Talk:James Hanratty

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hey can someone proof this , spell chaeck ti and smarten it up, it took me all day to write

Lincolnshire Poacher 20:40, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] A6 murder

User Gareth Owen has deleted the entry for A6 Murder and redirected it to James Hanratty.--Darrelljon 15:47, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Bob Woffinden's e-mail address is bobwoffinden (AT) hotmail (DOT) com. I wrote it in that manner to confuse spam bots which trawl wikipedia.--Darrelljon 22:03, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Leonard Miller's e-mail address is leonardmiller33 (AT) hotmail (DOT) com.--Darrelljon 12:10, 12 February 2006 (UTC)


The file "ASSI 13/534: Murder: Hanratty, James (capital)" has officially gone missing from The National Archives.

Can this be expanded upon, e.g. source etc.?--Darrelljon 19:56, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Recieved under a FOIA request:

"Regarding ASSI 13/534, I am sorry to tell you that this record has been classified as Missing. This means that the record has been misplaced and cannot be located. This may have happened at The National Archives or whilst the record was in the temporary possession of the government department that originally transferred it to us.

It is rare that a record will go missing. We will not classify records as Missing until we have taken all reasonable steps to locate it. We carry out searches using information about previous uses of the record held by our Document Ordering and Records Information System (DORIS). DORIS holds information dating back to 1999 so where a record was classified as missing before 1999 it is unlikely that sufficient data existed to carry out the same degree of searching. However, staff are always alert to the possibility of finding missing documents and this does happen on occasion.

Kind regards,

Mary Keene On behalf of Shona Love

FOI Unit Administrator Records Management and Cataloguing Department The National Archives"

[edit] Bus conductress

What was the bus conductresses name? Patricia something. I will add this and perhaps Fogarty-Wauls statement when I find out.--Darrelljon 13:17, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Got it, the bus conductress on the 36A Bus was Pamela Patt.--Darrelljon 21:46, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Evidence

Perhaps the Evidence anomalies and new evidence could be merged. Also, would the list of agreed facts be better as a narrative?--Darrelljon 15:56, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

It might even be better to divide sections into "Evidence incriminating Hanratty" and "Evidence exonerating Hanratty" and even perhaps "Evidence incriminating Alphon"? Or "The case against Hanratty" and "The case against Alphon"--Darrelljon 13:50, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Hanratty told police that on the day of the murder he had left the Vienna Hotel on foot intending to go to Liverpool. By mistake he went to Paddington station initially, at this point he left and went to Euston. Just conjecture but I wonder whether he was afraid that someone might come forward to say that he had been seen at Paddington that day. As Paddington is the station for Slough this would have been potentially very damaging.

Did Hanratty not freely admit this?--Darrelljon 20:17, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Apparently the prosecutor Graham Swanwick QC suggested this (see Bob Woffinden paperback page 226) at the trial but was forced to concede there was no evidence for this.--Darrelljon 19:00, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Facts

The article claims the Morris Minor's journey at gunpoint is "a basic fact" about the case. Isn't it merely Valerie Storie's testimony until we find the Morris Minor abandoned?--Darrelljon 20:33, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Meike Dalal and Audrey Willis

Perhaps the Meike Dalal and Audrey Willis incidents could be included.--Darrelljon 21:42, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lime Street

Is the reference to Lime Street Police Station correct?--Darrelljon 21:38, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DNA

It seems odd that someone with such apparently detailed knowledge of this case should add a the following patently false statement:

"However, in late 2002, there was a plan to exhume Hanratty and collect DNA from his teeth. The A6 Committee said this was pointless, as the evidence has now been contaminated, including being handled by Hanratty himself."

Hanratty was exhumed and DNA confirmed his guilt. The evidence was exhaustively discussed in public by the appeal court judges. It's difficult see how handling the evidence can have resulted in the transfer of mucus into a handkerchief and semen into the rape-victim's underwear. Paul B 00:30 2005 (UTC)

