A6 Rebooted

[Graham]

It used to be thought (by some, at least) that France's suicide was because Hanratty had seduced his daughter. In my opinion, nothing could be further from the truth. I have no doubt that France ended his own life because he felt there was a distinct possibility that he could have been accused and tried for being an accessory to murder. In which case, he'd have been looking at a life-sentence. Hanratty must have obtained the gun from someone, and he himself said that he could get a gun almost at any time from The Rehearsal Club, France's main stamping-ground. France was at best a petty crook, and must have caved in under questioning by someone like Acott.

There is another possibility as to where Hanratty obtained the gun. He was friendly with a character called Donald Slack, who was evidently a real hard-case and to whom Hanratty looked up. According to Woffinden, after Hanratty's release from prison in March 1961, Hanratty went to see Slack for a loan, and while there he gave to Slack a folder which purportedly contained photos and documents which Hanratty said were of sentimental value. Acott took this folder from Slack during his inquiries, and it's never been seen since.
Slack also told Acott that Hanratty had asked about getting a gun, and Hanratty actually confirmed this. Hanratty told Kleinmann that he, Hanratty, had told Slack that 'house-breaking was played out, and that to get rich you needed a shooter and go after cash". Slack denied this (as he would).
Was Hanratty trying to shift blame for the supply of the gun from his pal Charles France to Donald Slack?

Graham

[NickB]

But didn’t Hanratty spend a lot of time staying with people like Slack? He was ‘of no fixed abode’ and didn’t spend all the time at the Frances. He left his cases with Anderson but had only stayed at her place about 6 nights, and the last time he visited her shop he said ‘I’m going to look for a flat’.

[Sherlock Houses]

...and the last time he visited her shop he said ‘I’m going to look for a flat’.

Here's a frontal image of Anderson's shop, 57 Greek Street, from 1953.

If you look very very carefully through the window of the shop you still won't be able to spot Louise.

[Sherlock Houses]

But we know that there was another very similar car belonging to Doreen Milne that usually parked there all day, so I would have thought that it would be easy to confuse and disregard them.

The significant difference being that one had a blood spattered interior and bent front bumper and a big a.p.b [or UK equivalent] had been put out for it since early that morning. It was a highly sought after car and the populace would have been on the lookout for it long before Alan Madwar spotted it around 6.30 pm.

[Graham]

The significant difference being that one had a blood spattered interior and bent front bumper and a big a.p.b [or UK equivalent] had been put out for it since early that morning. It was a highly sought after car and the populace would have been on the lookout for it long before Alan Madwar spotted it around 6.30 pm.

Which is why it is very unlikely that the car had been there very long before Mr Madwar spotted it.

Graham

[NickB]

I expect Madwar saw the number plate on the early evening news.

If the number plate was in the public consciousness earlier, why didn’t Thompson notice and phone it in? She identified the car because the one she saw the police buzzing around was the one she saw earlier, the same way Hogan and Athoe (and presumably Lawrence) did.

[Sherlock Houses]

If the number plate was in the public consciousness earlier, why didn’t Thompson notice and phone it in?

"Radio bulletins throughout the day had been circulating descriptions of the murder car, including it's registration number , ever since Police Inspector Milborrow had sent it from Deadman's Hill at eight minutes past seven that morning." -- Paul Foot book p38.

[NickB]

That was the point of my question. If the inclusion of the number in radio bulletins had entered the public consciousness, you would expect Thompson to have noticed it. The car she saw at 5.45 must have been the car.

As I've said. I can't decide either way. None of the claimed sightings of the car in transit are compatible with the mileage, so it comes down to which of the contradictory statements about Avondale Crescent you think are most reliable.

[Derrick]

...None of the claimed sightings of the car in transit are compatible with the mileage...

Hi Nick

Perhaps another way to look at this is;

The mileage is incompatible with the definite sightings elsewhere (Mr Draycott in Bedfordshire and Mr Lee in Derbyshire) so it couldn't have been abandoned before, at the very least say, 10am.

Which also means that Skillett and Trower didn't see the murder car which just leaves Miss Storie as the only identification witness to the crime.

Del

[Spitfire]

Hi Nick

Perhaps another way to look at this is;

The mileage is incompatible with the definite sightings elsewhere (Mr Draycott in Bedfordshire and Mr Lee in Derbyshire) so it couldn't have been abandoned before, at the very least say, 10am.

