A6 Rebooted

[Sherlock Houses]

Re. James Hanratty's handkerchief

Below is a copy of Tony's post #2726 [from the old A6 thread] which was mentioned by Derrick a week ago and which has been the subject of recent speculation by some posters, casting some doubt on Tony's integrity.

Tony comes across in his posts as a decent, humorous and honest person. I hardly think he would have invented the Hanratty/Swanwick exchange.

[Graham]

Hi Mr SH,

well done - I tried again last night, after OneRound's post, to attach Tony's post, but it kept telling me it was not allowed. God knows why.

Anyway, thanks for doing what I couldn't.

I agree with you about Tony - as far as I was concerned he was a straight-up guy and one of the most informed, most interesting, posters on this thread at a time when things used to get a bit rough. I honestly cannot see Tony making up that post - why should he? Obviously I can't say for absolute certain that Tony didn't use a bit of licence, but I'd be surprised, put it that way. If someone does have a full transcript of the trial, along with two or three days with nothing else to do, he or she might try to find that particular exchange between JH and Swanwick. The only thing that does give me pause is when in Tony's post Swanwick says, "Clerk of the court, exhibit number xx, please". If Tony was copying direct from the transcript, I'd have thought he would have used the actual reference number of the requested exhibit, which was public knowledge.

Tony, if you're still out there and still interested, come back!

If this exchange between JH and Swanwick did happen, then I consider it a very definite factor in the jury finding JH guilty.

Graham

[OneRound]

Hi Sherlock - I would emphasise that Tony has always come across to me as a top bloke. I've tried hard in my previous posts (particularly #1942) to show that I wasn't doubting his honesty but his correctness concerning this matter.

As Sherrard suggested to Valerie Storie - and this is a sure fire quote - ''although you may be convinced in your own mind, you are nevertheless absolutely honest, but absolutely wrong.''

I feel Tony's belief concerning Hanratty's admission about the hankie was / is genuinely held and that he added ''the court conversation'' for dramatic effect. It is perhaps significant that the title of his post 'Witness for the Prosecution' is derived from a play by Agatha Christie and subsequent film directed by Billy Wilder.

Also, Tony goes straight into the conversation. He doesn't actually state or make any claim that this is the verbatim exchange.

The other main reasons why I doubt Hanratty made any admission at trial about the hankie have already been covered in earlier posts from Nick and myself (Graham has just highlighted a particularly significant factor for me concerning exhibit ''xx'').

If I am wrong, I will be happy to buy Tony a drink in the A6 cyber bar. That though should be nothing to the reception Tony should get from the Hanratty family - they should be dousing him in champagne! As previously posted, if correct this ''court conversation'' would certainly weaken the significance of the DNA findings used to confirm Hanratty's guilt.

As Graham says, ''Tony ... come back!''.

Best regards,

OneRound

[Ed James]

Whether or not Hanratty admiitted the handkerchief was his is yet another fascinating twist in this case. I agree about the unlikelihood of a reference to 'exhibit xx ' and that we need someone with access to the transcript to advise.

In the meantime, I have little to add except that I would have thought that Acott would have asked that question previously to Hanratty as part of the detailed questioning. I think we might also have heard if the handkerchief was of a size that could have been worn bandit style.

Returning to the leaving of the MM in Avondale Crescent after 530pm and before discovery at 645pm, it is interesting to consider the following reasonable implications: 1) it tends to undermine the lone , isolated gunman theory hiding out in a B&B - the gunman must have had access to a 'safe haven' for himself and the car for some 8-10 hours 2) I don't think it is a case of the gunman being persuasive to get help/support (after all Hanratty couldn't persuade ex prison mates to give him an alibi) but more other(s) being 'involved' to some degree and committed to assist 3)the 'safe haven' must have been reasonably nearby as a risky long journey to dump the car could not be contemplated. 4) cleaning of the car undoubtedly took place but deliberately in a way that would not reveal this and thereby disclosing some local connection with the abandonment of the car 5) moving the car at the late time drew upon local knowledge that a space would be available near the tube station with the suggestion that the gunman , had fled from the area, rather than dumping in any side street.

regards

Ed

[Spitfire]

Tony comes across in his posts as a decent, humorous and honest person. I hardly think he would have invented the Hanratty/Swanwick exchange.

