A6 Rebooted

[babybird67]

some quotes about justice:

“Justice denied anywhere diminishes justice everywhere.”

Martin Luther King Jr

Punishment is now unfashionable... because it creates moral distinctions among men, which, to the democratic mind, are odious. We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility. ~Thomas Szasz

[Natalie Severn]

and this from our dear and gentle bard........

The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God himself;
And earthly power doth then show like God's
When mercy seasons justice.

There was no mercy certainly and nothing that ever deserved the name of justice when it came to James Hanratty.....

[babybird67]

There was no mercy certainly and nothing that ever deserved the name of justice when it came to James Hanratty.....

Yes there was. Justice was done. I don't believe in capital punishment and am glad it was abolished, but he committed rape and murder and was punished for that.

I prefer a society that protects the innocents. I don't want criminals who are a danger to other people wandering the streets, abusing and murdering my children. I don't agree with razing prisons to the ground. They need to be there to protect people from dangerous criminals. Yes sure more could be done BEFORE people commit crimes, more could be done to alleviate poverty and deprivation to make crime less likely. But some of the people out there, the Raoul Moats, the Hanrattys, the Browns and Sutcliffies...they made deliberate choices to take the lives of others, to fill the world with violence and death and abuse, and I don't think their rights to be free should come before the ordinary person's right to be protected from them.

The justice system may be flawed, but it's a damn sight less flawed than some of the mad reasoning I have seen on this thread and the naive idealism about doing away with prisons and having a flower-peppered world where we all live in peace and harmony.

[Limehouse]

Yes there was. Justice was done. I don't believe in capital punishment and am glad it was abolished, but he committed rape and murder and was punished for that.

I prefer a society that protects the innocents. I don't want criminals who are a danger to other people wandering the streets, abusing and murdering my children. I don't agree with razing prisons to the ground. They need to be there to protect people from dangerous criminals. Yes sure more could be done BEFORE people commit crimes, more could be done to alleviate poverty and deprivation to make crime less likely. But some of the people out there, the Raoul Moats, the Hanrattys, the Browns and Sutcliffies...they made deliberate choices to take the lives of others, to fill the world with violence and death and abuse, and I don't think their rights to be free should come before the ordinary person's right to be protected from them.

The justice system may be flawed, but it's a damn sight less flawed than some of the mad reasoning I have seen on this thread and the naive idealism about doing away with prisons and having a flower-peppered world where we all live in peace and harmony.

The quote including the words to the Prison Trilogy (raze the prisons to the ground) was made in contrast to the Dylan lyrics you quoted in a previous post. I was comparing what Dylan sang in one song with another. Of course I do not want dangerous murderers roaming the streets. And as I do notr believe that Hanratty was responsible for the A6 murder - that means a dangerous criminal WAS left to walk the streets and justice certainly was not done - in my view.

[babybird67]

Babybird! I do like what you posted but I doubt very much indeed that Bob Dylan would have differed from John Lennon in his views about the trial of James Hanratty -had he known much about it .As far as I know Lennon never changed his mind at all about the case ----and don't forget he was murdered himself 30 years ago so he couldn"t very well continue to clear James Hanratty from the grave.

I don't think for one minute Dylan would defend Hanratty. Lennon dropped campaigning for Hanratty long before he was murdered, as far as I am aware. Yoko Ono is still alive and could be continuing the 'fight' if she believed in it. As far as I am aware, Hanratty's own brother emigrated to Spain after the last appeal, therefore showing he too was resigned to what he had discovered was the truth about his brother.

There are very few left still trying to deny justice for Valerie Storie. I hope one day they too will understand that the premise of justice is there for us all, that it is based on innocent until proven guilty, not innocent as long as a minority of the ill-informed population think so (and I do not mean ill-informed unkindly, for I am as ill informed as you, since there were so many bits of evidence submitted at the original trial and throughout the appeals that none of here can possibly know about). Due process of law has been followed. I believe it undermines justice itself to keep undermining this. And as I say, it's all very well sitting in a field singing hippy songs and wanting all the prisons burned, but what would you do with violent criminals then? Give them a cup of tea and a holiday to Disneyworld?

Sorry, but life's not like that.

Jen

[babybird67]

The quote including the words to the Prison Trilogy (raze the prisons to the ground) was made in contrast to the Dylan lyrics you quoted in a previous post. I was comparing what Dylan sang in one song with another. Of course I do not want dangerous murderers roaming the streets. And as I do notr believe that Hanratty was responsible for the A6 murder - that means a dangerous criminal WAS left to walk the streets and justice certainly was not done - in my view.

