Valerie Storie's 3 part story as published in 'Today' magazine, June 1962

[cobalt]

25GBP was close to a couple of week’s wages back in 1961, so it’s safe to assume that Slack and Hanratty had done some business together after ‘meeting in a gym.’ (Any other evidence of Hnratty being a keep fit type?) Then he drops Hanratty right in it, by claiming Hanratty was asking after a gun. This is hardly the act of a friend or acquaintance and was presumably provided under duress.

Yet you say that Hanratty admitted to this in court? That would be a very damning admission from a man whose life was at stake for shooting a man to death and paralyzing a woman for life, a woman who was sitting in the court itself. Surely most people in Hanratty’s position would have admitted to meeting Slack but denied the part about the gun, claiming this alleged fact had been forced out of the witness under threat by Acott. Do you know how the prosecution followed through on this admission?

The missing folder, if it ever existed, sounds like something from a detective novel. I am trying to work out why Slack would have told Acott about it in the first place. In fact why did Hanratty not just leave it with his parents or brother? Why, as you said, did Acott wish to ‘play it down’ at the trial? There could obviously have nothing incriminating about Hanratty in the folder otherwise it would not have been lost. Had the less than master burglar Hanratty stumbled on some revealing photos of Christine Keeler and a government minister whilst pursuing his preferred trade?

Regarding the murderer arriving after at the cornfield after travelling in a stolen car, I can see the attraction of the story. It links Hanratty to the crime and also provides a reasonable motive for the murderer approaching the car in the first place. However in the early days of the investigation, before the names of either Alphon or Hanratty came in the frame, the police would surely have been very interested in a stolen car found abandoned near the scene of the cornfield. I too think it is a non-runner.

[NickB]

Acott later advised JH that he had interviewed Fisher, who had told him that JH had been to see him and had inquired about getting a gun.

I presume you got this from page 141 of Woffinden:
"After Hanratty's arrest, Acott went to see Slack and later told Hanratty that Slack claimed he had asked about getting a gun."

As I said in a recent post, this does not make sense because it means Acott saw Slack when he was driving up to Blackpool.

Slack's statement to the police was dated 26-Oct-61. This is when he denied that he and Hanratty had conversed about a gun, but by this time Hanratty had already told the police and his defence team they had.

Acott had taken a statement from Lanigan on 11-Oct-61, just before driving up to Blackpool. I think what happened is that he dropped a hint about the gun conversation in Lanigan's statement and Hanratty jumped to conclusions and inadvertently revealed the Slack gun conversation on 12-Oct-61. Hanratty was so embarrassed that he subsequently claimed that Acott started the conversation by saying he had been to see Slack, but Acott always strongly denied this.

[Graham]

Hi Cobalt,

I am largely ignorant regarding Donald Slack I’m afraid, but assume that he was a criminal whose testimony would have to be treated with some suspicion.

Hmmm, so by your logic, Hanratty's evidence would have to be treated with some suspicion as he, too, was a criminal.

Donald Slack, a.k.a. Donald Fisher, was a man JH met in a gym. On the evening of October 2 1961 JH went to Fisher's house in Ealing. Fisher said that he thought JH was worried about something. They went to the Wembley dog-track, but according to Fisher JH avoided the main entrance 'in case he met his father'. That is to say, he was aware he was being looked for.

Acott later advised JH that he had interviewed Fisher, who had told him that JH had been to see him and had inquired about getting a gun. In court, under cross-examination, JH admitted this to be true.

Prior to all this, on the day of his release from prison in March 1961 JH went to see Fisher who gave him some food and also £25, which does establish that JH and Fisher were well-known to each other, and seemed to be more than mere passing acquaintances. This is also when JH gave Fisher for safe-keeping the folder I mentioned earlier, which Fisher handed to Acott and which has never been seen since. Acott at the trial tried to play down the whole Fisher episode, but I believe that for all his efforts it did stick in the minds of the jurors that JH had definitely asked Fisher about obtaining a gun.

Puzzlingly, Foot refers to the man as "Fisher a.k.a. Slack", whilst Woffinden prefers "Slack a.k.a. Fisher".

