The attack on Swedish housewife Mrs Meike Dalal on Thursday, September 7th 1961

[caz]

The evidence suppressed can obviously have had no material worth in the prosecution of James Hanratty. Muddying the waters by suggesting the police might have degraded the forensics by trying to build a case against Alphon is only echoing what many of us have claimed for many years: that forensic evidence can be used not to elicit the truth but to 'fit up' the main suspect.

Hi cobalt,

I wouldn't really call it 'muddying the waters'. Your opinion is that forensic evidence was found in the car but suppressed because none of it indicated Hanratty's involvement. But the first police suspect was Alphon, so it's all in the timing. Clearly they didn't find anything in the car early enough to incriminate Alphon, or Hanratty's name would probably never have come up.

So it's a case of what the police could have found, and who they had their sights on at the time they found it. But if they were rotten enough to suppress crucial evidence, indicating the guilt of someone other than Hanratty or Alphon, how hard would it have been to plant incriminating evidence in the car against one or the other?

Love,

Caz
X

[Graham]

The car was found in Redbridge at about 6.30pm on 23 August, approximately 16 hours after the murder in the lay-by. Peter Alphon a.k.a. Frederick Durrant was interviewed by police following the complaint by the manager of The Alexandra Court Hotel on 27 August. However, he did not become a suspect in the A6 hunt until 11 September, when the cartridge cases were found at The Vienna and police interest shifted immediately to that hotel and the people who had stayed there on the night of 22 August. Alphon, of course, being one of them, as he freely admitted. On 22 September Alphon surrendered himself to police and was interrogated. On 24 September Alphon was dismissed as an A6 suspect after Valerie Storie identified another man on the i.d. parade.

Now I don't know how long it takes to make a thorough forensic examination of the interior of a car, and I don't know when and if the police issued a report of their examination. But it's just about a month between the discovery of the car and the elimination of Alphon as an A6 suspect. I am reasonably certain that had the police been able to match forensic evidence found in the car to Peter Louis Alphon, then it would be his untimely demise on the gallows we'd be debating. Don't forget that Alphon was prime suspect for an admittedly short period of time, but during that period he gave samples of blood and pubic hair.

From what I understand of the timeline of this case, it was late in the evening of 29 September that Mr Hanratty Snr learned that his son was now the No 1 suspect in the A6 case. Hanratty was arrested on 11 October.

As far as I'm aware the police found nothing in the car that linked either Hanratty or Alphon to it. I have always found this very odd, one of the mysteries of the case. However, if you re-phrase this as 'the police found nothing in the car that could be used as evidence against Hanratty or Alphon', then you're nearer the mark. The police did, though, find evidence that the car had been used by persons, totally legitimately, other than Michael Gregsten and Valerie Storie. So, some forensic information was found in the car, but was of no use to the police or prosecution.

Pardon my crudeness, but having it away in a car does not necessarily mean that body fluids are distributed all over the interior. But if someone occupies a car for, what, 6 or 7 hours, then surely he would leave traces such as hair, clothing fibres, dirt off the soles of his shoes, etc. And maybe the police did find such traces, but because it could not, I think, be ascertained exactly what Hanratty was wearing that night, such traces would be useless as evidence. If his shoes picked up mud or earth from the cornfield, then it could be argued that as Gregsten and Storie had been there upon at least one occasion, then those mud or earth traces could have come from their shoes. As to hair - well, not sure. Unless Hanratty was fortunate enough to have short, wiry hair that's not prone to falling out. Unlike me - long and fine, only have to shake my head and loose hairs are everywhere.

I can only suggest that had the police found anything in the car to link Hanratty or Alphon to the crime, it would have been shouted from the roof-tops. The fact would appear to be that they didn't, and so it must remain one of the many mysteries of the A6 Case. I really don't feel that any crucial evidence from the car was suppressed.

Graham

[cobalt]

Thank you Graham for your very measured response.

There clearly was some forensic material retrieved from the car. It is obvious that none of that material could have pertinent to Hanratty, since that would have been crucial at trial.

What is less clear is whether forensic evidence pointing to A.N. Other was not presented to the jury. By the way Caz, I have never suggested that the police would have planted evidence. Other parties may planted evidence in this case, and the police may have readily readily accepted it. But I don't think anyone has gone so far as to suggest Acott and Oxford were actually manufacturing evidence.

The failure to extract forensic evidence from the car is an obvious problem for the prosecution case, and to be fair Graham acknowledges this as an anomaly, although I accept that falls short of exonerating Hanratty. But the murderer should have left some kind of calling card.