In which case we must ask the question why did Paul Foot and Bob Woffinden both leave out this most important and incriminating exchange in their respective works on the A6 case?

[moste]

I have problems with the car leaving the scene being driven badly.presumably crashing gears, and kangaroo clutch kind of thing. At sixteen I myself learned to drive in 1963 in a 1959 mm 5 cwt van, Having had about 2 hours previously in a 58' Standard eight, which had I think similar gear layout. I had very few problems with driving the van other than a stall or two, on hills, from stopped. So given everything we know about his vehicular history, I don't believe it was JH driving that car.

[moste]

Wasn't the layby back in '61 a dead end . I have always thought so, that would have been the reason the car was turned around , for the purpose of exiting back onto the A6. Also interesting , VS says the car took off in a southerly direction towards Luton or London , It looks like a fair distance to the main road from where she was lying (too far for John Kerr to notice anything untoward from his post by the RAC box.) could she not easily mistake another vehicle heading south, when actually the driver of the MM turned left on the A6 and headed north?

[Limehouse]

Some very interesting posts, several of which I would like to respond to but I have limed time right now. Perhaps I will come back to them.

However, I would like to comment on Ed's very interesting idea about the real murder car hiding out somewhere close by before being abandoned in Avondale Crescent later that day because, I have been thinking along the same lines and mentioned this some time ago to Norma (Natalie Severn). let me explain.

Not very far from Avondale Crescent is Wanstead High Street. I worked in Wanstead High Street for several years and knew the area well, having grown up a few miles down the road.

Almost on the corner of Wanstead High Street and the main road that runs towards Redbridge is a pub called The George. It is quite a famous pub and at the time of the A6 murder it was run by the parents of Harry Roberts, who was to gain notoriety as one of three men who gunned down three policemen in west London in 1966. Roberts has recently been released from jail.

Now, at the time of the murder, Roberts was in jail. But what if the murderer was an acquaintance of Roberts and made his way to the pub to seek refuge, not knowing Roberts was banged up? The murderer may have received hospitality from Robert's family without them even knowing that the car parked in their car park was splattered with the blood of a murder victim. It is possible that the killer may later that day have heard a radio report about the murder car being sought by police and quickly left the pub to move it?

This scenario would mean that the car spotted being driven erratically by a grinning maniac early that morning could not have been the killer (and let's face it, witnesses convictions about the identification of the man driving the car do conflict). I have always thought it highly unlikely that the killer would drive in such a way, drawing attention to himself in a car soiled with blood, and possibly containing a gun and a significant amount of ammunition. Talk about fast forward to the gallows if caught!

[Limehouse]

Below is a copy of Tony's post #2726 [from the old A6 thread] which was mentioned by Derrick a week ago and which has been the subject of recent speculation by some posters, casting some doubt on Tony's integrity.

Tony comes across in his posts as a decent, humorous and honest person. I hardly think he would have invented the Hanratty/Swanwick exchange.

Well done Sherlock, for finding that post. Yes, Tony was a real gentleman (as were/are most male posters on this thread, with only one exception in my opinion).

I think this is a genuine exchange because if you note Tony's comments underneath the exchange, it reads as if he is quoting from a transcript.

[Limehouse]

Ed,

I know you and other JH supporters will disagree as a matter of principle, but JH was nowhere near Liverpool, or Rhyl, during the critical period of the A6 Crime. After he left the murder scene in the Morris Minor, he abandoned it in Avondale Crescent, and then for the next few days simply disappeared. We will never know where he was, but I repeat: he was in neither Liverpool nor Rhyl, but he used his previous visits to both places to construct what he felt were plausible alibis. There never was, never is, and never will be now, any concrete proof that he was in Liverpool or Rhyl at the time he claimed.

If anything, JH was a confabulist. That is, a person who has a basic problem with the memory, and uses vague memories of past actions without any genuine attempt to deceive, and indeed may not even be aware that his memories of a particular time or incident are incorrect. Confabulists usually believe totally in their recollections of a particular time or event, as indeed did JH; or at least he gave the impression that he did. I have read that confabulists almost unconsciously "trim" their memories of past evens to how they wish those past events to have occurred, and they do it without any malice or intention to deceive.

