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

[NickB]

Ed,

Good questions.

A well informed contributor (julie q) posted that Janet ...

“on receiving £2,000 pounds compensation from her husband’s employers she had given it to Ewer as part payment on a deposit towards a larger house in Wentworth Road, Golders Green”.

I am guessing that if Janet had also received a life insurance payout this would have been mentioned too.

Nick

[Natalie Severn]

Are you sure this doesn't simply mean you can't change your mind and pick a second person out of the same parade? Hanratty wasn't in the first, so she couldn't have picked him out. Not her fault that he didn't appear until the second parade.

The fact remains that Hanratty's eyes did match her 'large icy blue eyes', which is rather unlikely to have happened by chance, if he was a scapegoat who bore little resemblance, including in the eye department, to the man who had actually raped her.

Love,

Caz
X

I am quite sure it does not mean that Caz.At some point I will post the section of her statement that makes it completely clear that no such 2nd Identity parade could take place today.
I find it extraordinary that you can't seem to grasp that Valerie helped the police build a photofit of the gunman showing him to have dark eyes

She later identified as her attacker Michael Clark who we have it on no less authority than Acott himself that Michael Clark had darkeyes too.
No indication whatsoever from the first crucially important photofit made under Valerie's direction on 26th August 1961 that the man who had attacked her had large icy blue eyes.
No indication whatever later that the innocent Michael Clark who Valerie first identified as Michael Gregsten's killer and her attacker ,bore any resemblance with his dark eyes ,heavy build and 5ft 9ins height to Hanratty with his light blue eyes, 5ft 7 and a half height and noticeably slight build.

[Natalie Severn]

Where did I suggest the gunman was busy practising shots in the area before the hold-up? The gunman wasn't seen in the cornfield; he wasn't seen approaching the couple; he wasn't seen all the time he was with his victims, whoever he was. That doesn't make him invisible, or the stuff of Valerie's imagination.

You may not have suggested it,Caz, but that, in case you did not know it , is what Swanwick built his entire case on! Its in the trial transcript: that Hanratty had gone to a cornfield in Buckinghamshire to play at cowboys practising with his new gun! And that the crime was based on his tremendous lust for Valerie who he had copped sight of in the car ,had an unbridled passion for that catapulted him into the car and held her at gunpoint.Deeply illogical to this proposed scenario is the fact he needed no instant gratification of his lust but rather held himself back while he drove round the outskirts of North London on a sexual high for five full hours!

[Ed James]

Ed,

Good questions.

A well informed contributor (julie q) posted that Janet ...

“on receiving £2,000 pounds compensation from her husband’s employers she had given it to Ewer as part payment on a deposit towards a larger house in Wentworth Road, Golders Green”.

I am guessing that if Janet had also received a life insurance payout this would have been mentioned too.

Nick

Hi Nick

I think that might be 'mystery' solved. Under the then civil service pension scheme , Janet would have received a considerable lump sum for 'death in harness' as well as regular widow's payment.

regards

Ed

[NickB]

The value of Michael Gregsten's estate might be explained by his mother having registered her house in Mike’s name to avoid death duties.

I believe this was easier to do then, and life insurance could cover the unlikely eventuality of the son dying first.

[OneRound]

Hi folks,

Struggling to catch up. Is the suggestion now that Michael Gregsten's mother recruited Alphon to kill her own son as part of some complex life insurance and property scam?

Regards,

OneRound

[moste]

Motive.

So,' money being the root of all evil', I would say this is the best suggestion for a motive to date. And, if we take insurance scam as motive, then that gives us, Why! we already know Where, and When, we have part of How but not all, and then we need Who!
Nick, Interesting post by Julie q. And if as she said,' Janet received a $2000 compo from Michaels work, and (possibly naively) passed this on to Ewer, well, I think we know enough about this chap for him to be firmly in the frame.
I believe Big Bill had the money, and the means, and the motive, using hired people, to carry this out. Hanratty the doe head that he was,could easily have been targeted as the perfect patsy, weeks, or maybe even months before the actual event. Dixie may have been instrumental in setting JH up with a trip to the north knowing he would be much harder pressed to come up with anything like the kind of alibi he undoubtedly had in and around London on the 21st of August 1961.
I would love to have had a close up through the lens look at Ewers face when the foreman uttered those inglorious words, Guilty my lord.

