A6 Rebooted

[moste]

Ok. Oddly enough I can watch the 54 minuted documentary 1992 ‘mystery of deadman’s hill ‘ but I’m here in Canada, so not sure how that works; there is also the serialized 8 minute segments we can get also . I wonder if you could watch it in Europe? Still ,Censorship for the Brits thanks to the BBC, with possible police pressure. Think I’ll watch again , maybe we’re missing something!

[gallicrow]

I can watch the videos from the UK when I'm at work (haven't tried at home for a while). However I've noticed that sometimes websites think I'm in Romania, something to do with how the work network is set up. I wonder if using a private window would mask your location?

I've just remembered something else - about a year ago I got fed up with websites trying to send me location-targeted adverts, so I switched off the option of Firefox to let them know my location by going to "about:config" - search for "geo.enabled" and change the value to "false".

[Sherlock Houses]

Ok. Oddly enough I can watch the 54 minuted documentary 1992 ‘mystery of deadman’s hill ‘ but I’m here in Canada, so not sure how that works; there is also the serialized 8 minute segments we can get also . I wonder if you could watch it in Europe? Still ,Censorship for the Brits thanks to the BBC, with possible police pressure. Think I’ll watch again , maybe we’re missing something!

The 54 minute 6 seconds version [uploaded by Claud Delapaz 3 years ago] you're referring to here Moste has a full 10 minutes chopped off it from the 64 minute original version I posted 6 years ago.
Re. the bbc studios copyright claim... the actual bbc content in the original 64 minute Ch 4 documentary amounts to less than a paltry minute [taken from their November 1966 Panorama documentary]. Now would you even be bothered going to such lengths...... putting in such a pathetic copyright claim and thereby prevent further public online viewing of an important documentary ??? Beggars belief doesn't it ?

[Sherlock Houses]

Sparing a thought today for Michael Gregsten on the 58th anniversary of his murder. The seemingly overlooked and forgotten victim of this whole affair. Often referred to as being a Research Physicist/Scientist I have often wondered about the true nature of Mike's work at the Road Research Laboratory and just exactly what his research entailed. It's difficult trying to find out any detailed or penetrative information about this Government owned institution which was originally founded in 1933. Could it have been a front for more secretive work going on behind it's high walls or fences ? Interesting that it's location, Langley, shares the same name as the location of the Central Intelligence Agency [aka Conspirators In Assassinations] in Virginia.
R.I.P Mike.

[cobalt]

Paul Foot and his A6 Committee were not really conspiracists; their target was the shortcomings of the UK legal system which they believed had resulted in a miscarriage of justice. Consequently, Paul Foot spent a great deal of time on Hanratty’s Rhyl alibi but did not find time to dig very deep into the background of the main players. He seems to have accepted the official version that Ewer was an antique shop owner, Alphon an aimless drifter, Gregsten some kind of research scientist.

What I think you are suggesting here, SH, is that possibly none of these three things are as they seem. Whether as a research scientist, or physicist as he is sometime called, Gregsten’s work may have had more of a military bent than merely testing asphalt surfaces and braking systems. It is admitted that the Road Research Laboratory did engage in military development during WW2, which is perfectly natural, but that is unlikely to have stopped during what we refer to as the Cold War. And in August 1961 the Cold War was very hot indeed, with the Berlin Wall being built across that city; this a few months after the trials of the Portland Spy Ring in March and George Blake in May.

However there has as yet been no scrap of evidence to link Gregsten to any kind of military or political espionage. So I regret to say that the idea is pure conspiracy conjecture. Except I will say a little more to show my sympathies, if nothing else. Where espionage is concerned there must, to conceal it, be counter narratives and non-barking dogs. We have seen this in the recent Salisbury case involving the (alleged) ex-spy Skripal where rather bizarrely a couple were poisoned over a month later, purportedly by novichok inside a perfume dispenser. The poison is deadly but failed to kill its intended victim(s), yet affected a police officer wearing a hazmat suit. Astonishingly, in this day of the mobile phone camera, not one photo has ever emerged taken by a casual observer of the emergency actions undertaken at the time to remove the Skripals into an air ambulance. No eye-witness who saw the Skripals on the bench has surfaced, outside that of a high ranking military medical officer who chanced to be in the vicinity. No low income hospital porter, no nurse on duty, has ever breathed a word to any reporter armed with a cheque book. The elephant in the room in this case is Porton Down, the chemical warfare HQ for the UK, which lies just a few miles outside Salisbury, a fact rarely reported in UK media outlets.

