A6 Rebooted

[moste]

This always happens Graham when someone attaches an image that is too wide.
The wide-screen effect lasts for that particular page of 10 posts. It will disappear when a new page [of 10 posts] appears.

If Moste attaches further Google Earth images I would advise him to use the 'Paint' program [which comes pre-installed on Windows operating systems] to reduce the size of the Google Earth image which he has downloaded. When you open 'Paint' click on the 'Image' tab and then click on Resize/Skew. You can then reduce the size by changing the 100% to say 70% or 80 % in the Horizontal and Vertical boxes. May sound a little complicated at first but it isn't.

Thanks Sherlock for the advice and yes feel free to adjust my stuff,anything that helps.

[Sherlock Houses]

Thanks Sherlock for the advice and yes feel free to adjust my stuff,anything that helps.

I didn't think you'd mind too much, Moste.

I totally agree with you that a Morris Minor would have been a piece of cake for Hanratty, an experienced [and very knowledgeable about cars] car thief, to drive. The gunman, Alphon or whoever, basically didn't have much of a clue how to drive. Valerie knew this and her evidence bears this out.

The gunman, in all likelihood, would have found turning the MM around in a darkened lay-by much too difficult, thus ordering Michael Gregsten to do so. Mike probably did a three point turn.

[Graham]

Hi Graham.
I know what you mean about the sound of the Morris 1000 engine. However it would appear that the assailant had M G turn the vehicle around before turning the engine off, because there was no north end exit onto the A6 in those days. Further, if like myself, and many other people who believe Hanratty would have considered driving a Morris Minor 'a piece of cake' ,then it probably wouldn't have entered his head to have the car turned around.

Yes Moste, you're quite right - Gregsten was told to turn the car around as the lay-by was effectively a cul-de-sac.

My first car, bought for £45 in 1967, was a 1952 split-screen Morris Minor with, if my memory is correct, a 918-odd cc Series A side-valve engine. At that time, my dad had a Mk 2 Cortina 1600, a real swish piece of kit compared to my Moggie, and also a damn sight easier to drive. I could never quite change 'down' in my Moggie without crunching the gears, although the Cortina was a piece of cake in comparison. The Cortina was, without any doubt at all, in a totally different class to my rotten little Moggie. To start my Moggie, you turned the ignition-key and listened to the electric fuel-pump going 'click-click-click' until the float-chamber was full. There was no point in trying to start the engine until the clicking had ceased. When it had, you pulled a starter-switch on the dash, and off it would go.

Now Hanratty, or so it seems, went in for nicking 'class' cars, such as Jags and Zephyrs. I have no personal experience of 'class' cars of the early 1960's, but I wouldn't mind betting that they were a darn sight easier to handle than a 1956 Moggie. Hanratty had never owned a car at the time of the A6 Murder, so it has to be assumed that his knowledge and experience of them was via friends' cars, and nicked cars. I think it's significant that when he did buy a car of his own, it was a Sunbeam Alpine, a 'class' machine compared with the Moggies and Ford Pops of the day. I therefore suggest that Hanratty, like me, didn't find that an ordinary little Morris Minor was 'a piece of cake'.

Graham

[moste]

OK we'll have to agree to disagree. I've mentioned before, my memory of learning to drive in a 1959 Morris 1000 van back in '64 was delightful. perhaps your clutch wasn't up to snuff. Of course the Gregsten vehicle was a '56 I believe, so Morris should have ironed out any wrinkles by then. I can't agree on expensive cars being easier to drive. I had a struggle with a 'steering column change','58 Austin Metropolitan for a day or two, trickier than floor change jobs.

[Graham]

OK we'll have to agree to disagree. I've mentioned before, my memory of learning to drive in a 1959 Morris 1000 van back in '64 was delightful. perhaps your clutch wasn't up to snuff. Of course the Gregsten vehicle was a '56 I believe, so Morris should have ironed out any wrinkles by then. I can't agree on expensive cars being easier to drive. I had a struggle with a 'steering column change','58 Austin Metropolitan for a day or two, trickier than floor change jobs.