A dangerous criminal that went on to commit no more similar crimes, you mean? Especially if you are arguing that 'criminal' was Alphon. LOL!

So we better not raze the prisons then had we...silly lyric really then isn't it. Silly, idealistic, misguided...

[Limehouse]

I don't think for one minute Dylan would defend Hanratty. Lennon dropped campaigning for Hanratty long before he was murdered, as far as I am aware. Yoko Ono is still alive and could be continuing the 'fight' if she believed in it. As far as I am aware, Hanratty's own brother emigrated to Spain after the last appeal, therefore showing he too was resigned to what he had discovered was the truth about his brother.

There are very few left still trying to deny justice for Valerie Storie. I hope one day they too will understand that the premise of justice is there for us all, that it is based on innocent until proven guilty, not innocent as long as a minority of the ill-informed population think so (and I do not mean ill-informed unkindly, for I am as ill informed as you, since there were so many bits of evidence submitted at the original trial and throughout the appeals that none of here can possibly know about). Due process of law has been followed. I believe it undermines justice itself to keep undermining this. And as I say, it's all very well sitting in a field singing hippy songs and wanting all the prisons burned, but what would you do with violent criminals then? Give them a cup of tea and a holiday to Disneyworld?

Sorry, but life's not like that.

Jen

What you seem to be misunderstanding is that we are as concerned with justice as you are but we do not believe that justice was done in this case. Additionally - a good few others have been found 'proven guilty' by a jury but later found to be innocent (Timothy Evans for instance -and he was hanged) and in some of those cases the evidence was fabricated or manipulated or the poor suspect was virtually tortured until they 'confessed'. I do not want a justice system founded on that sort of thing because it is quite simply not justice.

[Limehouse]

A dangerous criminal that went on to commit no more similar crimes, you mean? Especially if you are arguing that 'criminal' was Alphon. LOL!

So we better not raze the prisons then had we...silly lyric really then isn't it. Silly, idealistic, misguided...

No - I am not arguing that the killer was Alphon and I never have done.

[Natalie Severn]

Yes there was. Justice was done. I don't believe in capital punishment and am glad it was abolished, but he committed rape and murder and was punished for that.

I prefer a society that protects the innocents. I don't want criminals who are a danger to other people wandering the streets, abusing and murdering my children. I don't agree with razing prisons to the ground. They need to be there to protect people from dangerous criminals. Yes sure more could be done BEFORE people commit crimes, more could be done to alleviate poverty and deprivation to make crime less likely. But some of the people out there, the Raoul Moats, the Hanrattys, the Browns and Sutcliffies...they made deliberate choices to take the lives of others, to fill the world with violence and death and abuse, and I don't think their rights to be free should come before the ordinary person's right to be protected from them.

The justice system may be flawed, but it's a damn sight less flawed than some of the mad reasoning I have seen on this thread and the naive idealism about doing away with prisons and having a flower-peppered world where we all live in peace and harmony.

Point of information:Hanratty was not convicted for serial killing .

After the summing up the jury were out ten hours trying to decide what to do and came up after five of them to ask for help from the judge who said if you are unsure you should not convict.
The betting over the verdict was 21-1 on the day that Hanratty would be acquitted.But the all white,all middle class, all male jury convicted Hanratty of murder on the flimsiest evidence imaginable----in fact there was NO REAL EVIDENCE.---if we are now dealing with REALITY and not FANTASY. Nothing whatever in the murder car, No fibre,hair,blood nothing connected with Hanratty.No witness that wasn"t roundly contradicted by another witness eg Skillett roundly contradicted by Blackhall; Trower, roundly contradicted by Paddy Hogan;
In Valerie"s case she had, only two weeks earlier identified a man named Michael Clark as her rapist-----so did she or didn"t she remember what the gunman looked like?Moreover, she later agreed,in court,during cross examination by Sherrard "she had thought he looked more like Alphon".Those are the witnesses----and of course the totally disgraceful witnesses like Nudds whose evidence in court was listened too like the equally disgraceful testimony spouted by Langdale.
And then there was the "fabricated evidence" where the "verbatim notes" by Acott in the presence of Oxford which were discovered to have been "tampered with" , made out Hanratty was lying when he was not;and many many other "withheld" statements such as those of the other Redbridge witnesses and later those statements by Rhyl witnesses that never reached the Home secretary first during Butler"s tenure and later Jenkins tenure eg relating to Mr Dutton and Mr Larman and other Rhyl witnesses who gave testimony and whose testimony was disregarded in favour of hearing a repetition of the evidence of a thoroughly despicable prisoner like Langdale.