Which also means that Skillett and Trower didn't see the murder car which just leaves Miss Storie as the only identification witness to the crime.

Del

What time was the Draycott identification of the murder car?

[Derrick]

What time was the Draycott identification of the murder car?

Hi Spitfire

Off of the top of my head, around 5:30-5:45am.

Del

[NickB]

I don’t think milkman Mr Drayton’s sighting in Bedford at 5.30 tallies with lorry driver William Lee’s sighting in Matlock at 6.30 over 100 miles away.

But I’ve just noticed in the Appeal there was an unnamed sighting between Hitchin and St. Ippollits at 1.00. That would have been consistent with the mileage.

The morning sightings of the murder car in Avondale Crescent (Athoe, Hogan, Trower, Lawrence) may be mistaken, but not because they confused it with the similarly looking car parked opposite. Doreen Milne’s Morris Minor arrived later.

[Derrick]

Hi Spitfire

Off of the top of my head, around 5:30-5:45am.

Del

I have just rechecked the police message that was made when they received Drayton's phone call at about 6pm on the 23rd. The time Drayton gave was 5:25am but the reg no is written down as BHN 847...the wrong way round!

[Derrick]

...I don’t think milkman Mr Drayton’s sighting in Bedford at 5.30 tallies with lorry driver William Lee’s sighting in Matlock at 6.30 over 100 miles away...

Hi Nick

This is what is so bloody infuriating about this case. So many errors in so called official documents.

This is another glaring error in the ruling judgement at p152(i). Lee's statement says he saw the grey Morris Minor car, 847 BHN, at 8:30am and not 6:30am. He later bought an evening paper, realised that he had seen the murder car and rang the police about an hour later. The fact that he described the driver as wearing a pom pom hat is to me incontrovertible evidence. There was indeed a pom pom hat found later in the boot of the car.

The piffle that the appeal judges came out with concerning this is nothing short of a disgrace. eg -

although there is no evidence that the murderer otherwise was seen wearing it (p152(i))

What the hell has that got to do with anything else that happened before or after? The killer obviously put it on sometime after leaving the scene and took it off before abandoning the car. Who are they trying to fool?

They go to make even more foolish remarks at the end of that paragraph -

Needless to say, the sightings in Matlock, Coventry and north of Leicester are inconsistent with the Morris Minor being seen in Eastern Avenue, near Avondale Crescent, or in Avondale Crescent by 7am although it is somewhat difficult to visualise for what purpose the gunman might have made these trips and then returned to Ilford (as he must have done) using a car which he would have known the police would be seeking as soon as Michael Gregsten was identified and the car he was driving ascertained.

This is just classic! The judges accept that the car seen in Redbridge that morning by Skillett and Trower was the murder car. But it was being driven like a bat out of hell; was this the action of a man trying to avoid being spotted in the hottest car in the country, as the judges seem to imply? Yes Drayton and Lee were both nearly driven off of the road by the murder car but the judges cant have it both ways.

Besides the car wasn't abandoned until around 5:30-5:45pm. So it would have had to have been elsewhere anyway.

That brings us back to the mileage. Why should one believe that the mileage as recorded by Acott was correct in the first place? It was always secondhand information.

We have to believe that Gregsten wrote down the correct figure in the log and that Acott took the correct odometer reading. I tend to think that the odometer reading must be right. But we will never know about the log as it was returned to the Gregsten family after the end of the trial and was, more than likely, destroyed some time ago.

Del

PS...Nick, do you have the first two parts of the Today interview with Valerie Storie?

[Sherlock Houses]

Besides the car wasn't abandoned until around 5:30-5:45pm. So it would have had to have been elsewhere anyway.

That brings us back to the mileage. Why should one believe that the mileage as recorded by Acott was correct in the first place? It was always secondhand information.

We have to believe that Gregsten wrote down the correct figure in the log and that Acott took the correct odometer reading. I tend to think that the odometer reading must be right. But we will never know about the log as it was returned to the Gregsten family after the end of the trial and was, more than likely, destroyed some time ago.

We also don't know at what time that Tuesday Michael logged the mileage. It may well have been after the car had re-fuelled at that Regent petrol station. If so, and if Acott is to be trusted on this important matter, it would mean that the unaccounted for 232 miles had been covered in the Morris Minor between that filling station [around midnightish] until discovered in Avondale Crescent around 6.30pm.