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

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Nats/Norma
Such involvement does not preclude Hanratty from the abduction/crime but why then would Ewer finger him.

Ed

Clearly Ed, Ewer would only have 'fingered' Hanratty to deflect attention from the real culprits if he himself had commissioned a 'frightener job' via France and it had all gone wrong- or later been reported to the police .
If he was involved , William Ewer ,as Janet Gregsten's step brother in law may well have been looking out for Janet not just as his wife's beloved sister and his own dearly loved sister-in- law and the mother of their little nephews but as the distressed wife of a straying brother in law,Michael Gregsten who needed to be taught a lesson....a so why not thwart Gregsten-stop him from leaving Janet later that week as planned- 27th August- to take that flat in Maidenhead ?
Hanratty , away in Liverpool , was a convenient fall guy should anything go wrong here -for example if Gregsten or Valerie should report to the police the hold up incident and the gunman's threats . France/Ewer could point to Hanratty as the possible hold up manand later when it had all gone pear shaped try to pin the blame for it all on him..

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Ed,...... Was Mike G on to something, whereby, because he had become privy to information that he deemed could be very damaging to the likes of Ernie M,? Perhaps he decided to improve his financial situation, with an acquisition of funds (If he kept his mouth shut)which would be released into his account forthwith. A one off payment of, lets say, five thousand pounds never to be mentioned again.

I know the journalists in the Fleet Street pubs in 1963 were agog in the Christine Keeler/Profumo affair about the identity of the naked man in the mask at upper class orgy parties being Ernie Marples,Minister of Transport [ Christine Keeler also thought he was ].However it seems he wasn't.Nevertheless Marples appears to have certainly been a visitor to Cliveden as well as to Diana Dors and Dennis Hamilton's place in Maidenhead which was another centre of aristocratic /celebrity politician orgies-as of course was Cliveden which is I think in Taplow and lies close to Dorney Reach.
Marples also ,according the Christine Keeler's auto biography ,did many a dodgy deal with Peter Rachman her and Mandy Rice Davies' lover .Peter Rachman who sold his pal Ernie Marples the crucial land under the M6 and the dodgy deals were very possibly struck from Rachman's notorious office and headquarters in Queensway. Marples as Minister for Transport did vastly improve roads before he disappeared into hiding.But this was at great expense to the UK Railway network......however it vastly improved both roads and crucially the car industry at the time.Car sales / sex orgies and spying seem to have been the lynchpin of 1960's Cold War Britain !

[OneRound]

...

But returning to Ewer, it seems even Acott suspected his involvement since he referred to the crime being a gas meter job (ie inside). It was perhaps just that having a case against Hanratty who he believed was guilty , he didn't want to risk a loss of conviction by pursuing the Ewer angle.

...

Ed

Hi Ed - good to have you posting again.

Only my personal opinion but I don't believe Acott's reference to ''a gas meter job'' was intended to refer to an inside job.

For me, context is very important here. Acott was being badgered by a journalist to whom he didn't want to speak and then walked away from. I don't consider it credible that in his words and actions, Acott effectively said, ''I'm not talking to you although you might be interested to know Gregsten's murder was an inside job''.

I feel it far more likely that Acott meant, ''This was a case where it was as easy to identify the criminal as when somebody breaks into a gas meter. Now go away!''.

Best regards,

OneRound

[Sherlock Houses]

Just wondering out loud and very speculatively......

I'm re-reading 'Who Killed Hanratty' right now, and very interesting it is to refresh my memory, especially on some of the smaller and more obscure aspects of the A6, at which he was very good.
Graham

The first page proper [p25] of the book, Graham, contains an interesting sentence..."In 1956, Gregsten started work at the Road Research Laboratory at Langley, near Slough, and it was after their second son was born in 1959 that the couple began to drift apart."

The reason I find this interesting is that the birth of a child very often draws a couple closer together and strengthens their relationship. It didn't seem to be the case with the Gregstens however. There had to have been some reason for their drifting apart. Their second son, Anthony, was born in the October and just a few months later Michael left to take up lodgings in Slough. A few years ago on the Ancestry.co.uk website I did some research on Michael Gregsten. Gregsten is an uncommon surname. I found the birth registrations for Michael and his first son, Simon, easily enough but could find absolutely no record for an Anthony Gregsten, which I found a bit puzzling. It took a considerable amount of time before I was able to locate the birth registration for Anthony. It is little wonder that it took so long to find this record as his surname in the register is down as GREYSTON.

