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

[moste]

Riveting S.H. the plot thickens.

[Sherlock Houses]

Mortlake 29-09-1961

Getting back to the original topic of this thread for a moment I thought some posters might be interested in the following video link and relevant newspaper article concerning Alphon's first appearance at Mortlake Magistrates Court.....

http://www.itnsource.com/en/shotlist/ITN/1961/09/29/VS290961009/?s=alphon

[Sherlock Houses]

The Alphons on October 3rd 1961

And here's a picture of Pete celebrating with mum and dad after the charge of attacking Mrs Dalal was dropped.

I see the accompanying text below the picture mentions his eyes.
They are almost hypnotic. Large and staring. All Pete needs is a toothbrush moustache and he would look just like his hero.

[Sherlock Houses]

What do you reckon ??

Spooky, eh ?

[NickB]

On 7th September (the day Dalal was attacked) Acott and Barron interviewed their first suspect (not Alphon) and in the evening announced the amnesty when they also reported having spent 3 hours making enquiries in the Wanstead area.

[Graham]

Strange, because by his own admission Peter Alphon 'did not get on with his father'. Unless, of course, the old man was paying for the champers.....


Graham

[NickB]

Felix Alphon had not been on friendly terms with his son for some time but said: “All is forgiven and forgotten. I hope you’ll come back with us and we’ll be a proper family again.” Then mother, father and son went on a family holiday together.

Anyway, with regard to the references above, I wonder if the first suspect interviewed was connected to Wanstead.

[Natalie Severn]

I am assuming nobody at all came forward to say they had seen a man who resembled Hanratty's description on the trains from Paddington to Taplow?
Not a ticket collector ,not a guard, not a single passenger ?

Lets think about it; if the gunman really did take the train from Paddington on 22nd August 1961 with a gun and a bulky pile of ammunition surely somebody noticed him? Dressed in a smart London style suit but with his hair dyed black but streaky if it really was Hanratty as is insisted -and showing his ginger roots too ,most of the locals would have perceived something a bit odd about him ? Did he head for the cornfield with his handkerchief mask on at some point -if so did he put down his gun and ammunition while he tied his handkerchief up at the back of his head and put on his black nylon gloves -all of this in the dark ,just outside the cornfield or just inside the cornfield or in the street where people could have seen him ? The logistics of his arrival by foot from Taplow Railway Station don't really add up.

[Natalie Severn]

Does anybody know if railway staff or passengers were asked whether they had seen a man answering Hanratty's description on any of the trains from Paddington on the 22nd August 1961? Did the ticket collector at Tallow get asked? The guard? Did anyone ever come forward to say they had seen a man answering his description on the train or walking away from the station?

They all seem to have passed up on the opportunity to 'get in on the act.'

Meanwhile up in Liverpool/Rhyl, a cast list of luggage attendants, newsvendors, sweet shop owners and landladies seem to have been desperate for their 15 minutes of fame. Which is a bit odd.

Yes-and it can't all be down to people from the North queuing up to be either ignored completely ,humiliated or trashed in court while people in the South turned a blind eye and preferred to act like the three wise monkeys.

[Graham]

Did anyone on the bus from Liverpool to Rhyl on the evening of 22 August, as JH claimed, come forward to identify him? Not a passenger, not a conductor, not a driver? Nobody? How odd.

Graham

[GUT]

Did anyone on the bus from Liverpool to Rhyl on the evening of 22 August, as JH claimed, come forward to identify him? Not a passenger, not a conductor, not a driver? Nobody? How odd.

Graham

Nothing odd if he wasn't on the bus!!

[caz]

A lot of people who followed the trial closely believed Hanratty was innocent-not just journalists and bookmakers.A petition of 28,000 signatures was delivered to the Home Office a week before Hanratty was executed showing there was a lot of support for his case .The only way most people heard about the case was via the press and TV so the way it had been reported must have provided information to the effect that this was a man who was going to be found not guilty . Read up for yourself the commotion there was Caz.
As for the modern accusations many flow from the initial doubts held by those journalists who were at the trial and saw they way things were rigged against him.Some are still alive -one still writes -and they still maintain his innocence.

You see, Nats, this is what doesn't make sense. If the journalists following the trial saw that things were being 'rigged' against Hanratty, why did the reporting at the time predict the exact opposite, that he was going to walk? That's a complete contradiction.

Isn't it nearer the truth to say that it did look like Hanratty would walk, and he probably would have done, until he 'rigged' things against himself by changing his alibi - against Sherrard's advice - and losing the jury in the process?

It certainly seems that way to me, if Sherrard himself made the observation that: "The whole balance of the case had been altered by the late alibi".

Love,

Caz
X

[Sherlock Houses]

Did anyone on the bus from Liverpool to Rhyl on the evening of 22 August, as JH claimed, come forward to identify him? Not a passenger, not a conductor, not a driver? Nobody? How odd.

Graham

Not at all odd. The passengers on the Rhyl bus that Hanratty boarded that Tuesday evening must have experienced scores or hundreds of mundane bus journeys between August 22nd and February 6th 1962, the date when the Bedfford Court was informed of the Rhyl extension of his Liverpool alibi. It would be another 12 days [Feb 18th] before the first photos of Hanratty were published in the newspapers, showing readers just what he looked like. A period of 180 days, for those particular passengers, of travelling back and forth on countless, forgotten bus journeys. Regardless of whether that Rhyl bound double-decker bus was full or half-full, what reason would anyone have, unless they sat next to him and struck up a conversation with him, of remembering a face on a bus journey 6 months earlier ?

This contrasts sharply with all those witnesses in Liverpool and then Rhyl who actually met and spoke with Hanratty and had just cause, for one reason or another, to remember him.

Here's a fair question to pose for anyone, poster or guest, who looks in on this A6 forum and who may have travelled on a bus just yesterday............"Can you, just one day later, recall the face of any stranger on your bus ?"

Answers on a postcard please to 221b Baker Street.

[Graham]

Yes SH, but your argument also applies to passengers travelling from Paddington to Taplow or Slough or Maidenhead or wherever. You can't have it both ways.

JH described sitting [U]for five hours[U] with a "clerky gent" on his claimed 22 August journey to Liverpool - he even said the the gent's cufflinks were embossed with an E! So why didn't "Clerky gent" come forward? Or any of the other passengers JH shared the compartment with all the way to Liverpool?

Graham

[Graham]

Nothing odd if he wasn't on the bus!!

Ooooh, wouldn't that mean that...he was telling fibs?

Graham