Mail's feature of 1999 on Hanratty by Roger Matthews

[GUT]

G'day Natalie

Gut, the victims ID today would be unacceptable in a court of law because Valerie Storie "identified "Michael Clark" as the A6 murderer a RAF airman in an ID parade of September 24th -just a few weeks before.

I don't argue against that but what I do say is don't then rely on witnesses who say "Yes it was him" months later.

Btw-Louis Blom-Cooper-distinguished barrister and legal commentator wrote a book about the case in which he discusses the shortcomings of the English judicial process .Blom- Cooper totally impugned Valerie Storie's entire testimony,arguing that "no trained judge could have placed much weight on her evidence.'.

And he should also know that criminal trials are not decided by trained judges [for whatever that is supposed to mean] but by juries.

In 1963 when he wrote the book,he stated he believed ,despite his many misgivings such as believing the trial had been full of weaknesses, he still then believed that Hanratty was guilty as charged .But he changed his mind and retracted that opinion after reading the new evidence unearthed by Paul Foot in his book of 1970.

Just as many Barristers believe or disbelieve the results in many cases. I can honestly say that I don know a Barrister who has not honestly believed that some of his cases have gone the wrong way [even when they are successful].

I would also add that Louis Blom-Cooper is a specialist in Public Law and Administrative Law and not Criminal Law.

[Victor]

No Spitfire-the point I was making was that he wasn't seen with any case because he had asked a landlady -soon after his arrival in Rhyl-presumably a landlady who had no vacancies -possibly Mrs Jones -if he could leave the case with her.

Hi Nats,

Don't you think Foot and the A6 Committee would have checked every guest house in Rhyl to see if anyone remembered someone leaving a case to go searching for vacancies? Yet no-one came forward to corroborate this!

KR,
Vic.

[Victor]

[Mrs Dinwoody and her granddaughter said they had difficulty following his accent [as Liverpuddlians] and thought it might be Scottish or Welsh]

Hi Nats,

Do you really expect us to believe that "Liverpuddlians" are not able to distinguish a Scottish from a Welsh, from a Cockney accent?

Swanwick ,along with Acott , believed Hanratty was sexually ablaze in some way [unnoticed that is by anyone else whatsoever who appeared in court for the prosecution btw] and had planned and executed the murder in order to have sex with Valerie Storie .

Yet you yourself have previous listed numerous girlfriends he had - off the top of my head there's Ann Pryce and Mary someone - so hardly "unnoticed". However, the sex motive does seem strained.

To this effect he had bought an alibi who looked just like him and paid him to wander into Mrs Dinwoody's sweetshop and ask her where Tarlton or Carlton road was . The judge politely attempted to point out to the jury here the "problems " with such a suggestion ,"Members of the jury,when it is said that this alibi is "bought" then how did he know anyone had made an inquiry of Mrs Dinwoody for Tarleton or Carlton Road?"

We know Hanratty hung around with dodgy Liverpudlians because he tried to get a false alibi with 3 of them. They refused to get personally involved so reasonably could have offered Hanratty the sweetshop alibi instead.

Indeed-and this not to even mention the Monty Pythonesque suggestion that Acott made - bothered from the start about Mrs Dinwoody's evidence [which btw he had taken care from the start to conceal from the defence] was cross questioned about it and made the preposterous suggestion that Hanratty had taken a plane or a helicopter to the South to get to Buckinghamshire in time to murder Michael Gregsten and then rape Valerie Storie

Go, go, gadget Helicopter obfuscation! Acott never made the suggestion that Hanratty caught a plane, he considered it preposterous too, he just said that it was possible to get from the Sweetshop to the cornfield in time, but it was unrealistic that Hanratty had done that.

You talk about square pegs -I talk of half baked theories that take off by helicopter to cloud cuckoo land.

I agree, most of your theories are half baked.

KR,
Vic.

[Natalie Severn]

Gut, the victims ID today would be unacceptable in a court of law because Valerie Storie "identified "Michael Clark" as the A6 murderer a RAF airman in an ID parade of September 24th -just a few weeks before.Btw-Louis Blom-Cooper-distinguished barrister and legal commentator wrote a book about the case in which he discusses the shortcomings of the English judicial process .Blom- Cooper totally impugned Valerie Storie's entire testimony,arguing that "no trained judge could have placed much weight on her evidence.'.
In 1963 when he wrote the book,he stated he believed ,despite his many misgivings such as believing the trial had been full of weaknesses, he still then believed that Hanratty was guilty as charged .But he changed his mind and retracted that opinion after reading the new evidence unearthed by Paul Foot in his book of 1970.

