Tweet
This was a very disturbing conviction from the start for all sorts of reasons that I have enumerated in my recent book," The A6 Murder: Was Hanratty Innocent?"
There was never any direct evidence against Hanratty -it is ALL circumstantial. There were no hairs,blood, fibres nothing at all found in the murder car that linked Hanratty to it.
Regarding the DNA the scientists claimed factual certainty when there was no proper basis for it.Since 2002 there have been constant doubts expressed by the scientific community about the merits of DNA testing-: the method ,the testing, the science behind it and the conclusions that can be drawn from the results.Five years after the Hanratty appeal the judge threw out 'evidence' linking Sean Hoey to the Omagh bomb trial when Professor Dan Krane ,a DNA expert from Ohio gave evidence [in 2007 ]because of 'the unreliability of the FFS's LCN DNA findings. "Low copy number tests are much more prone to flexible interpretation ,than with conventional tests". said Prof Dan Krane."Because of its great sensitivity there are much greater concerns about the persistence of DNA and its ability to be transferred from one article to another ."Its just too easy for contamination to occur,or for the DNA to have become associated with an article through very innocent ,very old contact.
In my book I use a Getty photo taken outside the courthouse of the 1962 trial showing the sort of contamination that could have occurred when so little is needed to contaminate a sample .Here you can clearly see in the bare hands of a clerk of the court , the duffel bag,and other items of evidence and arriving at the trial .Later these items were put out on a table daily and collected at the end of each day[and during the November 1961 committal it was even worse because included in this handling were the knickers and Hanratty's trousers.
Btw there was no independent access to the DNA evidence by the defence and all evidence was destroyed during the testing which warrants an entire chapter of its own..
Its certainly not all there is to say about what happened regarding the 1961 storage / handling /forensic examination of the knickers and knicker fragment and its subsequent evidential history .Likewise the handkerchief.
But it should be obvious that this 'key evidence' -the knicker fragment,would,by today's standards , be 'valueless' in a court of law.
There was never any direct evidence against Hanratty -it is ALL circumstantial. There were no hairs,blood, fibres nothing at all found in the murder car that linked Hanratty to it.
Regarding the DNA the scientists claimed factual certainty when there was no proper basis for it.Since 2002 there have been constant doubts expressed by the scientific community about the merits of DNA testing-: the method ,the testing, the science behind it and the conclusions that can be drawn from the results.Five years after the Hanratty appeal the judge threw out 'evidence' linking Sean Hoey to the Omagh bomb trial when Professor Dan Krane ,a DNA expert from Ohio gave evidence [in 2007 ]because of 'the unreliability of the FFS's LCN DNA findings. "Low copy number tests are much more prone to flexible interpretation ,than with conventional tests". said Prof Dan Krane."Because of its great sensitivity there are much greater concerns about the persistence of DNA and its ability to be transferred from one article to another ."Its just too easy for contamination to occur,or for the DNA to have become associated with an article through very innocent ,very old contact.
In my book I use a Getty photo taken outside the courthouse of the 1962 trial showing the sort of contamination that could have occurred when so little is needed to contaminate a sample .Here you can clearly see in the bare hands of a clerk of the court , the duffel bag,and other items of evidence and arriving at the trial .Later these items were put out on a table daily and collected at the end of each day[and during the November 1961 committal it was even worse because included in this handling were the knickers and Hanratty's trousers.
Btw there was no independent access to the DNA evidence by the defence and all evidence was destroyed during the testing which warrants an entire chapter of its own..
Its certainly not all there is to say about what happened regarding the 1961 storage / handling /forensic examination of the knickers and knicker fragment and its subsequent evidential history .Likewise the handkerchief.
But it should be obvious that this 'key evidence' -the knicker fragment,would,by today's standards , be 'valueless' in a court of law.
Comment