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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
The story so far, in laymans term.
Casebook Message Boards: The Diary of Jack the Ripper: General Discussion:
The story so far, in laymans term.
Author: Triston Marc Bunker
Friday, 02 March 2001 - 03:30 pm |        | Dear all,
I have opened up this section for one purpose only, for us new starters to get our heads around the hassle of the "DIARY" in hand.
As all of you long termers know I have only been coming here for three or four weeks. I have read the books, come up with my own theory (which has openly been laughed at, though I don't regret it) and unfortunatly not done any worth while research beyond that. But it's this diary business is getting quite complex and long winded. Here I leave my understanding of what's basically gone on so far. But before you go further please understand why I'm doing this, it's because there is so many archives that it would be a complete turn off to those who would be attracted to the subject.
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THE STORY SO FAR ACCORDING TO TRIS
A diary Is presented forward, at the begining of the ninties, by a certain Mike Barret to a publishing house. Two memeber of that publishing house, Feldman and Harrison, get excited and employ a team of specialist to prove its authenticity. Mike Barret continually claims it's not a fake, if so then it's not by his hand.
The years fall away and all the experts are sitting on the fence. Mike divorces his wife and in a legal document tells the world he faked it. In the meantime he changes his story more often than his underpants. The finger of blame points at his former wife Anne, though everybody still sits on the fence on this.
Melvin Harris keeps pratterling on it's a fake and brands everyone a lier, even those on the fence despite the fact they admitt they could be wrong.
The idea now is that it it is a fake but the question is "when was it faked ?". Melvin Harris still has the proverbial balls to call people liers willy nilly.
As we stand now Mr. Harris leaves us tid-bits as to why it's a forgery but won't have the gaul to do it fully or directly. The big discussion should be (from my own perspective) why does he use Shirley Harrison when he has publicly put herself and Feldy down.
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I know it sounds like an attack on Melvin Harris I assure you all it isn't what I mean by it all. Despite my attacks on him I'm sure he's the kinda guy to get a round in down the pub Sunday lunchtimes and offer kind words of advice to his friends (quick Paul, sweaty palms again slap me around the face quick).
Before you all jump on my back and tell me I left something out or got something wrong I am open for correction and addition. After all, this heading is only for those of us trying our best to get our heads around it all and those involved to simplify it for us.
Triss |
Author: Martin Fido
Friday, 02 March 2001 - 07:30 pm | | Dear Tris,
'Oh, God! Oh, Montreal!' here's a 'New readers Start Here', if it's wanted...
A diary is shown by Mike Barrett to literary agent Doreen Montgomery (apparently after he's been recommended by Pan Books to take it that route). Doreen sounds out free-lance writer Shirley Harrison to see if she would be interesting in editing and introducing it. Shirley and Doreen take it to the British Museum and to Jardine's antiquarian bookdealers for verification, and are advised that it appears to be old and they should push on. Doreen invites publishers to bid for the rights, and Robert Smith approaches Keith Skinner and me for advice as to whether the document is commercially viable or instantly self-destruct. We recommend him to go ahead.
He and Shirley commission Keith, Paul Begg and me to advise Shirley on historical problems (and Keith to do fascinating work on Maybrick's past with Shirley's research associate Sally Evemy), also document examiner Sue Iremonger to do handwriting comparisons, first David Baxendale, then Nick Eastaugh to run scientific tests on paper and ink, and Nick Forshaw to assess the psychological probability of the diary's being genuine.
Paul Feldman, already interested in making a video on the Ripper, buys film and video rights in both the diary and Shirley's research. He commissions Israeli graphologist - (i.e. would-be psychological analyst of supposed patterns in handwriting: not, repeat not, an expert in determining whether different documents are by the same hand) - who produces a report which (a) suggests that a drug-abuser might produce radically different hands (thus explaining, perhaps, the radical difference between Maybrick's will and the diary handwriting), and offers a psychological pattern which certainly seems to fit all sorts of suitable things. Feldman is convinced and henceforth throws huge amounts of money into trying to prove that Maybrick was the diarist, in the process often muddying with inexpert questioning important waters, especially around the Barretts, whom Shirley was approaching very cautiously.