Sorry I can’t be more help, but neither the killing of Gregsten, maiming of Valerie Storie or the bungled attack on the Skripals have the fingerprints of MI6, the KGB, Mossad or the CIA. More likely would be a failed black market attempt at selling valuable information or products to rogue elements within a state apparatus. We know that Alphon’s bank balance was unaccountably healthy for a time, but did not Gregsten leave quite a respectable estate given he was providing for a wife, two children and a mistress?

[ansonman]

Waiting for Godot

I live in the (possibly misguided) hope that someone may yet come forward to tell us who the real murderer was and what was his motivation.

This hope has been reinforced by the identification earlier this month of the three great train robbers who got away. Rather like waiting for a bus, albeit for a startling 56 years, three turn up at the same time. Thus we have newspaper reports, followed by a TV documentary which reveal the true identity of the three: Sam Osterman, Freddie Sansom and Danny Pembroke. And all this within a matter of days, 56 years after the crime!

Admittedly, we may have to tread carefully. Gordon Goody named "The Ulsterman" as Patrick McKenna, in his book five years ago. McKenna's family were devastated by this and (quite rightly) insisted that he had nothing to do with the robbery. A few days ago we learned that the Ulsterman was in fact Sam Osterman. Former transport detective Graham Satchwell claims to have evidence that proves McKenna's innocence and identifies Osterman as the mystery gang member.

Perhaps the identity of the other two robbers by the son and a nephew is a little more reliable than that of a former transport detective but I'm willing to accept that we now know the identity of the three that got away, and that we learned about all of them within a matter of days.

I'm not a gambling man but I bet that if you had approached William Hill, as recently as January of this year, Bill would have given you better odds on the murderer of Gregsten being revealed than of the three mystery Great Train Robbers. We can only live in hope.

Like most of us who believe in Hanratty's innocence, I'm getting very fed up of standing at this bus stop.

Ansonman

[Graham]

Paul Foot and his A6 Committee were not really conspiracists; their target was the shortcomings of the UK legal system which they believed had resulted in a miscarriage of justice. Consequently, Paul Foot spent a great deal of time on Hanratty’s Rhyl alibi but did not find time to dig very deep into the background of the main players. He seems to have accepted the official version that Ewer was an antique shop owner, Alphon an aimless drifter, Gregsten some kind of research scientist.

What I think you are suggesting here, SH, is that possibly none of these three things are as they seem. Whether as a research scientist, or physicist as he is sometime called, Gregsten’s work may have had more of a military bent than merely testing asphalt surfaces and braking systems. It is admitted that the Road Research Laboratory did engage in military development during WW2, which is perfectly natural, but that is unlikely to have stopped during what we refer to as the Cold War. And in August 1961 the Cold War was very hot indeed, with the Berlin Wall being built across that city; this a few months after the trials of the Portland Spy Ring in March and George Blake in May.

