Why a Cover-Up could be possible...

[Wickerman]

Agreed, deception is also cover-up.

I think it might be necessary to explain the cover-up as most posters are more used to a cover-up meaning to protect the killer, because he is 'among the highest in the land', or because he is a 'person of consequence'.
It was once theorised that the murders were intended to deflect from the Irish political question, though it was not a well thought out theory.

[erobitha]

Although by no means are they mutually exclusive taking advantage of a situation and deliberately causing the situation are two different things.

c.d.

Still a cover-up.

If you deliberately misdirect an investigation or push a certain potential avenue for investigation ahead of others, is that not still a cover-up? You are deliberately mis-leading with an ulterior motive.

[c.d.]

Although by no means are they mutually exclusive taking advantage of a situation and deliberately causing the situation are two different things.

c.d.

[erobitha]

The more wide-ranging the cover-up the less likely it would be IMO. This is one of the reasons that I’m an ‘Oswald alone’ person.

Why does it have to be wide-ranging? Why could it not just be limited to Swanson, Anderson, Monro and possibly Littlechild?

[Herlock Sholmes]

The more wide-ranging the cover-up the less likely it would be IMO. This is one of the reasons that I’m an ‘Oswald alone’ person.

[erobitha]

The question I am asking is a general one. Some people are quick to try and nail me to “how did it affect Maybrick?”, but that is not the point here.

The point is a cover-up does not have to be executed to protect the identity of individuals. Sometimes it is to protect the status quo. The establishment. The existing order of things. Subvert the things seen as being dangerous. Obviously Irish terrorism was an issue.

There was also the rise of socialism, anti-monarchy sentiment, workers rights and a general distrust of the ruling classes by the poor. Imagine what a socialist revolution led by the poor and disenfranchised would have done to the status quo. 1887 showed signs that there was some ground level support and appetite for such a thing. The threat was no longer just Irish. Who were bringing these ideas to the masses? Who was amongst the poor pushing this alternate view of the world?

If it was thought that an Englishman of the middle or upper classes had committed such atrocities against the poorest of society, would that help or hinder the socialist cause?

If xenophobia at best (Anti-Semite at worst) generated by the police and the press towards the rising Jewish population could help divide and conquer, would that not have value to the establishment? If Jack was believed to be an Eastern European / Russian Jew then the distrust towards that community by other groups would grow. Who were the men who would be blamed?

You can cover-up an idea as much as you can cover-up an individual.

[erobitha]

a cotton shortage?

Bingo!

[Astatine211]

The Irish National Archive has a number of online documents relating to a number of suspected Fenian suspects who had committed murders. Some accompanied by photographs. Maybe it's worth a look to see if any of their names crop up in Whitechapel or if any match the descriptions. I believe there's about 60 suspect profiles.

https://www.nationalarchives.ie/search-the-online-catalogue/advanced-search/#!/results

[Abby Normal]

What caused the 1887 riot in Trafalgar Square do you think?

a cotton shortage?

[c.d.]

I think the reason for the dismissal is because of the complete lack of evidence of a cover-up that usually goes with the use of the phrase.

"Ah, but there's no evidence, so that just proves there was a cover-up!" and so it goes.

To paraphrase a paraphrase: any sufficiently advanced lack of sources is indistinguishable from a cover-up.

It's very simple: If you want to submit a theory of a cover-up, there must be evidence demonstrating a cover-up. Simply pointing out how some things might be consequences of a cover-up is not evidence.

Evidence that could indicate a cover-up need not be a complete confession by the cover-uppers, but could be something simple like a well-informed bureaucrat expressing a suspicion regarding another department or such.

A very well thought out post, Kattrup.

c.d.

[erobitha]

how does a cover up jibe with your belief that maybrick was the ripper?

What caused the 1887 riot in Trafalgar Square do you think?

[Abby Normal]

Maverick fringe theorists like myself are often dismissed by the more puritan and sacred keepers of the historical flame, because we dare use the phrase 'cover-up' in our theories.

So what is a 'cover-up' and does it require multi-departmental coercion?

A cover-up is a conspiracy to deliberately misdirect attention away from an act of illegality or incompetence - or to push an alternative scenario for purposes of national security. It actually does not require that many people involved for it to be effective. If a very small group of influencers / decision makers are in agreement that such a tactic is required, then they can dictate and influence at the higher end of the decision-making process to push attention away from something, or to deliberately draw it to a red herring. Sometimes a combination of both. That alone is enough to send the ripple effect down across other key stakeholders key to keep the cover-up alive and well. The process of a cover-up is actually quite easy to execute if done right. You just need to create enough doubt and illusion that distracts enough people. Often it is a decision made for a specific time and place, and often they endure longer-term as those few people exposed to the actual truth die and do not share the information with others. What is left is a river of mud, full of people stuck in it wondering how did the mud get there.

