a6 murder

[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]

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]

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.

[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

[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]

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

[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

[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

[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.

[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

[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.

[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!

[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]

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.

[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.