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Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Message Boards » Police Officials » Macnaghten, Sir Melville » The Macnaghten Memoranda » Why was MacNaghten chosen to write this? « Previous Next »

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Archive through June 15, 2005Phil Hill50 6-15-05  10:54 am
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert

Post Number: 4553
Registered: 3-2003
Posted on Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - 11:44 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Thanks for that, Phil, but if I were the opposition spokesman (and if I got a third bite at the cherry) I would ask, "Bearing in mind that the "Sun" is willing to make this information available to the police when they ask for it, why have they not asked for it? And why has the Rt Hon Gentleman (is that the parlance?) already decided that there is no need for a review and that several suspects are more likely to have committed the crimes, when he hasn't yet seen all the "Sun's" information?"

I guess what I'm getting at, Phil, is that unless the "Sun's" additional info was total bosh, one might have expected a holding position from the minister if asked ("I am looking into the matter") and then, a full report from Sir M. Instead, the memorandum only seems to mention the points raised in the actual articles.

It's true that the memorandum may have been written against the possibility that Sir M would be asked about the articles - but then why write a lengthy memorandum (and in more than one version) when a wait of a few days would have allowed him to write a full rebuttal of the "Sun's" claims? Which brings us back to either 1. It was immediately apparent that the "Sun's" extra info was all bosh or 2. Adopt a holding position while the info is fully investigated. But then, where's that fuller report?

Robert
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Phil Hill
Chief Inspector
Username: Phil

Post Number: 665
Registered: 1-2005
Posted on Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - 12:55 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Robert - you only get one supplementary in the Commons!!

I think I have covered your other points in previous posts on this issue. But no, I am NOT saying what you suggest I might be.

Macnaghten ensured, quite correctly, that the departmental line on the Cutbush issue was available on the file in case of need.

Notice would have been given of any Parliamentary Question (written or oral), debate, etc so detailed briefing material would have been drawn up as circumstances demanded - no doubt drawing on the memorandum.

The department did not have to do anything simply because a newspaper ran some articles. the HO/SY policy would be dictated by their approach to the murders as a whole as it stood in 1894.

Melville Macnaghten states it - at least three other men are more likely than Cutbush to have done it - so why waste resources or time on the latter? Now this might have been a line dictated by a cover-up, but the simpler explanation is that that was SY's attitude six years on from 1888.

The memo didn't NEED to be written against the possibility that MM himself might be asked about the articles - he knew the answers. We know that with certainty because he wrote his memo. the memo was probably intended in the event that MM himself wasn't in the office if the issue came up.

The various versions, as I have explained numerous times, are clearly drafts of the final (not separate documents). If you analyse them, MM moves from the personal to the impersonal in each one. I use exactly the same technique when drafting today. You cannot just leap - or not often - to the final version. Clarity, succinctness and balance all require care.

I can see no circumstances under which MM would have, or wished to, write a full rebuttal of the newspaper articles. First, it would have required him to expose the police position when it was based on private information and summise as much as fact. Second it would have opened up a debate and probably a demand for more information 9which was not available or able to be given out if it were). Thirdly, because it would have dignified the newspaper's claims.

Please lose the idea that Government departments, then or now, investigate every claim that arises. They have neither time nor staff to do so. So, I don't think either of your two options are credible.

HO and the SY would react - and were quite properly ready to do so at any stage - but I see no indication that they had any interest in pursuing the claims about Cutbush. That, by the way, does not imply a cover-up, but simply disinterest.

No where in the memo or the files is there any indication that their might be a fuller investigation or report, so it never existed. Full stop.

Phil
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert

Post Number: 4555
Registered: 3-2003
Posted on Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - 1:26 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi Phil

This is what I find curious. If Sir M exhibited disinterest, and never ordered a fuller investigation, then the police must have been much more rushed off their feet in 1894 than they were in 1888 - when they were investigating every letter writer who advised them to "have a look at the chap I work with, because I think he's not quite right in the head" and suchlike.

