A6 Rebooted

[moste]

It’s an interesting observation. Most of us would subscribe to the notion that a criminal will prefer to act in area he is familiar with, but a 30 year old man will not feel so at home with a place he knew only from boyhood, if that. Wandering through corn fields as a boy is not quite the same as skulking through fields in the dusk with a revolver, especially after a 20 year gap.

Foot’s point does not support Alphon’s claim that he was approached to break up a relationship. If Alphon was approached, it could hardly have been for his knowledge of Taplow which was obsolete. At most it was merely another coincidence.

However I will add two points for the defence. Someone resembling Alphon was seen in the area prior to the murder by three separate witnesses. And whatever Alphon’s knowledge of Taplow was it could not have been less than that of Hanratty who was never known to have visited the area.

And how much reliance can we place on Mrs Lanz, the landlady Of The Station Inn, with a statement of Alphon frequenting that Pub? Was it really Just a figment of Justice’s Imagination, Or had Foot\Woffinden heard enough from her, that they believed there was something very real in what she had to say? I would say her evidence of any link between Alphon and Taplow is absolutely vital

[Graham]

And how much reliance can we place on Mrs Lanz, the landlady Of The Station Inn, with a statement of Alphon frequenting that Pub? Was it really Just a figment of Justice’s Imagination, Or had Foot\Woffinden heard enough from her, that they believed there was something very real in what she had to say? I would say her evidence of any link between Alphon and Taplow is absolutely vital

Mrs Lanz said she had seen Gregsten and Valerie on several occasions in her pub, and that sounds perfectly all right as far as I'm concerned, because they did go there for a drink from time to time. However, with regard to Mrs Lanz seeing Alphon at the Old Station Inn, this is down to Justice - he claimed to have 'interviewed' Mrs Lanz and he claimed that she told him she had seen a man resmbling Alphon on at least one occasion. Nonsense - that really was Justice's bent 'imagination'. Almost as vivid as Alphon's, in fact......

Graham

[moste]

Quote: But apart from his visits to the dog-track, it seems that Alphon had no knowledge of Slough, and in fact Woffo states this.

APART from his visits . Well I would say if he was a regular patron of the ‘Dolphin’ stadium, and had been for some time ,that’s a very good reason to suspect that he was familiar with more than just the immediate down town area.

Quote: And as I mentioned earlier, Woffo does describe in some detail Alphon's troubled past and his unstable personality - no-one in their right and mind would have trusted him with a box of Bonfire Night fireworks, let alone a revenge murder as a (presumably paid) assassin.

But I would interject, that the assassin, was in fact of an unstable personality, and almost certainly of a troubled past!

[moste]

Mrs Lanz said she had seen Gregsten and Valerie on several occasions in her pub, and that sounds perfectly all right as far as I'm concerned, because they did go there for a drink from time to time. However, with regard to Mrs Lanz seeing Alphon at the Old Station Inn, this is down to Justice - he claimed to have 'interviewed' Mrs Lanz and he claimed that she told him she had seen a man resmbling Alphon on at least one occasion. Nonsense - that really was Justice's bent 'imagination'. Almost as vivid as Alphon's, in fact......

Graham

And Woffinden proved this . Did he?

[Graham]

Proved what?

Graham

[cobalt]

I’ve said here many times before: a pub landlady is very good on faces. That is the nature of their trade. That does not of course make Mrs Lanz infallible some years after the event. But unlike Fox and his associate we can assume Mrs. Lanz had no homosexual leanings towards Alphon, nor was her testimony bought. She is a credible witness.

No police statement from Mrs. Lanz? Well the thundering question should be why not? Why on earth not? Her pub was the last place the victims were seen before being shot. And there is no statement. Does this not strike even a thumbsucker as odd? Are we awake on this crime?

It is no good ascribing an agenda upon Fox: what about the motives of the police who never took, or maybe never revealed, a statement from Mrs. Lanz? What does that reveal about them and their ‘investigation?’ I have put this in quotation marks to echo Graham’s use in Fox’s ‘interview’ of Mrs. Lanz.

[Spitfire]

I suppose that railway timetable will also show the overnight return journey. According to Hanratty it left just after midnight, stopped at every station and arrived at 5.20.

