A6 Rebooted

[OneRound]

Sherlock Houses,

I myself have often been struck with similarities between the A6 case and the Cameo murders. ...

...

... First of all the credibility of the legal system itself. No system wants to hold its hands up and admit to the possibility that it took an innocent life. That would seriously undermine its credibility with the public; at least life sentences can be rescinded. British justice would never hang an innocent man is a refrain I remember from my childhood.

Secondly, the integrity of the police force has to be protected too. If (and I appreciate it can only be ‘if’) the police pursued the wrong man and built a case against him when he was around 200 miles away from the scene, then that would be what Lord Denning once called ‘an appalling vista’ and one which, in the eyes of our political masters, the public were better not forced to confront. This is far removed from arresting Tim Evans, who did make a confession intially in any case. So did Stefan Kisko. So did most of the Birmingham Six. Hanratty admitted nothing. ...


...

Hi cobalt - firstly, my thanks to Sherlock and you for respectively flagging and confirming certain apparent similarities between the convictions of George Kelly and Charles Connolly relating to the Cameo Murders and James Hanratty for the A6 murder.

One further subsequent similarity is that both cases were referred by the Criminal Cases Review Commission ('CCRC') to the Court of Appeal as the CCRC considered there was a realistic prospect that the original convictions would be overturned. The major difference of course is that the Court did do that in respect of the convictions of Kelly and Connolly but not in the case of James Hanratty.

I understand and appreciate your first two points above. I'm sure these points had considerable bearing in the posthumous reviews of the Timothy Evans case with at one time the conclusion that he probably didn't kill his daughter (for which he was convicted and executed) but probably did kill his wife (the charge for which was left pending in accordance with the then legal custom). An unsatisfactory fudge for almost all. At the very least, Evans' conviction had always to be viewed as ''unsafe'' once it had been shown that the testimony which did so much to convict him had come from a serial killer, Reginald Christie, living in the same house.

I'm further certain that your first point about the credibility of the legal system itself also had a lot to do with the reluctance to formally review the Bentley case.

That all said, it has to be noted that in more recent years convictions of those executed for murder have been put aside by the Court of Appeal. The cases of Kelly, Bentley and Mahmood Mattan (the Somali ex merchant seaman living in Cardiff) all refer. Surely these decisions now seriously weaken your two points above? I don't see why these appeals would be allowed with the resultant damage to legal and police credibility if, as you suggest, the establishment were prepared to go so far to fabricate DNA evidence against James Hanratty.

Best regards,

OneRound

[OneRound]

The hanging of Bentley was, as you describe, vicious and if he ever uttered the words 'let him have it Chris' it is much more likely that he meant 'hand over the gun' rather than 'murder that policeman'.

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Hi Julie - I agree with Graham and you that the treatment meted out to Derek Bentley was 'vicious'.

It's hard to say differently when we are referring to the hanging of a mentally retarded teenager whose role in the murder was a long way from being a major one.

However, just to put a perhaps significant part of the other side, that of the then Home Secretary, David Maxwell Fyfe, who refused to grant a reprieve and rarely gets a voice these days - whilst we pretty much know the revulsion felt over this execution, we will never properly know know the impact at the time and afterwards on those considering armed robbery. Did it, as Maxwell Fyfe probably intended, 'Encourage The Others' [the title of David Yallop's book on the case] to abandon thoughts of violent crime?

I am not saying Maxwell Fyfe was correct in his decision but I can perhaps understand his reasoning. Although I wasn't around at the time, I also have the impression that such thinking would have been more in tune with that of the early 1950s than today.

With regard to the ''Let him have it, Chris'' words, I feel there are only two options here:
1. Bentley didn't say it at all; or
2. Bentley said it and meant it as an instruction to shoot.

It needs to be remembered that Bentley denied making this statement. Why did he do that if he did say it and all he meant was ''hand over the gun''? For me, the favourable (to Bentley) interpretation of those words went out of the window as soon as he denied the utterance. It's a case of trying to ride two horses at the same time to make a claim he didn't say it and then attempt to give it a helpful interpretation.

Best regards,

OneRound

[cobalt]

One Round,' Thanks for your considered reply.

Much of what you say I concur with. But regarding Mattan he was a foreigner and could be discounted from rousing public disquiet. I have no doubt he was innocent, but he the case does not resonate with the wider public.

Kelly was part of a probable fit up which later linked to Devlin/ Burns. Bert Balmer of the Liverpool CID is well worth a google search. The Devlin/Burns case is even more controversial than the Cameo murders since the accused claimed to be (and had some corroboration to that effect) in Manchester when the murder occurred in Liverpool. At least Kelly was in the vicinity of the Cameo! I am astonished that the Devlin/Burns case is not better known.

