A6 -location of scene and 2nd appeal

[Graham]

Natalie, please read what people post. I never said that Ewer had no association with the crime - I said that there is no evidence that he, along with other persons I mentioned, ever attempted to break up the relationship between MG and VS. I am fully aware of Ewer's presence in the aftermath of the crime, and also in his business dealings which I too looked into a long time ago, as did Leonard Miller. Yes, I agree he wasn't quite what he purported to be, and that he was much more high-powered than he allowed people to believe - a typical antiques dealer, actually. I assume he's long dead now, if not he must be well over 100. And don't forget that he and Janet Gregsten, prior to her marriage, lived in the same house, so they plainly knew each other very well and for some time prior to her husband's murder.

G

[Graham]

It is virtually impossible to tell the trajectory a bullet will take once it hits the human body as there many things that can deflect it, or make it shatter (bone, cartildge etc). Please remember that the bullets that hit MG went through his skull twice, if found inside the car. I believe it is entirely possible for the bullets to have been found in the car.

Not arguing with you on that, Pete. I'm just puzzled that there was no apparent damage to the car, or if there was it wasn't reported. Or was reported in a document that hasn't been released.

G

[propatria27]

Not arguing with you on that, Pete. I'm just puzzled that there was no apparent damage to the car, or if there was it wasn't reported. Or was reported in a document that hasn't been released.

G

Agreed. I am just suggesting that, due to the very low muzzle velocity of these bullets, that they had passed through his skull twice and the possible variable quality of the rounds (2 only penetrated the skin of VS), it is possible that the bullets were almost completely spent when then exited MG,

Pete

[Natalie Severn]

After Paul Foot's book was published on 6th May 1971 entitled "Who Killed Hanratty?"-in which he had unearthed some entirely fresh evidence,[and very much more has emerged even since then] a great deal of renewed interest in the case was aroused -even by writers such as the lawyer Louis Bloom -Cooper --who had been present at the trial-with which he had always had huge reservations about its fairness and appropriateness but who had despite everything decided Hanratty was guilty.However after reading Foot's book Bloom Cooper actually conceded , that his own earlier conclusion had been 'rash'.
One of the big questions arising after a reading of Foot's book is whether France may have given 'perjured evidence' and ,as Bob Woffinden later points out,his taking of his own life is consistent with others who have given perjured evidence,and found the burden of conscience so great they commit suicide.

It also transpired that since the trial "The Sunday Times" had done some very intensive investigative journalism ,led by one of their leading journalists Lewis Chester .A series of articles were published-the first entitled "How did the Trail Lead to Hanratty?"and concentrates on the findings of four reporters.The police never disclosed how they first discovered Ryan was Hanratty.So the main reporter Chester concentrated on the "She Saw him at the Cleaners" angle that had been reported in the Daily Sketch and Daily Mail with its extraordinary "Intuitive Sighting" by Janet Gregsten not able to be revealed until two days after the trial ended because of sub-judice laws -but alleged to have been compiled shortly after 31st August/1st September-ie immediately after the 'altered description' of the colour of the killers eyes emerged on 31st August 1961.
Next came the additional bomb shell:Lewis Chester and his co-journalist Alex Fisher wrote an entire article spread over a whole broadsheet w entitled ,

'Hanratty: The Contradictions of William Ewer'

They sought to establish, what part,if any ,Mr Ewer played in the pin pointing of James Hanratty --and they insist, throughout the article, that this is a task is complicated by the 'variable quality of Mr Ewer's memory' -in other words they are suggesting in it that William Ewer was not telling the truth,the whole truth and nothing but the truth-and they set out to prove it .[this was nothing new as apart from Valerie Storie-very clearly a woman of intelligence,immense courage and integrity- most of the other prosecution witnesses were either proven liars ,had done time or were much older much more experienced rogues ,who lived on the edge of a gangster's world in soho .
Well it got The Sunday Times into a bit of trouble as Ewer threatened to sue them for the article but it was nothing they hadn't allowed for and was apparently all settled out of court .
The article went to press on 23 May 1971. and from the start it set out to illustrate inconsistencies in 9 of his statements.
They draw attention from the start to what they call "the curiously 'anti septic atmosphere"-

-"the complications in the Gregsten family which never emerged in evidence"-
-the fact that it was not public knowledge that Miss Storie was Mr Gregsten's lover"
-that it was not known that the Gregsten marriage had been in jeopardy for some time
----thus the public conclusion that it was a 'nut job'
I have the entire article and am willing to publish it bit by bit on a separate thread so if people woul;d like me to do so can you either pm me or simply say so here

Norma
PS have just read your comment to me Graham.I agree that there is no evidence he ever attempted to break them up but there is evidence he loved her dearly-then perhaps only as a caring brother in law who had known her since her childhood at 14 but after the trial etc able to demonstrate how much he actually loved herby leaving his wife and becoming her lover.

[EddieX]

It looks like Paul Foot got it wrong by calling the items 30 and 31 found in the car as cartridge cases, when in fact they were bullets. I wonder what else he got wrong.

