A6 Rebooted

[djw]

Alas it seems you are discovering what a joke the FOI act is proving to be. Also known as the "Fobbed Off Interminably" act. The Matthews Report must be a complete figment of our imagination, it never existed.

Can anyone help us get the Matthews Report by making their own FOI request and if they get refusals like I did, can they raise it with the Information commissioner within the required time period? I think the ICO required a maximum of 21 days from the refusal.
Previous FOIs are;
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/reque...t_on_the_a6_mu
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/the_matthews_report_on_the_a6_mu_2
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/the_matthews_report_on_the_a6_mu_3
Lord Howard remembers the report so it definitely existed.

[moste]

Alphon actually offered up a rationale for the kidnapping and eventual death of Gregsten and near murder of Valerie Storie. Along the lines of attempting to break up an unhealthy relationship. Do we know when he first offered up this perverted rationale? In Paris he talks of this, but did he do this before?

The relationship between Gregsten and Ms Storie was glossed over at trial although it is possible Alphon gleaned some information from his police interrogation. Was he the first to identify the intimate relationship between the two victims or did he simply jump in once that had been made public?

Good questions. Norma Buddle insisted that the abduction was all about trying to pry the lovers apart.I could never see that as a possibility, although Storie in her magazine article did allude to ‘not thinking the affair would last much longer, but she also maintained ‘I can be lead but never forced’ . Listening to her in interviews, she comes across as somewhat stoic, strong willed, and indifferent to criticism.I can’t see her being cajoled into cancelling her love life for anyone. She certainly didn’t consider her relations with Gregsten as unhealthy.

[cobalt]

I assume that Alphon’s involvement with the A6 Case is more than merely coincidental.
However, it’s difficult to see how he was in a position to blackmail anybody: what proof of conspiracy was he going to produce? And if he was the killer as claimed, it would be a case of him paying out blackmail money: not receiving it.

[NickB]

Alphon's mother said that she did meet her son during the week in question but she couldn't remember the exact day. Had Kilner done his job properly after interviewing Alphon on 27-Aug he would have asked her then, when she would have known what day it had been.

Even so Alphon did have an alibi. At about 9pm he arrived at the Broadway House hotel and was seen by Pichler and his manager, whom Alphon described as 'the two Jewish gentlemen'. Foot says that on 11-Sep Acott "descended with all his staff" on the Broadway House Hotel, where he would have taken their statements.

In the Sunday Times of 10-Sep-67 Pichler confirmed that the police indeed had taken their statements. 8 days earlier Detective Chief Inspector Henry Mooney had given evidence in court that Alphon could not have done it because the police "knew where he was at the time" which I take to be a reference to those statements.

By the 2002 Appeal, Alphon's innocence was agreed by both sides. I'm not just referring to the acceptance that the DNA evidence cleared him, but to the ground of appeal (in section 166) that the police tried to frame Alphon.

[ansonman]

Another point worth mentioning is that Alphon had no alibi as to where he was at the time of the murder. Alphon had said that he had visited his mother at about 9.15 on the evening of August 22nd. As Foot says: "The alibi, however, was smashed. "Alphon's mother, reported Peter Duffy of the Daily Sketch, "told detectives that he last visited their home two months ago".

[Sherlock Houses]

Indeed. We also have the attack on Mrs. Dalal, during which time the attacker said to her "Listen, I am the A6 murderer and I want some money". Mrs. Dalal identified Alphon as her attacker at a police identity parade. Then there is the "confession" drawing, which the then leading barrister Christmas Humphries QC, said he thought that it could be construed as a confession. The Home Office disagreed. Then we have the Paris confession "I did in fact do the A6 murder. I killed Gregsten and half killed our friend Miss Storie. The police are now trying to hush up the fact that they hanged an innocent man". As if that wasn't enough, Alphon wrote to the Home Secretary "I killed Gregsten, the establishment murdered Hanratty". When that had no impact, a few months later he wrote to the Home Secretary again and this time added the name of the "central figure" who he said had engineered the murder plot and the framing of Hanratty.

The police and Home Office decided to ignore all of the above, and more.

