I can think of only one answer to that question: Acott did not believe everything Valerie told him. There is a moment in the trial when Acott is flummoxed by Sherrard asking him how, if he believed Valerie's description of the murderer, could he have even considered Alphon.
Hirons came forward claiming to be the attendant and Acott must have thought that he could not turn him away in case he was.
Sherrard was happy to go along with the idea that the attendant was Hirons who he even mentioned in his summing-up. It was only the defence who benefited from his evidence that he did not identify Hanratty which, as he was not the attendant, was hardly surprising!
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Originally posted by Herlock Sholmes View Post
Fair points. I still think the killer’s excuse for firing sounds weak though. Then again, I wasn’t there.
A couple of questions on the location Cobalt - I believe that it’s been suggested that Hanratty might have been in that area for robberies? So..
1. Did the police check if there were any burglaries that day in the area? I seem to recall something about robberies or a robbery and Hanratty possible sleeping in a deserted house (unless I’m confusing my memories with another case?) but there’s been nothing in the Stickler book yet.
2. If the killer had been committing crimes locally was the location where the abduction took place at a location likely to be on a route taken by the killer or was it o pletely out of the way?
There seems to have been very little police activity immediately after the 22 nd of August. In areas where you would expect major presence.It appears for example there was no presence at the Old station inn after the event, in my view an interviewing of punters in the pub for a week between say 8 and 10 pm , to see if a memory may be jogged ,something overheard, anything on those lines that might help their inquiry.
houses in Marsh Lane to see if there was vehicle activity in the field across the way.
Oxleys cottages ,top of Deadman’s hill, 3 farm cottages, someone may have heard gun shots!which obviously would set the time of the killing.
unfortunately chief superintendent Acott, placed great store by Valerie Storie as a witness.so much so he allowed his responsibilities to be side lined by his feelings of compassion for Valerie.
And yet however ( and I have never had a satisfactory answer to this question) Why did Acott insist on bringing Mr.Hirons into the mix ,a late night petrol pump attendant at the Shell station at Kingsbury roundabout, when he ,Acott knew full well Valerie had insisted the 2 gallon of petrol was bought from the Regent garage on the A4 by London airport? she even elaborated on remembering it was that filling station ,yet Acott ignored this completely , why?
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Originally posted by Herlock Sholmes View PostOlive Dinwoodie said that she thought that the photograph that she was shown resembled a man who had asked directions
There were two main reasons she gave for being certain it was the Monday. First, her daughter Barbara was with her; second, Cowley's brother John was not with her. On the Tuesday John Cowley was there until 6.00 or 6.30 (when his brother David - the owner- arrived) and said while he was there no-one came in asking for directions. John Cowley was there when Barbara visited the shop on Tuesday: "On the way back from town I called in at the shop about a quarter to five and Mr Cowley's brother was there with Gran".
Mrs D also said it was Monday when she discussed it with the driver, Harding, who said that when he called Barbara "was putting up pop bottles on the shelf" which points to Monday but is not conclusive in itself.
I don't know about the portable radio but suggest he might have put it in a station lock-up.
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My own view is that the Liverpool/Rhyl alibis can never be established one way or the other. There is doubt there for sure but the jury took the view that it was not reasonable doubt and the best efforts of Paul Foot and others have never resolved the matter. However as I have pointed out before it is extremely difficult to establish an alibi, especially for an itinerant criminal like Hanratty with no social routine, so I feel the matter must rest undecided.
The focus of the crime switched very swiftly to London given the car and revolver being retrieved there. The later alibi shifted the focus to Liverpool and Rhyl. But it's not clear to me that the police cleared their feet in Taplow itself where the actual contact was first made. Burglars don't normally go about their business wearing a suit and lugging a revolver with rounds of ammo, far less a portable radio. So the burglary angle seems stillborn, a feeble attempt to explain the burning question which was asked at the time: why was a London petty criminal skulking around a cornfield in Taplow and how did he get there?
And my latest question, as yet unanswered, is what happened to the portable radio? Valerie Storie did not mention it although to be even handed nor did anyone in Liverpool or Rhyl. Was Nudds gilding the lily?
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I’ve been re-familiarising myself with the Liverpool alibi to see if I can come to an opinion weighted one way or another but it just reminded me of what an infuriating exercise it is. My apologies to all for re-hashing what you are all totally familiar with.
