A6 Rebooted

[caz]

Hi Nats,

So why do you suppose you can point to one miscarriage of justice after another that has been exposed over the years, forcing an acknowledgement by the authorities, yet not one of those fighting so hard and so sincerely for Hanratty for the last half century has even come close to successfully exposing the A6 case as yet another example that the authorities could not reasonably continue to deny?

What are you all doing wrong, do you think? It's a serious question.

Love,

Caz
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[Natalie Severn]

Hi Caz,
You make it sound as though its a piece of cake overturning the verdict of a jury-I don't know why there has been such sustained resistance in this case but I could cite quite a few more cases that bear striking similarites of resistance and that continue to this day.
When The A6 jury broke from their deliberations after five and a half hours to ask the judge,"May we have a further statement from you regarding the definition of reasonable doubt? Must we be certain and sure of the prisoner's guilt to return a verdict? Judge Gorman replied,"If you have a reasonable doubt then you are not sure---you understand that ,do you not?" .
But what sense did they or could they make of the speculative and largely fictitious rigmarole of the prosecution case which relied on witnesses like Nudds and Langdale ,on partially disclosed witness testimony , half truths and ,as Michael Sherrard QC,[Hanratty's trial barrister] suspected at the time and which now he states in his autobiography has been confirmed by modern forensic handwriting tests , was fiddled with by police?
Astonishing too that even with 90,000 + signatures on a petition ,Butler saw no need to grant a reprieve and sent Hanratty to the gallows less than six weeks after their verdict.
But throughout every appeal the prosecution have been allowed to act as judge and executioner in their own cause and successive Governments have sustained and reinforced their position.
The recent forensic findings lack all the ingredients that should make them safe.The evidential history of the exhibits is all over the place and it is from one of these exhibits that were brought out at Ampthill,forgotten about and stored in the drawer of a police lab with other items of forensic importance that the 42 year tiny piece of degraded cloth was excised.
Forensic scientists were stood down who produced the wrongful conviction of Guiseppe Conlon,the Maguire family and of Danny McNamee.
Yet as Gareth Peirce has pointed out , amazingly, those same forensic scientists were used again in another famous case where succesive governments display the same sustained resistance to overturning a verdict and have collaborated to frustrate ,delay ,thwart and exhaust the efforts of campaigners .
Gareth Peirce :"What shocked me most was that I thought that all that had been gone through on Guioldford and Birmingham,the one thing that had been achieved was that nobody would be convicted again on bad science. BUt yet in the [------] case ,it isnt just the same bad science,it is the same bad scientists.
I am not suggesting here that the forensic scientists involved in testing the 42 year old knicker fragment were 'cooking the books' but rather that they were carried away by their discovery at the time .The international community of forensic scientists have since roundly attacked LCN's worrying propensity to give a false readings due to contaminants [admitted as a possibility at the time] but more especially if storage conditions have been less than totally stringent---which we know they were not---in fact nobody really knows the evidential history of the fragment of cloth that measures less than a centimetre square.This is why such tests are not allowed to be used evidentially in a court of law in any countries other than New Zealand,The Netherlands and the UK and instead conventional tests are used .
Norma

[Limehouse]

Good question Caz and good response Norma.

Just consider how long it took Derek Bentley's family to get a result. Forty-odd years. And Derek was effectively in custody when the policeman was shot. Additionally - his reprieve came at around the time the Hanratty appeal was going through. There is no way on earth the British establishment was going to announce that two young men were wrongly hanged.

There is nothing special about the Hanratty case that makes the establishment stick to its guns but a lot of high profile people of the time would come out smelling rather sour - and it might start the ball rolling on a whole load of other cases investgated by those policemen.

[caz]

There is no way on earth the British establishment was going to announce that two young men were wrongly hanged.

Hi Limehouse,

But that is such circular reasoning, isn't it? There is no way on earth anyone should be announcing that two young men were wrongly hanged if only one was, because the other committed the A6 murder.

Since the 2002 appeal the onus has been on Hanratty's defenders to demolish the judgement with clear and irrefutable evidence of why it was wrong. If not one of them can do that, it's not very realistic to expect the British establishment to announce that he was wrongly hanged!

Love,

Caz
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[Limehouse]

Similar case in 1946

Many many years ago I remember reading about a courting couple who were attacked by a gunman whilst sitting in a car in Epping Forest. I know the area well as I grew up nearby and knew the spot where they were attacked.

The story was re-visited by the local press at various intervals because it was an unsolved crime but eventually it disappeared into the mistys of time. Everytime I read a revised article it reminded me of the Hanratty case but that ws long before I joined this site. For about five years i have been trying to find a referecne to this story and tonight I found it!

