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

[Graham]

With regard to the almanac men, I would have to say that once you'd met Alphon you probably wouldn't forget him. We don't know how successful he was at selling the almanacs, probably not very, so we can't tell how often he went to the warehouse (or whatever it was) for a fresh stock, but I would suggest that the men who ran the business knew Alphon by sight pretty well, well enough to convince the police that they had provided a sound alibi for him.

Re: the Alexandra Court, other guests complained about Alphon's noisy behavior, and the manager, who was aware that the police were asking hotels, b&b's, boarding-houses, etc., if they had any peculiar clients, contacted the police who came to investigate. I doubt if the other guests went shrieking down to the manager's office about the hotel harbouring the desperate A6 killer! To them, Alphon was just a damn nuisance.

No, Alphon didn't have a tight alibi for the night of the murder, but you know how I'm going to counter that, don't you, Nats?!? By saying that I don't believe Hanratty had an alibi either.....

No, the car produced not a single trace of Hanratty, neither did it produce a single trace of Alphon. Not a hair, not a fingerprint from either of them. Nats, unless I'm going senile (quite likely), I can't remember there being a bloody handprint on the rear window of the car? If it wasn't Hanratty's, did the police identify whose it was? I'd have said it must have been Valerie's.

SH, you're quite correct about the time Alphon was filmed pacing like a madman up and down that platform.

Graham

[Dupplin Muir]

Why didn't the police suggest that Alphon 'bought' his alibi by bribing the two almanac salesmen? They were quick enough to propose that Hanratty had done so, and sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander - and Alphon had far more money with which to pay bribes than JH ever did.

Of course, one major problem with evaluating Alphon's alibi is that we don't know who these witnesses were. Were they honest, law-abiding people like those who gave Hanratty his alibi, or were they shady ne'er-do-wells like Alphon himself? Where is the evidence that the police went through their story with a fine-tooth comb as they did for JH? Or was it a case of "Was Mr Alphon here at such-and-such a time?"...."Yes"..."Thank you, that's all"?

[NickB]

Alphon did have an alibi for the murder, arriving at the Vienna hotel at 11.30pm and being the last guest entered in the register. Like Hanratty the night before he had been transferred from the Broadway because by that time it was full.

The only evidence against this is Nudds temporary second statement. This has Alphon arriving ten and half hours earlier at 1pm and going to the room Hanratty stayed in and putting his case on the armchair the cartridge cases were found. If reeks of being a false statement to frame Alphon.

In any case I don't know why we are revisiting this after Mansfield's acceptance of the DNA evidence regarding Alphon. Is anyone now seriously suggesting that Alphon was the A6 murderer?

[Graham]

Alphon did have an alibi for the murder, arriving at the Vienna hotel at 11.30pm and being the last guest entered in the register

Strewth, I am going senile....he also met his mother during the evening.

Nick, you're quite right to pose the question concerning Alphon's elimination as a suspect, but there are still a few people who persist in believing he was the A6 murderer.

Graham

[Natalie Severn]

Alphon did have an alibi for the murder, arriving at the Vienna hotel at 11.30pm and being the last guest entered in the register. Like Hanratty the night before he had been transferred from the Broadway because by that time it was full.

Nick-Why on earth , as was asserted by SH recently ,did Det Supt Oxford go to collect the Vienna Hotel Diary in which there was the alleged 11.30 ' evidence' of Alphon's arrival and if this is indeed factual evidence , why did he go to collect it the day after Hanratty was executed and never return it because it has never been seen since.

[Sherlock Houses]

Alphon did have an alibi for the murder, arriving at the Vienna hotel at 11.30pm and being the last guest entered in the register. Like Hanratty the night before he had been transferred from the Broadway because by that time it was full.

The only evidence against this is Nudds temporary second statement. This has Alphon arriving ten and half hours earlier at 1pm and going to the room Hanratty stayed in and putting his case on the armchair the cartridge cases were found. If reeks of being a false statement to frame Alphon.

In any case I don't know why we are revisiting this after Mansfield's acceptance of the DNA evidence regarding Alphon. Is anyone now seriously suggesting that Alphon was the A6 murderer?

No, Alphon did not have an alibi for the night of the murder. His mother could not alibi him because she couldn't determine whether it was a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday that she met him.

The only evidence you say which contradicts Nudds's initial statement is the second statement. While there may be some innaccuracies within this very detailed and persuasive second statement there is much truth. Page 234 of the hotel diary [I have seen a copy of this page] confirms the fact that Alphon turned up [after first phoning] in person in the early afternoon of that Tuesday and handed over a 50% deposit [£1.7s.6d] towards room 24, expecting to pay the full amount [should a single room not become available in the meantime] when he returned later that evening, adding that he might be very late.

