A6 Rebooted

[caz]

No Caz-none of that.

Relieved to hear it, Nats. But then why did you quote from someone whose beliefs you don't endorse?

re The GUN :The handkerchief was it appears Hanratty's -yes it had his DNA on it and since Hanratty was living with France he had given his hankies and shirts to France's wife to wash while he was away in Liverpool [and later in Rhyl at the time of the murder- as Mrs Dunwoody testified in Liverpool and then later 11 witnesses in Rhyl testified].

Ah, so Hanratty's hankie (exhibited at the trial?) escaped the 'gross contamination' you claimed made mincemeat of the DNA tests. I see. And presumably France's wife failed to wash this item while Hanratty was away, and it was used, still gooey from his snot, to wrap up the murder weapon and put it in his admitted hiding place. So did France think Hanratty was too thick to realise who was framing him and deserved all he got? Wouldn't it have been easier - and safer - for France to have chucked the gun in the Thames and made no attempt to frame someone like Hanratty, who would inevitably attract police attention to him through their criminal association?

However the DNA in this case is just a complete joke.

To be fair, absolute, unshakeable faith in Hanratty's innocence, prior to the much anticipated DNA tests, was always going to dictate how they would be received by his defenders, not the technology involved or the actual findings.

And that is the ultimate tragedy for the truth.

Did you watch the ITV two-parter: Code of a Killer? It must have been an almighty relief for the parents of the two teenagers, raped and murdered in the 1980s, when the earliest DNA profiling led to Colin Pitchfork's conviction and justice finally being done.

Love,

Caz
X

[Derrick]

...and it was used, still gooey from his snot, to wrap up the murder weapon and put it in his admitted hiding place...

It [the hanky] was not wrapped around the gun. It was placed on top of it and the ammo boxes.

[Derrick]

...Wouldn't it have been easier - and safer - for France to have chucked the gun in the Thames...

Sure, the briney would have been the only way to dispose of the gun for the killer to have done with it forever.

But that is not what happened.

The gun was put on the bus specifically to be found.

[Derrick]

...Ah, so Hanratty's hankie (exhibited at the trial?) escaped the 'gross contamination' you claimed made mincemeat of the DNA tests...

The hanky was Hanratty's. The MtDNA tests done in 1997 proved that. There is no contamination issue at all with the hanky.

[Dupplin Muir]

Derrick wrote:

The hanky was Hanratty's. The MtDNA tests done in 1997 proved that. There is no contamination issue at all with the hanky.

It's also one of several instances where the Appeal Court displayed its intellectual dishonesty. They claimed (on what basis I don't know) that the chance of contamination of the underwear was low, and then assumed that the chance of contamination for the handkerchief was the same, and then multiplied the probabilities together.

In my opinion, unless JH explicitly denied that the hanky was his - eg "All my hankies have 'JH' embroidered on them. This one doesn't so it isn't mine" - it should not have been considered as evidence. By 'explicitly' I mean as opposed to "Mr Hanratty, can you identify this handkerchief as yours?", and JH replying "No". Obviously, if it was just an anonymous square of fabric he couldn't identify it to the exclusion of millions of hankies just like it.

[Spitfire]

It [the hanky] was not wrapped around the gun. It was placed on top of it and the ammo boxes.

Paragraph 33 of the 2002 Court of Appeal judgement says the gun was wrapped in the hanky, why do you say it wasn't?

[Graham]

Both Woffinden and Foot say that the bullets and the gun were under the hanky. Foot says that Edwin Cooke when he lifted the seat saw some loose bullets and a hanky; when he lifted the hankie he saw more bullets (in boxes, presumably) and the gun. Under the hankie or wrapped in it, the hanky was doubtless used to clean the gun of fingerprints.


I have always thought it odd that JH should have placed the gun + bullets where they were found. As this thread has moved somewhat towards speculation in recent posts, here's mine:

I suggest that the gun was supplied to JH by Charles France. He was apparently well-known as keeping an arsenal of weaponry at The Harmony Cafe in Archer Street (not at the Rehearsal Club) where he was some kind of manager. I suggest that JH knew that Dixie could get guns, and asked him to get one. As the police didn't pursue the Donald Slack line of inquiry, I suggest that Dixie is in pole-position as gun-supplier, and was doubtless well leaned-up by Acott who, as it happened, could prove nothing against Dixie but probably didn't let poor Dixie know that.

I suggest that when JH returned from Liverpool he confessed the A6 crime to Dixie. Astonishingly, JH still had the gun + ammo, and ordered Dixie to get rid of it for him. Dixie, scared out of his wits and doubtless extremely keen to exonerate himself from any connection with the A6 Crime, 'got rid' of the gun in a place that JH had already suggested, and doubtless aware that it would be forensically proven to be the A6 gun. I would also, rather more tentatively, suggest that Dixie was aware that the hanky could be shown to belong to JH. By placing the gun where he knew it would be found, Dixie washed his hands of JH (but doubtless went in fear of him until his, JH's, arrest).

I suggest that Dixie took his own life when the weight of JH's own impending death proved too much to bear. Dixie doesn't come over as a real case-hardened criminal, but as a family-man who led an away-from-home life that his family weren't aware of or knew very little about.

Anyway, just suggestions.....everybody else is at it!

Graham

[Derrick]

Paragraph 33 of the 2002 Court of Appeal judgement says the gun was wrapped in the hanky, why do you say it wasn't?

