E Petitions and Ripper Files and papers

[Phil Carter]

Hello Stewart,

Yes, I will answer..for myself..alone. Thank you for asking. And thank you for saying the word please. Means a lot to some of us old fashioned fuddy duddies that word. Its respectful. In the same manner, I will answer. My way.

But it will be my understanding of the petition's goals, and my personal family history that is also involved as to why I signed. It may not be in exact agreement with your interpretation of this, nor your understanding, and it may even be that you consider it, to quote you, something "I do not understand" or have signed "mistakenly"...both of which I would deny. However, whether you agree with MY understanding or not, MY interpretation or not, the fact of the matter is that the petition was obviously started for a specific, and yet perhaps all covering purpose.

From my sense of direction, and in conceding the wording of the petition could have been formulated in (opinion only) another way, with perhaps more direct and with more exact phrasiology, I see the point in the petition itself. But I do concede the point you make.

The background of the petition came about as I see it, because of Trevor Marriot's valiant yet failed attempt to gain access to, on behalf of the common person, witheld documents that had, tenuous or not, been restricted, and selective in its non restriction. The history of the documents themselves are an essential part of the history of policing and its methodology within the Metropolis.
Parts of these documents were, according to the qualified judge who presided at the above mentioned appeal, NOT likely to have been a realistic danger to any living person. He also used the wording "common sense".

There comes a time when any institution should be open with their own history. A compromise COULD have been made about these documents, and time and again, I believe at least 4 times, that compromise was proposed to the institution involved. They refused at every given point. The Metropoliotan police are accountable to its public. And not least, public opinion.

This is connected in an odd, interpretational manner, of the attitude of the Met Police who gave a list, and I use that word deliberately, of reasons PREVIOUSLY given in the original tribunal case for why ther documents could not be seen... that were shot down by the Freedom of Information Commissionerr himself. I believe the Met Police used 27 differing reasons for the documents to be kept hidden away from public viewing. 27!!!!!
It included the cost of taking a photo copy of the documents as too great for Lord's sake! Talk about scratching the bottom of the barrel.

Now common sense tells me that when all but ONE of those reasons are presented as reasons, and fail, they start to look suspiciously like excuses, not reasons. That's general common sense Stewart, how most normal, common all garden people would percieve things. Not how a policeman sees things.. but WE, the public, whom the Met police are answerable in their actions to.

Travelling alone down the line, during Trevor Marriott's appeal he REPEATEDLY asked for any DIRECT evidence of any situation, deed or action against or having happened to the knowledge of the ANY of the witnesses if at any time any person related to any person involved in pre 20thC passing on information to the police from within the Irish Community attached to the then Irish Nationalist movement, the answer provided by ALL of the witnesses was that they failed to provide ANY evidence of their claims that it could happen. Absolutely nothing. It was sheer interpretation of a chance possibility. The outcome, although eventually going against Mr. Marriott, when published, SPECIFICALLY said that it did NOT matter what rank or length of time any of the Met Police witnesses who attended the tribuna had acquired, because no person had produced any evidence at all to support their fears.

Given that, and given my personal involvement in the case, I carefully considered the implications of the decision. History.. MY history..as a Londoner, was being denied me. My family came from the area, and I would have indeed, along with many other people's families, have rejoiced in the open view of why things were what they were with all the surrounding facts on the table..however tenuous to the Whitechapel murders they were. It is my personal view that NO institution should be allowed after a fair period of time, and this is my opinion, 100 years, to withold things because they feel something MIGHT happen, without any evidence to support it COULD happen or any hint that it WOULD happen, or may have even been hinted at.

Therefore, when considering the wording of the petition, I saw an all encompassing possibility. Slim though it may be, to have an OPEN relationship with historical documents under the common sense rule of 100 years, and that applies to ANY documents that MAY be, and neither you nor I know of the NON existance of any further undiscovered material relating to the murders, a possibility based on a tribunmal decision I felt was wrong, unprovable and supposition, without proof of likelyhood, that this exact diocumentation would finally see the light of day and of ANY OTHER documentation to do the same. Neither do you or I know if the Met are actually witholding material that might embarrass the Met from the time.. chances are they are not.. but we do not know.

No harm has been done Stewart..because there is absolutley no chance in frozen hell of the Met Police allowing any person to view any possible documents anyway.

