A6 Rebooted

[Graham]

Moste, may I respectfully suggest that you read my post again, because I think you've misunderstood the point I was trying to make. The three girl-friends named in the literature all had sex with Hanratty, yet all three of them commented that he treated them in a kind and gentlemanly fashion. No mention from any of them of 'perversion'.

With regards to the folder he handed to Slack for 'safe-keeping', refer to Alfie's Post 6193.

Graham

[moste]

Ok. I see , not casting aspersions on Hanratty then In any way ,just a bit of banter re his fun loving ‘ nice to be with’ kind of guy. Fair enough

With regards to Storie’s identification of the killers voice. Last Premiership season my missus was putting the tele on to watch a game live .I was upstairs but could hear the pundits discussing the upcoming match. I called down “ who else is chatting on the panel besides Tim Sherwood” she called back “ It isn’t Tim Sherwood, It’s Alan Curbishley.” I went down and true enough I was wrong. Now I’m sure everyone knows where I’m going with this. I think I have listened to a very great many more male cockney voices than Storie ever did.
That Identification of Hanratty ,by having him say the line ‘be quiet will you I’m finking’ , to bolster her completely faded memory of the slight glimpse she caught of the attacker, is to my way of thinking, an absolute farce!

[moste]

A poster, Stewart P Evans, wrote some time ago: "... an old friend of mine was a detective who assisted on the case in the original investigation and he tells of how evidence that Hanratty had perverted sexual tastes was found at the time but could not be used."

I've wondered since whether the folder Hanratty entrusted to Slack might have contained the "material" Evans referred to which "revealed that Hanratty was highly sexed in a perverted way" -- material that Hanratty may have been loathe to bring into the family home.

Hi Alfie , Graham invited me to refer to your post here , for clarification re- ‘the folder given to slack for safe keeping.’ I can well see Hanratty leaving a folder with Slack prior to heading to Strangeways, and likely collect it again on his release. Would it not be more reasonable to consider Since Slack was Hanratty’s fence, that the folder would contain a diary of events, pertaining to burglaries? Maybe a couple of dozen addresses of homes where only one or a couple of elderly people lived ? that type of information ,rather than a wad of dirty books.That would be my guess.

[moste]

Black hair, dark hair dark brown hair. Dark eyes icy blue eyes, all disperses into insignificance when we have a nice long look at Storie’s photofit image . So desperately wanting this maniac caught, she would have been at great pains to get this image just right. Even down to the ,what was it ? E.17 of the eye choices , anyway the one she was happy with, which was ‘dark’.The whole ‘let’s do an identikit thing ‘was a disaster, because Storie had not got a clue what the assailant looked like.Incidently, could someone remind me, was the jury invited to look at Stories picture? because in essence, had they been, and Sherrard had done what was obviously the thing to do, and have Michael Clark summoned to court for the jury to be introduced to , Hanratty could be 84 now.

[cobalt]

A poster, Stewart P Evans, wrote some time ago: "... an old friend of mine was a detective who assisted on the case in the original investigation and he tells of how evidence that Hanratty had perverted sexual tastes was found at the time but could not be used."

The idea that the police have extra evidence which is unable to be used for some legal technicality owes more to Hollywood than real life. Some years back a police officer, who now occupies high office in Police Scotland, informed me that despite the Birmingham Six being released there was actually evidence, never used at trial, which implicated most of them. I suggested to him that the Birmingham Six Case was so embarrassing for the UK legal system that they would have thrown everything including the kitchen sink at it in order to defend the verdict; he was adamant that he had seen transcripts of telephone calls which established their guilt. I was not so sure that Irish labourers in 1974 would have had telephones in their homes but had to leave the matter there.

Likewise with the incriminating evidence in Hanratty’s folder. Given the problems the A6 Case has caused the legal establishment I think we can rest assured that were there anything damning in the folder then it would have seen the light of day.

[Graham]

Quite agree, Cobalt. Respected commentator though Stewart Evans is, what he said about Hanratty, regarding his sexual habits, is just heresay. All I was saying is that if the 'allegations' were true, then perhaps there was relevant evidence in the folder Hanratty gave to Slack. But I doubt it, all the same.

(Living as I was in Birmingham at the time, you can imagine the feeling against the 'Birmingham Six', even though it later transpired that there were questions over the accuracy of some of the forensic evidence against them. And ever since there have been tales of at least one high-ranking former IRA member in Ireland claiming that although it was an IRA 'operation', the Six were innocent. My wife is Irish, though fortunately not with a strong accent, but she kept a low profile for a while, as around that time Irish people were generally not too popular in Brum........anyway, this is by the by).

Moste, Hanratty was not particularly literate, so a 'diary of events' is unlikely. According to Woffinden, the folder contained photos, letters and 'mementoes' of sentimental value. That's about all we know.

Graham

[Alfie]

Black hair, dark hair dark brown hair. Dark eyes icy blue eyes, all disperses into insignificance when we have a nice long look at Storie’s photofit image . So desperately wanting this maniac caught, she would have been at great pains to get this image just right. Even down to the ,what was it ? E.17 of the eye choices , anyway the one she was happy with, which was ‘dark’.The whole ‘let’s do an identikit thing ‘was a disaster, because Storie had not got a clue what the assailant looked like.Incidently, could someone remind me, was the jury invited to look at Stories picture? because in essence, had they been, and Sherrard had done what was obviously the thing to do, and have Michael Clark summoned to court for the jury to be introduced to , Hanratty could be 84 now.

