How the psychopath can fool you...James Hanratty.

[John]

I came across the following posts on the guilty facebook page this morning and I feel it explains rather well how the psychopath can fool even the most sensible among us.

Duane Troy Dyer wrote...
well i went on a visit to him last week and he stills says he will walk out court a freeman innecent some day


To which Jeremy-Bamber-Child-Killer-is-Guilty-as-Charged replied...

Duane he would say that wouldn't he? Do you really expect this psychopath after 27 years to suddenly put up his hands and say 'actually yeah I did do it' You are commenting about a person who has no guilt, remorse, empathy nor sympathy for anybody or anything but himself. One thing that virtually all psychopaths share is this; they are totally incapable of taking responsibility for their actions. They will deny, deny and deny some more. They will go to their graves denying their complicity even if the act was caught on film and watched by a 100 witnesses - they will still deny vehemently they had anything to do with it. Their self-awareness is extremely poor. They cannot analyse themselves like ordinary people who can correct faults in their behaviour or personality. A narcissistic psychopath such as Bamber will always believe they are right. They see morality and ordinary human emotion as belonging only to the weak. He is playing the persistent denial game because it is all he has left to answer with. The meaningless retort of a clearly guilty individual. This arrogant, self-centred child-murderer knows deep down that he is done for. His last cunning but ultimately futile effort to squirm out of his just punishment, rightly denied him. This appalling monster will never again see the light of day.

As an example of the above I present you with a case from the past. James Hanratty was convicted of the murder of a man and the attempted murder and rape of the man's girlfriend in the early 1960s. Hanratty was sentence to hang. Hanratty immediately went on the defensive and managed to convince a large number of people that he was totally innocent of the crime, including a number of celebrities and politicians of the day. However, all his efforts to obtain a reprieve were in vain, despite a petition signed by more than 90,000 people, Hanratty was hanged by executioner Harry Allen at Bedford Prison on 4 April 1962, still vehemently protesting his innocence. His parents campaigned endlessly and staunchly for a pardon for their son until their deaths. In 2004 the blood and semen evidence gathered at the scene was tested for DNA. Hanratty's remains were exhumed and a sample collected. The only person that committed the offenses was none other than James Hanratty. The DNA analysis was a perfect match. Moral-of the-story: Loud protestations of innocence are not always what they seem.




James Hanratty.  Read more...

[John]

In 1991 Bedfordshire Police allowed Bob Woffinden access to their previously undisclosed files on the case. The CCRC report had also revealed the recorded mileage on the Morris Minor which invalidated Skillet's sighting in Brentwood and Trower's in Redbridge Lane. Bob Woffinden writes that there is no evidence that they even saw the same Morris Minor. These anomalies were considered sufficiently significant to justify an appeal against the conviction on behalf of Hanratty's family.

The surviving exhibits from the trial were lost until 1991, when they were found in envelopes in a laboratory drawer. DNA was donated by Hanratty's relatives, which they expected to exonerate him when compared with material on surviving evidence. Results from testing in June 1999 were said to be equivocal.

Hanratty's body was exhumed in 2001 in order to extract DNA.   This was compared with mucus preserved in the handkerchief within which the murder weapon had been found wrapped. It was also compared with semen preserved in the underwear worn by Storie when she was raped. No scientific evidence from the crime had previously been linked to Hanratty, yet DNA samples from both sources matched Hanratty's DNA. At the subsequent appeal hearing Michael Mansfield QC, the barrister acting for the Hanratty family, admitted that if contamination could be excluded the DNA evidence demonstrated that Hanratty had committed the murder and rape. He argued that the evidence may have been contaminated because of lax handling procedures. Among the surviving evidential items a vial had been broken which could account for contamination. However, neither sample yielded DNA from any second male source, as would presumably have been expected if another male had committed the crimes and the samples had subsequently been contaminated.

The argument for contamination was dismissed as "fanciful" by the judges, who concluded that the "DNA evidence, standing alone, is certain proof of guilt".   Hanratty's family and their supporters have continued to contest this conclusion.

[Kevin Craigie]

Hanratty was innocent.

Michael Gregsten and Valerie Storie were defecting to Russia in 1961. It was during the cold war and these places were under surveillance by security. Their intentions were known. The person who was responsible was Peter Alfonso, who occasionally was used by the security services to do their dirty work. The DNA was planted, as Hanratty and Alfonso once shared a room in a bed and breakfast. Paul Cleeland knew Alfonso !

[Jerry]

Hanratty was innocent.

Michael Gregsten and Valerie Storie were defecting to Russia in 1961. It was during the cold war and these places were under surveillance by security. Their intentions were known. The person who was responsible was Peter Alfonso, who occasionally was used by the security services to do their dirty work. The DNA was planted, as Hanratty and Alfonso once shared a room in a bed and breakfast. Paul Cleeland knew Alfonso !

