Hanratty: Verdict Incomprehensible
By Simon Regan
27 May 1997

Good, honest, painstaking police work - and much of it is - should be a jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes it has very large pieces, for children, and you can almost see the finished picture before you put it all together. Others are far larger, more intricate and therefore more complicated. With all jigsaws, however, all the pieces should be there for you to discover before you on the table. Muddled up, of course, but it is up to a good policeman, doing his job, to sort them out and fit them in. He should build from the borders - the framework, the skeleton - and gradually work towards the middle until the picture is complete. That is called creating a cast-iron case. When he goes to court he should be fully satisfied that every little bit gels with its neighbours.

Even with jigsaws, however, it is possible for the unscrupulous to cheat. Sometimes he is only cheating himself, but the complete ethos of a good cheat is to fool everyone else as well. He may cheat, either by leaving out pieces altogether, and guessing at the finished picture, or by actually manipulating the pieces to fit in places where they shouldn't.

It is very difficult not to come to the conclusion that in the case of James Hanratty, they had hardly fitted the borders, let alone the main picture, before they got bored with the game, created their own vision of what it should look like, and promptly threw the other pieces away.

Few cases in the history of modern justice could be more seemingly incomprehensible than the hanging of James Hanratty in 1962. Any random, even amateur analysis of the murder, the police investigation, the prosecution and the decision of judge and jury, leave one almost spellbound with incredulity. Especially as Hanratty's execution was one of only three before capital punishment was abandoned in 1965. Public opinion at the time was fast approaching the thumbs down on hanging. Hanratty's execution is now considered to be one of the factors of the abolition three years later. Many people at the time, including a handful of high-ranking investigating officers, had grave doubts as to his guilt. Yet, on the flimsiest of evidence, he was fatefully convicted.

In fact, so incredible were these events that the only hard evidence which was discovered, was evidence to show quite clearly that Hanratty could not possibly have murdered anyone on the fateful night. All the real evidence points like a golden lottery arrow towards another petty criminal, Peter Alphon, who years later even confessed to the murder.

Before giving chapter and verse on the two sets of circumstances, it is relevant to ask three questions: (1) If, as now seems manifestly evident, the police created a singularly flawed case, jam-packed with doubts and inconclusive innuendoes, did they or did they not do a competent job during their investigation? (2) Especially regarding the high-profile public interest in the court case, why did the defence not pick holes in the seriously inadequate prosecution and create a defence of reasonable doubt in the minds of the court? (3) How could a judge allow a prosecution to continue when, to him at least, the evidence against Hanratty must have appeared so flimsy? It appears that, so convinced was he of Hanratty's guilt, he had no qualms at all in putting on the black hat at Bedford Crown Court in February 1962 and ordering that James Hanratty should be hanged from the neck until dead.

The Murder

On the night of August 22nd 1961 Michael Gregsten and his lover Valerie Storie, left the Road Research Laboratory near Slough where they both worked together as lab assistants. Gregsten was married to Janet who knew of the affair. It was by no means the first time her husband had been unfaithful to her. They drove off in Gregsten's Morris Minor car and headed, as they often did in warm weather, to Taplow Meadow, outside Maidenhead in Berkshire. They were kissing in the front seat when there was a sharp tap at the window. Michael could see who it was but at that time, Valerie could not. The man held a gun at Michael and said, "I am a desperate man." He then got into the back of the car, demanding that the couple keep their eyes ahead and on the road. With the gun figuratively at least at his head, Michael was ordered to drive off, first through the outskirts of Slough, and then out to the open road where he was ordered to stop in a lay-by on the A6. This area was fairly sheltered and surrounded by bushes. Locally, it was known as Deadman's Hill, a favourite for courting couples. The journey had taken more than two hours and when they stopped, the gunman asked Michael to hand him a duffel bag. Without seeming warning or reason, as Michael passed the bag, he was shot twice with the revolver. They were lethal shots. It was now dark and a terrified Valerie was then savagely raped before herself being shot several times at close range. Miraculously, she survived, although she remained seriously crippled for life. Also strangely for a series of incidences which covered an estimated six-hour time span, she only properly caught sight of the gunman's face for a few seconds as the headlights of a passing car lit up the whole scene. Before he raped her, the murderer had said six fateful words which would be the nub of the prosecution case. He said: "Shut up will you? I'm thinking." He spoke with a sort of non-accent - that is he did not speak with a Glaswegian or Cockney accent, for instance, but one which was distinguishable yet could not be properly geographically placed. Crucially, he pronounced the word "thinking" as "finking."

