A6 Rebooted

[babybird67]

Hi Caz,
Addressing the question of whether or not there was any evidence against Alphon .

Article 128 of the 2002 Judgement of Appeal:

By way of postscript we should record that it has been agreed by Mr Sweeney and Mr Mansfield that on the evidence now available Peter Alphon could not have been the murderer.

My emphasis. Let it go. It wasn't Alphon. Even Hanratty's defence team have admitted that now.

[Natalie Severn]

Article 128 of the 2002 Judgement of Appeal:



My emphasis. Let it go. It wasn't Alphon. Even Hanratty's defence team have admitted that now.

Babybird,

Mansfield...........very disappointing......Really,I mean that.

Alphon,in my view,had a schizoid personality.Several people who had known him well such as his landlady said he was a "loner";was interested in the occult and black magic;was a crusader- a man on a mission, a member of the fascist party, a loafer who had never had a proper job and crucially,a dead give away in fact,a "mummy"s boy".He is almost a classical definition.Its an incontrovertible fact that it is people who have this type of personality, form the biggest percentage of people who commit the cold blooded killings we read about oin newspapers.

[babybird67]

Babybird,

Mansfield...........very disappointing......Really,I mean that.

Alphon,in my view,had a schizoid personality.Several people who had known him well such as his landlady said he was a "loner";was interested in the occult and black magic;was a crusader- a man on a mission, a member of the fascist party, a loafer who had never had a proper job and crucially,a dead give away in fact,a "mummy"s boy".He is almost a classical definition.Its an incontrovertible fact that it is people who have this type of personality who form the biggest percentage of people who commit the cold blooded killings we read about oin newspapers.

And yet he was never charged with any crime, let alone a violent one?

Come on Nats. If Hanratty's defence can accept it, why can't you? Do you really think you are privy to more information than they are?

[Natalie Severn]

And yet he was never charged with any crime, let alone a violent one?

Come on Nats. If Hanratty's defence can accept it, why can't you? Do you really think you are privy to more information than they are?

I don"t think that Jen, but I do wonder if Mansfield was paying attention to every aspect of the case.

Your other point about Peter Alphon never having been charged with a crime isnt quite accurate because he was charged over a very vicious attack on Mrs Meike Dalal.She had identified him as her attacker.The man had stated he was the A6 killer.
In the event Alphon found an alibi in his almanac selling.His colleagues agreed he had called in to see them at the time of the attack.
Best
Norma

[Limehouse]

Don't swear at me for a start.

I have always been against the death penalty for precisely the reason that you cannot bring someone back to life who is later proven to be innocent. Also I do not believe the state can outlaw murder yet engage in it itself.

The point was, where there have been miscarriages of justice, the state has ADMITTED that, and done what it can to clear the person's name. What do you think is so special about Hanratty that they would deliberately fail to do this in his case? I'll tell you. Absolutely nothing. He hasn't been cleared because he was not innocent. He was a lying, thieving, murdering rapist. Still...if that's the sort of person you admire...


So answer the question Julie. What sort of justice system do you believe in? Ten appeals per crime? Twenty? Interminable? Eternal torture for the victims as we go round and round in circles again and again. It doesn't really matter what you do and don't accept. Due process of law has been followed. He had his appeals. They failed. He was guilty. Get over it.



Whereas the defence was a paragon of virtue lmao. Mrs Jones who couldn't keep honest books with her business and who had discussions with Terry Evans on material aspects of the evidence when specifically warned not to by the Judge. Hanratty himself, who was in Liverpool, oops no in Rhyl at the time. Oh yes. Of course.



There was no motive. Hanratty bungled an armed robbery like he bungled everything in his sad pathetic life. And why should the relationship of Gregsten and Storie have been put before the jury. It was irrelevant.



Not at all. That theory doesn't make sense and there is absolutely zero evidence for it.



You should learn a bit of respect for the victims of crime. And perhaps less glorification of criminals.
I think he was anxious to catch the killer like anybody would have been. Luckily he had Valerie to steer him away from making a miscarriage of justice out of Alphon and getting the real murderer convicted and off the streets so that nobody else had to lose their life at his hands.



