A6 Rebooted

[moste]

Woffinden new book

I would be interested to know ,when Bob writes his new book, will he have access to Retired Chief Superintendent Roger Matthews for interviewing.
Will Roger give Bob any tit bits, or better still the full Monty.
Is the Chief Super tethered by possibly having signed something akin to the official secrets act. Does anyone know about these things?

[OneRound]

Hi Moste - even if Woffinden writes his new book, he might find that Matthews is more concerned with protecting his own credibility than the Official Secrets Act.

Best regards,

OneRound

[Spitfire]

I think Matthews has stated that his report contained little or no new information. There is another thread on this concerning a Daily Mail article of 1999.

Daily Mail article of 1999 by Roger Matthews on Hanratty case- continued :

" Some time soon, the hearing will begin. Obviously, I have not the remotest idea which way the decision will go. Having said that, whether the conviction is quashed or upheld I find it quite appalling that the Hanratty family has been made to wait for this length of time.

The entire history of this matter has been characterized by delay, and apparent resistance to the notion that politicians may have been mistaken in their assessment of submissions made on this young man's behalf. There has also been a quite disgraceful reluctance to accept that the prosecution case was extraordinarily weak, or to consider the possibility that some other person may just have been responsible.

In truth, there was little in my confidential report that would not have been available to a committed investigator at any time during the past thirty-seven years.

I do hope that justice will be done, in whatever form, when the Court of Appeal hears the case.

Yet I recall the old adage: justice delayed is justice denied.

My heart goes out to the Hanratty family, who have waited so long for their day in court.

[NickB]

If what he wrote in the Daily Mail article represents what he wrote in the report, then there are some bizarre claims.

For example: “When arrested, he had in his pocket the keys for a Jaguar which he had stolen and driven around England for some weeks.”

[moste]

Hi Moste - even if Woffinden writes his new book, he might find that Matthews is more concerned with protecting his own credibility than the Official Secrets Act.

Best regards,

OneRound

Hi O R. You feel that Chief Superintendent Roger Matthews and the dozen assistant detectives at his disposal, have something to reproach themselves for?

[moste]

If what he wrote in the Daily Mail article represents what he wrote in the report, then there are some bizarre claims.

For example: “When arrested, he had in his pocket the keys for a Jaguar which he had stolen and driven around England for some weeks.”

Did Hanratty NOT have Jaguar keys in his pocket when arrested?

[OneRound]

Hi O R. You feel that Chief Superintendent Roger Matthews and the dozen assistant detectives at his disposal, have something to reproach themselves for?

Hi Moste,

Upon again reading Matthews' 1999 article in the Daily Mail headlined 'THEY HANGED THE WRONG MAN', posted on this forum in a separate thread a couple of years ago by Natalie, he comes across to me as overly generous towards Hanratty and bordering on naive. This is especially so in Matthews'consideration of the Rhyl alibi -

''There was insufficient time to confirm this story - though his graphic description of the room was quite extraordinarily accurate - and the landlady was uncertain as to the date upon which he had stayed.''

How many holes do you want to pick in that one sentence?

Matthews also refers to Foot having ''discovered, incidentally, fourteen witnesses who supported Hanratty's claim to have been in Rhyl at the time of the atrocity''.

It would be good to know what checks Matthews carried out on each of those fourteen claims. I presume one of the first claimants here was Charlie Jones, the discredited newspaper seller who later admitted that he was pressured into saying what he did.

Interestingly, Matthews does write - ''Indeed, the very first step in my investigation was a DNA analysis of a semen stain on Valerie's underwear. Hanratty's lawyers had hoped this would settle the matter once and for all.
The result was unfortunately inconclusive because the science was still insufficiently advanced.''

Isn't the implication there that if Matthews had been able to obtain at that time the results that eventually went to the Court of Appeal he would have immediately packed up his review and gone home?

Where I do agree with Matthews is in regard to the unfairness Hanratty received at and, particularly, pre trial together with the unreasonableness of the jury's verdict on the evidence available. However, an argument that Hanratty should not have been found guilty is not the same as an argument for Hanratty's innocence. The distinction is important but appears to become blurred for Matthews. The heading of the Mail article is effectively a declaration of innocence although I have yet to see Matthews unearthed anything to show that. Even if Matthews did not choose the headline for his article, he should still have promptly clarified that.

Best regards,

OneRound

[NickB]

I think that is a fair summary of Matthews. I have posted before about his comments, but only recently noticed his strange claim that Jim had “driven around England for some weeks” in the Jaguar.

After the 2002 Appeal verdict there was an adverse reaction from the defence and a hint that their objections would be formulated in detail and pursued. But there have been no legal proceedings, and no book in response from Woffinden or Matthews. If there was to be a challenge to the Appeal, in legal or book form, surely it would have happened by now.

This forum appears to be the last refuge of the Hanratty supporter. Has the activity elsewhere fizzled out?

