A6 Rebooted

[Sherlock Houses]

As I said recently, a few years ago Steve took some photos of the area and the railing entrance to the toilets was still there, but they were plainly no longer in use.

It's still there today Graham but the entrance was paved over some years ago. The trees in the background of the attached 2010 photograph equate to where the recently mentioned old Rotunda Theatre stood many years ago.

[Graham]

Hi SH,

thanks for posting this - bad luck if you've just come out of a nearby pub after a long sesh and looking for relief.....

Are Steve's photos still available, or is this one of yours? I thought Steve's were lost when the site crashed. He took some great shots of scenes connected with the A6 Case.

Graham

[Sherlock Houses]

Are Steve's photos still available, or is this one of yours? I thought Steve's were lost when the site crashed. He took some great shots of scenes connected with the A6 Case.
Graham

There are some of Steve's photos available on the A6 thread Graham [the thread with 7,776 posts]. If you click on the paperclick icon to the side of that particular thread a pop-up window appears showing all the 176 attachments posters have uploaded.

No this is not one of my photos, it's one I came across last year whilst surfing [without getting drenched] the internet. It's the second time I've attached this particular photo which somebody took in 2010.

[NickB]

Cilla Black was brought up at 390 Scotland Road, where the family lived above a hairdressers. I am trying to make out if she lived next to the sweetshop at 408.

You can see her house here (scroll down to sixth photo) and the sweetshop and neighbouring shops in the gallery here.

(Also came across a photo of Dixie France here.)

[propatria27]

Alibis

Regarding the possible alibi(s) - it I could be that JH asked for an alibi for 22nd August, but didn't have to state what it was for, just a job he did on that night. Let's not forget that he wasn't a suspect until 29th September, so buying an alibi for those 5 weeks would have been possible - things only changed when it was realised what he was wanted for and people in Liverpool had second thoughts,

Pete

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Nick,-I doubt Gillbanks as an Ex-Policeman would have fed information to James Hanratty such as where the sweet shop was when all three pages of these notes are about interrogating Hanratty and what he could tell Gillbanks and his defence about what he did ,who he recognised from various photos [not many] ,and what his relationship with France was.I will try to post them later.

*I can't find any transcript of Louise Anderson's except some references to her first statements to newspapers about 'rather liking him ' and him being a boy 'with a lovely slim body and smooth skin ' who she 'used to sit up talking with every night until the early hours' Pages 162/3 and 4 [and maybe more ].Louise did a lot of fencing for 'antiques' shops in Soho judging from Paul Foot's book -he says she fenced for ' a number of 'antiques dealers' one of them being William Ewer [who also dealt in antiques both under and over the counter at his Umbrella Shop] .

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Graham and One Round-and SH! Good to see you all too and of course Julie who I keep in touch with anyway.

[Sherlock Houses]

Cilla Black was brought up at 390 Scotland Road, where the family lived above a hairdressers. I am trying to make out if she lived next to the sweetshop at 408.

It's a strong possibility especially if there was a facelift to the facade of these shops and if there was a renumbering done.

Judge for yourself with the attached comparison photos below.

[Natalie Severn]

terrific photos SH ! Good to meet you.

[Sherlock Houses]

There are some of Steve's photos available on the A6 thread Graham [the thread with 7,776 posts]. If you click on the paperclick icon to the side of that particular thread a pop-up window appears showing all the 176 attachments posters have uploaded.

What's a paperclick me ? Is it similar to a paperclip by any chance ?

[Sherlock Houses]

terrific photos SH ! Good to meet you.

Thank you Natalie. The photo on the left must have been taken sometime after 1962 as the photo in Paul Foot's book of the sweetshop was from that year. Elsie's Snack Bar is still there in that photo but the J.Clark shop has changed hands.

PS. I thought your book was brilliant and brought this enigmatic case vividly to life with the format you used.

[Natalie Severn]

SH- will message you

[Sherlock Houses]

Cilla Black was brought up at 390 Scotland Road, where the family lived above a hairdressers. I am trying to make out if she lived next to the sweetshop at 408.

Just a minor point Nick, all the other Internet sources have Cilla Black's address as being number 380. It looks very much like Mrs Lee's Chinese Laundry shop next door was later transformed into David Cowley's sweetshop.

[NickB]

OK - I was just trying to read the number on the window.

Agree about the Laundry, but the Midland Bank on the other side looks different. I wonder if it was bombed in the war.

[caz]

1961 EXHIBITS FROM CRIME SCENE and from James Hanratty's clothing and from Valerie Storie regarding A6 murder -committal and Trial :- surfed the internet for evidence -[especially look at stuff from old publications] I found these last week.How on earth can anyone not admit gross contamination of those LCN DNA tests ? They were done on cloths that had been kept in a police lab for 42 years -after being handled like this...bare hands/no gloves from crime scene and/or suitcases to police station to Committal Hearing for ten days in November/December 1961 ,containing underclothing from Valerie Storie and trousers from James Hanratty - in and out of cardboard boxes by police and clerks of the court -to be viewed as 'exhibits' from the crime scene and items of the accused ,same thing happening during the jan/feb 1962 trial over an even longer period of time. If you conduct LCN DNA tests on anything these days everything must be kept completely sterile from crime scene to lab and any person entering the crime scene or the lab has to be covered from head to foot with sterile protection,likewise the lab cannot be entered without stringent anti contamination procedures being followed.

Hi Nats,

Good to see you back here after such a long absence.

While I agree that the potential for hopeless contamination of the physical evidence was always there, I'm not terribly surprised. This was a full two decades before DNA testing became a reality and changed the face of forensics forever. Moreover, nobody could have guessed that cold cases might also be solvable one day using DNA technology to examine any preserved samples, such as semen.

In this case we might have expected inconclusive DNA results at best if the hanky and knicker fragment had been heavily contaminated during transportation, examination or storage, yet that doesn't appear to have been the case. Firstly, I thought the knicker fragment with the rapist's group O semen was examined, cut from the garment and stored separately from items later exhibited during the trial, reducing the opportunity for contamination by 'foreign' DNA profiles. Secondly, if the hanky had been contaminated by all sorts of similarly foreign DNA profiles, would we not have expected the results to reflect that, with no clear profile of anyone emerging from all the 'background noise'?

Yet, remarkably, just the one DNA profile was detectable. It was from the mucous stained area of the hanky and matched Hanratty's exhumed remains. Short of the hanky being handed to Hanratty during the trial by someone wearing gloves, and Hanratty blowing his nose on it before handing it back, I fail to see how his DNA - uniquely - could have contaminated it after the event and stayed put ever since.

I don't suppose anyone gave a thought to sterile conditions when Richard III met his end, yet DNA tests on his remains confirmed his identity, and nobody as far as I know has complained about the far greater potential for contamination.

Finally, I think everyone would have accepted it if the findings in the A6 case had been much the same except for the DNA profile picked up from both the knicker fragment and hanky not matching Hanratty, and therefore indicating someone else's guilt. Equally, we would all have understood if the findings had been declared inconclusive or fatally flawed, due to obvious contamination problems, and if Hanratty's conviction was found to be unsafe as a result. In the latter case, however, Hanratty would not have been proved innocent. Ironically, Hanratty defenders who argue that the DNA tests were fatally flawed, due to 'gross contamination', could never have used the results to prove Hanratty didn't do it, even if that is precisely what they had indicated! Yet they called for DNA tests because they were so confident they would reveal 'the truth'. Those of us who accept the results prove his guilt would have accepted results indicating someone else's guilt.

Love,

Caz
X