I'm puzzled about a full investigation exposing SY's position which was based on private info. If Sir M would have needed to say "It couldn't have been Cutbush, because we've got Druitt in the frame for it" then yes. But if the Sun's info was based on exaggerations, errors etc, why could he not write a (confidential) memorandum explaining just why the "Sun's" case didn't add up? After all, he (confidentially) gave Druitt's name.

Robert
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AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf

Post Number: 2199
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - 1:43 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Phil
Bless you, but you and I both know that procedure and protocol is not always followed by the police, or the government departments that control them. There is the ‘front door’ which you seem keen to open for us, but there is also the ‘back door’ through which only the privileged few pass. It is a short cut, and forms an elemental part of all and any government department.
We see in our own age how often New Labour - and even the palace - open that ‘back door’ to the wrong folk and then everything blows up in their face.

You must not see in our efforts to get to a kernel of truth regarding this memo some form of subversive attempt to discredit or ridicule a political system of formalised etiquette.
Far from it, for I believe we just want to honestly categorise this document and put it on its proper place on the shelf.
Your efforts seem to be a determined attempt to make us view this document as ‘normal’, with nothing ‘unusual’ about it.
But, Phil, it is a very unusual document isn’t it?
As I have pointed out before, it is the only documented defence of a complete and utter lunatic who stabbed women with a knife, by one of the most senior police officers of his day.
It is totally unique.
A more modern scenario of what you silently propose here, would have the Chief Constable of Yorkshire writing down in a memo that Peter Sucliffe- at the time of his arrest and before his confession - was a less likely suspect for the Yorkshire Ripper than three other men because he was only caught in a red-light district with a hammer in his hand, a screwdriver in his pocket, and with false number plates on his car.

I have never seen anything ‘suspicious’ about the Macnaghten Memo. In fact it is an ‘obvious’ document.
I used the words ‘kinda cute’ about the timing of it all.
I still think it ‘kinda cute’.
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Phil Hill
Chief Inspector
Username: Phil

Post Number: 666
Registered: 1-2005
Posted on Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - 5:10 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

I'm afraid here, you and I must disagree, AP, until evidence is adduced to support the contrary case. the document could be seen as unusual, if you wish to do so, BUT IT NEED NOT BE.

The MM is wholly explicable in routine terms, and at least some of things you say can be refuted.

There are a number of pragmatic considerations:

a) if a Minister lies to or misleads the House 9even more in 1888 or 1894 than today) he would have to resign - hence you don't mislead Ministers;

b) putting information on a file offers the possibility that it can be checked later - misleading information might be found out. better silence than a misleading memo;

c) silence is more flexible than a statement of any kind. A statement ties you - silence can be interpreted many ways;

d)if you have something secret to tell, you do it orally, not in a written way.

Thus, without some evidence that MM was being mendacious to whatever degree, I would contend that his words should be taken at face value.

This is pragmatic, realistic thinking, not a clinging to superficialities.

So, sorry AP, but we must differ,

Phil
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AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf

Post Number: 2202
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Wednesday, June 15, 2005 - 5:23 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

I know we must, Phil, but I couldn't differ with a more charming person than your good self.
I thank you for your useful and encouraging insight into the machinations of the civil service.
A good braking system will always stop a run-away car.
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Phil Hill
Chief Inspector
Username: Phil

Post Number: 669
Registered: 1-2005
Posted on Thursday, June 16, 2005 - 1:54 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Thank you AP.

But I really don't think "machinations" is a word that can be applied to the British Civil Service then and now - such selfless, unassuming, self-sacrificing and simple souls to a man and woman. Sir Melville (as he eventually became) was a fine example.

Phil
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Phil Hill
Chief Inspector
Username: Phil

Post Number: 671
Registered: 1-2005
Posted on Thursday, June 16, 2005 - 7:40 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

AP - I finally have a moment to address your post of 15 June in a little more detail.

