A6 Rebooted

[moste]

QUOTE: ‘an additional concern, what would have happened if Valerie had got it wrong on the first parade by picking out Alphon? She might just as easily have done so.
Quite so OR, and especially since her identikit drawing could only have been Alphon ,compared to say ,Hanratty.

[cobalt]

I can understand that the jury being unconvinced by the eye witness evidence from Liverpool. The witnesses mostly had fleeting glimpses of the man, a person who was unknown to them beforehand, and were being asked to remember events from months before. They were citizens going about their everyday business and had no reason to attach any significance to their meeting at the time. This is in stark contrast to the motivation Valerie Storie had for remembering her attacker.

I’ve been more persuaded over the years not by eyewitness evidence in favour of Hanratty but by the absence of it to support the prosecution case. Even allowing for good luck on Hanratty’s part, he was not spotted in a number of locations where you might expect him to have been. No witness was uncovered to his shooting practice prior to the attack, in fact no fellow lag testified having ever seen him with a gun. No witness (bar Valerie Storie obviously) was able to place him in the Taplow area on the day or indeed on any other day. (I’m not sure the prosecution ever presented a timeline of when, where and how Hanratty actually arrived in the area.) He was not seen walking away from the car after it was dumped nor at the nearby underground station. And he was not seen, or at least remembered, on the top deck of the bus where the revolver was later retrieved.

The absence of corroboration in Taplow is surely the most significant. Poor old Alphon was identified by at least three witnesses as someone seen in that very area, albeit the quality of that evidence has been questioned. They may well have been mistaken. Yet no one, it seems, has ever made the same claim in respect of seeing Hanratty there. It’s remarkable really in such a high profile case. Alphon, who were are told was not there, is apparently seen. Hanratty, who was there, is not seen by any independent witness.
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[caz]

That's a very fair post as always, OneRound. I especially like your final sentence, and imagine Alphon might not have liked his final sentence in those circumstances!

One wonders what Hanratty would have made of his life if he had been acquitted - or never even suspected. My head would say it was only right to acquit if there was the slightest doubt, but my heart would bleed for the next courting couple if it happened again because a guilty man went free.

The problem I have with those who firmly believe in Hanratty's innocence is that they never really explain the mechanics of how it was that he ended up paying the ultimate price for some other man's guilt - especially if Alphon was equally innocent, as it seems he was. How many disparate people and groups would have to have been involved in twisting the evidence, whether by accident or design, in favour of Hanratty as the rapist and gunman? If there was a conspiracy against him, who were they protecting and why? They couldn't all have been party to it, from Valerie, Alphon, Dixie France and the police - not to mention his Liverpool cronies, who badly betrayed him if they could have given him an alibi - right through to the DNA scientists, whose findings were detailed in the 2002 appeal.

Love,

Caz
X

[OneRound]

The fact that Mrs D claimed to be certain it was the Monday when the man came in asking for directions, and Hanratty was provably in London at the time, means there are only two possible conclusions: she misidentified the man as Hanratty, or she got the day wrong despite her certainty. Her witness testimony was therefore flawed and inherently unreliable. That being so, there can be no guarantee that if the man did come in on the Tuesday, she'd have been able to remember and recognise him from the photo she was shown of Hanratty.

I'm not sure Hanratty defenders can have it both ways. If the rape victim herself is not trusted to have identified the right man when face to face with Hanratty and hearing him speak, because she had picked out the wrong man at the first id parade, when the suspect was Alphon, who was rightly eliminated as a result, then how can Mrs D be trusted to have correctly identified - from a mere photo - a man she was certain had come into her shop on the Monday, a day too early to have been Hanratty? I wonder what her reaction would have been to hearing Hanratty's distinctive London accent?

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz - good as always to hear from you.

A couple of points arising for me.

Am I a ''Hanratty defender''? Yes but only from a legal viewpoint. By that, I mean I don't consider he got a fair deal before or at trial. As for his innocence, that's being driven on a different bus and I'm not on it.

As a Hanratty (legal) defender, can I ''have it both ways''? I'm not sure I should actually need to. Mrs D should have have only needed to come into the mix if a sufficient case against Hanratty had been built and was required to be countered. I'm not convinced it was. I fully appreciate Hanratty significantly harmed his own chances by changing his alibi but nonetheless it was Valerie Storie's identification and testimony that most of all built the case and ended up putting a rope around his neck. As we know, Valerie identified the wrong man on the first parade. Whilst still having great personal sympathy for her, that misidentification would have significantly discredited her identification and testimony to me had I been on the original jury. Only one man shot and killed Michael Gregsten. Only that one and the same man raped Valerie. Harsh though it may seem but for me Valerie had to either pick the right man the first time or at the very least acknowledge she was unsure and pick no one. It should not have been a situation of ''keep coming back to a different parade until you pick out the latest suspect and then we'll charge him''.

As an additional concern, what would have happened if Valerie had got it wrong on the first parade by picking out Alphon? She might just as easily have done so.

Best regards,
OneRound

[caz]

The fact that Mrs D claimed to be certain it was the Monday when the man came in asking for directions, and Hanratty was provably in London at the time, means there are only two possible conclusions: she misidentified the man as Hanratty, or she got the day wrong despite her certainty. Her witness testimony was therefore flawed and inherently unreliable. That being so, there can be no guarantee that if the man did come in on the Tuesday, she'd have been able to remember and recognise him from the photo she was shown of Hanratty.

I'm not sure Hanratty defenders can have it both ways. If the rape victim herself is not trusted to have identified the right man when face to face with Hanratty and hearing him speak, because she had picked out the wrong man at the first id parade, when the suspect was Alphon, who was rightly eliminated as a result, then how can Mrs D be trusted to have correctly identified - from a mere photo - a man she was certain had come into her shop on the Monday, a day too early to have been Hanratty? I wonder what her reaction would have been to hearing Hanratty's distinctive London accent?

Love,

Caz
X