Why Did The Police Discount Hutchinson's Statement So Quickly?

[Garry Wroe]

Exactly, Ben. But at least one of your earlier posts conveyed the impression to me that, as a consequence of Fisherman's argument regarding the signature comparison, you were questioning Leander's competence and/or integrity. I'll re-read the relevent posts tomorrow and you may rest assured that, should I be in error in this context, I will apologize unreservedly.

Regards.

Garry Wroe.

[Ben]

Hi Garry,

Ergo, in the opinion of the researcher, there is insufficient evidence to make a determination one way or the other.

Absolutely, and the above reflected my stance on Leander's observations when they were first divulged. His initial opinion was one of obvious neutrality, in the absence of the original documents.

All the best,
Ben

[Garry Wroe]

Like Sam, I too am trained in statistics and scientific research methodology. Whereas most analyses conducted in, say, psychology, are quantitative – tests involving the numerical scores of subjects attained under strictly controlled conditions – the handwriting analysis undertaken by (Mr?) Leander was qualitative in nature. Given the inherent subjectivity of the qualitative approach, responsible researchers tend to be circumspect when interpreting results.

Since I have no idea which specimens have been compared, I can offer no objective insight into the likely reliability of the results. But the reality of the qualitative test when undertaken by the conscientious researcher is that the results are often inconclusive – or, to put it another way, “cannot be ruled in; cannot be ruled out”. Ergo, in the opinion of the researcher, there is insufficient evidence to make a determination one way or the other.

As such, I’d like to think that Ben is big enough to perhaps reconsider his comments regarding Leander, and that Fisherman might be a little more judicious when next citing the said results.

Regards.

Garry Wroe.

[Ben]

Please don't nit-pick Fisherman about what Leander said - it's nowhere near as controversial as you seem to make out.

I never had any intention of discussing Leander and the feckin' signatures if others weren't so insistent on bringing up the topic on what was so obviously an unrelated thread, Gareth. "Cannot be ruled out" does not mean "probable", and no more "nitpicking" than that is required to point out this obvious reality.

[Sam Flynn]

If they wanted to convey likelihood, there's nothing preventing them from saying "I believe X or Y to be likely" without any fear of loss of objectivity or decorum.

Please don't nit-pick Fisherman about what Leander said, Ben - it's nowhere near as controversial as you seem to think. Trust me - I'm a lapsed scientist myself, but still have the knack.

I know you're a stickler for topic-adherence

Indeed. I never leave the house without a choc-and-hazelnut bar glued to my face.

[Ben]

Speaking as someone with some training in statistics and the scientific method myself, the phrase "cannot be ruled out" simply does what it says on the tin.

Absolutely, Gareth; it's a clear-cut, unambiguous phrase that doesn't mean "probable", unless the term is being hideously misappropriated or used sarcastically. It's a fundamentally unenthusiastic form of positive commentary, or as the Swedes would have it, "the lowest hit on the positive scale". It means not beyond the realms of possibility - no more positive than that, and certainly not a declaration of a match. I absolutely disagree that scientists are accustomed to using such phrases to convey probability. If they wanted to convey likelihood, there's nothing preventing them from saying "I believe X or Y to be likely" without any fear of loss of objectivity or decorum.

But I'm afraid we're deviating quite considerably from "Why Did The Police Discount Hutchinson's Statement So Quickly?", and I know you're a stickler for topic-adherence (for good reason, I might add)!

All the best,
Ben

[Sam Flynn]

There are no other interpretations for "cannot be ruled out" other than "not impossible", unless of course, Leander was deliberately intending his comments to be deeply sarcastic. The justfication for hideously misappropriating such an unambiguous phrase to the extent that it takes on a completely different meaning to the one provided by the dictionary; "That's what we say in our department" just won't avail.

Hang on a mo', Ben. Speaking as someone with some training in statistics and the scientific method myself, the phrase "cannot be ruled out" simply does what it says on the tin. There's no hint of sarcasm or misappropriation implied - such statements are a fairly standard means by which a scientist observes a degree of objectivity and decorum.

A scientist who publicly stated that something "cannot be ruled out" might well believe it to be "100% likely" in private, but would be loth to say as much. I mean, even Darwin's Rottweiler, Richard Dawkins, only publicly admits to a score of 6 (out of a maximum 7) on his "Atheism Scale". Christopher Hitchens, a non-scientist, plumps for a full-on 7. That's the difference between a how a scientist views matters of judgment compared to a lay-person. They use words differently, too.