However there has as yet been no scrap of evidence to link Gregsten to any kind of military or political espionage. So I regret to say that the idea is pure conspiracy conjecture. Except I will say a little more to show my sympathies, if nothing else. Where espionage is concerned there must, to conceal it, be counter narratives and non-barking dogs. We have seen this in the recent Salisbury case involving the (alleged) ex-spy Skripal where rather bizarrely a couple were poisoned over a month later, purportedly by novichok inside a perfume dispenser. The poison is deadly but failed to kill its intended victim(s), yet affected a police officer wearing a hazmat suit. Astonishingly, in this day of the mobile phone camera, not one photo has ever emerged taken by a casual observer of the emergency actions undertaken at the time to remove the Skripals into an air ambulance. No eye-witness who saw the Skripals on the bench has surfaced, outside that of a high ranking military medical officer who chanced to be in the vicinity. No low income hospital porter, no nurse on duty, has ever breathed a word to any reporter armed with a cheque book. The elephant in the room in this case is Porton Down, the chemical warfare HQ for the UK, which lies just a few miles outside Salisbury, a fact rarely reported in UK media outlets.

Sorry I can’t be more help, but neither the killing of Gregsten, maiming of Valerie Storie or the bungled attack on the Skripals have the fingerprints of MI6, the KGB, Mossad or the CIA. More likely would be a failed black market attempt at selling valuable information or products to rogue elements within a state apparatus. We know that Alphon’s bank balance was unaccountably healthy for a time, but did not Gregsten leave quite a respectable estate given he was providing for a wife, two children and a mistress?

Hello Cobalt,

I am in general agreement with your post - and sorry if I've taken a long time to respond, but things are bit hectic in Grahamtown just now.

Paul Foot was essentially of a rather upper-crust background, and when he was at Shrewsbury School met fellow pupils who eventually founded Private Eye, notably Richard Ingrams and Christopher Booker. He became, effectively, a class rebel and immersed himself in left-wing and communist rhetoric. Which is OK by me - each to his own. When he joined the staff of Private Eye, his was the first contribution I habitually turned to, because I appreciated how he was able to dig deep into social inequality (as he saw it) and do his best to right the wrongs done by The Establishment to the Common Man. However, he was eventually booted out by editor Richard Ingrams who disliked Foot's open adherence to international Socialism via his membership of the rather ludicrous Socialist Workers Party, an openly Trotskyist organisation. He stood as a SWP candidate in the 1977 Stechford (Birmingham) by-election when he polled a massive 1% of the votes. As a splendid example of true Socialism, he worked for Maxwell's Daily Mirror at a salary of £55000 a year, until he felt out with that journal and returned to Private Eye....again. However, he worked tirelessly in his support of the Carl Bridgewater case, and also the Bimringham Six, and he can't be knocked for that. However, when it came to the A6 and his support of James Hanratty, I believe he went just a little bit off the rails. He saw Hanratty as a downtrodden member of the 'Workers', who never had a chance in life, etc., etc. And I believe he saw Gregsten and Storie as the diametric opposites, which in fact they were not.

Gregsten and Storie were killed by the random and utterly irresponsible action of a challenged individual called James Hanratty.

Gregsten had had a good education, including a spell in the RAF, but for all that he was really just a kind of senior technician, initially at the Fire Research Labs in Borehamwood. In 1956, after at least one other job, he joined the Road Research Association at Langley, but I can't find any evidence to show that he was, again, much more than a senior lab technician. The RRA had been involved, during WW2, in the development of Barnes Wallis's Dambuster bomb, and later (or so I believe) in his Tallboy 'earthquake' bomb, purely investigating the possible effect on their targets. But this was well before Gregsten's employment at the RRL. Whilst he was employed by the RRL, his mental problems became somewhat intensified. There is no way such a person would ever have been employed by the Government to undertake work in any restricted or sensitive area, or to be officially employed in espionage. No chance. To suggest, as someone once did, that Gregsten and Storie were eliminated because they were about to scoot off to the Soviet Union is totally absurd. They were never in any position to take any Government 'secrets' with them. I myself, back in the late 1960's, was employed in a technical capacity in the design and manufacture of certain items for use in Concorde - I had to sign the Official Secrets Act (big deal), yet I don't recall any dark characters in macs and big hats offering me big money to defect to the Soviet Union. Gregsten and Storie were little more than senior lab technicians, as I was; nothing more.

