A6 Rebooted

[caz]

"Judging by what I have read, Hanratty preferred to rob people on his own 'turf'."

Hi Louisa,

That's like saying little Johnny preferred jammy dodgers, when he has chocolate round his mouth and his hands in the cookie jar.

Still nobody has been able to explain how - or why - the disparate groups of frame-up merchants, policemen, doctors, forensic scientists and conspirators would have pulled this off between them and done up the hapless Hanratty like a kipper, if he had bugger all to do with this crime.

Love,

Caz
X

[louisa]

If, during the first identity parade, Valerie Storey had picked out the person who most resembled her original description of her attacker (and her first identikit picture), then Alphon would have hung. Acott was absolutely certain he was the guilty party.

Luckily for Alphon he wasn't asked to speak during the ID parade because he may well have pronounced 'th' as 'f' - he was a Londoner after all and it's not just cockneys who pronounce 'th' in this way. I do this myself at times, it's all part of having a London accent.

[Graham]

Slough is a fairly a long distance from London. I speak as a Londoner, born and bred. Judging by what I have read, Hanratty preferred to rob people on his own 'turf'.

The Hanratty family had lived for some time in the Kingsbury/Wembley area; surely not that far from Slough? Yes, I understand most of his known house-breaking japes were closer to where he lived (that is, when he condescended to spend a night or two at his parents' house), but he did do a burglary in Crosby, near Liverpool, earlier that year, when he and a mate nicked a Ford Consul and went on a jaunt, which ended up in disaster and embarrassment.

And of course most of the burglaries we know about are the ones that he was eventually pinched for - there were doubtless others he got away with, and could have been done anywhere during his trips around the country.

Graham

[Limehouse]

"Judging by what I have read, Hanratty preferred to rob people on his own 'turf'."

Hi Louisa,

That's like saying little Johnny preferred jammy dodgers, when he has chocolate round his mouth and his hands in the cookie jar.

Still nobody has been able to explain how - or why - the disparate groups of frame-up merchants, policemen, doctors, forensic scientists and conspirators would have pulled this off between them and done up the hapless Hanratty like a kipper, if he had bugger all to do with this crime.
Love,

Caz
X

I have certainly tried, many times, but you don't seem to notice or have missed the posts concerned.

[Limehouse]

Hi Julie,

I meant to respond to this, but have been side-tracked for a couple of days. You're absolutely correct - JH wouldn't use a gun to rob a house, and I stand corrected on this point. He'd be looking for bigger fish to fry, of course.

Someone years ago on the old forum did in fact suggest something along the lines that maybe JH was looking to nick a getaway car or something like that. This is a very important point you make, Julie, and one which I think has been overlooked by all and sundry - its excellence was reinforced to me very recently by a former poster to this thread (thanks, Vic - we miss you), but unfortunately those who believe in JH's innocence could never accept it as a possibility - as you yourself don't. Maybe after he got into the car he got caught up in a conversation he felt unable to drop, and lost his original intent to pinch the car. Who knows?

I don't think it would've taken much organisation or will-power for even JH to head for Paddington Station and the Slough area, after he left The Vienna. Maybe he'd checked out the Dorney area previously - again, who knows?

Re: the move from Huntercombe Lane to the cornfield, if I recall aright Valerie said thay she and Gregsten had been at Huntercombe only for a very short time before they decided to move, and hadn't been very long at the cornfield before the gunman turned up. OK, he could have studied their previous movements and could have lay hidden, awaiting their arrival, but this isn't a likely scenario to me. However, Valerie did say she thought he might have been waiting for someone, so again - who knows?

I don't like speculating, but a possible scenario could be that JH had decided on armed robbery as his future, and got himself a gun. What kind of place would he rob? A petrol-station would have stacks of ready cash - no credit-cards in those days - and would be easy enough to rob, as most of them only had one or two attendants on duty at night. Where are there lots of petrol-stations? Main roads. JH had been to the dogs at Slough, so presumably knew the A4 and its petrol-stations. Train from Paddington to Slough in the morning, hang around Slough during the day (or even, perhaps, to collect the gun...) then a bus-ride or a walk to a known lovers-lane to pinch a car. It's only 15 minutes from the main road to Dorney Reach (I've walked it myself). Even a Morris Minor is a better getaway car than no car at all. How's that?

