A6 Rebooted

[Joshua Rogan]

Might this help?

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=14.096331460473348&lat=51.5138&lon=-0.6718&layers=10&b=1

[Alfie]

Might this help?

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=14.096331460473348&lat=51.5138&lon=-0.6718&layers=10&b=1

Good find. I'm presuming the little box with the X in it in the cornfield represents the pylon? And the P to the east of Taplow Station is the Old Station Inn?

The map gives a good idea of how close the cornfield was to Valerie's house (the oval-shaped street immediately east of Huntercombe Manor being Anthony Way, Valerie's address).

[Sherlock Houses]

Valerie took a few truths to the grave with her I believe. Hopefully Chief superintendent Mathews doesn’t do the same.

My feelings too, Moste. Michael Hanratty told me about three or four years ago [maybe slightly longer] that Roger Matthews was planning an autobiography in which he was intending to write about his team's thorough investigation into the A6 murder [and their conclusion that James Hanratty was completely innocent of that crime ]. It seems as if some external police pressure had been applied to Mr Matthews around that time not to write about his A6 findings if he wanted to secure his police pension rights. There doesn't appear to have been any update on the matter since that time or whether Mr Matthews has completely scrapped any ideas for that intended autobiography.
Mr Matthews comes across as being one of that rare breed of policeman to whom truth and justice must take precedence over anything else. Let's truly hope, for the sake of justice and truth, that this brave and principled man is somehow able to reveal those important A6 murder findings as far too much has been hidden and brushed under the carpet in this case.

Please, please rock the boat Mr Matthews.

[Graham]

Stating as you suggest that Mr Matthews concluded that Hanratty was innocent is one thing; in which case, would he have named the person he believed was the actual murderer?

Graham

[cobalt]

Matthews was quoted in the media as saying he believed three people were probably involved, although he never named them.

I would suggest that their names are well known to all of us: one who provided the weapon and later disposed of it; one who took on the mission and made a murderous mess of it; and one who arranged and later tried to ‘steer’ the enquiry away from its source.

Matthews must have been suspicious of the police attendance at the Swiss Cottage shopping arcade, making inquiries which identified a man called Ryan, before any cartridge cases were found at the Vienna Hotel. The later distraction of the tabloid story ‘I saw him at the dry cleaners’ is obviously no explanation for the police being there, whether the story be true or not. I have always assumed that Matthews was able to read the police records from that time and formed the opinion that the A6 investigation, which had made little progress, was being led in a false direction.

[Alfie]

Is this the same Roger Matthews who wrote an article on the case for the Daily Mail (May 8, 1999) that was riddled with errors? That Roger Matthews?

[cobalt]

I am sure it is the same man. I remember these inaccuracies were raised before so it would be useful to be reminded what they were.

The Daily Mail has never quite got over the abolition of Capital Punishment and probably sees Brexit as an opportunity to hold a referendum which might restore it. I would not trust the paper to reliably report on anyone who was questioning police infallibility.

[Joshua Rogan]

Good find. I'm presuming the little box with the X in it in the cornfield represents the pylon? And the P to the east of Taplow Station is the Old Station Inn?

Yes, those are pylons, but I believe the P is a police station. Wasn't the Old Station Inn west of the new station? I think it was on the little triangle of land where the road goes under the train track. Today the
site is a car dealership, next to the petrol station.

Here is another, more detailed map of the area. Some of the sheets may date from after the murder, though. Some show the proposed M4 but a quick google shows that this was the first section of the motorway to be completed, in 1961, so presumably would have been under construction at the time if not already finished.
https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoo...layers=193&b=1

[Sherlock Houses]

This must be the article mentioned in post 5811, Cobalt. Copied and pasted from Norma Buddle's post in May 2014. Riddled with millions of errors, lol.

DAILY MAIL ARTICLE PUBLISHED UNDER THE TITLE "THEY HANGED
THE WRONG MAN" (May 1999) . .written by Roger Matthews on the report he produced in 1996 after a year's research during which he led a team of 20 as Detective Chief Superintendent Roger Matthews of Scotland Yard.

