A6 Rebooted

[Derrick]

I think that we can all agree, pro-Hanratty or anti-Hanratty, that the jury was not up to the job.

Hi Ron

I certainly agree with that.

Please go ahead and get in touch with Bindmans and put me forward as chief scientific examiner to the Hanratty family.

My full address is;

Derrick
UK

Best wishes
Derrick

[Derrick]

...But like you I do worry about whether the crown may have seized their advantage somewhat and were opportunistic over some memory inconsistencies...

Hi Norma

I would go further and say that Valerie Storie's memory was moulded to fit whatever evidence and suspect that the police could come up with or for the police just ignore her evidence altogther.

This is obvious in the investigation as Acott first proceeded to forward the case with evidence that was counter to Ms Stories recollections by tracking Alphon.

The most astonishing conjuring trick that Acott performed was that of coming up with 12 points to exonerate Alphon when he was announced at one point as being the plods most wanted man. If Alphon had an alibi and wasn't called Jim with blue eyes then why did the police waste so much time going after him?

Yet when the Alphon route collapsed Acott obviously panicked.

Evidence such as the Harrow roadworks ended up near Kingsbury.

The fact that the car stopped at the Regent garage at London Airport was forgotten and Harry Hiron's (Kingsbury garage) statement was read out in court. This was all manipuated by Acott to fool the jury that the crime was committed near to places that Hanratty would have been familiar with.

It is a shame that the defence accepted Hirons' statement and didn't cross examine Hirons in open court, because he certainly didn't see the car, or Hanratty. And, as we all now know, Skillet and Trower could not have seen the car due to the additional mileage and the later time that the car was actually abandoned in Avondale Crescent.

Surely anyone with any semblence of common sense would be worried by this.

Derrick

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks Derrick,
--- and you see the fiasco at the Vienna Hotel where you can see Nudds change his 2nd statement to "fit up" Alphon because Acott thought he could be the A6 gunman .Who put those used cartridge cases there 19 days after the murder?I noted that Judge Gorman was at pains to point out that anybody at all could have easily entered Room 24 from the public garden quite apart from others in the hotel being able to do so and that they-the jury - must not conclude that because Hanratty had slept there almost three weeks prior then he must have left them there.

[Black Rabbit]

It would seem that certain posters chose not to heed Admins warning and persist in their arrogant behaviour.

For their benefit I attach the follwing link:

http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0786080#m_en_gb0786080

Time for people to grow up.

Point taken.Thanks for the reminder.However,Black Rabbit I still fail to see how the Bedfordshire jury could have come back after 10 hours of deliberation and having expressed and acknowledged uncertainty among their ranks, particularly when ,after asking the judge for further guidance, they totally ignored that guidance-I mean was he too subtle for them? . . . . . . . . . .
Berst Wishes,
Norma

In my previos post (above) I was not making any specific reference to the Jury, rather the way that the tone of this thread was once again descending, via various posters poor attempts to be clever with their sarcastic remarks.

[RonIpstone]

All the verdict amounted to was that a rather mentally challenged ,hang "em and flog "em, all male, middle class, jury in Bedford who
didn"t know their arses from their elbows after eleven hours without a decent meal or a decent drink ----and after a great deal of confusion about the meaning of the words "reasonable doubt" decided to call it quits and unite to cause a death by hanging.

It would be interesting to hear some arguments in support of this eleven man Bedfordshire jury. Recent events have proved its decision to be the right one, but was it the right one at the time, or was its verdict one which no reasonable jury, properly directed, could have reached?

[RonIpstone]

Hi Ron

I certainly agree with that.

Please go ahead and get in touch with Bindmans and put me forward as chief scientific examiner to the Hanratty family.

My full address is;

Derrick
(edited out)

Best wishes
Derrick

Thanks Derrick. I shall pass your details on to Sir Geoff. The Internet can be a dangerous place so I have edited out your full address details, but they will remain in your OP.

[jimarilyn]

If Alphon had an alibi and wasn't called Jim with blue eyes then why did the police waste so much time going after him?

That, as some might say, is the 64,000 dollar question, Derrick. One which persists to this day and which has never been satisfactorily explained.

Acott obviously placed very little stock in Mys Sterie's changed description of the gunman. On August 23rd he had brownish eyes but by August 31st they had had metamorphosed into "icy blue saucer like eyes" This new description was given on the same day that Billy Ewer and Janet Gregsten saw Hanratty at (or maybe took him to) the cleaners.

[RonIpstone]

Hi Norma
I agree. Gorman tried to be as fair as could be with his directing of the jury. But Hanratty was stitched up, as the trial was originally set for the Old Bailey.
Derrick

If it is suggested that the authorities were acting with a view to ensure a conviction by holding the trial in Bedford, then why did they not go the whole hog and get a prosecution minded judge to preside?

I understand that the usual rule is that, unless there are exceptional circumstances, the trial should be held within the county where the crime was committed, to wit Beds in the A6 Murder.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Ron,
I would be interested to take up your suggestion about a discussion about how the jury came to a guilty verdict.At the moment I am not able to get on the internet very easily but will try to join in once such a discussion kicks off.
Norma

[Victor]

If Alphon had an alibi and wasn't called Jim with blue eyes then why did the police waste so much time going after him?