Via Feldman and/or Robert Smith, and the professional digging of a Liverpool journalist, word leaked out that a diary incriminating James Maybrick as Jack the Ripper had been found. All the 'consultants' were sworn to secrecy until Shirley's publication day, and could not comment. Melvin Harris, Nick Warren and Stewart Evans when approached by the press, said the idea was utter rubbish. Around this time, Richard Whittington-Egan, Donald Rumbelow and Colin Wilson were also told about the diary and shown something of it, either to add weight to the hoped-for 'yes' team of experts, or to keep them silent while the 'noes' gave tongue. And from then on, Feldy and Melvin seemed to lose all sense of proprtion about the thing. Both would be instantly on the telephone to anyone they thought was holding the 'wrong' opinion or 'wavering'. People like Colin Wilson, and an unfortunate graphologist-cum-document examiner from Anerica whom Feldy pulled in would have liked a little time to make up their minds and consult fairly widely. But if they showed themselved leaning one way, they were quickly in for an earful from the opposite party.
Robert Smith sold serial rights to the Sunday Times, who spoke to all the 'consultants' (and Melvin Harris), and sent the diary to a document examiner, a specialist in 19th century linguistics, and the veteran Ripper historian Tom Cullen. All three unanimously declared it fake, and the ST asked Scotland Yard to investigate the possibility of crimnal fraud. The Yard's investigation concluded quite positively that Feldman was completely innocent - (and the word's connotation of 'naive' was definitely a part of their thinking!) - and that Shirley Harrison was doing exactly the sort of straightforward job they would expect of somebody who thought the balance of probabilities lay firmly in her favour. They were not, on the other hand, convinced by Mike Barrett's account of his actions, and they felt that his wife Anne was both furious with him for having done something to bring the police down on them (as she herself has agreed), and that her behaviur suggested that she was somehow implicated, despite her story that she knew nothing about it: it was entirely Mike's and his deceased friend Tony Devereux's affair.
An American publisher who had offered to buy the rights sent the document to Kenneth Rendell for validation. Rendell set up a fairly elaborate team, including a very eccentric scientist who claims to have a unique way of determining how long ink has been on paper, and came in with a belated report dating the diary to 1921. In the end, only the document examiner on Rendell's team was needed. She declared categorically the diary was not in Maybrick's writing, and the publisher dropped the rights.
Mike Barrett started, as you say, Tris, changing his story as often as his underpants. But in claiming to have written it (at one time) he identified a shop where he claimed to have bought manuscript ink, and the shop indentified the brand it sold at the time. This included a rather unusual chemical, and the war of the diary thereupon raged around the presence or non-presence of this chemical in the ink, and whether or not it was used in 1888. After two separate laboratories had come to two different conclusions, and Melvin had established that since at least the 1940s the chemical had been used almost exclusively in typewriter ribbons, while Shirley established that it had been patented for ink and dye stabilisation as early as the 1860s, most outside people thought that this one had been fought to a draw. And a boring draw at that. The unfortunate technical manager of the ink firm got the ear-bending treatment from Feldy and Melvin every time he voiced an opinion that one or the other didn't like.
The obvious difficulty diarists endured, apart from the handwriting, was the absolutely terrible provenance. Mike's story (when he didn't claim to have written the diary himself) was that he was given it by a friend, Tony Devereux, he used to buy drinks fo. He was not told what it was; just told to 'do something with it'. And Tony was now conveniently dead. Feldy pursued every possible line of enquiry to link the book somehow back to Maybrick or his house, Battlecrease. This included non-stop telephoning and leaning on people in Liverpool, including friends and relations of Anne Barrett's, and at this point she cracked and told him that the provenance Mike offered was false, though Mike believed it. The diary had been in her family for years, and she had passed it secretly to Mike via Tony in order to get Mike to use it for the writing career he claimed to want. (Oddly enough, this story is about the only one Mike has consistently denied, declaring it impossible and offering all sorts of reasons why Anne couldn't have got Tony to do any such thing).
