Stages of the investigation process
1. Initial response to the scene
The scene of the crime must be reported to be alerted to the police. An assessment is made by the police as to whether a crime has been committed or not. Determining of the scene will ensure that the appropriate response is made by the police depending on the severity of the case. A formal report is made to record the crime and is given a case number. Also the assessment is made to offer any additional support to the victim eg. Coroner if the victim is deceased, ambulance is the victim is still alive. The additional support is given until more officers as back up arrive.
In the case of Hanratty, the initial response was a farmer Sydney Burton who had found the couple laying near the grey Morris Minor, who had then flagged down student, John Kerr who had spoken to the unusually coherent Valerie Storie and gave his account of what he had seen as a witness. Kerr's discovery then lead Storie to have surgery at Bedford hospital for the extent of her injuries and the coroner for her deceased lover, Michael Gregsten.
The video below details the account John Kerr had given to ITN news following what he had seen.
2. Preliminary investigation
The initial investigation involves the immediate activities after the crime occurred and was responded to, where the FAO was involved. Here arrests can be made if the culprits are known and/or present. Locating and interviewing the witnesses who are surrounding the scene at the time, neighbours. The evidence also would be preserved here so that if poor weather conditions are imminent or present, snow for example would cover and degrade footprints, rain out wash away blood trails and blood, humidity would evaporate fingerprints, etc. Also the cordoning off of the scene from bystanders and the media is very important for containing the scene from cross contamination and for containing the scene.
In the case of Hanratty, the Morris Minor was recovered from the scene for analysis, as the car was paramount within the case as it was used to transport the culprit and victims, it harboured the location of Valerie's rape and shooting, alongside Michael Gregsten's shooting also. The victims were enclosed within a cloth gazebo to conceal the bodies when the media had made their news report at the scene. The area was cordoned off so any bystanders were to be kept away from any evidence to avoid cross contamination.
In the case of Hanratty, the Morris Minor was recovered from the scene for analysis, as the car was paramount within the case as it was used to transport the culprit and victims, it harboured the location of Valerie's rape and shooting, alongside Michael Gregsten's shooting also. The victims were enclosed within a cloth gazebo to conceal the bodies when the media had made their news report at the scene. The area was cordoned off so any bystanders were to be kept away from any evidence to avoid cross contamination.
3. Investigation Plan
The investigation plan allows the FAO, forensics, and the police to reconvene any preliminary evidence and findings to then assign specific jobs and tasks to the task force to ensure everyone know what to look into, the specialists can begin and detectives can begin to plan their next action. What the police do determines on the severity of the crime, eg if a mugging had occurred then the police would take witness statements from bystanders and the victim itself but isn't classed as high priority as a murder case, so the police would move on to the next crime quickly.
An investigation plan needs to have good planning, organisation, control and motivated individuals to carry the team and make a cohesive team. This stage is to determine and pursue any lines of enquiry already foun. They consider the scene, use resources available to them, prioritise tasks to be done before the other tasks. The lines of enquiry are to be appropriate in order to obtain the maximum amount of material which may then generate further lines of enquiry such as crime scene evidence. This stage is also to manage and support the community during the impact of news such as protecting others from the same crime happening, bringing the community together to gather information.
As for the A6 murder, there would need to be a rigorous structured plan to ensure that the team can cohesively work together to ensure that they can conduct a thorough investigation and in detail build the case. Especially as the case spanned across Bedford, Blackpool, Liverpool and Rhyl, the case needed a strong task force and relations between the multiple police constabularies to share their intelligence and information arising with the case in these different areas, any developments on the case, witness statements needed to be addressed, witnesses in general, any identikits made for public and media announcements, evidence as well. Therefore to collate all this information there needs to be structure, and roles given to the investigatory team so they are aware of their role and their part in the investigation to gather as much relevant intel.
4. Follow up investigation
Depending on the preliminary findings of the preliminary investigation and the plan put into action, this stage is rather important as it gives the police an opportunity to gain more evidence to carry out enquiries into witness statements as it is the logical starting point to take further action. This stage is important to give the police and investigation team an opportunity to gather more evidence to proceed further, and to also gain information surrounding the crime.
The information the investigation team wanted to gain is the movement of both of the suspects around the time of the murder.
