A6 Rebooted

[Sherlock Houses]

You've backed both horses now. Post 3858 "..it matters a great deal" this one "...it makes little difference..."

In the interests of truth and accuracy it does matter a great deal.
His statement was made at 8.30 am not 6.30 am.

Either time makes little difference in that it would be impossible for the murder car to be in Avondale Crescent around 7 am. That's if the Matlock sighting was genuine, which I have my doubts about despite the seemingly impressive Pom Pom hat evidence.

[cobalt]

His statement was made at 8.30 am not 6.30 am.

I think you may have been les than precise in your use of language here, Sherlock.

There is a very important difference between Lees' claimed time of the sighting (about which he has no obvious reason to be mistaken) and the actual time he reported the sighting, complete with registration number, to the police.
If he did so before the registration number was released to the general public, then that is very powerful evidence indeed.

If not, then his sighting has to stand alongside Trower, Skillet and others, the green bobble hat notwithstanding.

[Sherlock Houses]

His statement was made at 8.30 am not 6.30 am.

I think you may have been les than precise in your use of language here, Sherlock.

There is a very important difference between Lees' claimed time of the sighting (about which he has no obvious reason to be mistaken) and the actual time he reported the sighting, complete with registration number, to the police.
If he did so before the registration number was released to the general public, then that is very powerful evidence indeed.

If not, then his sighting has to stand alongside Trower, Skillet and others, the green bobble hat notwithstanding.

William Lee's claimed sighting was at around 6.30 am, so obviously he couldn't have made his statement to the police until sometime later.

Julie Q wrote about this 6 years ago on the now closed A6 murder thread. The following relevant extract from that post [#6849] helps to clarify the matter somewhat.....

Another witness statement not disclosed was that of WILIAM LEE.

Willaim Lee was a HGV lorry driver and on the 23rd August at around 6.30am was driving his lorry southwards on the A6 some 100 miles north of Bedford when a Morris Minor car pulled out from a junction causing him to take evasive action to aviod a collision . So incensed was Mr Lee that he followed the car noting its registration number,when he later stopped for a break and learned of the murder which had occured further south on the A6 and the number of the car involved he called the police and gave a statement.

The CCRC discovered this statement in 1998 and Mr Lee was traced and iterviewed .He reiterated what he had said in his original statement
including the fact that the driver of the Morris Minor had been wearing a green woollen hat with a pom pom on it. Later in their investigations the CCRC obtained a file containing photographs which included coloured images of the interior of the car and the boot . When those photographs were enhanced and enlargened , a green woollen hat with a poom pom on it,exactly as described in Mr Lee's statement to the Derbyshire police in 1961, could be seen in the boot of the car.
If the defence had been given access to those witnesses it is not unreasonable to suppose that a persuasive argument could have ben made to the jury that the murder car was not in the vicinity of Avondale Crescent at 7.am that morning and was therefor not the car seen by Skillet and Trower.

[Spitfire]

William Lee's claimed sighting was at around 6.30 am, so obviously he couldn't have made his statement to the police until sometime later.

Julie Q wrote about this 6 years ago on the now closed A6 murder thread. The following relevant extract from that post [#6849] helps to clarify the matter somewhat.....

And this is part of paragraph 152 of the Court of Appeal Judgement to which you take exception:

i) At 6.30am on Wednesday 23 August, William Lee saw a grey Morris Minor being driven by a man wearing a woollen pom-pom hat on the A6 near Matlock in Derbyshire.

Looking at earlier posts on this thread, Derrick is quite adamant that the sighting was at 8.30am and for the avoidance of doubt, I mean the time at which Mr Lee saw the Morris Minor.

[Sherlock Houses]

In the interests of truth and accuracy it does matter a great deal.
His statement was made at 8.30 am not 6.30 am.

Either time makes little difference in that it would be impossible for the murder car to be in Avondale Crescent around 7 am. That's if the Matlock sighting was genuine, which I have my doubts about despite the seemingly impressive Pom Pom hat evidence.

I apologise for this senior moment on my part here. It should have read "his sighting was at 8.30 am not 6.30 am"

I have never seen a copy of William Lee's statement but Derrick has and he maintains that the sighting was at 8.30 am and that the Court of Appeal judgment is in error regarding this.

[ansonman]

Seasons greetings

As I shall shortly be closing down to enjoy the festivities I wanted to take this opportunity to wish fellow posters a merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year.

