A6 Rebooted

[Alfie]

As explained on the ‘Mrs Dinwoodie’ thread, I am as certain as she was that the incident occurred on the Monday. But I’m doubtful that Harding adds much.

If he saw Olive Dinwoodie there on one day and David Cowley on the other, the two days must have been Monday and Tuesday respectively. But how do we know that he saw them each on the two days? If his log book had shown him knocking off about 7pm on the Tuesday it would have been strong supporting evidence - but it said 5.45.

The fact that he made no mention of Mrs Dinwoodie being ill suggests it was the Monday. If it was the Tuesday, surely Mrs D's illness would have become a topic of conversation?

The questioned could have been answered one way or another by the police asking him this, but whether they did or not I don't know.

[NickB]

The fact that he made no mention of Mrs Dinwoodie being ill suggests it was the Monday. If it was the Tuesday, surely Mrs D's illness would have become a topic of conversation?

The questioned could have been answered one way or another by the police asking him this, but whether they did or not I don't know.

According to Woffinden she began to feel unwell on the Monday. Seeing the girl stocking the shelves was probably a stronger point.

[NickB]

What I'm left wondering is: what prompted Evans to decide the court should hear the full story and to travel from Rhyl to Bedford to make sure it did? Surely he must have realized that by doing so he'd be damaging Mrs Jones's credibility and thus Hanratty's chances of an acquittal?

I think Evans may have been due to return on Monday to give further evidence anyway.

As far as I can discern, he contacted the police about another matter - but I do not know what it was.

[NickB]

On second thoughts I think you are right and he must have contacted the police about this issue and made a return appearance especially for it. So had he heard Grace Jones talk about the brown hair and wanted to point out that it was because that is what he told her?

[Alfie]

Did Justice pay Alphon £25,000?

Neil Clark, in a Nov 5, 2002 article in The Spectator that aimed to debunk the work of the A6 Committee, wrote: "In the end, it cost Justice £25,000 to wring a ‘confession’ out of Alphon in 1967." And a little further on: "Having pocketed the £25,000, Peter Alphon rather predictably recanted his confession and disappeared from the scene."

This is news to me. Any truth in it?

[Graham]

Neil Clark, in a Nov 5, 2002 article in The Spectator that aimed to debunk the work of the A6 Committee, wrote: "In the end, it cost Justice £25,000 to wring a ‘confession’ out of Alphon in 1967." And a little further on: "Having pocketed the £25,000, Peter Alphon rather predictably recanted his confession and disappeared from the scene."

This is news to me. Any truth in it?

I've read that article, and I think there is a good deal of journalese contained therein. The last time Justice and Alphon met face-to-face was about a year after the murder, and they parted on bad terms; following that, Alphon treated Justice to his characteristic barrage of threatening phone-calls, even at one point promising to kill him if he didn't take seriously his claim to be the A6 killer.

With regard to the £25000, I can't accept that Justice handed out to Alphon this sum or any sum in cash even close to it. My first house, a brand new 3-bed semi bought in 1971, was less than £4000, so work it out for yourselves. Justice may have made references to the wining, dining, hotels, travel, weekends at Laudate, up-market entertaining, and so forth, complaining that he indeed forked out a good deal of money on Alphon, but nowhere have I seen it written that he paid him £25000 or any other cash sum for his confession. Plus, Justice had sufficient nous never to wholly accept everything that Alphon told him.

Although Justice died still claiming that Hanratty was innocent and that Alphon was the real killer, I find it difficult to accept that he believed this wholeheartedly. He was, as Neil Clark says in his article, basically seeking to prove that the English judicial system, which he viewed as corrupt, made a grave mistake when Hanratty was executed.

Graham

[Alfie]

I think you're probably right, Graham.

After making the confession in Paris (May 12, 1967) and then repudiating it in a 'People' interview (May 21), Alphon hardly disappeared from the scene, as Clark would have it.

In late July he returned to London and resumed his nuisance calls to Lord Russell, which landed him in court (Sept 2). A week later he had the first of innumerable interviews with Paul Foot and on Sept 28 he was writing to the Home Secretary to reaffirm his earlier confession.

Seeing Clark get this so wrong doesn't incline one to take on trust his £25,000 claim.

[NickB]

He was, as Neil Clark says in his article, basically seeking to prove that the English judicial system, which he viewed as corrupt, made a grave mistake when Hanratty was executed.