That, as some might say, is the 64,000 dollar question, Derrick. One which persists to this day and which has never been satisfactorily explained.

Hi Derrick and James,

How could Acott have known that Alphon had an alibi without tracking him and investigating? You appear to be suggesting that the Police should not investigate every lead they had.

KR,
Vic.

[Derrick]

Hi Derrick and James,

How could Acott have known that Alphon had an alibi without tracking him and investigating? You appear to be suggesting that the Police should not investigate every lead they had.

KR,
Vic.

Hi Vic

Acott, or the police in general, didn't investigate Alphon, or anyone to be honest, to start with and just accepted that he had an alibi by what Nudds and Mrs Alphon said.

It is accepted by all that the police were correct in putting out an alert to all owners of boarding houses and hotels to be aware of guests behaving strangely.

So the police had a definite lead, in Alphon. But what did they do...nothing really.

Alphon told them an unsubstatiated tale of his wanderings, al la Ralph McTell, through the streets of London. Then the police rang the Vienna and was told by Nudds that he stayed there on the night of the murder. That was the extent of the police's curiousity into the matter?

Nowadays you would have swarms of SOCO's all over the Vienna looking for clues. I bet back then that they wouldn't have found any spent cartridge cases in room 24 for starters.

When Acott was getting really desperate he then held interviews with Nudds and Mrs Alphon. It transpired that Alphon didn't have an alibi after all.

Yet when Ms Storie didn't pick him out of the id parade, Acott then decided that Alphon did have an alibi after all. The wretched DS told this lie in open court in 1962!

Bewildering!

The worst piece of police detective work ever I would think.

Derrick

[caz]

They say they saw someone who could have been or who looked like Hanratty. None of them really made any positive identfication of him. Being shown one photo and being asked if that was him doesn't count.

Indeed so, BB. And it certainly wouldn't count today either. Very bad practice giving notoriously unreliable results - which would not have been the fault of the Rhyl witnesses themselves, but presumably explains why Hanratty's team of staunch defenders couldn't make effective use of any of them when push came to shove.

Far from their collective testimony being able to stand up against the DNA findings and mount a successful challenge, the defence must have concluded, albeit very reluctantly, that it would lose all credibility by comparison and could only appear faintly ridiculous if put under the spotlight.

If Nats is right, and the defence didn't look into this thoroughly enough, perhaps it's time to start blaming the people who claimed to be trying to help Hanratty, instead of seeing only conspiracy, corruption or incompetence on the part of everyone else.

Love,

Caz
X

[Graham]

Valerie never actually mentioned eye-colour in her original statement to the police.

To suggest that the police did not sufficiently investigate Alphon is untrue. They investigated his background and his lifetstyle with exceeding thoroughness, and Woffinden states that a number of persons were taken to Scotland Yard for questioning about Alphon and his background.

Alphon himself stated that he was scared shitless about his interrogation by the police.

Alphon also volunteered to stand for i.d. parades, and to supply samples of pubic hair and body fluids. Not really the response of a man with much to hide.

Said this before, will say it again: had Hanratty stuck to his Liverpool 'Alibi',
then the jury may well have been convinced, or at least given him the benefit of the doubt, which they were really obliged to do. When Hanratty came up with the Rhyl nonsense, Sherrard's heart must have missed a few beats, as it is palapably transparent, honest citizens of Rhyl notwithstanding. If the Rhyl 'alibi' is kosher, then why the hell didn't Hanratty use it from the start?

Finally, there have been suggestions that the authorities, the 'Establishment', call them what-you-will, conspired against James Hanratty. I asked this before on the old boards, and never got a satisfactory response, so I'll ask it again: why should there have been, and according to some still is, a conspiracy against James Hanratty?

Graham

[jimarilyn]

Hi Victor

Hi Derrick and James,

How could Acott have known that Alphon had an alibi without tracking him and investigating? You appear to be suggesting that the Police should not investigate every lead they had.

KR,
Vic.

There had been absolutely no mention of "icy blue saucer like eyes" from August 23rd through to August 31st, a full eight days. The plod had known since Sunday August 27th that Alphon had hazelish coloured eyes. If they had taken any heed of Valerie's new description of the gunman's eye colour they would have ruled Alphon out by that criteria alone.
But no, they brought Alphon in for questioning on two more occasions during September and then placed him on an ID parade, confident that they had their man. Had the very softly spoken Alphon been asked to say "Be quiet will you I am thinking" on that first parade then the outcome might have had drastic consequences for him. As it was, Valerie never got to hear Alphon speak on that particular occasion.

[Natalie Severn]

16 May 1971 Sunday Times Man with eyes like carbuncles! William Ewer told the S.Times he saw the man with the bright blue eyes just like two carbuncles on 1st sept 1961 opposite his Swiss Cottage shop.
The very day mrs Dorothy Morrell recorded a Mr Ryan sending his mum,mrs Hanratty flowers to Sycamore Grove.mrs Morrell also saw two plain clothes policemen about it that week. They told her they were from Scotland Yard.
But right James, the police ignored the bright blue eyes, Ryan,the carbuncle story etc and even though Ryan was in room 24 where the spent cartridges were mysteriously found in The Vienna Hotel mysteriously arrived that is a full 19 days after the A 6 murder ,whereas Alphon was in room 6 arrested and interrogated Alphon!Strange behaviour.
Sent from my iphone