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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Archive through 24 June 2002
Casebook Message Boards: Beyond Whitechapel - Other Crimes: James Hanratty and the A6 Murder:
Archive through 24 June 2002
Author: Guy Hatton
Monday, 18 February 2002 - 06:36 am |        | Still trying to get my head round Bob Woffinden's Hanratty: The Final Verdict and how the alleged DNA identification affects the conclusions we can draw in this case - when all the other evidence places Hanratty firmly in Rhyl at the time of the murder.
Cheers
Guy |
Author: Christopher T George
Monday, 18 February 2002 - 01:42 pm | | Hi, Guy:
To fill in those who don't know about this case, I'll post the following article that I found on the net.
Chris
The Sun -- WEDNESDAY, 19 JULY 2000
HANRATTY WAS GUILTY
James Hanratty ... WAS the A6 murderer
EXCLUSIVE By MIKE SULLIVAN
Crime Reporter
JAMES HANRATTY - said to have been wrongly hanged for one of Britain's most notorious murders - was guilty after all, new hi-tech DNA tests have proved.
His execution for the A6 murder 38 years ago became one of Britain's most celebrated alleged miscarriages of justice.
The 25-year-old petty crook went to the gallows for shooting dead scientist Michael Gregsten. The killer then raped Michael's mistress Valerie Storie, shot her five times and left her for dead in a lay-by.
The case is often cited by opponents of the death penalty. DNA tests carried out as recently as three years ago proved inconclusive.
But today The Sun can reveal how advanced technology has now proved beyond doubt that Hanratty was guilty. The new tests were conducted earlier this year on fluid samples on a
handkerchief wrapped around the killer's gun and on Valerie's underwear which had been stored in Home Office vaults.
Hanratty's victims ... Valerie Storie and Michael Gregsten were both shot
Forensic scientists used the latest FSS SGMplus system to copy the original DNA evidence and matched it with a sample provided by Hanratty's brother Michael. A DNA sample from another suspect in the case, Peter Alphon, was also tested
and it proved negative.
A senior source close to the case said: "The DNA system narrows it down to a one-in-a-billion match. "In other words, there is now a one-in-a-billion chance that Hanratty was not the A6 killer."
The news will be a devastating blow to Hanratty's family, who have fought to clear his name since his execution in 1962. For almost ten years his dad, James senior, was a regular sight outside the House of Commons, waving a placard and handing out leaflets to try to clear his
son's name.
After he died in 1971, Hanratty's brother Michael carried on the campaign, supported by distinguished writers and lawyers.
Until the new evidence, the family's campaign appeared to be on the brink of success. The case has been referred to the Court of Appeal because of flawed identification procedures in the original investigation and the suppression of information to Hanratty's defence at his trial.
A hearing is scheduled for October this year. But last night victim Valerie, who has been confined to a wheelchair since the shootings, told The Sun: "I have never once doubted Hanratty was guilty.
Campaigning father ... James Hanratty Senior
"No parents could ever believe their son was guilty of such a dreadful crime and I understand why Hanratty's family could not accept he did it. But I was there at the time and know he did it.
"It was only a matter of time before modern science conclusively proved his guilt for everyone to accept."
The murder and rape which shocked the country took place on August 22, 1961.
Married father of two Michael, 36, and Valerie, 22, were enjoying a lovers' rendezvous in his Morris Minor in a field at Dorney Reach, near Taplow, Bucks. The murderer climbed in the back and ordered Michael to drive off at gunpoint.
The killer told Michael to stop in a lay-by on the A6 at Deadman's Hill, near Bedford, where he shot him twice in the head. Valerie was then raped on the back seat and shot five times.
The next day the car was found dumped in Redbridge, East London, where two witnesses said they had seen Hanratty driving erratically.
A day later the gun was found wrapped in a handkerchief under the back seat of a London bus. Then two cartridge cases from the gun used in the shootings were found in a
hotel room in Maida Vale, North West London.
Cops arrested salesman Peter Alphon, who had stayed in the room on the night of the murder, but at an identity parade Valerie picked out someone else and he was released. Police then switched their attention to Hanratty, who had been staying in the hotel room the night before the murder under a false name. He went on the run and was finally captured in Blackpool on October 11. He was charged after Valerie picked him out at another identity parade.
Hanratty was found guilty after a long and detailed trial at Bedford Assizes. On April 4, 1962, he was hanged at Bedford jail, despite a protest petition signed by 90,000 supporters.
An hour before, illiterate Hanratty dictated a letter to his brother Michael, saying: "I would like you to try and clear my name of this crime." He was still claiming his innocence as a priest gave him the last rites. The cop who nabbed Hanratty in a Blackpool café was Detective Constable Jim Williams, now 75.
Last night he said: "If the DNA tests had proved Hanratty innocent I would have changed my mind.
"I would have hated to have lived all these years thinking I had arrested a man who was wrongly hanged. I am relieved the tests have proved him guilty but I never had any doubt."
Hanratty's brother could not accept the painful truth last night. Speaking from his south London home, Michael said: "I can only imagine the DNA sample has become contaminated.
"Nothing will ever persuade me that my brother was guilty of that crime." |
Author: stephen miller
Monday, 18 February 2002 - 04:13 pm | | Guy is this a recently published book on Hanratty?
from steve |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Monday, 18 February 2002 - 05:44 pm | | Hanratty The Final Verdict
by Bob Woffinden
London, Macmillan, 1997 |
Author: Peter Wood
Monday, 18 February 2002 - 06:58 pm | | Hi guys
Here's my two pence worth.
I hate all these 'miscarriage of justice' cases. Like The Brimingham Six were really innocent? Yeah, right. The Guildford Four? Hmmm. This country (GB) is full of loads of bleeding heart left wingers who are ashamed of their own country and would do anything to oppose the establishment.
Hanratty was guilty. Last year his body was exhumed and the DNA test was carried out on his remains, not just a sample from his brother. He did the crime. The people in Rhyl were lying. And if he had stayed in the hotel room the night before the chap who was arrested then that places him at the scene. Don't question the DNA evidence, it's infallible, I just wish we had some for the ripper case.
Did you know that in Great Britain there are something like 400 or more support groups for offenders, but only one for victims of crime? That is the depths to which we have sunk. That is why some people will continue to 'champion' Hanratty's cause, when his guilt has been proven beyond any doubt.
I've even heard it said that Peter Sutcliffe was only a copycat killer for the Real Yorkshire Ripper. What next? "Free Myra Hindley" posters outside Durham Prison? How long before Ian Brady is walking the corridors of Westminster alongside the murdering scum of the IRA who get invited to tea with Tony Blair?
Hope that didn't bother you too much.
Peter. |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Monday, 18 February 2002 - 11:05 pm | | If the information about the new DNA tests proving
Hanratty's guilt is true, it reminds me of another
little problem in these cases of executed capital punishment
victims: the actual innocence of Timothy Evans. Ever
since the chief witness against him, John Reginald Christie,
was executed for killing at least eight women, it has been
generally accepted that Evans did not kill his wife and
daughter - that Christie murdered both. Christie when asked
chirped, "Why not, the more the merrier!"
After Evans got a posthumous pardon and rehabilitation in
the 1960s, after the publication of TEN RILLINGTON PLACE
by Sir Ludovic Kennedy, the matter seemed finished. Then
a new voice entered the story. The murderer of Stanley
Setty, Donald Hume, had been returned to England to be
kept in a prison for mental cases. Hume may have been
a dangerous man, but he was talkative and intelligent.
While waiting for the trial in the Setty murder in 1950 he
met Evans in prison. Evans admitted killing one of the two
victims. Perhaps another DNA test is required.
Jeff |
Author: Guy Hatton
Tuesday, 19 February 2002 - 06:16 am | | Chris -
Thanks for filling in some details for people unfamiliar with the case.
The DNA evidence is, in the face of it, damning. Peter's comment 'Don't question the DNA evidence, it's infallible', is, however, as any forensic scientist will probably tell you, merely fatuous. No technique is infallible, though some are more reliable than others. Generally speaking, DNA evidence is indeed one of the best resources available to us - provided the samples have been taken with DNA testing in mind, and treated with the requisite care. Unfortunately, nobody dealing with the evidence in the A6 case in 1961-2 had even the slightest inkling of what would be possible in the future. It is claimed (and I stress here that I have no idea as to the reliability of this claim) that items of clothing and other things belonging to Hanratty were stored with, laid out on the same surfaces as, and handled by the same people as the vital items of Valerie Storie's clothing (including her semen-stained underwear). Obviously, this raises the spectre of contamination - though this problem could not have been foreseen at the time. And as Paul Foot pointed out in the Guardian (I know, Peter - a 'bleeding-heart left-winger' in your book, but nonetheless a very sharp, analytical thinker, and a man not given to swallowing an argument, any argument, uncritically), the fact that more and more sensitive DNA tests were required before a match was found only serves to increase the likelihood that what is actually being detected is contamination. It is worth noting also that the DNA results are the only forensic evidence ever brought to bear against Hanratty - for instance, no fingerprints were found, despite Hanratty's claim that he never wore gloves when committing his crimes (burglaries and car theft, mostly) being easily verified (he thought he was covering his tracks by wiping surfaces he had touched clean, when in fact, he was leaving his prints all over the place).
Were the Rhyl witnesses lying? Who knows. Surely it's unreasonable to assume that they were all lying, though. Some of them may have been, or may have been mistaken, we don't know. What can be said is that there is no reason whatsoever to believe that Olive Dinwoodie or Barbara Ford were lying, and their evidence puts Hanratty in Liverpool at around 5pm on the Tuesday, 22 August 1961 (about 4 1/2 hours before Gregsten and Storie were first approached by their attacker). From there, it is perfectly feasible to get to Rhyl by bus in the time Hanratty claimed to have done. It would, however, be impossible to be at Dorney Reach in time. And if this is all correct, then the fact (and fact it is) that Hanratty was at the Vienna Hotel in London on the Monday night is irrelevant, isn't it? The 'chap' to whom Peter refers, Peter Louis Alphon, stayed in the same room on the Tuesday night, though there is some confusion as to what time he arrived and whether he was in the room at the relevant times.
Was Hanratty guilty or innocent? I'm not going to make a definite claim either way, but it seems to me that there are still sufficient problems with the evidence to raise reasonable doubt. And with that, I look forward to hearing what other people think.
Cheers
Guy |
Author: Guy Hatton
Tuesday, 19 February 2002 - 07:44 am | | Steve -
Woffinden's book is also available in a very slightly updated form as a Pan paperback (1999). Thanks to Stewart for his original reply.
Cheers
Guy |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Tuesday, 19 February 2002 - 09:40 am | | Perhaps a forensic expert will read this thread and help with Guy's point about more and more sensitive DNA tests being required before a match was found. If Peter is correct about Hanratty's remains being tested, for instance, and if the DNA was directly compared with that of the killer, from the stains on Valerie's clothing, we'd need to know what other factors could explain why they found it so hard to get a match.
I've never quite understood why anyone would be content to accept someone's guilt while there are possible stones left unturned. It's not a question of bleeding hearts, surely. It's a question of how many killers might still be free on our streets because the wrong man has been found guilty and put away or executed.
In the case of Christie and Evans, for those people who think there may have been two killers operating in 10 Rillington Place at the same time, the former was able to carry on killing while everyone thought they'd caught the right man, and the only man, who was committing murder there.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Guy Hatton
Tuesday, 19 February 2002 - 03:09 pm | | Caz -
Peter is correct in saying that the most recent tests were carried out using samples from James Hanratty's remains, whereas the previous tests used samples provided by his brother. As for the other details of how the comparisons were made, and exactly how it is thought that the contamination could have been introduced, I'm not too clear myself.
It is also true that no match has been found with the other 'most likely' suspect, Alphon. Reading Woffinden, I was struck that although he makes a strong argument for Hanratty's innocence (concluded pre-DNA testing), his case against Alphon does not convince me particularly. This is troubling, given that the case is usually understood to be an 'either-or' choice - either it was Hanratty, or it was Alphon.
All the Best
Guy |
Author: Peter Wood
Sunday, 24 February 2002 - 01:04 pm | | Hi Guy, Caz.
I felt compelled to join you in here again.
Guy: Contamination? The DNA left at the scene was taken from a semen stain on Valerie's knickers. How do you suppose those knickers became 'contaminated'?
I'm afraid I don't really care much if "innocent" people like Evans went to the gallows. It's a small price to pay for keeping people like Brady, Hindley etc off the streets. In fact, I'll go further than saying I don't really care much. I'd say - I couldn't care less. These things happen. There seem to be too many people interested in miscarriage of justice cases than there are concerned with helping the victims of crime. How to get rich quick? Kill someone, get yourself put in a British prison. Twenty five years later just say you didn't do it and before you know it you'll be getting handed a cheque for £6 million by Tony Blair.
Hanratty did it. The DNA evidence said he did it. Valerie picked him out as her rapist. There was NO contamination. Do you think these people are imbeciles? You just like a controversy, Guy. I'll bet you believe in life after death and little green men from other planets.
Here's my outlook on life: You're born; You live; You die. There is no God. There is no one on another planet. Hanratty was guilty. So were the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four, those blokes who murdered Carl Bridgewater. We should be killing more murderers, not spending valuable time discussing 'contamination'.
And in the unlikely event that you uncover a conspiracy that could somehow prove Hanratty was framed by 'contaminated' evidence ...so what? He's dead now. Wrong place, wrong time.
Oh, but I forget! Hanratty didn't wear gloves. And we have whose word for that? Yep, his own.
And you're right about the Guardian, Guy.
Stick to The Times or The Sun. Opposite ends of the demographic spectrum, but both biding their time until Tony Beelzebub Blair gets ousted from Maggie's Den. And they wouldn't champion Hanratty, would they?
See ya
Peter. |
Author: Guy Hatton
Monday, 25 February 2002 - 04:19 am | | Peter Wood wrote about me:
I'll bet you believe in life after death and little green men from other planets.
And about criminal justice:
I'm afraid I don't really care much if "innocent" people like Evans went to the gallows. It's a small price to pay for keeping people like Brady, Hindley etc off the streets. In fact, I'll go further than saying I don't really care much. I'd say - I couldn't care less.
On the first count: No, I most certainly do not.
On the second, the stupidity of the statement is obvious - sending Evans to the gallows signally failed to deter Brady and Hindley.
It is clear from your track record on these boards, Peter, that we should not expect any better than this from you. Unlike John Ormlor, I do not have the patience to keep repeating myself until I am blue in the face trying to make you see reason. Therefore, I have decided to adopt this policy: you can say what you like - I'm not even going to waste my time reading it.
Guy |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Monday, 25 February 2002 - 07:43 am | | Hi Peter,
You wrote:
'I'm afraid I don't really care much if "innocent" people like Evans went to the gallows. It's a small price to pay for keeping people like Brady, Hindley etc off the streets.'
To add to Guy's point about the sheer stupidity of this statement, it was a huge price for Evans, and Britain, to pay, to keep Christie killing.
For every person wrongfully convicted of murder, the price we all pay is to keep the real killer on our streets.
I can't believe you are unable to see this fatal contradiction inherent in your argument. By locking up the first person who strikes you as being the guilty party, you would be protecting any future Bradys and Hindleys who were clever enough to hide behind them and not be caught.
Sometimes you really should read back what you have written before posting it - for your own good.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Peter Wood
Tuesday, 26 February 2002 - 04:57 am | | Guy
I don't care much if you do or don't read what I write. By adopting that tone and policy you are guilty of your own imposed censorship. That doesn't smack of freedom of speech to me.
My track record? It's a damn sight more interesting than yours. Let's face it Guy, we have irrefutable evidence that Hanratty was guilty, but you still try to refute it! What on earth is that all about!? Are you just trying to be controversial? You like to see "Conspiracy Theories" where there aren't any, don't you? I suppose you believe that one about Diana and Dodi? Silly me, she just wasn't wearing a seat belt, her driver was drunk and on drugs and speeding.
Caz:
To clear up my earlier point. I stand by what I said. It is a price worth paying, the occasional innocent being strung up, if it enables us to catch the real bad un's. I'll accept Guy's point that Evans' hanging didn't deter Brady and Hindley, but that wasn't what I was trying to say. What I was trying to say is that the British justice system must be allowed to root out the bad apples in the barrel. By doing so we can be rid of the Sutcliffes, Hanratty's, Hindley's etc. And if, in doing so, we have to sacrifice the occasional innocent? So what?! I still believe that it is a price worth paying. The other option is that we go soft on crime - and yes the "innocents" would be spared, but so would the thousands of guilty people who continually mock our justice system.
British justice must be allowed to fight back. As an argument against capital punishment, people often quote the people who have been hanged innocently. I still believe that is a price worth paying. And Hanratty wasn't innocent. That's been proven beyond doubt.
My views my seem over the top, off the wall, and designed to be controversial. But they are not. I think we should get rid of more offenders, not pander to them, then allow them to use legal aid to sue the prison governor because breakfast was cold. Why bother arresting the IRA anymore? They only end up on the streets a few years later, with wads of cash and an open invitation to attend 10 Downing Street whenever they like. We should take a hard line over things like that.
Anyone who commits a murder should pay with their life. And forget all this twenty years on death row malarkey. They can go to the gallows within a week for me. And all the money we save on keeping such dead heads alive can be used to combat famine in the Third World.
As Richard Littlejohn likes to say:
We're all going to hell in a handcart.
Regards
Peter. |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Tuesday, 26 February 2002 - 06:00 am | | Hi Peter,
You wrote:
'I stand by what I said. It is a price worth paying, the occasional innocent being strung up, if it enables us to catch the real bad un's.'
But stringing up the occasional innocent can't possibly, under any circumstances, enable us to catch the real bad uns. It just can't. Sorry. No way. No how. All it does is enable the real killer to stay free to kill again and again and again.
I can't believe that's what you are arguing for. What if one of these occasional innocents is banged up instead of someone who then goes on to harm a loved-one of yours? Would you only then start to blame the system for getting the wrong man?
Love,
Caz |
Author: graziano
Tuesday, 26 February 2002 - 09:34 am | | I stand by what Peter Wodd says: yes, the innocents in jail....overall when they are jailed in place of the guilty.
Better if they are decapitated.
Oh yes, yes, yes.
I like, I love this kind of society.
Long life to Peter Wodd and to his way of doing justice.
Guy, Caz, only the guilty in jail ?
How dull it would be.
How boring you may be.
Come on, a bit of fun in life.
After all is only someone's other life.
Bye. Graziano.
Five times in trial (as an indicted -is that english ?-, obviously), five times not convicted.
Still free and with plenty of ideas.
Whistle, whistle. |
Author: graziano
Tuesday, 26 February 2002 - 09:50 am | | And after the innocents, the jews,the muslims, even the catholics if orthodox, the communists, the socialists, even the liberals if from the left wing, the homosexuals and the zigeuners, the ones wearing glasses and then the ones..mmmh under 5 feet 5 inches and then....whatever,
yes,yes,yes, I am com.... ooooh.
Too good.
Graziano. |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Tuesday, 26 February 2002 - 09:58 am | | Time for a ciggie Graz?