Exactly right. Unfortunately, for reasons I cannot understand, the Hanratty case is one of those causes which the chattering classes latch onto and cannot let go whatever the evidence. I suspect it might have something to do with the fact that the late Paul Foot championed Hanratty's innocence (Foot was beloved of the British left and even in 2005 one found letters to Private Eye defending Foot's defence of the indefensible (Hanratty)). The facts are as follows: (i) Hanratty's dna was found in the victim's underwear along with the victim's dna; (ii) no other person's dna was found there; (iii) for there to have been 'contamination' at least one other person's dna would have had to have been there - the true killer; and (iv) the absence of any other dna is conclusive of Hanratty's guilt. End of story. Dodgy witness evidence here and there is a natural consequence of human fallability. DNA evidence is not. JRJW December 2005
If you read Bob Woffinden's Hanratty: The Final Verdict ISBN 0330353012 you would see what an implausible suspect Hanratty is.--Darrelljon 16:32, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Apart from the fact that he was guilty you mean? Paul B 17:01, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
See "The Murders Whos Who" - published in 1978 - they state that Hanratty was almost certainly guilty. In fact, with all respect to Bob Woffinden and Paul Foot, I came away from both books with a sense of Hanratty's overwhelming guilt. I suspect the longstandin fascination with the case has to do with the death penalty. In 1962 it was almost on it's last legs and Hanratty was the 8th last person hanged in the UK (he is the only one of those who has even a slightly arguable case for innocence). I'm not sure though that Foot's support of Hanratty justifies JRJW attack on him and the mythical chattering classes. I disagree with almost of all Foot's politics, but his willingness to argue unpopular causes such as the Birmingham six, show his committment. Like all of us he was allowed to be wrong, and again like all of us he was allowed to hold on to firmly held beliefs in the face of all the evidence. Bob Woffinden does make one very valid point - the perjury at the trial ie Valerie Storie and Michael Gregsten were in the car discussing a Rally meeting! I don't think anybody in the court or in the public believed it at the time, nowadays the headlines would be "Psychopath Slays Sex Crazed Couple!!!".
It's just that Hanratty lacked a plausible motive or plausible account of his alleged journey to Dorney Reach and no witnesses apart from Valerie Storie said he was there. Hardly incriminating, especially when compared to Alphon. Even one of Scotland Yard's most senior detectives assigned to the case in 1994, Detective Chief Superintendant Roger Matthews concluded there had been a grave miscarriage of justice.--Darrelljon 20:23, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
This is what always confuses people about high profile criminal cases - lack of 'motive' or 'account' of certain aspects of the case. That's what life's like - people act irrationally and we can't always reconstruct events perfectly. But in this case we have DNA evidence that removes all doubt. For it to have been contaminated, there would have had to have been three strains on the items - Hanratty's, the victim's and the real killer's. There were only two: Hanratty's and the victims. Accordingly, there's no room for doubt. Foot was an intelligent man but one utterly obsessed with bashing the establishment, a peculiarly English trait. He couldn't accept that maybe, despite some dodgy practices, the authorities might have got it right. His supporters can't accept that he could be wrong. But science works differently to politics. Sometimes, you just have to admit you were wrong JRJW April 2006

Do certain people, convinced of the correctness of their cause, just abdicate logical thought? If Alphon had been charged, convicted and swung, then Foot et al would have then spent years demonstrating just how guilty Hanratty was in order to undermine the conviction of Alphon [Andrew M]March 2007.

On the motive question, it is often forgotten that Hanratty had reportedly told a friend not long before the crime that he intended to acquire a gun and become a "stick up" man.Nandt1 12:27, 4 October 2006 (UTC)Nandt1

[edit] Eye Witness oddities

Valerie Storie could not have picked Hanratty out at the first line up. He wasn't in it! That odd cove Peter Alphon was the suspect in that one.

[edit] Last UK Hanging

Someone has amended the article to read Hanratty was the eight last person to be hanged in Britain for murder. I'm not sure that's true. Wasn't he among the final 3? I think there may have been further hangings but not for murder. I think also there were further executions but by lethal injection not hanging. I am unclear on this so can someone clarify this?--Darrelljon 21:56, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Response: Certainly there were no modern UK executions in times of peace by any means other than hanging. Nor, after the immediate post-War period, for crimes other than murder.Nandt1 12:25, 4 October 2006 (UTC)Nandt1

- I wish I could have seen the families faces when the lab results came back positive and that scumbag's guilt was proven. Can't believe they are still fighting it, then again they have always kept up the story that he was an angel - even though EVERYONE says he wasn't.

[edit] North or South

The article says in the Witness Testimony of Valerie Storie section:-

  1. The journey continued along the A5 through St Albans, which the gunman mistakenly insisted was Watford, before joining the A6.
  2. At about 01:30, the car was on the A6, travelling south, when the man said he wanted a 'kip' (sleep). Twice he told Gregsten to turn off the road and then changed his mind, and the car returned to the A6.
  3. At Deadman's Hill the man ordered Gregsten to pull into a layby. He at first refused, but the man became aggressive and threatened them with the gun.

But Clophill is north of St Albans on the A6. Either they were going back and forth or, at 01:30, they were travelling north.

212.58.233.129 12:51, 1 June 2007 (UTC)Columb

[edit] Rating

This article could easily be raised to B class if you include information the man's life before he murdered someone.

[edit] First mention of Valerie Storie not linked

Hi The names of Gregson & Storie are only hyperlinked further down (which confused me) is it a mistake or a convention? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zzapper (talk • contribs) 10:44, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

They should not be linked at all, as they redirect here. Paul B (talk) 10:50, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Photo

I have added a photo and cleaned the list text. --andreasegde (talk) 15:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)