A6 Rebooted

[Natalie Severn]

they were attributed to Gregsten, presumably, because Valerie knew who she had had sex with that night.

Hanratty's was there as a product of primary transfer, and in a distrubution with the victim's 'typical' of when two people have sex. It wasn't just accidentally there.

So he said, Jen.But If Hanratty's seminal fluid was on that piece of cloth, it could,as admitted,have been there from contamination too.
Also you have a pathologist in a police lab ,furiously scraping away at the inside fly of Hanratty's trousers on 29th December 1961 and,it is believed ,then making a wash of it.Where did he put that wash? Interestingly a glass vial was found forty odd years later, broken with its rubber bung separated from it,in the same drawer as the knicker piece which had simply been placed first in a brown paper envelope and then in another paper envelope.So if a seminal wash from Hanratty's trousers was in the vial then it could have contaminated the knicker piece when it was broken and spilled out into the rest of the drawer.I don'y really believe all that about the scientist being able to determine sex had taken place sounds like a bit of delusional conjecture ---or a load of complete and utter cobblers.
And quite apart from that,Valerie"s knicker piece was examined in the same lab the very next day , in 1961.
Thats not to mention the knickers themselves being brought to the Ampthill committal hearing in November 61 and brought out each day of the hearing with the trousers and other items for inspection.
It doesn't inspire confidence regarding the sterile storage conditions for DNA as now required by law thats for certain.
Best
Norma

[babybird67]

So he said, Jen.But If Hanratty's seminal fluid was on that piece of cloth, it could,as admitted,have been there from contamination too.

It wasn't. It was from primary transfer...i.e. Hanratty ejaculated it there.

Also you have a pathologist in a police lab ,furiously scraping away at the inside fly of Hanratty's trousers on 29th December 1961 and,it is believed ,then making a wash of it.Where did he put that wash?

Nobody knows.

Interestingly a glass vial was found forty odd years later, broken with its rubber bung separated from it,in the same drawer as the knicker piece which had simply been placed first in a brown paper envelope and then in another paper envelope.So if a seminal wash from Hanratty's trousers was in the vial then it could have contaminated the knicker piece when it was broken and spilled out into the rest of the drawer.

a/ we don't know what was in the vial although it was not usual fr liquids to be stored in those vials and all the experts agree it was more like to be a hair or something other than a liquid.

b/ none of the papers/envelope etc around the vial showed any evidence of being touched/damaged by liquids, further indicating that whatever was in the vial was not water.

c/ there is no evidence that the vial or whatever was in it ever came into contact with the knicker fragment as these were discovered in totally different places.

I don'y really believe all that about the scientist being able to determine sex had taken place sounds like a bit of delusional conjecture ---or a load of complete and utter cobblers.

That's your prerogative Nats but it is science and how forensic examinations can establish that sex has taken place in rape trials. It's a common tool i believe. It's certainly much more trustworthy, one would imagine, than the word of a habitual criminal.

And quite apart from that,Valerie"s knicker piece was examined in the same lab the very next day , in 1961.

No evidence that the knicker fragment ever came into contact with anything from Hanratty in the lab; besides, that wouldn't explain the PRIMARY transfer of his semen onto Valerie's knickers. Only him having sex with her would do that.

Thats not to mention the knickers themselves being brought to the Ampthill committal hearing in November 61 and brought out each day of the hearing with the trousers and other items for inspection.

Were they? Can you provide evidence of that? Why would her knickers be required for inspection? It wasn't a rape trial? Are you sure this is what happened?

It doesn't inspire confidence regarding the sterile storage conditions for DNA as now required by law thats for certain.
Best
Norma

Yes but Hanratty supporters had enough confidence to campaign precisely for those very tests. They only lost confidence in them when the result didn't go their way.

Jen

[Natalie Severn]

I'm asking what grounds you think there are for another appeal to be granted in the A6 case, and what hope you think there is of getting 'strong' changed to anything else.

Once again, do those grounds exist today, and in a coherent form, or have they yet to be conjured up somehow and made to look presentable in law?