The Austin Metropolitan was a four-wheeled disaster. I never liked column-change at the best of times, but this one was c-r-a-p.

I think the Morris Minor was vastly improved after the introduction of the 998cc engine without the soup-stirrer gear-shift. I drove a 1965 Morris Traveller (company car) and it was great compared to my antediluvian 1952 Minor. I still passed my test in it, though, in 1967 - the next day the starter-motor fell off!..

Graham

[NickB]

“I heard him walk back to the car. I heard him get in. I heard him slam the door. I saw him put the headlights on, and he started to drive off. He drove off in the direction of Luton."

I presume that since she did not see the car go northwards on the A6 close to where she was lying, she just heard the car noise get fainter and knew it had gone southwards.

This photo taken from a slightly higher angle shows where Valerie was in relation to the A6 and how she would have noticed whether or not the car, after turning into the A6, had proceeded northwards past her.

[Graham]

This photo taken from a slightly higher angle shows where Valerie was in relation to the A6 and how she would have noticed whether or not the car, after turning into the A6, had proceeded northwards past her.

Nick, I was always under the impression that the 'lay-by' was blocked off at the northern end, so to get back onto the A6 the car would have to have been driven south towards Luton. It seems possible that Hanratty knew this (he had, after all, a relative in Bedford and could well have known of the 'lay-by' before that night) which is why he told Gregsten to turn the car round to face south.

Actually, it wasn't a lay-by as such but a service road for farm-vehicles to land to the west. Not that this matters much.

Graham

[NickB]

Yes so he would have driven south on the lay-by and then entered the A6. If he then went northwards on the A6 Valerie would have seen him go past her. As he didn't, she knew he had gone southwards.

[Sherlock Houses]

Louis Blom-Cooper in his short 1963 book "The A6 Murder, Regina v. James Hanratty : The Semlance of Truth" remarked that he found Valerie Storie quite an unreliable witness. Considering that at that time he believed James Hanratty to be guilty of the murder this might seem rather surprising.
Personally speaking I can well understand his remark about Miss Storie. There are so many changes, contradictions and inconsistencies in her story that it's more than a little difficult to know exactly what to believe and what to dismiss.

Taking just one example into consideration is just how long she claimed to have known Michael Gregsten before his murder. They had actually first met sometime during 1957 and first went out together in December of that year. Interestingly enough it was to the Pineapple pub in Dorney [This was the nearest pub to the infamous cornfield and the same pub that a strange man, fitting the description of the gunman, was seen on the Tuesday evening of August 22nd 1961].
At the Bedford trial however she said she had known Gregsten since the middle of 1958. Two days after the trial ended, February 19th, an article written by her was published in a newspaper. In this article she stated that she had known Michael for two years, ie. since 1959. So we have a jump from 1957 to 1958 and then to 1959.

That particular newspaper article can be read below.
There are some very surprising revelations in it, not least of which is that Michael Gregsten was a very small man, only 5 feet 3 inches. I can't speak for others but I had long acquired the impression that he was a tallish man around the 6ft mark.
Anyhow read for yourself about these surprising revelations............

[Limehouse]

So, Valerie states that the passing car illuminated the gunman's large BLUE eyes, and yet the first description given to the police by Valerie was that the gunman had brown eyes?

Was Valerie tied up with a red tie? I thought it was some twine or rope they found in the boot of the car?

Lots of interesting debate going on over on the other thread. I cannot reply yet as haven't got time to read it in detail but may very well return to it this afternoon when I've finished my work.

Julie

[caz]

So, Valerie states that the passing car illuminated the gunman's large BLUE eyes, and yet the first description given to the police by Valerie was that the gunman had brown eyes?

Was Valerie tied up with a red tie? I thought it was some twine or rope they found in the boot of the car?

