a6 murder

[reg1965]

Hi All especially Rob (again!)
How are the spent cases expelled with a .32.

Do they eject per shot? Or are they stored like a .38 revolver?

Reg

[Tony]

No. Some coincidences are to be expected.
Other irrelevancies include Alphon's money, Fogarty-Waul, the time spent in the car twiddling their thumbs, erroneous newspaper reports.

KR,
Vic.

Yes I must agree coincidences do happen.

In 1961 my mum used to give me five shillings a week to pay off some of my bills. Well school dinners actually. Well I used to go without and hey presto a couple of months later I had managed to stash five grand in my bank account.


Tony.

[jimarilyn]

Would the killer have got off 2 rounds at Gregsten with the .38 to make the wounds that Simspon described; that is both fired before the head had had time to move? Would this be possible with .32?

Reg

Hi Reg,

A very good question and one that has puzzed me too.
I'm currently inclining to the thinking that Dr Simpson was trying (in a roundabout way) to tell his readers that something was wrong about the gun evidence.

Mike Gregsten was shot twice in the head. Valerie Storie was hit with the next five bullets fired, which strongly suggests that the weapon used was an automatic, as a revolver only holds 6 rounds. The gunman didn't re-load halfway through firing 5 shots at Miss Storie. Or am I talking gobbledygook ??

An Enfield .38 is a big, cumbersome weapon (over 10" in length). Did Valerie Storie ever mention if the gun was smallish or large ?
A small(ish) .32 automatic would be much easier to hide on a person.

regards,
James

[reg1965]

Anyway, has the Sean Hodgson case worried you JimIsInnocent guys at all? It definitely makes your case for a conspiracy or other cover-up a hell of a lot weaker. What do you all think?

Victor

The Sean Hodgson case doesn't worry me.

No good evidence was every brought against him. All the plod gave was that he shared the same blood group A or AB as a third of the male population.

He confessed to the Teresa De Simone killing to a Catholic Priest. He was a patholoical liar who had confessed to literally hundreds of crimes he didn't do down the years.

The DNA evidence categorically excluded him so it must have been tested using SGM+.

If it wasn't and LCN was used then I think that everybody should be worried.

I will try to find out which DNA profiling technique was used and get back to you all on that.

How would it weaken which conspiracy/cover up and in what ways were you thinking of?

Reginald

[Victor]

How would it weaken which conspiracy/cover up and in what ways were you thinking of?

If the system can admit that they got it wrong with Sean Hodgson, then they can admit it with other cases where the appropriate evidence exists. Therefore if they are still saying Hanratty is guilty then he did it.

I also read that the FSS has developed a system called BOOST which splits a DNA mixture into it's component parts, and they are using it to investigate loads of cold cases. I'll have to look into it some more.

KR,
Vic.

[Tony]

Sean Hodgson, Stephan Kisko, Stephen Downing, Barry George The Birmingham Six, The Bridgewater Three, Patrick Meehan and dozens of others were all still alive and kicking and had supporters who could make a lot of noise.
They could not go away, they were not buried in the prison grounds, they were an embarrassment and ones that could embarrass people who had given incorrect and false evidence against them to secure their convictions and mostly forensic evidence was to blame. It can’t be argued against by a jury.

When really pushed the Home Office could call for a review and get rid of them with a compensation payout (less a payback from the wrongly convicted man for their board and lodgings whilst they were staying at her Majesty’s Hotel). The Home Office paid small amounts, comparatively speaking, to get rid of them and shut them up.

Corpses don’t get pay outs and they are easier to deal with.

Tony.

[reg1965]

If the system can admit that they got it wrong with Sean Hodgson, then they can admit it with other cases where the appropriate evidence exists. Therefore if they are still saying Hanratty is guilty then he did it.

I also read that the FSS has developed a system called BOOST which splits a DNA mixture into it's component parts, and they are using it to investigate loads of cold cases. I'll have to look into it some more.

Sean Hodgson was guilty until he got out.

Unfortunately no evidence exists in the Hanratty case any more to test for DNA.

Let us know what you find out about dnaBoost. It was first trialled in 2006 as this BBC report says;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/5404402.stm

[Rob63]

I do think that all this hype about misinformation and typos is funny. Are you really seriously suggesting that the .38 gun found on the bus isn't the murder weapon?
KR,
Vic.

Not at all Vic, just want to clarify why the calibre in Dr Simpsons book was different from the purported murder weapon. I`m still sat on the fence on this case so have no axe to grind.
As to other questions I believe I read somewhere (might`ve been Mr Foots book) that during the conversation in the car the shooter remarked that the gun was so long that it made him feel like a cowboy, which makes me think that it was a revolver. There were .32 calibre revolvers around at the time, which I believe carried seven cartridges although they wouldn`t be as common as the .38 found on the bus.