[Natalie Severn]

babybird67;167624]I don't think for one minute Dylan would [/I]defend Hanratty.

You don"t know any such thing.Why on earth would Bob Dylan, a man who has lived all his life in America, know anything at all about James Hanratty who was hanged in 1962 in the UK in a Bedfordshire jail?

Lennon dropped campaigning for Hanratty long before he was murdered, as far as I am aware. Yoko Ono is still alive and could be continuing the 'fight' if she believed in it. As far as I am aware, Hanratty's own brother emigrated to Spain after the last appeal, therefore showing he too was resigned to what he had discovered was the truth about his brother.

You have no evidence whatever ,Jen, for saying Hanratty"s own brother "had discovered the truth about his brother being the A6 murderer.That is untrue - totally untrue.

You know nothing about Yoko Ono either.Why would she,again an American citizen, be flying over here to "fight"? Thats just absurd.

John Lennon committed himself to a number worthy causes---maybe he "over-committed" himself and couldn"t for one reason or another "stay the course " which ,in this case , takes long term tenacity [Paul Foot devoted his life to it as did Jean Justice and James Hanratty"s brothers].But John Lennon certainly seemed to believe the establishment"s laws were fraught with bias against working class people , and consequently riddled with corruption--and -he was in no way fooled by any of it thats what is so important to understand here----just read the lines of "Working Class Hero" ---and read between the lines too.You will then see what Lennon believed about the establishment and its laws and decrees.


Norma

[babybird67]

What you seem to be misunderstanding is that we are as concerned with justice as you are but we do not believe that justice was done in this case. Additionally - a good few others have been found 'proven guilty' by a jury but later found to be innocent (Timothy Evans for instance -and he was hanged) and in some of those cases the evidence was fabricated or manipulated or the poor suspect was virtually tortured until they 'confessed'. I do not want a justice system founded on that sort of thing because it is quite simply not justice.

And what you do not seem to understand is that there is NO EVIDENCE that Hanratty was innocent; no EVIDENCE that any fabrications or manipulations were made to the evidence which proves Hanratty guilty etc. Evans has now been cleared. WHat vested interest do you think there is preventing the clearing of Hanratty, should it be justified? DO you seriously believe in a decades long twisting of evidence against the poor working class lad just so the Police/Justice system/ whomever you seem to feel is responsible for this nefarious act don't have to fess up to their failings?

The fact that previous miscarriages of justice have been redressed shows the system DOES work where there is evidence of innocence or where there is evidence something has gone wrong. Neither applies to Hanratty.

What sort of system DO you want Julie? How many appeals DO you want criminals to have? Even when all the arguments have been heard over and over and NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING, indicates this man's innocence? How much money should we waste raking over the ashes and dragging the victims over and over through the painful embers of the disgusting acts of brutality that have already wrecked their lives? How many appeals is enough for you? Ten? Twenty? Or will you really never rest until you ensure Hanratty is innocent, despite all the evidence and due process of law being followed? Seriously please answer...I would really like to share your vision of justice. It has a very odd face from where I am looking.

[babybird67]

Point of information:Hanratty was not convicted for serial killing .

I never said he was.

After the summing up the jury were out ten hours trying to decide what to do and came up after five of them to ask for help from the judge who said if you are unsure you should not convict.

They were sure, and exercised their right to make up their minds, and did their duty as jurors.

The betting over the verdict was 21-1 on the day that Hanratty would be acquitted.But the all white,all middle class, all male jury convicted Hanratty of murder on the flimsiest evidence imaginable----in fact there was NO REAL EVIDENCE.

Absolute rubbish Norma. HIs victim identified him. Don't be so insulting to victims of crime to state that their testimony should not be taken as real evidence. Two other upstanding members of the public identified him as being the driver of the car they saw, which was the Morris Minor owned by Gregsten's Aunt. His handkerchief was wrapped around the murder weapon;' both were found in a place he admitted to hiding his unwanted items. We can only guess at what other evidence was presented at the trial because we were not there and can only speculate.

---if we are now dealing with REALITY and not FANTASY.

If only we could. If only we could drop the class war, Norma, and look at the evidence and stop wistfully sitting in fields making daisy chins and romanticising the working class criminal fraternity while we all sing about letting everybody out of prison to live in blissful harmony with eachother, sheep among wolves, babes among paedophiles. What a fine Utopia it would be.

Nothing whatever in the murder car, No fibre,hair,blood nothing connected with Hanratty

No but his sperm was all over the victim's knickers in a distribution typically seen after an act of sex has taken place. IE Not via contamination.

