A6 Rebooted

[Limehouse]

Hi Limehouse,

Couldn't have been much, surely, or there would have been a mixed profile on the hanky to sort out, and the (totally expected) mixed profile obtained from the knickers would have had other, unexplained elements, not just the one that matched perfectly with the hanky and JH, the one that matched with VS and the one attributed to MG.

For me, Derrick has thrown my own old spanner in the works: you can't have it both ways and need to decide which potentially innocent explanation you are going with. How can it be claimed that the evidence was contaminated with innocent JH DNA (and only with JH DNA) if Derrick is right about the impossibility of identifying any of it reliably, either as JH's, VS's or MG's? It's a problem that I personally don't have, which means I don't need to figure out the solution.

Valerie is, and was, an intelligent woman as far as I can make out. She wanted the right man to pay for what happened, not just anyone, so she must have been devastated after that first id parade when she realised she had picked out a volunteer and her rapist was not even there. I doubt very much that Acott had the power to lead her strongly after that. She wasn't going to screw up a second time.

Having said all that, I do find you a heck of a lot more balanced and objective than most of the posters who still have sore misgivings about JH's guilt, despite everything we now know.

If anyone would like to explain the JH as patsy theory again, and how it could have worked so well in practice, I'm all ears (as Prince Charles would say).

Love,

Caz
X

Great post Caz with some excellent points.

In terms of the DNA (and I am sure the scientists among us will help me here) I am struggling with the idea that so few profiles were found on the garments. For example Hanratty's hanky. Are we to believe Hanratty laundered his own washing? We know he didn't because Mrs France often did his washing and ironing (Bless her - she gets forgotten as a victim in all of this - she lost her husband too.) So why isn't there any evidence of other profiles on his garments such as Mrs France or her daughter or Hanratty's mother? Surely the same applies to Valerie. Why no other profiles? Did everyone handling the garments before that terrible night wear gloves?

I know it's been done to death but I still wonder how no evidence of the killer was found in the car or under Valerie's finger nails. It's very odd.

Of course - as you say - Valerie must have been devastated when her rapist and Mike's killer was not identified during the first line up. However - she did take a long time to select Hanratty and only then after she heard him speak. Whether he had an Irish lilt to his voice or not (it's very likely as his father was Irish) - his London pronunciation 'f' for 'th' (called 'th' fronting - because the pronunciation is made by bringing the sound to the front of the mouth using the teeth over the bottom lip instead of with the tongue between the teeth) must have been very distinctive even though the district was quite close to London.

Julie

[Archaic]

Thank You!

Hello everyone.

I'd like to thank Jenny, Derrick, Limehouse, Victor, Caz and Nats for kindly answering my questions.

I read through your answers carefully several times, and I want you to know they have given me a much better understanding of this case and its significance.

Special thanks to those of you who shared your personal feelings about this case; I found your answers particularly interesting and illuminating.

Your detailed explanations of what you feel to be the most important dimensions of this case have also given me a much better understanding of why it continues to cause division 40 years later, and why its discussion on this forum inspires such passionate responses that a thread can run for over 700 pages!

I'm not sure if there's an American murder case that offers any kind of "parallel" to the A-6 Murders and inspires such heated debate decades later. The JFK case was very different...maybe the Lindbergh case? That case also involved a murder committed in the midst of another crime (probably accidentally), and was complicated by conflicting testimony, questioned evidence, intense media attention, accusations of police mishandling & witness error, and the imposition of the death penalty on a man who refused to confess to the crime. (That's the case that sprang to my mind... Maybe someone else can think of another one.)

Thanks again everyone for your very interesting and thoughtful responses to my questions. They've been most helpful to me and I believe they will be helpful to others.

Best regards,
Archaic

PS:

I must say - they are brilliant questions to ask Archaic. Some of us could learn a lot from you.

Limehouse, I very much appreciate your kind comment. I think we can all learn from each other, which is what makes Casebook so cool. Thank you.

[Derrick]

It is patently clear to me that Roger Mann's 1 profile referred to the one potentially guilty profile that had to be accounted for. The other 2 (making 3 in total) were both expected profiles, one belonging to VS, the other attributable to MG, and as such were givens. Mann evidently took it for granted that his audience would appreciate the fact that there was only the one suspicious and therefore significant profile to be considered, since the other two were easily accounted for innocently.