[Garry Wroe]

Hi Fisherman.

You are, of course, perfectly entitled to your opinion with respect to the Toppy as Hutchinson debate. Unfortunately, based purely on evidential grounds, it is an opinion with which I cannot concur. As for the prospecting analogy mentioned in one of your recent posts, I’d caution you to ensure that the Toppy nugget isn’t, in fact, just another handful of fools gold.

Hi Richard.

As a point of clarification, I should point out that the delay in entering Kelly’s room was a tactical decision based on the advice of Dr Phillips, who, believing the arrival of the bloodhounds to be imminent, suggested that ingress might corrupt the killer’s scent and therefore render the dogs useless as an investigative option.

Remember, too, that Abberline did not attend the crime scene alone. Also present were Phillips and Arnold, as well as an assemblage of less senior police officers and, of course, the photographer. The notion, then, that not a single member of this retinue recognized that access to the room could have been expedited by simply sliding back a bolt that lay within easy reach of the window is, quite frankly, preposterous. Equally, both Abberline and Phillips consistently referred to the room as having been not bolted, but locked.

In point of fact, Abberline was questioned at the inquest about the missing key, but became somewhat evasive. My personal belief is that the key, in the event of an arrest, could have represented a potential evidential link between the suspect and Mary Jane. Although purely speculative, such a surmise does accord with the methodology of a police force that had no recourse to fingerprinting as well as other forensic procedures that are commonplace today. Hence it is more than possible that the issue of the key was deliberately underplayed so as not to alert the offender to its investigative significance.

There are, of course, those who refuse to countenance any possibility that the killer somehow came into possession of Mary Jane’s key and used it to lock the room upon his crime scene departure. But the evidence, albeit circumstantial, is fairly compelling. And why would Abberline have referred in newspaper interviews to his search for a missing key if the door had been merely bolted?

Regards.

Garry Wroe.

[Ben]

How interesting...

So when Fisherman tells me he is glad to let a particular issue drop, what he really means is that he's only prepared to let it drop if he gets the last word. Unfortunately, that's a rather forlorn hope.

Though I have seen efforts to trace the Royal conspiracy to the sixties, I think we must be well aware that we did have the well-to-do doctor suggested even before Jack was through with his killings

But there was no "prevailing trend" of English aristocrats and royalty being accused of the Whitechapel murders during Toppy's lifetime. He died in 1938, and the royal conspiracy nonsense didn't reach its zenith until decades later. It would be an odd coincidence indeed if the publication of Toppy's heavily revised image of Mr. Astrakhan just happened to coincide with the ludicrous theory about to be published. I'd say it's far more likely that Reg himself threw in the Churchill detail because he knew it was what Fairclough wanted to hear.

And Leander made it pretty clear that his department had another interpretation of "cannot be ruled out" - it was a way of saying that a hit was at hand. He was very adamant in telling us this

In which case, he was very wrong in saying so.

Being "adamant" about something so patently false doesn't detract in the slightest from its wrongness.

There are no other interpretations for "cannot be ruled out" other than "not impossible", unless of course, Leander was deliberately intending his comments to be deeply sarcastic. The justfication for hideously misappropriating such an unambiguous phrase to the extent that it takes on a completely different meaning to the one provided by the dictionary; "That's what we say in our department" just won't avail.

You cannot alter basic definitions on the unacceptable basis that some institutions bizarrely misinterpret and misuse them on a regular basis, and that Leader must belong to one such institution. Unfortunately for this argument, you cannot change written communication and dictionary definitions. If anyone uses "cannot be ruled out" to mean "probable", they are misappropriating a phrase to a drastic extent, ill-becoming of any expert. He or she is simply not saying what s/he means. “Cannot be ruled out” means the same thing to the man on the street as it does to the expert analyst or any other functioning human being with a basic understanding of written communication.

You either believe that the phrase never meant to point to a hit, in which case you choose to call Leander a liar

Not a liar, but one who succumbed to pressure, as well as misleading and erroneous information. Any value in Leader's first letter, which everyone will agree was the very picture of circumspection when it first appeared, was effectively eradicated courtesy of those subsequent drastic revisions. If he was truly responsible for all the posts you claim he was responsible for, we are obliged to take a dim view of an "expert" who succumbs to pressure and bias; of an "expert" who becomes progressively more Toppy-endorsing with each bombardment.

You seem oddly hell-bent on dredging this up again on an unrelated topic, long after it was thrashed out in excriciating detail, but since we're on the infernal topic again, I remain bemused by the manner in which Leander appeared to appropriate almost identical phrases to the ones you used. As soon as I pointed out that he said no such thing, you'd contact Leander again, and the disputed phrase would mysteriously appear.

