A6 Rebooted

[Natalie Severn]

Mike Gregsten appears to have a very big head in the picture making the rest of him look tiny.I think this is probably the angle at which the picture was taken.Otherwise he looks quite debonair, up for having some fun maybe with his kids on holiday and self confident.William Ewer by contrast looks a big hulk of a man full of his own importance and rectitude.

[uncle_adolph]

Valerie addressed this issue on the Channel 4 documentary:

"It has been said I couldn't possibly identify this man because I only saw him for such a short time but in that situation, where one's senses are very much heightened and one's adrenaline is flowing, it leaves an incredibly strong impression on you.

Rather surprising, then, if the murderer made such a "strong impression" on her that she first off chose someone who it clearly couldn't have been.

[Sherlock Houses]

It would also tally with the not very complimenatary remark made by the sturdily built Ewer about his brother-in-law.

In his first statement [September 11th 1961 -- what an eventful day that was !!] Ewer said that his brother-in-law, Mike Gregsten "was not a robust person and always a bit of a mother's boy" {Woffinden book p.382].

Ewer also added..."There was talk of separation [from Janet] which was discussed with us...There were no great scenes and rows but Gregsten had a guilt complex about his association with Valerie, and on occasions said that he wondered why he had not been struck down."

Interesting that he referred to his brother-in-law by his surname and not his Christian name. Rather unusuaI. Obviously not bosom pals.

[NickB]

In contrast, Valerie said she didn’t feel “any pang of conscience” about it.

“If you firmly believe you are doing nothing wrong you just don’t suffer too much from guilt complexes.”

“We never really worked out how things were going to end up. Every time we got around to talking about things like that we could never arrive at any sort of decision.”

“He told me he wanted to marry me if ever he became free to do so. I wasn’t unduly worried. I was happy. I preferred to take life as it happened. I lived every day as it came. It was no use brooding about things that might never happen.”’

----

One more thought on Michael Clarke – couldn’t Alphon’s solicitor have described him?

[Derrick]

Surely folks, the point is, if two men (Acott and Dr Rennie) standing in fairly close proximity to a man in broad day light cannot agree on basic characteristics such as hair and eye colour - how can we fully accept VS's description of a man whose face she saw briefly illuminated by a passing car?

Hi Julie

Exactly.

Del

[Natalie Severn]

One more thought on Michael Clarke – couldn’t Alphon’s solicitor have described him?

However.....here is what Alphon says about her Valerie's identification who stood in the line up with Michael Clark,
"I have maintained this position from the outset [that Hanratty was totally innocent] , being particularly disquieted by the police reliance on Miss Storie's identification of the accused in view of her previous selection of a patently innocent man,whose resemblance to her ultimate choice was virtually non-existent " [from a letter Alphon composed to the Home Secretary]

[Spitfire]

It most definitely not perfectly acceptable Graham.

The first description is vital.If a witness today makes a positive identification of one individual ,no subsequent identification is permissable (sic).Equivacation and uncertainty are not enough.

That is wrong. I think you have said something like this before and backed it up with some journalist's view of what the law should be rather than what it actually is.

ID parades are now governed by PACE 1984 Code D of which Annex B is relevant and is to be found on page 51 of the 68 page document here.

[Graham]

Nick,

I don't think Alphon had any legal support at the Guy's Hospital ID parade.

Graham

[Spitfire]

The ID parade should have people on it who look like the suspect. In this case the suspect was Alphon, so it is reasonable to assume that the other members on the parade bore a passing resemblance to Alphon rather than Hanratty.

As Valerie Storie believed she had to pick out someone it is not surprising that she picked out someone with Alphonesque characteristics. It would have been interesting to see all members on the parade and to see the extent that she picked out the member on the parade least like Alphon. Also if there were no blue eyed boys in the line up, then again it is hardly surprising she did not select someone with blue eyes.

The modern requirement is for colour photos or a colour video of the ID parade to be taken.

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks Spitfire ,I understand .
My information on this comes from a lawyer, Gareth Peirce and this is what she wrote in 2010:
"There are now new practices for evidence based that most fragile of human attributes ,visual memory.Witnesses must not be prompted;witnesses memory ,as far as possible ,must be as 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 , lawyer
2010

[cobalt]

Gareth Peirce's words sound reassuring to me.

Otherwise what we have, and is still being defended by Spitfire in his last post, is an Elimination Waltz. That's not good enough to hang a man.

[cobalt]

Note to Moste

I'm not sure what would be the best marinade for a hat, but enjoy your lunch!

Graham

Hi Graham,

I think your riposte is aimed sat me, rather then moste. I did suspect you were part of the judicial system, in some element, in order to defend the ID evidence of Valerie Storie. If I am wrong, it is a warning to all posters not to hit the keyboard after an evening down at the local pub.

However, I think it is widely acknowledged that Valerie's Storie's ID was highly unsatisfactory in a capital case. The jury accepted her ID, and they were in a better position than any of us to draw conclusions from the evidence submitted. But I still think her ID was, in the cold light of hindsight, weak evidence. Had it been supported by more compelling forensic/witness evidence then perhaps we would not be focusing on it the way we are.

[moste]

From Graham..."Nothing there about 'dark eyes', as you suggest he had written in his note-book. Where and when did you come across this, Julie?"
Well, wherever Julie came across this, it was correct. Well done SH. on the note book find. Incidentally, Ewer stated he thought, 'Gregsten had a guilt complex about his association with Valerie', I don't believe Ewer thought this. He knew Gregsten's track record, and almost certainly will have known Gregsten was due to move in with Valerie the following Saturday.
Hi cobalt. I do believe that piece of piss taking was meant for me, however I am not above accepting I may have got something wrong, on any issue on this forum, with the exception of Hanratty's innocence

[Sherlock Houses]

From Graham..."Nothing there about 'dark eyes', as you suggest he had written in his note-book. Where and when did you come across this, Julie?"
Well, wherever Julie came across this, it was correct. Well done SH. on the note book find.

Thanks Moste, but that was not my find. it was courtesy of a poster on this forum. I merely extracted a short and relevant extract from a double-page entry in Acott's notebook about Michael Clark.

[Spitfire]

Perhaps slightly off topic,
But why is Acott so precise in the dating of the suspect (7.12.35.) I consider myself, at my advanced years, as a reasonable judge of a person's age, but I could never be as precise at Acott.

Was he suggesting some horoscope significance? 7.12.35 is very precise, ludicrously so. From photos most of us, of a certain age perhaps and aware of fashions at the time, would put Hanratty in his early 20s and Alphon in his late 20s early 30s. You could hardly be more exact than that.

I confess I have absolutely no idea. No doubt Acott had some dark anti-Hanratty motive for writing what he did. Why did he not write the date as 7 December 1935? As for the date itself, the only significant event which happened on that date was that Sam Hoare met Pierre Laval (French PM) for talks which would for the rest of time become known as the Hoare Laval Pact.

Another coincidence? Or undoubted proof that the secret services were framing James Hanratty?