How do you know if it hasnt been made public?



Like the Evans appeal that didn't uphold it you mean? But oh yes Golden Boy Hanratty is a special case, I forgot.



You wouldn't know the truth if it came up and sang you a Bob Dylan song. You just want the class war to be behind everything instead of looking for the truth. It's sad. Really sad.

Just a couple of points. I have made it clear time and time again that I do not admire Hanratty. I have also made it clear that I feel astrongly a miscarriage of justice is a miscarriage for the victims as well as the accused so I DO have resapect for the victims.

Evans was only cleared when it became apparent that another murderer was living in the house at the time. If Christie had not been caught - Evans would still be presumed guilty as per judgement made bu the jury.

When I mentioned evidence not being honestly obtained and presented to the court I was not referring to witnesses but things such as the cartridge cases and tampered with statements.

The relationship between Storie and Gregsten was relevant because it could have indicated a motive that is much more plausible than a house-breaker wandering round a cornfield looking for an armed robbery opportunity to pop up and present itself. Incidently - there is no evidence to support the notion that Hanratty wanted to diversify into armed robbery except for hearsay.

As I have previouisly pointed out - I am not the sort of person who sees conspiracies around every corner. Generally I am satisfied with the justice system we have. In fact - in some cases I think people get off lightly. I would like to see fewer non-dangerous people out of prison and occupied with a sentence that addresses their offending and allows them to pay back their debt to society but I also want to see people adequately punished. In the case of Hanratty I do not believe justice was done but that does not make me morally defective.

Finally - what is all this rubbish about a class war? Where have I ever mentioned class? Do you have to resort to stereotypes?

[Limehouse]

I don"t think that Jen, but I do wonder if Mansfield was paying attention to every aspect of the case.

Your other point about Peter Alphon never having been charged with a crime isnt quite accurate because he was charged over a very vicious attack on Mrs Meike Dalal.She had identified him as her attacker.The man had stated he was the A6 killer.
In the event Alphon found an alibi in his almanac selling.His colleagues agreed he had called in to see them at the time of the attack.
Best
Norma

Alphon was also charged with an assult on Mary Hanratty but the case was dismissed (although there were many wintesses). He had been charged (and possibly convicted) of fraud and was also charged with making malicious telephone calls to various people.

He should have been named Peter Louis Teflon.

[Natalie Severn]

Yes Julie,you are right. There was the attack on Mrs Mary Hanratty and the streams of abusive ,pernicious phone calls you mention to Lord Russell of Liverpool and others .This is yet another typical symptom and often an ominous warning, quite frequently, of a psychotic episode being about to happen.The fascist crusader Peter Alphon was a text book case of a schizoid personality bordering on paranoid schizophrenia.As was the incessant talking to himself [responding to his "voices" most likely], and other very odd behaviour in the Alexandra Ct Hotel the day after the A6 murder,that so alarmed Miss Perkins and alarmed other guests,the interest in the occult and black magic,the moral crusade epitomised in his joining the fascist movement and admiring Hitler who he knew had murdered 6 million Jewish people.The cold,emotionless mummy"s boy Peter Alphon is classic if ever there was a classic,text book case of a schizoid personality.If anyone was a likely candidate for carrying out the cold blooded shooting of Valerie Storie in particular, it was someone who displayed the characteristics of a paranoid schizophrenic "on a mission".

[Limehouse]

Hi Julie,

I'd love to see you go into more depth regarding this.