So what else does one do when a brick wall is put up? Stand there and say.. shame.. never mind, we will just have to wait on the whim of a future Commissioner of the Met. Well, whether its a cats chance in hell or not, its better than the current situation.. which gets no one nowhere. It costs nothing, and does no harm at all. Unless you know of what possible harm it can do? We the public have been given the cold shoulder. Because the Met police think that Irish Nationalists will spend x amount of years trying to trace the decendants of perhaps 6 generations back to a squealer in 1888 and hunt them down in a revenge attack?.. No way. they have far more imminent things to concentrate on I'd wager. They've done nothing with an open list of informants from the Irish books.. so why these ones?

Thats why I signed Stewart. Now you can argue until you are blue in the face and tell me that I am wrong, mistaken, that I dont understand or mistaken.. but those are my reasons.. like them or not. I will stick by them.

I wont expand on them, they are here for all to see. I wont comment upon any comment upon them either.. as I dont comment on YOUR reasons for not signing. I didnt HAVE to answer your question, but wanted to. Please respect that. Your opinion has already been aired. This was mine. It will not put me at odds with you, nor your opinion.

My personal family history has gaps in its existance and the reasons for certain things happening within its surroundings. I want to know them.
Its my history..my family history. And I will do anything I can in order to have an open, common sense approach to seeing documents that have a direct bearing on that family history.

Please accept my reasons for signing the petition..whatever the wording whether you feel it wrong or not.

Thank you kindly for asking.

best wishes

Phil.

[Stewart P Evans]

All of which...

All of which gets us back to the main point of this dispute, any consideration of Trevor Marriott aside, and that is the wording of this petition - which is basically incorrect and flawed.

As Paul and I have already pointed out, there has been no 'unwarranted secrecy for over 120 years' concerning these murders and exactly what 'hitherto unpublished files, documents and papers relating to the murders' are involved? These points are germane to this petition.

So I would ask anyone who has signed up to please answer the above for me. If they can't they have signed agreement to something they either do not understand or they have signed mistakenly.

[mariab]

I agree with Phil and Simon Wood here, and I signed the petition. Didn't cost anything, and I'm one of these people who are willing to attempt things even if the chances of success are slim. Essentially I did sign the petition as a precedence case.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Tom,

I'll second that.

And I'll also second Phil.

All the smart mouths can go take a hike.

Regards,

Simon

[Tom_Wescott]

I have to agree with Phil here.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Phil Carter]

I notice that, after almost exactly a month, Trevor's petition has acquired...

Hello Mark,

Now c'mon Mark, you know as well as the rest of us this comment is false. Trevor is not behind this petition, as has been stated very clearly earlier.

It's ok to have a laugh, but this is factually wrong. I will also repeat, for the sake of "incase my previous comment on the subject has been missed", that neither I nor Simon Wood were behind the petition either.

As far as derision of any petition is concerned, it is up to each person to support or nay, for whatever reason the individual has.

Attaching claims of Trevor being behind the petition is simply wrong. I am sure that had it been in another area, in another way, about another Ripperologist, this would be jumped on from high. And the person accusing and stating such falsities hammered, with apologies demanded from all sorts.

What I would like to ask all the derisers of Trevor Marriott is, can anyone please kindly produce and show any type of documentation to the effect that one has tried, albeit in vain, to the lengths that Trevor Marriott went, to get ANY documentation of ANY sort known to be witheld within ANY archives connected to the Whitechapel murders in any form, albeit tenous connection or nay?

It is very easy to take the mickey online, but I for one personally know what trying to battle with those who keep historical documents is like. It is very time consuming, and can be an awful struggle to get past red tape being laid down left right and centre. Trevor made a marvellous effort and it must be remembered that it was ONLY by a majority decision of 2 to 1 against that he failed. As far as I understand it, the one who voted FOR Trevor's appeal to be upheld was the judge himself, and the two LAY persons voted against, despite the guidelines set down by the judge in his comments FOR the appeal to be upheld.

I am not privvy to all such results within the FOI act, and ther challenges made for and against in appeals, but it raises a surprising eyebrow for some that the judge, a legal eagle and a qualified man of the bench himself, who in conference with two lay members of the same panel, has his qualified opinion voted against. Is this usual, I ask? I would, in my humble and very ordinary opinion, say it is unusual for the words of the man of law to be outweighed by lay members. I thought that the judges words were used as guidance to lay members. Perhaps I am wrong.

