UK’s Channel 4 ran a very interesting documentary last night: “Hanratty - the Whole Truth” For those of you who have never heard of James Hanratty, here’s a brief recap:
In August 1961 there was an extremely notorious murder committed near the town of Bedford in the UK. In what came to be called the A6 Murder, after the highway it took place on, an assailant attacked a man and his girlfriend in their car. The driver was shot dead, the girl was raped and then shot several times, and left for dead.
In fact she survived, but was paralysed from the neck down for the rest of her life. She is still alive, and featured in last night’s documentary.
The man arrested and ultimately put on trial for this crime was a young petty criminal, not long out of prison for theft offences, called James Hanratty. He protested his innocence throughout the proceedings, and although the woman victim identified him as the killer, even she admitted that she had not caught a good sight of his face in the dark.
Hanratty was found guilty, and in line with the law in the UK in those days was executed. Before his execution he asked his family to promise that they would continue their efforts to clear his name of the dreadful crime. He insisted right up to his death that the murder had been “pinned on him” and he was entirely innocent.
Thus was born “the A6 Committee” which campaigned for the next 40 years to clear Hanratty’s name. First led by his father (who died in the late 70’s) and then others, it has been ceaseless over the years in attempting to re-open the case in order to clear-up a terrible miscarriage of British justice.
Over that span of time, it gathered support from a wide circle. The campaigning journalist Paul Foot wrote a best-selling book “Who Killed Hanratty?” which pointed out all the glaring inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case, and featured evidence that exonerated Hanratty. Various Lords and prominent people joined in the campaign over the years. There was video footage in last night’s documentary of John Lennon holding up a “Hanratty was Murdered” placard sometime in the seventies.
In growing up in the UK during this period of time, I was certainly exposed to all this publicity about Hanratty, and I too believed – as did pretty much everyone I knew – that we had here a shameful episode in British history. When, oh when, would the state finally admit its error, reopen the case and posthumously pardon Hanratty?
Most moving of all in last nights documentary was footage of Hanratty’s family – his mother, father and brothers, all active in the cause over these 40 years. As I said, the parents are now dead, and in various recorded interviews we saw Hanratty’s brother grow from a young man, through middle age into an old man now.
But the fight went on to clear James’s name. He had, after all, made them promise on his death-bed.
The documentary detailed the events of 2001, when the Home Office finally agreed to exhume Hanratty’s remains for the purposes of obtaining DNA samples that might be tested against the material recovered from the crime scene in 1961 (basically, semen in the girls knickers and snot in the handkerchief the attacker left behind)
DNA-fingerprinting had not been around in 1961, but here it could be used to settle matters conclusively, and prove that Hanratty was innocent.
And what do you think?
DNA proved irrefutably that it WAS Hanratty who committed the crime. The evidence was indisputable and beyond a shadow of doubt.
He had looked his family in the eye, swore his innocence, made them promise to work to clear his name – which they did for forty years – and he had simply lied about it.
He made them waste their lives, for his bullshit.
I really wanted to see an interview with the family members after this had been established, just to get some reaction on having their worldview crumple and collapse like this, but there was none. Maybe the documentary makers were being kind, or perhaps the family wasn’t giving any interviews. Whatever.
Now, I wonder why the family's plight reminded me of people I know?
Do you think they’ll ever develop DNA-fingerprinting technology on “divinely-inspired” Bible speculation and nail those lying bastards in Brooklyn?
Duncan.