In addition, I would like to single out eight persons (four on each side) to whom I would like to gift yuletide presents. In these austere times I cannot afford the postage let alone the presents themselves and so I am afraid these must be imaginary gifts. It's the thought that counts.

On the anti Hanratty side I should like to present caz with a blue saucer and a copy of each of the books on the Wallace case published since the one she is currently reading.

For Spitfire his present, predictably, is a rubber suit and woollen bobble hat. Whilst he has enough rubber suits for every day of the week, this one is see through.

For Graham, I gift him two rattles. One for football and the other for a baby (of the throwing out of the pram variety).

For OneRound, who thinks Hanratty was guilty but should have been found innocent by the jury, I present him, somewhat unfairly, with a fence panel to sit on.

Moving now to the pro Hanratty camp, of which I am a fully paid up member, I should like to present Sherlock Houses with a gold plated magnifying glass in recognition of his attention to detail. I am hoping this will also encourage him to reduce the size and boldness of his strapline.

For Moste I should like to gift a leather briefcase in which he can store his ever increasing number of coincidences in the case.

For Derrick I gift a set of gold plated darts in recognition of the fact that his posts invariably hit the bulls eye.

Finally, I should like to present cobalt with a crown. He is the king of posters IMHO and whenever one sees his name above a post one knows that what follows will be as informative as it is challenging as it is interesting.

Regards,

Ansonman

[Graham]

And for Ansonman, a great big dustbin for all the rubbish he posts.

Happy Christmas!

Graham

[OneRound]

...

For OneRound, who thinks Hanratty was guilty but should have been found innocent by the jury, I present him, somewhat unfairly, with a fence panel to sit on.

...

Ansonman - so as not to be ungracious, I thank you and present you with my own Christmas gift. An imaginary leather bound print of the Court of Appeal's 1998 judgement in respect of Derek Bentley with certain sections heavily underlined.

From this, you will note that the Court of Appeal considered Bentley's trial to be unfair; as the Court stated, he was denied ''that fair trial which is the birthright of every British citizen''. Consequently Bentley's conviction was ruled unsafe and quashed.

However, you will also see that the Court commented, ''a properly directed jury would have been entitled to convict''. That comment is often overlooked and is far from a ringing endorsement of Bentley's innocence. More fence panels perhaps needing to be ordered.

Season's greetings to you and all,

OneRound

[moste]

Ansonman
This is a very unexpected and generous gesture. I can now throw this tatty old cardboard folder away.
On second thoughts ,Ill send it to someone we know. He will be able to store his collection of rubber buttons and Velcro tape rolls in it, Ha Ha Ha
The joy and spirit of Christmas is upon us once again.
All the best and Happy Holidays to ALL posters.

[Graham]

While we're handing out kudos (and otherwise), I should just like to highlight the following, posted by Alfie in response to a newcomer.
I think what Alfie says sums up very neatly my attitude to the A6 Case, and it was well said.

Originally Posted by Sherlock:

... I do not know the answers to any of these questions, but would like to know more about the background to the case. Any help would be appreciated.

Alfie replied:


The short answer is, Hanratty was guilty. To argue otherwise will suck you in to conspiracy theories so convoluted that you'll require TWO tinfoil hats to ward off the dictates of the facts and logic.

Anyway, it's (supposedly) the season of goodwill, so I wish all posters very Happy Holidays!

Graham

[ansonman]

Ansonman - so as not to be ungracious, I thank you and present you with my own Christmas gift. An imaginary leather bound print of the Court of Appeal's 1998 judgement in respect of Derek Bentley with certain sections heavily underlined.

From this, you will note that the Court of Appeal considered Bentley's trial to be unfair; as the Court stated, he was denied ''that fair trial which is the birthright of every British citizen''. Consequently Bentley's conviction was ruled unsafe and quashed.

However, you will also see that the Court commented, ''a properly directed jury would have been entitled to convict''. That comment is often overlooked and is far from a ringing endorsement of Bentley's innocence. More fence panels perhaps needing to be ordered.

Season's greetings to you and all,

OneRound

OneRound, your thoughtful and thought provoking gift is much appreciated.

I am well and truly off the fence when it comes to Bentley and Craig.
Even if Bentley did utter the words "let him have it Chris" (which they both denied was ever said), it seems to me that such a phrase would hardly have been uttered as a request to kill, especially from someone with the mental age of eleven. If Bentley had wanted Craig to shoot Miles, it seems to me he would have said so by saying "shoot the bastard" or something very similar.

"Let him have it Chris" was never an instruction shoot, in my book.