Ah yes, because the ubiquitous Mansield is said to have accepted the alleged DNA concerning Alphon, which I personally mistrust, we should all follow suit and stop raising valid questions and arguments about it all. I have yet to see anything in print which details the when, where and how Alphon is said to have given a DNA sample.

Lots of people still believe [myself included] that Alphon was the A6 murderer. There is just far too much which points to him to dismiss as mere coincidence. A score or more coincidences too many.

[Natalie Severn]

[QUOTE=NickB;338770]Alphon did
In any case I don't know why we are revisiting this after Mansfield's acceptance of the DNA evidence regarding Alphon. Is anyone now seriously suggesting that Alphon was the A6 murderer?[QUOTE?/]

Mansfield was wrong over this but the LCN DNA experts might not have known this at the time;because the DNA of another person is not found on a tested item it does NOT mean another person's DNA is not actually there .That is now understood to be the case from more recent scientific studies and findings about LCN DNA testing and one of the important reasons many are now wary of LCN Test findings. The other is LCN DNA testings capacity to multiply duplicates of minute particles of DNA that can come from random contact and that can give totally false readings ---as has been reported in a number of wrongful convictions since the 2002 appeal .[yes-can supply that data if required].

[NickB]

I don’t know why people think Alphon would refuse to give DNA tests. He is reported in 1998 as saying that he may insist on taking DNA tests to prove his innocence.

And I don’t see how he could have paid a deposit to the Vienna hotel at lunchtime then in the evening tried to book into the Broadway House hotel and be transferred to the Vienna.

[Spitfire]

There is an interesting, 46 minute long Youtube video of Meike Dalal [uploaded in 2010] in which she speaks to a small female audience about her childhood on a farm in Sweden during and after WW2, Among other things she speaks of her fondness for England which prompted her to move there in the mid 1950's. She doesn't mention the horrific assault she endured on September 7th 1961 however.

For those interested she can be seen here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyaOAJq5gQU

The sound quality of this clip is appalling. I did glean that the Swedish housewife 'Meike Dalal' was (is) in fact German. She does not mention Sweden at all in the video. She was born in Schleswig-Holstein in Germany to parents who had been married in Germany in 1937, Her grandmother on her maternal side was Danish, which is about as close to Sweden as we get.

Her father was killed fighting for the Fatherland (Germany) when she was two years of age. Her fondness for England (Anglophilia) seems to have arisen from the kindness with which she and other German children were treated by the occupying British forces after the German surrender.

Meike came to England as an au pair in the mid 1950's and married a Parsee Indian, Mr (Zahir) Dalal, had three children, divorced and married again.

I managed the first 25 minutes of the video, but the sound quality of it eventually defeated me, when I gave up Meike and her second husband had moved out of London to lead the good life in Reigate.

[caz]

Alphon did
In any case I don't know why we are revisiting this after Mansfield's acceptance of the DNA evidence regarding Alphon. Is anyone now seriously suggesting that Alphon was the A6 murderer?

Mansfield was wrong over this but the LCN DNA experts might not have known this at the time;because the DNA of another person is not found on a tested item it does NOT mean another person's DNA is not actually there .That is now understood to be the case from more recent scientific studies and findings about LCN DNA testing and one of the important reasons many are now wary of LCN Test findings. The other is LCN DNA testings capacity to multiply duplicates of minute particles of DNA that can come from random contact and that can give totally false readings ---as has been reported in a number of wrongful convictions since the 2002 appeal .[yes-can supply that data if required].

Hi Nats,

I wondered if it was Hanratty's unquestioned DNA on the hanky found with the murder weapon which helped towards the equally unquestioned verdict that Alphon was not the gunman. Without any evidence whatsoever that he could have had access to one of Hanratty's dirty hankies and framed him with it, I'm not sure how Alphon could have remained a potential suspect after that.

I do find it instructive to see some of Hanratty's defenders still trying to point the finger at Alphon, while expressing their disgust that Hanratty was charged and convicted, despite what they insist was reasonable doubt in his case.

If Alphon had been picked out by Valerie Storie, and if the prosecution had been able to cast doubt on his Vienna Hotel alibi, would the same objections now be made on his behalf, for instance that Valerie was short-sighted and only had a glimpse of the gunman's face in the darkness, therefore could not have identified anyone on that basis, and another for instance that Alphon did not have to prove he was elsewhere as it was the prosecution's job to prove he was at the crime scene, etc etc?