Could it be possible that Anthony wasn't Michael's son ? It would begin to explain certain matters such as the couple's drifting apart and the fact that Anthony doesn't resemble either Michael or Janet in the slightest, judging from the attached images of him as a child and adult............

[OneRound]

Prior to engaging in any speculation, it should be heavily borne in mind that some individuals who were permanently and horrendously affected by the events of the night concerned are still alive.

Sherlock - I would strongly recommend you delete your last post.

Best regards,

OneRound

[moste]

With reference to various speculation on this thread recently about Michael Gregsten and his work at the Road Research Lab in Langley, I thought the following extract [from an email of mine] might interest some folk. Wild speculation or what ????

Interestingly in the newspaper reports from 1961/62 Michael was always described as being either a "scientist" or "physicist".

Hi SH. certainly interesting. The name Alphonso of course was changed by Felix(Peters father) after they had emigrated to England .

[moste]

Prior to engaging in any speculation, it should be heavily borne in mind that some individuals who were permanently and horrendously affected by the events of the night concerned are still alive.

Sherlock - I would strongly recommend you delete your last post.

Best regards,

OneRound

Hi OR.I can't agree that this post needs to be deleted.SH has only researched and discovered something that is in the public domain. We can't be handicapping ourselves to a degree that involves censuring our opinions about someone's parentage. Anthony would be 56 years of age now. I'm sure if he reads these threads, SHs post would either prompt a "that's bull s..." or " nice detective work."

[moste]

All good speculative fun, but it would be better if the theory were supported by some known facts rather than being suspended in disbelief.

It is hard to see Valerie Storie as part of the Cliveden set, cavorting alongside Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davis around a swimming pool.

And why on earth would Gregsten light upon Alphon, a man he could surely have never met, as choice to ride shotgun?
Or alternatively, why would Mr Big choose Alphon, a man with no driving experience, to bring the car back?
Why plan to bring the car back anyway if the assassin just blasted away and left in his own vehicle-Alphon could have hitched a lift with him.
And the assassin might as well have killed everyone in the car to be on the safe side since he could only swing once.

There may be limited mileage in submitting Valerie Storie’s claim of picking up a man near Slough to linguistic analysis, given her condition at the time. But she did apparently use this form of words to two witnesses, so it is not unreasonable to examine the implications of what she said. It is highly unlikely a courting couple would pick up a random hitch hiker in the late evening, which does suggest the possibility of an arranged meeting. It also removes the puzzle of how a gunman managed to get to the cornfield undetected, since he was never there in the first place.

I didn't want to infer a connection with VS and the Cliveden set.
I didn't want to infer Gregsten knew Alphon. prior to picking him up.
OSS\SAS personnel wouldn't 'swing' for following an order of a covert nature, as I was implying may have been the case.
I believe there is mileage in Stories statement "we picked a man up in Slough" the emphasis on "picked up"
Anyhow I'll leave it there, and commit that line of enquiry to the threads archives. Just thought I would dig into a possible, feasible, alterative.
I'll return to the status quo and concur with the folks with infinitely more knowledge of this case , that Will Ewer, was much more involved than we are led to believe.

[NickB]

From what Valerie said ("Mike certainly adored his children.” "The children were an ever-present concern in his mind.") far from having anything to do with him growing apart from Janet they appear to be what upset him most about leaving her.

Turning to another matter ...

It has been suggested that Hanratty changed out of his striped suit for the duration of the crime. If so he may have revealed what type the other suit was in the following slip of the tongue.

Hanratty: “Are you suggesting that there was blood from this terrible crime, for which I am standing here, on my check jacket?”

Swanwick: “Why did you say check jacket?”

Hanratty: “Well, striped jacket then.”

[Sherlock Houses]

Where there's a Will there's a way, it is often said, Moste.

Here's a strange thing..........google the name William Ewer and then click on images. When you scroll down the page you won't come across any images of our Mr Ewer but you do come across an interesting image and then think to yourself how did that get there ?