  It all sounds to convenient for me Kevin.  More conspiracy theories and all that.  Why on earth would anyone want to frame Hanratty anyway and especially so when DNA analysis never existed at that time?  hmm...

[John]

Hanratty was innocent.

Michael Gregsten and Valerie Storie were defecting to Russia in 1961. It was during the cold war and these places were under surveillance by security. Their intentions were known. The person who was responsible was Peter Alfonso, who occasionally was used by the security services to do their dirty work. The DNA was planted, as Hanratty and Alfonso once shared a room in a bed and breakfast. Paul Cleeland knew Alfonso !

  It all sounds to convenient for me Kevin.  More conspiracy theories and all that.  Why on earth would anyone want to frame Hanratty anyway and especially so when DNA analysis never existed at that time?  hmm...

An excellent point Jerry, they had no notion in those days (1961/62) what advances forensic science would eventually make some forty years later.

Hanratty's body was exhumed in 2001 in order to extract DNA.  This was compared with mucus preserved in the handkerchief within which the murder weapon had been found wrapped. It was also compared with semen preserved in the underwear worn by Storie when she was raped. No scientific evidence from the crime had previously been linked to Hanratty, yet DNA samples from both sources matched Hanratty's DNA. At the subsequent appeal hearing Michael Mansfield QC, the barrister acting for the Hanratty family, admitted that if contamination could be excluded the DNA evidence demonstrated that Hanratty had committed the murder and rape.

[simon]

Hi everyone.       

I'm glad to back again after a short enforced absence due to being abroad on HMS.  Great to see so many participants on here and so many new topics.   

First class ship mates!!!   

[starryian]

Hi everyone,
I am the guy from facebook and the Hanratty argument is mine. I felt it highly appropriate to the situtation.
There are striking similarities in both cases as regards denial. Whether or not Hanratty was actually a clinical psychopath will probably never be known, what we do know is that the DNA found at the crime scene matched his,  and therefore there is a extremely high probability that Hanratty is a murderer and a rapist. I believe the rape may be the cause of Hanratty's reluctance to admit to the crime, rather than the murder.  Who knows?
Bamber I believe, denies it persistently for several reasons. First and foremost he is aware that an admission of any sort would, almost certainly condemn him to a whole life tariff with virtually no hope of a retrial, Denial, however, affords Bamber the possibility - at least in theory - that his case may be referred to the Court of Appeal and he could be released, even on a technicality.
Secondly, Bamber's overbearing arrogance. This well-documented and clearly obnoxious side to Bamber's personality, I believe played and continues to play a huge part in his reluctance to admit that he is responsible for this heinous crime. Put simply, he simply cannot admit to himself and others that he is a cowardly murderer who ambushed 5 defenseless people one man , two women and two children. Lastly I believe that Bamber has portrayed himself - as narcissistic psychopaths often do - in the role of the victim. In was not him who committed the murders but his sister. Everyone else is lying. His relatives are trying to frame him. The police are out to get him. Anyone but him. This is one of the key traits of a psychopath - Denial and then shifting the blame. Psychopaths are adept at this. However, there is one last aspect to why I think Bamber persistently denies responsibility and readers may find this somewhat strange; Bamber has such total contempt for those people that he so brutally murdered, that he feels they are unworthy of his imprisonment for their murder. He feels it is highly unjust that a man such as himself should spend any time at all incarcerated just because of them. In effect Bamber may feel a sense of injustice not for the fact that he is serving time for murder, but because the people that he murdered are unworthy of the time he is serving. They were nothing to him and therefore any punishment thats is administered should follow suit. To any right-thinking individual it sounds extremely strange. However, to a narcissistic psychopath this type of thinking makes perfect sense.

[puglove]

If Bamber confessed, his fan club, that small band of women of a certain age, would surely desert him (with the possible exception of Preece.) He is indeed a narcissist, he thrives on all that blind adoration. He would lose that after a confession, in the eyes of the world he would always be a pariah. Not quite his style.

[puglove]

Irony bypass in Brentwood, then? Maybe a certain elderly lady should have done some research before involving a certain lawyer?   

