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  • Dixie a fence?

    It seems to be a generally accepted fact on these boards that Dixie was a fence, but is there actually any evidence for this? None of his numerous convictions were for receiving.

    Hanratty himself says: "I met him when I was a teenager and didn't know the ropes. I had lots of dealings in bits and pieces. He was more experienced ... He learned me previous occasions when I was younger." Then he says: "I have often given him money ... " (Woffinden, p91)

    I interpret that as France being an advisor - putting Hanratty on to people who would get rid of his goods - rather than being a fence himself. If he was receiving them, why would Hanratty give him money as well?

    Hanratty had Anderson and Fisher to relieve him of his booty. If he had France as well, why did he need to go to Liverpool and Rhyl to find a buyer for his stolen gold watch?

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    • After his arrest Hanratty described his fence to Acott as a man in Ealing – obviously referring to Fisher. When France and Hanratty did a burgarly together the proceeds were fenced by Fisher.

      However as France was into criminal dealings I would not be surprised if he did some minor fencing.

      Incidentally Woffinden says that when France went to give evidence at the trial he was accompanied by two nurses, but it the Getty photo I see no nurses ...
      Trial witness Charles France outside Bedfordshire Assizes after giving evidence in the A6 Murder case, Bedford, 13th January 1962. France is a friend of car thief and burglar James Hanratty , who is...

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      • That photo of France is reproduced in Foot's book. Perhaps the nurses were male.

        France was a dodgy character all right, but the amazing thing is he seemed to be a good family man. His youngest daughter spoke of him with obvious love and affection in one of the TV specials - I forget which one - so it appears he wasn't all bad. It seems he kept his family largely ignorant of what he actually did for a 'living'. Maybe one of the guys who prefers to make a quid illegal rather than a fiver straight. He had something of a reputation as a good card-player.

        Apart from whatever he did at The Rehearsal he was also 'mine host' at The Harmony Cafe on Archer Street, Soho, which in the fifties and sixties was known for jazz and beats. It was apparently a tough place, and Dixie kept what I've seen described as an 'arsenal' of weapons under the counter in case trouble broke out. Whether he was still there at the time of the A6 I don't know.

        Graham
        We are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture and hypothesis. - Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure Of Silver Blaze

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        • I am a bit sceptical about the rest of the family being ignorant of France’s activities. What did they think Hanratty did for a living – window cleaning?

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          • I've also seen it maintained on here that France had been in prison, but I can't find any mention of this in Foot or Woffinden. Another board myth?

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            • I'm sure that Charlotte France was not wholly ignorant of what Dixie actually did, but I'm fairly sure she didn't know the full extent of what he got up to. I think the same applied to Hanratty - Charlotte was kind to him and he apparently treated her with respect and gave both her and Dixie money when they needed it. He was 'Uncle Jimmy' to her daughters.

              Woffinden (P 91) lists Dixie's various convictions, but doesn't say if any of these resulted in a prison sentence.

              Graham
              We are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture and hypothesis. - Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure Of Silver Blaze

              Comment


              • When the defence announced that Hanratty’s criminal past would be revealed all witnesses were liable to be questioned about their own criminal record. I’m sure Sherrard would not have lost the opportunity to ask France about any prison sentences.

                Some posters have suggested that France was intent on revenge for his daughter’s seduction. But at the committal he claimed only to be aware that Jim had once driven her to work (see below).

                At the trial Carole appeared not to want her father to know any more and also claimed that she had been in Jim’s car only once. Sherrard declared “You are just not being completely frank with the court” and dismissed her.
                Attached Files

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                • Hanratty's mother

                  Thanks, Nick. I'm sure Sherrard would have used all means at his disposal to try to lessen the impact of France's testimony, which tends to confirm that he didn't end up in prison.

                  Another query arising from my troll through old posts that I've copied and pasted: Somebody (I didn't make a note of who) once posted: "Superintendent Acott thought that Hanratty’s mother believed her son could have been guilty of the murder."

                  One or another of the shrinks that examined Hanratty hinted that his relationship with his mother wasn't especially loving - one saying that he was scared of her, iirc - but I've never seen any other reference to this from Acott. Anyone got a source for it?