Tell you something, the entire A6 Case and its cast of characters is something you couldn't make up, not in a thousand years....

Cheers,

Graham

Thanks for this excellent response Graham.

I certaily would not rule out the theory that Hanratty considered turning to armed robbery (although he himself said that he only hinted at this to keep in with the chaps in prison) and neither would I rule out the idea that he may have considered wandering out into the country in order to look for a getaway car to aid an armed robbery. What I would probably rule out is the idea that he would select a Morris Minor because it would not have fitted his image and he would not have chosen a car he had doubts about being able to drive if he needed a quick getaway. Additionally, I would 99% rule out the idea that Hanratty would turn into a violent murderer and sex offender for no good reason. After all, with a gun in his hand, he could have walked away from the car at any time, even if things had got out of hand and beyond what he had intended. What I would also rule out is the notion that Hanratty, or anyone else, would take practice shots from a gun in a hotel room without drawing any attention to themselves and then calmly leave the cartridge cases behind, not to be found for another three weeks.

You are right about the case being one you couldn't make up. It's had people intrigued for the past fifty years. It's likely to have divided people who would normally have agreed on most other things and, sadly, it has left behind so may victims.

Have a good weekend.

Julie

[louisa]

"Still nobody has been able to explain how - or why - the disparate groups of frame-up merchants, policemen, doctors, forensic scientists and conspirators would have pulled this off between them and done up the hapless Hanratty like a kipper, if he had bugger all to do with this crime".

Paul Foot and Bob Woffindon have done a superb job in explaining it, as have other posters on this thread.

[Limehouse]

Hi Limehouse,

You deserve a fuller response - sorry.

Not sure what you mean by the outcome not being 'very' different, had Hanratty told the whole truth about his whereabouts instead of telling lies. It was going to be hanging or acquittal, and the jury had to decide if Hanratty was telling the truth about his movements when the rape and murder were taking place. Obviously if he was guilty and told the whole truth, the outcome would have been the same. But if he was innocent and had never wavered from a full account of his movements, there is every chance that a reliable witness could have been found early on who would have turned up trumps for him and given the jury something to indicate his honesty and therefore a reasonable doubt about his guilt.

But once you admit that he did lie, on oath, about overnighting in Liverpool, it's not very sensible to base your opinions on any explanations he may have given himself. I expect the jury felt the same. Having caught himself in this lie, he effectively made any other evidence for the prosecution appear that much sounder. Of course, he was only obliged to lie about his whereabouts if he had been committing the A6 murder at the relevant time.

A genuine alibi is all Hanratty should have needed to show up a 'mistake' or 'misjustice', and telling the police about a genuine stay in a reasonably respectable guest house in Rhyl has got to be head and shoulders above a bogus stay in Liverpool, with fingers crossed that his criminal mates will lie for him too. Rhyl could hardly be called a 'vague' alibi by comparison, unless you too have doubts that he was actually there on the right night.

Once again, what was there to lose by admitting outright to a night in Rhyl if that's where he was?

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

Well I have tried to explain why Hanratty did not mention Rhyl from the outset and I think that, just because he lied about staying in Liverpool over night, it doesn't follow that he definitely spent that night murdering MG and raping VS. It is no secret that Hanratty did not live a blameless life and his trip to Liverpool/Rhyl was not undetaken for honest purposes. Hanratty admitted this. However, on the basis that Hanratty was innocent (according to my argument) and on that basis he mentioned Rhyl immediately, how likely is it that anyone other than those who have already done so would have come forward? In any case, how are we to know that they would have been believed when those that have come forward have not been taken seriously?

I have always admitted that Hanratty was foolish for changing his alibi so late and it almost certainly cost him his life.

Have a good weekend.

Julie

[caz]

I have always admitted that Hanratty was foolish for changing his alibi so late and it almost certainly cost him his life.

Then that contradicts what you said earlier, about the outcome not being 'very different' had he told the whole truth from the start.

I suspect he saw the car in that field and thought it too good an opportunity to pass up. Better by far than trying to nick one from a residential street - or so he may have figured.

Love,

Caz
X

[Limehouse]

Then that contradicts what you said earlier, about the outcome not being 'very different' had he told the whole truth from the start.

I suspect he saw the car in that field and thought it too good an opportunity to pass up. Better by far than trying to nick one from a residential street - or so he may have figured.