[Myster]

Hi everyone,
I am the guy from facebook and the Hanratty argument is mine. I felt it highly appropriate to the situtation.
There are striking similarities in both cases as regards denial. Whether or not Hanratty was actually a clinical psychopath will probably never be known, what we do know is that the DNA found at the crime scene matched his,  and therefore there is a extremely high probability that Hanratty is a murderer and a rapist. I believe the rape may be the cause of Hanratty's reluctance to admit to the crime, rather than the murder.  Who knows?
Bamber I believe, denies it persistently for several reasons. First and foremost he is aware that an admission of any sort would, almost certainly condemn him to a whole life tariff with virtually no hope of a retrial, Denial, however, affords Bamber the possibility - at least in theory - that his case may be referred to the Court of Appeal and he could be released, even on a technicality.
Secondly, Bamber's overbearing arrogance. This well-documented and clearly obnoxious side to Bamber's personality, I believe played and continues to play a huge part in his reluctance to admit that he is responsible for this heinous crime. Put simply, he simply cannot admit to himself and others that he is a cowardly murderer who ambushed 5 defenseless people one man , two women and two children. Lastly I believe that Bamber has portrayed himself - as narcissistic psychopaths often do - in the role of the victim. In was not him who committed the murders but his sister. Everyone else is lying. His relatives are trying to frame him. The police are out to get him. Anyone but him. This is one of the key traits of a psychopath - Denial and then shifting the blame. Psychopaths are adept at this. However, there is one last aspect to why I think Bamber persistently denies responsibility and readers may find this somewhat strange; Bamber has such total contempt for those people that he so brutally murdered, that he feels they are unworthy of his imprisonment for their murder. He feels it is highly unjust that a man such as himself should spend any time at all incarcerated just because of them. In effect Bamber may feel a sense of injustice not for the fact that he is serving time for murder, but because the people that he murdered are unworthy of the time he is serving. They were nothing to him and therefore any punishment thats is administered should follow suit. To any right-thinking individual it sounds extremely strange. However, to a narcissistic psychopath this type of thinking makes perfect sense.

Excellent post..., well thought out, lucid and to the point! 

Liz Rimmington had the "man in denial" well-sussed out when she told Colin Caffell that ...,"Jeremy never believed murder was a crime and thought that morality and social conscience, like religion, were only for the weak".

Liz even told Bamber that she thought he was a psychopath, to which he allegedly freely admitted.

[starryian]

Thank you kindly for your comments. Thank you also the the information on Liz. She was obviously a very smart lady.
 Thanks again!

[Andrea]

Interesting post, welcome.

[Angelo222]

Hi everyone,
I am the guy from facebook and the Hanratty argument is mine. I felt it highly appropriate to the situtation.
There are striking similarities in both cases as regards denial. Whether or not Hanratty was actually a clinical psychopath will probably never be known, what we do know is that the DNA found at the crime scene matched his,  and therefore there is a extremely high probability that Hanratty is a murderer and a rapist. I believe the rape may be the cause of Hanratty's reluctance to admit to the crime, rather than the murder.  Who knows?
Bamber I believe, denies it persistently for several reasons. First and foremost he is aware that an admission of any sort would, almost certainly condemn him to a whole life tariff with virtually no hope of a retrial, Denial, however, affords Bamber the possibility - at least in theory - that his case may be referred to the Court of Appeal and he could be released, even on a technicality.
Secondly, Bamber's overbearing arrogance. This well-documented and clearly obnoxious side to Bamber's personality, I believe played and continues to play a huge part in his reluctance to admit that he is responsible for this heinous crime. Put simply, he simply cannot admit to himself and others that he is a cowardly murderer who ambushed 5 defenseless people one man , two women and two children. Lastly I believe that Bamber has portrayed himself - as narcissistic psychopaths often do - in the role of the victim. In was not him who committed the murders but his sister. Everyone else is lying. His relatives are trying to frame him. The police are out to get him. Anyone but him. This is one of the key traits of a psychopath - Denial and then shifting the blame. Psychopaths are adept at this. However, there is one last aspect to why I think Bamber persistently denies responsibility and readers may find this somewhat strange; Bamber has such total contempt for those people that he so brutally murdered, that he feels they are unworthy of his imprisonment for their murder. He feels it is highly unjust that a man such as himself should spend any time at all incarcerated just because of them. In effect Bamber may feel a sense of injustice not for the fact that he is serving time for murder, but because the people that he murdered are unworthy of the time he is serving. They were nothing to him and therefore any punishment thats is administered should follow suit. To any right-thinking individual it sounds extremely strange. However, to a narcissistic psychopath this type of thinking makes perfect sense.

I like your comment as well starryian and recommend to admin that they post it on twitter since it gices an excellent insight into Bamber.  Good posts peeps!!

Can I also say that I am disgusted at the unprovoked attack on Kevin who came here with the best of intentions and has behaved with admirable restraint while attempts have been made to besmirch him.

[Intrigued]

I would like to calmly remind some people on here that the attacks came from all sides yesterday. just because someone isnt brave enough to add their real name, doesnt mean they didnt take a full active part in attacking others.

[Angelo222]

I would like to calmly remind some people on here that the attacks came from all sides yesterday. just because someone isnt brave enough to add their real name, doesnt mean they didnt take a full active part in attacking others.

I believe I am right in saying that this forum is the only justice forum which allows guest posting and it would be a sad loss imo if such a feature was lost because of the conduct of a few troublesome posters.