Hi Caz
The one spanner in the works with your argument is that of MG's profile being attributed to him. Attributed is a word used here that really means guessed at.

I have not read anywhere how MG's referential profile had been obtained for elimination purposes.

Familial samples are just not good enough here and his body wasn't exhumed as Hanratty's was.

Derrick

[RonIpstone]

The one spanner in the works with your argument is that of MG's profile being attributed to him. Attributed is a word used here that really means guessed at.

I have not read anywhere how MG's referential profile had been obtained for elimination purposes.

Familial samples are just not good enough here and his body wasn't exhumed as Hanratty's was.

Hello Derrick,

What would be your position if you were told that the scientists instructed by Hanratty's family accepted that the DNA tests conclusively showed the presence of the DNA of (1) James Hanratty (2) Valerie Storie and (3) Michael Gregsten but no one else?

No scientific evidence has yet been adduced which tends to show that the Court of Appeal got it wrong in saying that there were three profiles discernible on the knickers fragment. When, or if, such evidence is available then you might have something on which to base an argument, but until then you do not.

Woffinden, writing in last June's Oldie magazine, stated that funding was required for further investigation into the DNA test results. The doddery Richard Ingrams devoted a section of the Radio 4 Today Programme to the A6 case, but the forensic scientist invited on the show admitted that she had not had access to the DNA test file. I therefore assume that Sir Geoffrey Bindman QC, as we must now call him, has not yet got round to getting the necessary evidence.

I wonder if all this nonsense about a further appeal is to cover the embarrassment which must have followed from the DNA test results, for which Woffinden and Bindman had for so many years lobbied, being the final nail in the Hanratty is innocent campaign.

Ron

[julie q]

I have been reading the recent posts and notice that the " She saw him at the cleaners" is again being refered to.I appreciate that Norma feels strongly about it but I think it has probably been debated to the point of exhaustion.I have already commented on it on the dedicated thread but would like to add a couple of points I ommited from my original post.

JANET GREGSTON----Shortly before her death in 1995 she gave an interveiw to the Daily Telegraph in which she denied any involvement with the story saying it was a fabrication by the tabliod press

WILLIAM EWER----- Interveiwed for the same article broadly agreed with Janet but made a significant admission, He had observed someone he thought looked like the description of the suspect,He had followed him to a florist shop,He had called the police.

GEORGE HOLLINGBERRY----- A journalist with London Evening News was the journalistic source for both the Mail and Sketch articles, interveiwed in 1991 he was adamant that what had been printed was faithful reiteration of a story told to him by W Ewer in the Kings Head pub in the last week of the trial.

There is another aspect to this story which I did not include my previous post

In the course of research for the tv programme "Mystery of Deadmans Hill"
the researchers learned of a press photographer who it was claimed had taken a photograph with the intention of it being included in the article.
The photographer was traced and interviewed, apparently he had gone to the Swiss cottage shopping arcade and persuaded Janet Gregston to pose for a photograph ,looking sadly from the front window of her brother in laws shop towards Burtols the dry cleaners opposite. If this story is true it completely refutes her claim that she had no involvement in it.
However a search of the Press Photographic Library,who hold a vast archive on the A6 murder,failed to locate a copy the photograph ,if indeed it ever existed. The library stated however that if had not been used by the press they may never have held a copy.it could of course been deleted or removed by someone,I am aware that this is speculation.
Unable to authenticate it without a copy of the photograph, this aspect of the story was ommited from the programme .I thought however it was interesting.

How ever much of "she saw him at the cleaners" is a exaggeration/fabrication
one fact does emerge ,it originated ,by his own admission from W Ewer

The florist shop managed by Mrs Morrel was not located in the Swiss cottage tube station shopping arcade ,it was situated on Northways Parade
which is in fact a row of shops on Finchley Road close the tube station entrance. A florist still operates on that site to this day trading under the name Cottage Florists

[babybird67]

can someone explain to me...