"...procedure and protocol is not always followed by the police, or the government departments that control them."

But civil servants and others tend to follow their training. I am quite open-minded on whether MM was concealing something (Fenian or Cutbushian) but my point is that ONE DOES NOT HAVE TO TAKE THAT VIEW. What we have, and what MM wrote is perfectly explicable as having been played with a straight bat.

"There is the ‘front door’ which you seem keen to open for us, but there is also the ‘back door’ through which only the privileged few pass. It is a short cut, and forms an elemental part of all and any government department. "

It was probably even more true in 1888 than in todays freedom of Information climate. But the memo does not NEED to be seen as being "back door" in any way. Indeed, for the very current reasons you give, I would argue that a man like MM would not have committed to paper anything he did not need to (assuming he had something to hide).

What is interesting is that, in analysing the successive drafts we have of this document, I find no indication that it was being drafted to hide anything. It seems to me that it starts off very much as a personal document which is then toned down to a more "official" impartiality.

"You must not see in our efforts to get to a kernel of truth regarding this memo some form of subversive attempt to discredit or ridicule a political system of formalised etiquette. "

AP - I don't. What i am concerned to do is to ensure that conspiracy theories do not bloom where there is no cause; or until cause has been demonstrated. That can sometimes emerge from the creative tension of debate.

"Your efforts seem to be a determined attempt to make us view this document as ‘normal’, with nothing ‘unusual’ about it."

I'm not sure my efforts are determined!! But I am certainly not as convinced of the unusual aspects of this document as you are.

"As I have pointed out before, it is the only documented defence of a complete and utter lunatic who stabbed women with a knife, by one of the most senior police officers of his day. "

But that is NOT what the document is. The document sets out a perfectly logic line for the Department to take should the matter be raised. What i think you are mixing up here is the MOTIVATION for having written it. The memo and MM are silent on that, but as i have said, the successive drafts do not, IMHO, support your view.

"It is totally unique."

I cannot comment. But I doubt it.

"A more modern scenario of what you silently propose here, would have the Chief Constable of Yorkshire writing down in a memo that Peter Sucliffe- at the time of his arrest and before his confession - was a less likely suspect for the Yorkshire Ripper than three other men because he was only caught in a red-light district with a hammer in his hand, a screwdriver in his pocket, and with false number plates on his car."

I don't think that is a fair analogy. It would (again MHO) be quite right for a SY or Ho civil servant/official to have penned a note for the file saying (in the circumstances you propose):

"It is true that an individual has been arrested on suspicion, but the police continue to pursue their investigations."

(As a public line to take, to say anything more would be to prejudge the legal issues and potentially to prejudice any subsequent proceedings.)

Now, (assuming no FOI Act) an official might then minute the file to say that an arrest had been made, the man involved seemed a likley suspect but no final proof as yet. And then go on (as MM did) to outline other current leads or threads of invesitgation. If the police had views on whether the man arrested was a good lead or a poor one they might set that down - but in a confidential context.

If there was a buzz of excitement in the office, and a feeling that the case had been closed, then at that stage, I would expect the news to be given orally, or in a non-preserved way.

"I have never seen anything ‘suspicious’ about the Macnaghten Memo. In fact it is an ‘obvious’ document. "

here I might agree with you. It is clear from the writings of various people, including Sims, that MM was quite free with allowing people to see at least his copy of his memo. Given his emphasis on elsewhere of his trustworthiness - destroying private information etc on his retirement - I do find this odd. It is this (rather than anything in the memo itself) that makes me suspect that a cover-up might been in train - ie spread the false message as a distraction.

On the cureness of the dates - was it surprising that the "good day to bury bad news" e-mail followed the 9/11 events? had it preceeded them, the words would have been interpreted differently.

Good discussion, thanks AP,

Phil
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AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf

Post Number: 2203
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Thursday, June 16, 2005 - 1:40 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Phil, I’ll respond to your last post later, as I’ve only just read it.
Thanks, and meanwhile here is some more fat to chew over.