Love,
Caz |
Author: Guy Hatton
Tuesday, 26 February 2002 - 10:47 am | | LOL
(Caz -what is the code that gets you that icon? Oh hang on - I think I've found it:
Guy  |
Author: Christopher T George
Tuesday, 26 February 2002 - 12:26 pm | | Hi, Graz:
I take it your post was satirical? 
All the best
Chris |
Author: graziano
Tuesday, 26 February 2002 - 02:10 pm | | ??????
Ouch! 
POLL:
What is the most vicious of the things listed here under:
A. Jack the Ripper ripping open a woman;
B. Jack the Ripper ripping open a prostitute;
C. An Analyst saying "buy" when speaking about a stock on the Nasdaq;
D. Peter Wodd in his post of Tuesday 26 February 2002 - 04.57 a.m.;
E. Chris George with the question he posted Tuesday 26 February 2002 - 12.26 p.m.;
F. An hungry leech.
I personnally can't decide between C. and E., after all some stocks go up indeed.
Every vote wellcome.
Bye. Graziano. |
Author: graziano
Tuesday, 26 February 2002 - 04:39 pm | | Chris, I think we are damned when speaking together (or I am in any case when reading your posts).
I swear the lol in your post was not there (or there was a very strange sign at its place) when I saw it for the first time.
And I have been all evening wondering how you could even only doubting.
Now is there and I catch the meaning of your question.
I hope you may imagine what a difference the LOL makes.
Well, my friend, that's the life of the ugly swan,   |
Author: Grailfinder
Wednesday, 27 February 2002 - 12:27 am | | Hi Guy's
Not that I can add to the Hanratty case but I thought some of you might be interested in the following:
In 1979 I was banged up in Bedford Jail for 2yrs er...slight mishap with someone elses checkbook? seems the Judge didn't think £90:000 was a slight mishap? Anyway, my first morning in the jail was spent 'doing the round's' this meant visits to the Doc's/vicar etc, and one of these was to have my photo taken. On entering the room I was told to sit down on this strange looking chair? it had a triangular piece of wood running the length of the seat so that it went between one's erm..cheek's? I asked the photographer what the point of it was? His answer was quite entertaining, apparently the cell I was in (now the photo room) was the original topping cell! and he went on to tell me how Hanratty had spent his last night in this room? and had sat in the very same chair that I was now sat! he too had asked about this chair and it's Wedgie? apparently the chair was designed to make one sit up straight! and I can confirm that it certainly work's. LOL. The cell has not been used (as a cell) since Hanratty, as he was the last to be hanged at Bedford.
For my money, Hanratty was innocent, but then again I never met a guilty fella in the two years I was there? they were it seem's all banged up for crimes they hadn't committed. HA, as if!
BTW I hope you guy's will still speak to me after this confession? just keep in mind the fact that I was only 19 at the time, and in the 20 odd years that have passed since, I have not had so much as a parking ticket, I put it down to the folly of youth! that and the thought of having £90:000 in the sky rocket! great while it lasted, but to this day, the sound of the door slaming shut still send's a shiver down my spine.
Cheers GF (the most honest man I know)ish! |
Author: Peter Wood
Wednesday, 27 February 2002 - 03:49 pm | | Whoaa! Controversy!
I was with you all the way Graz, right up to the part where you said Hanratty was innocent.
Yeah, right. And John Prescott is a supermodel!
Let us put this in perspective. If we go soft on everybody then there will be loads of murderers wandering the streets. If we go hard on them (bang em and hang em)then they won't be on the streets anymore. And if we string up a few innocents in the process, it would still be a price worth paying for the lives that would be saved on the streets.
Peter. |
Author: Peter Wood
Wednesday, 27 February 2002 - 03:57 pm | |  . Peter and Guy. |
Author: graziano
Wednesday, 27 February 2002 - 04:29 pm | | Peter,
ich kenne kein Hanratty, nie gehört.
Das war nicht meine Meinung.
Ich bin auch mit dir.
Du bist mein Führer.
Der Einzige. Ich setze dich über alles in meine Herz (nur unten Gott und Mutti).
Alle, die wir gesehen können auf offener Strasse und die gefällen uns nicht müssen im Gefangenis, besser im Lagers.
Auch die Jungen und Mädchen (vor allem Mädchen, ja, slurp!).
Besser wenn sie sind sehr jung.
Ja ! Das sage ich.
Und ich volge dir.
Graziano. Nein, nicht mehr,
Karl Heinz, dein (Sturm)soldat. |
Author: Peter Wood
Wednesday, 27 February 2002 - 06:17 pm | | Graz
That's just what I was thinking earlier!
Peter |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Thursday, 28 February 2002 - 02:23 pm | | You know, I usually am conservative enough to
support the death penalty although I have had
reasons to question it's use due to racism
(the number of executions of African-Americans
v. Caucasian - Americans) or individual cases
(Evans, Hanratty, Ruth Ellis). Even in cases
where a killing did occur (like Ellis) I have
considered that possibly the death penalty might
have gone too far. But on the whole I have
supported it - if the evidence suggested the
guilty party was indeed caught, and that there
was no extenuating circumstance to excuse it.
Then I read a few of the comments in this thread.
Suddenly I am at sea. No I don't like to imagine
the streets full of the likes of Christie, Brady,
Dahlmer, Bundy, or their ancestor (including Jack
or Neil or George or Fred). On the other hand,
I really don't like the image that the occasional
innocent party sacrificed to protect society is
worth it. It reminds me of Justice Hathorne of
Massachusetts Bay Colony. After the rehabilitation of the 20 hanged and crushed victims of the Salem Witch Trials in the early 18th Century, most of the people involved, including Justice Samuel Sewell, made public
penance. Hathorne refused - he thought he had done the Lord's work in protecting society from
the devil. His descendant, the novelist Nathaniel
Hawthorne thought otherwise.
In its callousness it reminds me of a statement
attributed to Vladimir Lenin about various
massacres that Communists police and soldiers were
responsible for: "You can't make an omlet without
breaking the eggs."
I don't think killing innocent people is a required job of any government - in fact it is the
strongest reason to question if that government
should be reconstructed. If there is supposed to
be a death penalty use it with great care, but not
with such a casual viewpoint.
Jeff |
Author: Christopher T George
Friday, 01 March 2002 - 12:20 pm | | Hi, Jeff:
A well considered and interesting discussion of your feelings about the death penalty. Thanks for posting it.
Chris |
Author: Peter Wood
Friday, 01 March 2002 - 02:22 pm | | Nothing more to add than that, Chris? You surprise me.
I wish this were an ideal world in which we lived. But it isn't. In an ideal world grown men wouldn't torture and kill children. In an ideal world mothers wouldn't suffocate their children. In an ideal world people wouldn't fly planes into tower blocks full of people with families, husbands, wives, children, friends etc.
Society has to be free to deal with those people. We can't refrain from prosecuting people to the letter of the law just in case an innocent slips through the safety net. The line has to be drawn somewhere. The difficulty is in finding where to draw the line. For instance, who amongst you would object to Bin Laden being strung up in the middle of Times Square and me and John Omlor selling tickets - no, giving tickets away free - to spectators? Well, would you object to that?
But what about the mother who drowns her four children because she is still suffering from post natal depression after the birth of the last one? (It happened over here). How many of you would want to kill her? I wouldn't.
So there are the opposite ends of the spectrum. And somewhere in between we have Brady, Hindley, Sutcliffe, the IRA etc.
Hand on heart, I really don't literally mean that "it's a price worth paying" and I'm sorry that I wrote that. I was in a foul mood that day, so wasn't thinking straight. What I really meant to say is that, in order to re establish the death penalty, you have to accept that at some point an innocent party is going to be sent to the chair or the gallows.
Now, in order to protect that one innocent party we would have to abolish the death penalty (again) for everyone. Thus allowing Sutcliffe, Brady, Hindley etc the opportunity to live in relative comfort for the rest of their natural.
I don't see the death penalty as a deterrent. I see it as a punishment. A way of getting rid of the filth that exists in society. I really wish that there were a different, more viable, alternative. But there isn't.
We've tried banishment. And what did that achieve? Kylie!!!
Sorry to be so light hearted in the middle of such a serious discussion.
Who would have the death penalty back? Who supports it where they've already got it? Who would want to "press the button/pull the lever" on people like Bin Laden? Saddam? Hindley? Brady?
I hope that straightens out the matter of my views on capital punishment. I don't like it, but I don't see an alternative.
Regards
Peter. |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Saturday, 02 March 2002 - 12:01 am | | Dear Peter,
Now that you have expressed it better, I understand what you were meaning. You are not
the only one who has written an extreme comment
in these columns and regretted it. I made a
singularly callous statement about W.T.Stead
recently, and his death in the Titanic disaster,
because I dislike Stead.
Best wishes,
Jeff Bloomfield |
Author: stephen miller
Saturday, 02 March 2002 - 04:04 am | | Hi Peter I refrained from answering your previous remarks but thank you for clearing them up my position on the death penalty is that if we have it in UK it must be regarded as a punishment/revenge and not thinly veiled as the ultimate deterrent because it isn't if it was no one would have been hanged in the past, but we must make absolutely certain that an innocent is not hanged before we re-introduce it how we do this I do not know so until we can be certain that the guilty parties are the only ones punished I will never support the death penalty
from steve |
Author: Peter Wood
Saturday, 02 March 2002 - 08:56 am | | Jeff, Steve
Thanks for the replies.
Steve, I understand why you would be reluctant to re introduce the death penalty unless you could be absolutely certain that the sentenced person was guilty.
But that is somewhat akin to putting the cart before the horse. I.E. Deciding the punishment before the trial has been concluded, then being afraid of convicting the accused because " ...if we hang him, it may turn out that he was innocent". Would you feel comfortable sending an innocent man to jail for the rest of his life? No, of course you wouldn't. You let the due process of law take it's course, everyone is entitled to a fair trial, then you decide the punishment. You can never afford to be afraid of convicting someone because of the punishment that they will receive.
I'm probably not making much sense here.
Put it this way: If you were the foreman of a jury trying a man accused of murdering his family, would you be more or less likely to go for a 'guilty' verdict if you knew that there was a chance he would be hanged? What if the death sentence was mandatory for murder and you knew that he would be hanged? So your only real option would be between hanging the man or acquitting him.
Do you see the problem this gives us? Can you see why I think it may be regrettable that innocents get punished, but it is infinitely preferrable to letting the guilty escape?
And whilst we are on the subject, what line do you gentlemen take over Hanratty? If you'd been on the jury, would you have convicted him knowing that he would go to the gallows?
Regards
Peter. |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Saturday, 02 March 2002 - 12:13 pm | | Hi Peter,
I think you've hit on one reason why the death penalty would never work again in this country. Society has moved on. Once upon a time it was thought perfectly ok for a man to hit his wife or rape her within marriage. Most right-thinking people would no longer hold such a view. Some parents today still think it's fine, and even necessary, to smack their children, but one day (in the not too distant future I hope) this practice too will be considered unhelpful and outdated as a method of correction.
How many juries these days would convict someone of murder, knowing they would be sending that person to their death? If the verdict had to be unanimous, I doubt you'd ever find twelve people gathered in one place at one time all willing to do this.
And you know what that could mean Peter? Every single person who committed murder could end up being acquitted, or at most convicted of manslaughter.
(Having said all that, I don't know what the answer is. Sending 'em to prison for life is bloody expensive and way too good for the likes of Brady and Hindley.)
Love,
Caz |
Author: stephen miller
Saturday, 02 March 2002 - 12:30 pm | | Hi Peter what you are saying makes perfect sense to me maybe it was myself who did not make my position clear
what I am trying to say is that those who support the death penalty should campaign for it under the name of punishment / revenge and not under the name of the ultimate deterrent I'm not accusing you of this I may say
As for my statement of making absolutely sure about the accused guilt I am talking about detection methods after all a good few convicted persons rightly or wrongly depending on your view have been released due to let me say dubious detection methods (The Carl Bridgewater case to quote an example) when this happens focus is taken away from the real victim to other victims who have been found guilty of the crime and then released and we are left with the situation of not really knowing who committed the crime
but I suppose I am hoping for a perfect world but maybe one day scientific advances will achieve my perfect world and then I would support the death penalty
Now if I was on a jury in a murder trial I would hope that I would conduct myself as I did when I sat on a jury for a lesser crime and that is weigh up the evidence presented at the trial and make an honest decision as to the accused guilt or innocence the sentence at the end of the trial should not influence anyone
I would like to see a change in our justice system that being a move away from the gladiatorial system we have at the moment in trials to one which lets every witness tell their full story and not just the points the counsel wish to be heard
Now for Hanratty if I had sat on the jury at his trial I think I would have found him guilty later events convinced me he was innocent but now the DNA results have been released I believe he was guilty
However if I had sat on the jury in the trial of Timothy Evans I would also have found him guilty on the evidence presented but as we know subsequent events have proved him innocent
at the moment I think that committing someone to prison for life is better than the death penalty because it isn't final and we do have the opportunity to correct any mistakes that may have been made
I hope I have not confused you as I am in a hurry and a little upset as Scunthorpe United have just lost to Mansfield
from steve
 |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Saturday, 02 March 2002 - 03:25 pm | | Dear Peter,
From what I understand about James Hanratty's
trial and execution (at least until this DNA
business came up) there were reasons to question
it. Possibly if he had been sentenced to life
imprisonment, with the possibility of future
evidence settling the issue one way or another,
it would have been fairer...but no criminal justice system is made to be a type of quiz show
like that.
I suppose that the chief reason I have for support
of the death sentence is a mistrust of opponents
of that punishment. We live in an age where people are supposed to have agendas, and my suspicion is that if you did do away with the
death penalty, these same people would start finding ways to cut down on prison sentences.
That said, I have noticed that opponents of the
death penalty don't like to mention those cases
where the prison sentence was too much for the
convicted killer. Here are some examples:
1865 - Well to do George Victor Townley cut the
throat of his girlfriend when she tried to
break their engagement in 1863. It was
an open and shut case, but like some others
where the perpetrator was wealthy somehow
the wheels of justice were less inclined
to discuss hanging. Townley's defense
demonstrated his family had a history of
insanity. Though found guilty, he was
sentenced to prison (there was a public
outcry about this). Two years later, while
walking outside his cell, Townley (who
could stand it no longer) jumped over a
railing and landed two stories below on a
stone floor. He died instantly.
1877 - Henri Pineaux, a former French valet, had
built up a second identity as Comte de
Tourville, a supposedly wealthy aristocrat.
In the process between 4 and 8 people had
died in a variety of ways between 1869 and
1876, including cut throat, poisoning,
shot in the head, and thrown off an Alp
near Lake Como. De Tourville found time
to become a barrister from Middle Temple
to improve his image. He was tried, after
a difficult extradition process, in
Stelvio, Austria-Hungary, for the murder
of his second wife, Madeline Miller. Found
guilty, his luck seemed to hold because
it was the Judge's first case (there is a
general tradition that in first capital
cases Judge's are "easier" in sentences).
De Tourville got 20 years. As there was
40,000 pounds in a London Bank awaiting him
when he got out, De Tourville seems in the
catbird seat. Actually he should have
wished he had been hanged. He was
sentenced to slave labor in Austrian salt
mines for the 20 years. His stamina could
not hold up - he died in physical and
mental agony in 1890, with seven years left
to the sentence.
1911 - Stinie Morison, alledged killer of Leon
Beron, was given a prison sentence due
to serious questions regarding the proof
of his guilt left unsettled by his
unsatisfactory trial. Morison, a burglar
before the trial, was a violent criminal,
and lashed out at prison warders
occasionally. Upon hearing that one of
the Scotland Yard Inspectors on the case,
Chief Inspector Alfred Ward, had been
killed in a zeppelin bombing during World
War I, he brightened and said it proved
there was a God. Finally, seeing he was
never going to be freed, he starved
himself to death in 1921.
1929-30 - Charles Pazram. This extremely violent
criminal, with scores of victims over the
years, purposely committed a final murder
(I believe of a guard), because he wanted
to be executed, rather than be stuck in
prison. The authorities granted his wish.
1936 - While opponents of capital punishment
point to this year as the one where
Bruno Richard Hauptman was convicted on
evidence that they question (and which
only they question), they forget that in
Illinois, another kidnapper met a belated
fate. In 1924, Bobby Franks was kidnapped
and murdered by Nathan Leopold and Richard
Loeb. Defended ably by Clarence Darrow
(an opponent of the death penalty - even
when his clients were open racists like
in the 1931 Massey Case in Hawaii), they
got life imprisonment sentences. Loeb
was slashed to death in an apparent
homosexual brawl in a prison bathroom in
1936 (his attacker was barely punished).
Leopold was freed in 1958, went to work
in Puerto Rico, and died about 1971.
I have a suspicion far more cases like these are
out there (one can add Jeffrey Dahlmer, also
killed in prison by a member of one of the minority groups he preyed on, and Albert De Salvo, the alleged Boston Strangler). That life
in prison is far from a picnic the opponents of
the death penalty would agree, but again I suspect they would try to reduce a life sentence
to ten years on parole.
Jeff |
Author: Christopher T George
Saturday, 02 March 2002 - 04:45 pm | | Hi, Jeff:
Once again you have impressed me with your phenomenal knowledge of the history of crime. Bravo. Thank you so much for enlightening us with information from those interesting cases. In terms of attacks on noted incarcerated murderers, we should note also the three attacks on Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, as documented on Keith Brannen's Yorkshire Ripper website. In the last attack, at Broadmoor Prison on March 10, 1997, fellow inmate Ian Kay stabbed Sutcliffe around the eyes with a pen, destroying the sight in Sutcliffe's left eye and leaving him with restricted sight in his right eye. It doesn't speak well of the British prison system that this man, detestable although he is, could be attacked and injured time after time by other inmates, does it?
Chris George |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Sunday, 03 March 2002 - 08:48 am | | Hi Chris,
No it doesn't. But I guess the British prison system, like any other, is made up of human beings, all with human failings. And inevitably there are going to be those who feel justified in turning a blind eye while one con is busy blinding another, because they think the law of the land has been too lenient in certain cases. (I'm not saying this happened in this specific case, staff shortages, not shortcomings, can be equally to blame of course.)
Again, apart from throwing more public money into the system to ensure this can't happen, I'm not sure what else can be done. It would be a strange choice for the British public, if they were ever asked to make it - to vote for a government who pledged to spend our money on better protection for the Sutcliffes in our prisons? Or to vote for a government who would bring back the death penalty because one can argue that the short sharp shock is actually more humane?
Love,
Caz |
Author: Peter Wood
Sunday, 03 March 2002 - 09:29 am | | "And inevitably there are going to be those who feel justified in turning a blind eye while one con is busy blinding another".
Ouch!
" ...apart from throwing more public money into the system ..."
I'd go entirely the opposite way. I'd take public money out of the system. If prisoners are to be kept in prison for the rest of their lives then let them live like animals, because that is how they conducted their lives.
I am a taxpayer. Some of my money was given to Ian Brady in the form of legal aid to sue the prison in which he is being kept. What the hell is that all about? Prisoners should lose every right once they are incarcerated. They should be treated like the scum that they are.