[Victor]

Sean Hodgson, Stephan Kisko, Stephen Downing, Barry George The Birmingham Six, The Bridgewater Three, Patrick Meehan and dozens of others were all still alive and kicking and had supporters who could make a lot of noise.
They could not go away, they were not buried in the prison grounds, they were an embarrassment and ones that could embarrass people who had given incorrect and false evidence against them to secure their convictions and mostly forensic evidence was to blame. It can’t be argued against by a jury.

When really pushed the Home Office could call for a review and get rid of them with a compensation payout (less a payback from the wrongly convicted man for their board and lodgings whilst they were staying at her Majesty’s Hotel). The Home Office paid small amounts, comparatively speaking, to get rid of them and shut them up.

Corpses don’t get pay outs and they are easier to deal with.

Tony.

Hi Tony,

What about Derek Bentley?

Hodgson and Kisko were both freed because DNA evidence proved them innocent. If DNA evidence is as worthless as Reg has suggested then should they be locked back up again? (I realise Kisko has since died a free man) That's the outstanding question on the DNA thread - "Can DNA evidence only be used to prove someone is innocent?"

Are you suggesting that Hanratty's parents and brother should have "made more noise"?

Hodgson is reportedly going to be getting half a million. That's not a particularly small figure for what boils down to a false confession.

"Corpses don’t get pay outs and they are easier to deal with." means that it should be easier to acknowledge Hanratty's innocence than Hodgson's, so again, if Hanratty was innocent then they would say so.

KR,
Vic.

[Tony]

Firstly, and I realise that I am in a very small minority here; I do not believe there was a miscarriage of justice in the Bentley case. If two or more people go armed to carry out a robbery and some unfortunate sole ends up getting shot and dies then both or all are equally guilty of murder. That was the case then and is the case today.
I do not believe Derek Bentley should have been executed but I base that entirely on his mental capabilities. He had a learning age of about an eight year old at best. Having said that I do not believe the state should be able to execute anybody anyway.

“Corpses are easier to deal with”. By that I meant Hanratty was six feet under and there were no cameras filming him on the prison roof as there were in the Bridgewater case. It was the fact that the Bridgewater Four who soon became three after Malloy died in prison went on to the roof with the blessing of all the prisoners in the gaol. They managed to get food, radios and clothing up to them to support them. Everybody believed in their innocence including the prison officers and it was because of their protest that Foot wrote his book about them which brought about their release. Even the foreman of the jury appeared on News at Ten to say that after the protests and Foot’s book he now believed the men to be innocent.

No such protest from James Hanratty was possible of course. But it is interesting to speculate what might have happened if he had been given a last minute reprieve before his execution and his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. We would have had the books by Lord Russell and Jean Justice. We do not know how Alphon would have behaved. We can assume Foot would have published as he did.
Questions would have been asked in Parliament as they were.
How many on here including you Vic would have supported the quashing of his conviction in 1972 which seems to have been on the cards at that stage?

You see it is easier to deal with a corpse rather than a protesting prisoner.

Tony.

[reg1965]

Firstly, and I realise that I am in a very small minority here; I do not believe there was a miscarriage of justice in the Bentley case. If two or more people go armed to carry out a robbery and some unfortunate sole ends up getting shot and dies then both or all are equally guilty of murder. That was the case then and is the case today.
I do not believe Derek Bentley should have been executed but I base that entirely on his mental capabilities. He had a learning age of about an eight year old at best. Having said that I do not believe the state should be able to execute anybody anyway.

“Corpses are easier to deal with”. By that I meant Hanratty was six feet under and there were no cameras filming him on the prison roof as there were in the Bridgewater case. It was the fact that the Bridgewater Four who soon became three after Malloy died in prison went on to the roof with the blessing of all the prisoners in the gaol. They managed to get food, radios and clothing up to them to support them. Everybody believed in their innocence including the prison officers and it was because of their protest that Foot wrote his book about them which brought about their release. Even the foreman of the jury appeared on News at Ten to say that after the protests and Foot’s book he now believed the men to be innocent.

No such protest from James Hanratty was possible of course. But it is interesting to speculate what might have happened if he had been given a last minute reprieve before his execution and his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. We would have had the books by Lord Russell and Jean Justice. We do not know how Alphon would have behaved. We can assume Foot would have published as he did.
Questions would have been asked in Parliament as they were.
How many on here including you Vic would have supported the quashing of his conviction in 1972 which seems to have been on the cards at that stage?