A hostility probably prompted by losing the 'rent boy' case.

Talking about the judicial system, one further thought about Evans requesting - and being granted - a return to court to give more evidence ...

This shows how false was his statement on Panorama that he had been constrained by the court in the evidence he was allowed to give (even confined to answering just 'yes' or 'no') and that had he not been so constrained he would have said more in Hanratty's defence.

[Graham]

A hostility probably prompted by losing the 'rent boy' case.

I think he was also severely prejudiced by failing his bar exams.

Nevertheless, he did all right for himself for most of his life, and it was only in his declining years that he fell on (relatively) hard times. It always rather surprised me that he and Paul Foot appeared to get on so well....or did they?
I somehow can't see Foot being involved in the merry jape of nicking a parking meter.....

Much of what we know about Justice is per what Woffo wrote about him, and I do wonder if Woffo painted a faintly slanted picture of him, due largely to the fact that they both felt that Hanratty was innocent and that there had been a grave miscarriage of justice (with a small 'j'). Woffinden did write about Justice in rather glowing terms, I suspect only because they were both on the same side of the fence and probably not because there was a great deal of genuine mutual affection. It has struck me that Fox was the eminence grise behind Justice, but because of his, Fox's, position in the legal Establishment, he could not afford to be viewed as a critic of the judicial system, and therefore Justice was the public face of this Dynamic Duo, and whether we agree with him or not, I think he did a pretty good job....but ultimately failed. As he was bound to fail.

Graham

[NickB]

probably not because there was a great deal of genuine mutual affection

I don’t know. Reading the section in Woffy when Justice died, there did seem to be some genuine affection.

On an Ealing website I found discussion about Jeremy Fox. In his later days he was reduced to earning pennies from collecting empty glasses in a pub near his house in Charlbury Grove. According to the police his house was a notorious hang out for "all the yobs, queers and junkies in West London".

[Graham]

There's more on Fox here: https://www.theguardian.com/news/199...ianobituaries4

His obituary states that Fox prepared a detailed memorandum on the A6 Case that the Court of Appeal 'found compelling'; has this memo ever been published, I wonder?

Strange how a pair of gifted and, I suppose it must be said, quite influential individuals ended up laid low.

Graham

[Spitfire]

The Spectator has put its archive online, so if you like that sort of thing here is Clark's article in all its glory.

For what it's worth, I agree that there is no evidence, or indeed likelihood, that Justice paid Alphon anything like the sum of £25,000.

Whilst browsing the archive, I came across this review of a Foot book published posthumously. This passage caught my eye.

"One devoted friend said not long before his death, ‘the trouble with Footy is that he’s so charming and courteous you forget for a while that he’s mad’. This was said with affectionate irony, but not entirely as a joke. His politics were not so much wrong as weirdly esoteric. And the same friend described his Guardian columns as beginning in a calm and reasonable tone ‘until he goes over a cliff halfway through’. Something of the same is true of his book, or at least parts of it."

[Spitfire]

The Spectator of 23 March 1962 urged the Home Secretary to reprieve Hanratty on the grounds that (1) Hanratty was not quite the full shilling and (2) there was a doubt as to his guilt.

[Graham]

The Spectator of 23 March 1962 urged the Home Secretary to reprieve Hanratty on the grounds that (1) Hanratty was not quite the full shilling and (2) there was a doubt as to his guilt.

Because JH's defence absolutely denied any guilt, they could not use in evidence his quite lengthy record of mental problems and treatment. Which kind of supposes that had he pleaded guilty but with diminished responsibility he may have escaped a capital sentence. I feel sure that Sherrard considered the latter as a possibility.

Graham

[Graham]

Foot certainly did sometimes get things incredibly wrong, but for all that I admired him and his tenacity when investigating what he perceived as miscarriages of justice.

His politics, though, were frankly a dead loss. In 1977 he stood for the Socialist Workers Party in the Birmingham Stechford by-election. Stechford was and is a predominantly working-class constituency. Foot appeared quite confident that, even if he didn't receive a majority, his standing would demonstrate the demand of 'the workers' for social and political justice. I remember very well that in the end he polled 377 votes out of a total of over 36000 cast. I doubt if this defeat actually bothered him over much, as his total belief in his beliefs (if I can put it like that) never wavered.

Graham