I don't know the answer to that.What I do know is that Gareth Peirce who discovered the 'not to be disclosed to the defence ' alibi for Gerry Conlan did so after a massive and painstaking search through umpteen documents in places very far afield from each other.
I don't think anyone has approached this case with quite the same zeal ,if only because as Hanratty is dead there isn't the same urgency .

I also happen to find it unusual that nobody here acknowledges the fact that Hanratty ,was vindicated,he was exonerated completely by the Matthews Report in 1995.Matthews, a very senior policeman, went through the case with a fine tooth comb and declared that Hanratty was undoubtedly innocent and had been wrongly executed.This senior police officer Matthews, was appointed by Scotland Yard , at the request of the Home Office in 1995.
Then what happens? A most disgusting delay by Michael Howard and then an attempt to pass the matter on to someone else.
You ask what is different about this case.Well for one thing Valerie is alive .The victims of Timothy Evans and Derrek Bentley are not.That must be one of their concerns possibly ,especially as Valerie was the sole witness to the crime.
But ofcourse,neither Valerie Storie nor Michael Gregsten deserved any of this! They were subjected to an atrocious and horrible ordeal ending in Gregsten's murder and Valerie's paralysis arising from her life threatening injuries and whoever did it deserved to be severely punished.
However,that said,from the start it was a case full of inconsistencies ,coincidences and a complete lack of concrete evidence.
Norma

[babybird67]

I also happen to find it unusual that nobody here acknowledges the fact that Hanratty ,was vindicated,he was exonerated completely by the Matthews Report in 1995

And? SOmeone's report, whoever they are, is not a trial. Crimes here are tried in courts, with judges, juries, witnesses etc and every time this has come to court Hanratty has been found guilty. What Matthews believed is totally irrelevant. Or is that the justice system you wish now? People found guilty or innocent on the word of one senior policeman?

[Natalie Severn]

Were they? Can you provide evidence of that? Why would her knickers be required for inspection? It wasn't a rape trial? Are you sure this is what happened?

Jen,from the appeal:
115]
[/B]All the exhibits, including those mentioned, [/B]were produced at the committal proceedings which took place between 22 November 1961 and 5 December 1961. If the usual procedures of the time were followed it would seem doubtful that any one of the exhibits, barring possibly the gun and certain of the cartridges, would ever have been removed from its packaging or container. Even so, as Mr Mansfield points out and the respondent concedes, the possibility that there was contact between the various exhibits cannot be excluded altogether.

Those present at the committal have commented on how they were brought each day from a police van and laid out on the tables.

[Natalie Severn]

And? SOmeone's report, whoever they are, is not a trial. Crimes here are tried in courts, with judges, juries, witnesses etc and every time this has come to court Hanratty has been found guilty. What Matthews believed is totally irrelevant. Or is that the justice system you wish now? People found guilty or innocent on the word of one senior policeman?

You asked a question I answered it.This report was requested by the Home Office of Scotland Yard to see whether there was a basis for another appeal ;there was . Matthews presented an extremely thorough report discovering new evidence that indicated Hanratty was totally innocent of the crime for which he had been hanged.


You don't exactly back things up with source material Jen,---you take the easy route ,as does Caz, by denouncing everything we say from 'on high'-and quoting the law and the forensic boys and girls.We know what the law said and the forensic lot . And we are saying the case has been manipulated,from the start , in favour of the prosecution ---whats different now?
Its notoriously difficult to get a sentence quashed Lets just stick with Gerry Conlan and the Guildford Four for a minute.Tried by judge and jury in these your infallible law courts ---found guilty, left to rot in jail for 30 years with the Birmingham Six -also exonerated eventually.Had their sentences happened in 1961 they would all have been executed. So, Fifteen years in jail for a crime Conlan didn't commit and he[and they] would still be inside but for one totally committed steadfast lawyer named Gareth Peirce who was determined to get him out of jail---and did.It took just one alibi,a green grocer,and a non disclosure ,Peirce a totally dedicated researcher turned over tons and tons of paperwork before finding that alibi -and that non disclosure.It was like finding a needle in a haystack.
So if you think such things are easy come by think again.