Hanratty was a London crook accused of murder and rape in a Bedfordshire cornfield. It never quite convinced the public, especially when he claimed to be 200 miles away at the time. He had never, to public knowledge, murdered or raped before. There was no motive. The car, bewilderingly, revealed no forensic link to Hanratty. He made no confession. No one, save from the controversial evidence of Valerie Storie, saw him at the scene of the crime.

Even before DNA it was possible to link fibres- this was done in Scotland in 1932 to convict a child murderer- so it was obviously available in England in 1962. Why was there nothing in the car? That is where Hanratty's defence team fell down. They should have been shouting this to the heavens. And the relationship between Mr Gregsten and Ms Storie should also have been put before the jury. Stuff all the retrospective claims that attitudes were different then: I was alive then, and if any relationship had been detrimental to Hanratty then it would certainly have been pursued by the prosecution.

One reason that Evans, Bentley, Ellis and Hanratty went to the gallows is because their social superiors, acting in their interests as advocates, never really believed in them. Contrast that with the Green Bicycle Case of 1920 when a schoolteacher, who seemed to be bang to rights, was found not guilty. His alleged victim was a factory girl.

[cobalt]

One Round,

No one ever heard Derek Bentley utter these fateful words bar two policemen.

Chris Craig, still alive to this day, has no memory of hearing the words.
Bentley denied ever saying them.
Other police in the vicinity never heard them.

Coincidentally, these were almost, word for word, the very same words which had been used to convict an accused on the grounds of common enterprise back in the 1930s.

As far as I am aware, no one under arrest at the time of a killing, bar Bentley, was ever hanged for murder.

[cobalt]

That all said, it has to be noted that in more recent years convictions of those executed for murder have been put aside by the Court of Appeal. The cases of Kelly, Bentley and Mahmood Mattan (the Somali ex merchant seaman living in Cardiff) all refer. Surely these decisions now seriously weaken your two points above? I don't see why these appeals would be allowed with the resultant damage to legal and police credibility if, as you suggest, the establishment were prepared to go so far to fabricate DNA evidence against James Hanratty.

Hi OneRound,

I don't think I have answered your points carefully enough. It is a feature of 'conspiracy theorists' that when an official piece of evidence suits our purpose then it is clad in iron, and used to speculate ad infinitum; when it fails to do so, then it is merely cast aside as contaminated!

I cannot claim immunity from that tendency, although I do not think it is unique from those tending towards Hanratty's innocence.

The cases you mentioned were before my time, but also I think before there was a growing momentum to abolish the death penalty. Kelly was tried, so far as I can gather, not by his peers but by property owners on the electoral register. The whole issue of who is called for jury duty is shrouded in secrecy to this day, and I suspect that for certain cases a 'reliable' bunch of jurors is assembled.
Mattan, as a foreigner, had little chance of being tried by his peers. His case is heart rending.

Your general point is valid: the authorities HAVE admitted to executions which were probably unwarranted. But I was alive during the Hanratty case and remember the whole issue of capital punishment being to the fore. I think I am right in saying that at the time of the Kelly and Mattan convictions there was no national sense of a possible miscarriage of justice being carried out. Any objections were only reported locally. That was certainly not the case with Hanratty.

The A6 case was front page news for months, and the twists and turns read avidly by me as an eight year old (the first time I had ventured from the sports pages.) Sometimes a high profile case elicits a different response from the authorities than one less known. I recall Albert Pierrepoint pointing out that after the execution of Ruth Ellis he could not leave the prison for a number of hours because of the hostile crowd outside. Less than a year earlier he had executed an elderly Cypriot woman and walked out into an empty street.

[moste]

Yes that's the photo I referred to. There are one or two other snaps which similarly depict the obviously tanned, freckled, face of Hanratty .Cobalt mentioned previously, that the jury had the opportunity to observe Hanratty's features throughout the trial. But I must point out that the deep tan and heavy freckles, by the time the trial began on Jan 22nd, would have diminished drastically, note: dimpled chin more noticeable in some shots than others, as in B.W.s book after page 244. (can't believe more pressure wasn't put on the so called Identifiers, with respect to what they say they saw, versus what he actually looks like, by the defence.

[Dupplin Muir]

Cobalt wrote:

One reason that Evans, Bentley, Ellis and Hanratty went to the gallows is because their social superiors, acting in their interests as advocates, never really believed in them. Contrast that with the Green Bicycle Case of 1920 when a schoolteacher, who seemed to be bang to rights, was found not guilty. His alleged victim was a factory girl.

It might also be noticed that plenty of people were convicted on the basis of dodgy identification evidence (including JH), but when Peter Hain (a member of the Establishment, despite his radical posturing) was accused of robbery on the basis of witness testimony, then such testimony was suddenly deemed to be unreliable.

