing of the Hotel Vienna register.

Peter

one would think so, but seemingly, the rate for knife/gun crime is rising. but not the conviction rate. hmmm

to mis-quote darth vader 'don't be too proud of this technological terror you have created. it's power is nothing compared with that of the criminal mind'

[Steve]

i doubt it would have been this bad if hitler had won...

Hi Larue

Off-topic, I know, but this is an interesting point. Obviously the post-war regime in Germany had a completely different agenda than Hitler and his henchmen, so it is impossible to know how Europe would be had the nazis won WWII.

However, true to say there are FAR fewer cameras in today's Germany than here in the UK. In fact I cannot think of a European country that has any where near the number of cameras we have in the UK.

If MPs want to start resigning and fighting by-elections on issues of freedom, they could do worse than start by campaigning for fewer pointless CCTV cameras!

Kind regards,
Steve

[Steve]

The register of the Vienna Hotel was certainly an exhibit at the trial, but I can't find any reference that it was subjected to ESDA testing. I think you have to look at the register from the perspective that, if there was no conspiracy, there was no 'interfering' with the register. On the other hand...

Hi Graham

I believe there were several exhibits at the trial from the Vienna, a diary and a wall chart as well as the register. These were not taken by the police for some after the murder, leaving Nudds plenty of time to make minor alterations to support which ever version of events he was telling at the time.

Kind regards,
Steve

[Tony]

Good Morning Everyone,

Went out with my mates as usual this week and told them I’d found this discussion forum I’ve even bought a couple of them Foot’s book. They cost a penny each on Amazon. I was almost laughed out of the pub for even discussing Hanratty’s possible innocence.

P L A’s post 796 about the framing couldn’t have been an option because for all the framers knew “Hanratty could have been sat at home having a cup of tea with his mum”
Well first of all I doubt if Hanratty sat around any evening drinking tea. He was either out robbing or socialising. But, and I’m sure somebody will correct me here, didn’t Dixie know where Hanratty would be that week. Hadn’t he told Dixie he was off to Liverpool on some half baked scheme of finding a fence to sell stolen property to? Or maybe even Dixie suggested it to Hanratty knowing that there wasn’t a great chance of any alibi.
Ewer is alerted. “This week is a possibility will they be out together on Tuesday?” “Yes they probably will”. They definitely were.
As I say I might be wrong so I’ll wait for Graham/Steve and the rest to shoot me down.

Everybody now says: “Well he shouldn’t have been convicted on the evidence at the time, but the DNA, the jury managed to get it right”
Well I don’t know anything about DNA although the Colin Pitchfork case certainly made everyone think it was foolproof. But Madeline’s DNA was found in the boot of the McCann’s car and that has appeared to have been ruled out as suspect because of deterioration after 5 months not forty years. Also when Eddie the dog reacted as though it could smell a body in the boot it was dismissed as a circus or pantomime dog. Eddie later went to Jersey and smelt the remains of a child buried several feet under a concrete floor after 20 odd years. The police this year have had a dog on Saddleworth Moor looking for Keith Bennett and the result is that they are now convinced they will find his body after 44 years.
I suppose what I am trying to say is that in certain cases the authorities want or require a particular result. Hanratty’s samples were kept with Valerie’s in the same box at the trial and for forty years since. No possibility of contamination it’s him. Yes general public we right all along. No you still can’t see Dixie’s letters. Hanratty was a no good thief and dead. Perhaps if he had been alive and was a doctor; well who knows.

Tony.

[simon]

Wouldn't it be great if there was someone alive today who was actually in the car that night, and could tell us who the killer was!

Excuse my sarcasm. But I can't help wondering if Valerie Storie ever logs in to this website. What would her reaction be ? A mixture of bemusement, amusement and fury, I should imagine.

Can anyone enlighten me (because I don't have the books to hand) - was she well enough to attend the entire trial ? In other words, did she see Hanratty in the witness box ? If so...never mind the identity parades...she'd have had ample opportunity to decide whether this was the man with whom, for hours, she was cooped up in a small car, and by whom she was then raped.

She insists the murderer/rapist was Hanratty. I know there are still puzzles about the whole affair, but let's not forget that.

[Steve]

Hello Simon

My assessment is that Valerie does not log onto this website for the simple reason that she chose 40+ years ago to move on from the events that changed her life for ever. She does have internet access, I know that much for sure.

Yes, she saw Hanratty in the witness box, and he saw her! Miss Storie’s view is that he ‘winced’ when confronted with the truth.

She is totally convinced that Hanratty was the man in the Morris Minor. Forget all the other evidence, Valerie Storie’s personal conviction of Hanratty’s guilt is enough to convince anyone. She alone possibly convinced the jury to return a guilty verdict at the trial.

Kind regards,
Steve

[Tony]

Hi Simon,

The only person who could be still alive today who was in the car, if you exclude Valerie, is the murderer. That is if it wasn’t Hanratty.
Suppose someone who has been associated with the crime all these years were to die and, having no relatives, his estate was left to the Crown. What would people then think if the Coroner said: “This person has left several letters and objects and in the interest of the public I am going to have the police lock them away for the next thirty years”.

Couldn’t happen could it?

Tony.

[Steve]

Hello Tony

Hanratty was the gunman, there is no question of that. All the key players involved in the A6 murder and its consequences are now dead, with the exception of Miss Storie and Gregsten's two sons. Possibly also Dixie's children, though how much they knew is questionable.

The chances of new evidence appearing is very slim!

Kind regards,
Steve

[Graham]

Who Wrote Hanratty's Letters from Prison?

Here's one from left field for you.

JH was not only semi-literate according to everything I've ever read about him, he was was also rather inarticulate - cf: various statements made from the witness-box during his trial.

Yet the transcripts I've seen of his letters from Bedford Prison are very articulate and also moving. It has to be assumed that the letters were dictated to one or more warders, but whoever wrote them must have had a pretty good level of literacy to render them as readable and as moving as they are. If JH's level of articulation was as poor as we are led to believe, someone must have rendered his dictation into a highly-readable form. Is there any clue as to who his warders were?

I can't ever recall anyone asking this question before.

Cheers,

Graham

[Brenda]

I am still hoping one of you will write a Crime Library entry on this murder case some day.

[Graham]

I am still hoping one of you will write a Crime Library entry on this murder case some day.

Problem is, Brenda, that as Steve said earlier, the chance of any new evidence being uncovered is very slim. Anything I (for example) could write would only be a re-hash of what's been written before. Speaking purely personally, I think Leonard Miller's "Shadows Of Deadman's Hill" just about summed up and analysed most of what we know about the A6 Case, and it would be hard to improve on that.

However, as I said in an earlier post, in 4 years time it'll be the 50th anniversary of JH's execution, and if the 50-year confidentiality rule holds in this case, then perhaps - and it's a BIG perhaps - we may learn something we didn't know. But I wouldn't hold your breath.

Cheers,

Graham

[Steve]

It has to be assumed that the letters were dictated to one or more warders, but whoever wrote them must have had a pretty good level of literacy to render them as readable and as moving as they are. If JH's level of articulation was as poor as we are led to believe, someone must have rendered his dictation into a highly-readable form. Is there any clue as to who his warders were?

Hi Graham

The Catholic priests helped Hanratty with his letters.

Kind regards,
Steve