Graham

[Graham]

Hi Caz,

However reluctant he was, that was precisely what he did do. We are also meant to believe he shunned a genuine Rhyl alibi in favour of the false Liverpool one, presumably because he had no faith in anyone from Rhyl remembering a single thing about his two-night stay there, spent looking for "John"? Hmm...

What put the wind up JH regarding his Liverpool 'alibi' was his failed attempt to identify the flat in which his mate(s) lived. And Gillbanks tried, he really tried. The best JH could do was a weak description which could have been of any inner-city flat anywhere in the country. Sherrard advised him in deadly seriousness that the Judge could quite legally order JH to be taken to Liverpool to identify the flat - and that if he failed to do so, he 'would be lost'. So. JH panicked. One false alibi led to another. Frankly, I do not believe that Sherrard accepted either 'alibi', but of course he had a client to defend. I have never really understood why JH's defenders, to a man and a woman, believe like an article of faith that the Rhyl 'alibi' is the true one. Had it been so, then why didn't he use it from the start?

The recent documentary speculated that the gunman may have driven himself to the area in a stolen car, possibly with burglary in mind, but if the car then broke down or ran out of fuel he'd have been left stranded and in need of return transport for himself, his gun and all that ammunition. Did he have to abandon one car, then walk off to find another, which happened to have two occupants?

Caz, I think if JH had used a car to get him as far as Dorney Reach, and had it then conked out, the police may well have put two and two together
once the car had been found abandoned. However, as far as I'm aware, no broken-down car was found anywhere near. I don't think we'll now ever know by what means JH arrived at the cornfield, or even what purpose he had in mind. Perhaps he really was looking for a car to nick, and used his newly-acquired weaponry to assist him in that enterprise.

One thing I am sure of is that his happening upon the Morris was a random discovery on his part, as earlier that evening Gregsten and Valerie had initially parked in Hunterscombe Lane, and then for some reason decided to move to the gate of the cornfield. I believe it was Lewis Hawser who, very early on, suggested that JH might have been 'sent' to the cornfield, but didn't go into any further detail or speculation. What he did do was to light the blue touch-paper on the possibility of some kind of conspiracy in the A6 Case; something which to this day has never been proved (largely because it almost certainly never existed).

Graham

[Graham]

She was initially shown the one photo of Hanratty. The police returned with photographs of 13 men, including Hanratty, who she picked out and signed as being the man who asked for Tarleton Road.

Derrick, can you please advise your source for the 'identification' of JH from the 13 photos you say she was shown? Surely, once she had in her mind the face from the original single photo of JH, she would then quite easily identify him. Yes?

Graham

[moste]

Hi Cobalt. Yes the duffle bag was attributed to Gregsten,It had his laundrette washing in it . The killer asked Mike to pass it over the seats as he believed he may be able to utilize the string rope attached,or maybe a pyjama cord or some such,to tie them up with,so that the very weary carjacker may catch up on lost sleep! And if you believe that, you should be checking into possible helicopter trips , to get a chap from Vauxhall to Dorney. ��

[caz]

7] Mrs D said the man had come in 'just after 4.00 o'clock', adding that she knew the time as the delivery of the Liverpool Echo was always at that time. JH was always obscure regarding the time of his claimed train from London to Liverpool - had he taken the 10.35am train that arrived in Liverpool at 3.25pm, and had he, as he claimed, had a wash-and-brush-up, a cup of tea at the buffet, and visited the left-luggage office at around 5.00pm (as he claimed), no way could he have arrived at the sweetshop 'as the [I]Echoes[I] were being delived at 'just after 4.00pm'. Both JH and his defence were very vague regarding the time of his claimed departure from London. (Now I suppose we'll be hearing about actors claiming to have seen him on the platform, and men with distinctive cuff-links, etc., etc)...

...Sorry to go on a bit, but I think it's important that along with his Rhyl 'alibi', JH's Liverpool 'alibi' is equally unsupportable. His Liverpool 'alibi' was thought up by him after his arrest in Blackpool, and his Rhyl 'alibi' likewise in his cell at Bedford.