You see it is easier to deal with a corpse rather than a protesting prisoner.

Tony.

Hi Tony

A very insightful post mate.

I don't agree with you over the Bentley case; but I do agree with you that capital punishment is abhorrent.

Small campaigns by the convicted persons family and friends invariably end up overturning convictions. The more publicity a case gets the better.

Investigative journalists like Ludovic Kennedy, Paul Foot, Bob Woffinden and Don Hale can lend much support through trained media skills that ordinary folk don't posses.

Sometimes they [journalists] get more of the credit rather than people like Ann Whelan and Iris Bentley, who sadly died just before Derek's conviction was quashed. She had fought for nearly 40 years to achieve it.

But even so as you said the dead seem to make less fuss.

The unlucky ones are people like Sean Hodgson and John Taft who the authorities deem to be IDOM (in denial of murder). The prison system is not set up to deal with these people.

To gain access to privileges such as better jobs and education and to be put forward for parole the prisoner must accept their conviction, show remorse and make themselves ready for future release.

IDOM cases get none of these. What sort of system is quite prepared to let these people just rot in gaol for things they never did.

It shames us all!!

Regards
Reg

[Victor]

How many on here including you Vic would have supported the quashing of his conviction in 1972 which seems to have been on the cards at that stage?

Hi Tony,

In 1972 I would have supported a quashing of his conviction. And then I would have supported his re-arrest and trial in 2002, and hopefully life-imprisonment.

I do believe in the death penalty for some extreme cases - for example, Sutcliffe should have been hanged - but I do not support the death penalty for cases such as Hanratty.

You see it is easier to deal with a corpse rather than a protesting prisoner.

It is also easier to pardon a corpse.

KR,
Vic.

[Victor]

Small campaigns by the convicted persons family and friends invariably end up overturning convictions. The more publicity a case gets the better.

This thread concerns one example at least where the "invariably" in the quote above is wrong.

The unlucky ones are people like Sean Hodgson and John Taft who the authorities deem to be IDOM (in denial of murder). The prison system is not set up to deal with these people.

I absolutely agree with that.

To gain access to privileges such as better jobs and education and to be put forward for parole the prisoner must accept their conviction, show remorse and make themselves ready for future release.

This obviously needs to be changed as innocent people won't admit it, but then unscrupulous liars won't admit it either unless it gets them extra privileges. There needs to be some system.

IDOM cases get none of these. What sort of system is quite prepared to let these people just rot in gaol for things they never did.

Is it better for a few people to be incorrectly imprisoned, or a murderer to be free to kill again? It's a balance and a sensible compromise must be made at some point.

KR,
Vic.

[reg1965]

Victor

This thread concerns one example at least where
the "invariably" in the quote above is wrong.

I am not a mind reader me old darling. Pray tell.

This obviously needs to be changed as innocent people won't admit it, but then unscrupulous liars won't admit it either unless it gets them extra privileges. There needs to be some system.

If an unscrupulous liar was inside for something he didn't do, don't you think he would rather 'fess up and get out sooner that rot in jail...his lying skills would suit him better out than in.

Is it better for a few people to be incorrectly imprisoned, or a murderer to be free to kill again? It's a balance and a sensible compromise must be made at some point.

I hear and read this argument frequently and it is another of those well worn fallacies.

Simply; if an innocent person is in jail then the real murderer is free to commit murder again.

So perhaps your question would be better put as "Is it better to imprison an innocent man for a crime than no one at all?" If the latter, then the police clear up rates would take a bit of a hit!

Reginald

[burkhilly]

[QUOTE=Victor;76555]Hi Tony,



Hodgson and Kisko were both freed because DNA evidence proved them innocent. If DNA evidence is as worthless as Reg has suggested then should they be locked back up again? (I realise Kisko has since died a free man) That's the outstanding question on the DNA thread - "Can DNA evidence only be used to prove someone is innocent?"




DNA Evidence can be used to prove innocence as in the cases mentioned. However, having looked at LCN DNA testing - it's not the same process. I do not believe I've read a post by Reg saying DNA testing is worthless. As far as I recall what Reg questions is the LCN testing.

I don't know about the other cases, but with regards to Stefan Kisko he was incapable of producing sperm and this was found on the child's clothing. He was released after this information was revealed/discovered. It was later that the DNA was matched to the man since convicted of the crime. Also what everyone should bear in mind that the DNA in the Kisko case was relatively "new" when compared to the DNA from the A6 case.