[EddieX]

If Ewer wanted a relationship with Mrs G, then that might provide a reason for having MG bumped off but not a motive for trying to frighten VS and MG apart.

[Graham]

It looks like Paul Foot got it wrong by calling the items 30 and 31 found in the car as cartridge cases, when in fact they were bullets. I wonder what else he got wrong.

Paul Foot always claimed that there was a conspiracy to frighten MG and VS apart, but that it went wrong when an unstable character - he of course claimed this character was Alphon - was introduced into the scheme. He was unable to name names because of the possibility of being sued for libel, but it was fairly clear that he put WE and JG as the instigators of the plot. Not long before she died, he interviewed JG and wrote that she was nothing like the person he had always assumed she was, and also - to his surprise - she knew very little about the ins and outs and the complications of the case, other than that her husband had been brutally murdered for no reason. I think PF underwent something of a re-think about the A6 Case before he died, irrespective of what Richard Ingrams has written. PF was always an honest investigator, never slow to acknowledge his errors, and I always liked him (but not his silly politics) when he wrote for Private Eye.

G

[propatria27]

. I have seen just one photo of the car's interior, and there doesn't seem to be any gunshot damage, or damage that could possibly be attributed to gunshots.

Graham, here are 3 photos I found - they appear to be stills from a television programme,

Pete

[caz]

It looks like Paul Foot got it wrong by calling the items 30 and 31 found in the car as cartridge cases, when in fact they were bullets. I wonder what else he got wrong.

Hi Eddie,

Well the major thing Paul got wrong was whose DNA would turn up on VS's underwear. I bet he got one of the biggest shocks of his life to hear it was Hanratty's (a perfect match with his bodily remains and the mucous-stained hanky). I have no doubt he was fully expecting Alphon's, or A.N.Other's, or at the very least no trace of Hanratty's.

And I'm 100% certain nobody would be here now, pleading the case for unreliable results and contamination, if Paul's expectations had been met even half way.

Love,

Caz
X

[Graham]

Graham, here are 3 photos I found - they appear to be stills from a television programme,

Pete

Hi Pete,

I believe I have the programme those stills came from, but unfortunately on tape, and I have no means of playing video tapes any more! I can't enlarge your thumbnails, so can't see much detail, but the first two shots are very similar to the photo I saw some time ago.

Also, someone on the pre-crash Forum, now I think about it, said he knew what happened to the car, but I'm afraid I can't remember what he said or even his name. If the A6 had happened in the USA, there would have been people climbing over each other to buy the car, as per the Bonnie & Clyde vehicle, which must have made a fortune for whoever owns it.

G

[caz]

Hi Caz,
Well the professional view of the Matthews Report headed by a very senior detective and completed after a year of examining all the new as well as the older evidence/ withheld statements etc undertaken by 20 detectives looking into the case, commissioned by Scotland Yard at the request of the Home Office
was that this was not a murder that had been carried out by one individual and that more were involved.
In my view its very easy to see a scenario where Charles France was involved.After all,he knew Hanratty would be away that week.Knew he was desperate to sell some rings and a watch.Charlotte had done Hanratty's laundry and provided Hanratty with a suitcase full of clean shirts /clean handkerchiefs/ socks etc.

Hi Nats,

Well clearly, if France or anyone else had wrapped the murder weapon in one of Hanratty's hankies and planted it on the bus, there would have been more than one individual 'involved' in some way.

But as has been pointed out, if whoever planted the gun knew Hanratty was innocent, and believed he was seeing some of his associates up north when the crime was committed, they were taking one hell of a risk because Hanratty could (and damned well should) have had a cast iron alibi for all they knew, leaving the tiny handful of dodgy characters with access to his hankies well and truly in the frame as the real gunman's accomplices at the very least.

It only really works if, as Graham speculates, Hanratty got the gun from France in the first place, went silly with it up the A6, then took it back to him in a panic afterwards, when it was France's turn to panic because he either knew or suspected the truth, and he had to decide pretty quickly what to do with the weapon he had supplied.

It still strikes me as a terribly foolish idea to plant it on the bus rather than chuck it in the Thames, as Hanratty could have been arrested and broken down under questioning at any time and admitted everything, incriminating France in the process. So maybe it was Hanratty after all who hid it there while he was not yet thinking straight. "I don't care what you do with the bloody thing, Jim, but just take it out of my house and get rid."

I dont actually think the real murderer lived very long after the bungled job he had done---probably ended up in one of the famous cement mixers on the A4

Well that's a step in the right direction, if you are no longer fingering Alphon as the gunman and rapist.

Love,

Caz
X

[Graham]

Hi Eddie,

Well the major thing Paul got wrong was whose DNA would turn up on VS's underwear. I bet he got one of the biggest shocks of his life to hear it was Hanratty's (a perfect match with his bodily remains and the mucous-stained hanky). I have no doubt he was fully expecting Alphon's, or A.N.Other's, or at the very least no trace of Hanratty's.

