James Hanratty

James Hanratty (4 October 1936 – 4 April 1962), also known as the A6 Murderer, was a British criminal who was one of the final eight people in the UK to be executed before capital punishment was effectively abolished.

James Hanratty was born on 4 October 1936 in Farnborough, Kent, the eldest of four sons of James Francis Hanratty and his wife Mary Ann Hanratty nee Wilson.

By 1937, the family had moved to Wembley in Middlesex.

Hanratty's early years were troubled; he was described as a retard, a psychopath, and a pathological liar.

By the age of 11 he had been declared ineducable at St James Catholic High School, Burnt Oak, Barnet, although his parents refused to accept he was mentally deficient and successfully resisted attempts to have him placed in a special school.

After leaving the school in 1951 at the age of 15, Hanratty, still illiterate, joined the Public Cleansing Department of Wembley Borough Council as a refuse sorter.

In July of the following year he fell from his bicycle, injuring his head and remaining unconscious for 10 hours; he was admitted to Wembley Hospital, where he remained for nine days.

Shortly after his discharge, Hanratty left home for Brighton, where he obtained casual work with a road haulier.

Eight weeks later he was found semi-conscious in the street, having apparently collapsed from either hunger or exposure.

Initially admitted to the Royal Sussex Hospital, Brighton, he was transferred to St Francis Hospital, Haywards Heath, where he underwent a craniotomy following the erroneous diagnosis of a brain haemorrhage.

The report made there acknowledged his unhappy home background (he claimed he was frightened of his mother and had no filial feelings towards his father) and his mental handicaps.

No precise diagnoses were offered, and it has since been suggested that he suffered from either epilepsy or post-concussional syndrome, which would have had a marked effect on his personality.

Hanratty was sent to recuperate at an aunt's home in Bedford, a place he and his brother Michael had visited as children on holiday.

Hanratty found a job there driving a mechanical shovel for the company of Green brothers, which made breeze blocks, and remained with the firm for three years.

It was about 1954 that Hanratty became attracted to Soho, where he frequented various clubs and other haunts of the criminal underworld.

By the time of his arrest for the murder of Michael Gregsten, Hanratty had already four convictions for motoring offences and housebreaking.

On 7 September 1954, aged 17, Hanratty appeared before Harrow Magistrates' where he was placed on probation for taking a motor vehicle without consent, and for driving without a licence or insurance.

Shortly afterwards, he began psychiatric treatment as an outpatient at the Portman Clinic.

In October 1955, aged 18, Hanratty appeared at the County of Middlesex Sessions, where he was sentenced to two terms of two years' imprisonment, to run concurrently, for housebreaking and theft.

Despatched to the youth wing of Wormwood Scrubs, he slashed his wrists; placed in the prison hospital, he was declared a 'potential psychopath'.

After his release, his father resigned his job as dustman with Wembley council to start a window cleaning business with his son in an attempt to keep him away from crime.

The car Gregsten and Storie had been using at the time of the attack, a grey four-door 1956 Morris Minor registration 847 BHN, was found abandoned behind Redbridge tube station in Essex later that evening.

On 3 July 1957, aged 20, five months after his release from Wormwood Scrubs, Hanratty was sentenced at Brighton Magistrates' Court to six months' imprisonment (he served four) for a variety of motoring offences, including theft of a motor vehicle and driving without a licence.

He was sent to Walton Prison, Liverpool, where he was again diagnosed as a psychopath.

In March 1958, aged 21, at the County of London Sessions, Hanratty was again convicted of car theft, and of driving while disqualified, and sentenced to three years' corrective training at Wandsworth Prison, and then to Maidstone Prison.

While at Maidstone, Hanratty came to the attention of a researcher who lived and worked alongside the inmates; he was later to remark upon Hanratty’s "gross social and emotional immaturity".

After a failed escape attempt, Hanratty was transferred to Camp Hill Prison, Isle of Wight.

He attempted to escape that facility as well, and was sent to Strangeways Prison, Manchester.

Transferred briefly to Durham Prison, he was returned to Strangeways where, having served his full term, he was released in March 1961, aged 24.

At about 6:45 am on 23 August 1961, the body of Michael John Gregsten was discovered in a lay-by on the A6 road at Deadman's Hill, near the Bedfordshire village of Clophill, by John Kerr, an Oxford undergraduate conducting a traffic census.

Lying next to Gregsten, semi-conscious, was Gregsten's mistress, Valerie Jean Storie.

Gregsten had been shot twice in the head with a .38 revolver at point blank range; Storie had been raped, and then shot with the same weapon, four times in the left shoulder and once in the neck, leaving her paralysed below the shoulders.

Kerr alerted Sydney Burton, a farm labourer, who flagged down two cars and asked the drivers to call an ambulance.

He was hanged at Bedford Jail on 4 April 1962, after being convicted of the murder of scientist Michael Gregsten, aged 36, who was shot dead in a car on the A6 at Deadman's Hill, near Clophill, Bedfordshire in August 1961.

Gregsten's girlfriend, Valerie Storie, was raped, shot five times, and left paralysed.

According to Storie, the couple were abducted at gunpoint in their car at Dorney Reach, Buckinghamshire, by a man with a Cockney accent and mannerisms matching Hanratty's. The gunman ordered Gregsten to drive in several directions, before stopping beside the A6 at Deadman's Hill, where the offences took place.

The initial prime suspects were Hanratty, a petty criminal, and Peter Louis Alphon, an eccentric drifter.

In police line-ups, Storie did not recognise Alphon, but eventually identified Hanratty.

Her testimony was critical in securing a guilty verdict, but this was questioned by many who felt the supporting evidence too weak to justify conviction, and Hanratty's brother fought for decades to have the verdict overturned.

In 1997, a police inquiry concluded he was wrongfully convicted and the case was sent to the Court of Appeal, which ruled in 2002 that a DNA test conclusively proved Hanratty's guilt beyond any doubt.