And as for the American guard who took the prisoners turban off at Camp X Ray, I'm right behind him. What next? Special diets?
The world has gone mad. We're all going to hell in a handcart.
Chris: The 'gentleman' you refer to 'Ian Kay' was sentenced to life for the murder of an assistant/trainee manager at a branch of Woolworths (I believe). He had been shoplifting and when challenged by the assistant manager, he saw fit to kill the young man and leave his girlfriend without a future to look forward to. He could have given himself up, took the fine on the chin, then disappeared without paying it. But no, he chose to take a life. And yet he will be feted as a 'hero' in prison for what he did to Sutcliffe. It disgusts me.
Put them in the prisons. Throw the occasional bit of sawdust on the floor. Feed them occasionally. End of story.
Human rights? My backside! There are 250 help groups in this country for offenders and only one for victims of crime. That disgusts me. We are so concerned with bl**dy human rights that we forget the rights of the victims to go about their everyday lives without being shot, stabbed, raped, robbed.
There was a case over here very recently where a young lout threw a homemade petrol bomb in the face of a seven year old. So what does the judge give him? Community service, because " ...it would not benefit society to send him to prison". Err, yes it would.
The Human Rights brigade appall me. They should all be put up against a wall and shot. They appeal for the human rights of prisoners so they can have colour t.v.'s, videos, gymnasiums, three decent meals a day with a choice of menu.
In Great Britain you get better treatment in a prison than you do in an N.H.S. hospital. Actually, you get better treatment in a prison than you would in a private hospital.
We could clear all this up by reintroducing the death sentence. Then they wouldn't have any human rights. They'd be dead.
Caz: If life imprisonment is too good for Hindley etc, would you be willing to throw the lever and watch her kick and struggle? I would? But, do it for her and you have to do it for the Ian Kay's and the rest of the vile scum that permeate our society.
Peter. |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Sunday, 03 March 2002 - 10:12 am | | Dear Chris,
To be honest, hearing that Sutcliffe lost his
eyesight in one eye in the attack does not bother
me - though perhaps it should. The problem to me
is that it just does not make sense to feel sorry
for the Yorkshire Ripper - one should be sorry for
his victims. If Sutcliffe had behaved normally
throughout his life, there would not have been
any crimes, and he would not have been in prison
to lose his eyesight.
That said, unfortunately it is a matter of police
responsibility to protect scum like Sutcliffe, and
he should have been protected from Ian Kay.
The same situation is a problem in American prisons, and some states manage to handle it better than others. Charles Manson, for instance,
has to be kept in isolation in his California
prison because many of the prisoners want to kill
him: a combination of ego-trip ("He's the guy who
killed Manson") and anger at Manson for one of the
killings - I believe the unborn child of Sharon
Tate (a lot of prisoners hate child murderers -
they feel, with reason, that is a peculiarly
heinous crime).
While I have thought of Draconian methods for some
prisoners, I remind the readers of this message
that the U.S. Constitution does forbid "cruel and
unusual punishments". Remove that you may have
some "fun".
Jeff |
Author: Ally
Sunday, 03 March 2002 - 12:52 pm | | Hi Peter,
On Friday you asked who would seek the death penalty for the woman who drowned her four children. I would. Why? Because she didn't drown four..she drowned FIVE. What's the difference? She was told after the birth of her fourth child when she had sever post-partum depression that she should not have anymore children due to the risk of post-partum psychosis. She and her idiot of a husband decided to go ahead and have the fifth, moronically deciding to have as many as God sends. She CHOSE to have the fifth, knowing what the consequences would be and therefore she is one hundred percent responsible for what occured. If she had done it after the fourth when there was no prior history, then I would feel differently. I also think that her husband should be brought up on accessory charges.
Cheers,
Ally |
Author: Peter Wood
Sunday, 03 March 2002 - 04:31 pm | | Hi Ally
Are we talking about the same case?
The one I refer to was in Great Britain, probably within the last two years. I was unaware of the latest details you cite.
Peter. |
Author: Ally
Sunday, 03 March 2002 - 07:12 pm | | Hey Peter,
Wires crossed. The big trial story States-side right now is Andrea Yates--killed her five children by drowning. It is the hot topic of the moment so I thought that you were referring to that.
My bad,
Ally |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Monday, 04 March 2002 - 08:34 am | | Hi Peter, Ally,
Peter, I fully admit that I would not be willing or able to personally send anyone to their death, courtesy of the law of the land or otherwise. I don't know what sort of person that makes me, apart from a miserable coward I suppose. The worst part is, I don't know that I could even do it to someone who harmed my own child. The people who think or say they could in these kind of discussions are fortunate indeed if they never have to put it to the test.
Ally, I agree it sounds beyond belief that the couple would be irresponsible (and masochistic!) enough to go ahead and conceive a fifth child under those circumstances. Do you know how old the fourth child was at the time? Is it known whether Andrea could have been under the lingering influence of her depression at the time, and not therefore in full possession of the faculties we normally take for granted? I'm not trying to find a single excuse for what she did, but I did have a good friend once whose post-natal depression (as we call it over here) was very severe and extended well past her children's toddler stage and was still evident when the youngest started school. Maybe Andrea's husband should take even more of the blame than you are suggesting, for helping put a potentially still vulnerable woman in that position. But I don't know enough about the case to judge.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Ally
Monday, 04 March 2002 - 09:02 am | | Caz,
Her second-to-youngest child was two and she was still be treated for depression following that birth. However, she was able to lucidly state how she methodically drowned her kids and how she had planned to do it before, but her husband had been home and she knew he would have stopped her. After chasing down the oldest child who ran from her after seeing his siblings drowned, she drowned him in the bathtub next to the dead body of the two year old (she had removed the other children one by one as she drowned them..she left the two year old in while she drowned the seven year old). She then calmly called the police and her husband and told them to come. She was depressed, no doubt, but in this instance, I don't think depression is an excuse. I do lay an awful lot of the blame at her husbands doorstep but anyone who can decide not to drown the kids when the husband is home because it wouldn't be logically feasible is rational enough to decide not to get pregnant again IMO.
Cheers,
Ally |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Monday, 04 March 2002 - 11:18 am | | Hi Ally,
Thanks for the info. What a desperately sad case. And what a terrible thing for a mother to end up doing. I agree that it goes against her that there was enough rational thought to prevent her trying it while her husband was home. At least had that happened it could have been seen as a cry for help and the children could have survived. It would be interesting to know what she feels she deserves to happen to her now - if she feels anything apart from dead inside that is.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Peter Wood
Monday, 04 March 2002 - 06:39 pm | | Ally Caz
Dear dear God! What is the world coming to? I cannot put into words how I feel about those poor children. It is made a million times worse that they knew exactly what was going to happen, at least the elder one did.
Why, you b*stard? Why?!!!
To quote Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode:
"I don't want to start any blasphemous rumours/But I think that God's got a sick sense of humour/And when I die/I expect to find him laughing".
That sums up how I feel right now.
I can't even think straight. I'm going to check on my children in bed.
G'night all.
Love and stuff
Peter.
xxx |
Author: Scott Weidman
Tuesday, 05 March 2002 - 05:43 am | | Hi Caz, Ally, Peter,
I don't know whether or not I wholeheartedly believe in the death penalty, but, in this particular instance, I should. That horrible woman doesn't even deserve to be called a "mother", let alone live, no matter if she winds up sentenced to a life in prison.
"We are born alone and we die alone. The earth is rich with our bones and women weep with the pain of new life. More bones for the heap."
- From the journal of Henry McCarty
Cheers,
Scott |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Tuesday, 05 March 2002 - 11:18 am | | Hi Scott,
There are also many many cases of husbands and fathers who slaughter their wives and children, but often they will take their own lives immediately afterwards.
It makes no sense to those of us whose minds are healthy. If they are so desperately unhappy with their lot, for whatever reason, you'd think they could just do away with themselves and leave their families alone.
The woman who killed her kids would have done herself and everyone else a favour, by the sound of it, if she had committed suicide rather than snuff out the lives of her babes. But without knowing what's been going on in her head it's impossible for me to imagine how anyone who has ever given birth, and especially one who has chosen to do so again and again, could do what she did.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Peter Wood
Tuesday, 05 March 2002 - 02:45 pm | | Ally
Thinking back on it, the story you cite is so similar to the one that I remember it makes me wonder if my memory is playing tricks on me. Maybe the story you cite is the one that I remembered (incorrectly).
What are the chances of two similar cases occurring across the pond?
Peter.
P.S. And Hanratty is still guilty if anyone is wondering. |
Author: Scott Weidman
Wednesday, 06 March 2002 - 03:59 am | | Hi Caz,
I have a difficult enough time accepting the fact that many parents of the animal kingdom eat their young (ie. lions, rabbits and polar bears- oh, my!), despite it being merely an act of nature, so trying to understand why a human being could willingly murder his or her own children is just too difficult to even take a stab at. No pun intended-- although this is a Ripper board, so what the hell.
Even Kronos paid the price of death for his nearly successful attempt to eliminate his children, but mythology doesn't really count here, does it? Sure it does.
If a hell truly does exist, I hope this woman is placed in the trunk of a car and pushed into a lake of fire, and may she relive the pain and betrayal and anguish and fear and helplessness over and over again for all eternity.
And I agree with you, if she was truly unhappy with her children, she should have instead gone the way of the do-do by her own hand. But suicide shouldn't even be an option for her now.
G'day to you,
Scott |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Wednesday, 06 March 2002 - 05:48 am | | I suspect that woman may already be reliving the pain and betrayal and anguish and fear and helplessness over and over again, in a private hell of her own making, without any help from lakes of fire.
And if she isn't, no lake of fire would even begin to melt such coldness.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Guy Hatton
Monday, 15 April 2002 - 08:48 am | | The latest (and probably final) attempt to clear Hanratty's name has commenced this morning in the Court of Appeal.
News coverage here. |
Author: Peter Wood
Tuesday, 16 April 2002 - 12:43 pm | | I read about that in my morning paper.
Apparently the "defence" are claiming that the DNA evidence should not be heard by the court due to certain procedural errors during the original trial.
That's right guys, try to stop them seeing the evidence that proves your lad did it. Either that or scream "Contamination".
Oh dear.
Oh dear.
Regards
Peter. |
Author: stephen miller
Saturday, 27 April 2002 - 06:28 am | | Hi All just letting you know that there will be a TV programme on Channel 4 next thursday night 9pm BST I think about Hanratty containing an interview with Valerie Storey
from steve
|
Author: Guy Hatton
Sunday, 28 April 2002 - 07:10 am | | Steve -
You're quite right - Hanratty: The Whole Truth features the first interview Valerie Storie has given for 36 years. Should be interesting.
Incidentally, it was stated in reports on April 15 that the appeal was expected to last ten days, but there doesn't appear to be any sign of it having reached a conclusion yet.
Cheers
Guy |
Author: Peter Wood
Sunday, 28 April 2002 - 07:25 pm | | Dear all
Just read a very interesting interview with Valerie (ahead of the tv programme) in my 'Mail on Sunday'.
One thing I didn't know (or had overlooked) was that Valerie had previously picked out a different suspect at the first police line up. In fairness I must point out that that first line up did not contain Hanratty.
One or two things she said during the interview made me think about other things we have been discussing on these boards recently and I wondered why I haven't made the connection before now.
Think about the situation: Boyfriend and girlfriend out in a car, lone "killer" abducts them, shoots the boyfriend and rapes the girlfriend. Sound familiar? Echoes of Joanne Lees? I know I have been sceptical of Ms Lees' story, but there at least is some 'proof' that such things do occur.
Apparently there was no forensic evidence at the time to link Hanratty with the scene, except to say that some shells from the murder weapon were found in the hotel room where he had stayed the night before.
Also strange was that the man who stayed in the hotel room the night before Hanratty, confessed to the rape and murder after Hanratty had been hanged, but then withdrew his confession.
Valerie is sticking by her identification, even though she admits to only seeing Hanratty's face fleetingly in the headlights of a passing car, the rest of the time having been ordered not to look at him. This is where another parallel with our discussions struck me, i.e. she identified a man after seeing him fleetingly. Sounds like Hutchinson's description of MJK's killer, don't you think? Or rather, the circumstances under which Hutchinson saw his suspect, i.e. fleetingly.
Valerie says that she identified Hanratty by his voice and his eyes. I don't know what to make of that.
All in all, I still think the DNA evidence is infallible. I don't think it could have been contaminated. It's pretty obvious what "type" of stains the police were looking for on Valerie's knickers, how else would such a fluid have got there?
So, I still think they got the right man, but nevertheless, food for thought.
Peter. |
Author: stephen miller
Monday, 29 April 2002 - 01:15 am | | Hi Peter In her first description she stated that the man had Brown eyes but later changed this to blue and she only identified Hanratty by the sound of his voice "be quiet I'm Finkinig" and he was the only one on the ID parade with a cockney accent
I'm not saying she lied or had been coached in her ID but because of the trauma she went through she may not have been the ideal witness that the police thought she was
As for the DNA it does look damaging but I don't know enough about how the contamination may have occured that Hanrattys' campaigners claim could have happened
all the best
steve
|
Author: Guy Hatton
Monday, 29 April 2002 - 06:07 am | | A couple of quick corrections -
Peter Louis Alphon, the first man interviewed by the police in connection with the A6 murder, and who has subsequently confessed to the crime, then withdrawn his confession on numerous occasions, was booked into room 24 at the Vienna Hotel in Sutherland Avenue on the 22nd August 1961, the night of the hijacking and rape/murder, which was the night after Hanratty is acknowledged to have stayed there. He took room 24, which was a shared room, reluctantly, expressing a preference for a single room. At some point that night, a cancellation occurred, and Alphon was transferred to room 6. Two of the hotel staff who were on duty that night, Charles Nudds and Florence Snell, gave multiple statements to the police containing contradictions which make it nearly impossible to ascertain what time Alphon arrived, what time his room was altered, and whether he was in the hotel at the crucial time. It is thought though, that he was not present at the time the cancellation became known, and that a note was left to the effect that he was free to move from room 24 to room 6 on his return, which he is believed to have done. The cartridge cases were not discovered until September 11th, though it is thought that only one other guest, an 'Indian gentleman' had stayed in the room in the intervening time.
Valerie Storie apparently did not change her description of the murderers eyes. Her earliest statements make no mention of the colour, which suggests that the 'deep-set brown eyes' description given publicly by the police was in error. It is not known at what stage, or by who, the word 'brown' was inserted. When Valerie Storie did describe the colour of the attacker's eyes, she gave it as blue.
Incidentally, prior to identifying Hanratty (apparently by his voice alone) she is reported to have expressed doubt as to whether or not she would be able to identify the man, saying that her memory of him was fading. This strikes me as a very honest admission, which perhaps stands in contradiction to the later (but perfectly understandable from a psychological viewpoint) insistence that the right man had been found and convicted.
The DNA evidence is certainly perplexing. We are accustomed to treating DNA evidence as a highly reliable method of identification, as indeed it generally is in modern-day cases, where an awareness of the potential of, and requirements for DNA profiling lead to great care being taken with samples. The problems in the case of the A6 murder seem to be (as far as I can gather):
1.) That samples were taken, handled and stored in accordance with the requirements of the available forensic techniques of the time - which did not necessarily involve the rigour required for reliable DNA analysis. (After all, the investigators could not have forseen such testing in 1961).
2.) That initial tests were unable to find a match, while later, more sensitive tests eventually did reveal a match with samples taken from James Hanratty's own remains. This strikes me as similar to the argument over the alleged presence of anachronistic chemicals in the ink used to produce the Maybrick diary, where it is justifiably argued that the smaller the quantity found, the greater the chance that what is being picked up is some form of contamination. As I understand it, the argument being put forward is that the the history of the samples is not well enough documented to be able conclusively to eliminate the possibility of contamination having occurred.
For my own part, I would have thought (though I am no expert, and am wide open to correction) that assuming there to be a reasonable quantity of semen on the underwear, it should not be expected to be a difficult job to find a match if the sample used for comparison is from the right person. Of course, if we are to argue that the DNA evidence is insufficient to condemn Hanratty, then we must also be prepared to say that the long-standing assumption on the part of some observers - that if it wasn't Hanratty who committed this crime, then it must have been Alphon - is also untenable, as no match whatsoever has been found with samples from Alphon; which in turn leads me to a question I have never seen asked: has the semen ever been tested to determine whether all or part of it may have come from Michael Gregsten? (I see no reason to doubt Valerie Storie's claim to have been raped, but I have long suspected that there may have been some coyness about the reporting of the reasons for a couple, known to be lovers, being together in a car parked in a field after dark, and after they had been drinking together socially immediately before).
Did I say quick?
Cheers
Guy |
Author: stephen miller
Monday, 29 April 2002 - 01:56 pm | | Hi Guy I thought of that today at work it would be interesting to find out the results of a DNA test against the sample on Valeries' underwear and Michael Gregsten ( you may have gathered that today I have not been very busy)
Sorry about my mistake with the eyes but why would the police issue a description of someone with Brown eyes unless they had been told the same
Again I am not questioning Valerie Stories integrity it just seems to me to be a mystery
all the best
steve |
Author: Guy Hatton
Monday, 29 April 2002 - 04:43 pm | | Hi Steve -
The origin of the 'brown eyes' description is indeed an enduring mystery, but it does appear to be the case that Valerie herself never specified any other colour than blue. Even pro-Hanratty campaigners such as Bob Woffinden and Paul Foot, for whom a contradiction in witness descriptions would be beneficial, seem to acknowledge this point.
As to the Gregsten/DNA point: I don't know whether a test has ever been done. It just seemed odd that nobody had ever raised the possibility. If the semen was indeed from more than one man, then it might help to explain the apparent difficulties with the tests which have been done. In fairness, it should be pointed out that, as far as I know, Valerie Storie has always maintained that she did not have sex with Gregsten in the car that night.
Cheers
Guy |
Author: Peter Wood
Tuesday, 30 April 2002 - 12:08 pm | | Regardless of when DNA examination was brought into use, it would have been completely possible for the police back then to have ascertained how many people V. had slept with that night.
And if you find Gregsten's semen there, so what?
They found Hanratty's DNA on Valerie's underwear, they know it was from a sample of semen. What more do you want?
Peter. |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Tuesday, 30 April 2002 - 01:07 pm | | Hi Peter,
I think it has something to do with reasonable doubt.
a) If the semen sample was from one man only, and that man was Hanratty, some might say it should have been a doddle to match it with his remains.
Reasonable doubt (on similar grounds as any reasonable doubt over the presence of chloroacetamide in the Maybrick diary ink and the conclusion that it is Diamine, as Guy pointed out. Some might say it should have been a doddle to match the diary ink and Diamine, by doing a direct comparison).
b) If Gregsten's semen was present, along with Hanratty's, it might just explain why a match proved harder to obtain, and remove the element of doubt. Hanratty's conviction might be that much safer as a result.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Guy Hatton
Saturday, 11 May 2002 - 04:20 am | | Apology: I would have posted a link to this article, but as the URL has commas, it wouldn't work with the board's formatting tools.