There are a couple of points concerning the Macnaghten Memo which shouldn’t be allowed to escape us.
Firstly Macnaghten was basing much of his knowledge of Thomas Cutbush on the evidence of three senior police officers - Ch. Inspr (now Supt.) Chis (illegible but he must mean ‘Chisholm’), Inspr. Race, and by P.S. McCarthy CID.
Now when this police detail concerning Cutbush is matched against the detail concerning Cutbush in the ‘Sun’ reports, we are able to see that the two separate reports are in fact one and the same report, mirror images of each other.
I believe this to be quite important, as for the first time we have two separate reports concerning Thomas Cutbush, and they both say exactly the same thing.
As the one report is actual police evidence, gained by senior and highly experienced police officers, I think it is time to accept that the substance of what the ‘Sun’ is saying amounts to the acceptable facts of the true situation regarding Cutbush… not that he was Jack the Ripper, but that he might very well have been, according to police evidence.

Secondly there is the obvious fact that in the ‘Sun’ reports there has been the willing cooperation and participation of a senior police official in the preparation of the evidence against Thomas Cutbush.
A careful trawl of the text will reveal at least eight situations which could only have been present in the reports if a police official had handed over evidential material gained at Thomas Cutbush’s trial or from his home address.
This seems to be saying that at least one senior police official had his money on Thomas Cutbush as Jack the Ripper.
Patently Macnaghten did not believe that to be the case.
The only reason I could see a senior police official cooperating with the ‘Sun’ is that he had exhausted all the official channels open to him, and was doing exactly what we see senior police officials doing today when they use the press for their own ends and means.
Now which senior police official disappeared shortly after the beginning of February 1894?
Because that will be the man.
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Phil Hill
Chief Inspector
Username: Phil

Post Number: 677
Registered: 1-2005
Posted on Thursday, June 16, 2005 - 1:59 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

As the recent case of David Kelly showed, a noble motive in going public on confidential matters does not necessarily prevent management taking disciplinary action against someone who leaks information.

Any senior manager is also entitled to come to conclusions that run counter to those of junior staff - whether for "political" (in a local/office) sense - ie something would not be opportune), organisational or factual reasons or because it is necessary to take a wider perspective. Junior staff do not always understand the logic of that decison even when it is explained to them. That may be because the lack the experience or judgement of their superior.

(Of course, they may be right and the senior wrong, but I want to indicate the other possibilities).

Senior officers have usually reached their position for a reason, and junior staff occupy theirs for other reasons. operational and HQ staff may also frequently appear at loggerheads because of their differing positions and perceptions.

Nothing you have said undermines my position that what MM wrote could have, and appears to be, based on his own evaluation of the situation and the evolution of a tenable departmental line based on that.

Of course, I could be wrong, and as I have said, there remains a possibility that MM was running a cunning decoy plan. But the suggestions that that is the case do not come from his memo.

Phil

Edited for spelling

(Message edited by Phil on June 16, 2005)
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AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf

Post Number: 2207
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Thursday, June 16, 2005 - 5:06 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Sorry Phil
But I’ve just been re-reading Macnaghten’s references in the newspapers of the time, and something is seriously out of whack with this guy.
There are many things that give cause for concern, but I’m going to do that at my leisure.
The Clapham Murder Case of 1911 stinks worse than a pile of rhino dung, there is something very nasty going on here indeed.
Macnaghten’s involvement here is far, far removed from the image you attempt to portray of a civil servant doing his honest duty.
This was bent cop, big time.
Anyways I’m going to study the whole thing again.
But please, Phil, no more Saint Macnaghten.
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Phil Hill
Chief Inspector
Username: Phil

Post Number: 679
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Posted on Thursday, June 16, 2005 - 5:52 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

I think I'll continue to argue the case for the defence, thanks, AP. But I'll read what you have to say about the 1911 case (of which I am totally ignorant) with the greatest interest.

