A6 Rebooted

[Natalie Severn]

Please could anyone inform me, size wise, just how big a 'fragment' of the knickers was used in the DNA testing and exactly from what part of the garment this 'fragment' actualy came from?

An actual source of reference would be most welcome too if possible.

An excellent question Black Rabbit.As I understand it it was a very tiny piece of cloth-about the size of four stamps.

[Natalie Severn]

It has not been explained how the rapist/murderer's DNA could have vanished if the rapist/murderer had been not Hanratty.

Well this is why we need to know why the DNA of the nurses has vanished
who would have handled the item as they removed it from Valerie"s person and this of course being done in 1961,so long before the strict guidelines regarding DNA were issued
and why the DNA of the police who then collected it and bagged it,had vanished
not forgetting the DNA of the original FFS who cut the cloth had also vanished?
From a reading of what went on in the hospital,with police coming and going with scant regard for Hospital procedure-eg smoking throughout their questioning of Valerie despite requests to refrain by nursing staff, it seems that procedures regarding sterile handling and protection of items from contamination were unsatisfactory if not quite sloppy.

[RonIpstone]

What I am concerned about is not whether the Hanratty family solicitors were invited to "observe" these tests ,but what the words "observe the tests " means,very specifically, in this case.The tests as I understand were carried out by the FSS acting "on behalf of the prosecution".They were not "neutral" or "impartial" operators, if they were employed and paid by the prosecution.

Ultimately this whole expensive business was paid for by the taxpayer, so you could argue that no one was impartial or neutral.

The point is that the tests were initially requested by the Defence. When the Home Office agreed that tests could take place, the Defence nstructed experts to observe, whatever that might mean, the tests. As far as I can see no Defence expert has complained that the tests were carried out otherwise than properly, the only complaint being that the LCN procedure could have amplified Hanratty's DNA which had been present as a contaminant. More tellingly there has been no complainant that the Defence has been obstructed in its observation of the tests carried out.

Like it or lump it, there was not enough material for the Defence to carry out its own tests, so the procedure of the FSS testing with the Defence expert observing had to be followed.

Doc Lincoln has not complained, Dr Evison did not complain, neither did Bindman nor Mansfield, but I suppose in some folk's mind they are all part of the conspiracy dreamt up all those years ago by Harold MacMillan to ensure that Hanratty swung for Alphon's crime.

[Dupplin Muir]

Hello All

RonIpstone wrote:

Like it or lump it, there was not enough material for the Defence to carry out its own tests

That's the problem: there was enough material for the defence to carry out tests. We're talking LCN testing here - if the sample was a couple of square inches in size, why didn't FSS cut off (say) a quarter of that, leaving the rest for future testing? LCN requires no more than 5-20 cells and surely there were a lot more than that on the sample? If it really took the entire piece of fabric to get enough material to test, this makes it all the more likely that Hanratty's DNA got there by contamination.

However, FSS have a rather unsavoury reputation for completely destroying samples even in much more recent cases, and one can only presume that this is being done deliberately.

[Natalie Severn]

Doc Lincoln has not complained, Dr Evison did not complain, neither did Bindman nor Mansfield, but I suppose in some folk's mind they are all part of the conspiracy dreamt up all those years ago by Harold MacMillan to ensure that Hanratty swung for Alphon's crime.

Ofcourse they were not part of a "conspiracy"! Its ridiculous to try to smear every question with this slogan!
I asked a specific question which you decided to "reconstruct" by adding in some speculative nonsense about conspiracies.
The state/crown designs systems,laws,procedures.Some procedures belonging to the legal system date back to the middle ages.The FFS appointed by the prosecution in this case cannot be said to be neutral or impartial as its paymaster is the prosecution .The testing was not an impartial, participatory process of testing involving the defence Forensic science experts .
Certain procedures such as a truly democratic,objective, participatory scientific process where all the forensic scientists representing both prosecution and defence were present from start to finish would have had to have been insisted from the beginning.It was not.The defence ,having agreed to the procedure to be followed were obliged to accept the results -in this case"in good faith" as the piece of cloth was destroyed after the process .
Here we have a prime example of how things can be conducted in secret and by accepted procedures and the results then have to be accepted by defence lawyers, in good faith ,regarding the experiment carried out by government appointed FFS teams.
I note you are avoiding giving any explanation for the "disappearing DNA" from the knicker fragment of the 1961 nurses/police handlers and FFS scientists.

