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

[Natalie Severn]

The whole story Ewer told could have been built around only 2 facts:

1. On 31-Aug-61 Janet visits Ewer’s shop and together they study the identikit pictures in the paper.

2. On 1-Sep-61 Ewer thinks he sees someone resembling the man depicted enter a photographers shop and goes in, but he is not there.

Can we keep to reality here Nick or are you too ,like Graham appears to be, unaware of the facts surrounding all this which are on record in Scotland Yard ?
This police report still exists in Scotland Yard, as far as I am aware ,which documents William Ewer's call to them on the afternoon of September 1st 1961 about a man with large blue eyes who Ewer thought might be the A6 killer who answered the new description issued the day before changing his eyes from 'brown ,deep set staring' to 'large light blue staring' who William Ewer believed he had just seen entering Cater's the Florists in Finchley Road on September 1st 1961.The man did indeed turn out to be James Hanratty who William Ewer had been following on that day from shop to shop viz from the coffee shop where he first spotted Hanratty >Photographers shop> Dorothy Morrell's Florist Shop where police took a statement from Mrs Morrell [this statement still in Scotland Yard -who was the manageress there .She told police about a bunch of flowers that had been sent by a J.Ryan[James Hanratty ] to Mrs Hanratty of Sycamore Grove that day.
No need for further far fetched stuff about reporter's who may have made up stories about Janet Gpregsten's Intuition .....lets just stick to what we definitely know about this .and which is on record and dated September 1st 1961.

[Natalie Severn]

Porkies? Be careful, Nats - you once got me banned for less than that.

Graham

What I was saying Graham was that I never said what you were saying I had said !

[Graham]

Porkies? Be careful, Nats - you once got me banned for less than that.

Graham

[NickB]

The whole story Ewer told could have been built around only 2 facts:

1. On 31-Aug-61 Janet visits Ewer’s shop and together they study the identikit pictures in the paper.

2. On 1-Sep-61 Ewer thinks he sees someone resembling the man depicted enter a photographers shop and goes in, but he is not there.

Then after Hanratty’s arrest Ewer would have come across information, from police interviews and during the trial, that could be imaginatively connected to these facts in such a way as to make a scintillating story.

In particular:

1. He hears that the day before the abduction Hanratty had taken a suit into the dry cleaners opposite his shop. What if after he and Janet had studied the identikit pictures they had looked out of the window and seen Hanratty go into the cleaners?

2. He hears that the police had visited the florists near the photographers shop asking about Hanratty. (The police had visited Hanratty’s parents to notify them he was wanted for house breakings and would have seen the flowers sent to his mother.) What if after going into the photographers shop he had phoned the police and this had caused them to visit the florists?

I suspect he did a deal with Associated Newspapers (publishers of the Sketch and Mail) that ensured he was suitably recompensed for his story.

[Natalie Severn]

William Ewer's statement of 16.05.61 The Sunday Times article

And the name Ryan didn't figure in police inquiries until September 11 when the cartridge cases were found at The Vienna and Acott and Co descended upon the place like avenging angels (that is, once the case had been shown forensically to have been fired by the murder weapon - which didn't take long).

Nats, you may have forgotten that after the trial, both Ewer and Janet Gregsten dismissed the story as 'an invention of the gutter press', and they weren't far wrong. Ewer described the story as 'a farrago of nonsense', and Janet agreed, saying that 'it is absolute total nonsense - it's come out of Duffy's (Daily Sketch journalist) imagination'. She added that Bill Ewer 'wouldn't say that because there isn't any basis on which to say it'.

To this day, it's still not 100% certain how the police made the vital connection that Ryan was Hanratty, but you can bet your pension it was nothing to do with 'She Saw Him At The Cleaners'. Or whatever.

Of course Ewer had no idea that James Hanratty had been in Louise Anderson's shop on the morning of Hanratty's visit to her. Why should he? The name 'Hanratty' was unknown to him.

