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

[Graham]

Thanks for that, Spitfire.

Graham

[Sherlock Houses]

Now this might have impressed me............

But no mention of this particular young man being heavily freckled? Now that might have impressed me.

I hardly think that James Hanratty would have been the only fair-skinned and heavily freckled person Mr Dutton saw on the streets of Rhyl that mid-summer day.

On the other hand I might have been mightily impressed if Valerie Storie had described the gunman as having a heavily freckled face, an unmistakable identifying feature in the hunt for a murderous gunman, when she saw his face lit up by the lights of a passing vehicle. Instead she described the gunman as having a pale face. A hell of a difference between a pale face and a heavily freckled face wouldn't you say ?

[NickB]

Viewing her comment in context, it appears that she was describing pallor.

“He seemed to have a pale face. I should imagine anyone should have, having just shot someone.”

Pallor is a pale colour of the skin caused by emotional shock or stress. It is the result of a loss of oxyhaemoglobin and is most evident on the face and palms.

[OneRound]

Hello Graham,

I think these rules were formalised in the PACE in 1984 but there must have been similar rules/guidelines in existence before then, but what they were I know not.

There is discussion in the Court of Appeal in 2002 about the identification summing up but the actual parade and fairness of it does not seem to be discussed. Indeed, the court took the view that Hanratty's brightly coloured Barnet was an advantage to him, as the murder suspect did NOT have brightly coloured hair. I am not sure if the logic of that stands detailed scrutiny.

It should be noted, however, that in neither the 1962 nor 2002 appeal was it alleged that there had been a breach of any rule then in force with regard to the ID parade. Further, Hanratty had his solicitor present who could have raised objections had he felt the parade was being conducted in a manner prejudicial to Hanratty.

As to paragraph 18, I agree than if a member of the parade does not want to speak, he is under no obligation to do so. I am not sure what inference would be drawn if that member was the suspect rather than a 'control'.

Spitfire - thanks for that post and your earlier one on the rules governing current identification parades.

Just to flag a couple of points relating to your wording that I have emboldened.

1. The identification parade was covered in its own right in paragraphs 144 to 150 of the Court of Appeal's judgment in 2002. However, it was given short shrift. As per para 147 of their judgment, ''It was conducted in the presence of James Hanratty's solicitor who made no complaint at the time and the fairness of the parade was fully explored at the trial.''

With specific reference to the ''aural identification'', the Court of Appeal noted earlier in their judgment when setting out the facts of the case that Mansfield regarded that as ''incurably unfair''. Whilst it rather pains me to do so, I agree with him there. However, the Court of Appeal were again unmoved and appeared to take the view that Valerie Storie's identification of Hanratty had occurred when she saw him on the parade and prior to hearing him speak. As per paragraph 148, ''... hearing James Hanratty's voice went to confirm her view and was, in a way, a protection against her selecting the wrong person.'' That tallies with what she stated at trial although it would have more certainty for me if she had said during the parade itself why she wanted to hear from those on it [please correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure she didn't].

2. I firmly agree with you about the Court's logic here not standing up to detailed scrutiny. Surely, someone on the parade with brightly coloured hair and different to all others on it would only be there if he was the police's suspect? No obviously innocent member of the public looking so different would have been allowed to make up the numbers.

Regards,

OneRound

[Derrick]

...Surely, someone on the parade with brightly coloured hair and different to all others on it would only be there if he was the police's suspect? No obviously innocent member of the public looking so different would have been allowed to make up the numbers...

OneRound
Given also that in the week or so prior to the identification parade(s) the national press reported that the police were after a man who was known to dye his hair!

Delboy

[caz]

I hardly think that James Hanratty would have been the only fair-skinned and heavily freckled person Mr Dutton saw on the streets of Rhyl that mid-summer day.

On the other hand I might have been mightily impressed if Valerie Storie had described the gunman as having a heavily freckled face, an unmistakable identifying feature in the hunt for a murderous gunman, when she saw his face lit up by the lights of a passing vehicle. Instead she described the gunman as having a pale face. A hell of a difference between a pale face and a heavily freckled face wouldn't you say ?

Actually, no. You said yourself that Hanratty was 'fair-skinned' as well as heavily freckled. People who freckle or burn easily in the sun are also the ones with the palest complexions. I should know! In daylight or even dusk, all those Rhyl witnesses ought to have noticed if the man they saw was covered in freckles, but after sundown or in a few seconds of artificial light freckles are much less likely to stand out.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Thinking about it, do we have a detailed breakdown of what Hanratty claimed he did in Rhyl all day on the Wednesday, or details of his return journey on the Thursday, from Rhyl back to Liverpool, where he sent the telegram in the evening, at roughly the same time the A6 murder weapon was recovered from the London bus?