Of course, Feldy was onto this like a shot, and poor Anne found she had even more hectoring interviewing to face. Her father backed up her story. 'Old' diarists take this as very important corroboration. 'New' diarists (who rest heavily on Keith Skinner's discovery that the word 'tin;, describing Katherine Eddowes' matchbox, was never made public until the publication in 1987 of the 1888 police list of her possessions) suggest that the Barretts and Grahams were all alarmed by the fraud investigation, and didn't want to be charged with forgery, so Billy was helping his daughter out. But by now Feldy was determined to find a link between the Graham family and the Maybricks. In the notorious interview at which Billy Graham supposedly revealed this suspected family link, he used repeated leading questions, confused the old man (who was very near the end of his life) into complete cross purposes, and finally seemed to get the utterly unexpected answer that the family might have come from Florence rather than James. I have been told that the transcript of that interview I was shown is a very bad one. It is very hard to see how the sort or interviewing disaster it represents could have been affected one way or the other by mistranscription. Keith went up again subsequently to try and carry out a better and more reliable interview, but the damage was done and Feldy was and is convinced of the supposed 'link'.
Meanwhile there is the question of the watch. A Victorian lady's half-hunter with microscopic scratches inside the case which allegedly represent the intials of known Ripper victims plus A.N. Other. Also the signature J. Maybrick and the words 'I am Jack'. A peculiar provenance: the owner bought it with horse-race winnings as a future present for his daughter. Two separate laboratories, using different procedures, have both provisionally (rather than finally) concluded that the scratchings could not be recent, but are likely to be decades old - 90 years+ from the time they examined them seemed reasonable, which would put them right on line to be Maybrick's work. Recent boards show Melvin's technical argument against one of the procedures. The historical implausibility of the inscriptions in a lady's watch, turning up just after the Maybrick diary had been all over the newspapers, is obvious. It was, as Shirley Harrison herself has said, obvious at once to her, and seemed so likely to be fraudulent that she feared it would knock a huge hole in her work rather than supprot it.
Apart from Shirley, there are very few (if any) experts now willing to assert that the diary is Maybrick's work. The debate now rages over the truth or otherwise of Ann Graham's story, (with the implication that it was forged some time before 1940, when it supposedly came into her father's possession) and, a curious side issue: what, if anything, Melvin was told by journalists who claimed to have learned that 'three people' (presumably the Barretts and Tony Devereux, tho' I suppose possibly the Barretts and Billy Graham) were only used as distributors of the diary: it was forged by some one else.
In the eyes of most people, the Maybrick Diary saga just isn't about the history of Jack the Ripper at all!
Hope you stay with us, nonetheless,
Martin Fido |
Author: stephen stanley
Saturday, 03 March 2001 - 01:11 am | | Just as a matter of interest....What (if any) have been the public views of Paul Feldman since his book was published?..They seem conspicuous by their absence..(Damn, I've posted on a Diary Board,Naughty,Naughty Steve...Won't do it again)
Steve S. |
Author: Paul Begg
Saturday, 03 March 2001 - 01:53 am | |
As for the possible forgers, as eagle-eyed Caz has already pointed out, Melvin has said that Mike and Anne acted as placers for a forgery created by others, the plural being important as it possibly suggests three actual forgers plus Mike and Anne as placers. Melvin has also said, according to Caz, that the penperson would be distanced from the placer, which, if true, suggests that Mike and Anne should not be counted among the three (neither Devereax nor Billy being 'removed' from Mike). And, of course, there are Melvin's suspicions about Mr. Kane. So, in Tony D., Mr Kane and Billy we have three potential forgers.
That Mike and Anne were not in the "team", as it were, if a sound line of reasoning, leaves begging whether Mike and Anne actually knew the 'diary' was a forgery (at least when Mike took it to Doreen). It also obviously casts some problems on the scenario advanced by others than Mike supplied the Crawshaw quote or anything else to the forgers.
As I have pointed out several times, I am concerned by Mike's inability to provide a coherent account of how the forgery was conceived and executed, why he couldn't provide answers to basic questions put by Harold Brough, and why parts of his story, such as the auctioneer, don't pan out. It looks like ignorance to me. So did he know it was a forgery? Or was he just a dupe - the placer, as Melvin asserts. |
Author: Tim
Saturday, 03 March 2001 - 07:19 am | | Thank you very much for the above Martin its fascinating stuff, honest.
Now you say:
'New' diarists (who rest heavily on
Keith Skinner's discovery that the word 'tin;, describing
Katherine Eddowes' matchbox, was never made public until the
publication in 1987 of the 1888 police list of her
possessions)
If this isn't true, then when were/where her possessions listed before 1987 to the public?