1/ why people think it more likely that Janet Gregsten had criminal tendencies than that Hanratty was capable of using a firearm he had confessed to wishing to procure to carry out armed robbery with?

2/ how it could possibly make sense for William Ewer to hire Alphon to frighten his brother in law away from Storie if he secretly wanted Janet for himself? Surely if Gregsten stayed with Janet, as per the mad plan to scare them away/drive them together (I can never comprehend which of these options is really being argued) Ewer's desires would not be fulfilled?

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks Julieq---a very interesting bit of information!
Yes I do find this aspect of the whole saga particularly puzzling, especially since the "sighting" was followed by the visit from Charles France to the Umbrella shop in the Arcade ,making an extraordinary "apology" to William Ewer for the murder of his brother in law !
Another poster, Archaic ,had asked each of us which aspect of the case we found most fascinating and I wrote that this was the part that intrigues me most.
I would find it very unlikely to have been invented by journalists.In fact its a nonsense to imagine that and reveals a total ignorance about the way a National newspaper such as the Daily Mail operates---one of the papers in which this story appeared .In any case William Ewer simply stated that it contained "inaccuracies" which is a different matter from saying the story was untrue.
My ex was a journalist who worked on Fleet Street for many years .He drank in the same pubs and worked with most of the journalists mentioned such as Barry Harding [who James Hanratty telephoned when he worked at the Daily Mirror] and George Hollingberry.There is often a mistaken belief that journalists can get away with simply inventing stories. They can not.Each paper employs not only sub-editors to check through the legal aspects of a story. If in any doubt they refer items they have doubts about to their legal dept.as you probably know.It is inconceivable that this story would have been run by the Daily Mail [as well as the Daily Sketch]had there been the slightest danger of the paper being sued by William Ewer for defamation or slander.
The other part of your post is really intriguing.I heard it somewhere before.
Best Wishes
Norma

[Natalie Severn]

1/ why people think it more likely that Janet Gregsten had criminal tendencies than that Hanratty was capable of using a firearm he had confessed to wishing to procure to carry out armed robbery with?

2/ how it could possibly make sense for William Ewer to hire Alphon to frighten his brother in law away from Storie if he secretly wanted Janet for himself? Surely if Gregsten stayed with Janet, as per the mad plan to scare them away/drive them together (I can never comprehend which of these options is really being argued) Ewer's desires would not be fulfilled?

Hi Jen,
-I do not think Janet had criminal tendencies at all.
-Hanratty had never owned a gun and had never committed a crime of violence.
-What makes you say he wanted to procure a firearm to carry out armed robbery?

All I know are the following facts about Janet Gregsten:

a] She was married to Michael Gregsten
b] They had two young children
c]Micheal Gregsten left her and she was deeply unhappy about that
d]She knew he was having an affair with Valerie Storie
e]after Gregsten"s murder she went to live with William Ewer and sometimes helped him out at his Umbrella Shop
f] Janet Gregsten ultimately became William Ewer"s lover for many years.

In Roman Law the first question asked about any crime of theft or murder was "Who Gained?"[Oui bono]?It may be worth us asking this about the A6 case.
Best
Norma

[Limehouse]

I have been reading the recent posts and notice that the " She saw him at the cleaners" is again being refered to.I appreciate that Norma feels strongly about it but I think it has probably been debated to the point of exhaustion.I have already commented on it on the dedicated thread but would like to add a couple of points I ommited from my original post.

JANET GREGSTON----Shortly before her death in 1995 she gave an interveiw to the Daily Telegraph in which she denied any involvement with the story saying it was a fabrication by the tabliod press

WILLIAM EWER----- Interveiwed for the same article broadly agreed with Janet but made a significant admission, He had observed someone he thought looked like the description of the suspect,He had followed him to a florist shop,He had called the police.

GEORGE HOLLINGBERRY----- A journalist with London Evening News was the journalistic source for both the Mail and Sketch articles, interveiwed in 1991 he was adamant that what had been printed was faithful reiteration of a story told to him by W Ewer in the Kings Head pub in the last week of the trial.