Starting on Sunday August 20th Hanratty turns up at Dixie France’s house asking if his wife Charlotte could do some laundry for him as he intended to travel to Liverpool the next day to visit his aunt. Louis Anderson said that he slept at her flat on that Sunday night.
The following day (Monday August 21st) Hanratty collected his laundry. France’s daughter Carol was at home that day recovering from a tooth extraction so she confirmed the day. He seemed in no hurry to leave considering his supposed intention to travel to Liverpool as he didn’t leave their house until around 7.00pm. Later that evening Dixie saw him at the Rehearsal Club so he certainly didn’t travel on the Monday which is confirmed of course by his booking into The Vienna just before midnight that same day. A change of mind or a change of plans? Impossible to know.
The police contacted Hanratty’s aunt Christine in Liverpool but she told them that she said that she hadn’t seen him for 7 years. This shows dishonesty on Hanratty’s part but that can hardly come as much of a surprise for someone like him. But maybe he had intended to visit his aunt but other activities got in the way? Or maybe his visiting aunt was a convenient cover for more nefarious activities?
Hanratty admitted that he stayed at The Vienna on the Monday and that he went to Paddington station on the Tuesday morning before realising that trains didn’t run to Liverpool from there so he took a taxi over to Euston. He then claimed to have caught either the 10.55 or 12.55 (he’d previously said 11.55) and arrived in Liverpool where he stayed with friends, near the Bull Ring, until Thursday before returning to London on the Monday. He refused to name these friends (I want to make a comment and ask about that in a separate post)
He claimed that he deposited his case at Lime Street station with an attendant with a withered arm but he retrieved it from a different man. He also said that he went to see the film The Guns Of Navarone and at some point to a stadium to watch a boxing match ‘between a man named Winton and a coloured man’.
DCI Elliott, who was taxed with checking his alibi, found issues with his descriptions of the area and some of the people who lived there. The movie that he said that he’d seen was showing but at a cinema across the road from the one that he said that he’d used. Might this simply be a case of him confusing the names of the two cinemas? If he’d simply passed the cinema he might easily have recalled seeing a poster of course. The fight took place on the Thursday. Stickler only says that ‘at some stage’ he saw the film and the fight so I don’t know if the fight being on the Thursday is an issue?
The two trains that Hanratty could have taken would have got him to Liverpool at either 3.25 at the earliest or 4.45 at the latest. The only person working at Lime Street station that might correspond to the man with the withered arm was a man called Pete Stringer who had an artificial arm. He worked in the toilets but occasionally helped out in the cloakroom. On that particular day though he only worked in the cloakroom between 8.45 and 9.30 so this doesn’t help Hanratty. He’d certainly went to Liverpool in October and may have seen Stringer working in the cloak room so this could have been another convenient remembered fact to throw into an alibi.
Then we come to the sweet shop where Hanratty claimed to have asked for directions to Carlton or Talbot Road on the Tuesday (neither of which existed) In Cowley’s sweet shop Olive Dinwoodie said that she thought that the photograph that she was shown resembled a man who had asked directions, at the shop on 408 Scotland Road, for Tarleton Road (which is a good match for a mix of Carlton and Talbot. She’d told him that there was only a Tarleton Street. Hanratty claimed to have visited the shop on a Tuesday and that there was a child there. Olive’s granddaughter Barbara was with her in the shop but only on the Monday. This appears confirmed because one of the drivers came in and she asked him about Tarleton Road. She also said that it couldn’t have been the Tuesday because she’d been taken ill that day at 6.30 and the man asking directions had been there between 3.30 and 4.00.
Of the two trains that Hanratty might have caught from Euston only the first one might have allowed to get to the sweet shop on time. The second would have seen him at the shop after 5.00 and so too late.
So….Hanratty said that he asked for directions in Liverpool on the Tuesday 22nd….Olive Dinwoodie said that this occurred on the Monday 21st…..and the France’s and Nudds have Hanratty firmly in London all day Monday. And to top it off, Burton’s Cleaners at Swiss Cottage have Hanratty (as J Ryan) handing in a suit for repair and cleaning on Mondays 21st (no time given)
More interestingly (to me) is that if we have the France’s and Nudds (dodgy as they both were) and Burton’s Cleaners placing Hanratty very firmly in London on Monday 21st then how could Hanratty have come up with asking Carlton or Talbot Road in Liverpool on the same Monday with Olive Dinwoodie saying that the photo looked like Hanratty and that the man asked for Tartleton Road which is an uncanny mix of Carlton and Talbot.
