PRO DEATH PENALTY QUOTE OF THE WEEK (VICTIMS’ FAMILIES WHOM JUSTICE WAS SERVED) [SUNDAY 3 JUNE 2012 TO SATURDAY 9 JUNE 2012]

QUOTE: Maintaining her belief in capital punishment, Miss Storie said that the fact that Hanratty was hanged meant she had been able at least to live her life without fear.

"I have always been and always will be a great supporter of capital punishment," she added.

Of Hanratty, she said: "He committed a crime, he was guilty and he must hang therefore I have got no fear of him. If he had not been hanged then his life sentence would have finished and he would be out. I don't think I would have had a moment's peace - every knock at the door I would fear he was there again."

AUTHOR: Valerie Storie - The woman who was raped, shot and left paralysed by A6 murderer James Hanratty has said she feels "vindicated" after his posthumous conviction appeal was thrown out. Wheelchair-bound Valerie Storie said she never had any doubts about Hanratty's guilt and backed the decision to hang him. Hanratty shot and killed Michael Gregsten before turning to his mistress, Miss Storie on the evening of August 22 1961. In February the following year Hanratty was convicted of capital murder and was one of the last men to be hanged in Britain. The Court of Appeal ruled that DNA evidence established Hanratty's guilt "beyond doubt". Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, sitting with Lord Justice Mantell and Mr Justice Leveson, announced their decision in the posthumous appeal to a packed court in London. Hanratty, 25, went to the gallows on April 4, 1962, for the notorious A6 murder in Bedfordshire, in which scientist Mr Gregsten, 36, was shot dead. His 22-year-old mistress, Miss Storie, was raped and shot. She survived but was left paralysed from the waist down.