A6 Rebooted

[moste]

Incidently I have mentioned before. I don’t believe that , that her parents knew about Mikes marital status. I can’t believe they were so into the 60s liberation thing.

[Graham]

Incidently I have mentioned before. I don’t believe that , that her parents knew about Mikes marital status. I can’t believe they were so into the 60s liberation thing.

I just checked, and find in Foot page 37, the following:

Mrs Marjorie Storey, who knew perfectly well that her daughter was in love with Gregsten, was quoted in the Daily Herald as saying: "There is nothing between them". Mrs Storey reinforced the 'hitch-hiker' theory with the information, printed in the Daily Sketch, that: "Michael was so kind-hearted he would give anyone a lift".

If Foot elaborates on this statement further in his book, I haven't the time just now to look for it, but he seemed quite satisfied that Valerie's mother, and presumably her father as well, were aware of her affair with Gregsten. As far as I can remember Woffinden doesn't examine this aspect.

Small point, Moste: the Sixties 'liberation thing' kicked off later in the decade than 1961. As I well remember....but it's said anyone who can remember the Sixties wasn't there!

Graham

[cobalt]

I can’t really see the jealous husband angle. A cuckolded husband traditionally turns his anger on his wife rather than his rival. Even if a betrayed husband had indeed sought out Michael Gregsten, surely the presence of Valerie Storie must have blunted his desire for revenge. In a way she was the husband’s ally by deflecting Gregsten’s carnal desires. Why not turf her out the car at the cornfield, after telling Valerie what a rat Gregsten was, and then conducting whatever his mission was after that? The rape of Valerie Storie after Gregsten had been shot dead hardly fits with the idea of an honest but wronged husband. Would raping Valerie Storie help convince his wife he really loved her? Hardly, yet such a seduced wife must have strongly suspected her husband of being the perpetrator and kept her silence.

I agree with Moste that the police ‘fitted up’ Hanratty in the way he describes. They needed a conviction and convinced themselves that Hanratty was the culprit to which end they applied all possible means. That doesn’t establish Hanratty as innocent but it reveals police awareness that the evidence was not sufficiently in favour of the prosecution. No forensics despite murder and rape in car. No credible motive. No witnesses at Taplow or Deadman’s Hill. Tenuous links between Hanratty and murder weapon established but no witness to say he ever handled a gun in his life. That’s pretty thin gruel and Acott knew it. The insertion of the word ‘kip’ into a statement by Hanratty should have really have had alarm bells ringing inside the heads of the jurors.

[cobalt]

The hitch hiker story is clearly nonsense. How many of us have picked up a hitch hiker over the years? Most of us I imagine, but anytime I did this I was travelling alone during the day and naturally enough ran a quick scan over the character thumbing a lift before stopping. What I cannot believe is that a man accompanied by a woman would offer a male stranger a lift when darkness was falling.

‘We picked up a man near Slough.’ If Valerie Storie was telling the truth- she later denied saying this but at the time she thought her life might be expiring that is what John Kerr remembered her saying- then it was no hitch hiker. She presumably did not know who the man was, but Gregsten must have. Or at least he knew who had arranged for him to meet the stranger. Otherwise Gregsten wouldn’t have stopped.

[moste]

I can’t really see the jealous husband angle. A cuckolded husband traditionally turns his anger on his wife rather than his rival. Even if a betrayed husband had indeed sought out Michael Gregsten, surely the presence of Valerie Storie must have blunted his desire for revenge. In a way she was the husband’s ally by deflecting Gregsten’s carnal desires. Why not turf her out the car at the cornfield, after telling Valerie what a rat Gregsten was, and then conducting whatever his mission was after that? The rape of Valerie Storie after Gregsten had been shot dead hardly fits with the idea of an honest but wronged husband. Would raping Valerie Storie help convince his wife he really loved her? Hardly, yet such a seduced wife must have strongly suspected her husband of being the perpetrator and kept her silence.

I agree with Moste that the police ‘fitted up’ Hanratty in the way he describes. They needed a conviction and convinced themselves that Hanratty was the culprit to which end they applied all possible means. That doesn’t establish Hanratty as innocent but it reveals police awareness that the evidence was not sufficiently in favour of the prosecution. No forensics despite murder and rape in car. No credible motive. No witnesses at Taplow or Deadman’s Hill. Tenuous links between Hanratty and murder weapon established but no witness to say he ever handled a gun in his life. That’s pretty thin gruel and Acott knew it. The insertion of the word ‘kip’ into a statement by Hanratty should have really have had alarm bells ringing inside the heads of the jurors.

Very good then. But the requirement is to literally take everything of Valerie’s statements as etched in granite.
On the kip thing, Ive always had an issue with the reliance of the phrase ‘have a kip’ , growing up in Manchester in the 50s and 60s ‘kip ‘ was common enough, can’t speak for the rest of the country though. Though was under the impression it was a southern expression. What about the Midlands , Graham?

[Graham]

"We picked up a hitch-hiker" does sound rather better than "We were having it off in a field" when speaking within the hearing of the early-1960's gutter-press. Very likely she said this with the feelings of her parents in mind. I don't suppose many people with more than a few brain-cells genuinely believed the hitch-hiker story.

Graham

[Graham]

Cobalt,

the police were also trying their damndest to fit-up Alphon, weren't they? When Valerie failed to recognise him their 'case' fell apart, and until the cartridge-cases were found they were floundering. Even then, they had a hard slog ahead of them.

