My book : THE A6 MURDER: Was Hanratty Innocent?

[Natalie Severn]

Some of you may like to read the review in the May 2012 of The Oldie,
Here is the link:http://www.exacteditions.com/exact/b...47/3/7/0/crime

[louisa]

Hi Norma,

Thank you so much for the link, the information regarding the contamination of evidence makes very interesting reading.

I also found the part about Bristol Infirmary very informative, and sad.

[Natalie Severn]

Housmans have now put up a new link for the book which brings together the
four part series on the A6 murder originally published as individual pamphlets.
Some people may notice the book has a different cover---simply due to the need for a reprint-----

http://www.housmans.com/books.php

I will put up a picture of the book showing the two different covers---

Cheers
Norma

[Natalie Severn]

re the book covers

[ATTACH]13622[/ATTACH]

[Natalie Severn]

original cover:

[Natalie Severn]

First page of magazine article The Oldie May 2012 which went to press before all four booklets were recompiled into one book :

[Natalie Severn]

A page from my book re Hanratty's statement of 29th January i.e. before a single Rhyl witness was discovered---he refers to a hump back bridge/a picture house [both pix are taken at far end of KInmel Street,the street he said he stayed in-also pictured is Windsor Hotel -opposite Boarding house and Bodfor Street where Whynstay Hotel was that Mr Larman had just left-he would have been directing the young man towards Mrs Jones's B&B which can be discerned in middle far left of picture.

[caz]

However it is also hard for those of us who believe Hanratty was convicted and hanged for a crime which on the evidence we have today he did not commit.

Hi Nats,

May I just pick you up on this rather crucial point?

What real 'evidence' do you have today to demonstrate that Hanratty did not commit this horrible crime? All I see are arguments for the DNA evidence to be declared invalid or the original investigation fatally flawed (which would not make Hanratty innocent); weak arguments for the Liverpool and months-after-the-event Rhyl eye witness accounts to be taken seriously (disregarding all the inconsistencies with Hanratty's versions of events, of course); and even weaker arguments for the victim's account of her own ordeal to be declared inadmissible or worse.

It's not nearly enough, even to render the 2002 appeal judgement unsound. You still lack the crucial piece of evidence that would show Hanratty was convicted for someone else's crime.

Love,

Caz
X

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Caz,
We just seem to be going round and round in circles here.
I can't just produce the murderer-neither could the state.

There are actually very crucial differences between what was admissible then and what is completely ruled out today as being acceptable as 'evidence'.Thankfully sound new practices now exist to avoid exactly the type of thing that sent Hanratty to the gallows-namely :Valerie Storie's "identification"which damaged him more than anything.

-'there were a catastrophic number of misidentifications two decades ago -based on ' the most fragile of human attributes, visual memory'---[voice memory is considered equally fragile ]-therefore Valerie's changed description alone and the dark eyed identikit she co- produced with a policeman ,together with her visual memory itself, would all have been completely ruled out.

'The first description is now considered vital.If a witness makes a positive identification of one individual----[as Valerie Storie did of Michael Clark]----no subsequent identification of a second is permissible.Equivocation and uncertainty are not enough.'-VS took nearly 20 minutes to identify Hanratty on her second identification -even though the entire country knew the suspects hair was dyed ginger from the newspapers and tv and we know that in this identification parade his 'dyed ginger hair ''stood out like a carrot in a bunch of bananas'!
3] Valerie's original description of 23rd August of a man with dark eyes and lightish brown hair [confirmed in her identikit drawing of August 26th] -was followed on 31st August ie 5 days after she helped compose that identikit, by a completely different description of a man with icy blue eyes---this just would not get past the new rules.No way!

and this is before you begin to try to deal with the 'concocted' stuff Woffinden and Michael Sherrard refer to about the altered statements /dodgy police witnesses etc

[caz]

Hi Nats,

I totally agree - we do seem to be going round in circles. The state did produce the murderer as far as the law is concerned, and no progress has been made to demonstrate that the state hanged an innocent man in this case.