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by Alfie View Post
                    Thanks, Nick. I'm sure Sherrard would have used all means at his disposal to try to lessen the impact of France's testimony, which tends to confirm that he didn't end up in prison.

                    Another query arising from my troll through old posts that I've copied and pasted: Somebody (I didn't make a note of who) once posted: "Superintendent Acott thought that Hanratty’s mother believed her son could have been guilty of the murder."

                    One or another of the shrinks that examined Hanratty hinted that his relationship with his mother wasn't especially loving - one saying that he was scared of her, iirc - but I've never seen any other reference to this from Acott. Anyone got a source for it?
                    Hi Alfie.
                    There may be a mix up here , Mike Gregsten was more involved with shrinks it would appear than Hanratty. ( source ,Woffinden). We know very little of Mikes parents, other than ‘they divorced when Mike was five years old’James Hanratty on the other hand ,as a twenty five year old, sent his mum red roses , and was concerned always with her happiness.
                    Woffindens interview with the Gregstens best friends the Cattons in1995
                    reveals “We did know that Mikes mother and aunt sometimes caused problems.
                    Mike was brought up ,really, by maiden ladies -you never heard about his father- and they thought their Mike could have done a lot better for himself.To them,Janet was the silly neurotic litttle girl who’d taken away their darling Michael. I think the truth is , James worshiped his Mum and this is one of the facts that adds to the whole bitter sadness of his being wrongfully executed by the state.
                    Last edited by moste; 03-09-2018, 11:11 AM. Reason: Added sentence

                    Comment


                    • Hi Moste

                      Yes, Gregsten certainly appears to have been mentally fragile and more than a bit needy.

                      But Hanratty's mental problems seem to have been of a different order of magnitude altogether.

                      The incident I was referring to earlier was mentioned in Blom-Cooper (p. 64): "... when H spoke to the psychiatrists at Haywards Heath there was a suggestion ‘that his home life was very unhappy and unstable, that he was frightened of his mother and had no filial feelings towards his father, although none of this has been substantiated.’"

                      The Channel 4 doco, "Hanratty: The Whole Truth" (2003) reported something similar: "“He told doctors he was frightened of his mother, and had little respect for his father ..."

                      From what's been written about him, Hanratty seems to me to have been a man who was very worried about what his mother might think of him and very anxious to keep in her good books.

                      Added to this is the fact that his parents didn't see him from July 13, when he abandoned window-cleaning, until his arrest on October 12, even though he was in London for much of that time. This doesn't really speak of a loving relationship.

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by Alfie View Post

                        Added to this is the fact that his parents didn't see him from July 13, when he abandoned window-cleaning, until his arrest on October 12, even though he was in London for much of that time. This doesn't really speak of a loving relationship.
                        Hanratty also allowed his dad to give his job and pension money to go into business with him as window cleaners on the premise that he was going straight, but he had already committed burglaries with his usual ineptitude which eventually (if he had not committed murder) would have led to his further imprisonment and inability to clean windows.

                        Comment


                        • William Lee and the pom-pom hat

                          I remain puzzled by William Lee's statement to police and the CofA's reference to a woollen pom-pom hat being found in the boot of the MM.

                          Surely Derbyshire police would have passed on Lee's statement to Acott's A6 team, which would have prompted them to look for such a hat in Gregsten's car. And yet there is no mention of a hat among the items handed over to Nickolls for forensic examination.

                          There have been references on this thread to a colour photo taken of the boot of the MM which when enlarged and enhanced showed such a hat. Has anyone got a source for this 'fact'?

                          If a hat matching the one Lee described was found in the boot, it seems almost inconceivable that at this very early stage of the investigation Acott's men wouldn't have followed it up by further questioning Lee. But there appears to be no record of any such interview.

                          It all seems very odd to me. Does anyone have any way of rationalizing it?

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by OneRound View Post
                            Hi all,

                            Whatever the time of Lee's alleged sighting, there is still the issue of Gregsten's recording of the car's mileage and the showing on the odometer when it was found in Avondale Crescent. If Gregsten was correct in what he wrote down and the odometer wasn't faulty, the car could not have been where Lee claimed.