[Graham]

In 1972 I was called for jury service in the Midlands. I was on two cases, the first was theft (and I have to say highly entertaining), but the second was murder and not at all entertaining. In fact it was extremely distressing. I assume that the selection of the jury for all cases was and is on a totally random basis, but was puzzled me at the time (and still does) was the basis upon which the defendant and the defence counsel rejected some jurors as they were called. This is a right all defendants have, I understand, but I don't know how many jurors can be so rejected. Anyway, the defendant was quite obviously working-class (sorry to use that term) and not well-educated, and I think most of the jurors had formed their opinion after the first day or two of the trial. We were quite a mixed bunch, and included a market-trader who complained non-stop that being on jury service was costing him a bomb, and a rather posh and elegant lady who as I recall said virtually nothing when the time came to consider the verdict. All in all a peculiar and disturbing experience, and I came away with the odd feeling that one could actually feel the full and awesome weight of the State in the court-room.

Graham

[Graham]

Attached below is that particular photo of Hanratty, Moste. The one I've enclosed has been cropped but not by myself. Even in this black and white photo you can tell that Hanratty's complexion is ruddy, a freckled tan that is shared by many ginger haired and fair skinned people.

I think you should have gone to Specsavers.

Graham

[OneRound]

That all said, it has to be noted that in more recent years convictions of those executed for murder have been put aside by the Court of Appeal. The cases of Kelly, Bentley and Mahmood Mattan (the Somali ex merchant seaman living in Cardiff) all refer. Surely these decisions now seriously weaken your two points above? I don't see why these appeals would be allowed with the resultant damage to legal and police credibility if, as you suggest, the establishment were prepared to go so far to fabricate DNA evidence against James Hanratty.

Hi OneRound,

I don't think I have answered your points carefully enough. It is a feature of 'conspiracy theorists' that when an official piece of evidence suits our purpose then it is clad in iron, and used to speculate ad infinitum; when it fails to do so, then it is merely cast aside as contaminated!

I cannot claim immunity from that tendency, although I do not think it is unique from those tending towards Hanratty's innocence.

The cases you mentioned were before my time, but also I think before there was a growing momentum to abolish the death penalty. Kelly was tried, so far as I can gather, not by his peers but by property owners on the electoral register. The whole issue of who is called for jury duty is shrouded in secrecy to this day, and I suspect that for certain cases a 'reliable' bunch of jurors is assembled.
Mattan, as a foreigner, had little chance of being tried by his peers. His case is heart rending.

Your general point is valid: the authorities HAVE admitted to executions which were probably unwarranted. But I was alive during the Hanratty case and remember the whole issue of capital punishment being to the fore. I think I am right in saying that at the time of the Kelly and Mattan convictions there was no national sense of a possible miscarriage of justice being carried out. Any objections were only reported locally. That was certainly not the case with Hanratty.

The A6 case was front page news for months, and the twists and turns read avidly by me as an eight year old (the first time I had ventured from the sports pages.) Sometimes a high profile case elicits a different response from the authorities than one less known. I recall Albert Pierrepoint pointing out that after the execution of Ruth Ellis he could not leave the prison for a number of hours because of the hostile crowd outside. Less than a year earlier he had executed an elderly Cypriot woman and walked out into an empty street.

Hi Cobalt - thanks for your further consideration of my post.

Detailed review of Mahmood Mattan's trial and execution belongs elsewhere but you are certainly right that it is a heart rending case. Mattan was described at trial by his own barrister as being, ''half-child of nature; half, semi-civilised savage''. This strongly supports your view that defendants start off badly on the wrong foot when their own legal team clearly have little or no belief in them.

I don't believe Hanratty had that disadvantage although Sherrard's inexperience may have been.

I take your point about a high profile case sometimes eliciting a different response from the authorities. I'm not sure though how much Ruth Ellis fits in there. Admittedly (as you've shown), the press and public reaction to her execution contrasted markedly with that of the elderly Cypriot woman but both met the same fate and both convictions remain in force to this day.

Possibly Bentley's execution is a more appropriate example; I'm sure other young men were reprieved around the same time whilst the authorities insisted upon Bentley's execution, despite the considerable extenuating circumstances, almost as if to stubbornly prove a point to the masses and then for decades refusing to formally review that decision.

Best regards,

OneRound

[OneRound]

...

Hanratty was a London crook accused of murder and rape in a Bedfordshire cornfield. It never quite convinced the public, especially when he claimed to be 200 miles away at the time. He had never, to public knowledge, murdered or raped before. There was no motive. The car, bewilderingly, revealed no forensic link to Hanratty. He made no confession. No one, save from the controversial evidence of Valerie Storie, saw him at the scene of the crime.

