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

[NickB]

From the 12-Oct-61 police interview:

Hanratty - “I stick to jewellery and keep to one fence who always pays me 30 per cent for my gear. When I came out of Manchester in March I went to see him in Ealing and he gave me £25 to start me up in business. He asked me what I was going to do now, and I said, ‘I think I will pack up the jewellery lark’ and asked him to get a shooter to do some stick-ups.”

Acott – “Are you trying to tell me you tried to get a gun from a man in Ealing?”

Hanratty - “Yes. He would not play and never got me one.”

I imagine Kleinmann nearly fell off his chair when Hanratty confirmed the substance of it to him:
“[Fisher] asked me what I had in mind. I said that screwing was all played out. “If you want to get rich these days” I said “you’ve got to have a shooter and go after cash”.

However he made two additional claims to his defence team and to the court:
1. That he had just said it out of bravado.
2. That Acott had introduced the subject by saying: “I have interviewed a man in Ealing called Fisher and he tells me you enquired about a gun.”

[moste]

[QUOTE=cobalt;381545]Moste,
I probably had your earlier post somewhere in mind when I came up with the Profumo angle. However there are a number of problems with this dramatic scenario. First of all, I doubt Jim Hanratty had any more interest in politics than the average burglar, so even if he got his hands on some sensitive photos of a cabinet minister he might not have realized who was the star attraction. (That would not apply if one of the highest in the land was involved of course, although the urban legend was that HRH was wearing a mask. All a bit unlikely.) If Hanratty was aware of his potential treasure, why give it to Slack, who was obviously known to the police. Better to hide the photos in the safe down in the basement where Dixie French kept his weapons. And surely, as the gallows approached, Hanratty would have tried to get his story out in order to show he had been made a scapegoat.

Hi Cobalt.
No actually I wasn't really being serious about.. 'Good guess with the contents of the folder handed to Acott' .. Your right about Hanratty and his political interests, he probably wouldn't even have known who the Prime Minister was. No, I was musing about Valerie and Mikes long walks along the river bank, and the likelihood that Mike would almost certainly recognize John Profumo and maybe even other members of her majesty's government.The river cottage, or spring cottage as its called these days (over 2000 pounds a week to rent and only three bedrooms)fabulous place now as it was then in '61, Comes complete with its own river boat garage, on the banks, so for example anyone applying themselves to a spot of boating would certainly be in full view of the general public using the tow path.
I don't know why people think that, at all times,celebrities spend their lives living in seclusion, I suppose a good number avoid the public, but I know a of number of famous people that love to hob-nob down at the local pub with the regulars. Profumo having an illicit relationship with( lower working class back ground) Christine Keeler would scoot around to Wards flat in a morris mini during his clandestine get togethers and that was central London,not a quiet backwater just beyond Taplow in Bucks.
Incidentally I wonder if Mike G was in a habit of carrying a camera on his jaunts? Get my drift?

[caz]

This was from Mr Sherrard's cross-examination of DS Acott at the magistrates court on 4th December 1961.

Paraphrasing the report; DS Acott agreed that the woman, a Mrs Dinwoodie, had picked out Hanratty from a collection of thirteen photographs. He added, though, that she had originally been shown only one photograph; that of Hanratty.

Hi Del,

Unfortunately, after being shown that first photo, in isolation, she could have picked out Hanratty from fifty photographs of different men and it would not have made her evidence any more convincing. It was ludicrous to ask her in court to point out the same man she was shown in the original photo. She'd have had to be as thick as two planks to get that wrong and the jury just as thick to be impressed.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Caz,
I think I misunderstood Graham when he said Hanratty had admitted to asking about a weapon. I assumed he meant at the trial, but it seems more likely this admission was made in a police interview. This was in the days long before taped interviews of course, and many criminals claimed to have been ‘verballed’ during interviews. However there does not appear to be any record of Hanratty denying either of the admissions which you referred to, which is distinctly odd I think we both agree. A man on trial for his life might benefit from being as honest as far as he can, but not to the extent of putting a noose around his own neck.