James Hanratty, aged 24, an inadequate petty criminal, was executed on a grey April morning in 1962 for a cruel, cold-blooded - and apparently random - sex crime. Initially, few outside his immediate family mourned his passing.

These days, sadly, we are used to horrific killings by gunmen and the appalling litany of brutal sexual assaults. However, in that more innocent age, the bizarre evil of this attack shocked the entire nation. As a callow sixth former with a burning ambition to join the Metropolitan Police, I remember reading about the crime with incredulity. I certainly felt no sympathy for a man whom I knew nothing about.

Little could I know that more than thirty years later in 1995, it would fall to me, by now an experienced Detective Superintendent at Scotland Yard, to conduct a review of the case at the request of the Home Office. The Home Secretary was considering an application from the family's lawyers to refer the case to the Court of Appeal.

Normally, of course, it is the function of police officers to search out evidence of guilt. Here, though, I was being asked to consider whether someone whom had been hanged as a murderer while I was still a schoolboy had in fact gone to the gallows an innocent man.

It took me a year of painstaking research before I reached the somewhat unpalatable conclusion that a grievous miscarriage of justice had almost certainly taken place. On the available evidence, James Hanratty ought not to have been found guilty; and certainly not have been “hanged by the neck until dead” in Bedford jail.

Now, as the case awaits hearing in the Appeal Court, I feel I have to speak out, because I am so concerned about the entire episode. Gradually, during the investigation, my opposition to the death penalty strengthened. Such a measure is so appallingly irreversible.

As I burrowed through sixteen boxes of evidence and yellowing files and documents, I found a copy of the last letter dictated by Hanratty (he could barely write) shortly before his execution. It took on poignancy for me.

The letter was to his brother Michael- a man whose tenacity I have come to admire - and it contained a final, and unexpectedly moving and dignified appeal to clear his name. At the time, it had sparked a campaign led by his father, backed by John Lennon and including investigative writers such as Paul Foot. The campaign is still running.

"Well, Mick", said Hanratty in that letter, "I am going to do my best to face the morning with courage and strength and I am sure God will give me the courage to do so...I am going to ask you to do me a small favour, that is I would like you to clear my name of this crime.
Someone, somewhere is responsible for this crime and one day they will venture out again and then the truth will come out, and then that will be the chance for you to step in. Well the time is drawing near, it is almost daylight, so please look after Mum and Dad for me. . .. I only wish I could have the chance over again. But never mind, Mick, as I don't know what I have done to deserve this. But Mick, that's fate for you. . . your loving brother Jim".

Hanratty died an hour or so later, still protesting his innocence to the Roman Catholic priest who gave him the last rites.

Of course, I didn’t base my professional assessment of Hanratty's guilt upon the hanged man's last words, no matter how impressive. Yet I couldn’t but wonder why this 25year-old had gone to his grave protesting his innocence with such quiet determination and dignity. Unless, of course, he really was innocent.

So, what exactly had James Hanratty been accused of? Well, the basic story has never been in dispute. At around 9.30 on the evening of 22nd August 1961, lovers Michael Gregsten, 36, and Valerie Storie, 22, were enjoying an illicit tryst in a grey Morris Minor owned by his aunt.

They had to be discreet because he was married with two small sons; and because they both worked at the Slough Road Research Laboratory in Borehamwood. Michael was a scientist and Valerie a research assistant.

They were parked in a remote cornfield at Dorney Reach, itself somewhat remote, near Taplow in Buckinghamshire. It was a location they had used before. Suddenly they were interrupted by a tap on the window. Gregsten wound it down and was forced out of the car at gunpoint.

The gunman climbed into the rear and ordered Gregsten to get back in and drive off. The trio spent several hours driving around the suburbs of North-West London and beyond, whilst the gunman claimed he was a desperate fugitive bent on armed robbery. Bizarrely, he took items from them, including a valuable watch, which he returned prior to the brutal and callous shootings which were to follow.

Eventually, Gregsten was ordered to park in a lay-by at the grotesquely named Deadman's Hill on the A6 in Bedfordshire. The journey had been bad enough, but what followed was truly horrific. Gregsten was shot twice through the head and died instantly. Valerie was
forced to help remove the body of her murdered lover from the car.

Then she was savagely raped and shot at least four times. She was left for dead alongside Gregsten's body. In fact she was - and remains - paralysed from the waist down but her brain was undamaged. She was able to give the police an account of her ordeal as soon as she was rescued.
The Morris Minor car was found dumped the next day in Redbridge, East London; and the gun used in the crimes was discovered a day later beneath the back seat of a London bus.

Suddenly, there came the breakthrough. Two cartridge cases from the murder weapon were found in the basement of a cheap hotel in Maida Vale, North-West London. A check of the hotel register revealed the name of Peter Louis Alphon, a travelling sales representative who specialised in selling "Old Moore's Almanac". He had booked into this hotel for an overnight stay on the day of the murder; and had been questioned over strange behaviour in another, nearby hotel in Finsbury Park. The background to this was that he had apparently locked himself in his room in the Finsbury Park hotel for the five days immediately following the murder.

Staff at the Maida Vale hotel said they had not seen Alphon on the crucial night; and his mother did not confirm his alibi - wherein he had mentioned visiting her at around the time the murder took place. .

Alphon's name was therefore released to the press, and it has to be said in his favour that he gave himself up. At an identification parade, however, held at her hospital bedside, Valerie Storie selected someone else and Alphon was released.

Police attention turned to Hanratty, who by common consent had stayed at the hotel on the night before the murder. He refused to give himself up because he was - and perhaps more importantly knew that he was - wanted for two offences of burglary on fingerprint evidence. On the telephone to police, he vehemently denied being responsible for the. crimes. No fingerprints or indeed any other forensic evidence had been discovered in the car. He was alleged to have told the interviewing officer that he was a "really clever" criminal who never left fingerprints. This was more than a little odd. All of his convictions had resulted from his leaving his prints at crime scenes.

He never wavered in his denial. On 11th October he was arrested in a cafe in Blackpool and charged after Valerie had selected him on an identification parade. Intriguingly, he bore not the remotest resemblance to the man she had identified (wrongly, of course) at the Alphon parade.

Miss Storie insisted, however, that this time, she was "positive" that Hanratty was the killer. It was a rather unusual “parade”. She was unable to visually identify any one; and asked that each participant uttered the words she said had been used repeatedly by the gunman. They were “Keep quiet: I’m Finking” – in a cockney accent. Hanratty was the only man on the parade born within a hundred miles of London!! Nowadays, this would be totally discredited.

The trial was the longest in English legal history and Valerie was obviously the chief prosecution witness. Hanratty initially refused to disclose where he had been on the night in question, and this weighed heavily against him.

Then he claimed that he had been in Liverpool. He was not able to substantiate this alibi and changed it during the trial, saying that in fact he had been staying in a guesthouse in the North Wales resort of Rhyl.

There was insufficient time to confirm this story - though his graphic description of the room he had occupied was quite extraordinarily accurate - and the landlady was uncertain
as to the dates upon which he had stayed. Therefore, this somewhat belated alibi collapsed, and Hanratty was convicted.

Following the failure of his appeal and the rejection of a petition signed by 90,000 people, he was hanged.

Soon afterwards, Alphon claimed to a writer that he was responsible for the outrage, whilst acting as a "hitman" whose task it had been to separate Michael and Valerie and frighten the former into returning to his wife and children.

Alphon supposedly made an identical admission to journalist Paul Foot.He has certainly been making it down the decades to anyone prepared to listen. Foot also discovered, incidentally, fourteen witnesses who supported Hanratty's claim to have been in Rhyl at the time of the atrocity.

Having got these basic facts straight, I began to worry about such matters as motive and opportunity. Why on earth would Hanratty, a petty if fairly determined urban burglar, suddenly take a gun and loiter in a very rural cornfield in Buckinghamshire?

Cornfields are hardly the most lucrative locations for armed robberies. Nor is it immediately obvious that the surrounding area would have been a source of rich pickings for a robber, particularly one with no apparent means of transport

It was common knowledge that Hanratty was a skilled car thief and that when arrested, he had in his pocket the keys for a Jaguar which he had stolen and driven around England for some weeks. Why did he not have a getaway car on the night in question? In addition, why did he need Valerie' s assistance to help start the very basic Morris Minor?

According to her, he did not even know how to change gear until she taught him. It just did not make any sense.

Then I turned to the prosecution case. The first thing to strike me was how thin it was. It would most certainly not have been sufficient to secure a conviction today.

There was, for instance, no forensic material. Instead, the prosecution relied upon identification evidence: from Valerie and two witnesses who claimed to have seen Hanratty driving the Morris Minor erratically in East London soon after the shootings. Their evidence was totally unreliable – and was in fact rejected at the trial.

Then there was the convenient discovery, three weeks later, of bullet cases, which had been fired from the murder weapon, in the hotel room used by Hanratty on the eve of the shooting. An odd event. The room had been occupied on at least two occasions in the intervening period. It had also been cleaned. Why had the cases not been discovered?

Next emerged the fact that the murder weapon had been discovered beneath the back seat of a 36A Bus - where a witness, Charles France, who later committed suicide, said that
Hanratty claimed to have got rid of, as a matter of course, valueless proceeds of his burglaries. The suicide in itself was a matter of some concern, since it coincided with the date of Hanratty's unsuccessful appeal. I found it strange that a killer would dispose of the murder weapon in such a fashion, when the Thames was available! Additionally, the route of the bus concerned passed France’s address. I couldn’t interview him, though!

Finally, there was an alleged confession to a fellow prison inmate. This, as far as I was able to establish, had been totally discredited at the trial.

It is very difficult to judge old cases by modern standards. Before the Police and Criminal Evidence Act for instance, the prosecution was able to be selective about just what evidence it disclosed.

. Today, it is under an obligation to present all relevant material. Had everything been disclosed in this case - in particular, but by no means only, details of the various identifications - the jury would have been given at least the chance to arrive at a different conclusion.

Other legislation and the impact of case law have had a marked effect on the way in which investigations and criminal trials are conducted. Indeed, the very first step in my investigation was a DNA analysis of a semen stain on Valerie's underwear - Hanratty's lawyers had hoped this would settle the matter once and for all.

The result was unfortunately inconclusive because the science was still insufficiently advanced.

Finally, as I dug still deeper, I came across matters that concerned me profoundly about the conduct of the investigation. It would be wholly improper for me to reveal details before the appeal hearing. Mention of “KIP”. Original notes of phone calls. The hotel register (copy). Disparity between evidence of SIO and Oxford. The manner in which a “J Ryan” was traced – smelled of informant. Postcard utterly impossible

Eventually, I acquainted my senior officers with my conclusion: a quite breathtaking miscarriage of justice had seemed to have taken place; just as Hanratty's family, friends and several distinguished writers had always maintained.

My views were endorsed by my then Commander, Roy Ramm, head of the Yard's International and Organized Crime Group. In May 1996, we reported jointly and formally that the Metropolitan Police would not oppose a Home Office recommendation to the Home Secretary advising him to refer the case to the Court of Appeal. I was assured that a decision would be arrived at ''within weeks".

This did not happen. Politicians had dodged the issue for over thirty years. The incumbent at the Home Office obviously saw no reason to depart from tradition. . .
In April 1997 - perhaps appropriately on the 1st - a new body called the Criminal Cases Review Commission was set up. The matter was placed in their hands.

Some time soon, the hearing will begin. Obviously, I have not the remotest idea which way the decision will go. Having said that, whether the conviction is quashed or upheld I find it quite appalling that the Hanratty family has been made to wait for this length of time.

The entire history of this matter has been characterized by delay, and apparent resistance to the notion that politicians may have been mistaken in their assessment of submissions made on this young man's behalf There has also been a quite disgraceful reluctance to accept that the prosecution case was extraordinarily weak, or to consider the possibility that some other person may just have been responsible.

In truth, there was little in my confidential report that would not have been available to a committed investigator at any time during the past thirty-seven years.

I do hope that justice will be done, in whatever form, when the Court of Appeal hears the case.

Yet I recall the old adage: justice delayed is justice denied.

My heart goes out to the Hanratty family, who have waited so long for their day in court.

Please Note:
Those familiar with the Hanratty case will know Roger Matthews was, at the time of the 1996 report,a Detective Chief Superintendent at Scotland Yard.A graduate of Cambridge University he was given a team of 20 police detectives to plough through 16 boxes of files and other matters relating to the case after the Home Office had instructed Scotland Yard to write an updated report on the Hanratty case. It is my understanding that on the evidence Matthews had at his disposal in 1996 he believed Hanratty was completely innocent and should never have been charged.His report has never been published and he is said to retain his belief that Hanratty had nothing to do with the A6 murder.

[moste]

Yes, those are pylons, but I believe the P is a police station. Wasn't the Old Station Inn west of the new station? I think it was on the little triangle of land where the road goes under the train track. Today the
site is a car dealership, next to the petrol station.

Here is another, more detailed map of the area. Some of the sheets may date from after the murder, though. Some show the proposed M4 but a quick google shows that this was the first section of the motorway to be completed, in 1961, so presumably would have been under construction at the time if not already finished.
https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoo...layers=193&b=1

Interestingly when the alleged gunman made them turn left out of the field , then down to the A4, pausing to question ‘which way does left take us’ ? and then ‘ what’s to the right?’ , there was a police station almost right opposite!

[cobalt]

SH,

I was looking for errors but until Alfie replies I am at a bit of a loss. The article claims Michael Gregsten was a ‘scientist’ but for whatever reason the standard version wishes to play down his level of responsibility. The relationship between Valerie Storie who is described as a ‘research assistant' and Gregsten the ‘scientist’ does make sense to me on a doctor/nurse scenario.

Matthews claims that Alphon was not seen at the Vienna Hotel which could be construed as an error. He was ‘seen’ by Dudds in one statement, and ‘not seen’ in another statement, although the evidence placing him at the hotel in the late morning following the crime by Mrs. Galves is generally accepted as correct. Alphon’s presence at a hotel where he ‘paid’ a deposit in the morning, long before his arrival, and about 30 years before credit cards were available, has obviously been questioned. We do not know if Matthews had access to the hotel register which was at the time appropriated by Oxford and Acott and drew different conclusions.

Matthews does not mention the Swiss Cottage problem, to which I have never received a credible response on this site over the years. However he is suspicious about the postcard from Ireland that followed the police interest in Swiss Cottage identifying a Mr. Ryan and the later discovery of cartridge cases which eventually did the same.

[NickB]

"Staff at the Maida Vale hotel said they had not seen Alphon on the crucial night."
This is indeed misleading because he is swallowing Nudds discredited and disavowed second statement.

When the appeal was subsequently heard in 2002, the defence rejected the Alphon blind alley that Matthews had gone down and instead claimed the Vienna books were altered by the police to frame Alphon.

Other strange statements:

"Gregsten wound down [the window] and was forced out of the car at gunpoint."
Valerie said they unlocked the back door, the gunman got in the car and sat in the back seat.

"[Hanratty] bore not the remotest resemblance to the man she had identified (wrongly, of course) at the Alphon parade."
Did he find Michael Clark?

"[Valerie] was unable to visually identify any one."
Valerie said that she did identify him visually, and subsequently the voice confirmed it.

"Hanratty was the only man on the parade born within a hundred miles of London!!"
Did he track down all id parade volunteers?

"The room [where the bullet cases were found] had been occupied on at least two occasions in the intervening period."
There is doubt about one intervening occupant, let alone two or more.

"[Skillet and Trower’s] evidence was totally unreliable – and was in fact rejected at the trial."
It was cross-examined at the trial, but unless he talked to the jurors he has no basis for suggesting it was rejected.

''His graphic description of the room was quite extraordinarily accurate - and the landlady was uncertain as to the date upon which he had stayed.''
She specified the date right at the beginning of her evidence. https://news.google.com/newspapers?i...6012%2C4520024
His 'graphic' description of the room specifically ruled out ‘Room 4’ - the one in which she said he stayed.

''[Foot] discovered, incidentally, fourteen witnesses who supported Hanratty's claim to have been in Rhyl at the time of the atrocity''.
Does he really accept the claims of all these witnesses?

"[Hanratty] had in his pocket the keys for a Jaguar which he had stolen and driven around England for some weeks."
The Jaguar had been driven once for a few hours, not around England for some weeks.

[cobalt]

All of Nudds’ statements have been discredited by he himself, so we can pick and choose at leisure what ones to believe, if indeed any.

How the murderer entered the car is based on Valerie Storie’s evidence. I agree Matthews has no obvious source to contradict her.

No one, Valerie Storie included, has ever claimed that Mr Clark resembled Hanratty. It would have helped her credibility very much if she had been able to establish this.

Again, we only have Valerie Storie’s evidence that she identified Hanratty visually. If Hanratty could have pulled off an Irish accent would she have discounted him?

Most of the ID volunteers would surely have come within 100 miles of London so I agree this is an overstatement. Then again, Matthews may have seen the names and addresses of the volunteers.

I did not know that there was a dispute whether Room 24 had been occupied post Hanratty. I gathered that at least one person had been there, although the Vienna Hotel register is not a reliable source.

Matthews has no reason to comment on how the jury reacted to the evidence of Trower and Skillet that we are aware of.

In the standard version of events the landlady’s evidence is dismissed when she establishes Hanratty’s presence, but taken as holy writ when it conflicts with his account.

The alibi witnesses are of varying quality as one would expect. Their number is surprisingly high when weighed against the failure of anyone, other than Valerie Storie, seeing Hanratty anywhere near Taplow.

The Jaguar statement is I assume conflating a number of car thefts over a period of time so is not correct. The overall point- that Hanratty was capable of driving a car without crashing it- stands.

[NickB]

And the Independent quoted a 'police source' saying his report recommended "examining Peter Alphon, a salesman who was the original suspect" hired "to break up the illicit liaison".

If Matthews had uncovered some evidence against Alphon, why did the defence not use it in their Appeal? Instead they exonerated Alphon and even suggested he had been framed by the police.

So I think those expecting any new revelations in the report, if it is ever published, will be disappointed.

[Alfie]

Nick could have added:

"Gregsten ... died instantly. Valerie was forced to help remove the body of her murdered lover from the car. Then she was savagely raped and shot at least four times."

Gregsten died from asphyxiation, which is hardly instantaneous. Valerie was raped before Gregsten's body was removed from the car.

"A check of the hotel register revealed the name of Peter Louis Alphon ..."

Alphon signed the Vienna's register as F. Durrant.

"Hanratty initially refused to disclose where he had been on the night in question, and this weighed heavily against him."

I've seen no evidence to support this. Acott appears not to have asked about an alibi until his third telephone conversation with Hanratty (Oct 7), when Jim volunteered the fact that he'd been in Liverpool at the time of the murder. What weighed heavily against him was his change of alibi.

"Following the failure of his appeal and the rejection of a petition signed by 90,000 people, he was hanged."

The petition actually collected 23,000 signatures.

"Then there was the convenient discovery, three weeks later, of bullet cases ... Next emerged the fact that the murder weapon had been discovered beneath the back seat of a 36A Bus ..."

The revolver was found well before the cartridge cases were.

"... the route of the bus concerned passed France’s address ..."

The bus route didn't come within a kilometer of Dixie's home.

Matthews concludes by saying, "In truth, there was little in my confidential report that would not have been available to a committed investigator at any time during the past thirty-seven years", which I think rules out the possibility that the report contains some startling revelation that will prove Hanratty's innocence once and for all.