MURDER THAT GET CARTER
Luvaglio’s lawyers arguing that fresh evidence pointing to the convictions being unsafe had been rejected irrationally by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, Mr Justice Langstaff said the bid had “no realistic prospect” of succeeding.
“I am innocent and don’t deserve to die as a legally convicted murderer,” said Luvaglio after the High Court decision. Stafford, who has written a book about the One-armed Bandit murder, continues to also claim his innocence.
The chances of finally getting to the bottom of the crime now seem to be vanishingly small.
YET THE venal grime of the era, masterfully portrayed by Hodges and Caine, continues to disturb and enthral 50 years on, with Get Carter regularly topping polls as the “greatest British film of all time”. It’s a role that Sir Michael Caine has never bettered. “I based it on a man I knew at the Elephant and Castle,” he said in a recent interview.
“He’d never been charged with murder – but he killed about 11 people. I was in a discotheque one night, and I saw him there. He came over to me and said, ‘I saw that film of yours, Get Carter’. I said, ‘What did you think?’ He said, ‘Biggest load of **** I’ve seen in my life. You’re playing one of these wicked, nasty people but you’re not even married.we’re all married!we only do it because we’ve got to keep a family’.
“He gave me a proper b ****** ing about having to kill people to look after his family. I’m glad I never told him I based it on him!”
Newcastle today may be all but unrecognisable from the film and, as Hodges states, Carter may have been “shot dead before our eyes”. But his character and the bleak criminal landscape, that resulted in the brutal murder of Angus Sibbet, continues to resonate.
“Carter is, of course, eternal,” concludes Hodges.
“He’s on film.”
‘If they were tried today they would never have been found guilty. It was a political trial’