Was Hanratty guilty

A.� A lot of time and trouble is being taken to prove the guilt of hanged murderer James Hanratty. Why asked Deiter. The body of Hanratty has been exhumed and reburied after police took a DNA sample. It will now be up to a court to decide if he was guilty as charged.

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Q.� So the family has appealed.

A.� It's not as simple as that. The results of tests are intended to prove his guil,t rather than innocence. The Hanratty case has finally gone to appeal after nearly 40 years and the Crown - not the defence - applied for the exhumation for evidence.

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Q.� It was a terrible case wasn't it

A.� A brutal murder, a brutal rape and a brutal punishment. Hanratty, 25, was sent to the gallows after being convicted of murdering a civil servant in a lay-by on the A6. He was also alleged to have raped his lover, before shooting her and leaving her for dead. She was left paralysed.

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Q.� So what made it such a cause c�l�bre

A.� Hanratty, a petty thief, went to the gallows on 4 April, 1962, protesting his innocence. His last words to his parents were: 'Clear my name'. Many books have been written about it. The facts just didn't seem to add up.

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Q.� What happened

A.� On the evening of 22 August, 1961, Michael Gregsten, a 36-year-old married research scientist, had parked his Morris Minor in a cornfield near Dorney Reach, Buckinghamshire, for a rendezvous with his assistant and mistress Valerie Storie, 22. A man holding a revolver jumped into the back of the car and ordered Gregsten to drive, taking them on a five-hour trip that ended at Deadman's Hill on the A6 between Luton and Bedford. He shot Gregsten twice. He then raped Miss Storie before shooting her five times. It was largely on her evidence that Hanratty went to the gallows.

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Q.� There were inconsistencies

A.� From her hospital bed, Miss Storie faced two identity parades. The first included Peter Alphon, then the prime suspect. Two cartridge cases from the murder weapon were found among his possessions at a guest house in north London. But Miss Storie did not pick him out.

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Q.� So where did Hanratty come in

A.� She identified him at an ID parade a month later. He used the same guest house as Alphon. He claimed to have been 250 miles away in Rhyl on the night of the murder, and many people were prepared to swear that. But the jury believed the prosecution case.

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Q.� What now

A.� DNA extracted from his teeth will be compared with DNA profiles on the knickers Miss Storie was wearing on that terrible night.

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Q.� But will it still be possible to test them

A.� Hanratty's family will argue that samples from the crime scene have become contaminated.

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By Steve Cunningham