[moste]

Posters of the past.

When previous posters of the A6 threads are quoted ,I tend to skip back and take a look at what was going on back then, as is my want. I must say the 19 posts offered by' julieq' I found to be very instructive, fascinating, and illuminating to boot.
I would recommend new comers who wish to learn as much as possible about the mysteries of the A6 murder( as well as the popular books that are available) if time is permitted, read back over the years, to give yourselves an even more in-depth understanding of the case. obviously a lot of ground is rehashed, but there certainly has been some well informed writers on these boards.

[Natalie Severn]

Hanratty the doe head that he was,could easily have been targeted as the perfect patsy, weeks, or maybe even months before the actual event. Dixie may have been instrumental in setting JH up with a trip to the north knowing he would be much harder pressed to come up with anything like the kind of alibi he undoubtedly had in and around London on the 21st of August 1961.

The day by day doings of Hanratty since he left off window cleaning with his dad and disappeared from his parents home on the Thursday of the 2nd week of July 1961 have him first off visiting Soho and the Rehearsal Club and bumping into Charles 'Dixie' France who he had not seen for many years when France was a not very bright crook who had been Hanratty's 'mentor' along the lines of Fagin.This was when Hanratty was 17 year old . Mrs Roberts ,the owner of the Rehearsal Club described the Hanratty she knew in the Summer of '61 as "so quiet and polite -he was naive you know ,and people would take liberties with him ."
Hanratty may have stayed with the France family after he had left his parents house in Kingsbury where he had been window cleaning but soon was 'on the road' again to Shrewsbury from there to Cardiff then through hitching lifts back via Liverpool on to Rhyl,arriving there on July 25th 1961 where he stayed the night with a fairground worker named Terry Evans aka "John".He heads back to London via Liverpool where he ends up being taken to hospital on the 26th July by ambulance having been attacked by some characters with knuckledusters near Lime Street -possibly because he was selling items of jewellery or a lighter that he had left over from a burglary in nearby Crosby . After being released from hospital he stayed in a hostel and in the morning sold the lighter and a few other items [from the Crosby burglary ] giving him enough money for the train back to London .So from 26th July he stays on and off in London first with desperately broke France in Swiss Cottage who had lost his job as a doorman at the Rehearsal Club and sometimes with Louise Anderson who lived in Sussex Gardens close to Paddington .
Hanratty then burgled a few houses within 10-20 miles of the France's during August ,at least once he even had the help of France but France was hopeless at it so he mostly acted that month as Hanratty's fence possibly selling some bits and pieces to William Ewer who owned an umbrella / antiques shop down the road from France -as well him selling it on to characters in the Soho club world possibly .But both France and Louise began to lack ready cash to pay Hanratty which in my view is why he headed off back to Liverpool and Rhyl where he believed there were people like Aspinall and Terry Evans who could sell stuff on for him or at the very least introduce him to characters who would buy the stuff direct.If France did obtain the gun and a hit man to scare the couple apart it would not have been Hanratty because if that was the case to implicate Hanratty in the very early stages would have ricocheted on himself,France. Ditto William Ewer.The gunman must have been someone other than Hanratty for that reason alone,if,as Paul Foot's meticulous research indicates ,every Swiss Cottage clue points to the 'Central Figure' being Ewer -as Alphon suggested i.e. that it was Ewer who had approached France to find him a hitman to do the job of putting the frighteners on Michael Gregsten and return him to the wife and children he planned to abandon that week on 27th August - the wife in question being Janet Gregsten who was Ewer's wife's sister and at that time she and her children being dear to both of them and therefore needing the protection of both Ewer and his wife .It is inconceivable given their loving care after the event that when they knew Gregsten was about to abandon Janet and her children ,they would not have done everything to help them both in tackling Gregsten for not behaving in a responsible way towards them financially and otherwise and just out of their natural affection for Janet as was evidenced very clearly when they took them into their home following the murder and looked after them all.

[Ed James]

.If France did obtain the gun and a hit man to scare the couple apart it would not have been Hanratty because if that was the case to implicate Hanratty in the very early stages would have ricocheted on himself,France. Ditto William Ewer.The gunman must have been someone other than Hanratty for that reason alone,if,as Paul Foot's meticulous research indicates ,every Swiss Cottage clue points to the 'Central Figure' being Ewer -as Alphon suggested i.e. that it was Ewer who had approached France to find him a hitman to do the job of putting the frighteners on Michael Gregsten and return him to the wife and children he planned to abandon that week on 27th August -.