Hi Graham,

We do know Hanratty was in Liverpool on the Thursday of the murder week, sending a telegram to Dixie France at 8.40 pm, just as the murder weapon was about to emerge from the London bus. So there was a true story to tell about his train journey up there, except that he could have put the details back to the Tuesday in creating his first alibi. Assuming he was the gunman and disposed of the weapon himself, his trip to Liverpool the same day was presumably for the purpose of setting up a credible alibi. Maybe he asked his criminal cronies for help on that occasion?

A good post Graham. You make a good case for the prosecution.

But neither I, nor those who inhabited the demi-monde of the Liverpool criminal underworld, have your confidence in the Liverpool police force. This was a force which was known to fit up evidence to have suspects hanged. The Cameo Murder case has been acknowledged legally as a miscarriage of justice; the Devlin/Burns case must surely follow in time.

Bert Balmer, Head Honcho of Liverpool CID in 1961, was clearly as corrupt as any of his kindred spirits in South Yorkshire have latterly been found to be regarding Hillsborough.

The private detective who investigated Hanratty's alibi, and who contaminated the ID evidence, was known to Balmer and had served under him. Hanratty would have known all about the Liverpool CID and was, no doubt, very reluctant to use an alibi which involved local criminals. Kelly, the so called Cameo murderer, was but an acquaintance of the likely murderer. That was Balmer's Liverpool of the time: either cough up or you will end up in the dock yourself.

Hi cobalt,

However reluctant he was, that was precisely what he did do. We are also meant to believe he shunned a genuine Rhyl alibi in favour of the false Liverpool one, presumably because he had no faith in anyone from Rhyl remembering a single thing about his two-night stay there, spent looking for "John"? Hmm...

Hanratty was a criminal who mixed mostly with criminals. His alibi was bound to weak, especially in the Merseyside area where the police had a reputation not just for fitting up suspects, but mere associates of suspects. This, remember, was in the days of capital punishment. All Hanratty had left was landladies and newspaper vendors. And these were interviewed by ex-Liverpool detectives such as Joe Gillbanks, whose ID evidence was perplexingly contaminated. I think even you have acknowledged the inexplicable errors made by experienced former policemen purportedly trying to establish Hanratty’s alibi.

Again, why use an alibi that was not only false, but was bound to be weak? If he had truly spent all those hours in Rhyl, during the actual time the crime was taking place, why would he only have had the landlady (singular) and the newspaper vendor (singular) left to keep him from hanging?

If the same quality of evidence claiming that Hanratty was in Merseyside was presented showing Hanratty in London, or more pertinently in the Taplow cornfield at the relevant time, then I have absolutely no doubt that yourself, Caz and many others would be screaming from the rooftops about its significance.

The point is, whoever went out tooled up that night, whether it was for fun or serious business, would have been wary about drawing any attention to himself until he got safely back to base. He was never going to parade around showing his face and talking to all and sundry. A very different kettle of fish from an unarmed petty crook wandering around Liverpool or Rhyl. The recent documentary speculated that the gunman may have driven himself to the area in a stolen car, possibly with burglary in mind, but if the car then broke down or ran out of fuel he'd have been left stranded and in need of return transport for himself, his gun and all that ammunition. Did he have to abandon one car, then walk off to find another, which happened to have two occupants?

Love,

Caz
X

[Derrick]

...As for Mrs D's 'identification', it would have been impressive and acceptable had she been shown photos of a number of different men including Hanratty, and had picked out Hanratty from them. As it was, just being shown the one photo is not really an identification at al...

She was initially shown the one photo of Hanratty. The police returned with photographs of 13 men, including Hanratty, who she picked out and signed as being the man who asked for Tarleton Road.

Mrs Dinwoodie was not well at the time of the A6 Murder and that must have caused distress for her but her evidence was of the utmost importance and she bravely appeared at court some months later, although I'd imagine that she would have rather not done so.

I find it hard to imagine many people coming into the shop she was guarding those two days looking like Hanratty, with a non-local accent and asking for directions to the wrong street name of Tarleton Road.

Not many I would have thought. In fact only Hanratty, on Tuesday 22nd August 1961.