[caz]

Alphon made his own admission that he was the A6 killer...

Hi Norma,

But he failed to incriminate himself! And how do you know beyond reasonable doubt that he did not make a completely bogus admission while the balance of his mind was disturbed? You are the one suggesting that he committed rape and murder while suffering from some psychotic episode!

If they had convicted a mentally unstable Alphon, in the absence of any forensic evidence or victim id, merely accepting some kind of unverifiable admission from him and never even suspecting Hanratty, you'd have been the first one to cry foul, you know you would. Yet that is precisely where you are going here at a rate of knots.

Well this is why we need to know why the DNA of the nurses has vanished
who would have handled the item as they removed it from Valerie"s person and this of course being done in 1961,so long before the strict guidelines regarding DNA were issued
and why the DNA of the police who then collected it and bagged it,had vanished
not forgetting the DNA of the original FFS who cut the cloth had also vanished?
From a reading of what went on in the hospital,with police coming and going with scant regard for Hospital procedure-eg smoking throughout their questioning of Valerie despite requests to refrain by nursing staff, it seems that procedures regarding sterile handling and protection of items from contamination were unsatisfactory if not quite sloppy.

Turn this round and ask yourself why any DNA from mere handling, including secondary transfer after the event, eg to the knicker fragment from the fly of Hanratty's trousers, should have shown up, while the primary transfer of the rapist's semen during the crime itself must have vanished without trace, from the same fragment.

The one thing they would have known not to do, even in 1961, was to allow a sample of their suspect's semen anywhere near the rapist's semen, if the object was to compare the two. The only reason I can think of for scraping semen from Hanratty's fly would have been to compare it with the rapist's semen on the knickers.

Or is your argument now that none of this matters because they simply made up the DNA results from whole cloth and didn't even bother testing the fragment of cloth? In which case, I don't suppose it matters whether they sensibly kept a bit with the two semen types present or threw all that away and only retained a piece from the untouched part of the garment that was no good to man nor beast.

When objectivity flies out of the window, all common sense and reason can so often follow suit. Show me that's not the case here - with something solid to support these very serious allegations about the way this case has been handled since day one, by the various individuals working independently.

Love,

Caz
X

[RonIpstone]

The FFS appointed by the prosecution in this case cannot be said to be neutral or impartial as its paymaster is the prosecution .The testing was not an impartial, participatory process of testing involving the defence Forensic science experts .

I think that you will find that it was the CCRC not the prosecution that commissioned the DNA testing that took place in 1997.

I note you are avoiding giving any explanation for the "disappearing DNA" from the knicker fragment of the 1961 nurses/police handlers and FFS scientists.

We know that the rapist's DNA was on the seminal fluid stained knickers fragment as it had been tested for blood grouping. MG's and VS's DNA was present as we know that their blood grouping had been found on the knickers fragment. I would not have though that a nurse or a bobby would have found it either necessary to desirable to touch the crouch part of the knickers for the purpose of removing them from VS. Even if they had been touched one cannot assume that DNA would be transferred in the process.

[Natalie Severn]

Truth and objectivity fled the day Nudds made his appearance, Caz! From the moment those cartridge cases were found at the Vienna Hotel the day Nudds was sacked on 11th September truth fled the scene.
The scientists at the police lab in 1961 scraped semen from the inside fly of Hanratty"s trousers and made a liquid wash of it.Thirty years later a broken vial was found in a police lab,without its stopper in the same file as the knicker piece.We are required to believe ,on faith,and by the prosecution, that neither seminal fluid likely to have been poured into the mysterious broken file, the hairs,or any other fibre found in the file could have contaminated the piece of knicker-despite the edges of the brown envelope bearing the signs it had opened and resealed itself as happens when the glued edges open by contact with fluid and then re-glue.
I do not have time to go over the lack of accessibility , accountability and objectivity at every turn since 1961 ,through Hawser to the 2002 appeal ,suffice to say the FFS were,yet again appointed and paid for by the prosecution,acting on the request of the prosecution, who in turn were in the dubious position of acting as both judge and jury.