HI Nats

An excellent and interesting summary. I want to test out fully the suggestion that Hanratty could not have been contracted to do the job. And would welcome critique of my constructed scenario.

For me the A6 murder has lots of unresolved issues. But the biggest and most important is motive.

I can't buy into theories of a random , opportunistic action , robbery gone wrong, delayed lust for Valerie or some overwhelming desire to exercise control. I agree with Blom Cooper that some very powerful motive led the gunman to enter the car.

To my mind if Hanratty was the perpetrator , the most conceivable motive was that he was engaged to do it. Yet this has not been conventionally advanced - possibly because it cuts across the positions of both camps.

Scenario :What if Mr X /the Central figure contracts with a financially desperate middle man (France) to arrange for the frightners to be put on Gregsten after all else has failed. But Mr X specifies that there must be no link back to him.

France doesn't have the contacts that he holds out to Mr X. How easy then for France to tell the gullible Hanratty that Gregsten has caused serious upset to some (unnamed) important underworld figures , failing to deliver his part of a bargain - largely because he is pre-occupied with an extra - marital affair with some younger woman. He explains that Gregsten is a weak , vulnerable character and the job is an easy one.

Lets say Hanratty has been looking to upgrade to gun crime and France says if you do a good job , your reward is that the big underworld figures will put opportunities your way. A measure of his success will be if he 'separates' the couple, either physically or by Gregsten clearly relenting. But in no circumstances must he let the woman know his purpose or break the underworld code and snitch on the backers of the action.

The false story and the confused objectives given to the gunman may help explain the bizarre drive and 5 hour abduction.

When things go horrendously wrong, a panicked Mr X (who perhaps didn't realise real ammunition would be used ) feels responsibility must fall on Hanratty; and this paradoxically represents the best way of stopping the police beating a path to his door. And assured that the naïve Hanratty won't blow the whistle on his mentor and the underworld backers for reasons of loyalty, fear and acknowledging his own guilt, Mr X works to finger Hanratty.

Torn by affection for Hanratty , fear from himself and his family, genuine disgust for Hanratty's actions, France takes his way out.

Far fetched? How does the scenario sit with what we know, for example Hanratty's intercepted prison letter to France?

ATB

Ed

[Natalie Severn]

HI Nats
Far fetched? How does the scenario sit with what we know, for example Hanratty's intercepted prison letter to France?

ATB

Ed

Thanks Ed.Regarding the intercepted prison letter to France : Both Hanratty and France [and of course Louise Anderson] had contacts in the criminal world especially when it came to selling on the stuff Hanratty got from burglaries.France had told Police that Hanratty disposed of his unwanted trinkets from burglaries under the back seat of a bus-not denied by Hanratty but clearly very harmful to his case as it turned out since the gun was found under the back seat of the 36 A bus.So Hanratty says in his letter to France he isn't happy about what France is about to testify in court about this but 'whatever you say will be the truth ' [and he adds that as he is innocent anyway it won't make any difference].This is before the case has had its preliminary hearing in court remember.Then he says that likewise he knows France won't like what he is 'about to do' and presumably this is about him saying in court that France was his 'fence' for his stolen goods ---for which France could have gone to prison.
Going on to your main point that Hanratty was the hit man. It makes no sense. If as is being suggested William Ewer -or at least somebody in Janet Gregsten's family -paid to have a hit man put the frighteners on Gregsten for being about to leave Janet that week leaving her financially destitute ,whoever it was who engaged the hitman would not want to have the finger pointed at Hanratty if it really was Hanratty who had had been the hitman!!!Hanratty could then have pointed the finger straight back and said -"Ewer hired me!"And that too could have been seen in law as a capital offence even though there may never have been any intention by whoever it was who hired the gunman -or dropped him by the cornfield in Dorney Reach- to cause either car passenger death or physical injury .
AtB Nats

[NickB]

But in the scenario proposed France was the middle man and there would be no reason for him to identify 'Mr X' to Hanratty. Even if he had done, why would Hanratty have identified him and confirmed his own guilt as the murderer?