And now we have you suggesting Alphon's DNA could have been present on the knickers and/or hanky but none of it found. How outraged would you have been on a scale of one to ten if anyone had dared to suggest the same, had none of Hanratty's DNA been found?

Eleven would be my guess.

Again, where are the same concerns about justice for Alphon, in the absence of a more solid case against him (or anyone else for that matter), than the one made against Hanratty? How do you get round the double standards here?

Love,

Caz
X

[Sherlock Houses]

Must have had one of those senior moments there in typing Sweden instead of Germany. Mrs Dalal was indeed born and raised in Germany, I don't know how all the books, newspapers etc., got that one wrong. I don't suppose it matters too much where about in Europe she came from.

Just a minor correction here, in that her first husband's name was Zarir. He had emigrated to England from India in 1951.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Nats,

And now we have you suggesting Alphon's DNA could have been present on the knickers and/or hanky but none of it found.

Love,

Caz
X

No Caz, all I said was that it has been forensically stated that the absence of a person's DNA on an item proves nothing and in this case

MANSFIELD was wrong to imply it did , though in fairness to him this was not known at the time.

I don't quite understand your indignation about Alphon.There was a nationwide search for him Caz,and he actually confessed to being the A6 murderer in a public statement.That is why he is still important.However much of an odd ball he was. I agree with a lot of what Graham wrote about Alphon recently -but suspicion lingers when there are so many contingencies .
It was Alphon who led police to the Vienna Hotel.Valerie actually didn't recognise anybody facially -as was clear, because she thought she also recognised somebody else in the line ups.
Chief Inspector Roger Matthews of Scotland Yard ,who drew up the Home Office report in 1996 , saw stuff in files we haven't and aren't allowed to for m,any years to come and it was clear to him that three people were involved.He won't say who they are .However he insists to this day that he believes Hanratty was totally innocent of any crime connected with the A6 murder.The DNA as referenced in the court of appeal of 2002 was accepted by the judges as confirmation of Hanratty's guilt which has perplexed both Matthews and others such as the Chief Constable of Bedfordshire who presided over the CCRC ever since.But in 2002 much less was known about the LCDDNA . Alphon seems to have exercised Matthews mind a lot and at the time of writing up his report -and the Daily Mail article- Alphon was still very much alive along with several others we mention which may have concerned them about redress.Certainly Matthews as a detective was given his greatest clue he says over Hanratty's hanky and the gun.Never would any murderer do such a thing.It was planted there to incriminate Hanratty he believed;no question .And he had covered very many cases as a detective solving murder crimes .

Norma x

[Graham]

The problem with Alphon's 'confessions' is that there always appears to be a 'deliberate mistake' in them. I've always said that he was no fool, and he always made sure he left the escape-hatch at least partly open.

He was also effectively groomed by Jean Justice (and to a lesser extent by Jeremy Fox, although I believe the latter was nowhere near as convinced of Alphon's guilt as Justice [I]appeared[I] to be). Like Alphon himself, Justice was in it for the money. Once he'd had a taste of the limelight and the good life, Alphon was reluctant to let it go, as anyone would be. On the other hand, his whole lifestyle seems to have been a cycle of rags-to-riches and back again, and if it bothered him at all then he didn't appear to show it, or even let it bother him too much. He certainly had Paul Foot puzzled, no doubt about that.

I also get the impression that Alphon enjoyed brinksmanship, and genuinely relished leading the police, the press and the public a merry old dance. That the police kept tabs on him seems fairly clear, as they knew where to find him when they needed samples of his DNA for the appeal.

Graham

[Sherlock Houses]

Certainly Matthews as a detective was given his greatest clue he says over Hanratty's hanky and the gun.Never would any murderer do such a thing.It was planted there to incriminate Hanratty he believed;no question .And he had covered very many cases as a detective solving murder crimes .
Norma x

It's crucial also, Natalie, to emphasise that James Hanratty told his brother, Michael, that had he been the A6 murderer the first thing he would have done with the gun would have been to chuck it in the Thames. Just like most any one of us would have done.

[Spitfire]

It's crucial also, Natalie, to emphasise that James Hanratty told his brother, Michael, that had he been the A6 murderer the first thing he would have done with the gun would have been to chuck it in the Thames. Just like most any one of us would have done.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Hanratty must have regretted not disposing effectively of either Valerie Storie or the gun, as he must also have regretted leaving fingerprints at the scenes of his burglaries but he still left them.