In my case there were a multitude of witness statements from multiple people from the different areas of the investigation and were all considered as evidence, sightings in Liverpool, Blackpool, Rhyl London and Bedford itself, were all imperative to gain information from, to specify their location (the two suspects) during the time frame of the days leading to the murder, the actual murder day and the days leading from it. Some witness statements contradicted, and with the original testimony from Storie lost, supposed destroyed the witness statements were relied on heavily. Grace Jones' witness statement accounted for his Rhyl alibi as she was the landlady of the B&B Hanratty was staying at the time of the murder. Terry Evans accounted for the Liverpool Alibi as Evans was also a prolific backstreet seller of goods and wares and engaged in criminal activities similar to Hanratty, Evans however claimed in his witness statement that he didn't want to liase with criminals like Hanratty despite their friendship, during his Liverpool alibi he (Hanratty) had contacted a Dixie France who accounted for his London alibi. Edward Blackall had seen Hanratty as the driver of the morris minor and driving erratically, whereas another witness saw Alphon. As the forensic evidence was lacking, there was more reliance on witnesses and their statements were imperative.
A hotel worker at the Vienna Hotel in Maida Vale, London had a guest under an alias who acted strangely and erratically around the time of the crime, which accounted for Alphon, near the scene, locked in seclusion in a hotel room, where the bullets were later found, his movements were alarming to staff who then later gave evidence in the form of a witness statement. Therefore the witnesses statements allowed the investigation team to follow up in depth their movements and interactions during the time frame and followed their findings and information to explore them both further.
The information the investigation team wanted to gain is the movement of both of the suspects around the time of the murder.
In my case there were a multitude of witness statements from multiple people from the different areas of the investigation and were all considered as evidence, sightings in Liverpool, Blackpool, Rhyl London and Bedford itself, were all imperative to gain information from, to specify their location (the two suspects) during the time frame of the days leading to the murder, the actual murder day and the days leading from it. Some witness statements contradicted, and with the original testimony from Storie lost, supposed destroyed the witness statements were relied on heavily. Grace Jones' witness statement accounted for his Rhyl alibi as she was the landlady of the B&B Hanratty was staying at the time of the murder. Terry Evans accounted for the Liverpool Alibi as Evans was also a prolific backstreet seller of goods and wares and engaged in criminal activities similar to Hanratty, Evans however claimed in his witness statement that he didn't want to liase with criminals like Hanratty despite their friendship, during his Liverpool alibi he (Hanratty) had contacted a Dixie France who accounted for his London alibi. Edward Blackall had seen Hanratty as the driver of the morris minor and driving erratically, whereas another witness saw Alphon. As the forensic evidence was lacking, there was more reliance on witnesses and their statements were imperative.
A hotel worker at the Vienna Hotel in Maida Vale, London had a guest under an alias who acted strangely and erratically around the time of the crime, which accounted for Alphon, near the scene, locked in seclusion in a hotel room, where the bullets were later found, his movements were alarming to staff who then later gave evidence in the form of a witness statement. Therefore the witnesses statements allowed the investigation team to follow up in depth their movements and interactions during the time frame and followed their findings and information to explore them both further.
5. Incident Room
The incident room within an investigation is an onsite facility base. This room helps the police force involved to coordinate the operations within a central hub to solely work on the case based here. Here also they can receive all relevant intelligence work as they can call back and forth from the police station and this room, the calls relevant are directed to the incident room so the highly trained and dedicated staff can deal with this case alone and allows the other side of the police force to be assigned to other cases and call outs. The staff who are predominantly based within an incident room are known as MIT's or Major incident teams. Nowadays there is a 0300 hotline number which is issued with the CRA link which is now a procedure, whereas in this operations room, the team working worked on typewriters and paperwork, which was a concern as papers can be edited, altered and lost more easily.
Within the A6 murder there was a hub for information known as the operations room, as the crime was committed several miles and hours from the original 'pick up point' the only information that was collated was either written or phoned into the police station without a direct line, therefore evidence, witness sightings were collected, The image below shows the operations room in which the investigation team had set up base in Bedford CID.
6. Investigating Leads
This stage involves the information gathered from witness statements, preliminary questionings and any sightings made are followed up, any names, areas, etc are investigated in order to further. This step and process is naturally and logically the next step which leads the investigation for suspects to emerge and information about the sequence of events of the crime in question. Here, forensics testing has been carried out on the evidence collected at the scene and results are in, alongside the pathology results on the deceased. At this stage it is normal for (if necessary) house to house enquiries to be carried out also for witnesses surrounding the area where the crime happened. For my case, these were carried out, most were called into the police station to give their evidence such as witnesses to the car hijacking of the couple, to the car itself, the drivers description. At this stage it gives the police the opportunity to validify preliminary findings or prove them wrong, here suspects begin to emerge into the picture, and where information gathered can build a picture as to what actually happened.
