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

[Natalie Severn]

Referring to the Swiss Cottage sighting, Paul Foot wrote in The Guardian, Oct 10th 1994:
"Mrs Gregsten assures me, and I believe her utterly, that she never had any 'flash of intuition' about Hanratty. ‘It was all rubbish as far as I was concerned’, she said."

Yes indeed Nick....because by 1994 we know that no sooner had Valerie Storie changed her description of the gunman on August 31st 1961 that it was actually William Ewer whose intuition was flashing so strongly on September 1st 1961 that he was in and out of that row of shops on the Finchley Road like a fiddler's elbow!And he says so himself.

[Limehouse]

That Ewer went to the police about the 'incident' is true. That the police interviewed the shopkeepers in the Swiss Cottage arcade is true. That Ewer knew Louise Anderson and discussed this incident and the A6 Case at large is true. But the police took no statements from anyone, for the simple reason that the name 'Ryan' meant nothing to them and they weren't prepared to carry out their own inquiries. It is [U]not[U] true, as has been claimed in the past, that it was this incident that alerted the police to the fact that 'Ryan' was actually James Hanratty. Over the years both Ewer and Mrs G vehemently denied the story, describing it as total nonsense coming from the imagination of journalists.
Another strange event in a case which, the more I read, discuss and think about it, becomes yet stranger.......

Graham

Isn't it odd that Ewer went to the police about this incident, and that the police investigated this incident - and yet years later both Ewer and Mrs G claim it was all a nonsense made up by journalists?

[Natalie Severn]

I wonder who had prompted William Ewer to go looking for Hanratty within a week of the A6 murder........because that is exactly what he did.

[GUT]

Hi Julie,

I know you believe this to be true, but unfortunately the evidence for it being true is lacking.

The law says his reasons for lying about his whereabouts were obvious and entirely bound up with those terrible events. I have yet to see a remotely plausible reason for him to have lied about where he was if he was staying innocently in Rhyl, where he saw and spoke to a number of people.

Love,

Caz
X

And I strongly suspect that more than anything else gave him an appointment with the hangman.

A jury is made up of people. When someone lies to you, you are less likely to believe anything else they tell you. London to a brick, if w asked the jurors why didn't you accept his alibi the majority would say "If it was true why did he give the Liverpool one".

The BS that he didn't realize the risk he faced just doesn't stand up, this wasn't someone with no knowledge of Criminal Law and on top of that his Cousel got written instructions.

Want to know the number one reason a Barrister asks for written instructions. Because he has told the punter it's a dumb move.

[Natalie Severn]

"If it was true why did he give the Liverpool one".

Michael Sherrard speaking on the 1992 Horizon programme:
It is often said that Hanratty changed his alibi from Liverpool to Rhyl and that is not quite right. The substance of the Liverpool alibi was maintained.

Sherrard also insists on Mrs Dunwoody's evidence being of great importance with which the prosecution agreed-particularly Acott but the prosecution said they believed Hanratty had been in the shop on the Monday not the Tuesday.It even prompted the prosecution to suggest that if it was indeed Tuesday there was a regular air service from Liverpool to the South that he could have used and returned to Liverpool or Rhyl or whatever in perfectly good time having committed the A6 murder.

[Natalie Severn]

I am so glad people have taken up my suggestion that the abandonment of the car so close to The George at Wanstead might have been significant. I could never understand why Avondale Crescent was described as being in Ilford as Ilford is probably almost two miles away. In the late 70s and early 80s, I worked in Wanstead High Street, less than a minute's walk from The George. Redbridge station is a few minutes walk away and Wanstead station is, indeed, just across the road from the pub. I grew up in Walthamstow and Chingford, just a few miles down the road and well remember the period when Harry Roberts (whose parents ran the pub) was on the run, having been implicated (and later convicted) in the shooting dead of three policemen in west London. It was strongly believed Roberts was hiding out in Epping Forest, which surrounded my childhood home and haunts.

It was a nice place to grow up, but it had a large ex-East End population, being the type of place where people went to 'better themselves' either as the result of decent, hard work - or crime. Indeed, the Krays frequented the area and ended up being buried a few yards away from my parents in Chingford cemetery.

I think it is entirely possible that the gunman was able to lie low in the area or at least clean himself up. Perhaps this also explains various conflicting sightings of the car that day. It could well have been seen in the morning close to Redbridge station, concealed for a period of hours, and then dumped when the light was fading.

It is clear from that clipping above (what a find!) that the police were interested in someone in that area at the time.

Have a good weekend all.

Julie

very interesting post Julie.

[Derrick]

Michael Sherrard speaking on the 1992 Horizon programme:

Sherrard was actually shown interviewed on the Yorkshire TV documentary produced by Bob Woffinden called Hanratty, The Mystery of Deadman's Hill.

The BBC Horizon programme about the case was first shown in 2002.

HTH
Del

[moste]

:

Hi Julie,

I know you believe this to be true, but unfortunately the evidence for it being true is lacking.

The law says his reasons for lying about his whereabouts were obvious and entirely bound up with those terrible events. I have yet to see a remotely plausible reason for him to have lied about where he was if he was staying innocently in Rhyl, where he saw and spoke to a number of people.

Love,

Caz
X

Staying innocently in Rhyl? He was trying to sell stolen goods!