Without much hope of you agreeing, I suggest that we drop the signature subject now and turn to the real issue at hand

I made precisely this suggestion in the post preceeding yours, so why didn't you agree to it then? I agree, let's drop the issue now. There. You've said it. I've said it. You also said: I am fully aware that it is useless to argue about it with you, and I will agree that there will come nothing good from such a thing, least of all for the other posters around. Wise words, and it's high time we both embraced that advice.

Of course, the policeman business could have been used to establish Hutchinson as a liar. But it would not have been enough to establish that the rest was bogus too

No, but it may have led them to believe that it was. False witnesses are rarely dismissed because absolute proof had been procured to establish that they were lying. More often, the police simply arrive at a consensus that the witness in question wasn't telling the truth. Packer and Violenia were both dismissed as bogus witnesses, but most assuredly not on the basis that they were proven to have lied or been elsewhere. It was simply a question of using police discernment to separate the what from the chaff, and they clearly felt that Hutchinson belonged in the latter category.

Something very tangible and obvious would have turned up, and that something would have caused a good deal of sighing on behalf of press and police methinks.

It really wouldn't have been required.

The Echo simply reported that the police were entertaining grave doubts as to his veracity, not that the police had established proof to rule him out. There's really no reason to envisage some bombshell having emerged to establish conclusively that a witness lied.

Best regards,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Jane Welland writes:

"I think Hutchinson must have been an extraordinarily bold bluffer if he was caught out over knowing Mary Kelly, since he volunteered to go the day following his statement to the mortuary and identify her in the company of police. Whether murderer or bystander, he surely can't have been that stupid?"

I think we need to ask ourselves how many corpses they had lying around with cut necks, annihilated faces and disembowelled stomach. There would not have been many reasons to make the wrong choice, I believe.
It is another thing to try and measure boldness and stupidity. But we DO know that Emmanuel Violenia was prepared to take the risk.

"couldn't he have just said 'Oh yes, that's Mary alright' ? Would the police have been any the wiser?"

Exactly so.

"maybe Hutchinson's evidence was counteracted by another witness who came forward in response to his account who was also there and told a different tale?"

Not very likely - to begin with, why have we not heard of this witness? Plus we know that peoples timing was quite often very much off - take a look at Spooner in the Stride case, for example.
I have also suggested that a witness may have appeared - but my suggestion is not that such a witness may have spoken not of where Hutchinson was NOT on the night, but instead of where he WAS - somewhere else altogether, perhaps. Such a thing, though, would probably have emerged in the press reports.

"Maybe, on the other hand, the 'discrediting' of Hutchinson has nothing much to do with him at all - maybe it was just that on balance his story had too many mismatches with other witness testimony - and was discounted on that basis.
Although the sudden turnaround with regard to Hutchinson's testimony does seem to warrant something a little more dramatic."

I think the latter suggestion is the more credible one, and I agree very much with that suggestion of yours. Something very tangible and obvious would have turned up, and that something would have caused a good deal of sighing on behalf of press and police methinks.

The best, Jane!
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"the "prevailing fashion" for upperclass Englishmen being favoured candidates for Jack the Ripper only became popular well after Toppy's death"

Though I have seen efforts to trace the Royal conspiracy to the sixties, I think we must be well aware that we did have the well-to-do doctor suggested even before Jack was through with his killings. I don´t find it in any way impossible that the general suggestion that Jack may have been someone from the upper class may have surfaced very early on - without specifically pinning the Royals.

"If you say something "cannot be ruled out", you're declaring it "not impossible", a stance which accurately reflects my own on the subject of the signatures. If he then upgraded to "probable", I'm afraid he radically altered the stance from his initial commentary"

Ben, what you are doing here is trusting your own semantics. And Leander made it pretty clear that his department had another interpretation of "cannot be ruled out" - it was a way of saying that a hit was at hand.
He was very adamant in telling us this.

Of course, you have two options here. You either believe that the phrase never meant to point to a hit, in which case you choose to call Leander a liar. Or you say thank you very much for elaborating and making things clear to a layman. There exists, of course, a third possibility, and that would be that I am a liar, and that I "fit" the evidence in this case. Since the SKL and Leander are publically advertised on the net, I think that anybody can find out for themselves if this third possibility applies or not.

As for the other two, the best way to establish which option would be the true one is to take a look at Leanders position, reputation and career and ask yourself for what reason he would lie in this case.

