a6 murder

[jimarilyn]

What I don't understand is, if the 'Rhyl' alibi is genuine, why didn't he use it in the first place?

Hanratty, when asked by his defence counsel Michael Sherrard why he didn't mention about Rhyl to Acott said the following :-

"Because at that point, I did not know the name of the street, the number of the house, or even the name of the people living in the house"

[Graham]

Hanratty, when asked by his defence counsel Michael Sherrard why he didn't mention about Rhyl to Acott said the following :-

"Because at that point, I did not know the name of the street, the number of the house, or even the name of the people living in the house"

But if his Rhyl alibi was true, his defence team would have carried out the necessary investigation to confirm it, even if he could remember very little about where he stayed and with whom. He knew he'd been in Rhyl, knew the house was close to the station, that it had a green bath, etc. It should have been relatively easy to find the correct house - if what JH said was true. The fact is, I think, Hanratty made it up during the trial when he saw his Liverpool alibi shot down.

Cheers,

Graham

[jimarilyn]

Hello my friend, Jimarilyn.

Do you know Alphon's alibi?

Tony.

Hi Tony,

As far as I am aware Alphon was very vague and mysterious regarding an alibi. He claimed to have met his mother in Streatham on the evening of Tuesday 22nd August 1961. His mother,however, when interviewed by Acott could only say that when she met her son it was on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday and she was unsure what time of day it was.

When Det Sgt Kilner asked Alphon on Sunday 27th August where he had been the previous Tuesday (22nd) he answered that he had been at the Great Western or Great Eastern, and that he had stayed the night at the Vienna Hotel.

He said he'd left Southend for London around 11 am, met his mum in Victoria about 1pm, went to the pictures in the afternoon and went to the Broadway House Hotel around 8pm. He claimed he met his mum again on Gleneagle Road and then went to Victoria Station to pick up something from the left luggage office before arriving at the Vienna Hotel about 11pm. He said a girl showed him to his room.

The problem with these claims are that he didn't turn up in the late evening at the Vienna ( he had pre-booked in person in the morning) and was not shown to his room by a girl.

When asked (by Kilner) to account for his movements from Monday 21st August to Friday 25th August, Alphon was proven (from contrary evidence) to have lied about his whereabouts.

[jimarilyn]

But if his Rhyl alibi was true, his defence team would have carried out the necessary investigation to confirm it, even if he could remember very little about where he stayed and with whom. He knew he'd been in Rhyl, knew the house was close to the station, that it had a green bath, etc. It should have been relatively easy to find the correct house - if what JH said was true. The fact is, I think, Hanratty made it up during the trial when he saw his Liverpool alibi shot down.

It was on January 29th 1962 that James Hanratty first mentioned the Rhyl part of his alibi to his defence team. Joe Gillbanks was then asked to shift his investigations from Liverpool to Rhyl. He had questioned many Rhyl landladies before coming across Mrs Grace Jones (who ran the boarding house at Ingledene) on the morning of February 6th 1962.

She recognised the man (Hanratty) in the photograph she was shown, and confirmed all the things that Hanratty could remember about the boarding house. There was indeed a green bath in the attic room, it was indeed 25 shillings for a 2 night stay, there was indeed a large hallstand and potted plant, there was indeed no front garden, there was indeed a small tiled courtyard at the back, you could indeed hear (but not see) trains shunting.

By the time Mrs Jones was found the trial was more than halfway through. She was rushed to Bedford to give her testimony 3 days later (February 9th). Mrs. Jones, a homely 58 year old landlady was subjected in the witness box to shameful and humiliating treatment from Graham Swanwick the leading prosecution (or should that read 'persecution' ?) counsel. Her naivety was exploited to the 'n'th degree by the cunning and worldly wise Swanwick and she was made to appear an object of ridicule. Even Judge William Gorman admonished Swanwick for his unethical behaviour.

So the defence team did carry out the necessary investigation to confirm Hanratty's story. It had and still very much has the ring of truth about it.

In reply to your last point about Hanratty making it all up during the trial "when he saw his Liverpool alibi shot down" I can only say that for this to be so, Hanratty would have had to have been the greatest psychic ever known to describe in such detail a boarding house he'd never stayed at ! This is aside from all the people who saw him in Rhyl over that 2 day period !

[jason w]

However, I will concede that such supportive evidence is not easy to find. If, for example, I went to London for a day's sight-seeing and didn't exchange more than a few brief words with anyone, it would not be easy for me to establish beyond any doubt that I was in London. Unless I was caught on CCTV that is.... I'm pretty sure JH was aware of this difficulty, hence his invention of the three old lags he stayed with.

What I don't understand is, if the 'Rhyl' alibi is genuine, why didn't he use it in the first place?

As far as Alphon's alibi goes, as he wasn't charged with the A6 murder, he wouldn't need one. But I reckon when he stood on the ID parade in front of Valerie Storie, his mind and memory were working overtime....