He was supposedly looking for just the one man while in Rhyl - Terry Evans - but this must surely have involved more than walking around aimlessly all day, talking to nobody and asking no questions about where he might find this man who, at the time, was only known to Hanratty as 'John'. It would have been a long day, having to leave the guest house after breakies and make himself scarce right through to the early evening. I stayed in b&bs with my parents in the early to mid 60s, in Lancing, Worthing and Cliftonville, among other places, and they were all the same. No matter how foul the weather, or how young the children, they turfed you out during the day.

Thursday would have been a long day too, assuming Hanratty checked out of the guest house in Rhyl after breakfast, and didn't send the telegram from Liverpool until 8.40 that evening, after which he caught the London train. What did he do all that time? Where did he go and who did he see? The fine details for those long hours appear to be sketchy to say the least.

Love,

Caz
X

[Graham]

Thinking about it, do we have a detailed breakdown of what Hanratty claimed he did in Rhyl all day on the Wednesday, or details of his return journey on the Thursday, from Rhyl back to Liverpool, where he sent the telegram in the evening, at roughly the same time the A6 murder weapon was recovered from the London bus?

He was supposedly looking for just the one man while in Rhyl - Terry Evans - but this must surely have involved more than walking around aimlessly all day, talking to nobody and asking no questions about where he might find this man who, at the time, was only known to Hanratty as 'John'. It would have been a long day, having to leave the guest house after breakies and make himself scarce right through to the early evening. I stayed in b&bs with my parents in the early to mid 60s, in Lancing, Worthing and Cliftonville, among other places, and they were all the same. No matter how foul the weather, or how young the children, they turfed you out during the day.

Thursday would have been a long day too, assuming Hanratty checked out of the guest house in Rhyl after breakfast, and didn't send the telegram from Liverpool until 8.40 that evening, after which he caught the London train. What did he do all that time? Where did he go and who did he see? The fine details for those long hours appear to be sketchy to say the least.

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz,

your post sums up in a neat little nutshell just why the Rhyl "alibi" was never viable. Quite simply, it lacked verisimilitude and believable detail, and nothing in the way of incidents that might, by careful investigation by his defence, have been proved to have happened. For example, Terry Evans was a very well-known character in Rhyl, and would have easily been found. After all, Hanratty had been to his house, knew where he worked, and knew that he had a star tatooed on his forehead. Yet he couldn't find him. Further, in spite of what any of his supporters have claimed, his descriptions of the interior of Ingledene and of Mrs Jones herself were inaccurate. Even his claimed time of arrival in Rhyl could not be verified. All his memories of Rhyl, and of some of its inhabitants, were carry-overs from his visit in July. There is simply no hard, concrete evidence that he was in Rhyl at the time of the A6 crime, yet to his supporters it has become virtually an article of faith.

The big unexplained mystery is, if he wasn't in Liverpool or Rhyl on and after 22 August, then where did he go after he dumped the car?

Graham

[NickB]

At the first meeting Sherrard had with him on 23-Oct-61, Hanratty said he was worried about photographs of him appearing in the press. To me this suggests that he realised there were people who saw him after the murder who might recognise him.

Perhaps a guest house proprietor who would have given credible evidence, unlike Grace Jones. As the judge said:

“I will not spend long on the evidence given by Mrs Grace Jones of Rhyl because I feel quite sure that by this time you have made up your minds what sort of a woman she is.”

[cobalt]

But no one did come forward. It would have been a well-paid story too: ‘I served egg and chips to A6 murderer.’ A much more lucrative enterprise than the one attempted by Mrs. Jones who was, I believe, accused of testifying at a murder trial in order to drum up trade for her Guest House- a Guest House which was already overflowing.

Neither did anyone come forward to say they had shared a bus ride or train compartment with the A6 murderer on the way to Slough. ‘I noticed his jacket pockets were bulging but thought he was just carrying a load of change.’

Nor did a local from Dorney Reach tell the Daily Sketch: ‘I was pottering about in the garden when I saw a sharp-suited stranger pass by my hedge. He glanced at me for a second, and what I remember were his piercing, blue eyes.’

Not even a passing conquest: ‘I shared bed with A6 killer.’

Trower et al did come forward as witnesses to seeing Hanratty inside the car, but their evidence holds less water than that of Mrs. Jones.

Regarding the Liverpool/Rhyl alibis, I have stated here before the problem of Joe Gillibanks being employed as a private detective by Hanratty’s defence. Gillibanks would have known the criminal scene in the area as well as anyone, but unfortunately the local criminals would also have known Gillibanks, and his links to the notorious senior detective Bert Balmer.