Graham

Hi Graham

I have addressed most of your points in my reply to BB but - concerning your challenge above about things abouit the case that have not been revealed and that are relevant to the verdict I would list:

a) Who supplied the gun? When was it obtained? Were any steps taken to find out who supplied the gun (as they would be an accessory in theory).

b) Where was the attacker in the hours leading up to the attack? How did the attacker travel to the area? Was he seen ?

c) Why did the police seem to ignore Valerie's apparent insistance that the gunman had blue eyes? Why did they pursue Alphon right up to the ID parade if Valerie was insisting the attacker had blue eyes? They must have been uncertain about Valerie's reliability?

c) Could the cartridge cases have been 'planted' in room 24 in order to incriminate Alpthon on the assumption that he would be identified that day in the ID parade?

d) Did the police already know that 'J Ryan' was J Hanratty - and a convicted criminal - before Alphon was ruled out by the ID parade and did they then simply slot Hanratty into the frame?

e) How closely did the police investigate a possible link between the attack and the relationship between VS and MG? Did the police consider the possibility that VS may have been the original target - given that MG was about to leave his wife? Is this what they meant when they later siad they at first thought it was a 'gas meter job?'

That is for starters. And please - don't everyone go and get hysterical and think I am making firm accusations or statements of belief - I am simply posing questions for debate.

[Natalie Severn]

Julie,
Good questions.Some more:
-Paul Foot was permitted to view Alphon"s bank accounts after Alphon asked his bank in The Strand to disclose his 1961 bank account statements to Foot in 1967.They revealed that very large sums of money were paid in soon after he had been released by police in late September 1961.The sums are out of keeping with Alphon"s financial standing and way of life.They amounted to seven thousand five hundred pounds [in 1961 this would translate into between eight and nine hundred thousand pounds[Ł800,000 -Ł900,000---a comfortable three bedroomed house could be purchased for Ł2,000 in 1961].
Foot reckoned Ł2,500 was accounted for by newspaper sources but that,he stated would have been the absolute maximum he would have got from such sources given that his story,after release wasn"t really worth buying [Ł270,000].So a lot of money can not be accounted for.
Alphon himself claimed he received the money after carrying out the A6 murder.
Why was Alphon not questioned about these huge sums of money revealed in his October/November 1961 Bank Accounts, when he made his public confessions about being the A6 murderer?

[babybird67]

Hi Graham

I have addressed most of your points in my reply to BB but - concerning your challenge above about things abouit the case that have not been revealed and that are relevant to the verdict I would list:

a) Who supplied the gun? When was it obtained? Were any steps taken to find out who supplied the gun (as they would be an accessory in theory).

Are you suggesting these things were known and just not revealed? As you stated in your previous post? Is it usual for every aspect of every investigation of every crime to be released to the great unwashed who seem to think that without attending a trial and hearing the evidence they know better than the jury, Judges, advocates etc in the cases anyway?

b) Where was the attacker in the hours leading up to the attack? How did the attacker travel to the area? Was he seen ?

How are you suggesting this should be known if you are arguing we don't know who the attacker was? As it was Hanratty, he could easily have cleared up these points if he had had the guts to admit to what he did instead of this little boy lost act he put on and drew a certain number of people in with.

c) Why did the police seem to ignore Valerie's apparent insistance that the gunman had blue eyes? Why did they pursue Alphon right up to the ID parade if Valerie was insisting the attacker had blue eyes? They must have been uncertain about Valerie's reliability?

Where is the evidence they ignored it? It was an oversight on their part. The original notes show no mention of COLOUR of eyes. Therefore it was a mistake on the Police's part to issue a statement mentioning brown eyes. As soon as this was clarified with Valerie, as a mistake, a new statement revising the eye colour to blue was released. They pursued Alphon because of his connection to the Vienna hotel because they were INVESTIGATING a crime and had a duty to follow up all possible leads.

c) Could the cartridge cases have been 'planted' in room 24 in order to incriminate Alpthon on the assumption that he would be identified that day in the ID parade?

What? Where has this nonsense come from? Any evidence for this? Sigh. Thought not.

d) Did the police already know that 'J Ryan' was J Hanratty - and a convicted criminal - before Alphon was ruled out by the ID parade and did they then simply slot Hanratty into the frame?