In my case the forensic analysis were tested but as it was the early days of modern day forensic analysis and testing, the results weren't a success and wasn't able to give detailed and conclusive answers to the questions the court, defence, nor jury wanted, no concrete hard forensic evidence, therefore this case relied on witness statements, some forensic evidence, testimonies and his alibis.
7. Research and analysis of intelligence
This stage is where the intelligence such as the suspects to the crime, location of the crime (and route taken) and all this information is analysed by the police and intelligence experts. This intelligence may come from the leads investigated in the previous stage and procedure. Crimes (petty to severe) such as burglaries in the area are looked at as a statistic and if there are any prolific names as repeat offenders who are likely to have committed or been related to the crime. This intelligence may lead the police and investigation team into gathering substantial evidence against a certain suspect, especially if they have a background in crime.
For the A6 murder, Hanratty was known as a petty criminal who stole vehicles, house burglaries, petty thefts, driving whilst disqualified. Whereas Alphon, also had a criminal record, living off of his inheritance a player in the scene of the criminal underworld he was said to be affiliated with underground London 'mob' who dealt in weapons and firearms under the noses of the Metropolitan Police. One stark difference between Hanratty and Alphon wasn't physical, nor appearance, but the fact that Hanratty was a 'seasoned' vehicle offender who stole cars and worked with vehicles in his job every day that was his main mode of crime, car theft, and was obviously very skilled driver and knew his way around a car, however, the A6 murderer had asked Storie, how to drive the car, this piece of information from Storie herself had firmly placed Alphon as a prime suspect, it was also said that Alphon was unable to drive, therefore places him even more firmly to being the criminal, alongside his affiliation with the underground dealings of firearms. There was a theory running alongside the research into this case which wasn't explored at the time, It noted that Alphon was occasionally paid to interrogate, beat up and humiliate people for 'blood' money, whos to say he was paid a hefty price to kill and 'assassinate'.
8. Gathering and analysis of evidence
At this stage of the investigation the information has been gained via the preliminary and follow up investigations conducted by the team and police, including any surveillance and intelligence (outside sources), the leads have been conducted and cut off or followed on, and the process of events has been made giving the investigation team a through vision into the events. This stage can only therefore be after the above stages have been conducted because this stage is bringing all the information gained together from the forensics team, pathology reports, witnesses, suspects and leads, which are all paramount to the investigation to be hard enough to stand in court and create a case worthy of arrest and prosecution, therefore enough evidence has to be concrete and solid to withstand attack from both councils in court. This stage gathers all information up to this point and compiles to build evidence against the suspect(s) in their defence or prosecution.
This stage of the investigation is to collate all the information already from the investigation, and sorting the necessary from the unnecessary information, the irrelevant information and evidence given isn't thrown away or discarded it is simply put to one side for later date as it isn't seen as relevant at present, but may be relevant at a later stage when more patterns and links come about in the investigation. The relevant information and strong links are investigated into further and can draw a preliminary conclusion from it. Here is really where the councils discuss the concrete evidence, the flaws, meet with their clients, discuss their options as some criminals stick out their innocence, sometimes by admitting guilt the sentence is lighter depending on case to case.
At this stage of the investigation the information has been gained via the preliminary and follow up investigations conducted by the team and police, including any surveillance and intelligence (outside sources), the leads have been conducted and cut off or followed on, and the process of events has been made giving the investigation team a through vision into the events. This stage can only therefore be after the above stages have been conducted because this stage is bringing all the information gained together from the forensics team, pathology reports, witnesses, suspects and leads, which are all paramount to the investigation to be hard enough to stand in court and create a case worthy of arrest and prosecution, therefore enough evidence has to be concrete and solid to withstand attack from both councils in court. This stage gathers all information up to this point and compiles to build evidence against the suspect(s) in their defence or prosecution.