40 years after his execution, appeal judges say DNA is certain proof of Hanratty's guilt
Family vow to continue campaign to clear name of A6 murderer
Nick Hopkins and Owen Bowcott
Saturday May 11, 2002
The Guardian
One of the longest running claims of miscarriage of justice was comprehensively dismissed yesterday when the court of appeal ruled that there was evidence to show "beyond doubt" that James Hanratty was guilty of the murder for which he was hanged 40 years ago.
Recent DNA analysis of garments recovered from the scene in 1961 had provided "certain proof" that Hanratty had killed Michael Gregsten, said the Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf, sitting with Lord Justice Mantell and Mr Justice Leveson.
In their 215-paragraph judgment, they commended Hanratty's family and supporters for doggedly continuing their fight to clear his name, but said the campaign had "failed" and had been pursued "logically, but mistakenly".
One of Hanratty's brothers Michael, 63, said yesterday he was "appalled" by the ruling and vowed that the family would fight on. With another brother Richard, 55, standing beside him, he said: "I think the whole case is appalling.
"We have to get legal advice. We will fight on to the House of Lords, and then on to the European court if we have to. For 40 years there has been a cover-up."
The justices said the DNA evidence "made what was a strong case, even stronger", and described allegations that the police withheld important evidence from the original trial as falling "far short of what is required to lead to the conclusion that the trial should be regarded as flawed".
The story of the so-called A6 murder has troubled human rights campaigners ever since Hanratty's conviction. In the late evening of August 22 1961, Valerie Storie, 22, a laboratory assistant, and her married lover, Michael Gregsten, 36, a government scientist, were sitting in his Morris Minor beside a field near Dorney Reach, in the Thames Valley just west of London.
Suddenly there was a tap on the window and a masked man appeared, pointing a gun. He demanded Gregsten's wallet and Storie's handbag before deciding to abduct them both. The gunman forced them to drive round the outskirts of London until, in the early hours of the following morning, they were on the A6 heading north.
Gregsten, who was driving, was ordered to pull in at a layby on Deadman's Hill, near Bedford. The gunman shot him twice at point blank range then raped Valerie Storie. Storie was made to drag Gregsten out of the car. As she sat beside her former lover's body in the layby the gunman opened fire again. She was struck five times and left for dead.
The hunt for the A6 murderer made the headlines for weeks. The day after the killing, the gun was found under the back seat of the top deck of a London bus. In September, cartridge cases from the gun were found in a room at a hotel in Maida Vale. The hotel's register showed that a "J Ryan" had stayed there the night before the murder. Ryan was believed by the police to be an alias of James Hanratty, a petty criminal.
Against the odds, Storie survived, paralysed and wheelchair-bound. At a second identity parade she identified the killer as Hanratty, recognising him, she explained, chiefly by his voice. Hanratty was found guilty and sentenced to death on March 13 1962. His appeal against conviction three weeks later was dismissed and he was executed the following day - at 8am on April 4.
The night before he died, his father and two younger brothers made a final melancholy pilgrimage to Bedford prison. Separated by a glass screen, the family were not allowed to touch him. "The truth will come out eventually," the condemned 25-year-old promised.
On the morning of the execution, the Hanratty family were taken by their priest to the local church. Peter, who was 16 at the time, recalled the moment: "All through the night I had been watching the clock, begging it to go slow or stand still. They stuck the communion wafers in our mouths at 8am, just as he was being hanged."
Storie, now 63, remains adamant that Hanratty was guilty. She has said she does not bear his family any ill will but is furious with journalists who have campaigned for years to prove his innocence. "They have built their case on this myth," she told the Mail on Sunday last month, "and it has grown to become pure folklore. What I do find distasteful is that the family's belief in their son's innocence has been boosted by campaigners who have given them false hope."
Two prominent journalists, Paul Foot and Bob Woffinden, have written books examining the evidence and proclaiming Hanratty's innocence. Foot defends Hanratty's alibi that he was in Rhyl, north Wales, on the night of the murder. Both believe the defence at the original trial were denied access to crucial evidence which might have prevented his conviction.
Woffinden said yesterday the ruling was "distressing and shattering".
"I still believe that Hanratty was innocent. The prosecution did not have a coherent case and Hanratty's alibis cannot be dismissed in the way that they have been today. To me, the forensic evidence is incredible. We will investigate this further."
Pressure from Hanratty's family and supporters led to a reinvestigation of the murder by the criminal cases review commission, which referred the case back to the court of appeal for a second time.
Michael Mansfield QC, who presented the family's posthumous challenge last month, said there were 17 grounds for appeal and alleged there had been 24 incidents of non-disclosure by the police.
What followed was "a distortion of the trial process", he maintained, "in large measure due to the actions of the senior police officer in the case, Detective Superintendent Robert Acott".
The crown insisted that much of the material was not that important and that, by the standards of the day, Mr Acott's conduct was not aberrant. The officer has since died.
But last month's hearing was dominated by examination of the new DNA evidence found on Valerie Storie's knickers and a handkerchief wrapped around the murder weapon. The garments had been lost for 30 years before turning up in 1991.
Last year Hanratty's body was exhumed and tests confirmed it was his DNA on the exhibits. More significantly, the crown confirmed no material matched the DNA of an earlier suspect, Peter Alphon.
But the appellants insisted the exhibits had become contaminated during the many years in which they had been kept in close proximity with other forensic samples from the case. In their judgment yesterday, the justices rejected the possibility of contamination, saying the notion was "fanciful".
"The court accepts the prosecution's submission that the DNA evidence, standing alone, was in fact, certain proof of James Hanratty's guilt in our judgment, the DNA evidence establishes beyond doubt that James Hanratty was the murderer." The ruling added: "Neither the individual grounds [of appeal against conviction] nor the grounds collectively establish that the trial was so seriously flawed or unfair as to make the conviction procedurally unsafe."
The justices also fired a shot across the bows of the CCRC. "The court does not criticise the commission, but points out that a case of this age must be exceptional to justify this level of expenditure."
Hanratty's family had never ceased protesting his innocence. Michael Hanratty added after yesterday's judgment: "Every scientist who was cross-examined had to confirm that the evidence could have been cross-contaminated." |
Author: The Viper
Saturday, 11 May 2002 - 08:54 am | | Here is an online link which may be of interest:-
Yahoo News.
Regards, V. |
Author: Guy Hatton
Monday, 13 May 2002 - 04:30 am | | With apology as above:
Hanratty's appeal is over, but justice is yet to be done.
The hanged man's alibi is still solid, and vital questions remain unanswered.
Paul Foot
Monday May 13, 2002
The Guardian
Even a lord justice of appeal can work out that if you are in Rhyl, you cannot commit a murder near Bedford. The essence of the case for the innocence of James Hanratty, who was hanged in 1962 for the A6 murder, is that on the day of the murder he travelled to Liverpool, and then on to Rhyl. Soon after his arrest in October 1961, he told his lawyers that in Liverpool he had called at a sweetshop in the Scotland Road to ask the way to Tarleton or Carlton Road. Mrs Olive Dinwoodie gave evidence to say a) that she recalled a man looking like Hanratty calling at her shop and asking the way to Tarleton or Carlton Road and b) that she was only serving in the shop for two days - on August 21 and 22, 1961 - the day of the murder.
Seven prosecution witnesses put him in London on the 21st. So if Hanratty did go to the shop, he must have gone on the 22nd and could not have climbed into Michael Gregsten's car at 9pm that evening and shot him dead five hours later. Stumped by this evidence, the prosecution suggested that Hanratty might have "bought" the alibi - a surprising notion since the man who sold him such an alibi needed to look and speak very like Hanratty.
At his Bedford trial in January and February 1962 Hanratty changed his original story about what he did next. He said he had gone on to Rhyl, and spent the night there. He described the guest house where he stayed which had a green bath in the attic. The landlady of a Rhyl guest house called Ingledene, which had a green bath in the attic, said a man looking like Hanratty had stayed at Ingledene for two nights in the third week of the previous August. Cross-examined, she admitted that the guesthouse was full for at least one of the nights, and broke down. Her evidence was discounted. Over the years that followed many more witnesses substantiated Hanratty's Rhyl alibi. The most impressive was Mrs Margaret Walker, who lived in the street behind Ingledene. She went to the police during the trial and told them of a young man who had come to her house on the night of August 22 1961, looking for lodgings. Two other women in the street told the same story.
After interviewing all these witnesses in the late 1960s, I was convinced that Hanratty was in Rhyl on the night of the 22nd. I wrote a book about the case. The case was referred to the criminal cases review commission in 1997. Their inquiries were led by Bill Skitt, former chief constable of Hertfordshire. All the initial inquiries pointed to Hanratty's innocence. Right at the end, the commission carried out DNA tests on fragments connected with the murder.
For years, those of us campaigning for Hanratty's innocence had been asking for these DNA tests, but were told that no DNA could be recovered from the exhibits. In November 1997 scientists took a swab from Michael Hanratty, the dead man's brother. To the astonishment of the commission, there was a match with his DNA and a handkerchief wrapped around the murder gun when it was found after the murder, and a small square of knickers worn by Valerie Storie on the night she was raped and she and her lover, Michael Gregsten, shot.
In April 1998, a further swab was taken from Hanratty's mother. Michael Hanratty, Jim's brother, and his wife Maureen remember going to the old lady's bedside with Mr Skitt to take the swab. She remembers Skitt saying: "Your brother was innocent - we just can't explain the DNA." Another match was found, and later confirmed when James Hanratty's body was dug up later that year. In spite of the findings, the case was still referred to the court of appeal, which heard the appeal over the past few weeks. The DNA findings conflicted grotesquely with the alibis. If Hanratty was guilty, as the DNA suggested, he could not have been in Liverpool and Rhyl. If he was in Liverpool and Rhyl, there must be something wrong with the DNA.
All of us who had followed the case over the years hoped that the appeal would solve this contradiction. As it became clear that the DNA evidence was likely to be accepted, I wondered what new evidence would damage the alibi. Had the authorities discovered, for instance, who sold Hanratty his sweetshop alibi, or whether Hanratty had stayed at Rhyl on some other week that summer of 1961?
In the hearing, absolutely nothing was produced to cast any doubt on the alibi witnesses in the Liverpool sweetshop or the Rhyl guesthouse. Apart from a few remarks about the speed of Hanratty's movements if he did go to the sweetshop that evening (based, I believe, on a wrong assumption about the train he got to Liverpool), the judges (Woolf, Mantell and Leveson) passed on the unlikely and unproved prosecution theory that the sweetshop alibi was bought. Neither they nor the prosecution could find anything to discredit the witnesses in Rhyl.
What meanwhile was the case against the DNA on the knickers? The appellants suggested that over 40 years in police custody the fragment of knickers could have been contaminated. No one could explain, for instance, what was in a vial which had been stored among the exhibits and broken. Could it have contained fluid from a wash of Hanratty's trousers, which were also kept as exhibits and which contained some of his semen? No, said the judges. They accepted the DNA evidence wholesale, and then turned to the 24 cases of police failure to disclose vital evidence.
What about the ESDA tests which showed that a crucial part of the police notes of an interview with Hanratty - the part which referred to him using the word "kip" as the murderer had done, and which he denied - had been rewritten after the original notes had been completed? "Of peripheral significance" said the judges. What about the failure to disclose the alibi statements from Rhyl before the trial? That didn't matter because they were disclosed after the conviction and before the original appeal (where they were not used).
What about the sightings on the morning of the murder of the murder car as far away as Matlock, which contradicted the evidence of identification witnesses, and were notified to the police at the time and not passed on to the defence? Though the judges described this as the "high watermark of non-disclosure", they concluded: "We do not consider that on its own it reveals such fatal unfairness as to render the conviction unsafe." Every one of the appellants' complaints about non-disclosure was similarly rejected.
After dismissing the appeal and patronising the Hanratty family, the judges had a warning for the criminal cases review commission. "There have to be exceptional circumstances," they concluded, "to justify incurring the expenditure of resources on this scale on a case of this age." This was an echo of a similar sulk by another lord chief justice, Lord Lane, in the first appeal of the Birmingham six in 1986, which was also dismissed mainly on grounds of scientific evidence. The Birmingham six went back to prison for another five years before their innocence was finally established. James Hanratty can never be released, but as the expertise in DNA grows, perhaps scientists in the future will apply their minds to the DNA evidence in this case and seek to solve the continuing riddle of how it proved that a man who was in Rhyl managed to commit a murder near Bedford. |
Author: Peter Wood
Monday, 13 May 2002 - 04:57 pm | | Dear Guy
I read your post with much interest, so much so that I read it twice.
Perhaps in order to understand your arguments fully I should buy your book.
But it is not your arguments that I need to understand, but your motives.
What motivates someone to defend a convicted and executed murderer?
Who weeps for Michael Gregsten and Valerie Storie?
The evidence of the witnesses from Rhyl and Liverpool would seem to be that they saw a man who looked like Hanratty. Full Stop.
What was his description? 5' 8"? Short dark hair? White? How many people would that fit?
Hanratty does not and did not ever have an alibi. His semen was found on Valerie Storie's knickers and no amount of speculation will prove that it came from anywhere but Hanratty, not a vial.
I too love a good mystery. I sometimes laugh at those who see lights in the sky and talk about aliens living amongst us.
There are three things of which you can be certain in life:
You were born.
You will die.
Hanratty was guilty.
DNA evidence just doesn't lie. Human witnesses do and are not infallible.
Seriously, how many sweet shop assistants would remember any old Tom, Dick or Harry coming in to buy a bag of pear drops?
I admire your tenacity, but wonder if your energy would be better spent pursuing something else.
Regards
Peter |
Author: Simon Owen
Monday, 13 May 2002 - 07:10 pm | | I don't think that this can be contested now , the DNA evidence is pretty conclusive. I watched the TV programme on the case and it looked pretty open and shut.
Hanratty did it , one can accept the reluctance of the family to accept that , but he did do it.
The witness statements are sketchy at best , whereas Valerie Storie saw the killer's face from only a few foot away and heard his voice , she was hardly likely to be mistaken. Theres no reason for her to continually insist on Hanratty's guilt if it wasn't him.
No conspiracy here I'm afraid. Justice was done. |
Author: Caroline Morris
Tuesday, 14 May 2002 - 05:03 am | | Hi Peter, Simon,
I agree. But wasn't Guy simply posting the Guardian articles? The 'vital questions' were Paul Foot's, not Guy's.
Shoot the message to pieces, by all means, but thank the messenger for giving it to you to aim at. 
Love,
Caz
PS 'DNA evidence just doesn't lie'.
I agree. But one of these days, there will be a case in which DNA evidence from an innocent person (with or without an alibi) will be planted at the scene of a crime by someone who lies their head off. And because DNA evidence 'just doesn't lie', justice will be seen to be done but will not be done. Just a thought. |
Author: Andy & Sue Parlour
Tuesday, 14 May 2002 - 07:55 am | | Peter Wood, save your money.
Knowing someone very well, in fact he was best man at our marriage 34 years ago. In 1961 he was in Brixton on remand the night that Henratty was bought in. Within an hour the talk amongst all there including Screws, Police and, even the old Lags, plus all those on remand was, that this time the old 'Bill' had the right one.
Andy. |
Author: Peter Wood
Tuesday, 14 May 2002 - 11:18 am | | Thanks Andy, Caz and Simon.
Caz, I did my best to apologise to Guy in advance. I admire him for having the courage to hold his views, I just don't agree with them.
Peter. |
Author: Guy Hatton
Tuesday, 14 May 2002 - 01:23 pm | | Just to clarify:
As Caroline rightly points out, the content of the previous two posts under my name was reproduced from the Guardian newspaper, and was by the writers credited at the head of each article. My purpose was not to pass comment myself, but merely to keep the board up to date with developments. I thought it relevant to post the reaction from Paul Foot on the grounds that his authority in this case is, I believe, comparable to that of, say, Paul Begg, Martin Fido or Stewart Evans in the case of the Whitechapel Murders.
For my part, I am very close to saying 'OK, I was wrong all along', but I must confess still to being uncertain that the possibilty of contamination of the DNA evidence has yet been properly assessed. A strong (but unsupported) claim was made in the television programme to which Simon refers, to the effect that the DNA could only have found its way onto the handkerchief and knickers from first contact, and yet it appears that the scientific witnesses at the appeal still would not rule out the possibilty of contamination. I realise that I may soon have to accept defeat, but in the present circumstances, while this question does not appear to have been convincingly answered, I prefer to reserve final judgement just a little longer.
The TV programme, while interesting, was unfortunately very selective and simplistic in its presentation of the case. It appears to have been based on the premise that the DNA evidence must be correct, therefore any other evidence which seems to contradict it can be swept aside without proper scrutiny. Unfortunately, the historical facts of the case present a very complicated, tangled story which cannot be so easily reduced to a simple narrative with an obvious conclusion. Even if you choose not to accept his viewpoint (and I expect most of you would not) I still would urge anybody interested in this case to read Bob Woffinden's {Hanratty: The Final Verdict} (ignoring the obvious hyperbole of the title) as a thoroughgoing account of this case.
All the Best
Guy |
Author: Martin Fido
Wednesday, 15 May 2002 - 08:28 am | | Thanks for the compliment, Guy. For what it's worth, on this one I am eating humble pie and saying "I was wrong all along" - especially as, if I understand aright what's been established, the DNA categorically clears Alphon.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Peter Wood
Wednesday, 15 May 2002 - 07:19 pm | | Dear Guy, Martin
There is another programme on UK tv some time this week regarding Hanratty. Are either of you in the UK?
I believe it will be on BBC2, although I don't know which night it will be shown on ...I hope I haven't missed it.
Peter. |
Author: Guy Hatton
Thursday, 16 May 2002 - 09:21 am | | Martin -
I think you're correct in saying that the DNA testing has not found any match with Peter Alphon, and so of course a central assumption made by Foot, Woffinden and Jean Justice, that the case could be explained by exonerating Hanratty and condemning Alphon, has been shown to be false. Bizarrely and unhelpfully, this assumption has at various times been bolstered by Alphon himself. I think it must have been in the Woffinden-produced Channel 4 documentary a few years back that I remember seeing Alphon deliver his version of the Alexei Sayle 'Didn't you kill my brother?' joke. When asked 'If James Hanratty didn't commit the A6 murder, who did?' his reply was 'Then I suppose that would have to be me.' A very strange and obviously disturbed character, but seemingly not a murderer.
Peter -
I too recall seeing a trailer for a 'forthcoming' programme on the case in the BBC Horizon strand. I presumed they were holding it back until after the Appeal Court finished its deliberations, hence no transmission date was given at the time. I expect it should be scheduled fairly soon now, but I don't think we've missed it.
Cheers
Guy |
Author: Guy Hatton
Thursday, 16 May 2002 - 09:48 am | | PROGRAMME ALERT
Actually, I must thank Peter for including the words this week in his post above. I just wished I'd spotted that detail sooner, for in fact the Horizon programme is tonight, May 16 at 9.00pm BST on BBC2.
Hope this information reaches people in time.
Guy |
Author: Caroline Morris
Friday, 17 May 2002 - 04:49 am | | Hi All,
Saw the Horizon prog.
Apparently, it is potentially easy for contamination to occur in testing for DNA because you only need the tiniest flake of skin to find its way into a sample for that person's DNA to show up clearly in the results.