And as for this:

'the most fragile of human attributes, visual memory'

Doesn't it rather put paid to any hope of the Rhyl witness accounts being admissible today, since they all relied on their fragile visual memory of a passing stranger they may or may not have seen on a specific night months previously, who may or may not have been Hanratty?

Love,

Caz
X

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Nats,

I totally agree - we do seem to be going round in circles. The state did produce the murderer as far as the law is concerned, and no progress has been made to demonstrate that the state hanged an innocent man in this case.

And as for this:

'the most fragile of human attributes, visual memory'

Doesn't it rather put paid to any hope of the Rhyl witness accounts being admissible today, since they all relied on their fragile visual memory of a passing stranger they may or may not have seen on a specific night months previously, who may or may not have been Hanratty?

Love,

Caz
X

Except that they didn't change their descriptions from dark to light blue eyes
or compose an identikit that looked nothing like Hanratty ---as Valerie did with the left hand she helped compose which had dark eyes and light hair .But two of the Rhyl witnesses, did,importantly, remember his hair looking different -as though it was artificially coloured!Why did the Redbridge witnesses not notice this I wonder?
Nor did any of them wrongly identify another man......as Valerie most definitely did with the first man she 'identified'!

[Graham]

And don't forget that Charlotte France, on seeing the Identikits on TV, remarked to Hanratty who was with her at the time that one of them could have been him!

Graham

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Graham,
but this is what is so strange: both identikits show a man with dark eyes yet Hanratty's were light blue.
The first was compiled with the help of Valerie Storie-the main 'eye witness' who initially wrongly identified a totally innocent man ,Michael Clark.This first identikit shows a man with a very clear hair line and not as the judge pointed out in his summing up,a man with a distinctive 'widows peak' which Hanratty had and which meant his hair could not be swept back giving a clear hairline as in the photofit.This first one also shows not only a man with dark eyes but also with light coloured hair which Hanratty did not have on 22nd August as it was dyed black.
The other,2nd identikit was compiled by a police man with the help of Edward Blackhall who rolled down his window to better see and communicate with the MM driver .Blackhall was one of the three main eye witnesses but Blackhall did not recognise James Hanratty on the identification parade and later swore the man he had seen 'looked nothing like Hanrattywhich very much cancels out that of Skillett, who was driving his car and was further away than Blackhall from the MM driver. Yesm he did positively identify Hanratty 6 weeks later but the contradictions between the two mens 'eye witness' statements is very very curious.'The 2nd identikit also shows that dark eyes had been selected,[not the saucer wide , light blue eyes of the altered 31st August 2nd nation-wide police description].The man again has a clear hairline,wavy hair brushed back and an oval, staring eyes Valerie spoke of and with an oval face shape like the first identikit-whereas Hanratty had a box like shaped face.
So why, I ask, did Charlotte France suggest such a likeness when there are so many discrepancies in both identikit?
Best
Norma

[Natalie Severn]

Visibility levels at lighting up time in Rhyl on 22/08/2012

On Wednesday 22nd August I went with James Moore to investigate visibility levels in Rhyl at lighting up time.The lights came on at approximately 20.47 and although it was 'getting dark' just as witness Margaret Walker said in her statement to police during Hanratty's trial,[19/02/61] it was not 'about 7.30 pm' as she had guessed.Although it is understandable that Margaret Walker,six months after the event [22/08/61 ],thought it was 'about 7.30 pm' she also added that 'the street lights had come on' which gives us a far more specific time to work on.
Here is a picture of South Kinmel Street taken on 22nd August 2012 at 20.47 -the lights had just come on a few moments before.The street lights and the street are exactly as they were in 1961.The sky still gives some visibility and as James Moore walks away from what used to be Mrs Margaret Walker's house towards Mrs Ivy Vincents's [black front door next to red front door]the street lighting enables you to see the colour of his hair quite clearly-Mrs Walker described Hanratty's hair as 'having something not quite natural about it-as though it was streaky or tacky'.Hanratty started to dye his auburn hair bl;ack and on 22nd August the dye, although predominantly black/bronze had begun to fade a little giving a streaky effect.

[Natalie Severn]

This picture is also in South Kinmel Street this times facing the door of Margaret Walker's old house.The street lights have just common at 20.47.