This stage of the investigation is to collate all the information already from the investigation, and sorting the necessary from the unnecessary information, the irrelevant information and evidence given isn't thrown away or discarded it is simply put to one side for later date as it isn't seen as relevant at present, but may be relevant at a later stage when more patterns and links come about in the investigation. The relevant information and strong links are investigated into further and can draw a preliminary conclusion from it. Here is really where the councils discuss the concrete evidence, the flaws, meet with their clients, discuss their options as some criminals stick out their innocence, sometimes by admitting guilt the sentence is lighter depending on case to case.
9.Identifying links and patterns
This stage involves the police team to look in depth at the intelligence gained and incoming data alongside any patterns connected to other crimes or suspects in and around the area with the same characteristics, for example a spate of burglaries they would look for names prolific to other burglaries and create a link. At this stage the information the police in the area working on the case will share their information with other forces and agencies, which depends on what the incident and crime has occurred, this is used more for murders. This stage depends on the crime itself, the more severe and threat to the public, the more important this stage is. For a serial killer for instance, they could have a distinctive signature, and this could be a running trend meaning the same killer had committed the crimes, to then lead the police to a suspect and to then apprehend them.
However this is normally not the case for first time murders, as they won't have a signature or pattern therefore this stage wouldn't be as influential to the investigation.
But by identifying burglaries which is what the police did in the Hanratty case, Hanratty was a petty thief, and known for multiple car thefts, leading the police to make him a potential suspect as he is local and commits his crimes locally. For Hanratty's multiple convictions and psychological past he was seen as a likely candidate as he knew how to drive meticulously as it was his job and 'dark love' due to his thefts. Where as the driver and murderer/rapist had to ask how to drive the car did create a definative answer as to who it might have been. The driver also had a distinctive London accent which both of the suspects had, therefore only Storie would have been able to tell due to the tone and way it was said.
This stage involves the police team to look in depth at the intelligence gained and incoming data alongside any patterns connected to other crimes or suspects in and around the area with the same characteristics, for example a spate of burglaries they would look for names prolific to other burglaries and create a link. At this stage the information the police in the area working on the case will share their information with other forces and agencies, which depends on what the incident and crime has occurred, this is used more for murders. This stage depends on the crime itself, the more severe and threat to the public, the more important this stage is. For a serial killer for instance, they could have a distinctive signature, and this could be a running trend meaning the same killer had committed the crimes, to then lead the police to a suspect and to then apprehend them.
However this is normally not the case for first time murders, as they won't have a signature or pattern therefore this stage wouldn't be as influential to the investigation.
But by identifying burglaries which is what the police did in the Hanratty case, Hanratty was a petty thief, and known for multiple car thefts, leading the police to make him a potential suspect as he is local and commits his crimes locally. For Hanratty's multiple convictions and psychological past he was seen as a likely candidate as he knew how to drive meticulously as it was his job and 'dark love' due to his thefts. Where as the driver and murderer/rapist had to ask how to drive the car did create a definative answer as to who it might have been. The driver also had a distinctive London accent which both of the suspects had, therefore only Storie would have been able to tell due to the tone and way it was said.
10. Process of elimination
This stage depends on the evidence and information accumulated already in the investigation process, this stage is ordered in this way because in order for any information, suspects, any lines of enquiry to be eliminated from the investigation all these aspects need to be fully analysed to determine if they're useful or not to the investigation and if it is useful when it eventually is tried in court. This stage is useful and important for suspects and lines of inquiries for cutting down and out useless information or suspects, for the police to then narrow down the suspects to eventually find the perpetrator.
In my case, there were two suspects from the beginning, Peter Alphon and James Hanratty, and later on conspiracies surrounding both suspects and their part in the crime. Alphon was made a suspect because he to was known as a drifter and living on his father's inheritance who had been acting strangely around the crime, had no alibi and was suspectedly known to be around the 'gangsta' boys with guns as his vision, whereas Hanratty was a petty thief and car thief but had no violent past. The police via witness statements, Valerie Storie's Identikit image, which all evidence is both suspects.
In my case, there were two suspects from the beginning, Peter Alphon and James Hanratty, and later on conspiracies surrounding both suspects and their part in the crime. Alphon was made a suspect because he to was known as a drifter and living on his father's inheritance who had been acting strangely around the crime, had no alibi and was suspectedly known to be around the 'gangsta' boys with guns as his vision, whereas Hanratty was a petty thief and car thief but had no violent past. The police via witness statements, Valerie Storie's Identikit image, which all evidence is both suspects.