And I'm 100% certain nobody would be here now, pleading the case for unreliable results and contamination, if Paul's expectations had been met even half way.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

yes, it's an irony that JH's family and supporters were calling out for DNA tests, but when the first test showed results they didn't expect, all of a sudden the cry was 'contamination' and they wanted no more tests to be made.

Graham

[Natalie Severn]

There were a number of convicted criminals the police relied on to incriminate Hanratty----54 year old Nudds with his eleven different aliases had only been out of prison a few days when he got his job at the Vienna Hotel.In fact he had only had 17 days as a free man and was hard up.He admitted he had tried to please the police when they hauled him in for questioning and had only changed his statement [1st incriminating Hanratty 2nd incriminating Alphon and 3rd incriminating Hanratty again] as a favour to police.In Nudds's first statement he immediately fingers Hanratty.Hanratty he said,on the morning of the 22nd August, asked him how he could reach the 36A bus! This was on the 15th September when everyone in England knew the gun had been found on the 36A bus!
Why on earth would Hanratty go to the trouble of going all the way back over from the far East of London, Avondale Crescent Ilford,to a 36 A bus route on 24th August to incriminate himself?

The gun was found on 24th August at 8.45 pm by a cleaner who said it was not there the night before.Hanratty sent France a telegram on 24th August from the St George's PO box at 8.48 pm on that very day ! Do people see the contradiction here?
Returning to Nudds .Nudds was sacked for theft by the management of the Vienna Hotel on 11th September.It was on the 11th September that the two used cartridge cases 'suddenly' appeared on a chair beside a bed.


And Graham - regarding Paul Foot.I happen to have spoken to Paul Foot's son Tom on a number of occasions.There was no indication whatsoever that Paul Foot ever wavered from his conviction that James Hanratty was totally innocent and had nothing whatever to do with the crime.Foot was not just convinced by Mrs Dinwoody in Liverpool , and had gone to great lengths to point out that her granddaughter had indeed been in that sweetshop between 4pm and 5pm when Hanratty said he went in to ask directions there but was also totally convinced by the Rhyl witnesses especially the following : Mrs Margaret Walker;Mrs Betty Davies and Mr Trevor Dutton.
Finally Paul considered Alphon a plausible rogue---a clever con man,a psycopath who enjoyed leading everyone a dance -sometimes towards himself at others away from himself- but whose storyline contained always a kernel of truth.I go along with that.Alphon was the first to be charged and he later confessed to the murder.Nobody would ever have heard of Hanratty had Alphon not stayed at the Alexandra Hotel---immediately after he left the Vienna Hotel.What took him to that Vienna Hotel immediately after Hanratty? We don't really know because he never allowed enough evidence against him to let police put him completely in the frame.He made a fortune out of it ofcourse---very very clever Alphon.So like Paul Foot I believe he was quite probably the A6 murderer.
As for the DNA Caz---read up on what went on in Hillsborough .Tampering with evidence is not a new idea at all.........

[caz]

The Matthews report was ultimately rejected on the basis that the DNA was accurate.It wasn't.

Look, Nats, if Hanratty was guilty, it follows that the DNA evidence was accurate in every detail. You simply cannot say that it was inaccurate unless or until his innocence can be proved. All you can say is that you would question its accuracy on the basis of these half dozen other cases (among God knows how many cases in total) that have 'had to be thrown out'. The case against Hanratty has not 'had to be thrown out', has it? And this is because nobody has been able to demonstrate, with clear evidence, that the DNA results in this particular case are flawed, and do not represent the reality of what happened. If every single case had had to be thrown out as intrinsically unreliable on the basis you describe, you'd have a point, but then the A6 case would already have gone the same way.

In what way can the results in this specific case be shown to be 'unreliable'? You have to show cause from effect here, ie how defective testing or contaminated samples would have produced the clear and unambiguous findings which leave no apparent room for reasonable doubt. In short, the onus has been on you since 2002 to 'explain the DNA' in the context of Hanratty's innocence. It is far, far easier to explain in the context of his guilt.

Love,

Caz
X

[EddieX]

Hello Caz and Graham,

I confess that it's a while since I read Foot's book but I was convinced that Foot had made a good, strong case for Hanratty's innocence. I was much less sure of the case he made for Alphon's guilt. All the same it came as a surprise to me that the DNA confirmed Hanratty's guilt.

This murder was not the result of any plan or conspiracy between rational human beings; it was a nutter acting alone. We should remember that the biggest (in money terms) crime of the age, the Great Train Robbery of 1963, was committed without the aid of 'shooters'. It is difficult to see the criminal fraternity getting involved in the holding up of a courting couple in a Morris Minor by a gunman whose gun had live ammunition. If the intention had been to put the frighteners on MG, why not use an unloaded gun? In fact why use any gun at all, why not just throw a brick through the rear windscreen? Or even just let down the Morris's tyres?

I, like Graham, do not doubt Foot's integrity, but I question his objectivity once the DNA tests had confirmed Hanratty's guilt. He should have acted like Michael Sherrard and said the wrong man was not hanged.

Ed