a6 murder

[NickB]

sending a telegram was the normal way of contacting people.

I can find no evidence of this or that it was normal for Hanratty.

I believe it likely that Alphon outwitted everybody involved and, as the man first suspected of the crime, was probably the gunman.

During the period when Alphon wanted people to believe he was the gunman he could have easily proved it. All he had to do was specify things that had happened or been said during the incident that had not been made public and which only the gunman and Valerie would know. In 5 hours there must have been plenty of these.

[Graham]

During the period when Alphon wanted people to believe he was the gunman he could have easily proved it. All he had to do was specify things that had happened or been said during the incident that had not been made public and which only the gunman and Valerie would know. In 5 hours there must have been plenty of these.

Excellent point, Nick.

Whenever he 'confessed', Alphon invariably made sure that he included some detail that was palpably wrong; eg, he said he fired only one shot at Gregsten.

I'd love to know what suggestions can be made regarding the identity of the gunman, if it wasn't Hanratty and only probably Alphon!

Regards,

Graham

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Nat,

Thank you for your reply to my post. Sorry about my posting of it on the "Burka" thread but in my own defence, I think that the threat had already strayed way off topic!!! Yes, of course, I see that you do not believe that Hanratty committed the A6 rape/murder. I also firmly believe that this is your honest and deeply felt opinion, based on many years of reading up on and researching into the Hanratty case. I myself cannot, and would not, claim any such depth of knowledge about the A6 murder. Based on what I do know, I have to say that I think Hanratty was guilty, but I am certainly prepared to admit to being wrong, god knows it wouldn't be the first time, if someone can produce some new evidence to prove it so. So far, for me at least, no one has been able to do so.

I'll say this though Nat, if I should ever find myself, god forbid, on a murder charge, I would definetly want you fighting my corner for me!!!

Best Wishes,

Zodiac.

Well thanks a million for those few kind words Zodiac----but I am no lawyer and the interest I have in the case dates only a few months back but I am staying near Rhyl now and they have a local history section in the library in which a small section on the A6 connection with Rhyl is available in the research section as well as one or two books you can loan so I started from there and made some notes.
I am convinced Alphon had something to do with the crime and if he wasn"t the gunman what role did he have? Were both Alphon and Hanratty "sent" to the Vienna Hotel?Did Nudds know both through contacts at the races or in London"s underworld community of which Nudds was a part?
Best
Norma

[jimarilyn]

The 'watch at the billiard-hall steps' is also spurious. Hanratty was well aware of the billiard-hall on Lime Street from at least one previous visit to Liverpool. The manager, Mr Kempt, said he would stand outside for some fresh air, any time between 6.00pm and 7.30pm. He said he remembers someone coming up to him trying to sell a watch, but had no recollection of precisely when that was, or the time of day. If, as Hanratty claimed, he went by bus to Liverpool, the only bus left at 6.00pm - meaning presumably he'd have to be at the bus-station well prior to that time to buy a ticket, etc., so it seems highly unlikely that he'd have been able to approach Mr Kempt - the timings don't add up. As Mr Kempt says he recalls such an incident, then it had to be on Hanratty's previous visit.

I don't know if you're familiar with the area around Lime Street in Liverpool but Reynold's Billiard Hall was literally yards away from the bus station where Hanratty picked up the Rhyl bus. The bus station was at the side of Lime Street Railway station. And how on earth can anyone be exact in remembering dates and times ? The incident at the billiard hall had occurred more than 7 weeks earlier. I'd wager that 99% of folk would be unable [unless they kept a diary] to recall where they were and what they were doing [and at what time] on an evening 10 days ago, let alone 50 odd days ago.

[Natalie Severn]

Well it appears its only use was to provide some kind of evidence that he was in Liverpool should he need to establish an alibi, with the false address an attempt to make the intent less blatent.

I really can"t accept that at all.I often text friends when I am on my way back to London on the train---usually about when I "ll see them there.The telegram was definitely sent from the front of St George"s Hall-thats all there was to it and Hanratty seems to me to be just being playful ,when he says he is staying at a posh hotel in London---like you saying you had breakfast in the Ritz or something!

