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  • 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.

    Comment


    • 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.
      But by the same token there were no hairs, blood, fibres, nothing at all found in the murder car that linked anyone else to it.

      The essential difference is that Valerie Storey identified James Hanratty as the man who killed her lover, and raped and shot her and left her for dead. It doesn't matter that in the first ID parade she picked out someone else, because Hanratty was not a member of that first ID parade. What DOES matter is that she picked him out on the second one, the one on which he was a member.

      I have never really understood what the problem is here. Valerie saw Hanratty, and she identified him.

      Even without the DNA, there is more than sufficient evidence to demonstrate that James Hanratty was the A6 murderer.

      And now I suppose we'll get the old 'Rhyl Alibi' stuff all over again; the Liverpool sweet shop nonsense all over again; the Alphon 'confession' crap all over again. And ad infinitum, ad nauseam..........

      Graham
      We are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture and hypothesis. - Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure Of Silver Blaze

      Comment


      • Hi Graham,
        But the mere fact that Valerie Storie had already "identified ' a different man[she later admitted thinking he looked like Alphon who was in police custody for the murder at the time]would today make her identification of Hanratty totally inadmissible.[this doesn't even include the totally different description she gave when assisting police with her her oval faced,smooth hairlines identikit pic and her changed description of 31st August 1961.]
        Best Norma

        Comment


        • Unfortunately for Hanratty apologists, today doesn't apply. What does apply is the basic fact that she identified James Hanratty.

          Can you please give me details of Valerie's saying that she admitted thinking that 'the man' in the first ID parade looked like Peter Alphon?

          Graham
          We are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture and hypothesis. - Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure Of Silver Blaze

          Comment


          • I can't give you the source of her statement right now ,Graham, though I have it in my files and will look for it in the next day or two.I am really busy tomorrow and Monday but I won't forget!It is in the trial evidence .Michael Sherrard is saying that he understands Valerie thought the man she first identified may have looked like Peter Alphon and she agreed she had thought that.

            Regarding visual identification you and others may want to dismiss the new regulations but the fact is they are there to avoid miscarriages of justice and it was the discovery nearly two decades ago of a large number of wrongful convictions enabled by scientific ' evidence ' that rightly led to demands that the community of forensic scientists change its ways.Similarly a series of catastrophic misidentifications required the introduction of sound new practices for evidence based on visual memory. Since then the first description is vital.If a witness makes a positive identification of one individual,no subsequent identification of a second is permissible.Equivocation and uncertainty is not enough.

            Comment


            • I think the identity evidence is most problematic too...If I've got this right, after all those hours in close proximity with the killer, she initially describes a suspect who looks nothing like Hanratty...Different eye colour even...

              Then she positively IDs someone other than Hanratty (again who looks nothing like him)...then at long last she picks out Hanratty and modifies her suspect description to match him (Prompted? One has to wonder)...

              I know one should show respect and understanding for a witness who suffered so much, but frankly I wouldn't condemn a rotten egg based on Stories sense of smell...sorry!

              Dave

              Comment


              • Initially, Valerie never even described the eye-colour of the person who attacked her. It was the police who made the original confusion.

                Valerie did not select Alphon on the original ID parade (much to his relief). Had Hanratty been a member of the ID parade when she picked out Michael Clarke, then we wouldn't even be here discussing this case, as that would have been an end of it. In the event, she [I]did[I[ pick him out when he was on an ID parade.

                There is in reality no problem whatsoever with Valerie's performance on the two ID parades in which she took part. Hanratty's defence team at his trial seemed to find no problem, either.

                Graham
                We are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture and hypothesis. - Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure Of Silver Blaze

                Comment


                • There is in reality no problem whatsoever with Valerie's performance on the two ID parades in which she took part.
                  Apart from positively identifying the wrong man?

                  Had Hanratty been a member of the ID parade when she picked out Michael Clarke, then we wouldn't even be here discussing this case, as that would have been an end of it.
                  And we know this because?