Is this such a wild concept to have happened in 1888? Much was changing in the LVP. The special branch, spies and espionage were all at its very infancy. Monro's department which he was so precious to protect, was in its very nature clandestine, keeping vital information limited to a select group of people. We know even kept his own copies of files, if not the originals too. So there is precedence of this type of information-controlling behaviour. The special branch itself even changed its name in 1888 to drop the 'Irish' from its title because its remit expanded way beyond the fenian threat. Simply, there were more threats. Perhaps there was an issue of national security at hand?

Questions more pertinent would be who were involved and why? Ultimately, why would such efforts at misdirection and illusion be required?

For anyone using the cover-up theory as the basis of their own theory, this must be adequately demonstrated and addressed. I don't believe in anything as grand the 'Royal Conspiracy' theory. Far too convoluted and too many stakeholders for it to work. Too many links in the chain creates a very weak chain.

I do believe that a cover-up scenario is very possible, particularly if it was in the interests of dealing with a new national security threat.

how does a cover up jibe with your belief that maybrick was the ripper?

[Wickerman]

Maverick fringe theorists like myself are often dismissed by the more puritan and sacred keepers of the historical flame, because we dare use the phrase 'cover-up' in our theories.

I wouldn't say that. It's not easy to encapsulate all the points in a single sentence, but when you include the proverbial 'cover-up' it only adds weight to the noose with which to hang you with - metaphorically speaking.

Is this such a wild concept to have happened in 1888?

Absolutely not, anyone interested in espionage will remember that we are generally taught modern-day deception on a grande scale began with William Cecil, Lord Burghley under Queen Elizabeth I.
So the concept had a history dating back over three hundred years by 1888, but in all the cases the reason was of huge consequence at the national level.
Here we have the public murder (strike 1) of five +/- prostitutes (strike 2) in the lowest inhabitable corner of the then modern world (strike 3).
Three strikes against the idea of a cover-up; they were not so public, involving victims of the lowest importance, occurring in the most prominent city on the face of the Earth.

I notice you try to separate your belief from other fringe theories like the Royal Conspiracy, but I know plenty of other's (including myself) who treat them all the same. In fact some 'fringe' theories have only brought discredit to the study of the Whitechapel Murders.

If a cover-up occurred at all, in my view, it would be on a small scale like between family members and a couple of influential friends, at the most, but only to protect the family name of the perpetrator if he is dead.
I couldn't accept a high-level cover-up of a perpetrator if he was still alive - but that's just me.

[Trevor Marriott]

This is indeed interesting.

My question would be what unrest exactly would have been caused by it being known the murderer was an Irish ‘terrorist’? I wonder if that would have been enough to have had the impact the authorities feared? If anything it would have driven anti-Irish sentiment and made the lives of Irish people living in that area of time quite brutal. I would argue if the evidence was good enough it would be something ‘to profit’ on. The later IRA campaigns arguably did their campaign more damage than good. The government had no issue in letting everyone know they were Irish terrorists then.

Instead, we find during the investigation, at every turn, one specific group of people of whom the finger is pointed either at through innuendo and insinuation or outright directly. Perhaps for a reason.

There are two angles to explore the first being the fact that the Fenians wanted to disrupt the forces of law and order. The second being that they were looking for a specific target who was using the name of Mary Kelly or the surname Kelly and eventually found the right one.

In either scenario I dont think there was any form of a cover up.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[erobitha]

I think the reason for the dismissal is because of the complete lack of evidence of a cover-up that usually goes with the use of the phrase.

"Ah, but there's no evidence, so that just proves there was a cover-up!" and so it goes.

To paraphrase a paraphrase: any sufficiently advanced lack of sources is indistinguishable from a cover-up.

It's very simple: If you want to submit a theory of a cover-up, there must be evidence demonstrating a cover-up. Simply pointing out how some things might be consequences of a cover-up is not evidence.

Evidence that could indicate a cover-up need not be a complete confession by the cover-uppers, but could be something simple like a well-informed bureaucrat expressing a suspicion regarding another department or such.

I think at the heart of what I was saying is that there does need to be some kind of compelling evidence, but by virtue of being a cover-up there are pieces of the puzzle deliberately missing or especially created to divert.

“The truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.”
- Francis Bacon

Perhaps a theory along the way can unpick some detail that leads to some compelling evidence. Problem is the bar for what is ‘admissible evidence’ is often wide and varied

If you don’t have creative thinkers, you end up repeating the same research that has already been done for the past 130 years, where minute details are endlessly debated that don’t have the domino effect of unravelling the tangled threads of truth.

Or are we all accepting the case can ever be solved adequately?