[moste]

Hi Moste - even if Woffinden writes his new book, he might find that Matthews is more concerned with protecting his own credibility than the Official Secrets Act.

Best regards,

OneRound

I'll take that as a NO then ! You don't know about such things.
Re- retired top police officers signing documents,preventing them from discussing past cases with the press or public.Anybody?

[OneRound]

I'll take that as a NO then ! You don't know about such things.
Re- retired top police officers signing documents,preventing them from discussing past cases with the press or public.Anybody?

Come on, Moste. You gave a different reply to my earlier post yesterday and asked a question then which I've today given some thought to and attempted a considered reply. By all means, feel free to disagree with that but it seems churlish to ignore it and introduce another response.

Regards,

OneRound

[cobalt]

Moste is still waiting for an answer regarding the Jaguar car keys from Nick B. NickB thought it was bizarre that a prolific car thief had the keys to a stolen car in his possession.

NickB cannot answer the question because, like the rest of us, he does not know the answer.

We struggle away on this site, with very limited information, trying to prove the wrongs and rights of the case. But we are trying to read shadows, rather like Plato suggested, on the cave walls of the case. The real information lies in the original police investigation, which was doubtless deeply flawed, but has potential gems such as Hanratty having Jaguar car keys in his possession when arrested in Blackpool. All we have to go on is the shadow of the trial, where it as acknowledged that non disclosure by the police hit some high watermark. (Sounds a bit like the language of the Chilcott Report)

This Jaguar car key opens up many questions about Haratty's movements and his means of transport around the time of the murder, but is a prime example of the raw material to which we have been denied access. Matthews presumably did have access to this raw material and made a reasoned judgment based on this.

As I understand matters, his report has never been published. We, the public paid for it; but it is not for our eyes apparently.

[moste]

I think that is a fair summary of Matthews. I have posted before about his comments, but only recently noticed his strange claim that Jim had “driven around England for some weeks” in the Jaguar.

After the 2002 Appeal verdict there was an adverse reaction from the defence and a hint that their objections would be formulated in detail and pursued. But there have been no legal proceedings, and no book in response from Woffinden or Matthews. If there was to be a challenge to the Appeal, in legal or book form, surely it would have happened by now.

This forum appears to be the last refuge of the Hanratty supporter. Has the activity elsewhere fizzled out?

Full paragraph is:
It was common knowledge that Hanratty was a skilled car thief and that when arrested, he had in his pocket the keys for a Jaguar which he had stolen and driven around England for some weeks. Why did he not have a getaway car on the night in question? In addition, why did he need Valerie' s assistance to help start the very basic Morris Minor?

Is it strange? Do we have irrefutable proof that Hanratty didn't have access to a stolen car for the weeks leading up to the day he was nabbed?
Could he have been using other kinds of transport for reasons only known to himself,?
Is it possible that the authors of the various books didn't have that information?
Is he more likely to say in court, 'I caught a train up to Liverpool', or, 'I drove the car I had stolen up to Liverpool '?(since he knew he was innocent of the major crime, why admit to a lesser crime, if unnecessary )

[moste]

This forum appears to be the last refuge of the Hanratty supporter. Has the activity elsewhere fizzled out?

If this forum is the last refuge of the Hanratty supporter, what is it for the none, Hanratty supporter?

[moste]

Moste is still waiting for an answer regarding the Jaguar car keys from Nick B. NickB thought it was bizarre that a prolific car thief had the keys to a stolen car in his possession.

NickB cannot answer the question because, like the rest of us, he does not know the answer.

We struggle away on this site, with very limited information, trying to prove the wrongs and rights of the case. But we are trying to read shadows, rather like Plato suggested, on the cave walls of the case. The real information lies in the original police investigation, which was doubtless deeply flawed, but has potential gems such as Hanratty having Jaguar car keys in his possession when arrested in Blackpool. All we have to go on is the shadow of the trial, where it as acknowledged that non disclosure by the police hit some high watermark. (Sounds a bit like the language of the Chilcott Report)

This Jaguar car key opens up many questions about Haratty's movements and his means of transport around the time of the murder, but is a prime example of the raw material to which we have been denied access. Matthews presumably did have access to this raw material and made a reasoned judgment based on this.

As I understand matters, his report has never been published. We, the public paid for it; but it is not for our eyes apparently.

Quite right. (you posted as I was writing)

[Spitfire]

Moste is still waiting for an answer regarding the Jaguar car keys from Nick B. NickB thought it was bizarre that a prolific car thief had the keys to a stolen car in his possession.

That is a distortion of NickB's post. The claim which NickB found bizarre included the assertion that Hanratty had driven a stolen Jag around England for some weeks. In fact a Jag was stolen by Hanratty on 7 October 1961 and abandoned in Manchester before his arrest in Blackpool on 11 October. In the meantime Hanratty had been to Liverpool, a journey which he claimed to have made by train.