Doppleganger Theory anyone?
Hanratty had been in (Scotland Road) Liverpool on October 9th so he could have picked up information to use in an alibi maybe.
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Originally posted by cobalt View PostI don't think many rapists take the trouble to carry a firearm. A knife seems more often to be their weapon of choice.
If there was sexual motive then Gregsten could have been removed at various points during the 4 hour ordeal, particularly when he was sent out to buy cigarettes. The subsequent attack on Valerie Storie reads more like some psycho-sexual response to the murder.
A couple of questions on the location Cobalt - I believe that it’s been suggested that Hanratty might have been in that area for robberies? So..
1. Did the police check if there were any burglaries that day in the area? I seem to recall something about robberies or a robbery and Hanratty possible sleeping in a deserted house (unless I’m confusing my memories with another case?) but there’s been nothing in the Stickler book yet.
2. If the killer had been committing crimes locally was the location where the abduction took place at a location likely to be on a route taken by the killer or was it o pletely out of the way?Last edited by Herlock Sholmes; 06-30-2024, 03:13 PM.
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I don't think many rapists take the trouble to carry a firearm. A knife seems more often to be their weapon of choice.
If there was sexual motive then Gregsten could have been removed at various points during the 4 hour ordeal, particularly when he was sent out to buy cigarettes. The subsequent attack on Valerie Storie reads more like some psycho-sexual response to the murder.
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Does anyone find the reason given for Gregsten being shot a little strange? The killer had requested that Gregsten pass him the bag so it wasn’t an unexexpected action yet he said “He frightened me. He moved suddenly. I got scared.” It’s not as if the laundry bag could have been used to subdue the killer and allow Gregsten to take the gun away from him. How could anything Gregsten did have triggered a man sitting safely behind him holding a gun?
There doesn’t appear to have been much time between Gregsten being shot and the killer asking Valerie to kiss him. Might this point to the rape being the intention all along and that the killer was hesitating as to when to make his move? Is that a valid speculation? If it is, and if Hanratty had no previous issues of sexual violence, is this a point against Hanratty’s guilt?
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Originally posted by ansonman View PostWhat did for Hanratty was Stories utter and unwavering conviction that he was the man who committed the crimes. Without that, they wouldn't have found him guilty.
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The cartridge cases,.the gun, saying he was Jim, identification by Skillett and Blackhall, lying about his alibi ...
You can disagree with the other things, but they did exist.
As for the unreliability of Nudds ...
In this trial he was only a peripheral witness, but if Alphon has been put on trial he would have been front and centre.
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What did for Hanratty was Stories utter and unwavering conviction that he was the man who committed the crimes. Without that, they wouldn't have found him guilty.
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There is enough information on these last few post s. Surely to conclude’ Reasonable Doubt.
What were the jury discussing all those long hours, apart from ‘I wonder what reasonable doubt means? We’d best go ask the judge, what a farce!
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Originally posted by Sherlock Houses View Post
Very possibly so HS as his father, James sr, was born in Drogheda, Ireland.
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Originally posted by Herlock Sholmes View Post
Did Hanratty have any trace of Irish in his accent Sherlock?
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Originally posted by cobalt View PostTo be fair to Nudds, his physical description of Hanratty seems pretty much on the mark. I assume this description could not have been coached since at that time Hanratty was not on the police radar. The portable radio is an interesting detail, if true. Why would Hanratty be lugging that around if he was setting out to do a spot of burglary, far less a hold up? For background music to set the scene? Valerie Storie did not mention it so what happened to the radio?
PS. Just as a matter of possible interest to some, highlights of this match [European Cup Semi-Final 1st leg] were broadcast on the evening of March 21st on the Light programme. Benfica, the eventual winners of the Cup that year, won this 1st leg, [a home leg] 3-1 with Spurs winning the 2nd leg 2-1, the day after Hanratty was hanged.
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