11. Ethical consideration
Near the end of the investigation process is when the ethics begin to be addressed for the wellbeing of the family of the victim and suspects, to all involved who could be affected. The use of media can be useful and help the case, or hinder. The use of media is used to for instance, to encourage community vigilance/cohesion and watch if the criminal/suspect is on the run, or is a threat to the community. Cases where the media is particularly useful are in missing persons and children, the face of the suspect is publically displayed on the news so that anyone with information to call in with any information if they recognise the person or had been witness to them, any information relating to the crime. However, the media can hinder by being too intrusive and strong willed, for instance if a suspect was wrongly accused for a heinous crime, the media would intrude on their lives and inquisition them and ruin their reputation and lives, and lead to consequences, the ethics here is that it isn't right to accuse a person before being tried, 'innocent til proven guilty'
In my case, newspapers were the first port of call for any news worldwide and locally, the police had made a strange move by announcing and releasing information that Peter Alphon was the murderer, released his image by identikit and they want him found, as he wasn't in custody, which affected his life and how the investigation went ahead. The police didn't want Alphon after being accused to feel victimised, ethically. After Hanratty was announced as well, his family were up in arms with the accusation, Hanratty willingly gave evidence and information to the police about his alibis and turn of events, even giving his DNA and clothing from the night for reference, Hanratty had previous mental health issues and had psychiatric help when imprisoned as he was declared a 'potential psychopath' who had already attempted suicide. Ethically, to put Hanratty under this pressure with his mental state wasn't the correct thing to do and would have hindered his mental state making him paranoid and potentially attempt to take his life again.
12. Report writing and presentation of evidence in court
After all the information, intelligence, forensic evidence reports, pathology reports, have be collated they are put together into a case file, which is prepared for presentation when it is tried in court. This case file is presented to the judge, jury, counsels and gallery of the courts, the information inside the case file has information on previous convictions, a general overview of the case as a whole which is written by the overseeing officer of operations in the case. This includes witness statements from all witnesses whose information was taken by police during the investigation, an itemised list of evidence (forensic) which can also be explained further during the hearing by the forensic analyst for more and in depth information, images from the crime scene, evidence, and pathology for explanations sake normally spoken by the expert witness/ the pathologist. This case file is used by the prosecution council against the defendant (suspect) counsel and client.
The prosecution counsel presents their information first (normally the CPS/ Crown prosecution service), then the defence counteracts the prosecution by defending their client against the charges, In the hearing after both presentations have been said, they give one last plea before the jury resign to come to a conclusion, they both give summaries for or against in one last bid for the jury to make their decisions. Once the jury resign and deliberate they must come to a unanimous vote, be that innocent or guilty, once their decision is made, they are to go back into court to announce their decision and for the final sentencing by the Judge to be made.
In my case, it has been recorded that the jury wasn't even present when both councils were fighting their sides during the hearing, therefore didn't hear everything of the accusations from the pathology report, to the evidence collected and forensic testing linking to that, to the alibis (As Hanratty had 2 alibis the Liverpool and Blackpool) we're uncertain if they had known or heard or if they were present. The evidence presented in court were the gun, the 38. calibre Enfield used to shoot Gregsten and Storie, the handkerchief which was wrapped around the gun, and Stories underwear as she was raped.
The prosecution counsel presents their information first (normally the CPS/ Crown prosecution service), then the defence counteracts the prosecution by defending their client against the charges, In the hearing after both presentations have been said, they give one last plea before the jury resign to come to a conclusion, they both give summaries for or against in one last bid for the jury to make their decisions. Once the jury resign and deliberate they must come to a unanimous vote, be that innocent or guilty, once their decision is made, they are to go back into court to announce their decision and for the final sentencing by the Judge to be made.
In my case, it has been recorded that the jury wasn't even present when both councils were fighting their sides during the hearing, therefore didn't hear everything of the accusations from the pathology report, to the evidence collected and forensic testing linking to that, to the alibis (As Hanratty had 2 alibis the Liverpool and Blackpool) we're uncertain if they had known or heard or if they were present. The evidence presented in court were the gun, the 38. calibre Enfield used to shoot Gregsten and Storie, the handkerchief which was wrapped around the gun, and Stories underwear as she was raped.
Clearly you have not gotten involved in this particular case at all!
ReplyDeleteNot helpful at all very vague and didn't focus on the case at all
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