Tim |
Author: Jade Bakys
Saturday, 03 March 2001 - 07:36 am | | | Would it matter if the list wasn't published before 1987? It would not be impossible to get at the MEPO file. What I find difficult to accept about the tin matchbox empty is that it is quoted almost verbatim in the diary. Prior to this date, it was quoted as having cotton in it, which makes me speculate the diary was forged late seventies or early eighties. |
Author: Christopher T George
Saturday, 03 March 2001 - 07:45 am | |
Tris, I am glad that you have started this board because discussion of the diary on the other boards is heavy, detailed, esoteric, bitter, and as much a strain on the heart as pizza with anchovies.
Paul is absolutely correct about the mystery about the roles of the the Barretts, Mike and Anne (now Anne Graham). Obviously, they have some role in the Diary but what exactly is it? Are they innocents as it would appear from Anne's current story or persons who were part of a hoax? The Diary appeared on the scene when Liverpool scrap metal dealer Mike Barrett took it to literary agent Doreen Montgomery in London in spring 1992. His story, supported by Anne, is that he was given it in a brown paper parcel by his friend Tony Devereaux early in 1991. Devereaux was Tony's "mate" from the Saddle, the local pub, but he could not give Mike an explanation of where the Diary came from--just that Mike "should do something with it." In any case, Tony died in August 1991 soon after giving the document to Mike.
After the Diary was brought down to London it was seen by a series of people, Ripperologists, document experts, ink experts, handwriting experts, and so on. The document quickly became an object of controversy, and by some (e.g., Melvin Harris), it has been castigated almost from the beginning as a forgery. The findings of the experts has been contradictory but was sufficiently anti against it being genuine that the London Sunday Times backed off serializing it and Time Warner in the United States declined to publish it (it was later published in hardback in the U.S. by Hyperion).
One pro-Diary investigator, Paul Feldman, launched an intense investigation to try to prove the Diary's genuineness and his enquiries included rigorous interviews with Mike and Anne and everyone else connected with the appearance of the Diary, including Devereaux's family and the Barretts' family. Under this pressure, and other factors such as Mike's joblessness, the Barrett's marriage began to break up, Mike began to drink heavily and to blame Feldman for the marriage break-up, and Mike and Anne came out publicly in 1994 with two radically different stories on the origins of the Diary, with Mike confessing to Harold Brough of the Liverpool Daily Post on June 24 that he and Anne had forged the document and on July 31 Anne telling Shirley Harrison and Doreen Montgomery in a recorded telephone conversation that the Diary had been in her family for decades, and that she first saw it "I think. . . in 1968-9." Subsequently, it appears that the story was that it had been given to her father, Billy Graham, by his stepmother Edith at Christmas 1950.
What is the truth of the matter?
As Paul says, Barrett's story about the forgery scheme, given willingly to the reporter, then retracted, then restated in signed confessions in January 1995 available on this site, do not entirely check out. Barrett made an appearance at the Cloak and Dagger Club in London in April 1999 and was again unable to coherently tell the audience about the forgery scheme. It would seem from that public appearance and some elements of his confession that he will say what he thinks people want to hear and that he likes to be a center of attention. That is, because so many people had said the Diary was a forgery, it was to his advantage to say he forged it and that he was Mr. Big in the scheme. Paul has remarked that all Barrett may really know is that he received the Diary from a friend in a pub. His "confession" may be an elaboration on facts that have been revealed about the Diary, e.g., that the Diary was written using an iron gall ink, so he would confess that he bought such ink at an art supply shop in downtown Liverpool, that it was written in a period scrapbook or photograph album with the front 48 pages cut out, so he would confess that he bought the book at a local auction house and cut the opening pages out using a Stanley knife, and so on.
Anne's story that she gave the Diary to Tony Devereaux to give to Mike is at least consistent given the wording that Mike would be asked "to do something with it," i.e., use it to write a piece of fiction, or whatever, since Mike had aspirations to be a writer, and in fact has written some journalistic articles in the past.
Now comes the difficult part.
At this point, Anne has convinced Ripper writers Paul Begg and Keith Skinner, and especially Keith, who worked with Feldman on his investigation, of her genuineness. They both feel that Mike has all but removed himself as a credible witness because of his stories that do not appear to jive. Shirley Harrison appears to be even more scathing of Mike, saying that he "claimed to be a member of MI5, to have foiled an IRA attack and been awarded the Queen's medal for gallantry, to be dying (within the next hour). . . and to be going to live in Russia and America." (Harrison, The Diary of Jack the Ripper, 1998 Blake paperback, p. 316).