But this means it can work the other way too - because in the sample of fabric tested in this case only one man's DNA showed up - Hanratty's. If Gregston’s killer had been anyone else, and Hanratty's DNA had been introduced into the fabric sample as a result of his clothing being stored next to it, at least two sets of male DNA would have been evident.
I can't see, despite Foot's objections about the Rhyl alibi etc, how the case can possibly be anything other than solved.
Have a good weekend everyone.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Simon Owen
Friday, 17 May 2002 - 07:07 pm | | The only way Hanratty would be innocent would be if a scientific conspiracy had created or manipulated the DNA evidence and framed him.
Not very likely.
There were some mysteries concerning the case though - the two eye witnesses who saw the car in Ilford were probably mistaken according to the programme , the car being seen in Matlock was not mentioned at the trial and at least one page of Hanratty's statement had been rewritten after it had been taken.
If you take away the DNA evidence , there is probably enough evidence to suggest Hanratty didn't do it. As it was , the final appeal failed because of the DNA evidence alone , and it seems incontrovertable. |
Author: Guy Hatton
Monday, 20 May 2002 - 05:57 am | | I thought the Horizon programme dealt with the case far better in 50 minutes than Channel 4's offering managed in an hour and a half (I was especially pleased to see that the smug tone and selective account of the latter was missing).
A number of questions which had been puzzling me were answered (including one I asked above, regarding testing the semen against Michael Gregsten - apparently, a simple blood typing was sufficient to rule it out as his). Although, as Caroline says, it was shown how the extraction techniques used could amplify contaminents, the apparent lack of an obtainable profile from anybody other than Hanratty must make the chances of him being innocent vanishingly small. (In other words: 'OK, it looks like I was wrong all along'.
We are left though, with a fascinating insight into how a guilty man may make a convincing case for his innocence. Paul Foot is right, I think, to hold the view that all the other evidence points overwhelmingly to Hanratty's innocence, and that it is only the DNA which can be said to disprove it. Also, despite the appeal judges' expressed views, I think it is clear that there was considerable malpractice on the part of certain investigating officers. It was suggested in the appeal ruling that the actions of Basil Acott and Kenneth Oxford were not 'aberrant' by the standards of the time. Presumably, these were the same standards of investigation and presentation of evidence which had led to the hanging of Timothy Evans and Derek Bentley, and which in the Hanratty case went beyond mere non-disclosure to actually forgery. Not only were parts of the interview records re-written for no apparently good reason, but also, John Kerr told the court that he had made notes at the scene of the crime which included Valerie Storie's first effort at describing the gunman. Kerr recalled writing the description, which did not closely resemble Hanratty, on the back of a blank traffic census form. This he gave to the police. It then disappeared, only to be mysteriously 'found' again during the trial, except that this time it was on a different piece of paper, contained different information, and was not in Kerr's handwriting. Kerr himself branded it a forgery in open court.
One element of needless confusion which Horizon failed to address, however, was the question of the supposed Matlock sighting. The difference between the mileage on the Morris Minor's clock when discovered in Avondale Crescent and that recorded by Gregsten in his log book on August 21, minus the known distance travelled to Deadmans Hill from Dorney Reach, was not enough to allow for a trip to Derbyshire and back. Furthermore, the evidence of Edward Blackhall (who in both programmes was notably not mentioned) strongly suggests that it was the murder car in London at 7am on the 22nd. Blackhall was in the same car as Skillett. He identified the car by (if I recall correctly) three strips of red tape on the back bumper and a torn green sticker or label in the rear window. The chances of there being two Morris Minors around in the same area of London that day that matched in that much detail must be extremely slight. To add to the confusion, however, while Skillett picked out Hanratty at an identity parade, Blackhall, who was seated between Skillett and the driver of the murder car, and who would almost certainly have looked closely at its driver as he wound down the passenger window at Skillett's request, did not identify Hanratty as the driver. A sighting of a Morris Minor, driven in a similarly bad way in Bedford around 5.30am, would also appear to confirm that this was indeed the right car which was seen by Skillett, Blackhall and Trower. In another twist, though, it was suggested that Trower's view of the murder car passing in Avondale Crescent would have been considerably obscured by his own, much larger vehicle at the crucial moment.
All this is without considering the apparent strength of the Liverpool/Rhyl alibi. But that's another story...
Cheers
Guy |
Author: Simon Owen
Monday, 20 May 2002 - 06:48 am | | | I would have to agree with you Guy , having seen the Horizon programme it is only the DNA evidence that appears to convict Hanratty. A very mysterious case indeed ! |
Author: Martin Fido
Monday, 20 May 2002 - 10:36 am | | Guy,
While I hve enormous sympathy with all your positions, I'd have to say that quite apart from any question of police malpractice, Bentley was quite rightly convicted in law, since, regardless of what the police said - (and I've never had any doubts about Fairfax's complete probity) - Bentley had accompanied Craig with the intention to commit a felony and resist arrest should they be intercepted. So any death which resulted from their actions was felony murder, and subject to capital punishment at the time. The fact that Bentley was under arrest when the murder took place, and by then urgently wanted Craig to stop shooting was a mitigating circumstance which might be taken into account by the sentencing judge in his recommendation to the Home Office. It might have led the jury to exercise their inalienable English right to deliver a verdict showing their disapproval of the law. (Penn & I forget the other name is the classic precedent, and there are all the 18th century cases where a capital sentence was avoided by juries saying that inflation meant the value of the money criminal had stolen no longer "really" reached the required sum to merit the gallows). It undoubtedly should have led Goddard and Maxwell Fife to respect the convention that in a capital case where the primary killer is, for legal reasons, beyond the reach of the hangman, a secondary accomplice is reprieved. And for those two wicked old men I have little but contempt and lothing as far as this case goes. But I don't believe for one minute that Bentley was wrongfully convicted because of police malfeasance.
Nor, having read all the files, do I think this is true in Evans' case. The workman whose evidence the police were trying to get cleared up was so wildly confused, placing things on wrong days, that they simply had to call them back and get their stories straightened out. There is no evidence in the surviving notebooks that they corrected, amplified or distorted their written record of Evans' depositions. Evans, having voluntarily given himself up out of the blue to confess to disposing of his wife's body, then changed his story to say he didn't now where she was and he was protecting a man called Christie (for whom neither he nor anybody else could suggest any remotely possible motive at the time); then changed back to confessing again; and finally withdrew all his confessions and reverted to accusing Christie on the sole grounds that "he was there". What sane jury could have found him innocent? Remember all the neighbours in the street at the time thought of the Evanses as a quarrelsome couple, and knew Evans to be violent as we now know him to have been calculatingly dishonest as well as a habitual self-aggrandising liar-fantasist. The view in Rillington Place was in effect, "Poor Mr Christie, facing this cruel accusation from that nasty, violent little wife-beater turned wife=killer." Even Evans' family believed he'd done it at the time, though of course, like everybody else with anything but gallows-adoring garbage between their ears, they changed their minds completely when Christie turned out to be a sexual serial killer. Evans was innocent all right, but he hanged himself by his dreadful habits of lying and viciously losing his temper.
If you think capital punishment is an abomination, I entirely agree.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Guy Hatton
Tuesday, 21 May 2002 - 09:26 am | | Martin -
I stand corrected!
Guy |
Author: Simon Owen
Tuesday, 21 May 2002 - 01:57 pm | | The Derek Bentley/Christopher Craig case is one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British legal history , there isn't any other word for it.
Thankfully Bentley has now been posthumously pardoned ( 1998 ) but what a disgrace that it took 45 years to get it done , Derek's sister dying in 1997 before the verdict was repealed.
The ' Let him Have it Chris ' phrase was directed not at PC Miles who was killed , but at DC Fairfax who Craig shot in the shoulder. Obviously there was reasonable doubt over the meaning of that phrase , but the fact is that Bentley was already under arrest by Fairfax when Craig shot PC Miles in the head.
The judge's conduct in the case was appalling , Lord Goddard's interjections against the defence and refusal of clemency were disgraceful.
It makes me angry just thinking about it ! |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Tuesday, 21 May 2002 - 08:40 pm | | | Hi Simon, The law wanted revenge and they wanted a body. They were not about to be cheated.One of many such cases.According to a brief a third suspect was on that roof and he got away. |
Author: Caroline Morris
Wednesday, 22 May 2002 - 04:00 am | | Hi All,
And didn't Bentley's mental age make him, in effect, even younger than Craig, who was too young to hang? That bit never even begins to make sense to me.
Many wept openly on the streets when that poor boy was killed - by a country that preaches "Thou shalt not kill."
Love,
Caz |
Author: Guy Hatton
Wednesday, 22 May 2002 - 04:18 am | | Hi all!
Another can of worms opened! Should we perhaps open a separate thread for the Bentley/Craig case?
Cheers
Guy |
Author: Martin Fido
Wednesday, 22 May 2002 - 07:08 am | | Hi Ivor,
For what it's worth, your brief was in error. There was no third suspect on the roof, according to all the newspaper reports, court testimony, and evidence on police files.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Peter Wood
Wednesday, 22 May 2002 - 03:01 pm | | Guy
I have just watched the BBC2 programme on video tape and, for what it's worth, I would concede that, had the trial taken place today Hanratty would probably have been convicted without the DNA evidence but could have expected to be set free on appeal, with a nice bit of compensation in his back pocket.
However, the DNA evidence is damning - and Caz has rightly pointed out that only DNA evidence from one person was found on the samples tested. One question though - why wasn't Valerie's DNA found on her own knickers? Just a question ...
As for Bentley and Craig ...
Martin Fido has this one right. Bentley was rightly executed according to the law of the time.
And as for all the argument over what "Let him have it" meant, I think the implication of it was clearly understood by the police officers who were present at the time.
Capital punishment is not an ideal way of dealing with things, that much I concede, but the murder of police officers, people who put their lives on the line every night so every single one of you reading this can sleep safe in their beds at night, is the most despicable cowardly act there is. Therefore I am very happy to see police killers executed.
And Bentley was a murderer, regardless of his mental age. Where were his parents when he was going out with a known trouble maker? Once again, the parents have questions to answer.
The facts of the case are unavoidable. Bentley and Craig went on a burglary whilst armed.
The cry of "Let him have it" should not be construed as meaning "Give him the gun", it quite clearly means "Shoot him now and let's get the hell out of here".
But that's just my opinion.
Peter. |
Author: Simon Owen
Wednesday, 22 May 2002 - 08:32 pm | | What the **** !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can't believe you just said that Peter !
How cold and heartless are you ?
1) Bentley wasn't a murderer , he didn't kill anybody.
2) The phrase ' Let him have it Chris ' was directed to DC Frederick Fairfax who had apprehended Bentley at the time. Whichever way it was meant , Fairfax was NOT the man killed , he was merely wounded in the shoulder. He was still able to apprehend Bentley despite his wound.
Bentley was under arrest when 15 minutes later Chris Craig shot PC Miles in the head as he attempted to gain access to the roof , and killed him.
3) Surely the phrase ' Let him have it ' is open to speculation , and therefore there is reasonable doubt about its meaning. Therefore we cannot say for certain Bentley encouraged Craig to shoot at Fairfax.
4) The actual weapon was a sawn-off WW1 revolver and was estimated to only be accurate at a range of 6 yards , therefore it is arguable that the weapon was only a deterrant rather than a device intended to commit murder.
Surely murder means ' malice aforethought ' - was Craig intending to murder a copper , or merely firing bullets to keep the police at bay ?
5) Bentley was an epileptic with an estimated mental age of 11 , it was said that he was heavily influenced by Craig because of this. Not the other way around.
6) Goddard's handling of the trial was apalling , although the jury found the pair guilty through common purpose ( which was quite frankly an unfair conviction in the circumstances ) , Goddard flatly rejected the request for clemency by the jury and hung Bentley anyway.
7) Yes Bentley and Craig were going to commit a burglary , but the sentence must be appropriate to the crime. The establishment had lost one of their own , they wanted someone to swing for it , and so they achieved a massive miscarriage of justice to hang Derek Bentley for it. That was not justice , that was REVENGE !
8) IF the Bentley case is not one of the world's biggest miscarriages of justice ever , and a shameful indictment of our legal system - then WHAT , Mr Wood IS a miscarriage of justice ?
I bet you read Franz Kafka novels and cheer for the faceless establishment figures ! |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Wednesday, 22 May 2002 - 08:34 pm | | | Hi Martin, The brief in question was acting for either Craig or Bentley. I saw him interviewed on Tv several years ago and he refused to give the name of the third party.I take it that he obtained this information from his client who may not have been telling the truth.Many years ago when I was a youth I went out in the evening in company with another youth with the intention of committing a certain crime.While at the back of premises in an alley (with only one exit ) a beat constable turned up. The person I was with panicked and climbed over a fence.I decided to front it out and stood where I was. The constable asked, "What are you doing here ?"I replied, "I was caught short and decided to take a leak".He understood the problem and advised me to be on my way.Just as I was leaving we heard a lot of noise and the sound of breaking glass.He said, "What was that" ? I replied, "I dont know I heard a lot of noise before you turned up while I was taking a leak".He said, "Go the the police station and tell them that I need assistance". The station was only a few minutes walk away and this was in the days before a beat constable had a radio. So off I went to the police station thinking it would look suspicious if I never went there.So I told them that an officer had sent me because he needed assistance. I just sent them to the wrong address the other side of town which had a name not unlike the premises where the constable was waiting.I thought this would give the person I was with time to depart the scene.I then went home.To cut a long story short the police knocked me up several hours later and took me to the station. The person I was with had jumped over a fence and had broken into a building to hide.A passer by was stopped by the constable to fetch assistance after none had arrived in the first instance. The chap I was with was found on the premises and charged with breaking and entering. He had told police that I was in his company prior to him committing the offence.I was charged with the same offence. The judge at the crown court said that we had both gone out with the intention of committing crime so although not in the company of the other youth when he comitted the crime I was just as guilty. I got sent to a borstal. The moral of this story is that if you commit crime do it on your own, because you cant rely on others to keep their mouth shut. !!!!! |
Author: Simon Owen
Wednesday, 22 May 2002 - 08:40 pm | | | Isn't British justice wonderful ? |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Wednesday, 22 May 2002 - 08:52 pm | | | Peter, Dont blame the parents. My mother and father were as hard working and honest as they come. It was down to me what I decided to do when over the age of 18. No parents in the world could have stopped me from my chosen profession. My parents did everything possible to keep me out of trouble.The blame lays on my shoulders and mine alone.Also you dont hang people with a mental age of 11 or whatever.That is not justice it is revenge which in turn is no less than murder.As for the establishment it is a pity they dont practise what they preach. |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Wednesday, 22 May 2002 - 08:57 pm | | | Good point Caroline.Did you know that they abolished hanging in this country because they were hanging too many innocent people? |
Author: Martin Fido
Thursday, 23 May 2002 - 07:37 am | | Hi Simon,
Since Craig ws shouting, "Come on you brave coppers! Think of your wives" or words to that effect, one can take it that (interpreting his threats at the most generous) he didn't care whether he killed anyone or not. If anyone shoots my son or grandson while uttering threats at all and firing at random, I should be glad to have the law treat it as deliberate homicide rather than accidental death, even though I loathe capital punishment, and think the complete rehabilitation of Christopher Craig one of the clearest arguments against hanging or even incarcerating for life seriously disturbed adolescents who commit murder.
And mental age, like it or not, can only be a mitigating circumstance. There are perfectly virtuous and lovable people with congenital mental handicaps, and there are vicious and violent ones. Bentley was under arrest for the murder of PC Miles just in time to stop his appearance in court on a charge of violence: he may well have been turning into a frightening bully as well as a would-be petty or not so petty criminal by the time he reached 18.
For what it's worth, I agree with Peter's assessment of the meaning of "Let him have it," and don't think the element of 'reasonable doubt' was large enough to sway the jury.
Of course I have every sympathy with the crowds who deplored the hanging of Bentley, and I have the greatest admiration for his father, who tried to help the authorities stop protest from dgenerating into possible riot. I think the whole case was tragic, and, as I've said, Goddard and Maxwell Fife's refusal to exercise the customary prerogative of mercy in such cases was abominable. At the same time, the greatest tragedy, surely, was that suffered by Tony Miles and his family, and it tends to be pushed aside as though it didn't matter when indignation arises on Bentley's behalf.
In the end I think all the furious argumenet tat "Bentley was innocent" is akin to that going on still over Ruth Ellis. Mitigating circumstances should have won him a reprieve then, and certainly would be given far more attention today than they were in the 1950s. But in law at the time, the conviction ws right, even if the sentence was unforgivable. (Ruth Ellis, of course, was even worse served by a reactionary and blinkered counsel than Bentley).
Ivor - what a fascinating piece of evidence! I guess the brief you spoke to wasn't that dreadful counsel of Bentley's who said, "Frankly, I think both the little bastards ought to swing."
Of course we know that Craig had to use go-betweens to knock on Bentley's door and ask whether Derek could come out with them, since the family were not willing to let him go round with the disturbed and dangerous Craig. It is absolutely within the bounds of possibiity that one of them came as far as Barlow and Parkers with them, though I doubt very much whether he went up on the roof, as I don't think he could have got away unnoticed once the police had arrived and mmediately surrounded the building.
But your information should be in the hands of any future writers on the case (though they'd have to be awfully careful about the possibility of libel).
All thebest,
Martin F |
Author: Harry Mann
Thursday, 23 May 2002 - 08:12 am | | Had Bentle been concerned about his position,he was at that time under restraint,wouldn't he have shouted"Let them have it Chris".There was more than one policeman present,so disposing of one would not improve the situation to Bentley or Craig,if only one policeman was shot.
It may have been the right decision according to the law at that time,but was it just.
Parents are concerned,but beyond confining their children to the home,how else are they supposed to control their whereabouts and activities.
I have more sympathy for the mentally retarded than for the person who claims alcohol for their behavior.The one has the ability to control his condition by not imbibing.Had alcohol been Bentley,s defence,I would have thought the verdict a just one.
H.Mann |
Author: Guy Hatton
Thursday, 23 May 2002 - 09:08 am | | Friends, comrades -
I have started a new thread Derek Bentley, Chris Craig and the killing of PC Miles for the purpose of continuing this fascinating discussion.
Cheers
Guy |
Author: Caroline Morris
Thursday, 23 May 2002 - 09:39 am | | Hi Peter,
Going back to Hanratty, you wrote:
'Caz has rightly pointed out that only DNA evidence from one person was found on the samples tested. One question though - why wasn't Valerie's DNA found on her own knickers?'