[Natalie Severn]

That is an excellent question, bb. The bus hidey-hole sounds much more like something a none too bright petty crook might do out of habit mingled with a desperation to 'get rid' pretty sharpish. It's worked for him in the past so he tries it again now, although this time it's a murder weapon.

The alternative is that France 'got rid', in a Hanratty-like manner, because he knew or strongly suspected what the gun was used for and who used it, and he didn't want the thing connected to himself in any way.

Hi Caz,
It seems to me ,planting the gun would have been an extremely strange thing to do ,given he was taking care to send a telegram from Liverpool to Charles France that evening saying he would be back 'for business' on Friday.
You can't have it both ways Caz.If he was guilty and protecting himself with a telegram from Liverpool ,he would surely have been careful not to deliberately incriminate himself by wrapping 60 cartridge cases and the murder weapon in his hanky on the 36 bus---- inconsistently wiping his fingerprints from gun and cartridges .
Also why the 36 bus?
The other day I said the 36 bus terminates at the bottom of Boundary Road [Queen's Park] where road Charles France lived in 1961 however, this 36 bus also crosses a huge section of London including Paddington,Marble Arch ,Park Lane ,Victoria Station , and onto Camberwell so anybody living close by could have dumped it there.
You say this about the back seat of a bus.Well as kids it was a best known secret----we always used to look to see if anything was hidden under the upstairs back seat of the 52 bus on the way home from school in Birkenhead .It was known to be a hiding place by lots and lots of schoolchildren let alone Hanratty and co!
Nx

[babybird67]

You asked a question I answered it.This report was requested by the Home Office of Scotland Yard to see whether there was a basis for another appeal ;there was . Matthews presented an extremely thorough report discovering new evidence that indicated Hanratty was totally innocent of the crime for which he had been hanged.

Do you prefer justice to be dispensed via reports written by senior police officials, or via the justice system, via a trail conducted by a judge, heard by a jury of 12 (or 11) independent people who decide on the evidence presented to them? Should decisions of justice rest with the people responsible for catching criminals? In what way would this ensure a fairer justice system less open to corruption, Nats?

You don't exactly back things up with source material Jen,---you take the easy route ,

I apologise for that. I quote where i can but i dont have the books, I borrowed them from Graham, and usually say what i feel from memory. I have quoted notably from the Appeal hearing.

as does Caz, by denouncing everything we say from 'on high'

I have to object to that, on Caz's behalf (although I am sure she is more than capable of doing that herself) and on my own. We aren't the contributors putting ourselves above the law, the jury, and most importantly above the only surviving witness to the crime and suggesting we know better than all those people. We aren't the ones sitting on high here. We are accepting due process of law has been followed and suggesting it not only must cause distress to Valerie Storie and the other surviving network of people related to the victims, but also undermines justice as a whole, especially women's right, and most especially rape victim's rights.

-and quoting the law and the forensic boys and girls.We know what the law said and the forensic lot . And we are saying the case has been manipulated,from the start , in favour of the prosecution ---whats different now?

Who manipulated it? Yes, there should have been more disclosure. There wasn't. That's regrettable. The Appeal Judges made the decision that those non-disclosures, and the other items the Hanratty family appealed on, had no effect on whether justice was done in this case, and I, and I would wager a majority of the population if apprised of this case, would agree with them.

Its notoriously difficult to get a sentence quashed Lets just stick with Gerry Conlan and the Guildford Four for a minute.Tried by judge and jury in these your infallible law courts ---found guilty, left to rot in jail for 30 years with the Birmingham Six -also exonerated eventually.Had their sentences happened in 1961 they would all have been executed. So, Fifteen years in jail for a crime Conlan didn't commit and he[and they] would still be inside but for one totally committed steadfast lawyer named Gareth Peirce who was determined to get him out of jail---and did.It took just one alibi,a green grocer,and a non disclosure ,Peirce a totally dedicated researcher turned over tons and tons of paperwork before finding that alibi -and that non disclosure.It was like finding a needle in a haystack.
So if you think such things are easy come by think again.