Agreed, cobalt. And it's ironic if Hanratty felt honesty was the best policy when it came to asking about acquiring a firearm and hiding incriminating items on buses, yet chose to lie through his teeth about his alibi. Of course, he'd have had little choice but to do the latter assuming he did the crime. I will never understand why an innocent man would not instantly have admitted to an innocent two-nighter in Rhyl. The fact that several witnesses claimed to have seen or spoken to him there just makes it all the more unbelievable that he would have shied away from this alibi for lack of any supporting evidence!

Once again, in the vanishingly unlikely event that he wasn't involved and was being stitched up by conspirators, he played right into their hands with his every known move and practically every time he opened his mouth as well. How on earth could even his closest associates have predicted he would be such a total pushover?

Love,

Caz
X

[NickB]

I have the 1966 Sunday Times magazine article on the case.

If I can mend my scanner I’ll upload parts of it, but I will not be able to do whole pages as they are larger than A4.

I don’t know if another poster has it, but I’ll run though what appears to be new information in the 9 pages ...

Pages 1 and 2 deal with the id parade. It points out that just a few days before two newspaper articles had appeared saying the suspect had dyed hair. Both of these (Evening News 10-Oct-61 and Daily Mirror 11-Oct-61) were based on an interview with Mary Meaden.

The Evening News article starts:

A pretty 20-year-old assistant in a Pimlico dress shop went out three times recently with the man Scotland Yard believe can help them in the A6 murder inquiries. Three quiet, unexciting evenings, spent at the cinema or the theatre. And on their last meeting, a week ago, the man asked the girl to marry him.
“I knew him as Jimmy” she said. “I could see that his ginger hair had been dyed black.”

This section on these 2 pages ends:
‘His solicitor, Mr Emanual Kleinman, who was at the parade, made no objection then and makes none now.’

Page 3 is a fairly vanilla account of the trial but with 4 interesting photos.
1. Vienna Hotel
2. James Trower standing in Redbridge Lane where he saw the car
3. Cooke lifting up the back seat of the bus
4. An artist’s impression of the three jewellery fences (looking like American gangsters!)

Page 4 has a map showing the route of the car journey. The two known stops are indicated; the dairy at Slough and the petrol station - a photo of the Regent garage indicates which one they think it was! They do not guess where (near Stanmore) Gregsten got out for cigarettes.

Page 5 is a ‘day by day’ guide from 23-Aug-61 to 4-Apr-62. It includes what looks like a reproduction of the body of the Liverpool telegram.

[NickB]

Page 6 is about the Rhyl witnesses.

Charles Jones.

We spoke to Mr Jones the day after Panorama’s broadcast and showed him these photographs. He correctly identified Alphon as “the bloke who was on the telly last night”; thought 2 was most like Hanratty and said emphatically that 3 (Hanratty) was “not the man”.

Margaret Walker.

“I went to the police station and told them the man seemed like the one who had called at my house. A man from Rhyl – I still don’t know who he was, though I thought he was a magistrate – called at my house later to ask me about it and then a middle-aged man came, saying he had travelled from Bedford. He brought some photographs with him. The first one he showed me was of Hanratty with his hand on his hips, just like he had stood in the street outside my gate. I said to the man, ‘You needn’t bother showing me any more – that’s him’. When I asked the man if I would have to go to Bedford he said he didn’t think it would be necessary.”

The Chief Constable of Flintshire, Mr Reg Atkins, says that they have no record on their files of a visit by Rhyl police to Mrs Walker. But they do have a record – dated February 10, 1962, seven days before the trial ended – that she was visited by two people from the defence, one of whom was a private detective called James Gillbanks.

Defence solicitor Mr Emanuel Kleinman says: “If Mr Gillbanks discovered anything that could have helped Hanratty it would have been acted upon and would have been passed to the Home Secretary when we were attempting to get a reprieve.”

Page 7 has 5 sections:

1. Skillet, Blackall, Trower and Hogan
Panorama did not challenge [Hogan’s] description of the car as ‘grey’. But at the trial, in evidence, he said the car he saw was ‘cream or fawn in colour’.

2. Charles France
One reason for his depression was his brother had been killed in a particularly nasty car accident a fortnight before.

