A6 Rebooted

[cobalt]

The Nimmo (1967) and Hawser Reports (1975) were discussed on here a couple of years back, around post number 5560.

The Nimmo Report was never published so far as I can make out as it was merely advisory for the then Home Secretary. It concentrated on the alibi evidence from Liverpool and Rhyl. The Hawser Report was published, drew upon some of the Nimmo Report, and dealt comprehensively with all aspects of the A6 Case. You can download the Hawser Report online in its entirety but have to sign up to a paid website. Other than that it can probably be found in second hand book shops.

[djw]

If the Matthews report is based on witness statements taken in the 1960s, why did the Nimmo and Hawser reports conclude differently and can these two be read or accessed anywhere?

[cobalt]

‘Valerie's picture may have looked like Alphon to others, but what good was it if it didn't look like Alphon to her?’

I think that’s one of the best points Caz has ever made on this site. Since Valerie Storie was the guiding hand behind the photofit then it is pretty presumptuous of anyone else to tell her who she was actually describing. She was doubtless under pressure at the first ID parade but the police had no motive whatsoever for steering her away from their suspect. For whatever reason, she failed to identify Alphon.


‘Matthews was an Alphonite.
"Mr Matthews team had concluded the man who carried out the attack on 22 August 1961 at Deadman's Hill, Bedfordshire, was probably hired to break up the illicit liaison. His report is believed to recommend that a new enquiry should in particular examine evidence regarding Peter Alphon, a salesman who was the original suspect.’

Which is why the Matthews Report would make interesting reading. He must have had more than Alphon’s claim in order to have reached this conclusion about the motivation for the crime. There must be supporting evidence, presumably in witness statements taken at the time, which support this theory but which have not been placed in the public domain.

[moste]

Valerie's picture may have looked like Alphon to others, but what good was it if it didn't look like Alphon to her?

Ha Ha Ha. CaZ. Can you hear yourself?

[NickB]

Third man in the picture that sounds more like it. In the vein of D CS Mathews you mean?

Matthews was an Alphonite.

"Mr Matthews team had concluded the man who carried out the attack on 22 August 1961 at Deadman's Hill, Bedfordshire, was probably hired to break up the illicit liaison. His report is believed to recommend that a new enquiry should in particular examine evidence regarding Peter Alphon, a salesman who was the original suspect."

'The Independent' 22-Oct-2011

[caz]

Valerie�s picture of the killer looked like Alphon is all I�m saying.(despite her spending all that time with the man) dont you see the problem here? This is the same man that Valerie lit ciggies for, and tried to dissuade from being seen by homeowners in Clophill by parking their car in an observable location. The mind boggles.

I don't know what's wrong with your font, moste, but it's quite distracting.

The problem I see is that if Alphon had been the gunman and Valerie had seen enough of his face to produce a reasonable likeness of him after the event, it makes no sense that she would then not recognise him again when he stood there in plain sight at the first id parade.

Valerie's picture may have looked like Alphon to others, but what good was it if it didn't look like Alphon to her?

I thought the usual objection to her not recognising Alphon, but going on to pick out Hanratty at the second id parade, was that she hadn't seen the gunman's face clearly enough to know him again, and had to rely on voice recognition. Not sure you can have it both ways.

Love,

Caz
X

[moste]

Third man in the picture that sounds more like it. In the vein of D CS Mathews you mean? B.in Law henchman ,very possible.( far from being a toss up of the two)

[moste]

Hi moste,

Would you say justice would have been done if Alphon had hanged instead, despite the total lack of forensic evidence to suggest a connection between him and the rape or the murder weapon?

If Valerie got it wrong when identifying Hanratty as her rapist, despite having spent so long in the car with the man who attacked her, how unlucky was it that Hanratty's blood group, his DNA, even including the snot on his hankie, all conspired to support her identification, while nothing of the sort attached itself to Alphon?

I'd have more doubts if there was a third man in the picture who would have made a stronger suspect than Alphon, but as it's a toss up between the two we have, the case against Hanratty from where I'm sitting is not nearly as weak as that against Alphon.

Love,

Caz
X

Valerie’s picture of the killer looked like Alphon is all I’m saying.(despite her spending all that time with the man) dont you see the problem here? This is the same man that Valerie lit ciggies for, and tried to dissuade from being seen by homeowners in Clophill by parking their car in an observable location. The mind boggles.

[moste]

Somehow managed to delete Caz’s heading there. Sorry.

[moste]

[QUOTE=caz;n774136]

Hi cobalt,

This is an important point. As Valerie was lying on the ground with those bullets in her, hoping she might survive to tell the tale, her motivation for remembering her attacker would have been extremely strong. More than anything, she'd have wanted to see this trigger happy bastard caught and convicted for her lover's senseless murder. And she knew she could make that happen, but only if her memory remained sharp enough to know the man again.

What more powerful motivator could there be, assuming Valerie did indeed come face to face with her attacker again, during one of the id parades?