Haha. Yes of course they did. Any evidence again for this? Oh yes, they had a little black book with a psychic knowledge of every petty criminal in the London and Bedford areas pseudonym in didn't they. Clever old Police. Just ignore the evidence that they followed up the lead of J Ryan and it led to Hanratty. These theories get more and more outlandish as they go on.

e) How closely did the police investigate a possible link between the attack and the relationship between VS and MG? Did the police consider the possibility that VS may have been the original target - given that MG was about to leave his wife? Is this what they meant when they later siad they at first thought it was a 'gas meter job?'

Well as there are no known links between Mrs Gregsten and any criminals, or Mr Ewer and any of the alleged other participants in the crime (e.g. Alphon) it looks like they investigated it pretty thoroughly. If Valerie was the target, it just shows how utterly incompetent the gunman actually was, killing Gregsten and leaving Valerie alive. And an incompetent gunman leads to one person...Hanratty.

That is for starters. And please - don't everyone go and get hysterical and think I am making firm accusations or statements of belief - I am simply posing questions for debate.

Some of the most ridiculous questions I have read! Nice one!

[babybird67]

Just a couple of points. I have made it clear time and time again that I do not admire Hanratty. I have also made it clear that I feel astrongly a miscarriage of justice is a miscarriage for the victims as well as the accused so I DO have resapect for the victims.

Sorry but when the victim in question has been through the original trial and the number of appeals, dragging this whole case back into the limelight again and again, and it is still not allowed to rest, that is the utmost disrespect in my opinion. Also continually accusing her of getting things wrong is disrespectful. The jury, ALL the judges in the case, and BOTH sides of the advocates, for and against Hanratty, all now accept the right man was hanged, and yet you, the great Limehouse, cannot accept it...well...I don't call that respect. I call it arrogance and disrespect.

Evans was only cleared when it became apparent that another murderer was living in the house at the time. If Christie had not been caught - Evans would still be presumed guilty as per judgement made bu the jury.

Again, missing the point. It was discovered...therefore there was new evidence...therefore there was an appeal at which the state accepted it had got things WRONG and said so. Why haven't they done that regarding Hanratty? What's so special about him? Nothing. The verdict wasn't wrong. That is why it stands.

When I mentioned evidence not being honestly obtained and presented to the court I was not referring to witnesses but things such as the cartridge cases and tampered with statements.

They were not tampered with. They were rewritten with no material additions or substractions. There is a difference. From paragraph 180 of the 2002 Judgement of Appeal:

What we regard as significant is that Dr Baxendale found no evidence that anything had been added or removed from the notes in the course of pages being rewritten.

WHat evidence do you have that there was something dishonest going on with the cartridge cases? None? Oh that's a surprise.

The relationship between Storie and Gregsten was relevant because it could have indicated a motive that is much more plausible than a house-breaker wandering round a cornfield looking for an armed robbery opportunity to pop up and present itself.

Could have? Again, you want to connect people like Janet Gregsten and William Ewer to the crime with NO EVIDENCE. Hearsay? You're objections and whinings rely on it over and over.

Incidently - there is no evidence to support the notion that Hanratty wanted to diversify into armed robbery except for hearsay.

From para 68 of the Judgement of 2002:

He agreed that he had had a conversation about a gun but said that he had never intended to get one, had never become a stick-up man, had never got a gun and had never shot the man.

Hearsay is a statement given by Hanratty himself? If only you would take everything Hanratty said as hearsay, perhaps we wouldn't be going round in circles like we do now eh? What do you think Hanratty's conversation about guns consisted of? "I'm a good Catholic lad I am and I don't want no involvement in guns." Yes there would be a lot of point having a conversation about that wouldn't there. Why else would he be talking to other criminals about guns if it wasn't his intention to get one?

As I have previouisly pointed out - I am not the sort of person who sees conspiracies around every corner.

Your posts to this thread suggest otherwise.

In the case of Hanratty I do not believe justice was done but that does not make me morally defective.

I think consistently trying to undermine this verdict is morally repugnant.

Finally - what is all this rubbish about a class war? Where have I ever mentioned class? Do you have to resort to stereotypes?