[moste]

Referring to the Swiss Cottage sighting, Paul Foot wrote in The Guardian, Oct 10th 1994:
"Mrs Gregsten assures me, and I believe her utterly, that she never had any 'flash of intuition' about Hanratty. ‘It was all rubbish as far as I was concerned’, she said."

And yet if, as Natalie explains in post 534, after a nine year affair with Michael Gregstens wife, Ewer admitted to the Times newspaper in 1971 that he had in fact had the intuitive sighting. Then Mrs Gregsten maintaining re Paul Foot that it was all rubbish as far as she was concerned.What are we to deduce from this?

[cobalt]

Forget the Steer painting Ewer was hanging up at the time; he was giving a bigger steer to the police investigating the A6 case. His actions have no rational explanation, which he himself must have realised at the time when ascribing the ‘vision’ to Mrs Gregsten. Not that it made any more sense coming from her, but presumably Mrs Gregsten was immune from media attention given her circumstances at that time.

It may well be that the purpose of the ‘steer’ was simply to deflect police attention away from the real culprit, and that Hanratty was a useful tool to that end. Having failed to act on the initial steer, the police had to have their minds concentrated by the discovery of cartridge cases in the Vienna Hotel.

The eventual outcome, partly a result of Hanratty failing to establish his alibi, may have come as a shock to those who had placed him in the frame for the sake of expediency six months earlier. The verdict obviously unsettled Ewer if journalistic accounts of his behaviour at the trial are reliable, and seemed to have affected Dixie France badly as well.

[Natalie Severn]

And yet if, as Natalie explains in post 534, after a nine year affair with Michael Gregstens wife, Ewer admitted to the Times newspaper in 1971 that he had in fact had the intuitive sighting. Then Mrs Gregsten maintaining re Paul Foot that it was all rubbish as far as she was concerned.What are we to deduce from this?

Cui bono ? Who benefitted ? -the first thing you look at is who actually gained .William Ewer ends up actually living with the murdered man's wife. One of the oldest and most biblical of events from David and Bathsheba onwards....... Haleluya!

[Natalie Severn]

Sherrard was actually shown interviewed on the Yorkshire TV documentary produced by Bob Woffinden called Hanratty, The Mystery of Deadman's Hill.

The BBC Horizon programme about the case was first shown in 2002.

HTH
Del

Thanks Derrick.So to recap:Sherrard said :It is often said that Hanratty changed his alibi from Liverpool to Rhyl and that is not quite right. The substance of the Liverpool alibi was maintained.

[NickB]

And yet if, as Natalie explains in post 534, after a nine year affair with Michael Gregstens wife, Ewer admitted to the Times newspaper in 1971 that he had in fact had the intuitive sighting. Then Mrs Gregsten maintaining re Paul Foot that it was all rubbish as far as she was concerned.What are we to deduce from this?

The Sunday Times 1971 article suggested that Ewer discovered after the event that the crime had been arranged by France and committed in the interests of the family. Ewer then went to the press to pre-empt someone else going to them with a story of family involvement.

“After the ‘intuitive’ story appeared, any news editor would be likely to assume that other versions - such as those retailed since by Peter Alphon - could be dismissed as farfetched smears.”

Making Dixie France the prime mover, to me, doesn’t make sense. Why would he (or anyone else) organise a crime in the family’s interests without their knowledge?

The Sunday Times accepted that Ewer was not consciously or knowingly involved in the crime nor was any other member of the family. Perhaps as they were being sued for libel by Ewer their lawyers made them say this and you were supposed to read between the lines and deduce that Ewer was the prime mover.

[moste]

The Sunday Times 1971 article suggested that Ewer discovered after the event that the crime had been arranged by France and committed in the interests of the family. Ewer then went to the press to pre-empt someone else going to them with a story of family involvement.

“After the ‘intuitive’ story appeared, any news editor would be likely to assume that other versions - such as those retailed since by Peter Alphon - could be dismissed as farfetched smears.”

B]Making Dixie France the prime mover, to me, doesn’t make sense. Why would he (or anyone else) organise a crime in the family’s interests without their knowledge?[/B]

The Sunday Times accepted that Ewer was not consciously or knowingly involved in the crime nor was any other member of the family. Perhaps as they were being sued for libel by Ewer their lawyers made them say this and you were supposed to read between the lines and deduce that Ewer was the prime mover.

Why would he, France, though, go around to Ewers shop explaining most dramatically how deeply sorry he was for the death of Gregsten? That makes no sense either.

[Natalie Severn]

Why would he, France, though, go around to Ewers shop explaining most dramatically how deeply sorry he was for the death of Gregsten? That makes no sense either.

It makes sense when you realise that France was in a highly distressed suicidal state-Hanratty's appeal had failed and he was to hang in days prompted France's need to talk to Ewer in his shop just down the road .about what was happening .Hanratty was about to be executed.France and Ewer then quite bothered realising France could have been seen to enter the shop by staff in Burtol's cleaners for example which was about 25 feet across the arcade ,so they probably cooked this up between them in case word got spread around that the two looked like they were in league .Concocting the story that France was paying his personal respects to Gregsten via his brother-in -law and apologising for Hanratty etc might have been thought likely to offset such gossip.