A6 Rebooted

[Spitfire]

I am however in agreement with what Michael Sherrard was reported to have said, and I paraphrase, that the wrong man was not hanged but the evidence at the 1962 trial was not strong enough to warrant a guilty verdict of capital murder.

For what it is worth, I am also convinced (beyond reasonable doubt) that Hanratty did not stay at Ingledene, and like Mike Mansfield, I have no doubt that Alphon did not commit the murder.

A respectable, reasoned argument can be made for saying that Hanratty should not have been convicted in 1962. It is also arguable that the DNA evidence should not have been admitted and the conviction should have been quashed in 2002. This would have resulted in Hanratty's guilt being resolved on technicalities rather than on the substantive issue as to whether he committed the murder. Where I take issue with the Hanrattyites is on their absolute conviction that none of the evidence points to his guilt.

[cobalt]

Spitfire,

A fair assessment of the situation as it stands, with which few could take issue.

However both Sherrard and Mansfield are toffs, albeit of the best kind. We need more like them in a class ridden society like Great Britain, a country where the military officer class can claim ancestry from the Norman invasion. Fewer Clarksons and Paxmans. But such people like Sherrard and Mansfield, and Gareth Pierce, have their limitations in the democratic Britain of today.

Hanratty was a prole, same as Evans and Bentley. He had less chance under the system. In fact Cassells, the DEFENCE barrister, and I put that in capitals deliberately, said before the Craig/Bentley trial that 'both ****ers should hang.' Nice to know that Oxbridge care about you. I am sure the judge, Lord Goddard (he of the allegedly semen stained underwear) picked up the nods and winks.

Hanratty was a low life thief (and possibly a murderer) but was not given the robust defence that a person from a higher social status would have expected as of right. Imagine Gregsten had been in the box? Or even Alphon.

The judge's very fair summing up was possibly to balance the lack of commitment or perhaps gravitas which had been displayed by Sherrard, who is regarded on this site as something akin to a saint. Maybe a decent man out of his depth at that particular stage in his career.

My own position remains pretty much what it has been since the early 1970's: that I am not convinced of Hanratty's innocence, but far, far less convinced of his guilt. Therefore I shall continue to fight his case until I am persuaded otherwise.

[NickB]

The difficulty that Sherrard was working under can be demonstrated by what happened when he cross-examined Acott. Sherrard disputed that Hanratty had asked ‘What size were the bullets?’ and further claimed that if he had said such a thing “It brings capital murder to his doorstep, does it not?”

On the face of it this looks like a terrible blunder by Sherrard, because when Hanratty gave evidence he admitted that he had asked what size were the bullets. But if you look at what Sherrard went on to say it is clear that Hanratty had told him something completely different:

“My instructions are that in fact you did say ‘bullets’ to him, that he sat there - and this was the only genuine pause - and he looked at you and then said: ‘You are kidding me, are you, Mr Acott?’”

[moste]

Not heard from Norma,(Natalie) for along time , It was Dec. 1. 15, Hope she is ok, anyone know?
Just reading back on a post from her on the A 6 murder post 555 makes interesting sense, on the possibility of drug involvement in the case, although reading chapter two of Woffindens book, on the known background of Gregsten, and his serious mental health problems, refusal to use doctors etc , could he have had a dependancy on LSD , I know it is not an addictive drug, but with his reoccurring ' cluster headaches' I believe they are called, who knows. If it was the case,it could tie in with my past theories that he was a victim of his own actions.... Another long shot I know,thought I'd throw it out there.

[Graham]

Cobalt,

as it goes, neither Sherrard nor Mansfield are genuine 'toffs'; well-educated yes, but not toffs of the stamp of such learned gents as Rayner Goddard.

Sherrard's father was a lingerie manufacturer, comfortably off but not mega-loaded. Sherrard suffered from a form of dyslexia when he was young. He studied law at King's College, London (not Cambridge, as I've seen claimed).

Mansfield went to Highgate School, London, and Keele University.

Neither of these lawyers were Eton and Oxbridge.

It might also interest you to know that Gareth Peirce is a member of either the Socialist Unionist Party (and ex-SWP) or the Workers Revolutionary Party (I get mixed up, as both crews are much the same - endless internal wrangling, and nothing ever achieved for the members of our rotten society they're supposed to stand up for). Of the three people you mention, she's the one who must be viewed as a 'toff' -Cheltenham Ladies College, Oxford University, London School of Economics. Establishment, or what? But give her due honours, she did the business when it came to representing the under-privileged and vulnerable in our society.