[GUT]

I find it interesting that some here criticize the victims ID of Hanratty as unreliable [and ID evidence is unreliable and today jury's are given a warning about it] but accept ID's by people with less reason to remember him and who only identify a photograph.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Spitfire-well I take your point but it does need to be remembered that the witnesses for the prosecution were very flawed characters indeed and that this is a major part of the reason the case has gone on so long and has been such a cause celebre.

[GUT]

G'day Spitfire

I have given above what I consider to be the likely timeline (to use the modern vernacular) for the events of 22/23 August 1961 and it does seem that it was possible for there to have been sightings of Hanratty or a Hanratty lookalike in Rhyl during the relevant time.

As you say or "A Hanratty lookalike" identified months or years after the event.

[Spitfire]

If Matthews had determined that Hanratty was innocent as opposed to merely determining that Hanratty was not guilty as the prosecution had not proved its case, then Matthews must have been satisfied as to the veracity of Hanratty's improved alibi.

The relevant times are the evening of 22 August and the early morning of 23 August, any confirmed sighting of Hanratty in Rhyls during these times would establish Hanratty's innocence, in the sense described above. We should therefore concentrate on these times and dates and not get sidetracked into the credibility or otherwise of witnesses to other matters e.g the finding of the gun or the route of the 36 or 36A bus (I think it was the latter that had the gun left upon it).

I have given above what I consider to be the likely timeline (to use the modern vernacular) for the events of 22/23 August 1961 and it does seem that it was possible for there to have been sightings of Hanratty or a Hanratty lookalike in Rhyl during the relevant time.

[Natalie Severn]

: Witnesses for the Prosecution Such a shower of shady types they were most of those appearing as prosecution witnesses, Take William ,George,Richard,Nudds -an important prosecution witness -his aliases were -quite apart from 'liar ,liar pants on fire"... 'Baker,Bartlet,Beaumont,Glickberg,Itter ,Knight']he was only let out of jail at beginning of August 1961...just three weeks before the A6 murder.
Roy William Langdale -another well known liar -and very crucial to Hanratty's execution a criminal who along with Nudds ,was rated in 1961 by the criminal fraternity as one of the worst types of prisoners in the UK - Nudds made news headlines several times -both men being hated for being vicious towards other inmates as well as grasses of the worst type and known to have bargained their way through jail with their jailers as well as police all deals done w regularly together with a spot of torture and knee capping-in Langdale's case and some nasty goings on by Nudds too ---ie if accounts in the press at the time are to be believed .In fact Hanratty's trial must rank as having had some of shadiest nastiest witnesses ever to have been wheeled out by the prosecution in a uk court of law -especially when it was in order to give evidence in a capital case where a man was under the threat of execution.
Then we get the secondary bunch of shady ,odd types of witnesses -sort of second degree shady types like Louise Anderson who sold stolen goods in her Soho 'antiques' shop ,Charles France who fenced Hanratty's nicked jewellery and who had to be dragged into court between two men in white coats on one occasion so freaked out was he by the trial and having to appear at it ... tried to jump out of the hospital window on another occasion ...committing suicide finally shortly before Hanratty was hanged.
The senior policeman Roger Matthews who was in charge of 20 detectives compiling evidence for the home office to go to the CCRC was apparently totally gobsmacked that nobody at the court had ever drawn attention to the fact that the 36 bus which had the gun planted on it on 24th August two days after the murder , stopped just yards from France's flat...actually you can see his old flat from that same bus route still ! Not forgetting that the only person who had access to Hanratty's dirty linen was France himself and his wife Charlotte who did Hanratty's washing for him.
Besides this bunch of reprobates the Rhyl witnesses all seem like regular and exemplary pillars of the community!

[Graham]

I can imagine the spirited debates we would be having now about whether the Liverpool Alibi was true or not.

You're not wrong there, Nick! However, Joe Gillbanks did at least establish that Hanratty knew certain men in Liverpool, who agreed that they knew him. More of that anon.

Regarding the Rhyl Alibi:

1] Hanratty said that the reason he'd gone to Rhyl was to look for a man called "John", whom he knew from a previous visit to Rhyl, to fence some stolen goods. This "John" was actually Terry Evans, at whose house Hanratty had spent a night during his previous visit to Rhyl, and to thank him for his hospitality Hanratty nicked a pair of Evans' shoes! So right away, Hanratty's memory is open to question. Gillbanks located Terry Evans a.k.a. "John", and thus was Ingledene located, to eventually pass into A6 folklore, purely on the basis that it had a green bath, which Hanratty said might have been in the attic.