I was actually careful to point out that only one set of male DNA showed up. Naturally, Valerie's own female DNA would have been evident too, but not relevant to the question of whose semen was found.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Thursday, 23 May 2002 - 04:22 pm | | | I can remember a case of armed police storming a house in the UK to arrest a suspect. In one room lay a small boy asleep in bed. The police shot the child to death while asleep in his bed. No one paid for that murder of an innocent child.I dont see the pro-hanging lobby hypocrites clammering for justice in such cases. Sweep it under the carpet it never happened. |
Author: Martin Fido
Thursday, 23 May 2002 - 05:16 pm | | Most of us will remember that case vividly, Ivor. It created a really unusual wave of sympathy for an armed robber, and despite the Thatcher period establishment's wish to see Ferocious Discipline applied to the Unruly Rabble it (coupled with three or four more unacceptable shooting incidents) led to a much more questioning attitude than the traditional "Our police are wonderful". It also led to much more stringent rules about the arming and training of police, despite Sir Kenneth Newman's threat to use rubber bullets on mainland Britain. And, on the other side, it produced some serious consideration of the stresses of police work which could lead supposedly cool and authoritative police officers to be so jumpy that they fired recklessly and inappropriately - in one instance maiming a lady and precipitating a round of Brixton riots, in another killing an innocent child in bed, as you rightly remind us.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Peter Wood
Thursday, 23 May 2002 - 06:06 pm | | Caz
How do you distinguish between male and female DNA? I'm sure they said they found just one person's DNA on the sample. If they had found two, would they have known one was female and one was male?
Peter. |
Author: Guy Hatton
Friday, 24 May 2002 - 05:43 am | | I'm guessing here, but shouldn't it be taken as given that Valerie Storie's DNA would be present and detectable on her underwear, and that it is not mentioned simply because it has no relevance to the investigation?
On the other hand, if only one person's DNA were detectable, and that was Hanratty's (which I do not think at all likely), then those who said 'there's something wrong with the DNA evidence' would have a disturbingly strong case which the appeal court could not reasonably have dismissed. I think we must take it that DNA from only one person other than Valerie Storie was found.
Cheers
Guy |
Author: Caroline Morris
Friday, 24 May 2002 - 05:58 am | | Hi Peter, Guy,
I distinctly remember that the Horizon programme used the phrase male profile more than once when talking about the DNA issue.
When they said only one set of male profile DNA was found - Hanratty's - they presumably didn't think it necessary to add that one female set, that of Valerie Storie, was also found.
I assumed, from the phraseology, that male and female DNA are indeed clearly distinguishable. But maybe someone else could confirm this.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Peter Wood
Friday, 24 May 2002 - 09:10 am | | I hope they can, Caz. Otherwise the waters are getting a bit muddied.
Peter. |
Author: Peter Wood
Sunday, 26 May 2002 - 10:01 am | | Interesting development from The Daily Mirror, Saturday just gone.
It seems that Hanratty did confess to the murder of Michael Gregsten and the rape of Valerie Storie. Apparently Hanratty was a religious kind of a guy who knew that his soul would burn in hell for all eternity if he didn't confess.
The priest who took his confession lied to the family after Hanratty had been executed 'to save their feelings', but couldn't take the secret to the grave with him.
Clearly he broke the tradition of 'confidence' in confessions, but seems to have lied to the Hanratty family for the best of reasons.
So Hanratty was guilty. Not only that, but he confessed to the crimes too.
Peter. |
Author: Simon Owen
Sunday, 26 May 2002 - 05:36 pm | | Did you read the Victor-Lewis Smith column in the same newspaper though Peter ? It made an interesting comment about Lord Goddard , apparently his valet had to pack him an extra pair of trousers as he had a tendency to get ' over-excited ' when he pronounced the death sentence...
http://www.mirror.co.uk/columnists/victorlewissmith/
--------------------------------------------------
POTTY PENALTY May 25 2002
FOR certain people, judicial power is even more thrilling than sex.
Indeed, the notorious sadist Lord Chief Justice Goddard used to become so excited when passing the death sentence that his valet thoughtfully began providing him with a spare pair of trousers.
Presumably, his Lordship took the phrase "the court will rise" a little too literally.
I thought of him this week when I returned to York Crown Court, to keep my promise by updating you on the two youths whose trial I covered three weeks ago.
I don't know either of them, but I wanted to see what sentence would be passed by Judge Paul Hoffman, the Honorary Recorder of York, who's gaining an unenviable reputation for toughness and seems to be out of step with every guideline issued by the Lord Chancellor's Office.
The crime they'd committed, you may recall, was "possession of cannabis".
Just this week, a House of Commons committee called for cannabis possession to become "a non-arrestable offence," while Lord Bingham (the nation's senior law lord) said it should be legalised. Our Home Secretary has made it clear that he, too, wants it decriminalised, as have the public in numerous opinion polls.
So surely Judge Hoffman would be aware of the nation's mood, and impose nothing harsher than a small fine?
No. Having accepted that the pair weren't dealers (he could hardly do otherwise, as a jury had already returned a "not guilty" verdict on that charge within 40 minutes), and having read out 10 points of mitigation (both had a previous good record, steady jobs, and an ill mother), he then sentenced them to six months in prison for cannabis possession.
And as he did so, it seemed clear to me that the real crime these two lads had committed was the crime of being born on the wrong side of the tracks.
Had they been a couple of middle-class boys, I'm convinced they'd have got off lightly, but because they were working-class, the book had been thrown at them.
This week, the Government announced a new support service for victims of miscarriages of justice. About time, too, but really it should be going straight to the heart of the problem: weeding out judges who are a law unto themselves.
Residing judges are usually the worst, because they soon become tinpot dictators in their own fiefdoms, impervious to all criticism.
But it's obscene that two people now have criminal records and damaged lives for activities which couldn't possibly harm anyone except themselves and which the country is moving towards legitimising.
Why is it that, when I think of British justice, the phrase "spin a wheel and throw a dart" comes to mind?
Although it's only May, Judge Hoffman reminded me of a September wasp, stinging for no reason except because he can.
Old Nietzsche put his finger on it (well, they do at his age) when he said: "Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."
You have not heard the last of Judge Hoffman.
V.L-S.
-------------------------------------------------- |
Author: Guy Hatton
Monday, 27 May 2002 - 05:09 am | | I'm sure the flood of people claiming that Hanratty confessed to them is only just beginning. Funny how most of them were nowhere to be seen when it looked as though he might be innocent!
Pinch of salt, anybody?
Cheers
Guy |
Author: Harry Mann
Monday, 27 May 2002 - 06:05 am | | | Did the priest then confess to the newspaper. |
Author: Caroline Morris
Monday, 27 May 2002 - 06:14 am | | Hi Guy,
Yes, one wonders why that priest decided he 'couldn't take the secret to the grave with him', if the DNA question has damned Hanratty and removed any need for the public to hear his confession.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Martin Fido
Monday, 27 May 2002 - 06:47 am | | Hi Simon,
The story about Godard's trousers with the suggestion that he suffered from involuntary ejaculation emerged in the press a few years ago, and emanated, I think, from an interestingly rebellious judge or ex-judge who was anxious for a good deal of legal reform and updating.
Having had quite a lot to do with the care of old people over the last fifteen years I myself think that the spare trousers were probably fact: the alleged reason for their need a silly and unpleasant slander. Urinary and faecal incontinence are among the the commonest, saddest and most humiliating disabilities of old age. Involuntary erection, let alone ejaculation, must be exceptionally rare. Complete loss of erectile potency is far commoner.
There's a lot I don't like about Goddard. But one can only feel sympathy for him when it seems that his memory is being blackened by what seems to be a jeering interpretation of an unforunate disability.
(I blame no one on these boards for repeating what has several times been reported as though it were fact).
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Peter Wood
Monday, 27 May 2002 - 04:46 pm | | The priest who took the confession from Hanratty is dead now and would have died before the DNA evidence became known. He only revealed what he knew to one other person, a fellow priest, he saw fit to release his information to the world.
Do priests lie? Too much salt is bad for you ...
As for the "young lads", who were 'born on the wrong side of the track' and whose mother was ill and all the other extenuating circumstances, etc etc. The judge got it right, same as the one who sent that old hag down for six months for not sending her children to school.
It doesn't matter what loony lefty members of the cabinet are proposing for the future, the law as it stands at the moment is the law, and they broke it.
It sickens me that 'do gooders' and loony lefties want to go soft on cannabis. If only you could realise that it is often a route into harder drugs, and can in itself lead to a life of crime and addiction.
Poor boys. Let's send them off on that safari with Hindley and Brady.
And don't forget, their mummy was ill. Pity they didn't think about that when they were up to no good with drugs.
Caught in the act? Take it on the chin like a man. Nah, not these "lads", they have an army of social workers to blame everyone but themselves for what has 'gone wrong in their lives'.
I won't be losing any sleep over them.
Good on yer judge! Now, how about outlawing smoking in public places? Yeurrggh, filthy habit!
Peter. |
Author: Andy & Sue Parlour
Monday, 27 May 2002 - 06:08 pm | | Peter W.
Well said, and add to the list the even more filthy habit of chewing gum, under and on seats and tables we are expected to sit at and eat from.Treading on the disgusting muck that is spat out on the ground etc.
We might not agree about some things, but we respect your views.
A&S. |
Author: Harry Mann
Tuesday, 28 May 2002 - 06:39 am | | Peter,
My mother sent me to school many times.Trouble is I didn't turn up.Her fault?. |
Author: Peter Wood
Tuesday, 28 May 2002 - 08:48 am | | Andy and Sue: Thank You.
Harry: In a word? Yes.
A child is conditioned by it's parents, everything a child knows has been 'learned'. If you grew up thinking it wasn't important to go to school then someone gave you that impression, it wasn't just something that grew of it's own accord.
Someone has to take responsibility and apparently the jailing of that old hag, albeit for a few days, has had a marked improvement on the absence figures at schools in G.B. with one mother dragging her son to school by the ear and remarking "I'm not going to jail for him".
Now, if only we could get some respect back for teachers and police officers ...
Peter. |
Author: Peter Wood
Tuesday, 28 May 2002 - 08:59 am | | One more important point to make, I didn't want to open a new topic for it, it just seemed apt to fit it in here.
Those of you familiar with the UK will be familiar with the story of the headmaster who was stabbed outside his school by an 11 year old (?) youth. I think the headmaster may have been called Martin Lawrence or something similar.
Anyway, names are not important. His widow, who has acted with courage and dignity at all times, perchanced to remark in a newspaper article that her husband's killer had shown no remorse for his crime.
I hope you're all sitting down, because - for what happens next - well, you just couldn't make it up ...
Next thing, she gets a phone call from a concerned social worker who asks her to issue an apology to the lad who killed her husband. That's right, the 'lad' was said to have had his feelings hurt by the nasty lady's remark and his social worker thought he deserved an apology.
What is this world coming to? Seriously? A man is stabbed to death outside his own school and a social worker expects his widow to apologise to the killer? If you don't know the case then just imagine Keith Bennet's mum being asked to apologize to Hindley and Brady for calling them 'heartless bastards'.
The view of such people as that social worker is that if you're not with them, you are against them. They then throw lots of "ists" and "isms" at you, the favourite ones of course being "racist" and "racism".
They haven't got a clue. If that woman had two brain cells to rub together she'd be dangerous.
Peter. |
Author: Ally
Tuesday, 28 May 2002 - 08:59 am | | Peter,
Sugar frosted cocoa bombs have been shown to be a gateway food to fat-ful and harmful foods such as red meat and real butter with devasting results. Therefore, all people eating sugary cereal ought to be imprisoned for 6 months. |
Author: Peter Wood
Tuesday, 28 May 2002 - 09:15 am | | Thanks for the invitation Ally, but I'm not getting into this one with you. Last time I looked it wasn't against the law to sell boxes of cereal on street corners or outside schools.
It's not even against the law to eat cereals in public.
And nowhere in history has it ever been recorded that cereal eating leads to crime.
The best part of cereal eating is when you open the box and can't wait to see what free novelty you've been given.
Oh look! A hypodermic needle! How novel indeed!
Peter. |
Author: Andy & Sue Parlour
Tuesday, 28 May 2002 - 09:33 am | | Peter W. Have you noticed it is always the minority that make the most noise and get their own way i.e. Liberty etc, I think that spokesperson would be calling a different tune if a member of his family had been raped,knifed or worse still murdered, (some victims of rape say they wished they had been murdered).
An item on the news today stated: A third of this country think we live in racialist society.
What they don't say is:
THAT MEANS TWO THIRDS DON'T.
I call that a fair majority do you?
Also with the World Cup making most of the headlines they start bashing the NHS, picking out isolated cases and exaggerating them. What about the tens of thousands that are getting excellent treatment.
No let's go and listen to the minority.
Instead we should be backing our NHS all the way and not knocking it.
And I thought we lived in a Democracy.
A&S. |
Author: Ally
Tuesday, 28 May 2002 - 09:50 am | | Cereal is Corrupting our Youth
LINK |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Tuesday, 28 May 2002 - 07:58 pm | | Peter, Your quotes:"I'm afraid I dont really care much if inocent people like Evans went to the Gallows."
"It is a price worth paying, the occasional innocent being strung up"
Such people are dead and cannot speak for themselves. But I am very much alive and will take this opportunity to speak on their behalf.
You have enraged my sense of justice by your indefensible comments and in so doing have shown your true ignorance.People with your attitude are an afront to the human race and if this casebook gave a prize to the prat of the year you would win it hands down.
If you were arrested for a crime you did not commit and were faced with the gallows you would change your tune at the first opportunity I would place money on that fact.
I do not intend to insult your intelligence simply because you have none to insult.As a policeman, or former policeman you are a disgrace and with idiots such as you in the force it is of little wonder that so many innocent people went to the gallows. Such comments show you as you really are nothing more than an obtuse and obnoxious sad little person.Where you got that chip ( more like a log )on your shoulder God only knows.It is more the pity that the likes of you are not strung up by the neck because you are no better than a Nazi. The obvious psychosis from which you suffer hopefully will lead to your ultimate downfall. Because this is a public forum believe me when I state that I am really trying hard to be as nice to you as I possibly can under such circumstances.Any person who voices support for such comments made from a cowardly, gutless, cretin such as yourself are as sick in the head as you are.You should be ashamed of yourself. |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Tuesday, 28 May 2002 - 08:32 pm | | | One very interesting point in the Hanratty murder was that the other suspect in the case lodged at the same address as Hanratty!!!! Evidence used againest Hanratty was found at this address.Two murder suspects in the same murder case just happen to be living in the same house.What is going on here? Hanratty was not the first chosen suspect his housemate was. The latter was dropped when the surviving victim failed to pick him out on an ID.She picked another guy out as the killer and he was innocent.At another ID she picked out Hanratty!!!This time the police took the ID as valid!!! What is going on here? As for the DNA tests all items from the case were placed in one box prior to the trial. So items from the two victims were together with items from Hanratty.Contamination of DNA could have happened at this point.The headlines at the time should have read,FRED KARNO'S CIRCUS HITS TOWN AGAIN.I am not saying Hanratty was innocent I have not studied the case enough to give an opinion but for God's sake do the job properly. |
Author: Robin A. Lacey
Wednesday, 29 May 2002 - 12:17 am | | This message was triggered by Ivor's comments on/to Peter Wood
Usually, I am very much an apolitical creature, but when it comes to Law and Order I am very much a fully paid up member of the “Flog-’Em-And-Hang-’Em-But-Not-Necessarily-In-That-Order” brigade.
I genuinely believe that the prevalent ‘bleeding hearts’ attitude towards law-breakers is morally corrupt and actively encourages anti-social behaviour and criminal activity.
If our (British) government held a referendum on the return of capital punishment, I would vote in favour of it; and I would do exactly the same if a referendum were held on corporal punishment.
Does this mean I am a raging sociopathic Right-Winger? No.
I’m an ordinary person sick to the very heart of my soul with being told that I must respect the rights of those who show no respect for the rights of others.
I’m an ordinary person tired of reading and hearing about our (British) current government’s pathetic ‘three strokes and you’re out’ attitude towards offenders (Okay, folks, you can commit robbery, violence, burglary, rape, or whatever you like, at least twice, but please be nice and considerate and try not do it a third time).
I’m an ordinary person frustrated and angry with the idiots in our society who brought into being the ludicrous situation that allows children to commit tens of crimes and make people's lives a misery, and all without fear of ever being punished for it.
I’m an ordinary person fed up with knowing full well that should I have the temerity to tackle a person indulging in a criminal activity, it is likely to be me, not the criminal, who ends up in Court!
I’m an ordinary person heartily sick of the woolly-minded people who think that child killers, cop killers, serial rapists, and so on, should be let out of prison.
I’m an ordinary person angered by social workers bleating mitigating circumstances for mindless, arrogant young thugs from so-called broken homes.
I’m an ordinary person annoyed by the fools who called for the abolition of corporal punishment in schools, and now turn a blind eye to the growing violence and ill-discipline in our schools.
I’m an ordinary person who wants full justice for the law-abider and suitable full punishment for the law-breaker.
Is that too much to ask for? |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Wednesday, 29 May 2002 - 12:44 am | | | Robin, You seem to have missed the point here.Do what you will with the guilty but leave the innocent alone regardless of their creed, or colour. Wood is not for punishing the guilty he is for hanging the innocent for Gods sake.I dont give a hairy rats backside what is done with child killers etc, but I do care when I see innocent people having their lives terminated by a bunch of ****HOLES whether for criminal injustice, political, or racist reasons.THAT IS WHAT I AM ON ABOUT. |
Author: Harry Mann
Wednesday, 29 May 2002 - 07:59 am | | Peter,
At the time of my truancy,a world war was being fought.Parents had more than just school to worry about,
Upbringing had nothing to do with it.Children as well as adults were being conditioned and changed by the situation existing at that time.
As I said before I make allowances for you,knowing of the deformity you were born with,but Ivor as usual clarifies your condition perfectly.
Harry. |
Author: Peter Wood
Wednesday, 29 May 2002 - 05:19 pm | | Robin: Excellent post and I endorse it wholeheartedly.
Ivor: Get back in your box. You just make me laugh. If your comments had upset me in any way I would be making a complaint about the vicious tone of your post, but Ivor, everyone knows you so I think your post says more about you than it does about me. Sleep tight.
Harry: I haven't a clue what you're going on about! Stay around a little longer and you might have another war to live through, shall we stop sending our children to school?
Andy and Sue: Did you know that you can now be found guilty of "unconscious racism"? It doesn't mean you did it in your sleep, it just means you did it but you don't know you did it. A police station I once visited had a tiny notice no bigger than a few inches by a few inches on it's notice board. The subject matter is unimportant. Next to it, undoubtedly on the same subject (don't ask me to explain how I knew) was the same notice in Urdu, Bangladeshi and lord only knows how many other languages - AND IT FILLED HALF THE WALL!
This country is so afraid of being accused of an "ism" that it now bends over backwards to sugar coat everything for the minorities, so much so that it neglects the majority. Isn't that a form of discrimination?
Let me make this clear, I do not have a problem with the colour of someone's skin. I don't have a problem with someone's accent, I don't even have a problem with people fleeing a troubled homeland and asking for our shelter (Ivor, if you were homeless and needed a hot meal, I'd feed you and give you a bed for the night). What I do have a problem with is that people seem to be intent on destroying everything that made this country great. Does nobody remember "When in Rome, do as the Romans do"?
Andy, we could just sit back and let them carry on ruining our society or we could do something about it. I am fully aware that people like yourself and Robin sometimes feel like you are banging your head against a brick wall. Get this, I'm typing this whilst watching The News at Ten and Paul Boateng has been elected to the Cabinet. Want to know how they announced it? They described him as "The first black cabinet minister". What's that all about? Why not tell us his age, his qualifications, his family? What's important about his colour?