Respect as ever,

Phil
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AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf

Post Number: 2210
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Friday, June 17, 2005 - 4:37 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Phil
This Clapham Murder case is enormously complicated, stretching as it does over almost twenty years; and quite honestly deserves a thread of its own, when not an entire web-site.
I was going to ask Robert if he would kindly post some of the reports here, but there are so many of them that it just wouldn’t work out.
We have touched on this case before on Casebook, but I don’t feel that anyone has really looked at the case in regard to Sir Melville Macnaghten and his influence on the Ripper case of 1888.
They should.
For here we have a case of murder and mutilation in January of 1911, where the victim’s face is actually carved into with initials; there is the involvement of the ‘Houndsditch Gang of Anarchists’ based at the ‘Workers’ Friend Anarchist Club’ located just behind Sidney-street; and all manner of other connections that just defy the human imagination. Including a Cutbush connection which I won’t harp on about.
Police reports indicate that both Jews and Russians are liable to disfigure and mutilate their murder victims… etc. & etc.

But the interest in Macnaghten is based on a single phone call, made by Detective Inspector Wensley at Leman Police Station when he was arresting Stinie Morrison for failing to register as a foreign national, for DI Wensley was actually telephoning Macnaghten at the Yard for his personal permission to arrest Morrison for the murder of Leon Beron, the mutilated victim.
It is obvious that during this telephone call, Macnaghten told DI Wensley that under no circumstances was he to arrest Morrison for murder, but to merely detain Morrison under the original charge of nor registering as a foreign national.
However another police officer, Greaves, was listening in to this conversation on the switchboard, and it is suspected that he had anarchist sympathies, for he immediately informed Morrison that Macnaghten planned to arrest him for the murder of Leon Beron.
This is when everything blew up.
Morrison was arrested for the murder.
And died for it.
Macnaghten had to play catch up for years, and support the officers that had failed him.
Two years later a naval gunner confessed to the crime but was declared insane.
Sorry, Phil, this is a very rambled and confused look at the case, but it is just so massive.

What disturbs me here is the free and easy access a very junior officer in the Met had to the most senior officer in that force.
This does not happen in a police force, unless there is some kind of pre-arrangement for it to happen.
The case also shows that there were elements in the Metropolitan police force who were on the side of chaos.
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Phil Hill
Chief Inspector
Username: Phil

Post Number: 686
Registered: 1-2005
Posted on Friday, June 17, 2005 - 5:20 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

I'm sorry AP but you have lost me. I realise that you know heaps about this case and I am ignorant, which probably accounts for it.

But when you say,

What disturbs me here is the free and easy access a very junior officer in the Met had to the most senior officer in that force.

What precisely do you mean? What sort of access do you imply? as i recall in 1911 it was common for operators of switchboards to listen in on calls. Are you implying more?

This does not happen in a police force, unless there is some kind of pre-arrangement for it to happen.

What doesn't happen precisely? I would have thought that in those days confidentiality of calls was not easy.

The case also shows that there were elements in the Metropolitan police force who were on the side of chaos.

I can see that, but how does that impact on MM? in 1888 the Met was reeling from various scandals - plus ca change?

Above all I don't see why this compromises MM in any way. What am I missing?

Sorry to be so obtuse AP, but I am genuinely lost.

Phil
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Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn

Post Number: 2062
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Friday, June 17, 2005 - 6:03 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Please tell us more about the Workers friend Anarchist club.Do you mean that the murder was pinned on the producers of the paper-Arbeter Feint AP ?---and is that the same as the Berner Street one? The book ," Violent London " tells of certain goings on such as agents provocateurs/ police infiltration etc being rife around the time of the earlier Fenian dynamitards attacks and the ripper murders but I dont remember anything about the Camden Street 1911 murder.....

