In 1951 Beatrice Rimmer was bludgeoned to death in her home, with robbery the supposed motive. Two Mancunians Edward Devlin and Alfred Burns were later hung for the murder after investigations led by Bert Balmer, who would appear to have 'fitted up' George Kelly and Charles Connolly over the Cameo murders.

The evidence against the two accused was largely circumstantial, involving eye witness accounts by people of questionable character and the defendants failure to provide a suitable alibi. No murder weapon or fingerprints were ever found, nor did anyone ever see the them go into the house.

I'm convinced that this is, like the Cameo case, a miscarriage of justice. Here's some links:-

http://www.geocities.com/stevenhortonuk/cranborneroad.html
http://detectiveandrews.tripod.com/cranborne.html

Hi Steve

Thanks for starting this thread. As you say, it appears to be another miscarriage of justice down to Bert Balmer fitting up a couple of petty criminals for the crime just as in the Cameo case.

Chris

what a sad case

My mate still lives opposite to the house in question!

:) My mate still lives opposite to the house in question!

get us a pic jona!

:)

get us a pic jona!


Of me mates house? :Colorz_Grey_PDT_16:

No, of the sad case.

This is what the house looked like at the time:

http://img76.imageshack.us/img76/2687/cranbourne1ly9.th.jpg (http://img76.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cranbourne1ly9.jpg)

A mate of me Dad lived in the road until the 60's and followed the case with interest at the time. I got that pic off him a while back along with some others of the road. Can dig them out if anyone's interested. I expect the bloke who's writing the book on this will have these sort of things already.

AP.

This is what the house looked like at the time:

http://img76.imageshack.us/img76/2687/cranbourne1ly9.th.jpg (http://img76.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cranbourne1ly9.jpg)

A mate of me Dad lived in the road until the 60's and followed the case with interest at the time. I got that pic off him a while back along with some others of the road. Can dig them out if anyone's interested. I expect the bloke who's writing the book on this will have these sort of things already.AP.

brilliant pic ap. thanks so much for sharing.
I just passed that road before. Gone downhill a bit since that pic was taken!!
I wouldn't be so sure of the author of the book already having the pics already....i think you should contact him. He might be real pleased to hear from you :) who is it writing the book? where did you find that out?

...who is it writing the book? where did you find that out?

Liverpool Echo interview from last June:

Liverpool Echo interview from last June:

really interesting!
thanks so much for that

Hi AP and MissInformed

Thanks, AP, for sharing that newscutting with us. As you saw, it is New Brighton-based George Skelly, author of The Cameo Conspiracy, who is writing the book on the Cranborne Road murder. As George told me by email recently, and as related in the cutting, he sees a direct parallel between what happened with George Kelly and Charles Connolly, the two men convicted in the Cameo murders, and the convictions and execution of Burns and Devlin for the murder of Beatrice Rimmer in her Wavertree home. In both cases, the men who were tried and found guilty of the crimes appear to have been "fitted up" for the crimes by the chief Liverpool CID officer, Bert Balmer.

Chris

Hi Chris do you know how the book by George is progressing?

all the best
Steve

Alice Rimmer lying in her hallway after the attack which left her dead. Not gory I hope you'll agree but shocking all the same. If it wasn't Devlin and Burns who done this to her then let's all hope that, one day, we all get some truth and can perhaps find out really who did it. Not least for her relatives. I know someone who knew Mrs Rimmer's lad in later life. He's gone though. Perhaps he knows what happened to his Mum now.

grisly picture but very interesting.
can't wait for this book

I wonder if it was George Skelly or possibly MarkR from this forum, or even Tom Slemen who rang into Radio City this week when Pete Price had Bernard-Hogan-Howe on the programme. It was in protest at the Police commissionaire wanting to charge £450 for documents on an old murder case being made avaialble for public scrutiny under the freedom of information act.

I wonder....!
When was that on Ged?

Hiya. It was Mon or tues this week.

I've just been reading your avatar, my mate who was a Christian in the Coliseum, Rome reckons you're wrong :unibrow:

I wonder if it was George Skelly or possibly MarkR from this forum, or even Tom Slemen who rang into Radio City this week when Pete Price had Bernard-Hogan-Howe on the programme. It was in protest at the Police commissionaire wanting to charge £450 for documents on an old murder case being made avaialble for public scrutiny under the freedom of information act.

Did the caller actually mention this case ? If so, it will almost certainly have been Slem or his sidecar rider, Mr. Andrews (if it were me I wouldn't know which handlebars to grab). If it wasn't this case being talked about, how comes you posted that in this thread ?

Hi there. I bumped into Mr Andrews quite by accident when the Gardens of Stone screening was on at the Olive Mount Community Centre last wednesday. He has a 'Criminologist' sign on his bungalow gate, so I chatted to him for a while and he said they had some 'revelations' about this case and others, I suspect Wallace and the Ripper that he and Slemen were supposed to working on (Liverpool it seems may have run out of ghosts now)- I won't hold my breath.

