|
Name: |
James Hanratty |
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AKA: |
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|
D.O.B. |
October 1936 |
|
Kill
Total: |
1 |
|
Kill
date: |
22nd August 1961 |
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Kill
Place: |
Clophill, Bedfordshire |
|
Status: |
|
|
Occupation: |
|
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Victim: |
Michael
Gregsten |
|
D.O.B. |
1924 |
|
Court: |
Bedfordshire
Assizes |
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Judge: |
|
|
Prosecution: |
Geoffrey Lane |
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Defence: |
|
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FACTFILE
22nd August
1961, Michael Gregsten and his mistress Valerie
Storie, were sitting in his car in a field, they were
hijacked by a man with a gun, the man made them drive
around for hours, eventually ending up at Deadmans Hill
on the A6 just outside Clophill, Bedfordshire. (just
round the corner from the authors house). Gregsten
moved and made Hanratty jump, Hanratty fired two shots
into Gregsten's head, after a while Hanratty made Miss
Stone get out of the car, in the dark he fired five
shots into her, she slumped next to Gregsten and passed
out, she survived, but the injuries left her paralysed from the wait down,
for the rest of her life.
9th October 1961, Hanratty was arrested in
Blackpool, and picked out by Valerie Storie from an
identification parade , and sent for trial.
The whole
trial centred on the issue of identification. Hanratty
claimed to have been in Rhyl on the day of the murder,
200 miles away from the murder scene in Clophill,
Bedfordshire.
Following 9½ hours of deliberations, the jury convicted
Hanratty of the murder of Michael Gregsten.
James Hanratty
was then sentenced to death by hanging.
4th April
1962, He was hanged at Bedford Prison.
The Aftermath
There has been a great deal of controversy regarding the
conviction and execution of James Hanratty. The
controversy is mainly concerned with the question of
correctly identify the suspect. Also the need to
established beyond reasonable doubt that the suspect was
the guilty person.
James Hanratty's remains have since been exhumed from
Bedford Prison, and reburied in Carpenter's Park
Cemetery, which is located near Bushey in Hertfordshire.
22nd March 2001, James Hanratty's remains were
exhumed so that a DNA sample could be taken for
analysis. The results showed there was a 2.5 million to
one chance that the samples came from someone other than
Hanratty. DNA sample extracted from Hanratty's exhumed
body was matched by forensic experts to two samples from
the crime scene.
10th May 2002, the Court of Criminal Appeal (Lord
Chief Justice Woolf, Lord Justice Mantell and Mr Justice
Leveson hearing the appeal) ruled that Hanratty's
conviction was not unsound and that there were no
grounds for a posthumous pardon.
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