Hi Julie,

Valerie says in the article 'a piece of rope' was used in addition to the red tie.

Are you absolutely sure Valerie didn't tell the police he had blue eyes and they made the mistake? The police spokesman who mentioned the gunman's supposedly brown eyes got into a right mucking fuddle over whether they were, or were not, deep set, didn't he?

Love,

Caz
X

[NickB]

I believe the various recounts by Valerie of her story are remarkably consistent. I see that the rape has been omitted from the account above, perhaps considered unsuitable for a family newspaper.

There are two aspects on which she was not as forthcoming in court as she could have been.

The obvious one is the affair. In the Thorpe trial the prosecution agreed not to present certain witnesses if the defence admitted homosexual tendencies. I wonder if a similar deal was done here – that the defence would not question Valerie about the affair if she admitted their fondness for each other. If a deal was not done then Sherrard must have voluntarily decided that it would be counterproductive to probe further.

She was also coy about the reason for prolonging the id parade, described later as: ‘My twenty minutes of revenge.’

With regard to the eyes, it does seem that the police made an initial mistake as there is no record of Valerie saying anything other than the eyes were blue.

On 26-Aug-61 Inspector Mackle recorded Valerie as saying the gunman's eyes were blue. Then on 28-Aug-61 in her first written statement she described 'icy blue large saucer-like eyes'.

It is often claimed that the identikit image she helped compile does not show blue eyes. But it is in monochrome. It was constructed by Inspector Mackie who (as mentioned above) had been told that the eyes should be blue. On 11-Sep-61, in the same interview in which she approved the identikit picture, she was shown photographs of men’s faces and picked out one as ‘most like him’; the man in that photo had blue eyes.

[Limehouse]

Hi Julie,

Valerie says in the article 'a piece of rope' was used in addition to the red tie.

Are you absolutely sure Valerie didn't tell the police he had blue eyes and they made the mistake? The police spokesman who mentioned the gunman's supposedly brown eyes got into a right mucking fuddle over whether they were, or were not, deep set, didn't he?

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

Well obviously, I cannot be absolutely sure whether Valerie told the police he had brown eyes or blue eyes but, if SHE was absolutely sure that the gunman's eyes were blue and that these eyes were such a prominent feature of the gunman, why did she at first identify a man with dark eyes as being her attacker?

Kind regards,

Julie

[Limehouse]

I believe the various recounts by Valerie of her story are remarkably consistent. I see that the rape has been omitted from the account above, perhaps considered unsuitable for a family newspaper.

There are two aspects on which she was not as forthcoming in court as she could have been.

The obvious one is the affair. In the Thorpe trial the prosecution agreed not to present certain witnesses if the defence admitted homosexual tendencies. I wonder if a similar deal was done here – that the defence would not question Valerie about the affair if she admitted their fondness for each other. If a deal was not done then Sherrard must have voluntarily decided that it would be counterproductive to probe further.

She was also coy about the reason for prolonging the id parade, described later as: ‘My twenty minutes of revenge.’

With regard to the eyes, it does seem that the police made an initial mistake as there is no record of Valerie saying anything other than the eyes were blue.

On 26-Aug-61 Inspector Mackle recorded Valerie as saying the gunman's eyes were blue. Then on 28-Aug-61 in her first written statement she described 'icy blue large saucer-like eyes'.

It is often claimed that the identikit image she helped compile does not show blue eyes. But it is in monochrome. It was constructed by Inspector Mackie who (as mentioned above) had been told that the eyes should be blue. On 11-Sep-61, in the same interview in which she approved the identikit picture, she was shown photographs of men’s faces and picked out one as ‘most like him’; the man in that photo had blue eyes.

All very fine and dandy Nick but the man she identified in that first line-up did not have blue eyes.

[NickB]

I presume you are basing that on the reference at the back of Acott's notebook to 'dark eyes'.

Dr Rennie testified that as far as he could remember the man's eyes were “blueish”. Why does no-one ever mention this?