My point of view is that perhaps we should not dismiss Mike so easily and believe Anne's story. There are some items that show some involvement by the Barretts in the forgery, the appearance in the Diary of the line of poetry based on lines from an obscure English 17th Century poet Richard Crashaw, "Oh costly intercourse of death" which appears in a book owned by Barrett (the Sphere Guide to Literature), and the purchase by the Barretts in the spring of 1992 of a little Red Diary of 1891 which would seem to show there was an attempt to put the Diary text into a more appropriate looking book, except that the Red Diary was found to be too small and not of the right year, Maybrick having died in May 1889. Moreover, although Shirley Harrison has stated on these boards that the auctioneers Outhwaite & Litherland deny that Barrett bought the Diary from them, I get the impression that there is room for doubt that they are right.
On the other hand, it is true that things don't add up in Barrett's statements, e.g., he says that the photograph album was bought from the auctioneers in January 1990. If that was the case, why did it take until spring 1992 to do something with the Diary, i.e., take it to London? The little Red Diary was purchased in spring 1992 about the time Barrett was about to hotfoot it to London with the Diary that we know and love. It does seem though that the alcoholic Mike is hazy about dates, e.g., he apparently gave the date of the Hillsborough soccer tragedy, after which he received the Sphere book from the publisher to help with the disaster fund as 1987 not 1989 when the disaster occurred.
My contention is that too much credence has been put in Anne Graham's story and in the possibility raised by Paul and Keith that the Diary is an old forgery when most indications are that it is the result of a recent forgery scheme. In any case, the lessons in all this are to stay away from pizza with anchovies and strange men in pubs with brown paper parcels.
Hope this has helped, Tris.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Martin Fido
Saturday, 03 March 2001 - 07:58 am | | Tim - The official list of her possessions was (and is) held in the Corporation of London archives. Donald Rumbelow and I independently transcribed it and published separately in the 1987 revision of his 'The Complete Jack the Ripper' and my concurrently appearing 'The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper'.
1888 press reports had referred to a matchbox, but not said that it was tin. Most oddly, the press also claimed that she was carrying a pair of spectacles and a mitten, which do NOT feature on the police list.
This sort of detailed info is most easily garnered from 'The Jack the Ripper A-Z'. I'm not just puffing my own co-authored work here: I genuinely use it myself, as I have just done to confirm that the spectacles really were mentioned in the press as I believed I remembered; and thereby I also noted the mitten which I had entirely forgotten.
I'm not sure whether Evans & Skinner's equally essential'Ultimate Jack the Ripper Source Book' carries the coroner's papers and the City of London papers held in the Corporation archives. It is outstandingly good on MEPO files; excellent on Home Office files; selective but very useful on newspaper cuttings, but, as you would expect a 'Polish Jew theory bigot' like myself to regret, lamentably empty of infirmary and hospital records.
But you'll need both books for reference to background data. And if your newness to the boards includes real newness to the case, I strongly recommend your reading, first Rumbelow's 'The Complete Jack the Ripper', then Begg's 'Jack the Ripper: The Uncensored Facts'; and finally Maxim Jakubowski and Nathan Braund's 'Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper' for the latest collection of varied theories (unfortunately not including full Maybrick data).
Martin Fido |
Author: Jade Bakys
Saturday, 03 March 2001 - 08:21 am | | And also for newcomers such as myself if you want to peruse the MEPO files for yourself, I have cut and pasted info from the 'Open Government web site' The documents have been transfered over to the Public Record Office at Ruskin Avenue, Kew. They are:-
MEPO 1/48 Commissioner's letters, confidential and private, 1867-91.
MEPO 1/54 Out Ietters, 1890-1919.
MEPO 1/55 Letters to Home Office etc., 1883-1904.
MEPO 1/65 Letters from Receiver to Home Office etc., 1868-91.
MEPO 2/227 Police reinforcements for Whitechapel after Pinchin St. murder 1891.
MEPO 31140 Files on each of the Whitechapel murders (that on Emma Smith missing).
MEPO 3/141 Whitechapel murders, miscellaneous correspondence and suspects.
MEPO 3/142 'Jack the Ripper' letters.