Natalie
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Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn

Post Number: 2063
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Friday, June 17, 2005 - 6:03 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Please tell us more about the Workers friend Anarchist club.Do you mean that the murder was pinned on the producers of the paper-Arbeter Feint AP ?---and is that the same as the Berner Street one? The book ," Violent London " tells of certain goings on such as agents provocateurs/ police infiltration etc being rife around the time of the earlier Fenian dynamitards attacks and the ripper murders but I dont remember anything about the Camden Street 1911 murder.....

Natalie
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AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf

Post Number: 2211
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Friday, June 17, 2005 - 6:06 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

I mean, Phil, that when a detective inspector is about to arrest someone on a beat level he does not usually ring up the Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Force to confirm that he can do that thing.
For that detective inspector has his own superiors based on his beat when he needs confirmation of an arrest. He has Super’s and Chief Super’s. For that DI to have telephoned Macnaghten in person must mean that they had a personal arrangement.
Believe me, I do know what the response of the Chief Constable of Hampshire would be now if I - as a DI - were to ring him up from a sub-station in Southampton to confirm an arrest.
He would tell me to F… off, and would have me on the carpet the next morning, and instead of a DI, I would be working for the RSPCA.
Macnaghten was bucking the system here.
He wanted the arrest, but he didn’t want anyone else to know that.
If you read the account of the DI, then, no, it was not normal procedure for another officer to listen into calls.
The DI actually comes out quite well in the police investigation into this, and one does get the impression that he was under great pressure from his superiors - read Macnaghten there.
I don’t know, this whole affair just stinks to me.
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Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert

Post Number: 4566
Registered: 3-2003
Posted on Friday, June 17, 2005 - 6:15 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Natalie, there's an article about this case in the Whitechapel Society journal, Pilot issue and No. 1, by Andy Parlour.

Robert
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Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn

Post Number: 2065
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Friday, June 17, 2005 - 6:44 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Hi Robert,
I am in Wales at the moment so havent my stuff here.Will look it up when I get back on Monday
Thanks
Natalie
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Phil Hill
Chief Inspector
Username: Phil

Post Number: 689
Registered: 1-2005
Posted on Saturday, June 18, 2005 - 1:41 am:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

I can think of many reasons why - even today - the timing of an arrest and the charges under which it was made would be cleared by senior officers with political nous.

Terrorist arrests, charges with a clear political dimension, arrests which had to be co-ordinated with others. During the period in question, there was clearly a degree of consultation over the timing of arrests in relation to Cleveland St and Oscar Wilde - to give people the time to skip the country probably. So I see little inconsistency here.

On the basis of what you have said I am unconvinced.

In this case the officer listening in on the phone was clearly motivated by that officer, not MM.

I suppose if one is looking for conspiracy one will find it everywhere.

Phil
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AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf

Post Number: 2212
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Saturday, June 18, 2005 - 2:48 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Phil
I'm not looking for a conspiracy of any nature.
I just note discrepencies in due procedure.
This is one of them.
The DI would as a matter of course confirm the situation with his Super, and that Super would then ring an Executive Officer at the Yard, who would in turn talk to his Commissioner.
There are no short cuts in this procedure, unless it has already been formalised and arranged.
The Met wanted Morrison for this killing, although it was highly unlikely that he actually was involved in the crime... this is what I mean by 'back door'.
Not conspiracy, but a blind nod to due procedure.
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Phil Hill
Chief Inspector
Username: Phil

Post Number: 696
Registered: 1-2005
Posted on Saturday, June 18, 2005 - 4:30 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

Then I have to take your word for it AP - which I do, of course. I am no criminologist. Thanks for the information.

Phil
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AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf

Post Number: 2213
Registered: 2-2003
Posted on Saturday, June 18, 2005 - 6:04 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only) Ban Poster IP (Moderator/Admin only)

My word is my bib, Phil.
It's just something I'm still looking at, and I don't have a particular opinion on it, just sort of interests me... I like 'blips' that shouldn't be there.
Just as an aside - and with no connection whatsoever - it was DI Wensley who took Timothy Donovan's confession that he had murdered his wife by cutting her throat.

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