[Natalie Severn]

[QUOTE=moste;347438
I believe there is mileage in Stories statement "we picked a man up in Slough" the emphasis on "picked up"
[/QUOTE]

There is mileage too in what John Kerr had to say and John Kerr's notes, Kerr being the very first man Valerie spoke to about her ordeal .No sooner had this young Oxford undergraduate noted down what Valerie Storie said to him than the notes were demanded by a policeman on the scene and never returned to Kerr or seen again by him in their original state.In fact Swanwick at the trial inferred to Kerr that he had only imagined he had given the policeman his notes.See pages 107 and 108 of Foot.This is significant in my view .In the London Evening News of August 23rd John Kerr is quoted as saying: She told me
that as they passed through Slough at 9.30 last night ,a man thumbed a lift .
In 1991 on 26th September Kerr was interviewed by Woffinden , " She said ,"We picked up a man near Slough"..She actually did say that .He also confirmed there were other discrepancies with Valerie's later descriptions -for example Valerie's description of the man to him-fairish hair /staring eyes. The Daily Herald of 23rd August wrote: she said that when they reached a common at Dorney Cross -15 miles from Slough-a man hitched a lift .So there is actually mention on the day of the attack the word Dorney which is interesting.It doesn't state the source of the report.Now we have the additional news report found by SH of a policeman saying Valerie had talked to him in the same vein a few days later!!!
Why though was there such pandemonium over Kerr's notes which were 'substituted'/copied and shown to him saying they were his notes which contained alterations of letters and substitutions of numbers which Kerr insisted were not his writing -this together with this attempt to diminish him in court by suggesting he had been overcome by the events he witnessed that day?

[moste]

Where there's a Will there's a way, it is often said, Moste.

Here's a strange thing..........google the name William Ewer and then click on images. When you scroll down the page you won't come across any images of our Mr Ewer but you do come across an interesting image and then think to yourself how did that get there ?

Are we looking at Janet on the second line? Mhh, interesting, someone said is that Bill's shoe belonging to the photographer? But wait a sec! could that be Mikes piano? I thought she'd sold that!

[Natalie Severn]

Moste, As you may know I wrote a graphic book of the case originally in four parts but finally bound together in one book entitled ,"The A6 Murder: Was James Hanratty Innocent?" I sent a copy of it to Richard Ingrams[as I quote him in it] who wrote back saying he thought my pamphlets were excellent . He also commented on the LCN DNA research Andrew Buddle my husband had done **which revealed a number of cases where such testing was found to be was grossly inaccurate and misleading starting with the LCN DNA tests that wrongly implicated Sean Hoey in the Omagh bombing and drew scorn from the judge who threw the case out of court.
Mr Ingrams was very supportive but of course this doesn't mean he would be prepared to answer questions about the case.Paul Foot was his best friend and vice versa so he would I am sure be protective of Paul's memory.


** which as well as the LCN DNA contributions from Andy also had direct contributions from James Moore,Julie Lambert and William Beadle....and some of the brilliant casebook research here I must add!

[Sherlock Houses]

Are we looking at Janet on the second line? Mhh, interesting, someone said is that Bill's shoe belonging to the photographer? But wait a sec! could that be Mikes piano? I thought she'd sold that!

It would appear that Canada's Google "Images" page is different to that of the UK's, Moste, as that particular image of Janet doesn't appear anywhere. The image I was referring to is about 15 or so rows down the UK page.

[Natalie Severn]

Could it be possible that Anthony wasn't Michael's son ? It would begin to explain certain matters such as the couple's drifting apart and the fact that Anthony doesn't resemble either Michael or Janet in the slightest, judging from the attached images of him as a child and adult............

SH I really admire your research on this case some of which is not just brilliant but also quite extraordinary. I must admit though that I agree with One Round in this particular case .It is not our remit in my opinion to be questioning the legitimacy or parentage of the children of the people involved in these events. I know I would hate it if somebody on the internet questioned who my father was .Imagine if somebody on the internet cast doubt on who your father was. .....its easy to forget we are talking about real people who have often suffered throughout their lives from the fallout from these terrible events.
Best Wishes nx