[jimarilyn]

During the period when Alphon wanted people to believe he was the gunman he could have easily proved it. All he had to do was specify things that had happened or been said during the incident that had not been made public and which only the gunman and Valerie would know. In 5 hours there must have been plenty of these.

He specified several such things that only he and Storie would have known. They are all clearly mentioned in the Foot, Woffinden and Justice books.

[Graham]

He specified several such things that only he and Storie would have known. They are all clearly mentioned in the Foot, Woffinden and Justice books.

Give us a couple of examples, please.

Graham

[Natalie Severn]

Hello Norma or Natalie

I based my times on the time of the outbound journey, namely 2 hours 19 minutes.

Here is the public transport route planner ROUTE PLANNER

see how quickly you can get from Rhyl to Liverpool by local bus.


Point taken, but surely he would have got more quickly and more conveniently back to London by going from Rhyl by rail. Did Hanratty know about any difference in fare? How did he know that the journey from Rhyl would have been prohibitively expensive?

Ron

Ron,
They are wrong.I travelled by bus to Liverpool from Rhyl twice in the past 8 months---it takes two hours at most the morning service which leaves at 8.45 from the first [request stop] before leaving Rhyl, and arrives at the terminal often ahead of schedule -it was 10.30 when I arrived ---and costs nothing compared to the railway---£6 return approx compared with nearly £20 by rail with a change at Chester and Woodside.You are a bit out in the sticks in Rhyl and the transport sytem to London reflected it.
How did he know what it cost? Well he went to Rhyl station like everybody else which is at the back of Ingledene and two minutes from it and asked surely?And then as he came out crossed the forecourt and asked when the bus to Liverpool was.

[Natalie Severn]

Another slight mystery - Hanratty was used to travelling around by cab, so why did he claim he travelled by bus when he claimed to have arrived in Liverpool to pursue his spurious search for Carleton/Tarleton/Talbot Road or whatever?

Its quite difficult getting a cab in Liverpool even today.Not that many were available at any one time only a couple, and none to pick up in the street, but the bus station was next to the Lime St Station.However its just a short walk to Scotland Road [-though it is quite a long road]-so why take a bus ,especially if you have to try and follow your nose and are not quite sure which roads you turn down

Regarding his claim to be in Rhyl, there really is no solid, tangible, concrete evidence to support this. No signature in a boarding-house register; no Terry Evans to state categorically that Hanratty spent the crucial time with him;

?

No concrete evidence to support a lot of things to do with Hanratty.
But actually a large number of people came forward to support his claim,all of them apart from Terry Evans,respectable people some of them absolutely insistent that they had seen him on 22nd August in Rhyl-Mr Dutton,Mr Larman and Brenda Harris,Mrs Jones"s daughter.Terry Evans had unfortunately [and unknown to Hanratty ],left the fairground and taken his landmark old taxi with him.Thats why it was impossible for Hanratty to find him.He had also let him down over the fairground job once and since he wanted to see Terry Evans to find out where best to sell his "stolen goods"there were immediate problems for Terry Evans being brought to court to testify for him----same with the people he wanted to sell stolen goods to in Liverpool.They weren"t going to be put inside to do Hanratty a favour.
But Terry Evans did try to help him and helped find the guest house.
Late on an August night,with a house full of "guests" Mrs Jones would not ---probably could not have insisted all her visitors signed the guest book---not for B&B in Rhyl or Blackpool.Just shows how out of touch the Winchester Oxbridge educated Swanwick was with ordinary people in my view.He had no understanding whatever of how B&B"s operate and thats dreadful because he was so wrong about such things.

[Graham]

Hi Norma,

1] I had a relative who ran a guest-house in Cliftonville, and we stayed there as a family several times in the 1950's and 1960's, and the first thing he got my mother or father to do when we arrived was to sign the guest-book. I'd have thought it was and is a legal requirement, same as it's a legal requirement to sign the visitor's book when I visit a customer's premises.

