Film forgot that Jim Hanratty was villain of his story

ONE of modern Britain’s most notorious crimes unfolded on the night of August 22, 1961, when a masked gunman hijacked a Morris Minor, occupied by Michael Gregsten and his lover Valerie Storie.

He forced them on a five-hour journey until they reached a layby on the A6, where he shot Gregsten through the head, raped Storie, fired seven bullets into her and drove off, leaving her for dead.

After the longest criminal trial in British history, petty crook Jim Hanratty, below, went to the gallows for Gregsten’s murder in April 1962. Partly due to its sudden, inexplicable violence, this tale still attracts huge public interest, as reflected in a new documentary about Hanratty broadcast this week on the Sky History Channel.

Presented by granite-jawed actor Christopher Eccleston, it was perfectly serviceable, but had a central gaping flaw that weakened its credibility. It is part of a series called

The Guilty Innocent, which Sky proclaims will explore some of Britain’s “biggest miscarriages of justice”. Yet there was no miscarriage in Hanratty’s case.

DNA taken from his exhumed corpse in 2002 proved beyond doubt that he was the murderer. Even without the DNA, the evidence against him was overwhelming.

He was identified by Storie. Both his phoney alibis fell apart under scrutiny. Two gun cartridges that matched the murder weapon were found in the hotel room where he stayed on the night of the killing.

The movement to clear his name, which was cynically manipulated by left-wing journalists and campaigners to undermine public support for the death penalty in the 1960s, was as bogus as the title of this episode. There was nothing remotely innocent about Hanratty.