Was the car cleaned in some way prior to examination? This would suggest some sort of collusion, and the involvement of a third party. My limited knowledge of police procedure is that they are very aware when an attempt has been made to clean the scene of a crime.

[NickB]

On 14-Oct-61, the Storie id parade was at 11.10am and Hanratty was charged at 6.15pm. In between these two events Acott received the result from forensics that they had not found any of Hanratty’s fingerpints on the car. Perhaps Acott had delayed charging, hoping for a different result.

[caz]

There clearly was some forensic material retrieved from the car. It is obvious that none of that material could have pertinent to Hanratty, since that would have been crucial at trial.

What is less clear is whether forensic evidence pointing to A.N. Other was not presented to the jury. By the way Caz, I have never suggested that the police would have planted evidence. Other parties may planted evidence in this case, and the police may have readily readily accepted it. But I don't think anyone has gone so far as to suggest Acott and Oxford were actually manufacturing evidence.

Hi cobalt,

I know you didn't suggest that the police 'would have' planted evidence, but you did claim there must have been deliberate suppression of evidence and even wrote:

...what many of us have claimed for many years: that forensic evidence can be used not to elicit the truth but to 'fit up' the main suspect.

I wouldn't have thought there was much difference legally or ethically between fitting up a suspect by suppressing forensic evidence or by planting it. The implication seems to be that if the police wanted to 'fit up' their main suspect (who was Alphon initially, then Hanratty) using forensic evidence, they were not above doing so, whether it be by suppressing, planting or in any way tampering with it.

I can't see it myself, because it should have been as easy, and more effective, to plant incriminating evidence in the car (which, as you say, one would have expected to find), than to suppress what was found and pretend it wasn't.

But if you feel 'manufacturing' evidence would have been a step too far, I have another reservation concerning your suppression argument. You originally wrote:

It is not the fact that none of Hanratty's blood group was found either in the form of saliva or semen which raises concern; it is the fact that no one's saliva or semen was found.
Any rational person , either in 1962 or today, recognises this is an impossibility given the nature of the crime. That means either that the forensic examination was grossly inefficient, but on scale almost unimaginable. Or, much more likely I would suggest, that the evidence which was found inside the car was suppressed since it did not support the prosecution case.

The problem is that in those days, pretty much all they could have done with saliva or semen found in the car was to blood type it, and they established from semen left on Valerie's undies that the murderer's blood group (whoever he was) was O. Do you see where I'm going with this? If, as you maintain, the real murderer must have left some saliva or semen in the car, it would still have been group O, same as both Alphon and Hanratty, so there would have been no need for any suppression! It could have been used in the case against either of them. On the other hand, any saliva or semen found that was not group O could not possibly have come from the murderer (while it could have come from Michael Gregsten if it was AB), so there'd have been no 'evidence' to suppress.

And that concludes my case for no suppression, M'Lud.

I did wonder if the fact they took a sample of pubic hair from Alphon meant they had found some pubic hair in the car or Valerie's undies, and hoped to match it with a suspect. But again, in those days, while it would have been obvious if the two samples were nothing like each other, it would have been nearly impossible to prove they came from the same person, so not much use for tying a particular suspect to the car (nor eliminating anyone, assuming the sample found in the car could have come from Gregsten).

Love,

Caz
X

[Derrick]

This is all now completely off-topic.

[cobalt]

O.K. Derrick. you are technically correct. But let us continue to discuss the case please.

Hello Caz,

Thanks for your very logical critique of what I said.
I think the police do manufacture evidence in order to bolster a case, and that this is much easier to do in the age of DNA evidence which is generally accepted by juries. However I do not think that Acott or Oxford engaged in this behaviour in 1962.
I cannot say the same for the recent handling and interpretation of the DNA evidence in this case; a case which is still, (amazingly) highly sensitive and impinges upon the life of a survivor whose evidence helped send a man to the gallows. It is so easy to forget that Valerie Storey is still with us, and that her situation must be taken into account by the parties who have the power to investigate this case.

Let us look a the dog which did not bark. The car is crucial to the case against Hanratty, yet yielded nothing. Nothing! A murder and a sexual assault apparently left no forensic evidence inside the limited confines of a Morris Minor car. Just as astonishing, the initial forensic evidence in this case came not from the corn field, not from the car, not from Valerie Storey's clothing - but from an obscure doss house in London and the seat of a London bus! No wonder the judge was equivocal in his summing up. Yet this proxy forensic evidence was given weight and swayed a jury.