No doubt someone will want to spit something back, or take the mickey about this politely phrased posting. Such is the level of current intelligent debate with some, I am afraid to say.

Whatever one thinks of Trevor's current or previous theories, it is uncalled for, for it to be a "let's kick Trevor" campaign every time his name is mentioned. That's not having a laugh. And don't start with "he deserves it" etc".... this thread and this petition is a follow up to something that Trevor worked incredibly hard on, for the benefit of the entire community and also for the descendants of the victims. Yet Trevor is not behind this particular follow up. He still gets given the responsibility...falsely.


Mark, you know me well enough to know that no offence is meant, in any way. Just get the facts right eh mate?

best wishes

Phil

[Supe]

Mark,

Look out for a publicity stunt in the near future.

Please, don't let the stunt involve Trevor emulating Lady Godiva -- the field has suffered enough already.

Don.

[m_w_r]

‘It is a mechanism for allowing members of the public to express an interest in a matter.’ He insisted that the 100,000 threshold only made a petition eligible for debate.

Hi Don,

Quite. A hundred thousand names don't propel the issue into parliament. In fact, they merely ensure that the petition is sent to the Office of the Leader of the House of Commons, who checks it to ensure that it meets the terms and conditions for e-petitions and conforms to the rules of the House of Commons. If it does, it gets sent to the Backbench Business Committee - this committee makes the decision as to whether the matter will be raised in parliament or not. This is all quite clear on the government website, but, as you have no doubt inferred, the process is frequently misunderstood.

I notice that, after almost exactly a month, Trevor's petition has acquired 57 signatures ... so only 99,943 to go, and eleven months in which to do it. Look out for a publicity stunt in the near future.

Regards,

Mark

[Supe]

From today's Daily Mail:

It should not be assumed that Government e-petitions will prompt a debate in Parliament even if they attract 100,000 signatures, MPs were told yesterday.

Commons debates on the 1989 Hillsborough stadium disaster and the UK’s relationship with the European Union have taken place recently, following e-petitions.
Labour MP Gavin Shuker said yesterday: ‘People outside this House expect when they are asked to sign a petition that it will be debated on the floor of this House.’

But the deputy leader of the House, David Heath, said: ‘That was never the intention of the petition site.

‘It is a mechanism for allowing members of the public to express an interest in a matter.’ He insisted that the 100,000 threshold only made a petition eligible for debate.


Don.

[Carol]

Hi Ozzy!

You really are a sweetheart to spend so much time and brainpower on explaining your own method to me. I'm sitting here in AWE and ADMIRATION.

Unfortunately, I'm such a dunce when it comes to computers that I didn't understand very much. BUT 'shame on him who gives up' (Swedish 'saying') that I WILL TRY AGAIN!

Carol

[Ozzy]

Can we quote you on that?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

I just tried it actually. Whilst the noparse tags show parts of it are missing. It's usually at this point where my brain melts when trying to work out these things. It's like double negatives. I only have to take a look at the GSG and I think 'Pass - I'll get me coat'

[Tom_Wescott]

Can we quote you on that?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Ozzy]

Hi Nemo,
Thank you so much for your explanation. I'm afraid I haven't had any success so far but I'll try again tomorrow! (I feel such an idiot).
Love
Carol

Years ago Carol I wondered if there was some special way of doing multiple quotes. I just developed my own way though and have used it ever since. I don't know if there is some way of doing it which is as easy as single quoting.
It's good to have a basic understanding of html and/or vB. I don't mean you have to start reading books on it. If you get an understanding of it then you don't need to use the icons. You can just type it in yourself. Personally I find it so much easier.
One thing that I find does help is if you start your reply in a new tab or window. Some forums open up the reply page in the same tab/window. I always use the right-click (mouse) menu and open a new tab.
Things like quotes, links, bold, italic, etc all work the same way basically.


To make an opening tag type the left bracket just under and probably to the right a little of the dash (-) on the number line. Then type the word or letter, example b for bold words, and then close it with a right bracket. When I've finished typing the text that I want to look bold I will close the tag - type a left bracket again, followed by a forward slash followed by the word or letter, b for bold formatting in our example, and lastly a right bracket.