After ravishing Valerie, he then, callously, threw her out of the car, leaving her sprawled and in agony on the roadside, and drove off.

The Investigation

Naturally a massive murder inquiry got underway within hours, but the police were hunting almost blind as it appeared to be a random killing by a man who had appeared and disappeared from and into nowhere. They put out an identikit picture; they were looking for the murder weapon; and they were hunting for a man who pronounced 'thinking' as 'finking'. Basically, that was all they had. They had one suspect, Alphon, who not only fitted the identikit picture, but could not account for his movements on the night of the murder. They had even got as far as arresting him as a suspect.

It is here at which the whole sorry saga becomes somewhat bizarre and incredible. Mrs. Gregsten and Hanratty were both coincidentally in Blackpool on the same day. She on pleasure, he on business. She caught sight of Hanratty and called the police. Even though she had not been at the scene of the murder, she told them she had an "intuition" that Hanratty was the murderer. It is not clear why the police should have acted so decisively on a whim of fancy, but they brought Hanratty in for questioning and his alibi did not at first stand up. After this, while investigating him and his recent movements, they found the cartridge shells of two bullets from the murder weapon in a room at the Vienna Hotel in London. It was soon ascertained that Hanratty had indeed stayed there under the false name of James Ryan. From then onwards the police looked no further. James Hanratty had been walking casually down Blackpool's seafront, seemingly without a care in the world, then suddenly he was in a police cell, facing a charge of the first degree murder of a person he had never met. I just hate to think of his state of mind at that point. But it got a lot worse.

The fact that a chance intuition in Blackpool had identified a man directly connected to the murder seems like a chance in a million. And indeed, it was a very incredible coincidence. Enough for the police to completely rule it out as a coincidence. Still, however there was no forensic evidence against Hanratty, even after the closest of examinations of the car.

Hanratty was lined up for an identification parade. At first Valerie was unable to pick him out. She apologised: "I'm sorry. I only saw him for a few seconds. It's very difficult." She admitted also that during and after the event, she had been severely traumatised and this had played around with her memory. However, at a second ID parade she made the whole line-up repeat, over and over, the words: "Be quiet will you? I'm thinking." She was sure Hanratty said "finking" and eventually picked him out as the killer. At this stage it appears the police were convinced they had got their man, and any checking of a contrary account got the most rudimentary of attention.

At this point Hanratty changed the circumstances of his alibi, and swore, that in his original, he had been protecting friends. He had in fact been in Rhyl, North Wales, 250 miles away from the murder scene on the night in question. Probably believing that Hanratty was just trying to throw up a further smoke screen, it appears the police made only a routine check in Rhyl and quickly abandoned that line of investigation. Here is a definite and identifiable police flaw because, immediately after he was hanged, no less than 14 people came forward to say they had seen and spoken to Hanratty on the night of the murder. The police had not interviewed a single one of them.

The Court Case

In effect, the police went to court simply and solely on the identification by Valerie Storie, and the coincidence that Hanratty had once stayed at the Vienna Hotel. No man in the dock has ever protested his innocence more firmly and emotionally than James Hanratty. He did so right to the gallows.