                  All the best

                  Dave
                  Last edited by Cogidubnus; 07-07-2012, 11:04 PM. Reason: Text added

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by Cogidubnus View Post
                    I think the identity evidence is most problematic too...If I've got this right, after all those hours in close proximity with the killer, she initially describes a suspect who looks nothing like Hanratty...Different eye colour even...

                    Then she positively IDs someone other than Hanratty (again who looks nothing like him)...then at long last she picks out Hanratty and modifies her suspect description to match him (Prompted? One has to wonder)...

                    I know one should show respect and understanding for a witness who suffered so much, but frankly I wouldn't condemn a rotten egg based on Stories sense of smell...sorry!

                    Dave
                    Hi Dave,

                    It took VS twenty minutes to select Hanratty on that second ID parade and she only did so after asking memebers of the parade to say the words 'be quiet will you? I'm thinking'.

                    Hanratty, being a Londoner, pronounced thingking as 'finking' and that seems to have sealed his fate.

                    Julie

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Graham View Post
                      .........

                      Can you please give me details of Valerie's saying that she admitted thinking that 'the man' in the first ID parade looked like Peter Alphon?

                      Graham
                      TRIAL 111 22/23
                      re 1st identity parade on which Alphon had stood:
                      Sherrard: Did you not afterwards say that there was a fair resemblance between Alphon and the man who attacked you?
                      Storie:When am I supposed to have said that?
                      Sherrard:Some time after the parade?
                      Storie:Some time afterwards yes.
                      Sherrard: Can you tell us to whom you made that observation?
                      Storie: In the first instance it was a doctor at Stoke Mandeville Hospital.
                      Sherrard:And later?May it have been Superintendent Acott?
                      Storie: It may have been but I do not remember.
                      Sherrard: It comes to this-that the resemblance between Alphon and your assailant was mentioned first to a doctor and then, to get it quite accurately,
                      to a police officer ,possibly Mr Acott himself?
                      Storie:Yes.

                      Comment


                      • There seem to be those on this forum who think that Hanratty MUST have been guilty simply because Valerie Storie picked him out of a line-up.

                        She had already picked somebody completely different out from a previous line-up, somebody who I understand looked nothing like Hanratty.

                        I believe that after Acott was forced to eliminate Alphon from the picture then the 'next best' to hang the crime on was Hanratty. This is pure conjecture but I seriously believe that Acott primed Valerie Storie to pick Hanratty out of that line-up.

                        For me, the case for Hanratty is flimsy, especially if based solely on this changeable eye witness account.
                        This is simply my opinion

                        Comment


                        • I agree almost 100% Louisa. Certainly, Hanratty was no saint. Clearly, although not a fool, he was not the most successful of criminals, thus he believed fully that his Liverpool alibi would stand up better than Rhyl. In his mind he was convinced that justice would be done very quickly into his trial.

                          Acott had a set method for investigating this type of random crime which, in the past, had proven successful. He was first certain that Alphon was his man and, as you say, when that fell down he looked around and found Hanratty who, although no doubt was up to no good that weekend (trying to sell loot from a burglary) had no history of violence, no history of sexual offences or molestation and no motivation for fooling around in a cornfield miles from 'his manor' with a big gun and a large amount of ammunition hidden in his pocket.

                          Comment


                          • Reference discussion on another thread, I just read that Michael Sherrard QC died about a month ago.

                            Grahan
                            We are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture and hypothesis. - Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure Of Silver Blaze

                            Comment


                            • Michael Sherrard RIP

                              I am sorry to read that he has died.

                              He seemed to be a man of great integrity and humanity.

                              Comment


                              • I too was sorry to hear of the death of Michael Sherrard.

                                His comments always appeared honest and dignified. Whatever one's views on Hanratty's guilt or otherwise, he made a good case as to why Hanratty got a raw deal at trial and stayed loyal to it over many years.

                                The Hanratty camp have lost a good voice.

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