I'm off to look at Ally's link now, for fear that there are some killer cornflakes out there, but before I go I should do Ivor the justice of responding properly to his post.
Ivor, I am not interested in killing innocent people, that would simply be silly. But Ivor, I am a realist and I recognise that if we are to have a society where the ultimate punishment is the death sentence then, somewhere along the line, there will be mistakes made and innocent lives will be lost. If we don't do something for fear of making a mistake then we will never do anything. But that undoubted fact does not, in my mind, mean that we should abandon all plans to bring back capital punishment. Zero tolerance Ivor, that is what I believe in. I know you have voiced frustration in the past at the attitudes of today's youth to their elders, Andy and Robin have echoed it. Me too. If you let someone get away with something small, then they move onto something bigger, then bigger still, then even bigger - then your authority as a nation is undermined and they don't respect you when you ask them to stop it.
I am all for capital punishment and yes, I am quite aware that innocent lives will be lost, but I am sure that it is less than the number of innocent lives that have been taken by Hindley, Brady, Fred and Rosemary etc etc.
There is no ideal solution, we have to bite the bullet and take a difficult decision.
I vote to bring back hanging.
Cheers
Peter. |
Author: Peter Wood
Wednesday, 29 May 2002 - 05:24 pm | | P.S. Ivor, your comments on Hanratty are grossly wide of the mark. You are confusing a house with a hotel where Hanratty stayed for a night. Do you research and then come back to discuss the subject with me.
Contamination? Oh please! I'm sure you could find a "brief" (as you like to call them in your pseudo bad boy lingo) who could say the Jews were willing participants in Adolph Hitler's "reforms".
Peter. |
Author: Peter Wood
Wednesday, 29 May 2002 - 05:26 pm | | >>> Question 1:
>>>
>>>
>>> A woman is pregnant and already has 8 children, 3 are blind, 2 are
>>>deaf, and she has syphilis. Would you recommend that she have an
>>>abortion?
>>>
>>>
>>> Question 2:
>>>
>>>
>>> It is time to elect a new world leader, and your vote counts.
>>> Here are the facts about the three leading candidates:
>>>
>>>
>>> Candidate A:
>>>
>>> * Associates with crooked politicians
>>> * Consults with astrologists
>>> * Has had two mistresses
>>> * Chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day
>>>
>>>
>>> Candidate B:
>>>
>>> * Was kicked out of office twice
>>> * Sleeps until noon
>>> * Used opium in college
>>> * Drinks a quart of whisky every evening
>>>
>>>
>>> Candidate C:
>>>
>>> * He is a decorated war hero
>>> * He's a vegetarian
>>> * Doesn't smoke
>>> * Drinks an occasional beer
>>> * Hasn't had any extramarital affairs
>>>
>>>
>>> Which of these candidates would be your choice?
>>>
>>>
>>> Decide first, no peeking, and then scroll down for the answer.
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>*
>>>* Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Candidate B is Winston Churchill
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Candidate C is Adolph Hitler
>>>
>>>
>>> Oh, by the way, the answer to the abortion question -
>>> If you said yes, you just killed Beethoven.
>>>
>>>
>>> Pretty interesting isn't it. Makes a person think before judging
>>>someone.
>>>
>>>
>>> Remember amateurs built the ark.
>>> Professionals built the Titanic.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> That's got you thinking.
>>>
>>> |
Author: Simon Owen
Wednesday, 29 May 2002 - 06:32 pm | | I picked candidate B , which is cool because I am a great admirer of Churchill , and I think his dad did the Ripper murders ; candidate A sounded too crooked and candidate C simply sounded too boring.
But this brings up a good point : WAS the Ripper a very boring , little man with some jumped-up notions about purity and cleaning the streets of whores etc ? If we walked past him in the street , would we even recognise him ? ( apart from being covered in blood and carrying human organs ! )
Hanratty , Sutcliffe , Hitler - was the Ripper just an little guy in the same way that they started out as ? Or did he belong with Bluebeard , de Sade , Ivan the Terrible and Vlad Drakul ? Interesting question...
I now feel terribly guilty as I would have killed Beethoven , luckily things didn't happen that way but I suppose it does illustrate a point. On the other hand though , that woman might have given birth to a serial killer instead who , half-blind , half-deaf and syphillitic decided to wreak a terrible revenge on the world. Who can say whats right or not ? |
Author: Simon Owen
Wednesday, 29 May 2002 - 06:52 pm | | Still , lets get back to Derek Bentley rather than discussing the merits of hanging , although I am personally opposed to the death penalty.
Rather than looking at things in legal terms , lets look at things in actual terms : Bentley did NOT kill anyone. His hand was not on the gun. It is debatable whether he ever encouraged Craig to even fire at DC Fairfax.
In actual terms Bentley did not kill anyone , yet under the law he was found to be just as guilty for killing PC Miles. To me that suggests the law is an ass. There is something wrong there. Justice was NOT done for Derek Bentley.
Its all very well to say the law is the law , but surely mitigating circumstances have to be taken into account in order for justice to be correctly served ; that Goddard refused to take these into account is a disgrace.
I have no sympathy for the view which states a few innocent people who get hung are necessary casualties to make the justice machine work. Thats fine , but what happens if it is your wife or husband or mother or son thats the innocent party and who goes to the gallows ? You would soon hear those who espouse that view bleat in that case ; as always its a case of ' not in my backyard ' again... |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Wednesday, 29 May 2002 - 07:40 pm | | Peter,So you do think my post vicious.As for people knowing what I am like do not forget that you were the one who was leaving these boards because you felt everyone was against you and having a go at you!!Insecure as a child were you ? Is that why you joined the police force? What a big girls blouse you are we should refer to you as Mary.The so called hotel was a converted house and it did not matter how long the two suspects were in the house together, your more of a plonker than I thought.Complain to who you like about my comments you big Jessie at least I dont preach hanging innocent people you zit on the face of humanity.I can just imagine you at school,
"Sir, Sir."
"Yes Wood what is it."
"Sir, The other kids called me a prat sir"
"Wood."
"Yes Sir."
"You are a prat."
To be nice to you is like asking me to be nice to a Nazi.You should be kicked off the boards for such evil comments. |
Author: Robin A. Lacey
Wednesday, 29 May 2002 - 09:45 pm | | Hello Ivor,
I fear you are right in suggesting that I missed the point about your response to Peter’s comments about Evans. I took your posting out of context, and for that I apologise. My comments, however, still stand.
To all following this thread,
When Shaka, first king of the Zulu, heard that we British imprisoned our criminals, he thought us cruel. In Shaka’s world it was considered better to die than to be incarcerated – and when you consider some of the horrid methods Shaka used to kill people, that really is something to ponder on.
Regards,
Robin |
Author: Jon Eva
Thursday, 30 May 2002 - 05:20 am | | | Beethoven was actually his mother's third child. The first two died in infancy. I don't think she had syphilis - she eventually died of TB. |
Author: Caroline Morris
Thursday, 30 May 2002 - 01:58 pm | | Hi Peter,
'...destroying everything that made this country great'?
What, in your opinion, made this country great in the past, compared with today? And how long in the past? The fifties? The thirties? 100 years ago? I just wondered what your definition of great was.
'But that undoubted fact does not, in my mind, mean that we should abandon all plans to bring back capital punishment.'
What plans? This country abandoned capital punishment as a result of cases like Evans and Bentley. I don't believe there have ever been, or can ever be, any remotely workable plans to bring it back. For starters, juries would not give unanimous guilty verdicts these days, in most cases, if there was a chance of the death sentence being imposed by an out-of-touch senile old judge.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Thursday, 30 May 2002 - 03:26 pm | | | Hi Robin, No need to apologise.I read somewhere that the Zulu race were listed as the 6th most intelligent race in the world. Which in turn reminded me of the proverb, an intelligent person is not necessarily the wisest. Such could be stated of Sir Henry Bartle Frere, and General Lord Chelmsford ( otherwise known as Tom and Jerry ) who both played a part in the "kick off" relating to the Zulu war of 1879. |
Author: Mary
Thursday, 30 May 2002 - 03:53 pm | | Yes Ivor
And I can imagine you touching your toes whilst the hot crumpets burned shame into your cheeks.
Did you have anything to say? Or are you just being 'Good old Ivor' again?
Nice to know that some things don't change ...
When will you lot ever listen?
I would wager my house that if there was a referendum (in Britain) tomorrow on bringing back capital punishment then the majority would be in favour. I would guess even as much as two thirds would be in favour, maybe more.
But wait? Innocent people get hanged too, right?
Well, yes and no.
We don't hang them because they are innocent, we hang them because they have been found guilty by a court of law.
Everyone of those people who I think would vote YES in a referendum to bring back hanging would be aware that sometimes innocent people get sent to the gallows - and I don't think it would dissuade them.
If we were to follow your line of thinking, then we would never take any action against anybody for anything for fear of getting it wrong.
We have to take action. We have to be prepared for the consequences. We have to be prepared that we could sometimes get it wrong.
But we must still forge ahead.
Lots of love and girly kisses
Sir! Sir! Ivor's playing with his ***** again!!!
Mary. |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Thursday, 30 May 2002 - 06:53 pm | | Hi Peter, Sorry I mean Mary,Why do many innocent people get found guilty by a court of law ?
Because the bloody evidence has ether been tampered with or lies have been told.Failing that the jury is as thick as two short planks.
No doubt you would change your views if you were arrested,tried, and convicted on a capital offence you were innocent of.Or for that matter if it happened to a member of your own family.
Some people would no doubt vote for hanging knowing innocent people would be hanged.Human nature being what it is some people are so selfish that they could not care less what happens to other people.They certainly would not vote for hanging if they thought that they would be the victim of such an injustice.What a silly question Mary, Do I have anything to say?You really should know me better by now.Sir! Sir! Mary is being rude again!! |
Author: Simon Owen
Thursday, 30 May 2002 - 06:54 pm | | Yeah , as I said before - the possibility of hanging a few innocents wouldn't dissuade those people until it was one of their own relatives being hanged for a crime they didn't commit. And then it would be too late. ' Not in my backyard ' again eh ?
I think its better to not have the death penalty , then we can at least put right miscarriages of justice if they happen , rather than deny that they ever do. |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Thursday, 30 May 2002 - 09:44 pm | | | The death penalty has various effects on various people. Some would rather be hanged than spend the rest of their lives in prison and for good cause. Look at Fred West and his brother they could not kill themselves quick enough.For you people out there that say bring back hanging for certain types of killers think on the following.Hang a child killer and that is the end of it. Put him in prison for life( and I mean life ) and he is in a living hell. I have seen at first hand what such people go through and what happens to them. Without going into a great deal of detail even meal times can be nasty affairs for them. Just because they may be on Rule 43 for their own protection they are still at risk. I have heard a man screaming,"mercy, mercy" and have heard the wise crack, "Listen to that he must be a Frenchman!!" and the screaming went on and on. For certain types of people prisons are far from nice places even in this day and age. |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Friday, 31 May 2002 - 01:55 am | | | Very valid point Simon, wise words. |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Friday, 31 May 2002 - 05:33 am | | Hello Ivor, how are you?- okay I hope. My thoughts on this capital punishment business have always been,--I'm for it. I think it has something to do with the age we were brought up in. Rules were rules- "the law", break them and pay the price.
My belief is if you intentionally kill in everyday civilian life- and your caught- how can you claim to have the right to live?--what gives the killer more right than the victim?. But anything goes these days, most people don't know how they stand with the law,--any part of it!!.
I think that that all prolific, kill for pleasure or gain killers should die,-- if it's 100% sure they are guilty, otherwise gaoled until they are too old to count. I'd like to emphasize that I don't believe in capital punishment as revenge,-- I want them put where they will never do it again,
but as usual the human society do not know how to be moderate,-- it's execute them all,-- or none at all.
I really don't think Deryck Bentley should have been killed, when Craig, the one who did kill is still enjoying life, I think that was one big mistake.
All the Best Ivor,our regards to Emily |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Friday, 31 May 2002 - 05:43 am | | You could say, treat Bentley the same as Craig,--one was too young for the gallows, the other didn't kill anyone. Or, ---keep Craig until he was old enough to go to the gallows for what he had done
Rick. |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Friday, 31 May 2002 - 03:45 pm | | Hi Rick,
Good to hear from you, we are both very well thank you as I hope you both are.Emily sends her regards. The only thing I dont like about hanging evil people is the fact that they just might go to a better place and hanging could be doing them a favour. So for those who we know without doubt are guilty of evil crimes keep them alive and make everyday hell for them.My mother used to say, "There is more than one way to skin a cat"
As Simon stated, If we dont have hanging then innocent people dont get murdered in the name of justice. But I dont think evil killers ( proven to be without a doubt ) of childen etc should be locked up for life having T V and such in their cells. One should always treat an evil bastard as an evil bastard, show them no mercy only show them what hell is all about.I have had to deal with many evil people and take it from me when I say there is only one effective way to deal with them.
In Wandsworth the child molesters and those on rule 43 have their own bloody brass band and a camera club for Gods sake.Its a bloody disgrace to say the least.I know where I would stick their trumpets and trombones.Do you know that the establishment even refers to them by a medical term when to every one else they are "nonces". When working as a medical orderly in Wandsworth Prison Hospital I heard one patient say to one of these unmentionables, "You f*****g nonce" this remark was heard by one of the prison staff nurses who said, "He is not" and went on to refer to him by the medical term used to describe such miscreants.The patient replied, "Thats what I said he's a f*****g nonce". |
Author: Simon Owen
Friday, 31 May 2002 - 06:54 pm | | | Yes , I agree again Ivor : I'm not in favour of the death penalty but prison shouldn't be a cushy number as we have to have a deterrant somewhere. Serving time should be a hard experience without luxuries. |
Author: Peter Wood
Monday, 03 June 2002 - 09:54 am | | Doh! Here we go again ...
The same old boring arguments about " ...you'd change your mind if it happened to you or one of your family ...".
Well of course I bloody well would! What a stupid thing to use as an argument!
And now we should only hang people when we are 100% certain that they are guilty? So it's o.k. to lock them up for life if they are innocent?
Everyone gets a fair trial according to the law of the land, if there is any doubt about their guilt then they should be set free, not just whacked in a cell and spared the gallows.
If they get convicted they get the rope.
More bleeding heart liberals ...
Peter.
P.S. I am prepared to die for my beliefs, my Queen and my country. I'll doubt you could say the same Ivor. |
Author: Simon Owen
Monday, 03 June 2002 - 06:11 pm | | Thats the point though Peter - not everybody does get a fair trial ! Derek Bentley certainly didn't as Lord Goddard was prejudiced against the defence and decided to ignore the jury's pleas for clemency.
James Hanratty probably didn't get a fair trial , luckily he was guilty anyway.
Herbert Rowse Armstrong didn't get a fair trial , the only solicitor ever convicted of murder and hung , in 1922.
And there are many others.
' Everyone gets a fair trial according to the law of the land ' - well , not in this land matey !!! Because trials are organised by human beings , and human beings are not perfect , make mistakes and bear prejudices then mistakes DO happen. If the criminal is put in prison though , then there is a chance of rectifying that mistake as well as a chance of reforming that criminal : if the criminal is hung , well then thats the end of it.
I thought your argument was that it was okay to hang a few innocents as long as the justice system worked. Now your argument is , its okay to hang a few innocents to make the justice system work as long as the innocents aren't my friends or relatives !
You are dismissive of my argument , but you have just proved its veracity ! And besides , the old 'uns are the best ones ! |
Author: Martin Fido
Tuesday, 04 June 2002 - 05:18 am | | What was unfair about Armstrong's trial, Simon? And do you have any doubt about his guilt? Think that Mrs Armstrong's body had absorbed arsenic from the soil in which it had been buried? Believe that the little major's little packets of arsenic were just for killing dandelions? And think Mr Martin just had an unfortunate attack of collywobbles after accepting the "excuse fingers" scone?
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Simon Owen
Wednesday, 05 June 2002 - 10:57 am | | Heres what I believe was wrong about the HR Armstrong trial , 1922 :
1) The prosecution case was based on entirely circumstantial evidence.
2) The evidence of Oswald Martin and the scones was prejudicial to the case regarding Catherine Armstrong , and should not have been presented to the court.
3) Dr Hincks lied to the court about not being aware of the return of Mrs Armstrong's delusional nature or her suicidal tendencies - he had been informed of such by Nurse Kinsey.
4) The prosecution medical team - including Willcox and Spilsbury - mislead the jury , indeed Sir Ernest Pollack prosecuting DELIBERATELY LIED about Wilcox's expertise with white arsenic and thus mislead the court and the jury.
5) The disgraceful summing up of Judge Darling has been described such : " It would be hard to find a judge's summing-up in the annals of crime that was more perverse and damaging to any prisoner...Darling never once made a point in favour of the defence and every single one of his utterances favoured the prosecution." ( Martin Beales ). The judge's summing-up was very much biased against the defence , basically dismissing the possibility of suicide and telling the jury that Armstrong was guilty !
6) Given the syptoms of Mrs Armstrong , it is most likely she died of Addison's disease , the disease which killed Jane Austen in 1817 and which was properly diagnosed in 1855. Mrs Armstrong was lacking many of the symptoms of arsenic poisoning.
7) Willcox and Spillsbury's diagnosis of arsenic poisoning with 24 hours of death was extremely suspect , in fact the arsenic could have been taken by Mrs Armstrong herself 8 days before she died. Spilsbury had said himself a single dose was most unlikely to cause death within 3 days at the earlier case of Crown vs Seddon , and he also said it could possibly have taken longer.
8) An appeal to the House of Lords should have been allowed on a point of law of pulic importance ( about whether the Martin evidence should have been allowed ) but since it was the Atorney General Sir Ernest Pollack who had to grant leave for that appeal , and since he had prosecuted the case and stood by the judge's decision , that was hardly likely. Pollack refused leave to appeal on May 25th , the home secretary refused leave to appeal to the King on 27th May , and Matthews was hung with indecent haste on the 31st May to get the damn thing over and done with.
It is possible that Mrs Armstrong took the arsenic herself on or before the 14th-16th February , or it is possible that Armstrong did give her the dose himself - BUT there is no evidence to prove that Armstrong ever gave his wife arsenic. Indeed it would seem most unlikely.
Nevertheless , HR Armstrong was hung as another victim of British ' justice ' on 31st May 1922 ; the fact that he possessed arsenic and used it to make weedkiller and kill dandelions does not make him a murderer. |
Author: Martin Fido
Wednesday, 05 June 2002 - 03:56 pm | | Hi Simon,
A very large "H'mmm!" to your point (1). The only alternatives to circumstantial evidence are confessional or eye-witness evidence - and both of these constantly undergo furious challenge on the (often valid) grounds that false confessions may be induced, may result from emotional tension, or may be falsely alleged by (especially) fellow-prisoners hoping for favourable treatment. My own opposition to capital punishment doesn't go the distance of welcoming attacks on convictions on grounds which, in aggregate, would never allow any evidence to convict anybody!