Gregsten and Storie were killed by the random and utterly irresponsible action of a challenged individual called James Hanratty. Alphon? Forget him - he had nothing to do with it. And if Gregsten left a bob or two, it would have been life-insurance. There is no legend surrounding these two people.

Graham

[cobalt]

Hi Graham,
Your synopsis of Gregsten and Ms. Storie’s working lives is more likely to be true than any other scenario. If they had been working in sensitive security areas then surely Paul Foot would have picked up a whisper somewhere down the line. Some fellow worker, now deceased, would likely have given a dark hint to a relative before his or her demise. Mental health issues would not be a barrier to working in such areas however: most operatives who defected in the past usually had a fair amount of personal baggage which they hoped to leave behind.

I tend to agree with your opinion that Paul Foot saw Hanratty as a proletarian victim of the Establishment. What I cannot share it your great confidence that Foot was misguided and that Hanratty was indeed guilty. It may be significant that Alphon, from the opposite end of the political spectrum, reached the same conclusion as Foot. The first five things which spring to my mind and suggest there is more to the case than officially recognised are:

1. Ms. Storie’s form of words about picking up a man near Slough. (Perhaps due to her distress, yet significantly the first words spoken after her ordeal.)
2. The failure of the police to establish when the car was abandoned. (Did they even feel the radiator?)
3. The failure to develop any forensic evidence from the car itself. (No easy explanation for this.)
4. The appearance of the police making enquiries which related to J. Ryan at Swiss Cottage shopping arcade, prior to the discovery of cartridge cases at the Vienna Hotel. (Unless we accept Ewer’s coloured version of events.)
5. And of course the cartridge cases themselves, which lay undiscovered for some weeks and were crucial in the investigation which had by then stalled. (The room had been cleaned in the interim.)

[Graham]

Hi Cobalt,

1. Ms. Storie’s form of words about picking up a man near Slough. (Perhaps due to her distress, yet significantly the first words spoken after her ordeal.)
2. The failure of the police to establish when the car was abandoned. (Did they even feel the radiator?)
3. The failure to develop any forensic evidence from the car itself. (No easy explanation for this.)
4. The appearance of the police making enquiries which related to J. Ryan at Swiss Cottage shopping arcade, prior to the discovery of cartridge cases at the Vienna Hotel. (Unless we accept Ewer’s coloured version of events.)
5. And of course the cartridge cases themselves, which lay undiscovered for some weeks and were crucial in the investigation which had by then stalled. (The room had been cleaned in the interim.)

1. Yes - a puzzle. And I have always thought so, even given Valerie's obviously distressed condition. However, she stuck to her story that Hanratty hi-jacked the car in the field, possibly for transport back to London. Why they ended up in Deadman's Hill is another mystery, but bear in mind that Hanratty had an aunt who lived in Bedford, and had travelled there to see her more than once. Also significant that when he got his Sunbeam passion-wagon he took Gladys Deacon to Bedford for a day out, as well as to do a bit of fencing.

2. Woffinden seemed to think that the car had been abandoned not long before it was spotted. However, a resident also had a grey Morris Minor parked outside her house, so that could well have led to some confusion.

3. Another puzzle, and I can only suggest that Hanratty stopped somewhere to give the car a thorough cleaning inside. On the other hand, would it have occurred to him to do so, as he was nicked via finger-prints when burgling? He was according to Valerie wearing gloves for most of the time, though.

4. Wasn't this to do with his pranging the car he hired in Ireland? I think Ewer was a bit excitable, and does strike me as being somewhat self-important, but again we'll never know precisely what he did.

5. The Vienna was often described as a 'doss-house', which I don't think it was, but it was a cheap hotel used by persons such as commercial-travellers (as they were known in those days), couples having a dirty weekend, and also, or so I think I once read, gay men. The cleaning-regime and general maintenance wasn't great, which doubtless explains the piece of material spotted hanging under the chair on which the cases were found. I suppose it's not out of the question that 'someone' may have planted them there to finger Hanratty, but I rather think that Hanratty had the gun with him the night he stayed there, and let the empty cases fall onto the chair, probably without noticing them. They were, I believe, in the crevice between the seat and back of the chair, and thus likely difficult to see.

