The Fish and Chip Shop and James Hanratty

This fish and chip shop is near the coach bus station at central car park, Blackpool. Famously it is where James Hanratty was discovered by detectives.

Wikipedia : James Hanratty (4 October 1936 – 4 April 1962), also known as the A6 Murderer, was a British criminal who was one of the final eight people in the UK to be executed before capital punishment was effectively abolished.[1] He was hanged at Bedford Gaol on 4 April 1962, after being convicted of the murder of scientist Michael Gregsten, aged 36, who was shot dead in a car on the A6 at Deadman's Hill, near Clophill, Bedfordshire in August 1961. Gregsten's mistress, Valerie Storie, was raped, shot five times, and left paralysed. 

There's an interesting account of this case at the Blackpool Crime website where it says, “On 11 October [1961] he travelled from Liverpool to Blackpool. At 11.15 pm he was having a meal in the Stevonia Fish and Chip Restaurant on Central Drive when Detective Constables James Williams and Albert Stillings popped in for a cup of coffee.”

Evidence presented then would not be admissible today, and many protest that Hanratty was innocent. The 'A6 Defence Committee' was a self-appointed group of campaigners and activists, who included the journalist Paul Foot and the Labour politicians Fenner Brockway and Joan Lestor, the former and current MPs for the Eton & Slough constituency where Valerie Storie lived.[23] The Committee was part-funded by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who met publicly with the Hanratty family.[citation needed] The Committee attempted to assist Hanratty in his defence, and later tried to disprove his conviction.

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