3. The chaplains
Father Keogh could not make a comment on a confession, but he and the Catholic chaplain at St Loyes seem to agree on Hanratty’s innocence.

4. Hanratty’s driving
Mr James Russell. Dixie France’s brother-in-law, who runs a trucking business, says that Hanratty was an appalling driver. Mrs Russell says she would never let him drive her.

5. Dorney
A train left Paddington at 7.48 arriving in Taplow at 8.38.

Page 8 is about Alphon and the tapes.

Page 9 is about Hanratty.

He suffered head injuries as a child during the Blitz. His first job, working as a labourer with Wembley Borough Council’s Cleansing Department, lasted six months and ended in 1952 when he fell off his bicycle on to his head. He was unconscious for ten hours.

A little later, he left his parents’ North London home with 7s 6d in his pocket to buy sweets for this brother; he was found a month later in Brighton, starving and unconscious. He could not remember how he got there. At Haywards Heath hospital he had an exploratory brain operation. No brain damage was found, his amnesia was considered feigned, and the doctors concluded that he was mentally defective.

A National Service Board in 1954 graded him Class III; he was not called up. That year he was found asleep in a car and convicted of stealing it. He was given electric shock treatment at the Portman Clinic in 1955. Shortly after he was charged with housebreaking in Mill Hill. On remand in Wormwood Scrubs he tried to commit suicide by slashing his wrists. The prison medical officer described him as a “potential psychopath with hysterical tendencies”.

Four months after his release he was again in trouble for stealing cars. He was sentenced to three years corrective training. During this term he became recalcitrant, with a particular habit of spitting in warders’ faces, and was put on 19 separate charges. He was one of only four men out of 1,300 in the fifties who served his three years without remission.

Finally, they cite the case of John McMenemy. In 1961 he was convicted for capital murder at Liverpool Assizes. McMenemy refused to give his defence team permission to plead diminished responsibility until late in the Appeal process. Although he lost the Appeal he was given a reprieve by the Home Secretary. If Hanratty had given permission to plead diminished responsibility at the last moment, would the Home Secretary likewise have felt bound to give a reprieve?

[Derrick]

...Unfortunately, after being shown that first photo, in isolation, she could have picked out Hanratty from fifty photographs of different men and it would not have made her evidence any more convincing. It was ludicrous to ask her in court to point out the same man she was shown in the original photo. She'd have had to be as thick as two planks to get that wrong and the jury just as thick to be impressed...

But how many young men looking like Hanratty, whom Mrs D picked out from photos, came into that shop on one of the only two days she was working that week to ask for the directions of a non existent thoroughfare, viz Tarleton Road?

Mrs D said that that was the road he asked for!!!

Mr Sherrard asked whether or not the only reason for her placing the incident on the Monday was because Miss Ford was behind the counter helping her. She agreed that that was so.

Mrs D also said that Mr Cowley's brother was with her all day on the Tuesday.

Yet, as Mrs D was taken very ill on the Tuesday, her recollection of who was actually with her on either day is the most important point.

Ill or not she picked out Hanratty and corroborated the Tarleton Road directions.

Those who were not ill were the two girls Miss Ford and Miss Walton.

Miss Ford picked out Hanratty and Miss Walton made a statement that said that Miss Ford had definitely served behind the counter on the Tuesday at the material time.

Del

[OneRound]

Hi Del and all,

Apologies that this is probably a remarkably stupid question - I'll plead the defence of no longer having the books.

Anyway, here goes - why did ''the Tarleton Road'' request have to have been made on the Monday or Tuesday of that particular week and not on any other date? Were they the only times that Mrs D worked in the shop?

Many thanks,

OneRound

[NickB]

Were they the only times that Mrs D worked in the shop?

Yes. After feeling ill on the Tuesday she did not return to the shop for the rest of the week.

There is also the question of what train he caught.

I believe the train times from London Euston to Liverpool Lime Street were:
a) dep 10.20 am - arr 2.22 pm
b) dep 10.35 am - arr 3.25 pm
c) dep 11.37 am - arr 4.54 pm
d) dep 12.15 pm - arr 4.45 pm

Woffinden, on page 163 of my edition, says that it was c). He reasons that it could not be a) because Hanratty said the train stopped at Crewe and this didn’t, and it could not be b) because Hanratty said he waited a long time for the train to arrive. He doesn’t give a reason for it not being d) but I presume this also did not stop at Crewe.