[Graham]

Neither did anyone come forward to say they had shared a bus ride or train compartment with the A6 murderer on the way to Slough. ‘I noticed his jacket pockets were bulging but thought he was just carrying a load of change.

And neither did anyone, not even the "clerky gent with fancy cuff-links", come forward to say that he or she had shared a train compartment with Hanratty on his claimed ride from London to Liverpool. Nor did anyone, not even the pair of 'right cockneys', come forward to say that they had shared a compartment with him on his claimed trip from Liverpool back to London. Nor did anyone come forward to say that they'd seen him on the bus-ride from Liverpool to Rhyl, or back again.

Hanratty was unable even to state with any precision the time of his supposed arrival in Rhyl on 22 August.

Nor did a local from Dorney Reach tell the Daily Sketch: ‘I was pottering about in the garden when I saw a sharp-suited stranger pass by my hedge. He glanced at me for a second, and what I remember were his piercing, blue eyes.’

Yet Foot and Woffinden would have us believe that locals in Dorney saw someone who "looked like Sidney Tafler" who in turn "looked like Peter Alphon" walking down Marsh Lane some indeterminate time prior to the abduction. All very interesting, especially as it all originated in the fertile imagination of one Mr Jean Justice. Utter drivel. Apart from which, it was damn near dark at the time the tap on the Morris Minor's window came.

Mrs Jones was the architect of her own downfall. She saw just the one photo, that of Hanratty himself, shown to her by Gillbanks, and said she 'thought' she knew him. And of course Gillbanks all but bit her hand off. I bet she regretted 'being helpful' for a long time afterwards.

So - we still await that one, single piece of hard, concrete, inarguable evidence to prove beyond doubt that James Hanratty was in Rhyl during the evening of 22 August 1961.

Graham

[Spitfire]

I think that the most eloquent comment on the strength of the Rhyl alibi comes from Sherrard's failure to rely upon it in the Court of Criminal Appeal. He must have regarded it as hopeless.

[cobalt]

For those convinced of Hanratty’s guilt, I doubt there ever could be a piece of evidence which is considered strong enough to support his alibi. I would welcome suggestions from those so minded, as to what they would consider inarguable evidence of his being in the Liverpool/Rhyl area at the time of the murder.

Let us suppose the following:

An old family photo, found last week in an attic in Lancashire, shows Hanratty, clearly in Rhyl, in the background reading that day’s newspaper? Not good enough. It has been photo-shopped. Or the man is not Hanratty. Not enough freckles. Or too many freckles. Or Hanratty liked to read newspapers weeks after they were printed.

A signed and dated entry in a boarding house register? Not good enough. The date was falsified by Hanratty when the landlady turned to get his room key. Or he had a criminal associate who forged his signature.

Evidence emerges that Hanratty was arrested by the police, on the day, for trying to sell watches in the street? Not good enough. The culprit, a local criminal, gave his name as Hanratty in order to fool the cops. No charges were pressed.

Hanratty went to a lawyer’s office in Rhyl and swore on testimony, dated 22nd August, that he was James Hanratty of London visiting the area? Not good enough. He clearly had an associate creating an alibi for him. The lawyer remembered the colour of his hair being very unusual.

And so on, and so on.

[GUT]

For those convinced of Hanratty’s guilt, I doubt there ever could be a piece of evidence which is considered strong enough to support his alibi. I would welcome suggestions from those so minded, as to what they would consider inarguable evidence of his being in the Liverpool/Rhyl area at the time of the murder.

Let us suppose the following:

An old family photo, found last week in an attic in Lancashire, shows Hanratty, clearly in Rhyl, in the background reading that day’s newspaper? Not good enough. It has been photo-shopped. Or the man is not Hanratty. Not enough freckles. Or too many freckles. Or Hanratty liked to read newspapers weeks after they were printed.

A signed and dated entry in a boarding house register? Not good enough. The date was falsified by Hanratty when the landlady turned to get his room key. Or he had a criminal associate who forged his signature.

Evidence emerges that Hanratty was arrested by the police, on the day, for trying to sell watches in the street? Not good enough. The culprit, a local criminal, gave his name as Hanratty in order to fool the cops. No charges were pressed.

Hanratty went to a lawyer’s office in Rhyl and swore on testimony, dated 22nd August, that he was James Hanratty of London visiting the area? Not good enough. He clearly had an associate creating an alibi for him. The lawyer remembered the colour of his hair being very unusual.

And so on, and so on.

And do any of those exist??

[cobalt]

There's not much point asking a question to which you know the answer. (Unless you are barrister in court, of course.)

The scenarios I outlined were clearly hypothetical. ('Let us suppose...')

I am asking a question to which I do not know the answer.
What evidence would those, convinced of James Hanratty's guilt, accept as being inarguable in relation to the alibi he presented at trial?