Graham

Graham

Why are you telling tell such great porkies Graham? Whats the idea? I never said anything about any story of Janet Gregsten's.
Why not read Dorothy Morrell's statement -page 51 of Foot's book about the incident to which I am referring explaining how William Ewer had brought the police to her shop on Sept 1st 1961 where she showed them the names Hanratty and Ryan on a card sent by Hanratty to his mum from her flower shop on 1st September 1961? The report on this incident is in Scotland Yard.It dates to 6 days after the murder and the day after the description of the gunman's eyes changed colour and shape!!!!And what is more William Ewer led the police to Mrs Dorothy Morrell in a crystal clear attempt to frame or finger Hanratty who he said he had followed round the shops because he looked like the renewed description on the A6 gunman.
Sorry Graham but it is you who seem to be living in denial----come on- you must know by now that William Ewer fully admitted in a statement to the Sunday Times of May16th 1971 that it was he,William Ewer and not Janet Gregsten who had chased Hanratty round[/B] Finchley Road on 1st September 1961 from the coffee shop to the photographers shop and then to the flower shop which is where Mrs Morrell was required to give a statement to the police about the flowers she had sent to Mrs Hanratty on J.Ryan's instructions on Sept 1st 1961.Ewer says in his own statement that he rang Scotland Yard about this man with eyes like carbunkles who he had first seen in the coffee shop early in September 1961 .Nothing at all to do with those reporter's feature stories you mention of the Mail and Sketch both written after the trial ended in 1962 . The Police report of the event I have described is on record in Scotland Yard. .And I never said anything about when the name Ryan figured in police enquiries-they didn't have any idea who Ryan was on September 1st-it was just a name.As for Ewer's visit to Louise Anderson's shop you did not read what I said properly .

[Graham]

.A report was sent to Scotland Yard but the murder squad had never heard of Jimmy Ryan ,the name the man gave to Mrs Morrell.

And the name Ryan didn't figure in police inquiries until September 11 when the cartridge cases were found at The Vienna and Acott and Co descended upon the place like avenging angels (that is, once the case had been shown forensically to have been fired by the murder weapon - which didn't take long).

Nats, you may have forgotten that after the trial, both Ewer and Janet Gregsten dismissed the story as 'an invention of the gutter press', and they weren't far wrong. Ewer described the story as 'a farrago of nonsense', and Janet agreed, saying that 'it is absolute total nonsense - it's come out of Duffy's (Daily Sketch journalist) imagination'. She added that Bill Ewer 'wouldn't say that because there isn't any basis on which to say it'.

To this day, it's still not 100% certain how the police made the vital connection that Ryan was Hanratty, but you can bet your pension it was nothing to do with 'She Saw Him At The Cleaners'. Or whatever.

Of course Ewer had no idea that James Hanratty had been in Louise Anderson's shop on the morning of Hanratty's visit to her. Why should he? The name 'Hanratty' was unknown to him.

Graham

Graham

[Natalie Severn]

Ed see my post immediately above-no 809 -cheers N

[Natalie Severn]

Why should someone unexpectedly climbing bus stairs force Ewer to get rid of the gun from his flat?

It is a fact of double decker buses that passengers and the conductor have to climb stairs to get to the upper deck. There is nothing unexpected in this and many folk are not constrained by this to hide stuff from their living quarters by reason of it.

