Originally posted by GBinOz
View Post
I'm not sure one should go so far as to say the evidence is against her seeing Goldstein only once. Rather, one possible interpretation of the two news reports can been seen that way. However, as Wickerman pointed out, the directional information contained in "up" and "down" is not exactly unambiguous. Personally, I think I use them interchangeably, and if I were telling the same story twice I could very easily see me using up the street on one occasion and down the street on another.
To add to Wickerman's two usages (up meaning towards the major area, which would be Commerical, or up meaning as the house numbers go, which means towards Fairclough), the terms can also be used relative to the observer; a person is coming "up" the road if they walking towards them, but once they pass and are heading away, they are going down the road. Doesn't matter which end of the street, just whether they are coming towards or heading away. So, if FM is telling her story on two occasions, and she's seen Goldstein traverse the entire street, for part of his journey he is coming up the road then he passed her, and is going down the road. The previously also reads to me as others have suggested, rather than indicating a second time of sighting she's indicating her previous time on the step at that point.
So the interpretation of two sightings, while it can be made, is based upon having found an ambiguity between two different tellings, in neither of which does she actually explicitly say she saw him on two occasions, rather that's an alternative interpretation of how the reporter presented he story (which, of course, then makes us have to be cautious about whose words are we interpreting here?)
I have a vague memory of a police report indicating they did check on Goldstein's story and it checked out, but often those vague memories turn out to be false. If anyone knows of a report where the police do state they verified his whereabouts (at the teahouse, or whatever it was), that would be great to know.
As for the "he may have come from the club" (I forget the exact phrasing, but that one), it's a pretty unsure statement even as it is and can't be said to indicate she saw him come from there. Rather, given the context, it sounds much more like a response to a question from the reporter (along the lines of "Do you think he could have come out of the club?"...."Well, he looked foreign, so I suppose he could have", which the reporter paraphrases as "he may have come from the club". It's always difficult with news stories to separate out what is spontaneous and what is prompted to "get the story".
If we step back, though, and look at everything, we see the police cleared Goldstein and do indicate he's not of interest to them. While we don't have a description of what they did and how, those types of notes are long gone, we do have the result of their check. And if he had been spotted twice, then I would think we should see that in the police reports, where they clear him for both journeys. However, I'm pretty sure they too just indicate he was coming from the pub/teahouse/whatever it was and they never mention him going to, though clearly he must have at some point.
While it's an interesting spin on things, it's simply reinterpreting a news presentation to show it could be read differently. So we can't say it's evidence against the single journey, at most it's a viable alternative. The rest of the evidence we have, though, shows no evidence or mention of a 2nd journey, and tends to suggest a single one. Therefore, the weight of the evidence still favours the single journey.
- Jeff
Comment