[Natalie Severn]

Hello All





That's the problem: there was enough material for the defence to carry out tests. We're talking LCN testing here - if the sample was a couple of square inches in size, why didn't FSS cut off (say) a quarter of that, leaving the rest for future testing? LCN requires no more than 5-20 cells and surely there were a lot more than that on the sample? If it really took the entire piece of fabric to get enough material to test, this makes it all the more likely that Hanratty's DNA got there by contamination.

[thanks DM-I hadn"t realised that---very helpful]

[B]However, FSS have a rather unsavoury reputation for completely destroying samples even in much more recent cases, and one can only presume that this is being done deliberately[/B].

-again many thanks---do you have a recent example?

-am in a bit of a hurry to get to the Nat Gallery-apologies return to this later

[caz]

Truth and objectivity fled the day Nudds made his appearance, Caz!

Norma, you really need to get over this fixation with Nudds. His testimony is totally irrelevant as far as my questions to you are concerned.

Why do you think they 'scraped semen from the inside fly of Hanratty"s trousers and made a liquid wash of it' in 1961?

Where is your evidence that this semen was ever left in a position to have 'mingled' (for want of a better word) with the semen that survived on the knicker piece?

You want us to believe (without evidence, so this really would be 'on faith'!) that they made a balls-up (excuse the pun) on this monumental scale, yet Hanratty's defenders at the appeal just had to sit there, sadly shaking their impotent heads and admitting it had been a fair cop after all? Pull the other one, Norma. Anything like that would have been leapt on with delight if there had been a half decent chance that it had accounted for the damning appearance of the DNA results.

Love,

Caz
X

[Black Rabbit]

Please could anyone inform me, size wise, just how big a 'fragment' of the knickers was used in the DNA testing and exactly from what part of the garment this 'fragment' actualy came from?

An actual source of reference would be most welcome too if possible.

Aynone know exactly what part of the garmet the 'fragment' came?

MG's and VS's DNA was present as we know that their blood grouping had been found on the knickers fragment.

I'm slightly confused. Given the various accounts of the events taht took place on that fateful August evening/night in '61, at what point, what form and exactly by what method did Michael Gregstens DNA find its way inside Valeries knickers?

Am I missing something?

[babybird67]

I'm slightly confused. Given the various accounts of the events taht took place on that fateful August evening/night in '61, at what point, what form and exactly by what method did Michael Gregstens DNA find its way inside Valeries knickers?

Am I missing something?

You must be the only person on the planet who doesn't know that they were lovers! I'll leave it to your imagination how his DNA got there.

[babybird67]

What I would dearly like to have now is an answer to is the question Dupplin Muir asked a little while back:

"What happened to all the other DNA that should have been on the sample viz
-the nurses who treated VS
-the police who collected and bagged the sample
-the forensic scientists who originally examined it
None of these people knew about DNA testing so they can"t have taken any measures against their DNA getting on the sample,"

Best
Norma

Exactly. Showing contamination did not occur. Unless you are suggesting the contamination process was also discriminatory and decided only to let elements of Hanratty's DNA to participate in the sneaky contamination and eradication process that so many disparate groups of poor old Jim haters took part in.

[babybird67]

Well this is why we need to know why the DNA of the nurses has vanished
who would have handled the item as they removed it from Valerie"s person and this of course being done in 1961,so long before the strict guidelines regarding DNA were issued
and why the DNA of the police who then collected it and bagged it,had vanished
not forgetting the DNA of the original FFS who cut the cloth had also vanished?
From a reading of what went on in the hospital,with police coming and going with scant regard for Hospital procedure-eg smoking throughout their questioning of Valerie despite requests to refrain by nursing staff, it seems that procedures regarding sterile handling and protection of items from contamination were unsatisfactory if not quite sloppy.

Nurses wear gloves Norma. Big surprise i know. Women have been being raped for a very long time. I find it difficult to believe that you believe that no precautions would have been taken with evidence such as a rape victim's knickers.

[babybird67]

I note you are avoiding giving any explanation for the "disappearing DNA" from the knicker fragment of the 1961 nurses/police handlers and FFS scientists.

These people would have worn gloves. The rapist, Hanratty, did not wear a condom. That's how his semen got to mingle with Valerie's vaginal fluid in a distribution typically seen after a sexual act between a man and woman has taken place. Which is what the DNA tests established had happened.