I think my phrasing was clumsy .What I meant was that if France had had the gun returned to him by the gunman involved in the A6 murder he may have wanted to get rid of it almost immediately and taken both gun and ammunition out of his flat to be disposed of somewhere.However if he had to first take the 36 bus near his flat in Boundary Road by the time it got going to the busier bus stops towards the Harrow Road people might have been getting on ,climbing the stairs causing him to panic and hide the gun and ammunition under the back seat and eventually get off the bus as fast as he could,leaving the ammunition behind.So it could simply been expediency at a given moment .It need not have been done with an intention to frame Hanratty.Of course we have then to balance that with the fact that William Ewer appears to have had every intention of framing Hanratty when he raced round the Finchley Road following Hanratty from first the coffee shop then to the photographer's shop ,then to the Flower shop at which point Ewer telephoned Scotland Yard and the police arrived with Ewer introducing himself to them.The police went into the Flower shop and questioned Mrs Dorothy Morrell who told them the man sent roses to his mother,a Mrs Hanratty of12 Sycamore Grove,Kingsbury on September 1st.A report was sent to Scotland Yard but the murder squad had never heard of Jimmy Ryan ,the name the man gave to Mrs Morrell.
Bill Ewer continued looking for the man with staring eyes one day walking straight into the shop of a business associate -58 year old Mrs Louise Anderson who had an antique shop in Soho.He apparently did not know that Hanratty had been in the shop that very morning.
So very early on ,by August 31st,6 days after the murder and the day of the changed description of the gunman from dark eyes to light blue staring eyes,William Ewer believed James Hanratty to be the A6 killer and had told the police about him.That signifies a straightforward attempt by William Ewer to finger or frame Hanratty for the A6 murder to my mind whereas the gun on the bus is more open to question.

[Ed James]

Dupplin Muir,

Do not underestimate the human capacity for hypocrisy.

Cobalt I agree.


A couple of things on Ewer and France and police interviews.

We know from Woffinden that the police ( Acott?) interviewed Ewer on 11 September, but presumably apart from comments which Woffinden reveals about Gregsten's character and his 'shame ' about the continuing relationship, there was not much else of interest in the interviewing notes. Surely under modern policing, the police would have got to close family members more quickly. And today wouldn't they also have interviewed Ewer's wife/ Janet's half sister, Valerie separately.

I can't recall any direct quotes from in the books about France's interview, and presumably the absence of access to interview notes explains the speculation about how and the date that the police associated Ryan with Hanratty. Did France go voluntarily to Scotland Yard? And why the delay if he thought Hanratty was the perpetrator. In any case the police seemed to give France an easy time . Was the information that France gave so good that they did not probe him further? this would be surprising given the connection with the rehearsal club?

[Spitfire]

It may be the case that France had to get rid of the gun and ammunition from his flat quickly due to somebody climbing the stairs of the bus unexpectedly forcing him to have to quickly hide it under the seat and leave it there and get off the bus.

Why should someone unexpectedly climbing bus stairs force Ewer to get rid of the gun from his flat?

It is a fact of double decker buses that passengers and the conductor have to climb stairs to get to the upper deck. There is nothing unexpected in this and many folk are not constrained by this to hide stuff from their living quarters by reason of it.

[Natalie Severn]

I sort of agree with both Dupplin and Cobalt here.Ewer was reputed to be interested in very far right organisations and so was Alphon who had literature from such an organisation in his case when he was first hauled in for questioning over the A6 murder on 27th August. It was due to their combined enthusiasm's for such extreme right wing organisations that caused Jean Justice to initially link the two men together . Alphon also claimed to have 'lived among the rich" which to my mind suggests he may have been attending far right meetings where there are many such rich members and so of course may William Ewer, though we have no proof of this as far as I know.
When I suggested William Ewer may have had old fashioned 'British' values about what married men were supposed to be doing and not doing, this did not preclude him having double standards for himself when it came to his own wife presumably,eventually anyway, but what he saw as outright caddishness by Michael Gregsten who already deeply in debt was now abandoning his wife and two young children to live in a Maidenhead flat ----which no doubt would have left Janet at the mercy of her sister and William Ewer for the very means to live.....where was she to find the rent if he left her deeply in debt ? She had no work and two children below school age.So Ewer's outrage or moral rectitude would have been about that scenario and the perhaps unspoken assumption by Janet that the Ewer's would have to help her out -which of course they did as we know.I agree that he was likely to have had all sorts of smalltime dealings with the Soho underworld a a dealer in antiques and paintings including its Art world-then inhabited by the likes of Lucian Freud and his soul mate Francis Bacon etc but in his personal life he appears to have adopted a rather more conservative household until Janet Gregsten and her children came to live with him----at which point ,like Bathsheba -'her beauty overthrew him' as Leonard Cohen wrote in his hit song Hallelujah!

