A6 Rebooted

[Spitfire]

Graham-have checked back but A6 posts only go as far back on here as 2009-I would like to see your post as I don't recall it no.

Nit picking I know but the oldest thread on this forum was started by Larue on 25 February 2008 http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=218

Powerful and persuasive as the words of a trainee barrister, who had no professional involvement with the case, must be, they are trumped by Michael Mansfield's "Alphon did not do it" in the Court of Appeal in 2002 and Michael Sherrard's "The wrong man was not hanged".

[NickB]

The other potentially important piece of evidence is that Charles France committed suicide but wrote several notes to his family, but these have never been made public, as they are potentially important again why was this was never investigated?

His last writings are being kept secret and I don't believe he killed himself because he allowed Hanratty into his family's home.

There have been some comments recently suggesting that something significant in the France suicide letters might have been suppressed.

They were investigated as part of the Sunday Times report (23-May-71) referred to by Natalie above. The letters were read by two of their reporters.

They say that in the letters France said he was committing suicide because of the shame he had brought on his family by introducing a ‘monster’ like Hanratty into the household.

One of the reporters thought that the letters “should be accepted at their face value”.

The other reporter thought that more could be read into them, that they ”are the expression of a man trying to protect his beloved family from the stigma of his own guilt”.

So the letters are open to interpretation. But it appears that, if the France family ever release the letters to the public, anyone expecting a smoking gun revelation will be disappointed.

[caz]

Caz, It may interest you that Hanratty is recorded as telling ex policeman Gillbanks on 30.12.61 that he had collected his clean shirts from Mrs France on 21st August 1961 -that she had washed them for him -Charlotte France and he had been telling them both i.e. Mrs France and Carole France that he was going to see his Aunt in Liverpool.Carole France said she wished she was going with him and went to the top of the road and waited with him until he got a taxi."Before he left though
Mrs France had asked me to send her a card from Liverpool- I can't write well so I sent a telegram- "

Hi Nats,

Thanks for this. So was Hanratty lying again about going to see his aunt? Or did he merely change his mind?

And why didn't he get a Liverpool taxi to Tarleton Street (or was it Carlton or Talbot)?

We only really know he was in Liverpool late on Thursday 24th to send that telegram. It doesn't give him an alibi for the murder or the disposal of the gun.

Love,

Caz
X

[Natalie Severn]

Caz, The Liverpool visit appears to have been jointly planned by both Hanratty and France who had lost his job at the Rehearsal Club and had become desperately hard up .He appears to have had some success fencing bits and pieces for Hanratty but the pair of them seem to have thought it best for Hanratty to go up North to see if he could sell the rings/gold watch etc in Liverpool etc .France didn't want Hanratty telling his wife the real reason for the trip was to sell stolen goods-so they agreed to tell her it was about visiting Hanratty's aunt. France's expertise appears in the past to have been in stealing lead from the roofs of houses , not fencing -though I believe it was through fencing he got to know William Ewer whose shop sold antiques a ten minute walk away from France's flat.

btw Caz -did you fail to see the link between Hanratty sending a telegram from Liverpool to the France's and him previously telling Charlotte France he would send her a telegram rather than a post card?

[Derrick]

...So was Hanratty lying again about going to see his aunt? Or did he merely change his mind?..

Surely you've heard the widely used expression, going to see a man about a dog, and know exactly what it means.

Fundamentally though, and a rhetorical question, who hasn't lied about going somewhere for an ulterior motive?

Miss Storie and Mr Gregsten could be said to be going to see a man about a dog when planning their rallies together, no?

[Natalie Severn]

Nit picking I know but the oldest thread on this forum was started by Larue on 25 February 2008 http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=218

Powerful and persuasive as the words of a trainee barrister, who had no professional involvement with the case, must be, they are trumped by Michael Mansfield's "Alphon did not do it" in the Court of Appeal in 2002 and Michael Sherrard's "The wrong man was not hanged".

Going round in circles again a bit here Spitfire. For me the only evidence to link Hanratty to the crime is Valerie Storie's eye witness identification and the LCN DNA testing.
Regarding Valerie's identification :This would quite simply not be allowed in any UK Court since she positively identified another man three weeks earlier .
The LCN DNA tests would also be suspect in today's courts moreover all evidence was destroyed in the testing in this case -and there is a basic necessity for evidential preservation in any criminal case ; every inspection must be logged ,chronology recorded ,detail noted as any lawyer will tell you.
If the prosecution could still show the evidence- the piece of cloth used for testing - so the evidence can be again tested by the defence ,that might be different but they can't-you have to rely on what the police or prosecution said was so.
The following was taken from an article by Lindsay Murdoch of December 24th 2007 and refers to Whitaker's methods coming under criticism [there are several other abandoned cases illustrating severe problems associated with low copy number DNA ] .