MEPO 3/3153 Documents on the Whitechapel murders returned to Yard in 1987.
MEPO 3/3155 Photographs of Whitechapel Murder victims (original of Stride missing).
MEPO 3/3156 Copy of photograph of Elizabeth Stride
There is much material to be seen in these files though probably as much again is now missing, some as a result of petty pilfering and others were simply destroyed in past years.
Many books have been written on the subject, and they vary in quality. Some concern individual suspects, whilst others are aimed more for the student and researcher, and contain most of the facts available, thus avoiding expensive and time-consuming research.
However, the serious historian is directed to the primary Metropolitan Police (MEPO) sources listed above, as well as the Home Office files which are also available at the Record Office.
The two recommended reference books are:-
The Jack the Ripper.A-Z, by Paul Begg, Martin Fido, and Keith Skinner, published by Headline, 1996. (Still in print).
The Complete History of Jack the Ripper, by Philip Sugden, published by Robinson, 1995, (Still in print).
There are some excellent documents on this site (Casebook) which if you are looking for a certain piece of information on inquest testimonies etc, are quite invaluable.
Source:http://www.met.police.uk/history/ripper.htm |
Author: Tim
Saturday, 03 March 2001 - 08:32 am | |
Martin - You have excelled yourself once again, thank you very much.
Now this is interesting if 1888 press reports had referred to a matchbox because it is being reported as not available before 1987. Bin that theory then. So it was possible for a forger to have this information at hand. I guess they just struck lucky at using the word tin, being the most popular at the time 
I'm very new to the boards (as you may know) and also very new to the case. I'm so new in fact I have 'Media Sucker' stamped on my back
Thank you for the list of books. I do have the excellent 'The Jack the Ripper A-Z' which I often dip into from time-to-time while I'm reading Shirley Harrison's (lovely lady) 'The Diary Of Jack The Ripper' and (dare I say it) Paul Feldman's 'Jack The Ripper The Final Chapter. But don't panic, that is only a library copy
Tim |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Saturday, 03 March 2001 - 09:30 am | | Martin--Hello, sir. Many thanks for your view of things. I was a little surprised by your statement that 'The Yard's investigation concluded quite positively that Feldman was completely innocent'. I think perhaps you meant to say Robert Smith(?), as I wouldn't have thought that Feldman's research would have fallen under the scope of the investigation.
Trying to find out what exactly the Scotland Yard inquiries entailed has been rather difficult for me. Here is my take, and you or anyone else who feels the urge can can add or subtract from the following.
The Sunday Times bought the serialization rights for the Diary from Robert Smith. Both Shirley Harrison and Paul Feldman would later hint that they suspected the ST was never really interested in serializing the diary, but only wanted access to it in order to 'debunk' it. Regardless, the ST signed a confidentiality agreement, so they couldn't debunk it initially anyway. But when it became clear to the ST that the diary was a forgery, they petititoned the High Court to release them from the confidentiality agreement with Smith. Judge Lindsay ordered a speedy trial, agreeing with the ST that 'if nothing is done the public or some of its members may be deceived.' The Sunday Times won the ruling, and Smith had to repay the ST and had to release them from the confidentiality agreement. The Sunday Times then published their expose on the Diary, clear back in September 1993, in which they were somewhat harsh on Robert Smith. (Incidently, I felt the ST rather hinted that Mike Barrett forged the diary, chuckling that the once writer of word games for Look In would coincidentally find a diary with so many funny little word games).
Be that as it may, the Sunday Times then handed over the information it had gathered to New Scotland Yard. As Shirley has stated, the Yard was then obliged to respond. The investigation seems to have been centered on whether the publisher (Smith) had knowingly passed it off as a fake. They weren't really centering on who forged the diary, but, of course, they would have to look at the provenance. Mike & Anne were interviewed, their word processor seized, etc.
What exactly Scotland Yard found is a mystery. The Daily Express of 26 November 1993 had the strange statement that the detectives were 'convinced the 65 page document was penned within the last decade.' Shirley Harrison has written that she contacted the Yard but was more-or-less given the runaround, and they would make no official statement.