Yet, and it may be a contradiction in terms, many members of The Establishment have been the worst thorns in the side of self-same hEstablishment - look no further in the A6 Case than Jean Justice and (to a lesser extent) Jeremy Fox.

I genuinely don't think Sherrard did a bad job as Hanratty's defence counsel, nor do I think that Mansfield did a bad job at the 2002 Appeal. The fact is that the jury at the 1962 trial were not convinced of his innocence, and the Appeal judges in 2002 stated quite categorically (and fairly) that even discounting the DNA there was sufficient evidence for the Appeal Court to uphold the original verdict. That is fact. We cannot change it. I've said for years that had Hanratty been tried in a Scottish court the verdict may well have been 'Not Proven'. But we'll never know.

I grant that it's only too easy to read into high-profile trials an element of 'them versus us' - 'them' being The Establishment; 'us' being, for want of a better word, the riff-raff. However, have a quick scan through murder trial cases of say the last 100 years, and there are plenty of cases in which the accused was a 'toff', and was found guilty.

I do not think that Sherrard lacked 'gravitas' or 'lack of commitment'; he did, very unfortunately, try to defend an unstable client who, at a critical stage, decided to change his alibi. That turned the case. It didn't matter if the judge told the jury that the defendant didn't have to 'prove an alibi'; the damage was done. It was seen as an ambush-alibi, pure and simple. I do agree that Mr Gorman's summing-up was in Hanratty's favour, but at the end of the day in any court-case, it's what the jury thinks that matters.

Graham

PS: you mention Jeremy Clarkson - I wonder why? I knew his mother Shirley Gabrielle when she was the manufacturer of Paddington Bear dolls and she was a lovely person, as down-to-earth as you like. Maybe Jezza did take a walk on the wild side, but he most certainly wasn't the eldest son of Yorkshire aristocracy, if that's what you were getting at.

[NickB]

A pivotal player in the trial was not a member of the Establishment, but someone who would shout at the TV when the Queen appeared: “Parasite! Liar! What’s she got on her head? What about the Rosenbergs? Second front now!”

Joe Sayle was a railway guard and communist party activist. He had stayed at Ingeldene in room 4 when on union business.

His son Alexei Sayle had been brought up to believe the police “were a tool of repression for the capitalist state”. He describes his reaction when he answered a knock at the door and saw two policemen standing there:

Then I became conscious of the fact that, though we had talked about it we hadn’t actually ever made any plans for what to do when the inevitable day came. There was no secret hiding-place in the attic, no convincing cover story to tell, no Sten gun tucked away under the couch to shoot our way out of trouble.

“Hello son, Bedfordshire CID’ the bigger of the two men said, flashing an unnecessary warrant card. “Is your dad in?”

Not knowing what else to do, I showed them into the front room – just, as I imagined, many victims of tyranny had done in the past ...

Joe Sayle’s evidence has been obscured by a smokescreen about how Grace Jones was given a hard time because she didn’t keep good books. In fact her books were good enough to enable the police to find Joe, and other guests, very quickly and bring them to court.

Grace Jones was not given a hard time because of her books, but because she claimed something that was demonstrably untrue – that Jim had stayed in room 4 instead of Joe.

[Spitfire]

Joe Sayle’s evidence has been obscured by a smokescreen about how Grace Jones was given a hard time because she didn’t keep good books. In fact her books were good enough to enable the police to find Joe, and other guests, very quickly and bring them to court.

Grace Jones was not given a hard time because of her books, but because she claimed something that was demonstrably untrue – that Jim had stayed in room 4 instead of Joe.

I think that Room 4 was the small room on the first floor at the front of the building, it has a window over the front door of Ingledene. If Hanratty had stayed in that room, then when he looked out of the window he would have seen the main road (Kimnel Street) and the Windsor Hotel immediately opposite.

Mrs Grace Jones was to repeat the Room 4 allegation in the Panorama programme, despite it having been proved at court that that room was occupied by Mr Sayle.

[OneRound]

Hi Nick,

That was a strong and effective post. I wonder what Joe Sayle thought about his evidence helping to string up one of the proles.

Apologies for this rather basic question but I no longer have the books and can't remember.

After Grace Jones came forward, did Hanratty ever claim that she was indeed his landlady in Rhyl and that Ingledene was the guest house in which he stayed or did he stay silent on the matter?

I'm asking out of curiosity as much as anything else. If Hanratty was in a Rhyl guest house on the night concerned (and I don't believe he was), it has been proved, as you and Spitfire say, that it certainly was not Ingledene.