The five past midnight train from Lime Street arrived at Euston at 6.16 am, and as can be seen, it was the sleeper. It cannot be said that this train stopped at every station but it stopped at Stafford, Nuneaton and Rugby on its way south.

The only other train round about this time was the 11.45 from Lime Street which arrived at Euston at 5.25am but this was not a through train as it would have necessitated a change of trains at Crewe.

As I have mentioned earlier it is my belief that Hanratty travelled up to Liverpool on the 2.15 from Euston on Thursday 24 August arriving at 6.50pm and then got the next available through train back to the Smoke which would be the 00.05 Sleeper.

[cobalt]

Are you suggesting Hanratty was creating an alibi? If so he could surely have established a better one, even given the time constraints, than he did. Otherwise his journey was a waste of time. He’d have been better going back into the smoke and lying low for a while.

[Alfie]

I’ve said here many times before: a pub landlady is very good on faces. That is the nature of their trade. That does not of course make Mrs Lanz infallible some years after the event. But unlike Fox and his associate we can assume Mrs. Lanz had no homosexual leanings towards Alphon, nor was her testimony bought. She is a credible witness.

No police statement from Mrs. Lanz? Well the thundering question should be why not? Why on earth not? Her pub was the last place the victims were seen before being shot. And there is no statement. Does this not strike even a thumbsucker as odd? Are we awake on this crime?

It is no good ascribing an agenda upon Fox: what about the motives of the police who never took, or maybe never revealed, a statement from Mrs. Lanz? What does that reveal about them and their ‘investigation?’ I have put this in quotation marks to echo Graham’s use in Fox’s ‘interview’ of Mrs. Lanz.

Lanz did make a statement to police, on Thursday, Aug 24, ie the day after the murder.

Hawser: "After referring to the visit of Mr Gregsten and Miss Storie, she said that two strange men left either shortly before or shortly after them. She described these men - neither would appear to have resembled Mr Alphon or Mr Hanratty. She said there were quite a number of people in the bar that night, many of them strangers. She refers to no-one else."

[Graham]

The Old Station Inn was a busy and well-known pub on a main road, and very close to a commuter station, so little wonder that there would be 'strange men' popping in all the time. Mrs Lanz would probably have been rather miffed had her pub not attracted an endless stream of 'strange men'. Nothing can be made of this 'statement'. Mrs Lanz does come across as being just a wee bit publicity-conscious. Obviously she had regulars, of whom Gregsten and Valerie were two.

Graham

[NickB]

and then got the next available through train back to the Smoke which would be the 00.05 Sleeper.

I think this was his intention, but when told that the telegram would not be delivered until the following morning he did not want to beat it back so decided to return on the Saturday morning instead - as Anderson and the France family confirmed.

[moste]

Proved what?

Graham

Well, your usual disapproval of Justice and his motives, indicates it was nonsense that he interviewed Lanz and her acknowledgement of Alphons presence in her pub. So Woffinden interviewed her did he? and concluded there was little to gain from anything Justice had to say, and further, as the ‘ investigative journalist and top authority on the A6 case warned us his readers,of this did he?
I guess you will put that down to ‘ Woffinden being selective with his reporting, to further his cause .
Anyhow, whatever. I must say.Although I can see the likelihood of anyone identifying, the likes of Trower, and Nudds, and the like, as being extremely unreliable. I cannot share your enthusiasm for the bashing of the two homosexuals, for having such powerful motives for screwing over the establishment,that they would get involved in the A6 murder as an outlet for their personal Vendetta.Justice became obsessed with Alphons involvement, and I don’t see any ulterior motive for this ,other than their belief of Hanratty’s innocence.

[cobalt]

Taplow today has around 1700 residents and I doubt that has changed much from 1961. When Graham described passing trade at the Station Inn he made it sound like it was on the Vegas Strip. It is today, and was presumably back then, was a sleepy, affluent, commuter village. By later evening I would imagine most of the Station Inn clientele would be local people or friends and associates of them.

So had the police taken the time to investigate who was actually in the place on the evening of the murder they should have had little difficult in identifying who was there. In 1977 the police investigating what became known as ‘The World’s End Murders’ in Edinburgh were able to identify every single person in a crowded, Royal Mile bar at closing time on a Saturday night: except for two men. The police managed this long before CCTV and camera phones. (These two men were identified by DNA many years later by which time one of the killers had died.)