[cobalt]

Dupplin Muir,

Do not underestimate the human capacity for hypocrisy.

Ewer strikes me as a man who would be much more at ease in the present day UK than he was in the changing scene of the early 1960s. He comes across as the worst type of Daily Mail reader, a man who could rail against immigration yet would be happy, in the modern age, to employ cheap immigrant labour in his shop or his home.
A man who could write letters to the paper about moral turpitude and teenage girls getting pregnant in order to get council housing ( in which he never lived) yet would have an affair with his sister-in-law.
A man who could denounce the intolerable tax burden placed on the small businessman, but roar support for megabuck military intervention overseas, all the while fiddling his own tax return.

Ewer would be in his element today! He was the coming man.

[Dupplin Muir]

I think we'll have to agree to differ about Ewer! I don't see him as a fine,upstanding member of the middle-classes. I imagine he was acquainted with a fair few villains, and wasn't averse to a bit of 'receiving stolen property', so I find it difficult to imagine him taking the moral high-ground with respect to MG's affair.

[Natalie Severn]

There are elements which to my mind don't sit so readily with the Ewer involvement line. For example, why was the gun dumped on a bus in the Ewer/France backyard even if it provided an opportunity to incriminate Hanratty. Unless as I have suggested before there was an aim to throw the scent away from the Redbridge /Wanstead area.

Atb

Ed

Thanks Ed for your carefully thought through words.
The 36A bus passed by the flat of Charles France and in my opinion there are other possibilities initially .Here is one of them.
The gun was found on 24th August in North West London [Hanratty sent his telegram that day from Liverpool ].
It may be the case that France had to get rid of the gun and ammunition from his flat quickly due to somebody climbing the stairs of the bus unexpectedly forcing him to have to quickly hide it under the seat and leave it there and get off the bus.
Don't forget more ammunition was found in Central London that week too....

[Ed James]

Yes I can see the reason for your reservation DM .But these were middle class Hampstead types with the sort of manners and mores of that time . I picture William Ewer slightly differently from yourself perhaps .Certainly Ewer adored Janet and probably her children too . But he also had a wife of his own -Janet's sister.And I sense that he lived by a certain code of honour -a bit sergeant major like and was deeply outraged by Gregsten's behaviour to Janet. It simply had to be put a stop to once and for all. Gregsten must return to his family and act like a proper husband and father instead of behaving like a complete cad and upsetting Janet like this. .

None of us can be fully sure our favoured version of the events is true. However, I think an understanding of the character of each of the leading players (as best we can gauge it) is critical for an assessment of the motive, along with a questioning review of what is safely known to have happened during the abduction.

I largely share Nats' assessment of Ewer. I believe it quite possible that Ewer, self assured and convinced his world view was right, was outraged by his 36 year old brother- in- law carrying on with a 22 year old girl and jeopardising a lovely family.

Knowing the weak nature of Gregsten's character and Gregsten's own recognition of what he was doing was wrong (as Ewer evidenced to the police), Ewer would think that Gregsten could finally be brought to his senses. If the objective was to kill why not do it at Dorney Reach, why allow Gregsten to leave the car to get cigs etc and why spin it out for 5/6 hours.

Nats may be right about Alphon being involved in tracking the couple, but this might be difficult for someone who didn't have a vehicle. Given that Gregsten was quite open with his wife about the relationship, I expect the manipulative Ewer got some details of her husband's movements from Janet. After all Ewer prevailed upon Janet to visit Valerie in hospital (she's my friend) , ostensibly perhaps to throw the press and the public off the infidelity track ( and perhaps the police too!) . Doubtless Ewer was interested for his own reasons in what Valerie was saying and in how the police were progressing.

There are elements which to my mind don't sit so readily with the Ewer involvement line. For example, why was the gun dumped on a bus in the Ewer/France backyard even if it provided an opportunity to incriminate Hanratty. Unless as I have suggested before there was an aim to throw the scent away from the Redbridge /Wanstead area.

Atb

Ed