[moste]

Zero forensics found in the back seat of the car.Hair,Fiber,fingerprints,seeds,corn debris, from the field,from a third party.
Is it possible that the true story may have involved MG arranging to meet with someone,for purposes that involved skulduggery, at the predetermined location near Clophill? Or alternatively,were the couple on a dummy run ,(the all night runs that Valerie loved so much) for the rally they were planning for the weekend,and possibly followed to that spot in Bedfordshire. If as Det. Super. Mathews suggests,more than one person was involved,the murderer may have been driven there,and left at that lay-by to perform his dastardly deed.After which he drives back eventually to Redbridge,wearing one of the latest plastic boiler suits, complete with rubber buttons,and leaves no, or very little evidence of ever having been in the vehicle,nothing that 1960s forensics would find anyhow.Could MGs brother in law have known of this latest venture at the weekend by the lovers,via his heart throb Janet?
All of the above would satisfy (a) why no one saw anyone that night around the corn field (b) why there was no evidence of a third person in the back seat,(c) why no taxi drivers came forward with info.about a fare.(d) Why the people of Dorney were surprised, as were the press, that police presence was very scarce considering this was supposedly the starting point of this crime(locals were not interviewed for some weeks!)(e)how Alphon came into a large sum of money after the murder,could he have been the the shooter, maybe Hanratty the driver to Deadmans hill. And far too many more questions that this scenario would answer,to fit in one post.
By the By
Did anybody have any comments on the notion that it was an extremely coincidental plan they had come up with, for the following weekends 'particularly arduous 80 mile round trip' through the Chilterns? The Chilterns pass by where I lived in the 90s forming the Dunstable downs, and peter out near Barton-Le- Clay just a couple of miles shy of Clophill. I mean call me suspicious but.....

[cobalt]

Hi Graham,

Apologies for the misunderstanding regarding Dixie France.

Carrying ammunition in a bag would certainly have made more sense: the tight Italian suits of the early 1960s, which Hanratty favoured, would not have concealed much about your person. These days I suppose a plastic carrier bag might suffice, but back then it was string bags and duffle bags (was the duffle bag in the car ever attributed to either Gregsten or Valerie Storey?) I can understand that the police would have paid far more attention to the locus of the crime than to the cornfield, but you would think a bag stuffed in a hedge might have showed up at some time, even if the police were remiss.

The concept of the taxi is obviously very attractive to those believing in Hanratty’s guilt, for it removes one large problem: how did he arrive in the area, without any obvious means of leaving it? Whatever the murderer’s initial purpose was, he must have had an entry and an exit plan. We have to assume that local taxi drivers, especially those picking up single male passengers (with Cockney accents) from bars, stations and the dog track, were encouraged to come forward with relevant information at the time. Yet nothing has emerged; not even local folklore so far as I aware.

For me the most likely explanation is that murderer (be that Hanratty as you believe) was dropped off by car in the area prior to his abduction of the passengers in the cornfield. This would explain why he was not seen by casual observers. His accomplice must have known the killer was armed, but would obviously have been in no hurry to come forward after the horrific events which unfolded, since he would have been charged as an accessory. If Hanratty was the murderer, then presumably he was going to engage in some burglary before stealing a car and returning to London. If the motive was different, then the killer was on a mission of some sort and presumably had agreed rendez-vous to be picked up, which never took place.

I am largely ignorant regarding Donald Slack I’m afraid, but assume that he was a criminal whose testimony would have to be treated with some suspicion.

[Graham]

Mmm, yes, and it's strange that the taxi-driver who JH claimed took him from Paddington to Euston never came forward. And mmm, yes, perhaps a cabbie dropping off a fare to a cornfield may well have thought it odd once he had read about what eventually happened there. But think on this -
maybe Hanratty never even wanted to go the cornfield in the first place, and IF he took a cab from wherever he'd been that evening, could be he was dropped off in Taplow, and walked - or more likely wandered the rest of the way, and maybe he got lost. Who knows? And another mmmm - before I forget, just down the road from the cornfield is a large stately home called Dorney Court. These days it's a posh place for weddings and corporate events; not sure if it was just private in 1961, but you can bet your next pint that visitors to it arrived via classy car, chauffeur-driven car, or taxi. I only suggested a taxi, not claimed that he used one, but you seem to leap upon mere suggestions as though I believed in them utterly.