There is another aspect to this story which I did not include my previous post

In the course of research for the tv programme "Mystery of Deadmans Hill"
the researchers learned of a press photographer who it was claimed had taken a photograph with the intention of it being included in the article.
The photographer was traced and interviewed, apparently he had gone to the Swiss cottage shopping arcade and persuaded Janet Gregston to pose for a photograph ,looking sadly from the front window of her brother in laws shop towards Burtols the dry cleaners opposite. If this story is true it completely refutes her claim that she had no involvement in it.
However a search of the Press Photographic Library,who hold a vast archive on the A6 murder,failed to locate a copy the photograph ,if indeed it ever existed. The library stated however that if had not been used by the press they may never have held a copy.it could of course been deleted or removed by someone,I am aware that this is speculation.
Unable to authenticate it without a copy of the photograph, this aspect of the story was ommited from the programme .I thought however it was interesting.

How ever much of "she saw him at the cleaners" is a exaggeration/fabrication
one fact does emerge ,it originated ,by his own admission from W Ewer

The florist shop managed by Mrs Morrel was not located in the Swiss cottage tube station shopping arcade ,it was situated on Northways Parade
which is in fact a row of shops on Finchley Road close the tube station entrance. A florist still operates on that site to this day trading under the name Cottage Florists

Hello Julie - a very warm welcome back to the rebooted thread. Your contributions are always excellent.

I think the really significant thing about this story is the bit that Ewer admits is true - that he followed a man who apparently fitting the description of the killer to the florists and called the police.

If followed up - the police would have discovered that the man in question sent flowers from that florist to Mrs Hanratty at the Hanratty address. If Hanratty used the Ryan name it does confirm the theory that the Ryan/Hanratty connection could have been made early on - before he was a suspect.

Did Ewer actually see Hanratty at the cleaners and follow him to the florists?

And possibly:

- Did Hanratty often use that dry cleaners? If so:
- Did he ever pop into Ewers shop to try to sell him stolen property?
-And - if Ewer refused to buy it - did he point Hanratty towards Louise Anderson as a potential buyer?

I have always thought there is more to the Ewer/Hanratty/Anderson connection than has been revealed.

[Victor]

In terms of the DNA (and I am sure the scientists among us will help me here) I am struggling with the idea that so few profiles were found on the garments. For example Hanratty's hanky. Are we to believe Hanratty laundered his own washing? We know he didn't because Mrs France often did his washing and ironing (Bless her - she gets forgotten as a victim in all of this - she lost her husband too.) So why isn't there any evidence of other profiles on his garments such as Mrs France or her daughter or Hanratty's mother? Surely the same applies to Valerie. Why no other profiles? Did everyone handling the garments before that terrible night wear gloves?

Hi Julie,

Your talking about persistence - how long the DNA stays detectable - and that depends upon a number of factors. The detergents present in laundering will break down DNA usually by denaturing - unzipping the two strands that form the double helix - and then fragmenting the strands.

A second factor is the quantity of DNA that is transferred to the garment, the odd bunch of cells from a flake of skin is nothing compared to the billions of sperm per ejaculate.

Thirdly, this sort of transfer is not guaranteed unlike semen which was undoubtedly on the knicker fragment. Linking to the other recent discussion, if semen was visually identified as being present, then the DNA profile from it must be there.

I know it's been done to death but I still wonder how no evidence of the killer was found in the car or under Valerie's finger nails. It's very odd.

It all depends upon whether it was looked for - and how many coppers had contaminated the scene obliterating the evidence.

However - she did take a long time to select Hanratty and only then after she heard him speak.

According to Valerie, she selected Hanratty quickly, and used the voice to confirm the selection, and then announced her selection after 20 minutes had elapsed.

KR,
Vic.

[babybird67]

Hi Jen,
-I do not think Janet had criminal tendencies at all.

So then who are we accusing of hiring Alphon to hold up the lovers at gunpoint to frighten them away from eachother? Was it only Ewer's idea? Why would he go ahead with such a plan without Janet being involved/consulted?

-Hanratty had never owned a gun and had never committed a crime of violence.
-What makes you say he wanted to procure a firearm to carry out armed robbery?