Love,

Caz
X

It’s a pity that at a point some weeks after the event ,she was heard and documented as saying’ my memory of the assailant is fading ,
Also, how indicative of a total scam is it, for Acott (in the words of Storie in her articles in the magazine some months later,) to voice his satisfaction after her identification of Hanratty , “Well done”, I knew I had settled my score with Hanratty.
Woffinden goes on to explain.: There was nothing wrong with Acott’s behaviour as the rules stood at the time.(They have been thoroughly revised since). Officers were allowed to be present,
albeit as mere observers.Providing that Acott made no comment until it was all finished,and he appeared not to have done so,then no rules of procedure would have been breached.However in the light of Valerie Stories account, it seemed that her belief that she picked out the right man could only have been reinforced by Acotts instantaneous reaction. She said at the trial that she ‘had no doubt whatsoever’ that Hanratty was the gunman.But to what extent was her certainty due to her own identification alone? Or to what extent was it buttressed by Acotts confirmation?
Fiercely contested identification lay at the heart of this conviction. If it was beset by doubts before, in the wake of the ‘Today’ article it looked even more dubious. (Bob Woffinden.page 324)

[cobalt]

If you don’t mind Ed, I’ll take up your earlier point about what Hanratty was doing in Taplow in the first place. He was a burglar by ‘trade’ but has voiced the intention to become a robber. The confusion for me has always been that he did not seem to know which of these he was on the night in question.

The prosecution suggested, I think, that Hanratty was casing houses in the area with a view to burglary. That’s perfectly believable and I think Taplow has always been a village with a fair smattering of wealthy properties, so would provide rich pickings. But burglary is surely about slipping through doors and windows silently so it makes no sense for Hanratty to have been carrying a fully loaded revolver and, bizarrely, extra ammunition in his suit pocket. Why would a burglar go out equipped like James Cagney for a shoot out with the cops? If the gun was for some sort of insurance if spotted, then again surely the point of the weapon was to get people to back off: not to start an execution. And the penalty if apprehended by the law would have been far more severe than for mere burglary. The whole concept makes no sense to me.

Of course, we are often told Hanratty was not a logical person and paid little attention to the consequences of his actions. There’s truth in that I am sure. However was a fairly experienced petty criminal who would have known the various jail tariffs of the time and calculated the risk/reward ratio. I can see no evidence that Hanratty- if he ever was in Taplow- was set upon committing burglary that evening.

[Ed James]

Hi All

I have been absent for a long time so I hope I may be forgiven for focusing on another area that has been troubling me.

In court the clever but slippery Swanwick sidestepped the vexed issue of the motive of Hanratty or anyone carrying out the shocking and bizarre hijacking . The reality is that the English criminal justice system - as remains the case to a degree today - is not a search for the truth but a deadly game of which of two competing parties can convince the lay jury of guilt or innocence. There was no interest in how the gunman came to be in the field for example.

Pre DNA consideration , I am not certain of Hanratty‘s guilt. But I do believe that if he entered the Morris Minor he did so not as an opportunistic move but as part of a hastily pre planned act involving support of others. To me the intruder was equipped for kidnapping not burglary.

Leaving aside potentially unreliable eyewitness identification on both sides , there is plenty of circumstantial evidence pointing to Hanratty‘s guilt. I think the most telling is the presence of cartridge cases found in Room 24 in the Vienna Hotel where Hanratty stayed the night before the murder. What is a credible explanation for the presence of cartridge cases that would suggest Hanratty's innocence? Had Alphon deposited them carelessly when visiting the room as per Nudds' second statement? Had they been planted at a later stage by France or even Nudds ? Far from being a coincidence that Alphon and Hanratty stayed at the same hotel was the Vienna the venue for the hard- to-reach prospective gunmen to be awaiting a hasty call to action?

I would welcome the thoughts of learned forum members on how the cartridges came to be in Room 24.

[caz]

I can understand that the jury being unconvinced by the eye witness evidence from Liverpool. The witnesses mostly had fleeting glimpses of the man, a person who was unknown to them beforehand, and were being asked to remember events from months before. They were citizens going about their everyday business and had no reason to attach any significance to their meeting at the time. This is in stark contrast to the motivation Valerie Storie had for remembering her attacker.

Hi cobalt,

This is an important point. As Valerie was lying on the ground with those bullets in her, hoping she might survive to tell the tale, her motivation for remembering her attacker would have been extremely strong. More than anything, she'd have wanted to see this trigger happy bastard caught and convicted for her lover's senseless murder. And she knew she could make that happen, but only if her memory remained sharp enough to know the man again.

What more powerful motivator could there be, assuming Valerie did indeed come face to face with her attacker again, during one of the id parades?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi moste,

Would you say justice would have been done if Alphon had hanged instead, despite the total lack of forensic evidence to suggest a connection between him and the rape or the murder weapon?

If Valerie got it wrong when identifying Hanratty as her rapist, despite having spent so long in the car with the man who attacked her, how unlucky was it that Hanratty's blood group, his DNA, even including the snot on his hankie, all conspired to support her identification, while nothing of the sort attached itself to Alphon?

I'd have more doubts if there was a third man in the picture who would have made a stronger suspect than Alphon, but as it's a toss up between the two we have, the case against Hanratty from where I'm sitting is not nearly as weak as that against Alphon.

Love,

Caz
X

[moste]

QUOTE: ‘an additional concern, what would have happened if Valerie had got it wrong on the first parade by picking out Alphon? She might just as easily have done so.
Quite so OR, and especially since her identikit drawing could only have been Alphon ,compared to say ,Hanratty.