The forensics at the time were not quite so basic as you suggest. Hair samples could certainly be matched (Glaister in Scotland was doing this in the 1940s) so any human hair, whether head or pubic, could be matched to the owner. It defies belief that the assailant did not leave some hair behind in the car given the nature of the crime, and the time he spent there. That leaves, it seems to me, two possibilities.

1. The car was cleaned well enough to remove hair samples.
2. Samples were actually found but suppressed, since they did not help make the case against Hanratty.

Whatever the case, there was obviously no forensic evidence against Hanratty. That does not make him innocent, I accept, but it is certainly grounds for reasonable doubt.

[Spitfire]

If Alphon assaulted Mrs Dalal, and if Mrs Dalal's assailant was the A6 Murderer then it would have been Alphon's hairs and his clothes' fibres left in the Morris Minor which would explain why Acott first went after Alphon as the prime suspect.

[Derrick]

There were a myriad of hairs, fibres and fingermarks found in the car that were eventually matched to either Ms Storie or Mr Gregsten or members of Mr Gregsten's family.

There were only 2 fingermarks that were found that matched nobody from Gregsten's family or from Ms Storie.

Neither of these fingermarks matched either Alphon or Hanratty.

The car couldn't have been cleaned up prior to it being found otherwise all of the other expected evidence would have been lost, which clearly it wasn't.

So, therefore, there was neither a clean up nor a suppression of evidence. The lack of evidence of the killer is just one of the mysteries of this case.

[caz]

Hello Caz,

Thanks for your very logical critique of what I said.

You are most welcome, cobalt.

Regarding the 'forensic' evidence left on that bus, while I accept it was rather tenuous to conclude in 1962 that the hanky undoubtedly belonged to Hanratty and was therefore hidden by him on the bus, we have known since 2002 that his DNA - and only his - was present on this item, and nobody appears able to dispute this, or to explain how it might have got there by any other route than Hanratty blowing his nose.

The forensics at the time were not quite so basic as you suggest. Hair samples could certainly be matched (Glaister in Scotland was doing this in the 1940s) so any human hair, whether head or pubic, could be matched to the owner.

Thanks, I didn't know that.

It defies belief that the assailant did not leave some hair behind in the car given the nature of the crime, and the time he spent there. That leaves, it seems to me, two possibilities.

1. The car was cleaned well enough to remove hair samples.
2. Samples were actually found but suppressed, since they did not help make the case against Hanratty.

I think Derrick has dealt with number 1.

Regarding number 2, I don't see how any hair samples found, which could not be matched with hair from any named individual (Alphon, Hanratty, Valerie and so on), would have been much use to either the defence or prosecution, or admissible as evidence of anything. I certainly wouldn't call it 'suppression' if such samples were not produced during the trial. It was surely enough for the jury to know that nothing was found in the car that could put Hanratty there.

Whatever the case, there was obviously no forensic evidence against Hanratty. That does not make him innocent, I accept, but it is certainly grounds for reasonable doubt.

But again, there was nothing against Alphon or anyone else either, so reasonable doubt, where it concerns the vehicle alone, has to extend to all. However, the jury felt able to consider their verdict using other means at their disposal.

Love,

Caz
X

[Derrick]

...But again, there was nothing against Alphon or anyone else either, so reasonable doubt, where it concerns the vehicle alone, has to extend to all...

Bar the 2 fingermarks as yet unattributable to anyone!

[cobalt]

Just to clarify the situation as I understand it regarding hair and fibre evidence.
In a 1934 child murder in Aberdeen, the renowned Professor Glaister matched fibres and hair (which had been dyed) to the satisfaction of the jury, who convicted the female defendant after a mere 14 minutes of discussion. She was convicted purely on forensic evidence, probably the first time this had happened in Scotland.
However the concept of an 'exact match' is not one which would carry much support nowadays. There was an article in today's Guardian which highlighted the FBI's acknowledgment of the subjective element present in matching hair and fibre samples.

So even if hair and fibres had been found and linked to Hanratty, the likelihood is we would still be arguing our corner over 50 years later. However, the fact that murderer left no apparent trace is not to easy to explain, and is at odds with the evidence given by the surviving victim.

[Graham]

Is it known just where in, or on, the car those two unidentified prints were found?

Graham

[Derrick]

Is it known just where in, or on, the car those two unidentified prints were found?

Graham

Graham

I will consult my records and see if I can answer that for you.

Del

[Sherlock Houses]

Almost a hand print

PC Reginald Edwards examined the interior of the Morris Minor on the evening of August 23rd after it was discovered in Avondale Crescent. He gave evidence at the Committal Proceedings at Ampthill on November 27th 1961. His evidence makes for interesting reading and is in contrast to Det-Sgt Arnold's evidence......................