He admitted it when interviewed. He was convicted of the A6 murder and rape and attempted murder, that is pretty violent in my book, but if you mean previously, so what? There are plenty of criminals who progress from non-violent to violent crime. By his own admission, he was seeking to procure a gun and partake in armed robberies. Everyone has to commit their first violent crime at some point...a baby isn't born with a violent criminal record.

In Roman Law the first question asked about any crime of theft or murder was "Who Gained?"[Oui bono]?It may be worth us asking this about the A6 case.
Best
Norma

So who are you suggesting gained? Are you now suggesting Ewer organised the murder so he could possess Janet????

[Victor]

I would find it very unlikely to have been invented by journalists.In fact its a nonsense to imagine that and reveals a total ignorance about the way a National newspaper such as the Daily Mail operates---one of the papers in which this story appeared.

Hi Norma,

I just can't believe you are arguing that journalists don't make up sensational stories - Max Clifford makes a tidy salary feeding rubbish to the tabloids. They are frequently paying out huge sums for slander and libel, and then there's the current "phone hacking" scandal. Journalists are on a par with politicians in terms of honesty.

In any case William Ewer simply stated that it contained "inaccuracies" which is a different matter from saying the story was untrue.

Woffinden lists the dozen or so points that Ewer wrote in reply to this which includes something ridiculous about asking permission to attend the trial.

It is inconceivable that this story would have been run by the Daily Mail [as well as the Daily Sketch]had there been the slightest danger of the paper being sued by William Ewer for defamation or slander.

Using that logic, it's inconceivable that newspapers would ever be successfully sued - and that's plainly complete and utter nonsense.

KR,
Vic.

[Black Rabbit]

You do realise you are accusing Janet of being a criminal don't you?

It seems Hanratty fan club members can cope with everyone else being a criminal but their golden boy!

The issue is not whether James Hanratty was a criminal, rather whether or not he was a rapist & murderer

(Stands back, expecting to be slaughtered scholar: )

[caz]

Hi Caz
The one spanner in the works with your argument is that of MG's profile being attributed to him. Attributed is a word used here that really means guessed at.

I have not read anywhere how MG's referential profile had been obtained for elimination purposes.

Familial samples are just not good enough here and his body wasn't exhumed as Hanratty's was.

Derrick

Fair enough, Derrick, although that wasn't really 'my' argument as such; I was merely explaining why Roger Mann referred to only the one (significant) profile, rather than the three in total. The presumption was (and sadly will remain without fresh evidence or the possibility of retesting) that the victim's underwear had revealed just the three expected profiles: hers, her lover's and her rapist's, in accordance with the circumstances of the crime as well as the semen staining observed and blood typed (one AB, matching MG and one 0, attributed to the gunman and rapist) immediately afterwards.

The match between the profile identified as JH's on the knicker fragment and the single JH profile obtained from the hanky is what makes it a wholly reasonable presumption that the third profile could only have belonged to MG.

There were no spare profiles that could reasonably have been there due to secondary transfer, and no missing profiles if all three were in place by the time the gunman left his second victim for dead.

Sometimes you just have to accept what's staring you in the face or drive yourself mad, if the alternative demands that you conjure up some highly convoluted and frankly unworkable conspiracy, whereby several people and/or groups would have had to work independently of one another from 1961 to 2002, and had a mixture of the most incredible luck, guile and clever judgement, to replace the guilty man (Alphon) with an innocent one (Hanratty) with a criminal record, the right blood group and no provable alibi, despite having been a couple of hundred miles away when the gunman struck; get him picked out and sworn to by the victim as her rapist and fellow traveller for five hours in that cramped vehicle; get the jury to convict him; and then wave a magic wand over the little material evidence that had survived for forty years to produce a perfect trinity of DNA profiles out of the hat, together with the patsy's white hanky waving in limp surrender.

It's a big ask, isn't it?

And apologies for the horrendously long sentence. I often wonder how Hanratty himself would have reacted in 2002, if he had served a long sentence instead of a very short one at the end of a rope.

Valerie is still serving hers.

Love,

Caz
X

[babybird67]

The issue is not whether James Hanratty was a criminal, rather whether or not he was a rapist & murderer

(Stands back, expecting to be slaughtered scholar: )

Which he was.