Hogan-Howe was very suspicious of why someone would want an old case file, he said he had to wary of suspects in an old case delving into what the police actually had/or never had on them.

It transpired that it was someone writing a book about a famous old Liverpool case and this was only one of perhaps three I could think of that was in the news, what with Bert Balmer and his perhaps dodgy methods and the call for justice. This therefore might not be the correct thread in actual fact but if it is being revisited, then it's quite possible that this is the file the caller was on about.

Hi there. I bumped into Mr Andrews quite by accident when the Gardens of Stone screening was on at the Olive Mount Community Centre last wednesday. He has a 'Criminologist' sign on his bungalow gate, so I chatted to him for a while and he said they had some 'revelations' about this case and others...

You chatted to him because he had a 'Criminologist' sign on his driveway ? :p

You know, he and Slem can hint all they like about their revelations regarding this case and others. That's one of their tricks. The fact is: they know nothing. I know people (yes, plural) who have seen the Merseyside Police case files on this murder so anything in them is not a revelation which Andrews or Slem have any power to exclusively hold back or reveal at a time of their choosing. There are people out there with far greater knowledge of Merseyside crimes than this pair claim to have and as have I asked before on here: what have either of them ever exclusively revealed about anything ? Can anyone answer me that ?

My opinion is that Slem is a truly awful writer with a niche market preaching the unbelievable to the unbelievably naive. And, as our own Mr. George on here is well aware, he's been shown to have pilfered his tales from elsewhere (he didn't even hide it very well).

Mr. Andrews, OTOH, is a self-styled criminologist who sees dead rock-stars on gateposts and who was, the last I heard, calling for a pedestrian tunnel to be built under the Mersey so people could pop over to the shops in Birkenhead. That's what we're dealing with here. The sooner this pair of jokers leave criminology to people qualified to write about such matters the better.

Oh, and did you know that every time someone buys a Tom Slemen book that somewhere on Earth a genuine historical researcher dies. It's true.

AP.

I very much agree with you. But in case you think i'm a sad case, I was a little lost at the time and had unknowingly driven past the community centre twice in my search for it, a sign on it would be good. That's when I spotted him and his sign. I asked him if he knew Vincent Burke, a real criminologist, he looked a bit blank and said after a while 'Oh Yes'

I know of course that Slemen's 'revelation' of John Johnstone (sp) being the wallace murderer has been looked at before, as I say, i'm not holding my breath of those two finding anything new.

I very much agree with you. But in case you think i'm a sad case, I was a little lost at the time and had unknowingly driven past the community centre twice in my search for it, a sign on it would be good. That's when I spotted him and his sign. I asked him if he knew Vincent Burke, a real criminologist, he looked a bit blank and said after a while 'Oh Yes'

I know of course that Slemen's 'revelation' of John Johnstone (sp) being the wallace murderer has been looked at before, as I say, i'm not holding my breath of those two finding anything new.

Don't worry Ged mate. If it helps, I know you're not one of the soft ones :) Evidently, there's something of a feud 'twixt Slem/Andrews and Burke so Andrews' face must have been priceless when you asked him had he heard of Vincent :) Pity you (probably) didn't add the "real Criminologist" bit in real life, for extra effect. I would have done...

The Slem/Andrews theory of the Johnstones killing Julia Wallace is of course completely true because they are "credited with solving the case in Arabella McIntyre Brown's book, Liverpool: The First 1000 years." And this feat of enormous accreditation now ranks them above "other historians and crime fiction writers such as Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers and Raymond Chandler." (Link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Andrews_%28criminologist%29))

Also on that page you'll see this inconspicuous gabble (which I'm reminded that I've mentioned before on here):

"He is currently writing a feature on a crime historian's past, and an in-depth article on a failed one-book 'pulp crime writer' who writes nothing but anonymous emails to famous people. Keith is also working with a television screenwriter on a script about the Cameo Murders, based on the landmark book by Barry Shortall."

Which seems to be a dig at none other than Mr. Burke and then a double (or does it count triple ?) dig at Mr. George Skelly. Baffling...

...except of course they're in something of a minor panic knowing that he has a Rimmer Murder book in the works (back 'on thread' at last !) and they've hinted at one of their own in the pipe-line (or should that be -dream ?).

Be very assured that there is not the remotest chance that Slem and Andrews would (or even could) publish anything on the Cranborne Road murder first as they're palpably worried that George might know a lot more than they do and would rather have the opportunity to piggyback onto his research once his book is out anyway. And then accuse a dead neighbour...