I have also read that the tendency towards confabulation can sometimes be the result of physical brain-damage, and that is precisely what JH suffered in his youth. I might even go so far as to suggest that 50 years on, in this perhaps (and hopefully) more enlightened day and age, James Hanratty would have been deemed unfit to plead.

Unfortunately for JH, he was no match whatsoever for the intellect of Basil Acott, or later for the trained legal mind of Graham Swanwick, no matter what Bob Woffinden might think.

Ed, I'm not sure I understand your question concerning the Morris Minor in Avondale Crescent, unless I'm missing something?

Graham

Graham, this is an excellent post.

[moste]

Also on the layby locale. I read somewhere I believe that the traffic counting was done on a shift rotation set up, whereby John Kerr would have been relieving someone at 6.30am. Interestingly that person on the night shift had apparently had his location adjusted so that he was stationed a few hundred yards to the south,(I'm still looking to see where I read this)but my thoughts are, how much was this business looked into, was he moved? why was he moved? did he hear or see anything unusual? The report from a .38 hand gun would be noticeable you would think, in the dead of night, for quite a distance... or had the chap phoned in sick?

[Sherlock Houses]

Also on the layby locale. I read somewhere I believe that the traffic counting was done on a shift rotation set up, whereby John Kerr would have been relieving someone at 6.30am. Interestingly that person on the night shift had apparently had his location adjusted so that he was stationed a few hundred yards to the south,(I'm still looking to see where I read this)but my thoughts are, how much was this business looked into, was he moved? why was he moved? did he hear or see anything unusual? The report from a .38 hand gun would be noticeable you would think, in the dead of night, for quite a distance... or had the chap phoned in sick?

Yes, that's correct Moste. For some reason the 10.00pm to 6.00am traffic census shift [worked by John Smith and Michael Black] that particular night took place further down the A6 about half a mile south of Silsoe [Bob Woffinden's book, pages 36/37].

As you can see from the image below there were houses only 100 yards or so away from the actual murder scene. Gregsten and Storie were shot at the top end of that lay by. It's a wonder that none of the residents heard what must have been loud gunfire in the still of an August night. After all it's not as if just one or two shots were fired, there were a load of them.

[Graham]

Thank you for your kind comment, Julie.

I'm not sure if everyone currently posting is aware, but the actual scene of the A6 Crime, that is, the lay-by, no longer exists. It's actually under the northbound carriageway of the A6, which was duelled some time in fairly recent past. There is still a lay-by off the north-bound A6 carriageway, but it is not the lay-by.

Also, with regard to the sound of gunshots, I live in a semi-rural area, and certainly during the summer months there are guns and bird-scarers going off at all hours of the night; we just take no notice. I really don't think a few shots from a .38 revolver (which is not as loud as, for example, a 12-bore shot-gun) would have bothered the local residents near Deadman's Hill. Those houses on the photo actually look a lot closer than they are: I've been to the scene many times over the years, and the houses are further away than they seem.

Julie, your hypothesis re: The George pub on Wanstead High Street. I kind of get the impression that a bad 'un like Harry Roberts wouldn't have even wanted to know someone like JH, who until he got hold of a gun just burgled houses. Not that I've ever been involved with the naughty classes, but I think there was a very definite level of class-distinction, almost, between a common-or-garden burglar and a bloke prepared to shoot three coppers. I can only speculate here, but I really don't think that our JH was in the same class as Mr Roberts, in criminal terms.

Ed, reference my post - I don't think the gunman needed a 'safe haven' to clean the car. It would still be only semi-daylight when he left the lay-by, so he could drive off and pull in to some sheltered spot somewhere quite close and do the necessary.

I'm not a betting man, but after the car was left in Avondale Crescent (significantly near a tube station) I'd have a pound to a pinch of **** that JH made his way to Dixie France's flat. Speculation? Yep.

Graham

[OneRound]

Hi again Graham - whether or not Hanratty (or, as some prefer, the gunman) needed a 'safe haven' to clean the car, wouldn't he have needed to obtain some cleaning items from somewhere?

Best regards,

OneRound

[Graham]

Presumably he would, but we don't know what he might have found in the car - maybe enough textile material to manage a good wipe-down and also to eradicate finger-prints? Or even clumps of grass? Whatever he had to hand, he must have done a good job to eradicate all possible forensic evidence to link him (JH) to the car. An aspect of this case I still, after many, many years, cannot quite get my head around. But there you are.

Graham