Graham has often (understandably) expressed the view that Hanratty might have been acquitted if he hadn't changed his alibi mid trial. Going one further than that, I wonder if, having introduced Rhyl, Hanratty might still have got off if the lamentable Mrs Jones had not appeared in court.

Thanks,

OneRound

[cobalt]

Joe Sayle’s credentials do not meet the mark as far as I am concerned. Our Dear Queen, whatever her faults, can hardly be held responsible for the fate of the Rosenbergs, who met their end in the electric chair. And what on earth was the Second Front after 1945? I must have missed that one.

Joe Sayle sounds like a gramophone Marxist, more intent on shocking his children by his radical views, than a man devoted to changing society. His son was of the same sort: an ‘alternative’ comedian who never actually managed to tell a decent joke. He made a lot of noise (in the style of American stand ups) but produced limited laughter. He sweated a great deal but just wasn’t very funny. Sayle junior was as socialist as Derek Hatton in my book, a fraudster who traded on a dubious radical past. Alexei Sayle now lives in a fancy house in Spain, hob nobbing with the other beneficiaries of Thatcherism I suspect. His father might have been proud of him. As a real comedian, Billy Connolly, once observed of the alternative comedians: ‘That’s the ones who tell you how to vote.’

So I set little store by the background of Joe Sayle. Joe Sayle is a witness the same as any other, so let us judge him the same as Grace Jones. I prefer her testimony to his. Lamentable? Perhaps she was. But so was that of Derek Bentley when on trial for his life. The system is designed to make fools of the ordinary witness, so it frequently succeeds. Hanratty, for all his educational deficiencies, was actually quite sharp under questioning, but then he had acquired a lot of practical experience.

[OneRound]

Joe Sayle’s credentials do not meet the mark as far as I am concerned. Our Dear Queen, whatever her faults, can hardly be held responsible for the fate of the Rosenbergs, who met their end in the electric chair. And what on earth was the Second Front after 1945? I must have missed that one.

Joe Sayle sounds like a gramophone Marxist, more intent on shocking his children by his radical views, than a man devoted to changing society. His son was of the same sort: an ‘alternative’ comedian who never actually managed to tell a decent joke. He made a lot of noise (in the style of American stand ups) but produced limited laughter. He sweated a great deal but just wasn’t very funny. Sayle junior was as socialist as Derek Hatton in my book, a fraudster who traded on a dubious radical past. Alexei Sayle now lives in a fancy house in Spain, hob nobbing with the other beneficiaries of Thatcherism I suspect. His father might have been proud of him. As a real comedian, Billy Connolly, once observed of the alternative comedians: ‘That’s the ones who tell you how to vote.’

So I set little store by the background of Joe Sayle. Joe Sayle is a witness the same as any other, so let us judge him the same as Grace Jones. I prefer her testimony to his. Lamentable? Perhaps she was. But so was that of Derek Bentley when on trial for his life. The system is designed to make fools of the ordinary witness, so it frequently succeeds. Hanratty, for all his educational deficiencies, was actually quite sharp under questioning, but then he had acquired a lot of practical experience.

Hi Cobalt,

I can understand from your comments why you might prefer the personality of Grace Jones to Joe Sayle. However, that in itself is no reason for you to ''prefer her testimony to his''. I would be interested to know why you do. It is my understanding that his testimony in this case was pretty unusual in that it was clearly and fairly proven.

Best regards,

OneRound

[NickB]

OneRound,

In answer to the questions in your previous post ...

The defence claimed that Grace Jones was the landlady they had been looking for. So I can only assume that Hanratty supported this.

Alexei Sayle said:
“When he returned from the trial Joe told us that what had upset him the most was that he had been the final witness called in the trial. He realised that the last person Hanratty had heard testifying against him, the last person he had seen on the stand, the final person confirming his fate, was Joe Sayle.”
“Though he never talked about it, since he was such a good-natured man that must have been a heavy burden for him to bear.”

Finally, it is possible that Jones made a difference to the verdict. After the exchange between her and Sayle, I cannot see how any juror could believe that Hanratty had stayed at Ingledene that week. But I suspect they already had doubts.

Nick

[Spitfire]

Joe Sayle is a witness the same as any other, so let us judge him the same as Grace Jones. I prefer her testimony to his. Lamentable? Perhaps she was. .

A little more detail please. In what way do you prefer her evidence?

Joe Sayle's evidence amounted to (1) he stayed in Room 4 (small room at front with window over front door and (2) he did not see Hanratty.