Thanks for the link, very interesting. If I didn't know better, i'd say the wiki page was written by the old chap himself - he certainly didn't look anything like his bouncer pic :unibrow:

So there was I, talking to such a famous crime solver - not - ha ha.

I like the way they mention Parry was a main suspect then almost as an aside then mention WHW was also blamed.

Thanks for the link, very interesting. If I didn't know better, i'd say the wiki page was written by the old chap himself - he certainly didn't look anything like his bouncer pic :unibrow:

So there was I, talking to such a famous crime solver - not - ha ha.

...

Just as surely as Slem writes his own Wiki page, Andrews surely has touched his own up from time to time. The editing history of both is fascinating and sometimes hilarious.

Just to explain my 'rock-stars and gateposts' accusation further up:

http://www.xprojectmagazine.com/archives/strange/jlface.html

Just the kind of thing you'd expect from a serious criminologist, eh ?

Google his name and Jonbenet Ramsey for some very interesting reading.

AP.

Ged - does Andrews really have that big moustache, or is it just a false one he uses to make people take notice of his articles.

Looking at Wikipedia last year, I noticed that there was no mention of the Wallace case anywhere in it's pages and decided to create an entry. It sat there unmolested until quite recently when, checking on it I noticed two lines had been added at the bottom by someone unknown. They referred to a theory by a Keith Andrews that the person responsible for the murder of Julia Wallace was none other than her next door neighbour. I had finished my entry by saying that nobody else had been charged with the murder, other that the reprieved Wallace and that therefore the murder remained unsolved.
I was pretty irritated at this addition of an unproven theory ( which is a long way from new) because it implied that this Andrews character had solved the murder. I found an entry for him in Wikipedia and he has attempted to confirm his theory by quoting it's inclusion in a book by someone called Arabella McIntyre Brown, whoever she is.
As this is simply a theory and not sustainable by evidence or a signed confession, it has no place in an entry based on known facts and I attempted to remove the offending lines, but the entry has been padlocked by the admin. I wonder why. I have done a couple of other Wikipedia entries on Liverpool murders and await their re-editing by whoever did the Wallace one.

Looking at Wikipedia last year, I noticed that there was no mention of the Wallace case anywhere in it's pages and decided to create an entry. It sat there unmolested until quite recently when, checking on it I noticed two lines had been added at the bottom by someone unknown. They referred to a theory by a Keith Andrews that the person responsible for the murder of Julia Wallace was none other than her next door neighbour. I had finished my entry by saying that nobody else had been charged with the murder, other that the reprieved Wallace and that therefore the murder remained unsolved.
I was pretty irritated at this addition of an unproven theory ( which is a long way from new) because it implied that this Andrews character had solved the murder. I found an entry for him in Wikipedia and he has attempted to confirm his theory by quoting it's inclusion in a book by someone called Arabella McIntyre Brown, whoever she is.
As this is simply a theory and not sustainable by evidence or a signed confession, it has no place in an entry based on known facts and I attempted to remove the offending lines, but the entry has been padlocked by the admin. I wonder why. I have done a couple of other Wikipedia entries on Liverpool murders and await their re-editing by whoever did the Wallace one.

The W.H .Wallace page is in a state of "semi-protection", (disables editing from anonymous accounts and those accounts fewer than four days old). So register, wait 96 hours and edit it as much as ye see fit. If you want, you could even consider yourself as it's gatekeeper :)

Incidentally, now that you've made me go look at Wiki again (I generally don't bother because I'm there all night when I do), I note with some sadness that Oliver Hardy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Andrews_%28criminologist%29) is up for possible deletion and meanwhile, Stan Laurel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Tomslemen) just got himself banned from editing after barely being registered for two hours. But is one of his edits quite telling though ? He edited out a mention of his moustache-faced buddy on the W.H. Wallace page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Herbert_Wallace) but was happy to leave the last paragraph as "Despite much theorising as to the identity of the murderer, the case remains unsolved." Hadn't he 'cracked' this one ? Surely world-renowned crime expert Arabella McIntyre-Brown couldn't have made a bad call in her book on Liverpool's first thousand years ? How could it be ? Uh-oh, there goes my sarcasm again. I really should get that looked at...

Ged - does Andrews really have that big moustache, or is it just a false one he uses to make people take notice of his articles.

Ste. He did have a moustache but it wan't black anymore. How did he ever drink soup with that, that's the real mystery here.

Ste. He did have a moustache but it wan't black anymore. How did he ever drink soup with that, that's the real mystery here.

With a straw?

Thanks Phil.

Mystery part solved (you'll have to get yourself a 'Criminologist' sign just like his.)

Now, I say part solved because a straw's ok for tomato soup but how do you suck veg or pieces of chicken up it unless you're Linda Lovelace?

Thanks Phil.

Mystery part solved (you'll have to get yourself a 'Criminologist' sign just like his.)