2] Three weeks ago I made what I thought was a firm appointment to visit a company in West Yorkshire. I arrived at the appointed time and found the premises locked and no-one around. The building was about the last one remaining in an area of general industrial dereliction, so there was no near-neighbour to ask if they were on holiday, gone bust, or whatever. Feeling somewhat annoyed (a lot annoyed, actually) I departed and drove home. It occurred to me, apropos the Rhyl Alibi, that if I ever needed to prove that I'd been to that location, I couldn't! If I'd put my business-card through their door, that would've done the trick, but I didn't! No tangible proof that I'd been within miles of that place! Not the first time I've been on a fruitless drive across England, probably won't be the last, either.

3] Don't know central Liverpool at all, so I accept your point re: finding a cab there.

Graham

[RonIpstone]

Ron,
How did he know what it cost? Well he went to Rhyl station like everybody else which is at the back of Ingledene and two minutes from it and asked surely?And then as he came out crossed the forecourt and asked when the bus to Liverpool was.

Hello Natalie or Norma,

I don't think that he ever said he enquired about going direct to London by rail and that the price put him off.

We will have to agree to differ on the exact journey times, although it is accepted that the outbound journey took 2hours 19 minutes. Whether the morning bus was more direct I do not know. But on any view of the matter it was quite a long bus ride on a stuffy bus and should have proved a considerable incentive to getting the train straight from Rhyl.

If the bus journey was much shorter then this would have Jim in Liverpool that much earlier, and the question remains unanswered as to why he did not get an earlier train?

Ron or RonIpstone

[RonIpstone]

Ron,
They are wrong.I travelled by bus to Liverpool from Rhyl twice in the past 8 months---it takes two hours at most the morning service which leaves at 8.45 from the first [request stop] before leaving Rhyl, and arrives at the terminal often ahead of schedule -it was 10.30 when I arrived -

That's the National Express coach service scheduled to take 1 Hour 45 minutes.

[Natalie Severn]

Hello Natalie or Norma,

I don't think that he ever said he enquired about going direct to London by rail and that the price put him off.

We will have to agree to differ on the exact journey times, although it is accepted that the outbound journey took 2hours 19 minutes. Whether the morning bus was more direct I do not know. But on any view of the matter it was quite a long bus ride on a stuffy bus and should have proved a considerable incentive to getting the train straight from Rhyl.

If the bus journey was much shorter then this would have Jim in Liverpool that much earlier, and the question remains unanswered as to why he did not get an earlier train?

You clearly dont know what it used to be like out in the sticks in Rhyl,Ron or RonIpstone!I have done the journey from Rhyl to London Euston over many years and hated it.My mother used to refuse to even, contemplate the train as it stopped at every station,you usually had to change at Crewe [still do] where the wait was long and so boring. It was always expensive and mum much preferred to take the bus.
But the old Crosville service was excellent.it was cheap and direct to Liverpool---and the Liverpool to Euston night train was probably the most fun and most popular in the North West!
This talk about New Brighton and difficulties getting there and back from Liverpool is also completely wrong .It once had the best fair ground around apart ofcourse from Blackpool---better than Rhyl"s anyway.It was dead easy to get from Liverpool to New Brighton-by train ,bus or even the ferry and all the services were reliable and frequent.
Cheers
Norma

[RonIpstone]

3] Don't know central Liverpool at all, so I accept your point re: finding a cab there.

Hello Graham,

As you get off the train at Lime Street you can turn left for the main exit towards St George's Hall, or right to the taxi rank, where there have been for many years plenty of cabs. That he might have to travel only a short distance should not be an objection, as that fact would not have been known to Jim.
Ron

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Norma,

1] I had a relative who ran a guest-house in Cliftonville, and we stayed there as a family several times in the 1950's and 1960's, and the first thing he got my mother or father to do when we arrived was to sign the guest-book. I'd have thought it was and is a legal requirement, same as it's a legal requirement to sign the visitor's book when I visit a customer's premises.

Graham

Graham,I don"t doubt you.But all I am saying really is that this can"t possibly be a legal requirement as I stay in Stratford B&B"s at least 3 or 4 times a year when I drive to London from North Wales.I rarely sign the guest book and am never asked to! I stay at different guest houses because,like Hanratty said, they are often full in Summer and you can"t bank on just being able to book a room.
I think its a legal requirement on the continent though.