Graham

[Graham]

Lots of posts crossing here.

Far as I know, the word 'kip' was originally a noun, meaning some place to doss down for the night. Also as far as I know, it's fairly universal in this country, and it was certainly in use in Birmingham when I was a nipper ages ago.

Graham

[cobalt]

I agree that had Alphon been picked out of the line up then the very same police tactics would have been employed against him. It’s possible that even some of the same witnesses- Trower and the like- would have made the same statements except this time against Alphon. No doubt Langsdale, the prison grass, would have picked up some damning admission in the prison exercise yard. And a retinue of almanac sellers and right wing crackpots would have taken the stand to confirm that Alphon once said a cornfield was ‘a good place to make a moral statement.’ He’d even inquired about acquiring a gun to further the cause.

Regarding the hitch hiker cover story, at the time Valeerie Storie claimed that they were planning a route for an upcoming rally of some sort. That was almost certainly true so she could have gasped something similar to John Kerr about sitting in the car planning a route when a man burst in.

The word ‘kip’ is probably used all across the UK. I heard it as a boy in central Scotland. Probably British army slang.

[Graham]

Yes, Valerie said that she and Mike were planning a car-rally when they were parked in the cornfield. But planning a car-rally in the dusk of a late summer evening? Somehow I don't think so, but of course standards were somewhat different back then, and I'm sure she said that to save blushes, even though she was very badly injured. But she and Mike certainly took part in the car rallies at the RRL.

Graham

[Alfie]

Woffinden (p.243) tries to make an issue out of the fact that a WPC on Aug 24 recorded Valerie as saying that “I did have a good look at him [the gunman] when I was in the back of the car when I was trying to soften him up”, only for her to tell Acott on Sept 11 that “… the only time I saw him to get a look at him was after he’d shot Mike, when he was still in the back seat of the car and I was in the front, when he pulled me round to face him, and a car came from behind as it were, and lit up his face.”

To Woffinden, the discrepancy is further evidence of Valerie's unreliability as a witness.

But I think it's possible that the WPC misheard her, and what she actually said was “I did have a good look at him when he was in the back of the car …”

Foot reports that Valerie “whispered” her description of the killer to Whiffen and the WPC, so it might be that the WPC didn’t properly catch what she said.

There's also the fact that the “when I was trying to soften him up” part doesn’t really gel with the rest of her description of being in the back seat only long enough for the gunman to rape her.

If Valerie did get two sightings of the gunman's face wouldn't it tend to bolster the reliability of her identification? At any rate, I can't see it being a fact that the prosecution would want to suppress.

It might also be significant that Woffinden has Valerie giving her Aug 24 statement to WPC Margaret Walters – the note-taker when Acott interviewed her at Guys Hospital on Sept 11 – rather than WPC Rutland (later Woodin) or WI Arnett, whom both Foot and Woffinden say interviewed her at Bedford Hospital on the 24th.

[Graham]

It might also be significant that Woffinden has Valerie giving her Aug 24 statement to WPC Margaret Walters – the note-taker when Acott interviewed her at Guys Hospital on Sept 11 – rather than WPC Rutland (later Woodin) or WI Arnett, whom both Foot and Woffinden say interviewed her at Bedford Hospital on the 24th.

I've just refreshed my memory and re-read Woffinden regarding the September 11 interview with Valerie. It lasted for 5 hours and was tape-recorded in its entirety. Acott said that every word spoken by Valerie was clearly heard on the recording. I wonder if that tape still exists, and if it's ever been transcribed. Acott was told by Valerie that the gunman had given a clue which could lead to his identification. (The 'done the lot' statement). And Valerie also said that she could easily recognise the gunman. Woffinden accepts neither of these points, and states categorically that Valerie had never told the police that she could recognise the gunman. So did Woffo have access to the tape at some point? It's quite a while since I read any of my A6 books in full, so I may have forgotten if it was mentioned in print that Woffo did have access to the tape or a transcription thereof.

Graham

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[Alfie]

Woffinden was speculating that the clue was the "done the lot" phrase used by the gunman, but I doubt that it was. When they ran a check the police discovered that only five prisoners at the time fell into that category. If they became aware of their identities soon after the Sept 11 interview then surely they'd have tracked Hanratty down much more quickly than they did - and have eliminated Alphon at an earlier stage too.

[Graham]

That's a good point, Alfie. Obviously I'm familiar with the 'done the lot' statement, and I guess I reached the same conclusion. As I recall, it referred to his term of corrective detention. So how and when do you feel that 'done the lot' entered the equation? It must have come from somewhere.

Graham

[Alfie]

Not till two-and-a-half weeks later apparently.

Foot (p.87-88): "On Thursday, September 28, the London Evening Standard reported that Mr Acott had that morning again interviewed Valerie Storie: 'Several new lines of inquiry are being followed by detectives, and they want to interview a number of men who may be able to help inquiries. Some of the men are missing from their last-known addresses, and a team of detectives is trying to trace them.' The Daily Express and the Daily Telegraph narrowed down the number of these suspects to five. There had, they said, been a top-level conference in the office of Sir Joseph Simpson, Metropolitan Commissioner, to trace the movements of these five men. The hunt for these five men arose from Valerie Storie's information that the man in the car had said he had 'done the lot'. The expression ... in prison jargon means 'served the whole sentence without remission'."