LAWYERS will push to reopen outback killer Bradley John Murdoch's case after British police suspended their use of a controversial forensic DNA test that was used to help convict him of murdering backpacker Peter Falconio.British police also announced at the weekend a review of scores of cases where the so-called low copy number DNA test was used to help obtain convictions after scathing criticism of the technique by a judge.
The test, which allows the use of tiny particles a millionth the size of a grain of salt, was used during Murdoch's Supreme Court trial to link him to hand ties used to restrain Mr Falconio's girlfriend Joanne Lees and to particles found on the steering wheel and gear-stick of the couple's van.
Jonathon Whitaker, an expert from England's Forensic Science Centre, which is at the centre of the test controversy, told the trial in Darwin in 2005 that DNA found on the hand ties was 100 million times more likely to have come from Murdoch than anyone else.
Murdoch's lawyers called Adelaide-based DNA expert Katrin Both to challenge the technique used by Dr Whitaker, describing it as "very dangerous" and was "pushing science to the limits".
But NT Chief Justice Brian Martin ruled both during pre-trial legal argument and the eight-week trial that the evidence was admissible, saying it had "sufficient scientific basis and general acceptance within the relevant scientific community".
In Britain last week the trial of Omagh bomb suspect Sean Hoey collapsed after the trial judge described low copy number DNA testing as unreliable and lacking validity.
Questioned during Murdoch's trial, Dr Whitaker admitted his laboratory in Britain was the only one in the world that used the technique.
Terry O'Gorman, of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, yesterday called for a special grant of legal aid so that Dr Whitaker's evidence at Murdoch's trial could be re-examined. "If there's doubt the matter should go back to the appeal court," he said.
Mr O'Gorman also called for the suspension of any use of the test in Australian courts.
"Most of the miscarriages of justice in Australian courts have been because of unreliable forensic evidence going back as far as the Lindy Chamberlain trial in Darwin in the early 1980s," Mr O'Gorman said.
NT Department of Justice spokeswoman Lorelei Fong Lim said the department had no comment to make "at this stage".
Dr Whitaker's evidence at Murdoch's trial was considered by three judges of the NT's Court of Criminal Appeal late last year.
The judges acknowledged the conflict of opinions over Dr Whitaker's DNA technique, which they said remained unresolved. "In light of our conclusion as to the impact of the evidence as a whole we do not find it necessary to resolve this conflict," the judges said.
A jury unanimously found Murdoch, a 48-year-old drug smuggler from Broome, guilty of murdering Mr Falconio and attempting to abduct Miss Lees on the Stuart Highway north of Alice Springs in July 2001.
Murdoch, who has always maintained his innocence, is serving a minimum 28-year sentence in the Alice Springs jail.

https://www.theage.com.au.webloc

Best Norma

[Spitfire]

Regarding Valerie's identification :This would quite simply not be allowed in any UK Court since she positively identified another man three weeks earlier .

What is your authority for saying that?

[Spitfire]

The LCN DNA tests would also be suspect in today's courts moreover all evidence was destroyed in the testing in this case -and there is a basic necessity for evidential preservation in any criminal case ; every inspection must be logged ,chronology recorded ,detail noted as any lawyer will tell you.
If the prosecution could still show the evidence- the piece of cloth used for testing - so the evidence can be again tested by the defence ,that might be different but they can't-you have to rely on what the police or prosecution said was so.

The tests were ordered by the CCRC and were overseen by Doctor Patrick Lincoln and then Doctor Martin Evison on behalf of the defence. If any skulduggery had been practised we would have heard about it.

In this regard it should be noted that almost 13 years have elapsed since the Court of Appeal's judgement and since then no DNA expert has been instructed on behalf of James Hanratty's family. The new appeal promised at the end of 2010 has never materialised. Mr Bindman has removed all reference to the Hanratty case from his online CV.

If the DNA tests had cleared Hanratty then I would have accepted them and I suspect that the Hanratty defenders now decrying those tests would too.

[Dupplin Muir]

Spitfire wrote:

The tests were ordered by the CCRC and were overseen by Doctor Patrick Lincoln and then Doctor Martin Evison on behalf of the defence.

Are you saying that these defence experts were there while the tests were being carried out? I'd be very surprised if this was so, as the FSS were totally unwilling to have any kind of independent oversight, and in fact the way they were set up was designed to remove the possibility of any such oversight. While FSS was entirely under the thumb of the Home Office/CPS/Police they were supposedly a commercial organisation too. Consequently, every time anyone suggested that there was a need for public accountability, FSS played the 'commercial confidentiality' card to keep their actions secret.

[Natalie Severn]

Spitfire-these are the new rules:-
witnesses must not be prompted;a witnesses memory as far as possible ,must be safely protected from contamination as a crime scene;The first description is vital;if a witness makes a positive identification of one individual,no subsequent identification of a second is permissible ;Equivocation and uncertainty are not enough.
Gareth Peirce,Human Rights Lawyer,August 2010.