                            Personally, I regard it as unlikely that Gregsten would have been slapdash in his recording. If you are so nerdy as to do such a thing, you are going to want to get it right. However, even the best of us can make mistakes. I therefore feel it was unacceptable that Lee's claimed sighting was not disclosed by Acott. As well as talking to Lee and seeking any further details, the defence team should have had the opportunity to carry out their own checks as to the accuracy of Gregsten's recordings (eg, were there previously any apparent howlers?) and the car's odometer.

                            What makes matters so difficult for us in coming to any conclusion about the strength of Lee's testimony is that we don't know (well, I don't anyway) when he reported matters to the police and critically whether it was before or after the car's number plate had been publicly reported. Furthermore, we also don't know if there had been any mention of a pom-pom hat prior to Lee's claim.

                            Following my last point and as an aside, some may recall that in their hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper the police were wrongfooted for some time by hoax letters from one writer. The police were sure the letter writer was their man as he had intimate knowledge of some of the crimes which as far as they were concerned would have been known only to the murderer. What they didn't realise was that those details had been broadcast in an earlier regional television programme!

                            The above para is not intended to disparage Lee but to show how poorly media aspects were handled by the police in past years. As said, that makes any assessment at this time so very difficult.

                            Best regards,

                            OneRound
                            Hi Alfie - this post of mine from February last year doesn't properly answer the matters you've raised today but perhaps goes in the mix.

                            Best regards,

                            OneRound

                            Comment


                            • Hi OneRound

                              A poster (I'm not sure who, now) has said Lee reported his sighting to police at 5.30 pm, after he'd finished work. This is late enough in the day for him to have heard about the MM on the news and would put a question mark over his testimony - were it not for his titbit about the pom-pom hat.

                              Another poster - Derrick iirc - said he'd seen Lee's statement, which showed Lee's sighting occurred at 8.30 am, not 6.30 as the CofA and other sources have held. I'd be interested to see what the rest of the statement contained.

                              Comment


                              • From memory, this is what I have gleaned from contributors on this site regarding the statement by William Lee. There are good grounds for discounting his sighting.

                                1. He did not report the car until the evening by which time the registration was in the public domain.

                                2. He could not provide the piece of paper on which he originally wrote down the registration. (This speaks strongly towards his honesty if not his accuracy of recall.)

                                3. The distance covered to Clophill was in conflict with Gregsten’s mileage readings (although One Round has reminded us that these readings may not have been watertight.)

                                4. The decision to return from Clophill to London was highly risky as it raised the chances of the car being identified.

                                5. There was no obvious motive, other than blind panic, for the car to have been anywhere near Clophill in the first place.

                                However the woollen bobble hat puts a different complexion on the sighting. There is no photo on this site but the existence of the hat was acknowledged by the CofA and rather awkwardly skirted over by them. The hat’s colour, allegedly green in both Lee’s account and the (unseen) photo, is not mentioned by the CofA. Rather pointedly, the CofA links this sighting with others which are largely discredited and one which was simply impossible. It then adds the rather cryptic comment, in parenthesis, that at no other time was the murderer seen wearing a bobble hat. This either assumes that the early morning sightings in Redbridge were genuine, or that Hanratty was the murderer and was at no other times of significance seen wearing a bobble hat. In actual fact there was a claimed sighting of a driver in a bobble hat near the scene of the murder, who was spoken to by a couple since he had difficulty moving the car, but this was only reported many years after the event.

                                This woollen, probably green, bobble hat may be a red herring. They were hardly unique after all, although unlikely to be worn in early autumn. Whatever, once again we are confronted with the failure to extract any useful forensic evidence from the car itself. Given Mr. Lee’s statement you would have expected the hat to be of some interest to the investigating officers- a dyed hair from the head of one James Hanratty would have been something of a clincher after all- but perplexingly this lead does not seem to have been followed.
                                Last edited by cobalt; 03-16-2018, 01:54 PM.

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