I never said they were easy. I still want to know why Hanratty is so special that the Establishment would be prevented from declaring him innocent, if he was innocent. Why do it for others and not for him?

I know your heart is in the right place Nat, but truly, Hanratty was a murderer and a rapist. However much you dearly wish to believe otherwise.

take care

Jen x

[Graham]

Hi Nats,

Matthews presented an extremely thorough report discovering new evidence that indicated Hanratty was totally innocent of the crime for which he had been hanged.

For the benefit of those of us who haven't read the Matthews Report, could you please give us a precis of the nature of the new evidence that he discovered?

Thanks,

Graham

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Nats,



For the benefit of those of us who haven't read the Matthews Report, could you please give us a precis of the nature of the new evidence that he discovered?

Thanks,

Graham

No I can't Graham because like many other intriguing developments it stayed firmly under wraps and information about it was unavailable.
Bob Woffinden completed the submission to Geoffrey Bindman and it was sent to the Home Office in January 1980.He writes:

'The appeal court judges determined that it was a correct judicial procedure to quash the conviction of a deceased person.Thus the avenue to go down was in this instance was clear;we had to ask the Home Office to refer the case back to the Court of Appeal.
The Home Office then suggested going down the route of DNA profiling of such objects as exist and which were held by the Metropolitan Police.
Initial work failed to produce a clear profile.So the solicitors asked the Home Office to concentrate instead in arguments in the submission.The Home Office then requested an internal report by Scotland Yard.This was carried out by Detective Chief Superintendent Roger Matthews.
The conclusion of his report first emerged through the 'somewhat unlikely channel of the News of the World:

WE HANGED AN INNOCENT MAN ADMIT POLICE

Hanratty shouldn't even have been charged with A6 killing

Geoffrey Bindmen explained,'Mr Matthews concluded that James Hanratty was entirely innocent and had been wrongly hanged'

In their editorial the editor of the News of the World wrote:......


" James Hanratty died protesting his innocence and begging his family to clear his name.Now following an extensive review of the case Scotland Yard have done just that. Scotland Yard have uncovered a disgraceful package of discrepencies,fabricated evidence and suppressed facts which led them to conclude there was a grave miscarriage of justice.It is a terrible indictment of the criminal justice system at that time."
*

There then followed a series of delays and apologies for delays by the Home Office with one dated December 1996 -a new body was being set up to take over the review-the CCRC which meant yet more delay...other National Newspapers covered Matthews report assuming the case was about to be referred back to the Court of Appeal----the 'dolittle and dally' approach was becoming a public disgrace.
Graham,it appears you will need to write to Scotland Yard yourself to find out exactly what the "disgraceful package of discrepencies,fabricated evidence and suppressed facts' were that,in the view of this editor ,constituted such a terrible indictment of the criminal justice system at the time...........but somebody must have seen that report to be prepared to write those words in a National newspaper with a very wide circulation.

*my emphasis

[Graham]

Yes, Nats, I read all that before I made my post. I would have to say that if the Matthews Report was suppressed, then there must have been good reasons for doing so, and I would suggest that at least one of those reasons was that there was, in fact, no 'new evidence' in it al all.

It does your cause no good at all for Mr Bindman to blandly state (sorry, 'explain') that Roger Matthews claimed an innocent man was hanged, etc., etc., without adding at least some reason(s) for this claim. Just what are the 'fabricated evidence, discrepancies and suppressed facts' that Mr Matthews refers to?

Will we ever know? Or are they merely repeats of the claims made by Foot and Woffinden?

What would be the source of any 'new evidence' in this case? The only source I can possibly think of would be the files still held under wraps by Scotland Yard and which, one supposes, contain the unpublished notes left by Charles France. Which I would dearly like to see, if only for the simple reason that the police confiscated them at the time and never released them. Maybe like the Scotland Yard JtR files, there's not that much in them, but I would certainly love to see them all the same.