Yet another mmmm - what if JH had carried the gun and ammo in a bag until he saw the Morris, then discared the bag in the hedge? I have (an admittedly vague) memory of reading that the police never actually carried out a thorough inspection of the cornfield and the gate to it.

Who suggested that Dixie France was the only crook known to Hanratty? Not me. You said that 'you know as well as I do who I was referring to', so it seemed obvious to me that it was Dixie. JH knew a whole bunch of ne-er do wells, but I don't believe he mixed with, or would have been accepted by, any of the big-time bad boys who were rife at the time.
JH was a house-breaker, and not a very good one at that, but it suited him at a period in our history when people were becoming more and more affluent, and there was plenty of valuable stuff adorning the up-market houses he preferred to burgle. Raffles The Gentleman Crook he was not, but he had a good go. Trouble was, he got caught.

And one final point: JH freely admitted that he had gone to see Donald Slack about getting a gun, as in his, JH's, words, "House-breaking is all played out. These days you need a shooter and go after cash". He didn't say "get a shooter and blow peoples' heads off", but tragically that is what happened, and it happened when his first attempt at armed robbery went disastrously awry. (By the way, JH left a folder of photos and 'personal information' with Slack the day he went to see him; Slack later said that the police had taken it away as 'evidence' and it was never seen again. I wonder what was in it?).

Graham

[cobalt]

Graham,

It was you who suggested the daft idea that Hanratty might have taken a taxi to the cornfield in the first place, so there’s not much point ridiculing it. That’s already been done on your behalf. As if the taxi driver would have forgotten that particular hire in the aftermath of what took place.

My point about rooting out loose change was to focus on how awkward it would be to have a gun in one pocket, a box load of cartridges in the other, and rake around in a trouser pocket (presumably the one without a handkerchief) to pay the fare, which in these days rarely cost more than 4/- for a medium distance. One minute you claim that Hanratty regularly carried stolen metal goods on buses, the next you claim that taxis were his preferred means of transport. Then again he may have arrived by train. Or maybe he just walked. I can see why you would want to spread some fog around the method by which the murderer arrived at the cornfield, for it is one of the weakest points in the prosecution case, and one that believers in Hanratty’s guilt would rather gloss over.

Dixie France was hardly the only criminal known to Hanratty. Hanratty was small time in the London scene no doubt, but he was dealing in stolen goods, had been in prison and would have had many contacts in London and outwith the city. That’s a big grapevine. Criminals almost never work alone, and alliances are ever-changing.

Finally, Hanratty’s contact with the underworld would surely have taught him a few basic truths about using firearms. They were to be used as frighteners, picked up just before a job was to be done and returned as soon as possible thereafter. If things went wrong and they were used, they had to be dumped. One thing you would never have done was use public transport when armed, or saunter down a country lane.

[Limehouse]

Graham,

I think you know perfectly well to whom I am referring. Hanratty was a professional criminal and mixed in criminal circles. There are people within that community who make a sparse living, or have the odd 'job' overlooked, by providing information to the police. Hanratty himself may have had made use of this himself in his time.

Once Hanratty was put in the frame for the A6 case, then it was open season on him as far as the touts were concerned. Anyone who had seen him near London or the locus had a story to tell, for a price. With his bizarre hair colouring he might have found it hard to keep a low profile, but this he amazingly managed to do.

No person 'helpful to the police' has ever emerged to claim his prize of seeing Hanratty on a train, or boarding a taxi. Much more tellingly, what we have is a number of people from the Liverpool/Rhyl area. none of whom had connections with the criminal world, claiming to have seen Hanratty at the relevant time.

As for Hanratty taking a taxi to Taplow cornfield- surely you would have to ask the question why?And how did Hanratty manage to conceal a weapon and a fair amount of ammunition about his person as he scraped out the coppers for the fare? If he was so intent on trying out his new weapon, as the prosecution suggested, why not just hold up the taxi driver? The taxi driver could have sold his story to the tabloids for a fair amount of money.