2] Hanratty described the lady who owned Ingledene as "about 50, average build, wore glasses, grey hair". Mrs Grace Jones had fair hair, not grey. She did not wear glasses. She was actually a very short lady, only 5' 2", and below "average build".

3] As in Mrs Dinwoodie's case, Mrs Jones was shown just one photo, this time by Gillbanks, that of James Hanratty.

4] Mrs Jones initially told Gillbanks that she was not at all sure about Hanratty's claimed visit to Ingledene. Gillbanks reported to Sherrard that Mrs Jones was uncertain about when, and in which room, the man in the photo stayed.

5] Terry Evans (during the trial and presumably during the lunch hour in which a juror spotted him talking to Mrs Jones) said that he asked Mrs Jones if she recognised Hanratty. Mrs Jones said she was almost sure; that is, not completely sure. Mrs Jones admitted to Mr Swanwick that she did not recognise the man in the photo shown to her by Gillbanks. Mrs Jones also said that she had got muddled.

6] Mrs Jones 'got muddled' because of the colour of the man's hair, which would suggest her veracity to Hanratty's supporters because he did indeed change the colour of his hair. But in fact it was Terry Evans who told her that she may not have recognised the man in the photo and James Hanratty in the court-room as one and the same, "because of the colour of his hair".

7] Until encountering Terry Evans at Bedford, Mrs Jones had never said anything about Hanratty's hair or its colour.

8] Hanratty mentioned a green bath at Ingledene, but then shot himself in the foot by adding "I have been in so many boarding-houses that you get confused". This was when he was in the witness-box, and having said that he became incoherent.

9] About the only correct statement Hanratty made about Ingledene was that he paid 12/6 a night, which is what Mrs Jones charged. However, this was probably a standard charge for seaside b&b's - on the night of his arrest, he had booked into a b&b in Central Drive, Blackpool, and maybe this place also charged 12/6 a night...and maybe also had a green bath.

10] Paul Foot makes the claim that Mrs Jones stated that "a young Londoner stayed 2 nights at Ingledene, and he looked like Hanratty". In fact, Mrs Jones never once mentioned a 'young Londoner'.

That's enough from me tonight - I was watching Brazil v. Mexico, but it's probably over by now!!!

Graham

[NickB]

I'm pretty sure that Sherrard counselled Hanratty to stick with his Liverpool Alibi

I can imagine the spirited debates we would be having now about whether the Liverpool Alibi was true or not.

[Spitfire]

So it seems that the likely course of events was as follows.

20.17 Hanratty gets off bus.

2.20ish Hanratty inquires as to accommodation but is told there is no room at the inn by an (as yet) unidentified guest house proprietor (unless it was Mrs Jones of Ingledene) who allows Hanratty to leave his little hide case.

20.21 Larman and Hanratty meet on the junction of Bodfor St and Kinmel St where the former points the latter in the direction of Ingledene.

20.24 to 21.08 Hanratty does not go direct to Ingledene (possibly because that is the guest house in which he left his little leather case) but tries guest houses next door to Ingledene and at the rear of Ingledene on South Kinmel St.

21.08 or later Hanratty eventually secures accommodation at Ingledene

[Spitfire]

Knowing a little bit about how the legal mind operates in cases such as this, I'm pretty sure that Sherrard counselled Hanratty to stick with his Liverpool Alibi; I've always felt that had he done so, Hanratty might have stood a chance, however remote, of being acquitted. But who knows?

I think that the choices which were available to Sherrard were either to run with the amended alibi and have Hanratty give his evidence from the witness box, or not to call Hanratty to give evidence at all.

[Graham]

Not even the most enthusiastic supporter of Hanratty's guilt would ever go along with the incredible helicopter crap! The court didn't believe it, that was for sure. Clutching at straws springs to mind. And I am one who believes that Hanratty was guilty (and thus never in Rhyl on the night of 22 August).

With the Rhyl Alibi taken as a whole, it can never be proven after more than 50 years, and indeed couldn't be proven even at the time. Sherrard didn't believe it, I'm certain of that, and neither did the jury, obviously. Mrs Jones blew her chance when she was seen and overheard talking to Terry Evans during a lunch-break, and also when she made a pig's ear of the register. But it was worth a shot considering a man's life was at stake. Knowing a little bit about how the legal mind operates in cases such as this, I'm pretty sure that Sherrard counselled Hanratty to stick with his Liverpool Alibi; I've always felt that had he done so, Hanratty might have stood a chance, however remote, of being acquitted. But who knows?

Graham

[Derrick]

You talk about square pegs -I talk of half baked theories that take off by helicopter to cloud cuckoo land.

Hi Norma

You have it in a nutshell, girl!

ATB
Del Boy