Grace Jones's books seemed to confirm (1) and how did she gainsay (2) particularly as Hanratty never said he saw Joe Sayle?

[OneRound]

OneRound,

In answer to the questions in your previous post ...

The defence claimed that Grace Jones was the landlady they had been looking for. So I can only assume that Hanratty supported this.

Alexei Sayle said:
“When he returned from the trial Joe told us that what had upset him the most was that he had been the final witness called in the trial. He realised that the last person Hanratty had heard testifying against him, the last person he had seen on the stand, the final person confirming his fate, was Joe Sayle.”
“Though he never talked about it, since he was such a good-natured man that must have been a heavy burden for him to bear.”

Finally, it is possible that Jones made a difference to the verdict. After the exchange between her and Sayle, I cannot see how any juror could believe that Hanratty had stayed at Ingledene that week. But I suspect they already had doubts.

Nick

Thanks, Nick. That's pretty much what I thought. From a defence point of view, I would just have liked and perhaps expected Hanratty to have spoken giving his own support of Mrs Jones' comments. Possibly that didn't happen as Sherrard realised that particular battle had already been lost.

Best regards,

OneRound

[Graham]

About a year ago a lady called Karen posted on this thread. She is the current owner/occupier of the Kinmel Street house once known as Ingledene. She supplied a good description of its interior. She also said - and this stuck in my mind at the time - that had Hanratty, as claimed, stayed in Room 4 at the critical time, had he looked out of the window he would have seen the Windsor pub directly opposite, on the other side of Kinmel Street. I'm not 100% sure, but I have a feeling that the bookie's sign would also have been visible. Hanratty, on trial for his life, appeared to recall details of his claimed stay at Ingledene that were inaccurate, but failed to mention the pub (or the bookie's shop). His description of Mrs Jones herself was also inaccurate. And, of course, the cruncher - she was shown just the one photo, that of Hanratty, for i.d. purposes, exactly the same mistake made by the police when they called on Mrs Dinwoodie at the sweet shop.

I also understand that the police managed to contact everyone who was at Ingledene on the nights of 21, 22, 23 August (thereby confirming the recent assertion by Nick that Mrs Jones' books weren't as wonky as was made out), and not one of these people recall seeing anyone even resembling Hanratty.

Graham

PS: re: Joe Sayle, my late father's company got a contract to built electric furnaces in Czechoslovakia, post-Dubcek but pre-Glasnost, and the old man spent a miserable 3 months having his every move monitored by uniformed police and plain-clothes KGB-types. The 'agents of state repression', and in a Communist workers' paradise! Joe would probably have been proud of them.

[Limehouse]

Joe Sayle’s credentials do not meet the mark as far as I am concerned. Our Dear Queen, whatever her faults, can hardly be held responsible for the fate of the Rosenbergs, who met their end in the electric chair. And what on earth was the Second Front after 1945? I must have missed that one.

Joe Sayle sounds like a gramophone Marxist, more intent on shocking his children by his radical views, than a man devoted to changing society. His son was of the same sort: an ‘alternative’ comedian who never actually managed to tell a decent joke. He made a lot of noise (in the style of American stand ups) but produced limited laughter. He sweated a great deal but just wasn’t very funny. Sayle junior was as socialist as Derek Hatton in my book, a fraudster who traded on a dubious radical past. Alexei Sayle now lives in a fancy house in Spain, hob nobbing with the other beneficiaries of Thatcherism I suspect. His father might have been proud of him. As a real comedian, Billy Connolly, once observed of the alternative comedians: ‘That’s the ones who tell you how to vote.’

So I set little store by the background of Joe Sayle. Joe Sayle is a witness the same as any other, so let us judge him the same as Grace Jones. I prefer her testimony to his. Lamentable? Perhaps she was. But so was that of Derek Bentley when on trial for his life. The system is designed to make fools of the ordinary witness, so it frequently succeeds. Hanratty, for all his educational deficiencies, was actually quite sharp under questioning, but then he had acquired a lot of practical experience.

Whether Hanratty did or did not stay at Ingledene at the crucial time, you can hardly reject a witness on the grounds that, in your opinion, his son was a poor comedian! And I would challenge your claim that Sayle junior has a 'dubious racist past'. He has a Jewish background, but opposed the Jewish occupation of Palestine. Is that what you mean? Furthermore, he does not 'live in Spain' but in London, although he has a home in Spain also.

Sorry, but this reasoning does the case for Hanratty being innocent no favours at all.