Now, I say part solved because a straw's ok for tomato soup but how do you suck veg or pieces of chicken up it unless you're Linda Lovelace?

You suck all the liquid out with the straw, then you fork the large bits into your mouth.
(Linda Lovelace style!).
Am I off-topic yet?
Or am I sacked?

You did say 'fork' the large bits didn't you?

You did say 'fork' the large bits didn't you?

How very dare you!

Just found this via GOOGLE- Met Mr. George Skelly last week and had a good ol' natter about the old times. I know him from way back - from the Cavern days. I listened to him talk about this case for a half an hour or so and he's adamant that he knows who the real killer is and that he's going to name him in his upcoming book. Eventually he told me the name - via a whisper! - but I'm not sure I should say anything on here! In fact I'm quite sure that I should not! I actually met this bloke personally on a few occasions and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if he had ever bludgeoned someone to death. Just such a bloody shame he was never caught for this one before he went on to do what he did subsequently. George said his research was "spine-tinglingly" lucky - I think he'd had a few bevvies by then as that can't be a real word. But I think it might be worth hanging on for a Second/Updated edition as there are some things which he won't be able to say while certain individuals are still alive. I suggested he should just publish the lot and see what happens but he's in promises to people who he interviewed and who have confided major stuff so there you go. Whether this one goes back to the court of appeal for a re-adjudication remains to be seen but if it does it'll be a proud day for the truth. The two hanged are still buried at Walton - in the same grave would you believe - so ultimately a Christian burial good and proper would be about the best 'happy ending' this story could get. Amen to that.

Hello to all on the forum anyway.

Hello to all on the forum anyway.

Hello :PDT11

Hello :PDT11

Hey oldie, you,ve given me goose pimples.:ninja:

any news on the book?

I would be very interested if you had any further contacts about the Burns & Devlyn case, as Alfred Burns was my mums cousin. I have been looking in to my family history and come across this skeleton. It seems to all be a bit hush hush in the family, and that alone has lit an immediate interest to me.
Many thanks for the information you have put on here.
Donna

I would be very interested if you had any further contacts about the Burns & Devlyn case, as Alfred Burns was my mums cousin. I have been looking in to my family history and come across this skeleton. It seems to all be a bit hush hush in the family, and that alone has lit an immediate interest to me.
Many thanks for the information you have put on here.
Donna

Fascinating !
I hope you find out what you're looking for.

Fascinating !
I hope you find out what you're looking for.

I hope justice is done. Incidentally the Cameo and Cranborne murders were only a matter of yards apart being in adjacent roads.

Donna please cjheck your private messages
I have something you might be interested in
Also you may want to contact George Skelly he may be interested in your family history

Its quite interesting all this stuff about 7 Cranborne Road. I grew up near there and didn't know all that much about it until reading this thread.

I do find it funny however that the link from the first post http://detectiveandrews.tripod.com/cranborne.html
has the photo "Keith Andrews in Cranborne Road, Wavertree".
Someone should tell him he's looking in the wrong place. He's standing in what looks like Salisbury Road. :lol:

Donna please cjheck your private messages
I have something you might be interested in
Also you may want to contact George Skelly he may be interested in your family history

Steve, check your PMs

I really am looking forward to George Skelly's new book about the Cranbourne road murder. His "Cameo Conspiracy" was a fine book and completely captured my imagination. He is a fine author and the Cameo book is now hard to find . There is actually one on the net for sale at £130 !

Apparently awards such as the Kings medal and the OBE cannot be stripped from a person posthumously as they no longer own the award when they die. That is straight from the Cabinet Office that awards them in the first place. I don't agree with it as many a headstone will have details of a persons awards and they will be remembered as to having received them and for the reasons why.

Its quite interesting all this stuff about 7 Cranborne Road. I grew up at No.8 and didn't know all that much about it until reading this thread.

I do find it funny however that the link from the first post http://detectiveandrews.tripod.com/cranborne.html
has the photo "Keith Andrews in Cranborne Road, Wavertree".
Someone should tell him he's looking in the wrong place. He's standing in what looks like Salisbury Road. :lol:

I like the G. Gordon Liddy moustache. :unibrow:

Alice Rimmer lying in her hallway after the attack which left her dead. Not gory I hope you'll agree but shocking all the same. If it wasn't Devlin and Burns who done this to her then let's all hope that, one day, we all get some truth and can perhaps find out really who did it. Not least for her relatives. I know someone who knew Mrs Rimmer's lad in later life. He's gone though. Perhaps he knows what happened to his Mum now.

Does anyone know what happened to Mrs Rimmers son Thomas? He had been in the Police and left but was supposed to have re-joined. When did he die etc?

I really hope this book comes out soon.
Really looking forward to it.

It's progressing and there are some very interesting developments. If anyone can help with the above question, it would be greatly appreciated.