Alfie reminds me that Mrs. Lanz did in fact make a police statement, the day after the murder. I have never seen that statement but clearly it was examined by Hawser who employs the conditional case when stating:

‘She described these men - neither would appear to have resembled Mr Alphon or Mr Hanratty.’

The conditional case should not be required and throws light on the police investigation. Mrs. Lanz, and any other regulars who remembered seeing two ‘strangers’ in the Taplow Inn, could have been asked to attend an ID parade and see if they could pick out either Alphon or Hanratty. That would have laid the matter to rest once and for all, and also removed the need for Fox and Justice to approach Mrs. Lanz. As we know Mrs. Lanz later said Alphon looked familiar to her. However given the gap in time and the fact her words are not part of an official police statement- although Mrs. Lanz claimed to have approached the police willing to make one- we can only draw our own conclusions.

[cobalt]

It seems that Mrs. Lanz made her claims earlier than I thought, and not only to Fox and Justice. Here is the section from Lord Russell addressing the House of Lords in August 1966:

It is also interesting to know that the Station Inn at Taplow, which is only about a mile, as I have said, from the corn field, is the place where Gregsten and Miss Valerie Storie frequently used to spend the evening before going out for one of their evening rides in cars, and that Mrs. Lanz, who is the wife of the landlord of the Old Station Inn at Taplow, whom I have myself interviewed, certainly remembers (and has told the police a long time ago that she does remember) that Alphon was at the Old Station Inn on the night of the 21st. She is not quite sure whether he was there on the night of the 22nd, but he frequently used to go there.

[Spitfire]

Cyril Hawser deals with this in paragraph 376 of his excellent report to the Home Secretary

376. Eighth. Mrs. Mary Lanz.

(a) In 1961-1962 her husband was the licensee of the Old Station

Inn, Taplow and she served behind the bar, Mr. Foot and Mr. Lewis

Chester took a statement from her which was published in the Sunday

Times of 4th July 1971. In this she said that Mr. Gregsten and Miss Stone

came into the bar on the 22nd August 1961 and sat on their usual seat. They

were well known to her. They left after 9 o’clock. Mr. Alphon was also in the

pub with a blonde woman and they left about a half an hour after Mr. Gregsten

and Miss Storie. Mr. Alphon had been there before and came there subsequently.

During the trial of Mr. Hanratty, Mr. Justice brought Mr. Alphon

in and asked her if she recognised him and she said she did. She said Mr. Justice

told her the man was Peter Alphon who had been a suspect for the A6 murder.

She became very worried when Mr. Hanratty’s appeal failed and decided

to tell the authorities what she knew about Mr. Alphon. She therefore visited

Slough Police Station and made a statement along the same lines as the one

she gave to Mr. Chester and Mr. Foot.

(b) Mrs. Lanz made a statement to the police on the 24th August 1961.

After referring to the visit of Mr. Gregsten and Miss Storie she said that two

strange men left either shortly before or shortly after them. She described

these men—neither would appear to have resembled Mr. Alphon or

Mr. Hanratty. She said there were quite a number of people in the bar that night

many of them strangers. She refers to no-one else.

(c) On 27th March 1962 she made a further statement to the police at Slough.

She referred to three men coming into the bar on 20th March one of whom had

been there the previous Wednesday.

“Of the other two I recognised one as a man who had previously been

in the bar and whom I have since been told is Peter Alphon. I cannot

remember when I had seen him previous to this. I do know that I have

seen this man before”.

She said that as they left one:

“whom I now know to be John Justice ... asked me if I had ever seen

the man in the dark duffle coat before. I said I don’t want to commit

myself but I have seen someone very similar in here before”.

Mr. Justice told her it was very important and she repeated that she had seen

someone very similar. The statement refers to other visits to her public house

and does not carry the matter any further. There is no mention in this statement

whatsoever of Mr. Alphon being at the Inn on 22nd August 1961 or as ever

being there with a blonde lady. It is clear that in March 1962 Mrs. Lanz had

no idea when Mr. Alphon had previously been there.