There were several unfortunate additional factors, and they are by no means new to the law courts. Valerie Storie was in a wheelchair, still badly crippled and emotionally traumatised. The defence believed that it would harm their client if they cross examined her too fiercely, even though they saw quite clearly that she had gained the entire sympathy of the court and that her evidence was so vital. The cross examination was therefore weak and inconclusive. A harder examination may well have revealed some doubts and inconsistencies which would have at least sewn some suspicions. As her testimony - a positive identification - was left completely unchallenged by the defence, it became the crucial factor, even though a man was to lose his life over the simple mispronunciation of a single word.

It took the jury only nine and a half hours to put the noose around Hanratty's neck.

The Alternatives

What if the police had followed up the other option, one they had quickly abandoned as soon as they were convinced Hanratty was guilty? At this point Peter Alphon was dropped as a suspect. With complete tunnel vision, they dropped any further inquiries into Alphon and concentrated solely on Hanratty. Had they pursued their original inquiries, they would have found that (i) Alphon had also stayed in the Vienna hotel at the time in question. (ii) He could not supply a single alibi, let alone a credible one. (iii) He was a friend of Michael's wife and later claimed she had put up £5,000 to "frighten" the unfaithful couple. (iii) He also pronounced 'thinking' as 'finking'. (iv) Many witnesses spotted the car as it drove away from the murder scene and beyond. They all attested it was being driven erratically. Hanratty was a very experienced driver. Alphon had not even passed his test. (v) Alphon bore a striking resemblance to the identikit picture. Hanratty did not. (vi) Alphon was clearly identified by customers at a village pub which the couple had visited at the same time the night before the murder. (vii) Hanratty was a city man, well liked by his colleagues. He was 'social' and had never shown the slightest sign of neurosis. He came from a loving and secure family who for thirty years have relentlessly campaigned for his pardon. He just didn't fit the picture of a random killer and rapist. Alphon was a petty criminal, a loner, and would-be salesman roaming the country without a proper job. A psychological analysis would have pin-pointedhim to the crime far more closely than Hanratty.

All this could have been available to any investigation which was being properly conducted. What was not available at the time was Alphon's 'confession' many years later in Paris where he claimed he was paid a large sum to "damage" Storie and Gregsten, although he retracted this mysteriously when Paul Foot interviewed him for the book Who Killed Hanratty. Also not available was any kind of DNA testing, which would have proved irrefutable. But there were enough other factors to sew the seeds of doubt.

But, even if all the above did not create a situation of "beyond reasonable doubt" in the case of Alphon, surely it did (had it been properly presented by the defence) in the case of Hanratty. Here, clearly, was an alternative to the prosecution's case which would have given the court serious thought.

Sloppy police work, closely followed by a lacklustre defence, clearly put the noose around Hanratty's head. At the very end there was a culpable miscarriage of justice in which no one was prepared to do their job properly.

The Conclusion

Within a few weeks of the execution doubts began to creep into various people's minds, including Mrs. Gregsten's, the investigating police, and the judiciary. It was almost certainly these persistent doubts that led the government to the abolition of hanging. (Hanratty, and perhaps the case of Ruth Ellis - the last woman to be hanged).

The establishment, however, always hate to admit they may have got it wrong, especially if a man has died because of it. But over thirty years, the evidence against Hanratty being guilty has mounted ferociously. Alphon has since admitted it. Witnesses came forward from Wales. And finally a DNA test showed conclusively that he was entirely innocent. Hanratty's family have campaigned for all that time, and justice has been agonisingly slow.

Like many of the other cases we have investigated, this is just another one to show the vulnerability of our legal system, especially when a whole set of people make their minds up about a theory. It is more than simple human error, the Hanratty case was the police and judiciary brazenly deciding to fit the facts to their own conjecture.

In the light of the new and irrefutable evidence, law reform is obviously long overdue - and if Hanratty did not die completely in vain, then this is the only aspect of the case which had a meaning. That, and the fact that it would now be virtually impossible to re-introduce capital punishment.

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