Cheers,

Graham[/QUOTE]

Hi Graham,

I believe, as do you and many others, that the Liverpool alibi was a pack of lies and that Hanratty DID NOT visit Rhyl at the time of the A6 killing but at an earlier date and tried to piece together an alibi because he didn't have one that anyone could corroborate - however what I am saying is that eithe he was invloved in other criminal activity that night and couldnt risk identifying fellow crooks or he was alone and so knew no-one would be able to vouch for him.

However, he clearly made a big mistake in lying about his whereabouts and this, accompanied with him taking the stand against the wishes of his defence, contributed to him losing his life.

But because he knew he was innocent of the crime, he never realised a few fibs about his whereabouts would cost him so dearly.

Others on here have mentioned it was his cockiness in the dock that irked the jury and so convicted him to death - but if he was innocent, then surely he had a lot to be cocky about, didn't he?

Jason

[Graham]

Hi Jason.

Welcome to the best non-Ripper thread on this site!

I think when it's all boiled down, Hanratty was completely unable to offer any proof at all of where he was on the evening of 22 August and the following day. He certainly did go to Liverpool that week - he sent a card to Charles France & family later in the week - but as for his wherabouts on the crucial night he could give no evidence that could be substantiated. He made vague mention, for example, of the men who worked in the left-luggage office at Lime Street Station, but neither of these men, when interviewed by the police could be certain that they had seen Hanratty when he said he'd been there. I think Hanratty made a good attempt at trying to prove he wasn't at Deadman's Hill, but his imagination and descriptive powers were too limited.
He had been to Rhyl before, as Terry Evans confirmed, and it seems that he used vague memories of this earlier visit to construct his 'Rhyl' alibi.

Sherrard said that the 'Rhyl' alibi was an extension of the 'Liverpool' alibi, which it was, but prudently got Hanratty to sign a document to the effect that he, Hanratty, would accept the full consequences of what he was saying. That, to me, strongly suggests that Sherrard quite simply didn't believe him. Gillbanks was sent to Rhyl, and eventually landed on Ingledene, at which there were some features described by Hanratty, but in such general and vague terms that he could have been describing any seaside boarding-house anywhere. Gillbanks also spoke to several other people in Rhyl, some of whom said they remembered seeing someone like Hanratty, but none of them then or later produced any rock-solid, verifiable evidence.

Grace Jones did suffer at the hands of Swanwick, but she also cooked her own goose when it was reported to the judge that she'd been seen at a lunch-break talking to Terry Evans, also called as a witness. This did not impress the judge, who gave her a public rebuke, at which her credibility collapsed. It also later transpired that Mrs Jones' books weren't in order - a small point, but one which Swanwick leapt upon to demonstrate that she was unreliable and very likely a liar. All of this may make Swanwick appear to be some kind of evil instrument of retribution, but he was only doing what he was paid to do. Trials can be nasty demonstrations of human nature at its worst - I can speak first-hand about this, having been on the jury at a murder trial. It's gloves off; fair-play doesn't enter into it; the Queensberry Rules go out the window. All that counsels seek is a result in their favour within the guidelines of the law and courtroom procedure.

Funny thing, but although he was doubtless a nasty piece of work, I have a kind of sneaking admiration for Alphon, who found himself in a pretty nightmarish situation yet played it for all it was worth, and managed to make a profit out of it. Most other men would have disappeared into thin air once exonnerated, but not our Peter! He was a chancer, and he made the most of it. And let's face it, he made Acott and Oxford appear flat-footed coppers who got the wrong bloke! He lived well off Jean Justice for quite a time, and by putting himself in the public eye via his filmed 'press conference' in Paris (where he ate the idiot of an interviewer for breakfast) he doubtless made even more profit.

As Sherrard said, and as had been repeated many times here, the A6 Case dripped with coincidences...but the hard cold fact of Valerie Storie's identification together with her description of what happened in the car and at Deadman's Hill and, much later, the DNA, put the lid on the case.

Cheers,

Graham

[jimarilyn]

"Ah, come on you three, you're letting the rest of us down ! I've got an important golf match arranged for tomorrow afternoon and I don't intend to miss it. We've been stuck in this room for well over nine hours now, just vote guilty and we'll all be out of here. Please !!"

[Steve]

Evening All

It seems that my quick post on the alibi subject before leaving home this morning has created a storm of activity during the day. Have none of you got any work to go to? Whilst I’ve been pounding the motorway doing my bit to keep our nation’s economy on-track you have all been enjoying yourselves posting here on the A6 murder thread.

Reading most of these posts it seems to me that my comments this morning were correct. It is very easy to be beguiled by the books into believing that Hanratty was innocent, and much of what has been posted has come straight from the books!

The fact is that he had no alibi whatsoever, the jury realised it, and the books sought to find excuses for the lack of proof because they were, of course, pro-Hanratty.

After committing the crime Hanratty made sure of proof of his real visit to Liverpool by sending the telegram to Dixie France. Had he been in Liverpool or Rhyl at the time of the murder he might have done something similar even if it was only sending his mum a bunch of flowers. He was unable to produce anything that conclusively proved he was not at Dorney Reach that summer’s evening, not even a train ticket.

Someone asked about Alphon’s alibi for the night of the murder. He was fast asleep in his bed at The Vienna at the time of the murder, only Nudds’ spurious middle statement suggested otherwise.