Lewis Hawser, the QC the Home Secretary appointed in 1974 to look into the case, had access to the notes Inspector Mackle made when he was helping Valerie construct the Identikit picture. In regard to the eyes, Mackle wrote: "Eyes - large blue eyes not sunken, flush with face."

The jury was shown Valerie's picture. Keith Simpson in 'Forty Years of Murder' wrote: "... Michael Sherrard, QC, had no difficulty in showing that the Identikit picture constructed from Valerie's information did not look much like the man in the dock. (It seldom does.) Indeed, when it was displayed for the jury to see there was a murmur of talk and even a few smiles, for the only resemblance it really bore was to the clerk of the court who was holding it up!"

It seems the jury was more impressed by Valerie picking Hanratty out of a lineup than it was by her attempt at piecing together the gunman's face from Mackle's collection of coded features.

[cobalt]

Not wanting to stray off topic but although we talk about the Birmingham Six there were, from memory, nine people convicted in relation to the bombings, one of whom refused to recognise the court and offered no plea. He was the acknowledged leader of the IRA in the Midlands and he is generally considered to have been the person responsible for authorising the bombings. It is very likely that he was being carefully watched by Special Branch hence the claim about tapped telephone calls and transcripts, which has been mistakenly applied to the six men who were eventually released.

Something similar could have happened with Hanratty’s folder. Maybe there was a photo of a nude model and this has been blown out of all proportion. The folder given to Slack could have had no value for the prosecution and I doubt whether it would have contained anything of value for the defence either.

[OneRound]

Lewis Hawser, the QC the Home Secretary appointed in 1974 to look into the case, had access to the notes Inspector Mackle made when he was helping Valerie construct the Identikit picture. In regard to the eyes, Mackle wrote: "Eyes - large blue eyes not sunken, flush with face."

The jury was shown Valerie's picture. Keith Simpson in 'Forty Years of Murder' wrote: "... Michael Sherrard, QC, had no difficulty in showing that the Identikit picture constructed from Valerie's information did not look much like the man in the dock. (It seldom does.) Indeed, when it was displayed for the jury to see there was a murmur of talk and even a few smiles, for the only resemblance it really bore was to the clerk of the court who was holding it up!"

It seems the jury was more impressed by Valerie picking Hanratty out of a lineup than it was by her attempt at piecing together the gunman's face from Mackle's collection of coded features.

Hi Alfie - you are probably right there although I doubt I would have been so impressed had I been on the jury. After all, she picked out a different man on every identity parade she attended.

Best regards,
OneRound

[Graham]

Cobalt, IIRC the prosecution claimed that the Six had been playing cards on a train, either to or from Birmingham, and that the cards yielded fingerprints which belonged to the Six. However, the person in charge of the forensic investigation was apparently in error. Also, again IIRC, the cards were checked for DNA, none of which matched the Six. This case seems to have fallen out of favour of 'amateur' crime investigators, perhaps just as well.

Well, we can only speculate what was in that folder. But as you say its contents don't appear to have been considered helpful to either the prosecution or the defence. If indeed the defence ever saw it.

Graham

[Alfie]

The idea that the police have extra evidence which is unable to be used for some legal technicality owes more to Hollywood than real life....with the incriminating evidence in Hanratty’s folder. Given the problems the A6 Case has caused the legal establishment I think we can rest assured that were there anything damning in the folder then it would have seen the light of day.

Whether the evidence was admissible or not may have depended on how the police came by it. And after Hanratty's conviction there was hardly a need for it.

In actual fact, the case made little impact on the "legal establishment". Rather, the campaign by Justice, Foot et al made the case a political problem for the government of the day at various times, to which it was more or less responsive, and which resulted in the reviews, inquiries etc by Nimmo, Hawser and the CCRC. All of which ended up confirming Hanratty's guilt.

[cobalt]

The idea that Basil Acott would have been thwarted in relation to evidence is fanciful; Slack was hardly going to make any argument about how the folder was obtained since it wasn’t his.

There was a legal problem with the A6 Case which had long been a point of discussion in trials preceding Hanratty’s: the reliability of eye witness testimony. CCTV and mobile phones with cameras have probably reduced this problem over the years but identification was acknowledged by legal commentators as a potential weakness in criminal cases.

Foot, Justice and even John Lennon highlighted the problems with the A6 Case and kept it in the public eye, but they did not create public disquiet: that had been voiced at the time of the verdict. If there was a shred of evidence from Hanratty’s folder which could have helped to bolster the case- such as his being some sort of sex maniac- then that would have been released into the public domain during the various enquiries and appeals.

[caz]

...Hanratty was not particularly literate, so a 'diary of events' is unlikely...

I had to chuckle at this, Graham.

Cough - Michael "God's honest truth" Barrett - cough

[Graham]

I had to chuckle at this, Graham.

Cough - Michael "God's honest truth" Barrett - cough

Ooooh, Missus, I'm sure I don't know what you mean!!!

Graham

[Graham]

The folder had been in Slack's possession for 6 months or more by the time Acott dropped in to see him. Did Acott know in advance that Slack had this folder? I'd be surprised. So why did Slack see fit to hand it over to Acott? Had he opened it and studied the contents and then decided to hand it over? I'm sure that Mr S was no great friend of the police.

Graham