Hello Cobalt,

Two interesting points there.

Firstly - France was reputed to have been a police informer. He was also reputed to have been able to obtain guns for the criminal fraternity.

Secondly, as has been discussed many times before - why? Why would anyone approach a couple in a car in a cornfield and accost them in such a way? If the couple were sitting in a high-end car and looked well-to-do one could just about imagine it - but would you go looking for such a couple in a cornfield?

What possible reason could a gunman have for seeking out this couple? A dummy run for a future robbery? Again, why would you go to a cornfield to do that? Why not one of the remote petrol supplying garages that were serviced by a loan person at that time of the evening?

This couple in particular were known by close friends and family to be having a relationship. The only really sensible conclusion to draw is that the gunman thought there was a good chance of finding this couple in that field. No other explanation makes sense to me.

Was Hanratty that gunman? Well, he was certainly a criminal, of that there is no doubt. However, he was a criminal who crept through people's homes when they were absent, leaving his 'dabs' all over the place. He was a criminal who thought that what he did was a 'victimless' crime because he believed the people he burgled would be insured. He was not a criminal who liked to confront the reality of his criminal activities. He was also certainly not a sex offender.

The gunman who carried out that terrible act left no 'dab's and if it was Hanratty, he departed dramatically from his usual habits.

[Graham]

Cobalt,

the evidence of people who claimed to have seen Hanratty in Liverpool and/or Rhyl is totally unreliable and/or discredited. Even Sherrard came to accept this. There is no concrete proof that he was in either place at the critical time. If you believe there is such concrete proof, then let's hear it.

Are you by chance referring to Charles France when you accuse me of knowing 'perfectly well' to whom you are referring? If so, say so, otherwise name another name. Hanratty may well have been a 'professional criminal', but he was not 'big time' and in fact there is evidence to believe that he was shunned by the big-time crooks he apparently sought to emulate. I can't quite see him rubbing shoulders with the Krays, for example. He was a small-time crook who for whatever reasons developed big-time ambitions, and to back them acquired a gun. He may or may not have obtained this gun from France - who, for your information, ran the Harmony Cafe in Archer Street, Soho, and was well-known for keeping an 'arsenal' of weapons under the counter.

Hanratty in his evidence tried to build up some credibility for his specious alibi by describing people he'd seen on the train both to, and from, Liverpool. These people never came forward. These people never existed unless they were in Hanratty's memory from previous journeys.

To suggest that it would not be possible for Hanratty to swan around via a taxi when he was tooled-up with gun and ammo is frankly silly. He did so on buses and also presumably in taxis when he was clanking around with nicked metallic goods. And what does 'scraping out coppers' mean, please? Taxis were his preferred means of local transport. I was merely suggesting that he might have taken a taxi to Dorney Reach, not stating that he did so. He could have walked it from Taplow Station for all I know - I did, years ago. It's not far.

Graham

[cobalt]

Graham,

I think you know perfectly well to whom I am referring. Hanratty was a professional criminal and mixed in criminal circles. There are people within that community who make a sparse living, or have the odd 'job' overlooked, by providing information to the police. Hanratty himself may have had made use of this himself in his time.

Once Hanratty was put in the frame for the A6 case, then it was open season on him as far as the touts were concerned. Anyone who had seen him near London or the locus had a story to tell, for a price. With his bizarre hair colouring he might have found it hard to keep a low profile, but this he amazingly managed to do.

No person 'helpful to the police' has ever emerged to claim his prize of seeing Hanratty on a train, or boarding a taxi. Much more tellingly, what we have is a number of people from the Liverpool/Rhyl area. none of whom had connections with the criminal world, claiming to have seen Hanratty at the relevant time.

As for Hanratty taking a taxi to Taplow cornfield- surely you would have to ask the question why?
And how did Hanratty manage to conceal a weapon and a fair amount of ammunition about his person as he scraped out the coppers for the fare? If he was so intent on trying out his new weapon, as the prosecution suggested, why not just hold up the taxi driver? The taxi driver could have sold his story to the tabloids for a fair amount of money.