With regard to the process of identification and the possibility of error, it is instructive to compare Valerie Storie's experience with that of three women who were victims of serious sexual attacks committed by the same man. The case led to the conviction of a Scottish man, John McGranaghan, who was sentenced to life imprisonment. McGranaghan had protested his innocence throughout and, after ten years' imprisonment, his case was referred back to appeal. As a result, his conviction was quashed on 30 October 1991. These are extracts from the judgment of Lord Justice Glidewell, Mr Justice Hodgson and Mr Justice Buckley, in which they outlined the case against him at his trial:

'On 14 May 1978 Mr and Mrs G. were in bed together when between 2.00 and 3.00 a.m. a man broke into their home, came into their bedroom, threatened them and struck Mr G. with some metal object. He then indecently assaulted Mrs G ..... He told her not to look at him. He demanded money and jewellery and became aggressive as he could not find anything. He then blindfolded them both and raped Mrs G .....

'Mrs G. had three sights of him, her initial sight when she woke up as he came into the room – there was no light in the room but a street light outside shines on that part of the room, she said; secondly, when she raised her head as he put his penis in her mouth and, finally, when he instructed her to do the same to her husband.

'Nineteen months later, on 12 December 1979, a man broke into the home of Mrs L ..... She was awoken at about 2.00 in the morning. The intruder told her to keep her head down. He asked for money. She gave him money ..... He spent some time looking at articles which might have been of value, and then he said that as there was nothing to steal he must have a satisfying night and he wanted sex. He put his penis in her mouth and she had to fellate him twice ..... The whole incident took a considerable time ..... She had seen his face, again with the street light shining outside and through a glass panel on the front door .....

'Five months later, on 20 May 1980, Mrs F was woken at about 3.00 in the morning by a noise in her home. A man forced his way into her bedroom just as she was starting to dial 999 ..... He made her lie on the bed and forced her to suck his penis ..... He told her not to look at him ..... He then sucked her vagina, tied her arms together and then brought her child into the bedroom and made the child witness the mother being forced to fellate him and finally raping her and putting his penis into her mouth .....

'It has never been denied that the rapes and other offences took place .....

'After the appellant [McGranaghan] was arrested he attended three identification parades ..... The first woman who was brought in was Mrs F. She walked along the line and half-way back and then said, "I can identify someone. I think it would be fairer if they all spoke." She then pointed to the appellant. He was asked to speak, and he did. Mrs F then said she identified him. Nobody else was then asked to speak. In her evidence to the trial court, Mrs F said, "I knew him immediately by his eyes" .....

'She was followed immediately by Mrs L. After walking up and down the line twice Mrs L said she could not identify anyone by appearance. Three men, including the appellant, were then asked to speak. Of the three, the appellant was the only one with a Scottish accent. He also stuttered badly . Mrs L then pointed at the appellant and said, "I identify the voice and also by the features." In her evidence she said, "I could stake my life on the man's voice" .....

'On 30 October 1980 there was another parade ..... Not surprisingly, on this occasion the appellant objected to being asked to speak. Mrs G asked if she could hear the man speak and she was told she could not. According to the inspector conducting the parade, when she was asked if she could identify any person Mrs G said, "I am not absolutely sure." The inspector asked her, "Is there any person you think may be the person?" She said, "Yes," and touched the appellant. "You only think this is the man?" "Yes, I would be absolutely sure if he could speak" .....

'In her evidence at trial Mrs G said she was sure it was Mr McGranaghan almost as soon as she went into the room. She denied that she had shown any hesitation. She said she went straight to the appellant and identified him. She had not said that she was not sure.'

In his summing-up the judge cautioned the jury with the Turnbull guidelines, introduced in 1977 after the Devlin report. The appeal judgment continued:

'[The judge] reminded the jury of the effect which a victim's terror might have on her reliability as a witness of identification .....

'It is clear that the semen on the bedcover and the sheet taken from Mrs F's home cannot be that of this appellant. This appellant was not that assailant ..... We conclude that the conviction of this appellant on counts relating to Mrs F are wholly unsafe and unsatisfactory and must be quashed ..... The whole prosecution was based on the hypothesis, the acceptance indeed, that the same man committed all three groups of offence ..... It follows that the appeal against these [other] convictions is also allowed and the appellant's convictions on all counts are therefore quashed .....

'The identification by Mrs F of the appellant as her assailant was most probably mistaken and the identifications by Mrs G and Mrs L cannot safely be relied upon as being accurate .....

'We add a postscript. We think it desirable to make some brief observations about how what can only be seen as a miscarriage of justice came about .....'

McGranaghan had been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment even though a routine scientific analysis of the semen stains on the bed would have proved that he could not possibly have committed those offences. (This was not something determined by sophisticated forensic work such as DNA analysis; McGranaghan's blood group was different to the offender's.) The appeal court judges, having freed McGranaghan, thus concluded by condemning equally the work of defence and prosecution lawyers.

The points of similarity between this case and Hanratty' s scarcely need underlining. In each instance, the victims of these sexual assaults were with their assailant for a considerable period, in conditions of prevailing, although not unbroken, darkness.
Although the identifications were made after a longer interval than that which applied in the A6 Murder case, it is clear that the opportunities which these victims had of seeing their assailant were in some respects more favourable than those which Storie had had. The first woman, for example, enumerated three separate occasions on which she saw him. Further, the first two women believed that the voice of the assailant provided an additional means of identifying him correctly. Moreover, the first victim even referred, as Valerie Storie had done, to the indelible impression that the assailant's eyes had left on her. As it happened, all three women were totally mistaken.