Graham

[Natalie Severn]

Jen, again I don't have an answer to your question about what is so special about the case.Journalists were well aware that the prosecution had relied predominantly on criminals and police informers,while all sorts of excuses were made for the perjured testimony of Crown witnesses like Nudds and Langdale, and that had the police had to disclose documentation to the defence the case against Hanratty would not have been able to stagger through Ampthill Magistrates court.It was also evident to many of those who reported on the case ---that honest citizens, like John Kerr,Olive Dinwoody and Grace Jones were
made to appear liars and worse.

[Natalie Severn]

Yes, Nats, I read all that before I made my post. I would have to say that if the Matthews Report was suppressed, then there must have been good reasons for doing so, and I would suggest that at least one of those reasons was that there was, in fact, no 'new evidence' in it al all.

It does your cause no good at all for Mr Bindman to blandly state (sorry, 'explain') that Roger Matthews claimed an innocent man was hanged, etc., etc., without adding at least some reason(s) for this claim. Just what are the 'fabricated evidence, discrepancies and suppressed facts' that Mr Matthews refers to?

Will we ever know? Or are they merely repeats of the claims made by Foot and Woffinden?

What would be the source of any 'new evidence' in this case? The only source I can possibly think of would be the files still held under wraps by Scotland Yard and which, one supposes, contain the unpublished notes left by Charles France. Which I would dearly like to see, if only for the simple reason that the police confiscated them at the time and never released them. Maybe like the Scotland Yard JtR files, there's not that much in them, but I would certainly love to see them all the same.

Graham

Hi Graham,
According to this editor,it was Detective Chief Superintendent Roger Matthews of Scotland Yard who uncovered the information-not Geoffrey Bindman.
I know some of it related to non-disclosure of witnesses who saw the car but as I said,its no good guessing.
But-------Why can't we see the Matthews report?

I agree it would be interesting to see what Charles France wrote but the man was in denial wasn't he---he led a 'compartmentalised life' where his wife knew nothing of his petty criminality.If he wanted to leave her with a good impression of himself and the regard he had for her, after his death, as the loving husband and father he undoubtedly was,then I personally doubt they contained anything much to do with the case.

[Graham]

I was implying that Bindman explained to the media that Matthews had uncovered new evidence.

Yes, I agree - why can't we see the Matthews Report? Why can't we see the Scotland Yard files?

I don't think France was 'in denial' at all. I think he carried a massive weight of guilt, real or imagined, and it turned his mind to the extent of suicide. Having a compartmentalised life doesn't mean that a person is in denial - it means that he simply doesn't fully explain to certain persons what he got up to with other certain persons. And maybe Charlotte France wasn't too concerned what he did for a living so long as he handed over her housekeeping dosh on a regular basis.

Personally, and I have stated this before, I have long believed that it was Hanratty who was in denial - and I suggest this was because he accidentally fired the gun at Gregsten and therefore could not accept that he was guilty of murder as he perceived murder. But in all fairness to him, I have always been rather surprised that his defence didn't make more of the accidental nature of his crime - yet on reflection, even if they did, it couldn't whitewash the rape and attempted murder of Valerie Storie.

Graham

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks Graham,
re Matthews report I follow you .Yes you are probably right about France.
But regarding Hanratty -where ,oh where is the evidence?
Valerie seems to me, as Julie once said ,to have relied heavily for help on Acott who was after a conviction---and who I am sure wanted to help her.
I don't think the crime was intended as murder either,I think he would have shot him five hours earlier if that were the case,and the rape and attempted murder of Valerie were a consequence of the murder of Gregsten.
I believe a hitman was employed but not to commit murder just scare off the couple who were known to go to that cornfield.And I think Hanratty was framed to deflect away from whoever was the hitman once news got out that it had all gone pear shaped.Somebody other than Hanratty put that gun in that place on the 36 bus and it looks like it could have been France who may have been paid to get the gun from the Rehearsal Club and who must have been very shaken that it had all gone wrong.
But I don't really agree about the crime being part accident.Whoever it was behaved with murderous and rapacious intent towards Valerie without question and deserved very severe punishment,in my opinion.
Norma