The A6 Murder: What Happened to Michael Gregsten, Valerie Storie and James Hanratty?

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By Bill Stewart

The A6 murder left one man dead, a woman with permanent injuries and a conviction that would be challenged for decades. To understand it, we need to follow both the crime and the evidence that emerged long after the trial.

On the evening of 22 August 1961, Michael Gregsten and Valerie Storie were sitting in a Morris Minor at Dorney Reach, Buckinghamshire, when an armed man approached them. He forced them to drive away. In the early hours of 23 August, at a lay-by beside the A6 south of Bedford, Gregsten was shot dead. Storie was raped, shot and left for dead. She survived, but her injuries paralysed the lower part of her body.

Her survival enabled investigators to hear an account of the attack from someone who had endured it. In telling this story, however, we should remember that a witness is also a person. Storie’s importance to the prosecution must never eclipse the consequences she lived with, just as Gregsten’s name deserves to remain more than a detail in arguments about his killer.

James Hanratty was charged with capital murder in October 1961. His trial began in January 1962, and the jury convicted him on 17 February. His original appeal failed. On 4 April 1962, he was hanged.

For his family and supporters, the execution did not settle the matter. They continued campaigning to establish his innocence, and the Criminal Cases Review Commission eventually referred the conviction back to the Court of Appeal.

The challenges included identification procedures, undisclosed material and the handling of evidence. These were serious matters for examination, particularly in a case that had ended in an execution. But the strength of a campaign cannot itself establish the truth of its claims. Each argument still has to be tested against the record.

By the time of the posthumous appeal, the court could consider evidence unavailable to the original jury. DNA testing linked Hanratty to surviving material from Storie’s underwear and a handkerchief associated with the murder weapon. The judges considered contamination arguments and rejected them as an explanation for the findings.

On 10 May 2002, the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal. It concluded that the DNA evidence established Hanratty’s guilt beyond doubt. The conviction stood.

That outcome is essential to an honest account of the case. Readers should know what the court decided before being invited to explore why the conviction had attracted such determined opposition.

The history also asks us to distinguish two questions: what evidence was available when the jury reached its verdict, and what could be established decades later? Looking at the first requires care about the circumstances of the original investigation. Looking at the second requires giving the later findings their proper weight. Neither question should be answered by selecting only the evidence that suits a preferred conclusion.

For me, the responsibility of writing about the A6 case lies in keeping those distinctions clear. Scrutinising a conviction requires accuracy, and writing about violence requires attention to the lives it damaged. The legal proceedings concern Hanratty; the story must also keep Michael Gregsten and Valerie Storie in view.

My book, The A6 Murder — James Hanratty: The Murder, the Gallows, and the Case That Refused to Die, follows the crime, investigation, trial, execution and campaign through to the later scientific findings. Written as documentary narrative, without invented dialogue, it distinguishes established facts from disputed claims and inference.

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Thank you,

Bill Stewart.

Independent Author/publisher.