Basically that's what it all comes down to. For italic formatting you would use an i in place of b. For underline it's u etc. Note always the forward slash on the closing tag.
[b]bold[/b]
[i]italic[/i]

Onto quoting.
[quote=ozzy;123456]Hello Carol[/quote]

In the above example it's quoting me saying "Hello Carol" in thread number 123456. Note the number is just an example.
If the thread number, or is that the post number?, isn't important you can drop it beginning with the semi-colon followed by the number:

[quote=ozzy]Hello Carol[/quote]

Lastly maybe I'm not important either:

[quote]Hello Carol[/quote]


Now to multiple quoting. I use the opening and closing tags for each quote. One thing I should of said earlier. It does help, in fact it's the only way to go, if you're familiar with copy and paste in all this.

OK so you've read a post with a few paragraphs. You want to reply to this post by tackling it paragraph by paragraph. You need to multiple quote.
I would start by hitting the Quote button. Next I would divide the post in the way I want to tackle it, paragraph by paragraph, by hitting the enter button 2 or 3 times inbetween each paragraph so I have room to make my replies. I'll use the same Hello Carol example again even though it doesn't have paragraphs but just 2 words. It should be enough to get the gist though.

1.) Without doing anything it looks like this:

[quote=ozzy;123456]Hello Carol[/quote]

2.)After making room for the replies it would look like so:

[quote=ozzy;123456]Hello

Carol[/quote]


3.) Next I would make sure the quotes work OK when I preview it by opening and closing tags where necessary. For the example we need to add a closing tag after Hello and an opener before Carol. Start copying and pasting. Like so:

[quote=ozzy;123456]Hello[/quote]

[quote=ozzy;123456]Carol[/quote]

4.) Lastly we add the reply text. So here you're replying to my Hello with a Hello and you're replying to Carol by saying That's my name. You could actually do 3 and 4 in any order.

[quote=ozzy;123456]Hello[/quote]

Hello

[quote=ozzy;123456]Carol[/quote]

That's my name.



I'm thinking that you might be thinking something like Yes I've already worked all that out but I thought there might be an easier way.
Maybe there is. I've tried using the Multiple quote button next to Quote. Nothing happens visually so I assume it's part of a 2 step process? Maybe somebody could comment.

Personally I'm happy with my own method. I use the keyboard probably more than the average person. My computer use dates back to pre-DOS and the UNIX mainframes and we had no mice. I often use the control key with another key for tasks that many people do with a mouse I've noticed. I use the insert, delete, home, end etc all the time. For html/vB tags It's just a case of remembering the exact word or letter like b to make words bold or quote for quoting. You just need to know copy and paste and maybe bookmark the following link.

http://forum.casebook.org/misc.php?do=bbcode

Note I'm not saying my way is better than another in all this. After using this method for years I find I prefer it basically. I know some people develop problems from keyboard use but I prefer hitting a keyboard key with the end of my finger preferable to the action of clicking a mouse where I need to bend the finger a little.

There's a lot I've not covered. Say you want to quote posts/comments from different people. It's just a case of piecing the correct syntax together however I don't know if you would have to hit 'quote' for all the posts you want to quote. If you understand how to piece the syntax together then all you need is the number of the post (the number after the semi-colon) but I don't know if there's anyway of getting that other than hitting the quote button. You might find it handy to have something like Notepad open so you can enter, copy, paste text. Just something to help you manipulate text. If I'm going to make a long post in a forum I actually always do it in Notepad first anyway. I started this because I lost a few long posts years ago. It was something that was more common in the days of dial-up where the ISP would cut you off if there was no activity for a certain amount of time.

Incidentally if anybody is wondering how I made this post, because it looks like the html/vB tags are not working, the tags are working fine. To do it I used the noparse tag. I don't think there's an icon for it here but it's on the list in the link.

Lastly apologies to Trevor for going off-topic.

[Carol]

Hi Nemo,
Thank you so much for your explanation. I'm afraid I haven't had any success so far but I'll try again tomorrow! (I feel such an idiot).
Love
Carol

[Admin]

In an effort to keep this thread on topic and related to the e-petition we have moved many of the posts related to the alleged "Ripper Cabal" to its own thread:

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=6117

We ask that all posters who wish to continue this conversation do so there.

Thank you.