The rest of your points are interesting, and I look forward to looking into them some day. I must say I find Armstrong's litle packages of dandelion killer very suspect. I'd have expected some supportive evidence from those who knew his gardening habits, or the chemist to whom he explained his needs if it were true. And I'm very unhappy about the ongoing attempts to undermine many of Spilsbury's cases - Jonathan Goodman's defence of Norman Thorne, for example, seems to me very misplaced.
And the technical point that Mr Martin didn't really fall under the R.v.Smith precedent of proving pattern doesn't interest me greatly. A technical acquittal doesn't alter guilt.
But I agree that Darling was a roten judge. And I know nothing about Addison's disease. So while retaining a general feeling that Armstrong dunnit, I look forward to investigating the possibility that the poor little man went down for nothing.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Peter Wood
Saturday, 08 June 2002 - 12:17 pm | | Simon
Everyone does get a fair trial according to the law of the land, it's just that sometimes mistakes are made. Think of it thus, in a game of football "the referee's word is final".
I appreciate what you are trying to say - lock everyone up (rather than hang them) just in case it comes out in future years that they were innocent after all, then we can free them with a huge wad of cash in their backpocket (I'll bet Hindley and Brady and Sutcliffe are on their private lines, sponsored by NTL, to their smart suited lawyers as I type).
My point is that whether you are going to execute someone or imprison them for life, the burden of proof is the same.
I've said it before, I'll say it again. I want to see capital punishment restored. I know that there will be mistakes made, but for the most part they will be honest mistakes - and it is still a price worth paying.
And the law in that respect will never impinge upon my family because we don't put ourselves in the same position as the Craigs and Bentleys of this world. If my son had shouted "Let him have it Chris", I would quite happily stand in the court room and say "Let him have it Judge", because any cop killer is no son of mine.
Peter. |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Saturday, 08 June 2002 - 08:34 pm | | | Peter,Let me put a situation to you if I may. You are in a country which has not abolished the death penalty. A chain of events occur after which you find yourself charged with a murder you did not commit.You go for trial and honest mistakes are made after which you are found guilty and sentenced to death. You appeal against conviction and sentence and lose the appeal.You see your wife and children for the last time several days before the sentence is due to be carried out.The day arrives for your execution and you are taken to the gallows. You are made to stand on the trap and the noose is placed around your neck.Just before the trap is sprung would you still hold to the conviction that your life is a price worth paying ? Yes or no. |
Author: stephen miller
Sunday, 09 June 2002 - 03:41 am | | Hi Simon I have created a thread on the Armstrong case if you would like to join me there
Hi All I have been offline for a few weeks so I have only just caught up with this thread
I must admit that I have been wrong in my belief of the innocence of Hanratty the DNA evidence settles it for me now that I know from the TV programmes that his DNA was the only male DNA present
all the best
steve |
Author: Peter Wood
Wednesday, 12 June 2002 - 04:52 pm | | | Ivor: Yes. |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Friday, 14 June 2002 - 09:00 pm | | | Peter, You are kidding yourself. |
Author: Peter Wood
Saturday, 15 June 2002 - 02:42 pm | | Ivor, if the sacrifice of my life meant that we could keep in place a system that would hang people like Brady, Hindley, Sutcliffe etc, instead of putting them in one of her majesty's hotels for life, so that my children, my wife and my parents, my neighbours' children, wives, parents etc could walk the streets safely - then YES, it is a price worth paying.
But what is the alternative? Because "we" are 'too scared' to hang people just in case we get the wrong one occasionally, it leads to convicted murderers receiving ridiculously light sentences, rapists being let out to rape again, paedophiles being freed to roam the streets.
It may cost us ONE innocent life Ivor, but it would save a hell of a lot more.
Cheers
Peter. |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Saturday, 15 June 2002 - 09:25 pm | | | Peter,Thats very well for you to say as long as it is not your life on the line.I would have something drastic to say if it were my life we were taking about so would any other normal person for that matter.It is not the system that is at fault it is the people that work it who are to blame for the cockups. Not so long ago this goverment set free hundreds of IRA and royalist convicted killers. These people had murdered in cold blood men, women, and children.Many of these people died because of their religious beliefs while others just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.Between them these killers were responsible for the taking of over a thousand lives.Yet many of these killers spent less time in prison than some shoplifers,or other petty criminals before they were set free.What makes me sick is the fact that when all of these Irish terrorists were let loose no cry went up from the public in fact no one seemed to care less. In Ireland we have ex-terrorists holding political power. When are you and others like you going to get it into your heads that any goverment is more concerned about the politics of a situation rather than what is right or what is wrong. People like you vote these goverments in and place them into the positions which they abuse, so at the end of the day the voters are as much to blame as anyone.It was the German people who voted Hitler in to power which in turn led to the death of 54 million people.It has been estimated by some sources that 5 million children alone died in the death camps. All this was achieved in the name of politics by politicians.It is about time the voters started to shoulder their responsibity.The British are a nation of sheep who will put up with anything for a quiet life. We should adopt the tactics of the French and other countries to deal with our Goverments.The farmers started a good thing over tax on fuel and the people backed them. The goverment were grabbed by the balls and were screaming and what happened next? Instead of ripping their balls off the farmers were given a few crumbs and they released their grip on the goverment.A golden oppotunity was thrown down the drain. We get screwed by taxes on everything and except it like lemmings. At least the Amercians did not put up with such crap from a British goverment which led to them being free people instead of subects to be robbed and abused.I have as much respect for politicians as I do for child molesters. |
Author: lucky pierre
Sunday, 16 June 2002 - 01:59 pm | | | I like your style, Ivor. That last sentence about politicians and child molesters is pure poetry. |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Sunday, 16 June 2002 - 06:41 pm | | | Thank you Lucky. |
Author: Ivor Edwards
Sunday, 16 June 2002 - 06:59 pm | | | Peter,Every one does not get a fair trial according to the law of the land. Why the hell do you think we get miscarriages of justice in this country.Did you attend the police college with Mr Plodd in Toytown ? because when you make such unfounded comments I start to wonder. |
Author: Peter Wood
Monday, 17 June 2002 - 06:47 pm | | "Peter,Thats very well for you to say as long as it is not your life on the line".
Ivor, that is exactly the situation that you gave me - i.e. my life on the line and I responded to it.
As for the rest of your post, I wholeheartedly support your views on what the Labour party/government have done with releasing terrorists onto our streets, so please don't EVER level this accusation at me again:
"People like you vote these goverments in and place them into the positions which they abuse".
I have never voted for Tony Blair. He is pure scum, his buddies Two Jags, Jack Straw etc are in it for themselves. A bunch of w@nkers one and all.
Love her or hate her you could not level the same arguments against Maggie Thatcher. That woman put the Great back into Great Britain. Maggie would not put convicted terrorists back on the streets. Maggie would not invite convicted murderers to No. 10 for high tea. Maggie would not allow political activists, convicted of murder, a visa for entry into Britain so that they can campaign against our way of life.
There is no such thing as a true socialist anymore, just a champagne socialist. Tony Blair saw an opportunity to kid the British public and he took it, Johnny Public bought it too.
A true socialist doesn't wear a suit, he wears a flat cap. If you don't believe me take a look at what the ex miners (well done Maggie!) are doing these days and then look at Scargill's pension figures and the beautiful house he lives in.
Scargill did more damage to the miners than Maggie ever could.
Maggie was doing what was best for the country, however painful. Scargill was in it for himself. President Emeritus? Don't make me laugh! Do you think he went to the local wig shop and said "Give us the worst wig you've got our kid, I'm trying to look like a socialist"?
Next time you feel so strongly Ivor, you should use your vote.
Regards
Peter. |
Author: Caroline Morris
Tuesday, 18 June 2002 - 01:00 pm | | Hi Peter,
'Maggie was doing what was best for the country, however painful.'
Had we known that Maggie found what she did to the country painful, that would have cheered a lot of us up no end!
My dear old departed dad was one of the Tory Party's greatest fans. (Actually, he had something else in common with you too - he could write the cases where he believed there had been a miscarriage of justice on the back of a postage stamp.)
But daddy was disgusted when he discovered that in true blue Wandsworth, where he lived, the poll tax was nil (where the rates had previously corresponded with how affluent you were), whereas in Croydon, where hubby and I lived, in a two-up, two-down Victorian end-of-terrace, with one wage coming in because we didn't want our young daughter to be a latch-key kid, we each had to pay a high poll tax.
In fact, that little miscarriage of justice was probably the one my dad wrote on the back of the postage stamp, because his protest was to send what his rates used to be over to me to pay our poll tax with, so I could remain at home to look after his granddaughter full-time.
I considered that my father's only rebellion against his beloved conservatives.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Martin Fido
Tuesday, 18 June 2002 - 03:34 pm | | Right on, Caz!
Peter was, however, a policeman. And the fourth of Maggie's real and positive achievements was to pay the police properly for the only time in history. (The other three? Putting the kybosh on union executives calling annual pay strikes their members didn't want which were earning British industry potentially massive and permanent loss of trade with the rest of the world; stopping the nonsense of 98% tax bands wiping out the possible profits of creators and artists who might have one success in a lifetime, and once and for all killing the nonsense of those socialists who wanted a more than 100% tax band like the loons of Sweden; persuading Britain that the world doesn't owe UK a high standard of living to be maintained by plunging deeper and deeper into national debt). Had Maggie only done as well by nurses, schoolteachers, firemen and ambulance drivers as she did by coppers she might deserve Peter's praise. How can Peter waste the word w@nkers on generalized socialists when it obviously applies first and foremost to the politicians and senior civil servants in every known country who think themselves demonstrably more valuable than the real service workers?
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Peter Wood
Wednesday, 19 June 2002 - 04:31 pm | | When Maggie's policies were thriving and everyone was enjoying holidays in Spain, second cars and creature comforts she was getting hung drawn and quartered in parts of the press. Someone asked her why that was and she replied that the only thing she had done wrong was to not tell people what she had done right.
Maggie was too busy doing the job to gloat about it.
But what she said in her reply was probably the germ that gave birth to "spin". Within twenty years there was very little 'substance' left and now we are left with a government who 'spin' more than a spinny thing from spinny town.
The Conservatives were voted out of office because of, supposedly, 'sleaze'. Ok, so the occasional Giles Brandreth lookalike was found suffocated with an orange in his nether regions, but that is nothing compared to a cabinet minister who has lied openly on a mortgage application form (Mandelson), a minister for Transport who exhorts us to walk our children to school then takes a car three hundred yards from his hotel to a party conference venue "because the wife didn't want to get her hair blown about" (Prescott) and a Prime Minister's wife who feels sorry for suicide bombers. That's right, Cherie Blair didn't express any sympathy for the people the suicide bombers blew up, but said something along the lines of "Whilst young people feel the need to blow themselves up you will never have peace".
For anyone reading in America I ask you to consider that statement in the wake of September 11. How would that make you feel?
Blair is a low down guttersnipe. His government inherited the economy when it was in it's best shape for years, then used it as a 'flagship' achievement whilst simultaneously ignoring crime (released terrorists), increasing taxes ("there will be no tax increases") and failing to invest properly in public services ("we have twenty four hours to save the NHS").
My message to Tony Blair? Enjoy your last couple of years at No. 10. Your time is up.
Peter. |
Author: Martin Fido
Thursday, 20 June 2002 - 06:57 am | | Ermm... Do you really think the voting public was more concerned about the peculiar habits of Stephen Milliken (if I've remembered the unfortunate self-strangling transvestite literal w@anker's name correctly) than the showing up of devious Nixonian lawyer Maggie ("I'm afraid I have no recollection of that...") by down-to-earth honest Alan Clarke who refused to lie in court and send businessmen to prison for accepting secret encouragement the Conservative government suddenly wanted to forget having given?For all the gutter press's fascination with the sex lives of the great, I think most people had a clearer idea than the Screws of the World as to what political sleaze really is.
I hold no brief for Mr Blair, (a self-acknowledged fellow-admirer of La Thatch, Peter),and would, in fact, shout, "Maggie! Maggie! Maggie! Out! Out! Out!" at him if I ever found myself unfortunate enough to be at a public meeting he was addressing. But tremendously successful as was her feel for a true-blue if rather dim public ranging from country gents to the football hooligans whose patriotism she unwittingly and unwillingly appeared to endorse, let us not forget that when she was really gievn her head after having destroyed Britain's steel and coal industries, she took off for the higher looniness and provoked the first middle-class mob demonstrations against the government for decades.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Peter Wood
Saturday, 22 June 2002 - 07:11 pm | | Thanks for your views Martin. Maggie may have provoked the first middle class mob demostrations against the government for decades, but she only did it indirectly. The public have a choice: To demonstrate or not to demonstrate?
Middle classes rebelling? Does that mean the working classes are revolting?
And would John Major not take issue with all this owing to his vision of a classless society?
Bless Maggie, I don't think she has many moons left with us. Undoubtedly there will be those who will show absolutely no respect on the day she shuffles off this mortal coil (what does that phrase mean apart from dying?) and laugh openly. I for one will shed a tear for her.
Now, back to the subject of injustices. I suppose it has slipped the attention of all those who contribute here that one of the bleeding heart liberals' greatest "successes" in recent years, i.e. getting Stephen Downing released from prison after 27 years has now been shown up for the load of b*ll*cks that it really was owing to the fact that he has readily admitted that he did murder Wendy Sewell.
Oh sure, he's already retracted his confession, same as he did when he was originally arrested all that time ago, but make what you will of this little exchange between Downing and his girlfriend, cribbed from today's Sun:
"I wanted to know the truth, so I told him to prove his love and tell me who killed Wendy. He said 'You know, you've always known'. Then he dropped his eyes and said 'I did'. He claimed he didn't mean to kill her. He said 'All I meant to do was rape her. I hit her with a pickaxe handle. I knocked her unconscious. Then she started to come round in the middle of raping her'".
All those of you who are more concerned with the "rights" of the convicted criminal than with the victim should feel ashamed when you read those words above. But nothing will stop you from your quests to search out the injustices that you perceive. And nothing will stop you from being wrong. Again.
Peter. |
Author: Martin Fido
Saturday, 22 June 2002 - 07:54 pm | | Glad to see you back, Peter. I feared that the socialist ravings of one who is not a political scientist or experienced politician might have driven you off in disgust.
Mr Major - ah! Despite some terrible policies (like denationalizing the railways) such a decent man that I always had a lot of time for him, and welcomed his restoring British politics to a reasonable level of balanced discussion after the enemy-hunting hysteria of Maggie and the marathon rhetoric of the Windbag from wales.
I don't read the Sun; have never felt very strongly about the Stephen Downing case; am well aware that miscarriages of justice happen both ways round, and that villains and murderers get off sometimes; and popular campaigns are by no means the best guide to righting wrongs. That doesn't seem to me very relevant to the question of capital punishment, except that its supporters have got to commit themselves to going the honest length of the Tory MP who agreed that we've got to top a few innocent people as the price for making sure we can have the pleasure of killing the guilty. Them's his sentiments, okay, They aint mine.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Peter Wood
Sunday, 23 June 2002 - 10:47 am | | They might not be your sentiments Martin, but I agree wholeheartedly (if a little reluctantly) with them.
Regards
Peter. |
Author: stephen miller
Sunday, 23 June 2002 - 01:23 pm | | Hi All if I may interrupt here and bring the conversation back to Hanratty
With the DNA evidence convincing most people of his guilt what was he doing in a field near Dorney Reach at that time of night
When the focus was on Alphon an arranged killing/warning was hinted at by some but I can't believe this of Hanratty because he would surely have let the cat out of the bag when he knew he was to be executed
from steve in search of the truth
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Author: Martin Fido
Sunday, 23 June 2002 - 01:36 pm | | I doubt whether an arranged KILLING was ever intended, Stephen. An arranged "frighten this pair apart on behalf of our friend/relative Mrs Gregsten", more like, which went to pieces because Gregsten and Miss Storey refused to be frightened and simply laughed at the guy. Who got rattled, and then panicked when he thought Grgsten was going for an equalizer. I don't think the postulated motive changes at all.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: stephen miller
Sunday, 23 June 2002 - 02:00 pm | | Hi Martin that is what I was trying to say a frightening attempt gone wrong but for me it doesn't work with Hanratty doing the frightening as I have said above surely he would have spilled the beans when he knew he had no hope
steve |
Author: Martin Fido
Sunday, 23 June 2002 - 05:50 pm | | I'd have felt the same given what we know of his character, Steve. But I can't argue with his DNA being found on Miss Storey. And note that if he did the rape and murder in panic, he really hadn't got much to gain by confessing. He could well have been better off trying to get a false alibi established, even if it looked appalling to the jury (and convincing to those of us who followed Paul Foot) to switch from the north country to Rhyl in mid-trial.
Doesn't Miss Storey's statement (even if, as I suspect, politely edited for public consumption) strongly suggest that the motive for having a villain in that cornfield at that time was definitely the "frighteners" proposal?All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Peter Wood
Sunday, 23 June 2002 - 06:32 pm | | People murder in panic, but do they rape in panic?
Peter. |
Author: stephen miller
Monday, 24 June 2002 - 12:56 am | | Hi Martin I agree the DNA can't be argued with and maybe Hanratty didn't spill the beans to protect his family who believed and still do believe in his innocence
The only other sceneario to the frighteners one is that Hanratty was attempting a burglary in Dorney Reach and was after a car for a getaway but this doesn't fit because he would surely have taken an empty one after all he was an experienced car thief
Hi Peter I don't know if people rape in panic but in this case the rape seems to me to have been an afterthought
all the best
steve
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Author: Martin Fido
Monday, 24 June 2002 - 05:28 am | | Agree with you, Steve. And an afterthought distinctly aiming for relief of tension after the panic-driven murder. (Thus the historically familiar fact of rape following battles. Pace Susan Brownmiller, this has far more to do with relief of intolerable tension through mindless and cruel sex than with a calculated wish to humiliate the male enemy by taking possession of his females).
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Guy Hatton
Monday, 24 June 2002 - 10:19 am | | Agreed, Stephen, that it seems out of character for Hanratty to hijack a car as a getaway, rather than steal an unoccupied vehicle. I think the question of what Hanratty was doing in the area is still up in the air. It is rather too easily claimed that he had indeed gone and got a gun to do 'stick-ups' as he had earlier claimed was necessary because 'screwing' (housebreaking) was played out as a source of income. It should be noted that in between having this conversation and the commission of the A6 murder, Hanratty, completely contrary to his apparent plan of action, had in fact continued to concentrate primarily on housebreaking with a bit of car theft on the side. He had not been armed on the occasion of these recent crimes, so why now? Had he only just been able to put the plan into action? And if so, why in this way? Why hold up a couple in a field (presumably chanced upon) and not a bank or post office, as he himself said would be a more sensible target when interviewed by the police? Or do we leap to the 'frightener' scenario, in which case we have to explain why Janet Gregsten would be a party to such a plan when she was apparently quite tolerant of Michael's affair with Valerie Storie, or else explain why somebody else would take up the case despite (presumably) knowing of Janet's toleration of the affair?
Now if only we could go back to James Hanratty and say 'Come on Jim, level with us'...
Cheers
Guy |
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