Friday, 10 May 2002
Court 4
Royal Courts of Justice
JUDGMENT SUMMARY
(This summary forms no part of the judgment of the Court)
The judgment in this case is of considerable length and this summary only provides a brief outline of the reasons for the Court’s decision to dismiss the appeal. The judgment commences with an introduction (paras 1-12); it then refers in detail to the relevant background facts (paras 13-81). There is then a section on the law as there were points of general importance argued with regard to the role of the Court of Appeal upon which the Court was required to give a decision; namely what is the correct approach to:
• the safety of a conviction when hearing an appeal, particularly where the trial took place many years ago when the rules of practice were different from those which exist today?
• allegations that a conviction is unsafe on (a) evidential and (b) procedural grounds?
• the admissibility of fresh evidence on which the prosecution wishes to rely to show that the conviction should be upheld as being safe? (paras 81-105)
The Court having decided that the DNA evidence is admissible then gives its decision as to the effect of that evidence: (paras 106-128) and having done so proceeds to consider the merits of each of the 17 grounds of appeal (paras 128-210) and finally sets out its conclusions. (paras 211-215).
The Background
1. On the evening of Tuesday 22 August 1961, Michael Gregsten and Valerie Storie were together in a grey Morris Minor car in a cornfield at Dorney Reach, Buckinghamshire. It was getting dark, when they were approached by a man who threatened them with a gun. On his instruction, the car was driven onto the A6. In the early hours of the following morning, at a lay-by south of Bedford, Michael Gregsten was shot twice at close range; he died almost instantly. Valerie Storie was raped and also shot: of approximately seven bullets fired, five entered her body. Miraculously, although she was left for dead, she was not killed; she did, however, suffer a catastrophic injury which resulted in paralysis to the lower part of her body. She was later able to describe the man responsible and provide considerable detail both of the events of the night and of what had been said.
2. On 17 February 1962, after a trial lasting 21 days, James Hanratty was convicted of the murder by shooting of Michael Gregsten. On 13 March 1962, an appeal against conviction was dismissed by the Court of Criminal Appeal and, on 4 April 1962, James Hanratty was executed.
3. Over the 40 years which have followed, a vigorous campaign has been mounted to establish that the conviction constituted a miscarriage of justice. A police enquiry into the alibi in 1976 declared the conviction safe, and, in 1975, Lewis Hawser QC considered the case against James Hanratty ‘overwhelming’. In 1994, submissions were placed before the Criminal Cases Unit of the Home Office and, on 1 April 1997, responsibility for the further investigation was assumed by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. On 26 March 1999, the Commission referred the conviction to the Court of Appeal on the statutory ground that there was a real possibility that the conviction would not be upheld. Following an order of the court on 17 October 2000, the body of James Hanratty was exhumed and samples of his DNA obtained.
The Grounds of Appeal and the DNA Evidence
4. The 17 Grounds of Appeal include eleven based on failures by the prosecution to disclose material to the defence, one concerns the conduct of the identification parade at which Valerie Storie identified James Hanratty, one relates to the reliability of the evidence of his interviews (supported by ESDA testing of the interview notes) and four concern directions given during the course of the summing up (of which one repeats a complaint made and dismissed at the original appeal and three are based on standards introduced since 1962). The Crown have sought to rely on the results of DNA analysis of a fragment of Valerie Storie’s knickers (kept on the forensic file since 29 December 1961) and the handkerchief in which the murder weapon was found wrapped on the day following the killing. It was contended by the prosecution that the DNA evidence proves conclusively that James Hanratty was, indeed, the murderer. Mr Hanratty’s family argue that the DNA evidence was not admissible on the appeal and, in any event, the Court cannot exclude the real possibility that the results are due to innocent contamination from articles of James Hanratty’s clothing and from a suitcase of his belongings seized after his arrest.
5. The Court decided that the DNA is admissible. This is under section 23 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968, that makes the over-riding consideration whether the evidence would assist the Court to achieve justice, bearing in mind that the conviction could be unsafe either because there was a doubt as to the guilt of the appellant or because the trial was materially flawed. [A trial is materially flawed if it does not conform with at least the minimum requirements of a trial to which every defendant is entitled.]
6. As to the effect of passage of time, the Court decided that although current standards of fairness must be applied irrespective of when a trial took place, this does not mean that because contemporary rules have not been complied with, a defendant has been necessarily treated unfairly so that a conviction must be quashed. The question whether a trial is sufficiently seriously flawed so as to make a conviction unsafe must be approached in the round, taking into account all the relevant circumstances.
Conclusion
7. While some of the 17 grounds of appeal are shown to be of little or no significance when considered in context, other grounds, particularly when judged by contemporary standards, are material. However, there was no dispute that DNA from James Hanratty was found on a fragment from the knickers and the handkerchief and Mr Mansfield QC (for the appellant) conceded that, should it transpire that all possibility of contamination could be excluded, the DNA evidence would decide conclusively that James Hanratty was the murderer and rapist. The Court rejects the possibility of contamination and accepted the prosecution’s submission that the DNA evidence, standing alone was, in fact, certain proof of James Hanratty’s guilt.
8. The DNA evidence does not “stand alone” and the Court refers to some of the more striking coincidences in the light of the DNA evidence if James Hanratty was not guilty. He would have been wrongly identified by three witnesses at identification parades; first as the person at the scene of the crime and secondly (by two witnesses) driving a vehicle close to where the vehicle in which the murder was committed was found. He had the same identifying manner of speech as the killer. He stayed in a room the night before the crime from which bullets that had been fired from the murder weapon were recovered. The murder weapon was recovered from a place on a bus which he regarded as a hiding place and the bus followed a route he could well have used. His DNA was found on a piece of material from Valerie Storie’s knickers where it would be expected to be if he was guilty; it was also found on the handkerchief found with the gun. The Court concludes that this number of alleged coincidences mean that they are not coincidences but provide overwhelming proof of the safety of the conviction from an evidential perspective.
9. The Court deals in turn with each ground of appeal and places the allegations made on behalf of the appellant in their proper context. It then decides that neither the individual grounds nor the ground collectively establish that the trial was so seriously flawed or unfair as to make the conviction procedurally unsafe. In the circumstances, the appeal is dismissed.
10. Finally, the Court commends the Hanratty family for the manner in which they have logically but mistakenly pursued their long campaign to establish James Hanratty’s innocence. 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.