The gun was discovered by Edwin Cooke.

At the committal, on 27th November 1961 he said that;

Whilst cleaning a 36A bus on the night of 24th August I noticed something under the back seat while I was cleaning upstairs. When I lifted up the back seat I first noticed a handkerchief and two or three loose bullets. I picked up the handkerchief and there was the gun and the rest of the bullets.

At the trial, on 25th January 1962 he said that;

I found a handkerchief covering a gun and ammunition, under the upstairs back seat

Mr Cooke is quite clear that the hanky was covering and not wrapping the gun.

Therefore the CACD has made another error, among many others.

Del

[Derrick]

...They claimed (on what basis I don't know) that the chance of contamination of the underwear was low, and then assumed that the chance of contamination for the handkerchief was the same, and then multiplied the probabilities together...

I agree DM

The CACD was allowed to proclaim that the DNA evidence was proof positive of Hanratty's guilt because a double contamination event was, in their words beyond belief.

But as the hanky was Hanratty's, as proved by MtDNA, then that reduces the contamination event possibility to the knickers only.

And as the DNA on the knickers contains an unknown number of alleles that are not attributable to Hanratty then one wonders, especially as LCN was used, if the interpretation has been at all reliable or objective.

Del

[Derrick]

...Under the hankie or wrapped in it, the hanky was doubtless used to clean the gun of fingerprints...

Are these your words or Foots?

If they are Foots then please give a page reference.

[Graham]

Are these your words or Foots?

If they are Foots then please give a page reference.

They're mine, as I'm sure you're aware if you have a copy of Foot. Anyway, is there a problem with what I said?


Graham

[Spitfire]

Mr Cooke is quite clear that the hanky was covering and not wrapping the gun.

Therefore the CACD has made another error, among many others.

Del

According to my dictionary, The Oxford Dictionary of English, the verb "wrap" means to cover or enclose in paper or soft material.

By that definition a gun could be wrapped with a stained handkerchief either by the gun being covered by the hanky or by the gun being completely enclosed by the hanky.

[Natalie Severn]

I have been going through some newspaper reports and articles since NickB had asked if I had an old News of the World article -which I thought I might have [but I don't Nick].However while sifting through various reports I came across an extraordinary full page spread from the Sunday Times of May 23rd 1971 headlined, "Hanratty: the contradictions of William Ewer."The article was written by Lewis Chester, Alex Finer and Nelson Mews-Lewis Chester is still a journalist I understand and no doubt belongs to the National Union of Journalists so I am at pains here to quote him correctly.
The 1971 article concentrates on no fewer than 9 discrepancies in what Mr Ewer had told them only the previous week and which ,the May 23rd article claims, are inaccurate .
A total of seven journalists agreed that they were all clear on one issue and that was that Mr Ewer had been highly inconsistent about the events that led to Hanratty's priority as a suspect after the murder . The discrepancies in William Ewer's 15 point statement , made to the Sunday Times the previous week [17th May] to four of these journalists , cover William Ewer's version of the alleged sighting of a murder suspect by a member of the murdered man's family and the article contains statements by Mr Edmund King, the man in the photographer's shop who became chief technician in the photography dept of a London Polytechnic college.The interview in 1971 with the journalist was the first time he had ever been questioned since the incident when Mr Ewer came into his shop 'highly excited and looking rather peculiar insisting I show him the back of the shop, which I did" just 8 days after the murder that took place over 50 miles away.
But leaving that aside,fascinating though it is....it is what the journalists say here in this article about Ewer's relationship with the police ,that he now had admitted were also before the trial,and furthermore on many occasions, something which he said the previous week happened had only happened twice in his statement .
Regarding his relationship with Louise Anderson and [I]Charles France,which I must leave for now but will come back to another time as it was probably the most critical of all the omitted background information in the trial . However even without France these discrepancies throw a perplexing if not disturbing light on things and they certainly led to further enquiries by the four journalists .Regarding Louise Anderson ,Ewer claimed he did not know Louise Anderson -a fellow antique dealer who had befriended Hanratty and was a prosecution witness at the trial.He conceded she might have known him.But Mrs Anderson had told them the previous week that she did indeed know Mr Ewer before the murder and furthermore that Mr Ewer had told her of the 'intuitive sighting'when they met during the trial.
One thing it very clear ;the prosecution case omitted a lot more of the background to the murder than it revealed.

[Natalie Severn]

Caz-I think others have now addressed your comments to me .I never doubted the hanky belonged to Hanratty and would have had his DNA on it.And its this that led me to my suspicions about France.....possibly taking it from the washing Hanratty had given to Charlotte France to do -which gave him something to put over the gun and therefore keep it clear of his finger prints.
btw-I think its a possibility yes-that the police put it there after reading about the fiddling with evidence that went on in Hillsborough for example.They wanted a conviction and they wanted it upheld.

[moste]

According to my dictionary, The Oxford Dictionary of English, the verb "wrap" means to cover or enclose in paper or soft material.

By that definition a gun could be wrapped with a stained handkerchief either by the gun being covered by the hanky or by the gun being completely enclosed by the hanky.

On the issue of handkerchief ,covering, or wrapping, gun: I really fail to see the significance of how the evidence was stored in its place under the back seat, or am I again missing a deeper meaning?

According to my Oxford dictionary, re "Nit Picking":Looking for small or unimportant errors or faults, especially in order to criticize unnecessarily: