A6 Rebooted

[Graham]

Briefly -

- re: Mrs Dalal, Alphon had an alibi provided by the men he from whom collected the Alamanacs that he sold. They stated he was at their premises at the time of the attack on Mrs D. This was accepted by the police.

- Acott obviously hoped that Alphon was the man (even though he had willingly given himself up), but whatever you might think of Basil he was a professional, and thus unable to actually charge Alphon unless he felt positive the charge would stick. Alphon was not charged.

- on the 'Michael Clark' i.d. parade, Valerie could hardly pick out Hanratty, as he wasn't there. But when she did see him, on a later parade, she recognised him immediately. A few months ago someone in a shop started talking to me as if he knew me; I'd never seen him before in my life, yet he took a bit of convincing that I wasn't who he thought I was. Human error.

- there was a rumour that Hanratty did actually confess to his spiritual advisor in Bedford Gaol, just prior to his execution. I have an article on it somewhere. To quote Dr Johnson: Depend upon it - if a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

Graham

[moste]

Quote : there was a rumour that Hanratty did actually confess to his spiritual advisor in Bedford Gaol, just prior to his execution. I have an article on it somewhere. To quote Dr Johnson: Depend upon it - if a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

Quite so .Its amazing how the finality of death ,reportedly, has people scrambling for any piece of reassurance , spiritually or otherwise. I have known of agnostics , and people who had never given a creator a second thought ,until stricken down ,then turn to the idea of a better place after this for consolation. How much heavier in Hanratty’s mind would the burden have been with the upbringing he had had. You can bet your life ,if he did it right, his confession would have been long and soul searching.
I would love to here the evidence of Hanratty’s spiritual advisor claiming he had committed murder . Though if only a rumour...
Ive said my piece on the religious aspect anyway. Cheers.

[moste]

Briefly -

- re: Mrs Dalal, Alphon had an alibi provided by the men he from whom collected the Alamanacs that he sold. They stated he was at their premises at the time of the attack on Mrs D. This was accepted by the police.

- Acott obviously hoped that Alphon was the man (even though he had willingly given himself up), but whatever you might think of Basil he was a professional, and thus unable to actually charge Alphon unless he felt positive the charge would stick. Alphon was not charged.

- on the 'Michael Clark' i.d. parade, Valerie could hardly pick out Hanratty, as he wasn't there. But when she did see him, on a later parade, she recognised him immediately. A few months ago someone in a shop started talking to me as if he knew me; I'd never seen him before in my life, yet he took a bit of convincing that I wasn't who he thought I was. Human error.

- there was a rumour that Hanratty did actually confess to his spiritual advisor in Bedford Gaol, just prior to his execution. I have an article on it somewhere. To quote Dr Johnson: Depend upon it - if a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

Graham

The general thoughts by many on Valerie abandoning all thoughts of her original photo fit ( right down to the selected eye colour) were that she was now under the careful tutoring of Uncle ‘I knew I could rely on you’ Basil.

[Graham]

If it works, this is the link to the article I mentioned above:

Cassandra was the nom-de-plume of various Daily Mirror journalists. I'm not totally sure who actually wrote this article, as I have it stored on Google Chrome, which to my mind is a waste of space. If the link doesn't work, please let me know and I'll see if anything can be done. I make no further comment regarding it - for the reader to decide.

Graham

https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Cassa......-a086251934

[Graham]

The general thoughts by many on Valerie abandoning all thoughts of her original photo fit ( right down to the selected eye colour) were that she was now under the careful tutoring of Uncle ‘I knew I could rely on you’ Basil.

Clutching at straws, aren't you? Uncle Basil had never set eyes on Hanratty, nor was he even aware of his existence, when Valerie made the photofits.

Graham

[moste]

Clutching at straws, aren't you? Uncle Basil had never set eyes on Hanratty, nor was he even aware of his existence, when Valerie made the photofits.

Graham

Not really clutching at anything. Referencing Valerie’s inexplicable shift away from her original memories of her assailant via her controlled ,and concentrated efforts to give the best possible start for the police. Don’t get where Hanratty comes into this.

[moste]

If it works, this is the link to the article I mentioned above:

Cassandra was the nom-de-plume of various Daily Mirror journalists. I'm not totally sure who actually wrote this article, as I have it stored on Google Chrome, which to my mind is a waste of space. If the link doesn't work, please let me know and I'll see if anything can be done. I make no further comment regarding it - for the reader to decide.

Graham

https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Cassa......-a086251934

Yep that worked , thanks Graham.

[cobalt]

I would put reported deathbed confessions to priests in the same category as cell mate confessions: utterly worthless. I was a protestant so know little of the sense of absolution but I cannot imagine a priest would be likely to break the confidence of a man facing death, and even less likely to be so blunt. Would he not find a form of ambiguous words along the lines of ‘So far as I am aware I think the case can rest in peace.’ I enjoyed the idea of a priest breaking the sacrament to a non Catholic. It smells like a load of rubbish.

One point I’ve made before and would welcome response to. Let’s suppose James Hanratty was the murderer but that he retrieved his spilled cartridge cases from the chair in the Vienna Hotel when they fell down. Was there any way thereafter for Acott to connect him to the A6 murder?

[moste]

[Quote.

One point I’ve made before and would welcome response to. Let’s suppose James Hanratty was the murderer but that he retrieved his spilled cartridge cases from the chair in the Vienna Hotel when they fell down. Was there any way thereafter for Acott to connect him to the A6 murder?

Good question . And the answer would be no, except someone decided Hanratty was going to take the rap, as part of the big plan. As Alphon succinctly commented, he was expendable! It may well be that Alphon was the Killer , and with a little help from his friends, had Hanratty as the fall guy.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if we could find out for certain ‘Who knew Whom’ in the A6 murder Saga?

[NickB]

Agreed. I can’t see how they could have traced Hanratty if he hadn’t left the cartridge cases in the Vienna.

I think this prompts two more questions:

1. – Would he have been traced if he had left the cartridge cases there but not given the same name and address to the car rental company and hotels in Ireland?
2. – Would he have been traced if he had done all those things but Alphon had not stayed at the Vienna?

The reason I ask (2) is that Crocker said he reported the cartridge cases to the police because of their previous enquiry about Alphon and them telling him it was in connection with the A6 murder. Without this he might have thought “I just don’t want the hassle” and binned them.

It may well be that Alphon was the Killer

The DNA proves that Alphon was not the killer. Even without this there is the evidence I mentioned in my last post.

A key document which needs to be uncovered is the the statement made to police by the manager of the Broadway House Hotel saying that he and his assistant Pichler saw Alphon at about 9pm on 22-Aug-61 and arranged his stay at the Vienna that night.

In court on 2-Sep-67 Detective Chief Inspector Henry Mooney gave evidence that Alphon could not have done the crime because Mooney “knew where he was at the time”. I take this to mean Mooney knew that Alphon went to the Broadway House Hotel, indicating the statement was still in police files at that time.

Alphon hoped this new found evidence would be revealed to the public and finally clear him (Woff – page 359) but the police must have realised that by doing so they would be raising some uncomfortable questions about Acott’s unscrupulous targetting of Alphon.

[Graham]

[SIZE=16px][FONT=times new roman]I would put reported deathbed confessions to priests in the same category as cell mate confessions: utterly worthless. I was a protestant so know little of the sense of absolution but I cannot imagine a priest would be likely to break the confidence of a man facing death, and even less likely to be so blunt. Would he not find a form of ambiguous words along the lines of ‘So far as I am aware I think the case can rest in peace.’ I enjoyed the idea of a priest breaking the sacrament to a non Catholic. It smells like a load of rubbish.

Well, this is a first: I agree with you. My brother was a High Anglican priest, not quite RC, but close. He heard confessions. I asked him about this claim, and his response was that a priest might not be too scrupulous about 'gossiping' regarding someone who'd nicked a bottle of wine from the off-licence (my brother's words....) but he simply could not accept that any committed Catholic cleric would ever, under any circumstances, pass on what a condemned man told him in the absolute secrecy of the confessional. Which is not to say that it didn't happen, but I would very, very much doubt that it did.

Graham

[cobalt]

We had a case in Glasgow in the early 1960s where a wife was given the last rites by a priest. It was pretty obvious that the husband was her killer but he claimed to have ‘gone out to the shop’ before she was attacked. This meant the priest’s knowledge was crucial to the investigation and he was put under great pressure to share what the wife had told him before death. He held firm, was threatened with prosecution if he did not testify in court, and consulted the Vatican for advice. He was told, ambiguously, to answer to his calling.

In the event the husband topped himself, or died- he was no youngster- so the case was never brought to prosecution. The young priest had been put in a terrible position but he never at any time broke the seal of confession. So I think he answered his calling although he may have intimated to the police there was no need to explore the case any further. That surely was as far as he could go.

NickB , Thanks for your honest assessment of the cartridge case evidence. Do we actually know it was Alphon, and not someone claiming to be him, who turned up at the Broadway Hotel?

[Graham]

As far as I can make out, no-one from The Broadway House was called in to take part in an ID parade on which Alphon stood. However, Snell and Nudds were. Snell failed to pick out Alphon; Nudds picked out two men, one of them being Alphon. I don't know if Mrs Galvez was ever asked to attend a parade. I have to say that it all seems a little slack on the part of the police, but maybe full information on all parades on which Alphon stood is lacking. If anyone has further information, I'd be please to see it. But realistically, I don't think there is any doubt at all that it was Alphon at both the Broadway House and The Vienna.

Graham

[NickB]

It depends how far you want to take the conspiracy idea. When Alphon was first interviewed, while staying at the Alexandra Court Hotel, he said then that he had booked into the Vienna via Broadway House. So I suppose you could imagine an elaborate plan for someone else to have booked into the Broadway in the name of Durrant, but this would be vulnerable to the staff at the Broadway pointing out that it was not Alphon if he were charged.

With regard to the priests, the other side has also been claimed here - that Hanratty told them he was innocent. This is equally unlikely. If each time a condemned man claimed innocence in his confessional this was made public, you would be able to deduce that in the other cases they had confessed guilt.

[NickB]

In 1967 Pichler told the Sunday Times he thought he could remember Alphon arriving at about 9pm, although I would be interested to know how the Sunday Times verified Alphon with him and how he could remember after 6 years. His manager who had made the statement to the police was no longer alive.

I'm sure that if Alphon had been charged in 1961 these two (whom Alphon referred to as the "two Jewish gentlemen") would have been asked to verify whether it was him.