Yes indeed. Not to mention his uncanny resemblance to the identikit photo which Valerie Storie herself helped to compile. Not to mention his acknowledged familiarity with the Slough area. Not to mention too the mysterious and unaccounted for £5,000 paid into his bank account in nice, convenient instalments [blackmail payments ???] over the course of several months between the autumn of 1961 and spring of 1962. Not to mention several other things like his inclination to violent and threatening behaviour.

For someone often considered an attention seeker who had nothing at all to do with the A6 murder it truly is remarkable just how much he fits the profile of the A6 murderer.

I wonder what he was thinking on the day Hanratty was murdered which just happened to coincide with the 70th birthday celebration of his father, Felix ?

[cobalt]

Alphon actually offered up a rationale for the kidnapping and eventual death of Gregsten and near murder of Valerie Storie. Along the lines of attempting to break up an unhealthy relationship. Do we know when he first offered up this perverted rationale? In Paris he talks of this, but did he do this before?

The relationship between Gregsten and Ms Storie was glossed over at trial although it is possible Alphon gleaned some information from his police interrogation. Was he the first to identify the intimate relationship between the two victims or did he simply jump in once that had been made public?

[ansonman]

Indeed. We also have the attack on Mrs. Dalal, during which time the attacker said to her "Listen, I am the A6 murderer and I want some money". Mrs. Dalal identified Alphon as her attacker at a police identity parade. Then there is the "confession" drawing, which the then leading barrister Christmas Humphries QC, said he thought that it could be construed as a confession. The Home Office disagreed. Then we have the Paris confession "I did in fact do the A6 murder. I killed Gregsten and half killed our friend Miss Storie. The police are now trying to hush up the fact that they hanged an innocent man". As if that wasn't enough, Alphon wrote to the Home Secretary "I killed Gregsten, the establishment murdered Hanratty". When that had no impact, a few months later he wrote to the Home Secretary again and this time added the name of the "central figure" who he said had engineered the murder plot and the framing of Hanratty.

The police and Home Office decided to ignore all of the above, and more.

[cobalt]

I think Alphon’s superior attitude towards the police only surfaced once Hanratty had been found guilty and executed. From what I can recall he was much more muted before then. Alphon would have realised (guilty or not) that with the execution of Hanratty he was pretty much ‘bomb proof’for the legal establishment could hardly put him on trial thereafter.

The Valerie Storie ID failure did not preclude the investigation of Alphon continuing to proceed. No doubt it was a blow to Acott but he still had the capacity to put pressure on Alphon’s alibi and locate his clothing, neither of which seems to have been done.

[ansonman]

Alphon was exonerated because Storie failed to pick him out, it's as simple of that. She chose the wrong man twice. The problem is that Acott was so certain that in Alphon, he had his man, that when Storie blew that out of the water, Alphon was free to say and do whatever he liked.

[moste]

?????

[moste]

Can anyone explain why Peter Alphon was completely exonerated as the killer after Storie failed to pick him out, to such a degree that he blatantly ridiculed the police at every opportunity that he could , as though he now became bombproof ? I’m not a major proponent to the claims of Alphons guilt, but given Stories performance with the ‘pick one out game’ could Alphon not have been told, ‘don’t leave town pardoner’. Or was he untouchable legally, after the release from the line up.

[moste]

Just watched ‘A rather English scandal’ series about Jeremy Thorpes shenanigans from 1961. Holy smokes there was some controversial stuff hitting the fan that year eh? Interesting note, Thorpe was willing to pay 7500 pounds to have his lover murdered! Some posters on here figured 1 or 2 hundred would suffice. Alphons 5000 quid showing up in his account seems more realistic to me.

[djw]

I purchased the kindle edition and found it has not been correctly formatted for the kindle (or any typical ebook formatting). Rather, it looks like a PDF of the paperback e.g. with pages that don't reflow according to the size of your screen, black text on white background that you can't adjust to your own colour preferences for comfortable reading. You can search for words but this makes the inclusion of the index redundant.
In terms of the content, I thought Miller made the point well Hanratty admitted to first visiting Paddington station that would have been required to travel to Slough.
I recently came across Case Studies of Famous Trials and the construction of guilt and innocence by Caroline Gorden and Christopher Birbeck (2022) Chapter 2 of which is wholly about the A6 murder. It references Miller (2001) more than any other writer but also Moles and Sangha.

[ansonman]

I managed to get as far as page 205 of the book before giving up.