A6 Rebooted

[Spitfire]

Does anyone know where we can find Lee's statement that the incident he allegedly witnessed occurred at 8.30 am and not 6.30 am?

I thought that Lee's statement was discounted not on the time factor but on the mileage recorded by Gregsten and that shown on the odometer when the car was eventually found.

[NickB]

I don’t think Acott recorded a false mileage. He was already withholding the information, why would he falsify it as well?

The idea that Gregsten made an entry in his mileage logbook during the hold-up is fanciful.

Derrick, you may recall poster ‘Julie Q’ who attended the 2002 Appeal and provides a detailed account on this forum of William Lee’s statement. She also reports it as 6.30, not 8.30.

I have only the first Today article. I thought it might be an overview (as I knew the second one mentioned Dorney Reach) so am rather disappointed. Here is a flavour :

‘My parents had met Mike – indeed they had welcomed him into their home. But they did not know he was a married man. I hated keeping this from them, but I felt they would not understand.’

‘Finally my secret leaked out in the worst way. Someone tittle-tattled to my mother.”

‘People have asked me if I felt any pang of conscience about starting a friendship with a married man and, to be honest, I must admit that I didn’t. It is all very well to know that these things in theory are wrong. It is quite a different matter to be faced in an office with a pleasant, attractive man ...’

‘How many people who have criticised me have done so from the bitterness produced by their own unhappy marriages?’

[Spitfire]

She does at post 6849 on the locked A6 Murders thread, here

[Derrick]

...Derrick, you may recall poster ‘Julie Q’ who attended the 2002 Appeal and provides a detailed account on this forum of William Lee’s statement. She also reports it as 6.30, not 8.30.

Nick

I have a copy of Lee's statement and he says 8:30. Julie Q is obviously just reporting the Appeal Courts error. They made loads more too.

Del

[Spitfire]

Is it a signed copy? It may be in draft form and have been amended later.

[Spitfire]

Why would anyone want to wear a woollen hat in the middle of August?

Perhaps he wanted to disguise his hair colouring.

[Sherlock Houses]

Why would the Appeal Court judges neglect to say that the woollen pom pom hat on the driver seen by William Lee near Matlock was green ?

Why would they also neglect to say that the colour of the woollen pom pom hat discovered in the boot of the 847 BHN Morris Minor was green ?

A very important detail.

Why would they also neglect to elaborate that William Lee had just cause to remember the registration number of the Morris Minor that almost collided with his lorry ?

[NickB]

Because it was a summary.

They say: ‘The most impressive evidence of sighting must surely be that of Mr Lee in Matlock.’

If they were not impressed by the things you mention, what were they impressed by?

[Sherlock Houses]

The idea that Gregsten made an entry in his mileage logbook during the hold-up is fanciful.

Maybe not so improbable. Gregsten logged the mileage whenever he put petrol in the car. The stop at the Regent filling station may well have been the first and only time that day that he put petrol in the tank.

[Sherlock Houses]

Because it was a summary.

They say: ‘The most impressive evidence of sighting must surely be that of Mr Lee in Matlock.’

If they were not impressed by the things you mention, what were they impressed by?

If it was just a summary then including an [important] extra five letter word to describe the colour of the hat would not have made it longer than a summary. The judgement went into far greater detail on lots of other matters.

They could not have been overly impressed with Mr Lee's 8.30 am sighting as it conflicted with the alleged sightings around 7am'ish of the ever reliable Redbridge witnesses. If they had accepted Mr Lee's sighting as being a genuine one it would have meant in effect that Skillett and Trower's identifications of Hanratty were completely worthless.

[NickB]

The stop at the Regent filling station may well have been the first and only time that day that he put petrol in the tank.

Even if he filled out the book with a gun to his head as you think, that still wouldn't give you the required extra mileage needed.

Do you think it was the Regent near London Airport or the Shell at Kingsbury Circle?

[GUT]

Even if he filled out the book with a gun to his head as you think, that still wouldn't give you the required extra mileage needed.

Do you think it was the Regent near London Airport or the Shell at Kingsbury Circle?

And what if he made a mistake filling out the book?

[Spitfire]

At this distance from the events of the distant past of 1961 it is impossible to determine, one way or the other, the route of the ill-fated Morris Minor on the early morning of 23 August of that year.

There are strong arguments for saying that Mr Lee and the others are mistaken and that the car was parked up in Avondale Crescent by 7.00 am or shortly thereafter. There are other arguments which could be advanced for saying that the car was parked much later, and accordingly the identification evidence of Skillet and Trower was worthless. It is true that Hanratty's defence was in part that Alphon was the murderer, but is difficult to see with the other evidence that Alphon would have had the opportunity to park the car at any time other than the early morning.

Hanratty and his lawyers should have had the opportunity to assess the undisclosed evidence to decide whether they still wanted to go down the Alphon did it route.

[GUT]

Hanratty and his lawyers should have had the opportunity to assess the undisclosed evidence to decide whether they still wanted to go down the Alphon did it route.

Of course they should have, and today they would have but there were different rules in place.

[NickB]

My reading of the Appeal judgment is that they think the names and addresses of these witnesses fell to be disclosed at the time.

The high watermark of Alphonism is over.

After watching the dog he bet on ‘Mentals Only Hope’ run at 9pm in Slough, how could he have walked 6 miles to the Old Station Inn at Taplow, getting there in time to see Valerie and Michael? His story right from the start doesn't stack up.

Sherrard did go a long way down the Alphon did it route, and he chided the prosecution for not calling him as a witness. I gather from this there was a legal reason why Sherrard couldn't call Alphon as a defence witness.