.No witness that wasn"t roundly contradicted by another witness eg Skillett roundly contradicted by Blackhall; Trower, roundly contradicted by Paddy Hogan;

Witness testimony tends to do that. That is why there is a trial, during which the witnesses are heard, and the jury makes up their mind. They did. They believed the witnesses that identified Hanratty as the man responsible.

In Valerie"s case she had, only two weeks earlier identified a man named Michael Clark as her rapist-----so did she or didn"t she remember what the gunman looked like?

She was identifying someone from a hospital bed she was so unwell, Norma. Hanratty nearly killed her. He crippled her. She was under duress and made a mistake. And of course Hanratty was not there to identify. Once he was face to face with her she picked him out and was absolutely sure it was him, and of course his DNA all over her clothes shows that she was right.

Those are the witnesses----and of course the totally disgraceful witnesses like Nudds whose evidence in court was listened too like the equally disgraceful testimony spouted by Langdale.

How do you know which witnesses were and were not believed by the jury Norma?

And then there was the "fabricated evidence" where the "verbatim notes" by Acott in the presence of Oxford which were discovered to have been "tampered with" , made out Hanratty was lying when he was not;

They were not tampered with. They were re-written. Maybe something was spilled on the first set or the writing was not clear. There were no material additions to or subtractions from the notes that I am aware of.

and many many other "withheld" statements such as those of the other Redbridge witnesses and later those statements by Rhyl witnesses that never reached the Home secretary first during Butler"s tenure and later Jenkins tenure eg relating to Mr Dutton and Mr Larman and other Rhyl witnesses who gave testimony and whose testimony was disregarded in favour of hearing a repetition of the evidence of a thoroughly despicable prisoner like Langdale.

The trial operated under the rules that were present at that time, as I believe Vic has pointed out before. All this information was re-evaluated at the appeals and none of it found to exonerate Hanratty. By the way, what did Langdale do to earn your description of 'thoroughly despicable' where Hanratty can't get praised enough? Weren't they both working class petty criminals...until Hanratty's foray into armed robbery which resulted in rape and murder, of course, which means he is by far the most 'thoroughly despicable' of the two.

[Natalie Severn]

And what you do not seem to understand is that there is NO EVIDENCE that Hanratty was innocent; no EVIDENCE that any fabrications or manipulations were made to the evidence which proves Hanratty guilty etc

On the contrary,there is evidence to show that evidence was fabricated and evidence withheld.I have quoted from Michael Sherrard on this and don"t intend to again as its available for all to read in his recent biography.
But in terms of actual "reports" ,by far the most persuasive report was the report carried out by Scotland Yard at the request of the Home Office in 1996.
This was carried out by Detective Chief Superintendent Roger Matthews.
Mr Matthews concluded that James Hanratty was entirely innocent and had been wrongly hanged.

Roger Matthews added that his inquiries had led him to "change his mind about capital punishment, of which he had previously been a supporter,and to which he was now opposed".

[babybird67]

On the contrary,there is evidence to show that evidence was fabricated and evidence withheld.

I don't think so.

But by far the most persuasive report was the report carried out by Scotland Yard at the request of the Home Office in 1996.
This was carried out by Detective Chief Superintendent Roger Matthews.
Mr Matthews concluded that James Hanratty was entirely innocent and had been wrongly hanged.

Roger Matthews added that his inquiries had led him to "change his mind about capital punishment, of which he had previously been a supporter,and to which he was now opposed".

Do you have a link to this report? This is not evidence that Hanratty was innocent. It is just one person's opinion that he was. A bit like your opinion and Julie's and Jim's. Just opinions.

[Natalie Severn]

re Roy Langdale:
He was one of the most despised and avoided prisoners in the entire jail. He had tortured a young man he shared a cell with by shaving off his eyebrows,beating him severely with a belt ,forcing him to sing Jailhouse Rock and then lancing his chest a dozen times with a serrated knife.For his own safety he was transferred to the "hospital".
He was generously treated by the courts following his testimony against Hanratty and appears to have been "awarded " for it by a very lenient sentence following the viscious attack he had made on his 18 year old cell mate.
He told the court that he had "exercised" with Hanratty---which both Hanratty and other prisoner witnesses refuted Hanratty saying he had done so once or twice and never ever had he "confessed to the A6 murder,and the other prisoners saying they hadn"t even seen him exercising with Hanratty and that they themselves had exercised him most of the time during which time he always asserted his innocence vehemently.The other prisoners testified against Langdale in court.