Woffinden then has to move forward the sweetshop timing to after 5. But if Hanratty arrived in Liverpool at 4.54 (or even 4.45) how could he have done all the things he said he did before getting the bus at 6?

[OneRound]

Yes. After feeling ill on the Tuesday she did not return to the shop for the rest of the week.
...

Thanks, Nick. Sorry to labour the point but what I was really trying to check wasn't about that particular week but whether Mrs D could have worked in the shop one day in any other week and been visited then by Hanratty with his ''Tarleton Road'' request.

Even Hanratty supporters accept Mrs D got the day wrong, so why not the week? Furthermore, can we rule out an extra visit to Liverpool by Hanratty that we don't know about? He didn't exactly keep a diary of daily comings and goings.

Best regards,

OneRound

[NickB]

OneRound,

See my post 122 on this thread and Graham's reply.

He said he went to Liverpool on 7-Oct-61 to get his friends to "stand by their alibi". As the Liverpool alibi turned out to be false, this means set up a false alibi.

[Graham]

Nick,

Woffinden, on page 163 of my edition, says that it was c). He reasons that it could not be a) because Hanratty said the train stopped at Crewe and this didn’t, and it could not be b) because Hanratty said he waited a long time for the train to arrive. He doesn’t give a reason for it not being d) but I presume this also did not stop at Crewe.

Woffinden then has to move forward the sweetshop timing to after 5. But if Hanratty arrived in Liverpool at 4.54 (or even 4.45) how could he have done all the things he said he did before getting the bus at 6?

Miller states that Hanratty's defence-team decided that it was train (D) in your list. If so, then they must have had good reasons. However, if JH arrived in Lime Street at 4.45pm, then there is no way he was the man Mrs Dinwoodie described coming into her shop at about the time the 'Echoes' were delivered, which she states was at just about 4.00pm.

Graham

[NickB]

That agrees with section 168 of the Appeal:

'Mr Mansfield does not advance any attack on the conduct of the prosecution in relation to that part of James Hanratty's alibi which concerned his departure from London and his arrival and initial movements in Liverpool. The jury heard evidence about the train times from London Euston to Liverpool Lime Street (12.15pm arriving 4.45pm) and it was for them to evaluate the evidence of Olive Dinwoodie and Albert Harding as to the incident in the sweet shop.'

[Spitfire]

If the directions-asking episode had occurred on the Tuesday, rather than the Monday as favoured by both Mrs Dinwoodie and Barbara Ford, would it not also have been witnessed by Linda Walton, who accompanied Miss Ford on her visit to the Scotland Road sweetshop?

Linda Walton seems to have been present for the time that Barbara was in the shop on Tuesday. If neither Mrs D nor Barbara knew where Tarleton Avenue (or something of the sort) was, would not one of them have inquired of Linda Walton if she was aware of such an address? Yet both Foot and Woffinden are both reluctant to say what Linda says on this subject. If she did not witness the man asking for directions, surely this points to it having occurred on the previous day.

[moste]

OneRound,

See my post 122 on this thread and Graham's reply.

He said he went to Liverpool on 7-Oct-61 to get his friends to "stand by their alibi". As the Liverpool alibi turned out to be false, this means set up a false alibi.

(Stand by HIS alibi)?
No it doesn't it means his so called friends refused to give him an Alibi
Let us know when you have sound proof that Hanratty wasnt in Cowleys when he said he was.
The 'only one photo' shown to Mrs. Dinwoodie . May well influence the jury because the law frowns on it, It is only damaging to a defendant because the law is not happy with it. If someone shows you a photo of a person you had chatted with a few weeks back, and you think my goodness that looks just like him,you're going to say just that!(dirty tricks is all)
We can play around with timetables of trains and buses all day long, but when the prosecution start seriously musing over the possible Hanratty usage of a helicopter, you can pretty much take it to the bank that they were screwed by the Dinwoodie alibi. Jim's problem was the gullible jury.