Even before DNA it was possible to link fibres- this was done in Scotland in 1932 to convict a child murderer- so it was obviously available in England in 1962. Why was there nothing in the car? That is where Hanratty's defence team fell down. They should have been shouting this to the heavens. And the relationship between Mr Gregsten and Ms Storie should also have been put before the jury. Stuff all the retrospective claims that attitudes were different then: I was alive then, and if any relationship had been detrimental to Hanratty then it would certainly have been pursued by the prosecution.

...

Hi again Cobalt - just to quickly return to the part of your earlier post above and to reiterate my own take on the A6 Murder.

Whilst I have little belief in the innocence of James Hanratty, you make several good points to support my view that his guilt was not fairly proved beyond reasonable doubt.

Best regards,

OneRound

[OneRound]

One Round,

No one ever heard Derek Bentley utter these fateful words bar two policemen.

Chris Craig, still alive to this day, has no memory of hearing the words.
Bentley denied ever saying them.
Other police in the vicinity never heard them.

Coincidentally, these were almost, word for word, the very same words which had been used to convict an accused on the grounds of common enterprise back in the 1930s.

As far as I am aware, no one under arrest at the time of a killing, bar Bentley, was ever hanged for murder.

Hi once more Cobalt - your post fits in with option 1 as set out in my earlier post about Bentley. My main point was that it's inappropriate to make the claim that he never said anything and then at the same time attempt to give it a helpful interpretation.

Either Bentley said those words (which, if so, damns him) or he didn't (which, if so, damns the police officers who swore he did). Despite the Court of Appeal ruling in 1998 - which concentrated upon the mishandling by the trial judge, Lord Goddard - we don't have a definitive answer and it is highly unlikely that we ever will. I do though note that you have nailed your colours to the mast and respect you for that.

Best regards,

OneRound

[ansonman]

"No one, save from the controversial evidence of Valerie Storie, saw him at the scene of the crime".

Cobalt, some excellent postings from your good self. I think the above extract from one does not give VS sufficient credit. Her evidence was more than controversial, it was absolutely damning and was entirely responsible for sending Hanratty to the gallows. There was no other "evidence" to link him to the crime. We can forget about cartridge cases, alibis, planting a gun on a bus etc. The ONLY evidence that counted was from VS. To quote Woffinden:

"At the conclusion of the main part of her evidence, (at the trial) Valerie Storie was asked by Graham Swanwick about her identification of Hanratty at the second identity parade. Her subsequent avowal was both forceful and dramatic:

Swanwick: Who was the person who you identified?
Storie: The accused
Swanwick: Do you see him in court new?
Storie: Yes
Swanwick: The man in the dock?
Storie: Yes
Swanwick: Had you any doubt at that time?
Storie: I had no doubt at all that this was the man who shot Mike and myself.
Swanwick: Have you any doubt now?
Storie: I have no doubt whatsoever

Ansonman

[Ed James]

The following documentary shows how the victim of a crime gave one description of her assailant when first questioned after the event (in this case a petite 'girly' girl) but when the police arrested someone who actually didn't resemble the description at all (tall and tomboyish), she convinced herself that this was the culprit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qqERsM7IJc

It has obvious applicability to VS's identification of Hanratty.

Hi DM

Thanks for recommending this film.I think it is absolutely essential viewing for everyone interested in VS's identification of Hanratty as the murderer. it is highly thought provoking.,

The woman brutally attacked and left for dead by her car by assailants led by a petite 'girly' girl was a similarly upright citizen and showed many strong qualities displayed by VS. She had a much longer view of the assailants than VS, and unlike her produced very accurate photofits of all, especially the girl assailant, but as you indicate later picked out a very tom boyish girl, quite unlike the perpetrator.

Yet despite overwhelming evidence that the victim got it wrong , that the real assailant exists elsewher,and that a miscarriage of justice has taken place, the victim herself stands stubbornly by her obviously totally wrong identification.

Her conviction and complete absence of doubt against all the evidence shows what can happen after a traumatic situation where understandably there is 'investment ' in the identified party.

Ansoman's quote from VS's evidence makes interesting reading especially as we know she expressed doubts about being able to identify the assailant, then picked out the wrong man, said he looked like Alphon when he apparently had a different build and hair colour and took 20 mins to select Hanratty.

regards

Ed

[moste]

So, the photo does not depict a ruddy face, and there are no freckles or dimple chin, VS was right in her ID of Hanratty that he was pale in complexion, and Michael Hanratty has either forgotten what his brother looked like by late summer, or he is not being truthful. Its obvious from the specs remark that you are incapable of conceding a valid point.