Controversial guide reignites debate on James Hanratty’s execution

James Hanratty walked the few steps from his condemned cell to the gallows simply throughout the jail touchdown. A hood was draped over his head, and a noose slipped round his neck.

Executioner Harry Allen pulled the lever, sending the 25-year-old Londoner plunging eight ft. Minutes later he was declared lifeless.

One of the final convicted killers to be executed in Britain, Hanratty’s demise at Bedford Prison in April 1962 ignited one of many nation’s longest-running battles over an alleged miscarriage of justice,

“I’m dying tomorrow but I’m innocent,” Hanratty advised his brother Michael hours earlier than his hanging. “Clear my name.”

His execution turned a trigger célèbre, with politicians and pop stars together with John Lennon and Yoko Ono protesting his innocence via the years. A police evaluation in 1997 uncovered main flaws within the unique inquiry, forcing the case to be reopened.

But advances in DNA proof offered to the Court of Appeals in 2002 hammered a closing nail within the coffin of Hanratty’s innocence, proving past a doubt that he was responsible of homicide.

Yet 21 years later, a surprising guide blows the case vast open, exposing deadly flaws within the earlier DNA evaluation and demanding a re-examination of Hanratty’s guilt.

“The physical, circumstantial and witness testimony all point to Hanratty’s innocence,” says Robert Harriman, writer of Executed: But Was James Hanratty Innocent? “There was a gross miscarriage of justice that continues to this day.

“There was an extraordinary catalogue of police misbehaviour, prosecutorial misconduct and failure to disclose evidence, leading to a perversely woeful verdict.

“The Court of Appeal in 2002 relied on DNA evidence that was deeply flawed, using very questionable experimental forensic science that today would be thrown out of court.

“The justices thought DNA evidence was infallible, but they were wrong. An innocent man was hanged, and his family has been
living with the pain ever since. It’s high time this injustice was remedied.”

James Hanratty was a petty prison with convictions for burglaries and automotive thefts, however no historical past of violence when arrested for homicide.

On August 22, 1961, scientist Michael Gregsten, a 36-year-old father of two, and his 22-year-old mistress, lab assistant Valerie Storie, have been parked in a Morris Minor beside a cornfield at Dorney Reach in Buckinghamshire. Suddenly an assailant armed with a revolver entered the automotive.

Speaking in a Cockney accent, he pressured Gregsten to drive down the A6 to Deadman’s Hill, in Bedfordshire, the place he fatally shot Gregsten, raped Storie, shot her 5 occasions and left her for lifeless. Though paralysed from the waist down, she survived.

Initially it was an eccentric loner known as Peter Alphon who was recognized by police as a number one suspect. Suspiciously, he had locked himself in his London boarding-house room for 5 days after the homicide.

But following a tip from Charles ‘Dixie’ France, a prison acquaintance of Hanratty’s, the homicide weapon was discovered two days afterward a London bus, wrapped in Hanratty’s handkerchief and cleaned of fingerprints.

Two bullet casings matching those who killed Gregsten have been discovered three weeks later by one other profession prison in a resort bed room the place Hanratty had beforehand stayed.

Although Storie failed to choose Hanratty out of a police lineup, she recognized him by his distinctive Cockney accent.

Hanratty protested his innocence, claiming he was 200 miles away in Liverpool on the time of the assault, an alibi corroborated by 5 separate witnesses.

Storie additionally testified she was shot 5 occasions and Gregsten twice earlier than the gunman reloaded, but the alleged homicide weapon held solely six rounds. Nevertheless, Hanratty was convicted and, after a failed enchantment bid, was hanged on April 4, 1962. By then he was often known as the A6 Murderer.

“It was a travesty of justice,” says Harriman, who lives in Taunton, Somerset. “The police withheld evidence from the defence, lied about tampering with witness statements and failed to follow identity parade procedures.”

Peter Alphon, implicated in an assault on one other lady, later confessed to the homicide, although years later he modified his story once more.

Despite persuasive proof that Hanratty was not the killer, the 2002 Court of Appeal believed the DNA proof that positioned him on the homicide scene.

“Hanratty suffered yet another great miscarriage of justice, because the DNA analysis was unreliable,” says Harriman.

“The court wasn’t told the DNA evidence was experimental and highly contentious. The DNA sample size was smaller than recommended for accurate results and incidences where the DNA didn’t match were ignored by the scientists.

“Hanratty’s DNA was found on the handkerchief wrapping the gun, but that only proved he blew his nose, not that he was a killer. There was no DNA on the gun and it’s possible that Dixie France had stolen Hanratty’s handkerchief to frame him for the killing. France committed suicide shortly before Hanratty’s execution.

“Hanratty’s DNA was also found on Storie’s underwear, but there was a very real possibility this came from contamination. For more than 30 years the evidence was stored and forgotten on police premises, not a pristine laboratory. Hanratty’s DNA was on his clothing that was collected after his arrest, and could have contaminated all the evidence gathered.

“The overwhelmingly likely fact that Hanratty was in Liverpool just two and a half hours before the start of the attack in Dorney Reach means that he cannot be the attacker, regardless of any DNA finding. Even today he would need a helicopter to make the journey that fast.”

Hanratty was hanged three years earlier than capital punishment was abolished in Britain.

The final folks to be executed on this nation have been Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans, on August 13, 1964. In his guide, Harriman delves deep into the convoluted science of DNA testing.

Back in 1962, earlier than DNA testing existed, scientists discovered Type AB and Type O blood on the homicide scene, matching Gregsten and Hanratty respectively.

“Police never analysed the AB blood because they assumed it was Gregsten’s, without considering it could have belonged to the rapist,” says Harriman.

“Gregsten’s DNA has not been profiled. This second male could be an unidentified rapist. It could easily be that Hanratty and the rapist share multiple DNA matches.

“I wonder if Dixie France’s DNA was involved, though I suspect this will never be established this far after events.”

Initial DNA testing of proof in 1995 failed to offer a match and, in response to Harriman, experimental testing two years later turned up solely a partial profile for Hanratty, utilizing a pattern measurement too small to be correct; however it was offered as inviolable to the Court of Appeal.

“The DNA profiles recovered from the knickers and handkerchief were nowhere near fully matching each other, let alone Hanratty,” says the writer.

Researchers admitted that Hanratty’s DNA profile was a composite from completely different samples, weakening its reliability, and the forensic lab confessed that “laboratory-based contamination cannot be completely avoided”.

Sadly, Hanratty is probably not the one sufferer of wrongful DNA conviction.

“I wonder how many convictions have resulted from all these years of unverified and potentially invalid science,” ponders Harriman.

“I’d like to see the Criminal Cases Review Commission reopen this case with a view to putting it before the Court of Appeal again. Too many errors were just brushed under the carpet.

“It’s too late to save James Hanratty, but it’s never too late for justice to be seen to be done.”

Storie died in 2016, aged 77, and all the time rejected claims that Hanratty was wrongly executed. To at the present time Hanratty’s household continues to argue his innocence.

• Executed: But was James Hanratty Innocent? by Robert Harriman (Pen & Sword Books Ltd, £20) is accessible to order from Express Bookshop. To order a replica go to www.expressbookshop.com or name 020 3176 3832.