Love,

Caz
X

So, Hanratty tells his old lags in jail that 'there is no money in housebreaking and he is thinking of moving into something biiger' then he goes out with a gun and sixty odd rounds of cartridges - only to find a Morris Minor in a field irrisistible?

That beggers belief!

[Natalie Severn]

Graham - I don't know why you need to 'keep your cool' - after all this is a friendly discussion forum and differences of opinion are to be expected. Speaking for myself, I am quite all right with being disagreed with

By the way I am not totally convinced of Hanratty's innocence - or his guilt for that matter.

Slough is a fairly a long distance from London. I speak as a Londoner, born and bred. Judging by what I have read, Hanratty preferred to rob people on his own 'turf'.

Dorney Reach field is roughly 50 miles from London-----not 'a few miles'.It is difficult to get to even today without a car.

[Natalie Severn]

Graham,
Hendon dog track, where Hanratty went on the evening of 22nd August is nowhere near Slough and in quite the opposite direction.Hendon is North London whereas Slough is not London and approximately 30 miles from its centre .Hendon is also close to Kingsbury where Hanratty used to live and is next to to Golders Green which touches Central London and -so not more than 6 or 7 miles from Central London and Soho and easy to reach by both tube or bus.

[louisa]

It's over twenty miles, as the crow flies.


I've been looking on Google Maps, and I know it's been 50 years since it all happened and the landscape will have changed, but I was trying to locate the exact field in Marsh Lane, where it all began. The only one that looked remotely like the photographs, and faced the river, was located in Lower Marsh Lane, a little turning off Marsh Lane.

[Natalie Severn]

Then that contradicts what you said earlier, about the outcome not being 'very different' had he told the whole truth from the start.

I suspect he saw the car in that field and thought it too good an opportunity to pass up. Better by far than trying to nick one from a residential street - or so he may have figured.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,
But Hanratty's business with the Rehearsal Club was in part to do with stealing big cars for the big boys there! He would nick the car and park it in a prearranged place for them to pick up.On 7th October at midnight ,after ringing Acott
with further protestations of his innocence of the A6 murder,he simply went to Great Portland Street where he checked out the dashboard of a Jaguar,rapidly got the details over to a chap he knew in Soho who made him a key straight away and off he went to Liverpool via Manchester where he abandoned the car and then took the train.I really doubt very much he was into Morris Minors---after all the car he did buy himself after he had sold the ring was a flashy little soft topped Sunbeam Alpine sports car---much more like it!

[Graham]

This is just getting damn silly now. Norma says that Hanratty was at Hendon Dog Track on the evening of 22 August, yet for the past God-knows how many years she's been claiming he was in Rhyl!!! If she means that Alphon was saying he was at Hendon Dog Track that evening, then fair enough; all I said was that Hanratty had been, at some previous time not specified by me, to Slough Dog Track.

I just checked AA Route Planner. From Kingsbury to Dorney Reach is 29.7 miles. I never made any mention at all of the distance to Dorney Reach from The Vienna Hotel, which is what I presume you mean when you give the figure of 50 miles from London. I was surmising, as I am permitted to do, I hope, that Hanratty checked out the area of Dorney Reach, and specifically the A4 road through Slough and then Taplow, at a previous time when he was perhaps living with his parents.

Incidentally, what do you mean when you say London? Charing Cross? Trafalgar Square? Somewhere else?

But I must keep my cool....

Louisa,

I have been to the entrance to the cornfield on 3 occasions, and I believe that you are correct when you say it's in Lower Marsh Lane. However, I also believe that the shape of the entrance to the cornfield has changed in the intervening years, and that an electricity sub-station now blocks it (Steve, a much-missed poster to this thread, took some excellent photos of the area, and I base my belief on my memory of those photos). I walked one time from Taplow Station, past the site (now a garage) of The Old Station Inn, down Marsh Lane to the famous cottages, then to the entrance to the cornfield. It was a hot day and it knackered me. Worth it, though.

Graham

[Natalie Severn]

Oh I think you could see Graham that I was referring to the early evening of the 21st -----but never mind you can say I was confusing him with Alphon ete if that makes you feel good.

Ok?

Hanratty went to Hendon dog track---[30 odd miles from where you had him in Slough] on the early evening of 21st August 1961..



it was Alphonwho frequented Slough dog track and mentioned it on several occasions



I did say Soho-----check back