[Natalie Severn]

But in the scenario proposed France was the middle man and there would be no reason for him to identify 'Mr X' to Hanratty. Even if he had done, why would Hanratty have identified him and confirmed his own guilt as the murderer?

I wasn't suggesting that if Hanratty was the hitman he might identify Mr X to Hanratty ,Nick.I believe on the contrary that Hanratty had nothing whatever to do with it and that was one of the reason's he was packed off to Liverpool with his newly laundered case of clothes.
I was suggesting that if Mr Ewer or Mrs Ewer ,Janet's sister [for example] did ask France to find a hitman to do a frightener job on Gregsten, neither Ewer,his wife or Janet would ever have pointed the finger at Hanratty-if Hanratty was the hitman because that would begin to lay a trail back to them immediately.However if Hanratty was NOT the hitman they had employed it would make good sense to start a bogus identification campaign of Hanratty as decoy AWAY from who the person France had arranged through his contacts in the underworld he regularly met at the Rehearsal Club/Solomon's gym etc

[Ed James]

Because I am not persuaded but any other of the motives attributed to Hanratty, I am trying to test out the potentially only remaining Hanratty motive. This is that he was hired to put on the frightners but was kept in the dark as to the true reason for the hiring and believed some powerful underworld figures lay behind France. Not only would Hanratty in these circumstances not want to upset them but as Nick says identifying France would only have confirmed Hanratty's own guilt.

I agree that Mr X seeking to implicate Hanratty would be highly risky of leading the trail back to Mr X , especially as both Hanratty and France were fragile. But I wanted to test the scenario out against other things others more knowledgeable than me know.

For example, the Hanratty phone call along the lines Dixie , Dixie they want me for the A6 murder. Or as Nats has set out that in the days to the run up to the abduction, Hanratty didn't come into face to face contact with France. Or what was France's reaction to Hanratty after the murder.

[Natalie Severn]

Or what was France's reaction to Hanratty after the murder.

Thanks Ed. Yes, understood.However there is the nagging question of France's first reaction- according to Hanratty and never denied by France -of his insistence on seeing Hanratty's bill from the Vienna Hotel for 21st August 1961,immediately on his return from Liverpool.This has always made me curious because France would known Hanratty was in London on night of 21st August because likely have been told by people at the Rehearsal Club like Anne Price etc about Hanratty hanging around there late into the evening of the 21st-and this was the last known ,and important sighting of Hanratty anywhere in the South of England until 25th August apart that is apart from Nudds' who remembered him leaving the Vienna Hotel around 8.30 am on 22nd August .So why did France press to see the bill? My own thoughts are that France having rushed to dispose of the gun on 23rd/24th August , hurriedly took his local 36A bus -it stops at bottom of his road-Boundary Road ,-hoping to dispose of it in the river Thames and the 36A bus in fact was the absolutely correct bus to take for the river Thames as it headed South to Victoria station close to it.However as people started to get on the bus France suddenly lost his nerve-as he did throughout the trial for example and abandoned the idea of going to Victoria hiding the gun under the back seat under a hank-that had also hastily been grabbed from his wife's wash and he got off the bus as soon as he could.It is at this juncture I believe the idea of implicating Hanratty took root-not before.
The so called 'coincidence' of the young gunman/hitman with a London accent talking about being 'on the run from prison ' etc who shared a similar experience to Hanratty would not have been all rare . In fact any young wide boy who frequented the joints of Soho like the Rehearsal Club and inhabited the periphery of the underworld would have been accessible to France who was at the Rehearsal Club day or night, everyday. There are also several glaring mismatches worth noting in the story about the gunman's family background,being on the run-Hanratty was not on the run from Prison on 22nd August 1961nor had he ever attended Borstal etc .Once the A6 murder outrage hit the press and TV those involved in the hiring of the gunman/hitman would have found an miraculously easy scapegoat in Hanratty who , fortunately for France ,had been out of the way ,knew nothing about any of it so couldn't spill any beans on anyone as to who the real gunman was.The next step was to plant those bullets in the room in the Vienna Hotel Hanratty had stayed in---only a few streets away from France's flat ---and also William Ewer's Umbrella /Antiques shop.Hence Hanratty's surprise that France had so earnestly requested to see his bill for the Vienna Hotel of 21st August 1961 the first opportunity France had to collar him about it the moment he set eyes on him after he got back from Liverpool.