Kind regards,
Steve

[Graham]

"Ah, come on you three, you're letting the rest of us down ! I've got an important golf match arranged for tomorrow afternoon and I don't intend to miss it. We've been stuck in this room for well over nine hours now, just vote guilty and we'll all be out of here. Please !!"

You must be joking, JM!

I served on a jury at a murder trial in the early 1970's, and let me tell you it was nothing like that! First, we were twelve rather frightened and extremely nervous people, all of us totally ordinary (with the exception of a very upper-crust military-looking character who contributed hardly anything, as it turned out) and with our brains buzzing from a week's courtroom proceedings most of which went right over our collective heads. After we sat down at the long table there was silence for quite a while, until someone said something to the effect that 'a few years ago we'd have been discussing whether the defendant lived or died'. It took quite a while before any serious discussion got going. The murder itself was a nasty one, and it was fairly obvious from the evidence that the defendant was guilty, but his defence counsel was right out of the 'Boyd QC' mould, someone with the ability to split a hair 47 different ways and then sub-split it. I can remember we took a number of votes over the course of a long morning before we agreed on a guilty verdict. It was an utterly nerve-racking yet totally fascinating experience, for me at least. We didn't make the A6 Trial nine hours, but it seemed like it. Perhaps not surprisingly, most of the jury-room discussion centred on the judge's summing-up - you'll know that in the A6 Trial Judge Gorman's long summing-up was generally favourable to Hanratty and he himself appeared surprised at the guilty verdict.

Do you remember the Tony Hancock piss-take of that old James Stewart film?
'Twelve Just Men' was it?

Cheers,

Graham

[Graham]

Hi Steve,

Yeah, OK, I was skiving a bit today....but I did manage to visit 2 customers in between posts to this site.

Before he clambered onto the money-making bandwagon, Alphon said he'd been at Slough Dogtrack that night and placed a bet on a growler called Mentals Only Hope in the 9.05 race. In which case there was no way he could get to the cornfield by about 9.30.

And yes, it was a telegram not a postcard that Hanratty sent to the Frances from Liverpool.

Cheers,

Graham

[jimarilyn]

Evening All

It seems that my quick post on the alibi subject before leaving home this morning has created a storm of activity during the day. Have none of you got any work to go to? Whilst I’ve been pounding the motorway doing my bit to keep our nation’s economy on-track you have all been enjoying yourselves posting here on the A6 murder thread.

Reading most of these posts it seems to me that my comments this morning were correct. It is very easy to be beguiled by the books into believing that Hanratty was innocent, and much of what has been posted has come straight from the books!

The fact is that he had no alibi whatsoever, the jury realised it, and the books sought to find excuses for the lack of proof because they were, of course, pro-Hanratty.

After committing the crime Hanratty made sure of proof of his real visit to Liverpool by sending the telegram to Dixie France. Had he been in Liverpool or Rhyl at the time of the murder he might have done something similar even if it was only sending his mum a bunch of flowers. He was unable to produce anything that conclusively proved he was not at Dorney Reach that summer’s evening, not even a train ticket.

Someone asked about Alphon’s alibi for the night of the murder. He was fast asleep in his bed at The Vienna at the time of the murder, only Nudds’ spurious middle statement suggested otherwise.

Kind regards,
Steve

Tony, it looks like tripe is very much back in fashion

[jimarilyn]

Do you remember the Tony Hancock piss-take of that old James Stewart film?
'Twelve Just Men' was it?

Do you mean the 1957 courtroom classic "Twelve angry men" starring Henry Fonda and Lee J Cobb ?

[Graham]

Do you mean the 1957 courtroom classic "Twelve angry men" starring Henry Fonda and Lee J Cobb ?

That's the one! Did I say James Stewart???

Cheers,

Graham.

[jimarilyn]

Before he clambered onto the money-making bandwagon, Alphon said he'd been at Slough Dogtrack that night and placed a bet on a growler called Mentals Only Hope in the 9.05 race. In which case there was no way he could get to the cornfield by about 9.30.

You can place bets on greyhounds hours before the race, you don't have to be there at 9.04 to place a bet on a 9.05 race. Also, it depends a lot on what you choose and don't choose to believe regarding Alphon's many utterances. I personally don't believe him when he said "he'd been locked up in a cellar for days, and been beaten and had bread and water"

[Graham]

You can place bets on greyhounds hours before the race, you don't have to be there at 9.04 to place a bet on a 9.05 race. Also, it depends a lot on what you choose and don't choose to believe regarding Alphon's many utterances.

Hi JM,

In his famed 'Confession Notes' Alphon implied that he was at the dog-track and then walked 'out into the country'.

Many of his 'confessions' contain little inaccuracies, put there I feel as fallbacks, and I think this was one of them. On the one hand he is saying that he is the A6 killer, but on the other he effectively scotches this by saying he was at the dog-track at an impossible time. He's playing a game: he's saying he's the killer, but making sure that, if the heat ever is turned on him, he has escape-routes.

Personally, I find it hard to believe anything Alphon said about the case, but for all his bullshitting he was a clever and manipulative man.

Cheers,

Graham