Maybe the impressions I get from someone who continually quotes Bob Dylan (and other socialist songwriters) as if he/they would agree with this cause, someone who wants to raze prisons to the ground (why, by the way? why would that be a good idea) and someone who has specifically stated appeals are useless because they just support the defective decisions the previous courts made...why? Why are they so biased against Hanratty? This is completely motiveless...more motiveless than the A6 crime itself...a badly bungled armed robbery that made Hanratty an accidental murderer, but a very deliberate rapist and attempted murderer.

[babybird67]

just seen this post

You can request it from the home office,Jen .
Absolute dishonesty and distortion to say it was just his "opinion".

Det Chief Supt Roger Matthews was commissioned to do it upon the orders of Scotland Yard as a result of a request by the Home Office in 1996 .

Don't accuse me of dishonesty and distortion Norma. It's not very pleasant, but then neither is being sworn at, so standards around here seem to be dropping into the gutter lately.

It is this officer's opinion, just as it is Sherrard's opinion that the wrong man didn't hang, isn't it. At the end of the day, there will be varying opinions on what the evidence points to. All the evidence was reviewed, along with the DNA evidence in 2002, and the judgement against Hanratty was upheld. That is a FACT. James Hanratty is a convicted murderer, FACT! Anyone who holds the contrary view, holds just an opinion, with very little to back it up with.

You'll notice Matthew's report was superceded by the Judgement of Appeal.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Jen,
The Matthews Report was significant in that it was compiled by a very senior policeman by Scotland Yard at the request of the Home Office.As such it is just not an accurate observation to say this report was simply a matter of "opinion" as though it was not backed up from his fresh research and discoveries. After all this was a police report based on the commissioned research of a senior policeman at Scotland Yard.To dismiss it as though it was just a bit of paper that can be tossed aside as amounting to nothing other than the opinion of any Tom Dick or Harry, is not an accurate observation.

As for the remark attributed to Michael Sherrard QC it has never been dated or the report bylined-therefore ,as such,it is simply an anonymous bit of hearsay---almost certainly reported out of context and as such is likely to have been an error of transcript or at best a "misrepresentation" of Sherrard"s words,words moreover that are in complete contradiction to what Michael Sherrard following the judgment.viz:

MICHAEL SHERRARD:The public were cheated, the system was cheated. I don't regard myself as having been cheated. I, I'm really an intermediate player, but Hanratty was hanged. He was cheated. If the other material that was not disclosed to us would have made the difference, so it, it's fair to say that there seems to be a strong argument at least for saying that the trial was fatally flawed and the word fatal has a real significance in this context.

This is some more of what Michael Sherrard actually said following the 2002 failed appeal.It was said in May 2002.
Also:
MICHAEL SHERRARD: No hair, no blood, no fibres, nothing at all was found that linked Hanratty to that motor-car.

[jimarilyn]

Don't accuse me of dishonesty and distortion Norma. It's not very pleasant, but then neither is being sworn at, so standards around here seem to be dropping into the gutter lately.

It is this officer's opinion, just as it is Sherrard's opinion that the wrong man didn't hang, isn't it. At the end of the day, there will be varying opinions on what the evidence points to. All the evidence was reviewed, along with the DNA evidence in 2002, and the judgement against Hanratty was upheld. That is a FACT. James Hanratty is a convicted murderer, FACT! Anyone who holds the contrary view, holds just an opinion, with very little to back it up with.

Your arrogance, self-righteousness and smugness truly amaze me. I bet I'm far from the only one who believes this.This post of yours and the majority of your posts remind me of a farmer's field containing a hundred steers........

A LOAD of BULLOCKS !!

You sound like a scratched, whining record and feign indignation at every least opportunity. Grow up for goodness sake.

[Derrick]

My emphasis. Let it go. It wasn't Alphon. Even Hanratty's defence team have admitted that now.

Please give me references (which are not in the Appeal Ruling of 2002) to where we can all find out how the referential DNA profiles of Valerie Storie, Michael Gregsten and Peter Alphon were obtained.