Graham

[WallaceWackedHer]

Shame Hanratty is a murderer. His poor family are still trying to clear his name. If he'd just been honest with them (even in private away from officials of the law) maybe they could be at SOME sort of peace and closure instead of living in the tortured belief that their innocent relative had been hanged and chasing after some proof of his innocence.

[moste]

It is disconcerting that people make wild statements of fact about Hanratty's guilt. His poor family as you call them are better placed to know whether their brother was innocent or not than you are ever likely to be.
The actual facts of this case are so engulfed in corruption, shrouded in lies, coincidence's, various governments interference and incredible procrastination, and enigma's, that it would be necessary to read the appropriate 'Hansard' entries, the number of pertinent books that are available, historic newspaper articles, documentary's, and to read as much of the A6 rebooted casebook forum, that wise old participants have posted over the years , before treating us all to the 'outlandish statement above!

[WallaceWackedHer]

Yeah I guess, except he definitely did it.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Yeah I guess, except he definitely did it.

What!? I read through 382 pages, when all I needed to do was read the last post!?

[WallaceWackedHer]

What!? I read through 382 pages, when all I needed to do was read the last post!?

Yes. Lmfao.

I think there's probably a lot of old people who were team Hanratty before it came out he probably did it, and simply won't let it go.

No doubt his trial was unfair and the police biased etc. but of course that doesn't prove he's innocent. If this happened in 2019 I can promise you 1000000% that he'd have been arrested, tried, and convicted based on the evidence. At best he'd be one of those innocent people with life sentences in jail, because he WOULD be found guilty.

The only rational way to explain his innocence is to say that modern police in this era framed him on purpose. Even though in many other cases posthumous pardons have been granted etc.

[Sherlock Houses]

It is disconcerting that people make wild statements of fact about Hanratty's guilt. His poor family as you call them are better placed to know whether their brother was innocent or not than you are ever likely to be.
The actual facts of this case are so engulfed in corruption, shrouded in lies, coincidence's, various governments interference and incredible procrastination, and enigma's, that it would be necessary to read the appropriate 'Hansard' entries, the number of pertinent books that are available, historic newspaper articles, documentary's, and to read as much of the A6 rebooted casebook forum, that wise old participants have posted over the years , before treating us all to the 'outlandish statement above!

Well said Moste. Intriguingly enough just yesterday I came across another edition of the Daily Mirror from August 24th 1961. I have tons upon tons of 'A6 murder' related newspaper articles which I have downloaded over the course of the last 11 years but had never seen this particular edition. It makes fascinating reading indeed and I don't think Paul Foot or Bob Woffinden must have come across this edition, otherwise I feel sure they would have made some mention of it in their books. This is the front page of the edition I have had since 2008...........



Compare that with the edition I came across yesterday.......



Like others I have long been under the impression that the person who informed the police of the discovery of the murder car was a certain
Allan Madwar. Mr Madwar was walking his dog along Avondale Crescent around 6.30 on the evening of the murder when he came upon the
Morris Minor.
So here we have a situation, on the evening of August 24th 1961, of an anonymous, husky voiced man phoning the police to tell them where
they can find the murder car. Using a phone box less than 20 yards away the caller gives a phoney name but with a real address in Wanstead.
A senior police officer tells the Mirror reporter Hugh Curnow that it's probable that the murderer, a man with a warped mentality, made the call.
Reading between the lines there must have been some tell-tale sign in the man's manner which led police to believe they were speaking with
the murderer.
A 'catch me if you can' scenario ?? I wonder if that call-box was actually on Avondale Crescent or around the corner by the shops ?
Surely, depending on the competence or otherwise of Scotland Yard, there must have been attempts at a follow-up on the intriguing phone call ???
If so we are left, unsurprisingly, completely in the dark about the whole matter.

Now I wonder who could have loved playing mind games with telephone calls around that time ??