Now, as you say, the publisher, Smith, was cleared of Fraud charges. Whether they thought he was naive or not, I don't know. The wording in the Daily Post was that the Yard had sent its findings to the Crown Prosecution Service who told Brough 'We have decided against a prosecution because there is not enough evidence to have a realistic prospect of getting a conviction.' What exactly this means is anyone's guess. Smith was cleared, yes. But I am still left wondering whether or not the Yard found out who forged the Diary.
I believe Melvin once stated here that he was going to touch on the Scotland Yard investigation, but I am unsure of whether he has yet posted this or not.
As to the 'eccentric scientist' (Rod McNeil). I think it should be pointed out that he later changed the dating of the ion migration test to 'pre 1970s', and the early date is now obsolete. The scientists at Leeds & others believe that there is insurmountable technical difficulties with the test which make it doubtful.
Best wishes,
R J Palmer. |
Author: Martin Fido
Saturday, 03 March 2001 - 09:51 am | | Dear RJP,
An excellent summary of the situation... but... I said Feldman and I meant Feldman.
In various conversations I held with detectives assigned to the case (one of whom occasionally dropped in unannounced at my house in Cornwall for a casual drink and a chat when he was on leave) it was quite clear that they didn't think Robert Smith was naive any more than they thought he was guilty of fraud. They looked back behind Robert, I assume, to see whether anybody might have been deliberately defrauding him, and so came up with opinions on Shirley, Feldy and the Barretts.
I don't think they had much doubt that the diary had been concocted in Liverpool in recent years. But they had absolutely no clear leads to who had done it and how or when. And their conclusions were reached before Anne had made her 'confession'. By that time the case was closed - it had never been more than a 'time-filler' case, anyway: the sort of public complaint that has to be followed up but transparently isn't going to lead anywhere important that is passed to top reserve detectives while they are are on standby waiting for some urgent call to 'serious organized crime' business, or overseas requests for assistance from Scotland Yard. So beyond remembering the impression Anne made on them when they went to the Barrett house in Liverpool, they had nothing new to say about her new story.
For anyone interested in Rod McNeil, I recommend Robert Lindsey's descriptions of his work in 'A Gathering of Saints'. And would add that Nick Eastaugh told me some time ago that nobody had been able to reproduce his results, and McNeil simply ascribes this to his having devised new and different equipment that nobody else has.
Lindsey's book, incidentally, also casts rather a different light on Kenneth Rendell from that you might gather from Rendell's autobiographical writing.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: R.J. Palmer
Saturday, 03 March 2001 - 10:17 am | | Martin--Many thanks for the above insights.
I'll have to check out Lindsey's book, though I'm deathly afraid of becoming drawn-in to another infinitely complex forgery muddle--as no doubt the 'Salamander Letter' business is. Too much out there, and not enough time(!)
Thanks,
R J Palmer |
Author: Paul Begg
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 07:44 am | | Hi Chris
“At this point, Anne has convinced Ripper writers Paul Begg and Keith Skinner, and especially Keith, who worked with Feldman on his investigation, of her genuineness.”
Just a quick correction. Anne has not convinced me of her genuineness and I have no idea whether she is telling the truth or not. Like everyone else, I think she has to be lying if we accept the evidence for a modern forgery. However, Keith has had more contact with Anne than any other commentator, and has had the opportunity to observe and assess her, and he does believe her. I allow Keith’s conclusion into my assessment and wonder whether Anne’s story, despite the obvious prima facie objections to it, could be true. That is why I ask questions such as whether it is reasonable to suppose that Anne would have lied at the time she did; if she did have a reason, why would she have extended that lie to writing her book with Carol Emmas; and if Anne is the sort of person who could callously betray the trust and friendship people like Keith have placed in her...
I feel that these questions are relevant and should be taken into any assessment and that if you take the trouble to construct a scenario in which Anne's story is true then you should see if other problems are capable of resolution within that scenario. Asking questions shouldn't be perceived as reflecting a belief. |
Author: Christopher T George
Sunday, 04 March 2001 - 08:59 am | | Hi, Paul:
Thanks for the clarification of your views on Anne Graham.
Chris |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Thursday, 08 March 2001 - 11:30 am | | From Keith Skinner to Tim
Dear Tim
Please don’t rest anything at all on my ‘tin match box empty’ discovery. I am only a researcher, have frequently ‘bungled’ research and shall no doubt continue to do so. Please check it for yourself as it is so easy to overlook minute detail in contemporary newspapers.
Best Wishes,
Keith |
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