With reference to the Hanratty family what you say is absolutely not the case ;However what is there left to test if all the evidence has been destroyed by the prosecution in their testing and there is nothing left to test ?

[Natalie Severn]

NickB -a point of information here re the letters France wrote before his suicide: of the two journalists who read the letters one of these believed he [France ] 'was trying to protect his beloved family from the stigma of his own guilt-and that he was,in fact ,involved in the murder '
The Sunday Times May 23rd 1971.

[Natalie Severn]

Spitfire wrote:



Are you saying that these defence experts were there while the tests were being carried out? I'd be very surprised if this was so, as the FSS were totally unwilling to have any kind of independent oversight, and in fact the way they were set up was designed to remove the possibility of any such oversight. While FSS was entirely under the thumb of the Home Office/CPS/Police they were supposedly a commercial organisation too. Consequently, every time anyone suggested that there was a need for public accountability, FSS played the 'commercial confidentiality' card to keep their actions secret.

precisely as I understand the procedure Dupplin Muir, thanks for that.There was absolutely no question of them allowing Defence experts to witness the tests in the laboratory ;it simply wasn't allowed to happen.Plus not only are there issues around the tests themselves because we have no record and no independent verification but there are no witnesses to the quality and control of the handling of the material in the FSS laboratories and the subsequent evidence over the years since over the sloppy and self admitted nature of the FSS' handling of materials in the laboratory adds no confidence at all as to why we should accept their word on anything which is actually what we are asked to do in regard to the DNA.You cannot verify the unverifiable.

[Natalie Severn]

Spitfire-these are the new rules:-
witnesses must not be prompted;a witnesses memory as far as possible ,must be safely protected from contamination as a crime scene;The first description is vital;if a witness makes a positive identification of one individual,no subsequent identification of a second is permissible ;Equivocation and uncertainty are not enough.
Gareth Peirce,Human Rights Lawyer,August 2010.

With reference to the Hanratty family what you say is absolutely not the case ;However what is there left to test if all the evidence has been destroyed by the prosecution in their testing and there is nothing left to test ?

one more point Spitfire regarding the above - when I was writing my book on the A6 I did double check these points and this ,apparently ,is now the case.

[Spitfire]

Spitfire-these are the new rules:-
witnesses must not be prompted;a witnesses memory as far as possible ,must be safely protected from contamination as a crime scene;The first description is vital;if a witness makes a positive identification of one individual,no subsequent identification of a second is permissible ;Equivocation and uncertainty are not enough.
Gareth Peirce,Human Rights Lawyer,August 2010.

With reference to the Hanratty family what you say is absolutely not the case ;However what is there left to test if all the evidence has been destroyed by the prosecution in their testing and there is nothing left to test ?

The piece you quoted first appeared in the London Review of Books on 24 September 2009. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n18/gareth-...-of-al-megrahi

Laws are made by Parliament or by judicial interpretation of the Common Law. Regrettably they are not made by human rights lawyers, no matter how eminent they might be, in an essay for the LBR.

To back up your statement that Miss Storie's evidence would not be allowed in a any UK court you will need to cite an Act of Parliament, a judicial pronouncement or a rule of court procedure introduced under statutory authority.

Citing a book review or essay is shoddy (non-existent) research IMHO.

I await with interest the specific legal authority you rely upon.

[Spitfire]

Spitfire wrote:



Are you saying that these defence experts were there while the tests were being carried out? I'd be very surprised if this was so, as the FSS were totally unwilling to have any kind of independent oversight, and in fact the way they were set up was designed to remove the possibility of any such oversight. While FSS was entirely under the thumb of the Home Office/CPS/Police they were supposedly a commercial organisation too. Consequently, every time anyone suggested that there was a need for public accountability, FSS played the 'commercial confidentiality' card to keep their actions secret.

I have no idea what access they had to the witnessing of the tests.

There was no complaint at the time or indeed subsequently that they ( Drs Lincoln and Evison) were in any way prevented from performing their duty to their clients, the family of James Hanratty.

From what I could gather from Harriman's book there was no complaint about any of the testing procedures. The argument being that the exhibits had been contaminated long before they came to be DNA tested.

Therefore, I look at it this way, the exhibits were found after Bindman and Woffinden began looking round for surviving exhibits. It was they who requested DNA testing initially, and the Home Office who were against it.

In 1995 on the updating of Channel 4's Hanratty. the mystery of Deadman's Hill, Dr Lincoln went on camera to explain that tests had been done but they had proved inconclusive. He said there were further tests which would be carried out. He seemed confident about achieving a conclusive result.

There was no talk about contamination or that the FSS were up to no good. When the results showed that the wrong man was not hanged, I accepted them.