In November 1946 Kenneth Dolden was sitting with his fiance in a car parked at a secluded spot in Epping Forest. After theyu had been sitting in the car for about half an hour - a man with a cap pulled down over his face tapped on the window. He produced a gun and ordered Kenneth Dolden out of the car. He then shot him with a .38 revolver and ran off. The fiance was unharmed. Kenneth Dolden was on leave from the RAF and his fiance was a schoolteacher. There was apprarently no motive for this attack.

The similarities between this and the attack on MG and VS are striking. I wonder if it is possible that there is a link - either to the gunman or as a copycat attack? Obviously - this happened 15 years before the A6 attack so the age of the A6 gunman would have to be about 35. However - it makes you wonder whether Acott and Oxford re-visited this crime when the A6 attack happened to see if they could be connected?

[Graham]

Hi Julie,

Strewth, I thought this thread was dead!

I remember reading about the Epping Forest murder, which was never solved. Kenneth Dolden's girl-friend ran for help to another car parked nearby. The driver took her to a phone-box and they called the police. He then said he would go back and help Mr Dolden but was never seen again.

Apart from the obvious fact that Dolden was murdered by a gunman who approached a courting-couple in a parked car in a lonely spot, the only other similarity between it and the A6 Case is that they were both completely motiveless.

If you're suggesting that the link between the two murders might have been Peter Alphon, then that gent must have shot Dolden during the school hols!
I don't think Dolden's girl-friend ever gave any indication of how old she thought the gunman might have been.

Graham

[Limehouse]

Hi Graham

Thanks for your reply. No - I am not suggesting that the gunman was Alphon.

Perhaps whoever killed Kenneth Dolden also attacked VS and MG - the unknown gunman who disappeared into the night - twice.

The man who took Dolden's fiance to the phone box and then vanished was probably having adulterous sex. His partner was a married woman whom he had picked up in Leyton earlier that night. He would not have wanted his wife to find out what he was up to - thus his disappearing act.

Incidently - Keith Simpson carried out the post mortem on KD and MG.

As I said - I wonder if Acott and Oxford re-opened the file on this murder when investigating the A6 crime?

Kind regards.

Julie

[caz]

Didn't they find certain "reading" matter in Hanratty's place that was inadmissible in court? I had assumed it was probably porn involving sex and violence, but I now wonder if there were newspaper cuttings of actual crimes such as this one, that had sexual undertones. It could have excited Hanratty and tempted him to try something similar with a courting couple, going further and raping the woman.

Since he could not have been involved in the Epping Forest case, a cutting of the unsolved crime would presumably have been inadmissible if found among Hanratty's bits and pieces. It would certainly have prejudiced the trial against him, as it did when Barry George had a pic of Jill Dando among his many newspapers.

Love,

Caz
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[Graham]

He also left a folder or a file of photographs and papers with his pal Donald Slack, and I don't think this was ever produced as evidence one way or the other. Presumably it was handed over to the police and never seen again.

In one respect, both the Epping Forest and the A6 cases have a bit of Zodiac about them, in as much as they involved couples in cars. Maybe that's where Zodiac got his inspiration from!

Cheers,

Graham

[Limehouse]

It just makes you think though. Although gun crime in terms of armed robberies was relatively common back then (because most transactions were done in cash) actual crimes of this sort - stalking lovers in cars and shooting them/one of them must have been almost unique. A seemingly motiveless crime. I can't help wondering if they were linked.

[caz]

It just makes you think though. Although gun crime in terms of armed robberies was relatively common back then (because most transactions were done in cash) actual crimes of this sort - stalking lovers in cars and shooting them/one of them must have been almost unique. A seemingly motiveless crime. I can't help wondering if they were linked.

If so, maybe the gunman was serving a lengthy prison sentence for another crime between 1946 and 1961, to explain the gap of 15 years between these very rare murders.

Love,

Caz
X

[Limehouse]

If so, maybe the gunman was serving a lengthy prison sentence for another crime between 1946 and 1961, to explain the gap of 15 years between these very rare murders.

Love,

Caz
X

Yes - I was thinking that too. Prison - or a secure hospital. Or perhaps he was abroad? Maybe in the army? Still - he would have had to have been quite young when he attacked that couple in 1946 if he did the 1961 attack too.

[caz]

He'd need to have been a boy of ten if it was the same person who went on to leave his DNA during the 1961 attack, Limehouse.

It's a very long climb to undo what's done - and to all intents and purposes dusted.

Love,

Caz
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[Graham]

Half A Century

It all began 50 years ago tonight.

Graham

[Limehouse]

It all began 50 years ago tonight.

Graham

Hi Graham

And it seems so fitting that the thread is quiet and peaceful these days.

Take care.

Julie