Of course, none of that, nor the posthumous pardon nor the quashing was of any help to poor Derek. But it is yet another tragic example of an innocent man being hanged.

Regards,

Ansonman

[OneRound]

OneRound, your thoughtful and thought provoking gift is much appreciated.

I am well and truly off the fence when it comes to Bentley and Craig.
Even if Bentley did utter the words "let him have it Chris" (which they both denied was ever said), it seems to me that such a phrase would hardly have been uttered as a request to kill, especially from someone with the mental age of eleven. If Bentley had wanted Craig to shoot Miles, it seems to me he would have said so by saying "shoot the bastard" or something very similar.

"Let him have it Chris" was never an instruction shoot, in my book.

Of course, none of that, nor the posthumous pardon nor the quashing was of any help to poor Derek. But it is yet another tragic example of an innocent man being hanged.

Regards,

Ansonman

Thanks, Ansonman.

''We reject the submissions that the officers' evidence of matters which incriminated the appellant, particularly the shout ''Let him have it, Chris'' should be regarded as necessarily unreliable or invented.''

I supply that further extract from the Court of Appeal's 1998 judgement in respect of Derek Bentley not to quibble with your own view but to emphasise that despite that rejection and their being of that opinion the Court still quashed Bentley's conviction. That was also in spite of them regarding the case against Bentley to be ''a substantial one''. The overriding reason by far that the Court quashed Bentley's conviction was the unfairness of his trial.

The reason for the unfairness in Bentley's trial was entirely due to the conduct of the judge. That particular reason cannot be claimed as regards the trial of James Hanratty. However, that does not exclude unfairness applying to Hanratty's trial. Unfairness can manifest itself in other forms.

As shown in the Bentley judgement, unfairness can be a valid reason to quash a conviction regardless of views as to the likelihood of guilt. That is where I come from on this forum.

Sorry to probably exhaust the point but it is rather my mantra here.

A happy Christmas to you and all,

OneRound

[Alfie]

While we're handing out kudos (and otherwise), I should just like to highlight the following, posted by Alfie in response to a newcomer.
I think what Alfie says sums up very neatly my attitude to the A6 Case, and it was well said.

Originally Posted by Sherlock:



Alfie replied:


The short answer is, Hanratty was guilty. To argue otherwise will suck you in to conspiracy theories so convoluted that you'll require TWO tinfoil hats to ward off the dictates of the facts and logic.

Anyway, it's (supposedly) the season of goodwill, so I wish all posters very Happy Holidays!

Graham

And a very Merry Christmas to you too, Graham.

[Limehouse]

Wishing you all, whatever side you sit on, a very Merry Christmas and a healthy and happy 2017.

Kind regards,

Julie

[JamesMac]

Dna

Dear all,

I have not had an opportunity to look in on this thread for some considerable time for which I apologise. I had run out of ideas, other commitments took over and my interest in this case was put on the back burner. Looking in again I thought that it might prove helpful to share an article I came across regarding DNA analysis for which I provide a link below, though I cannot guarantee the link will work!

[URL="http://www.sciencemag.org/2016/03/when-dna-snares-innocent"]

The article has a promotional feel about it but I thought that the following extract had some relevance to the Hanratty case:

“DNA analysis can become even trickier when a mix of DNA from various potential suspects is found in a single crime scene sample. With a simple sample, analysts look at two sets of peaks at a given locus: one for the victim and one for the perpetrator. With mixtures, they’re looking at bunches of peaks, with no indication of which pairs go together, or which source they came from—aside from those of the known victim. At that point the analysis becomes highly subjective.

Studies have confirmed this. In 2013, geneticist Michael Coble of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland, set up a hypothetical scenario in which a mix of DNA from several people had been found on a ski mask left at a crime scene after a series of robberies. Coble asked 108 labs across the country to determine whether a separate DNA sample, which he posited had come from a suspect in the robberies, was also part of the mix. Seventy-three of the labs got it wrong, saying the suspect's DNA was part of the mix when, in fact, it was not. “It’s the Wild West out there,” Coble says. “Too much is left to the analysts’ discretion.” “.

If the above is anywhere near correct it seems to me that the probability figure of 1 in a billion or so suggested by the FSS report should be amended to something like 2 out of 3 as approximately two thirds of the labs involved in the above test provided a false positive! Whilst the study was of course artificial it tends to suggest that the data in these sort of mixed sample cases can provide a wide variety of conclusions which I find somewhat disturbing.

Happy New Year to all.

James Mac