I can´t come up with any such reason at all, but perhaps you can?

I can understand if a poster uses a method of discrediting people when he needs to play down the value of evidence given. And there is no rule telling us that we may not engage in such things. It´s just that when it amounts to trying to paint a very serious and thoroughly respected researcher like Leander out as either a totally unbelieveable nitwit or a liar, and when such a methodology involves telling the other posters around that anybody who has reached a conclusion of his own on a matter where others are still undecided, is a character that is likely to fit evidence and explain away things, I think the time has come to protest and point out that it is not a very civil behaviour.
Keeping in mind that Leander nailed the exact meaning of the phrase "cannot be ruled out" as a hit on the lower end of the positive scale, he was VERY consistent throughout. You raised doubts about it, and when I asked him whether he meant X or Y, you presented it as evidence of Leander not coming clean whenever his bid went against your own thesis. If he had gone your way,I suppose it would have made him so much more trustworthy, but we cannot judge trustworthyness as something that has to relate in a positive manner to our own convictions.

Without much hope of you agreeing, I suggest that we drop the signature subject now and turn to the real issue at hand, where it seems you agree in essence with what I think: that the police and the press felt a mutual desire to treat their finding out that Hutchinson was not coming clean as discreetly as possible.
Of course, the policeman business could have been used to establish Hutchinson as a liar. But it would not have been enough to establish that the rest was bogus too - we could have a situation on hand where Hutchinson simply tried to make up for his not going to the police immediately, and thus tried to convince the force that he had been doing his best to help out.

To me, the more probable thing would be that the police cracked his story at the heart of it - and one such thing would be to establish that the suggested relationship between Hutch and Kelly was an obvious lie.

The best, Ben!
Fisherman

[Jane Welland]

Hi Fisherman

I don't think there's a problem with your theory per se, but I think Hutchinson must have been an extraordinarily bold bluffer if he was caught out over knowing Mary Kelly, since he volunteered to go the day following his statement to the mortuary and identify her in the company of police. Whether murderer or bystander, he surely can't have been that stupid?

Even if he was a timewaster who just wanted a look at the dead body, I can't quite see how he would have been caught out there - couldn't he have just said 'Oh yes, that's Mary alright' ? Would the police have been any the wiser?

Many things are possible - maybe Hutchinson's evidence was counteracted by another witness who came forward in response to his account who was also there and told a different tale? (just speculating here). Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Sarah Lewis say there were other people around (of which Hutchinson made no mention). Perhaps this happened and he was forced to admit that he was never there in the first place but just (say) wanted a look at the dead body?

Maybe, on the other hand, the 'discrediting' of Hutchinson has nothing much to do with him at all - maybe it was just that on balance his story had too many mismatches with other witness testimony - and was discounted on that basis.

Although the sudden turnaround with regard to Hutchinson's testimony does seem to warrant something a little more dramatic.

That's my contribution for the day, such as it is - Jane x

[Ben]

Meanwhile, back on topic ()....

I agree, it is entirely possible that the police chose to draw a discreet veil over the Hutchinson issue when the initial enthusiam for his evidence diluted to doubt and, shortly thereafter, to the ultimate rejection of his account. Certain aspects of his account were easy to contradict, such as his patently bogus claim to have approached a policeman on sunday to whom he recounted the Dorset Street sighting, but failed to go to the police station. Since policemen patrolled a delineated beat on those days, it would have been a simple case of tracking down the policeman in question and checking with him.

If false, they would have caught Hutchinson out in an obvious lie.

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

Who said anything about Toppy getting confused? My suggestion is that Toppy could have, quite easily, changed Astrakhan man into something more Churchillesque TO MEET THE DESIRES OF THE PREVAILING FASHION.

Yes, but the "prevailing fashion" for upperclass Englishmen being favoured candidates for Jack the Ripper only became popular well after Toppy's death. He couldn't possibly have pandered to any prevailing fashions he wouldn't have been alive to experience, unlike Reg, who just happened to deliver the perfect upperclass gentleman candidate to a theorist who had made it perfectly clear, pre-interview, that his forthcoming non-fiction book intended to implicate precisely this group.

Coincidence? I'm strongly disinclined to think so.

And a very wise thing to do it would be, Ben - up til the moment when you take a look at the signatures and realize that procedures were not followed on this particular occasion.

I've looked at the signatures, and they have cemented my view that procedures were more than likely to have been followed correctly on this occasions.

He worded it differently by saying that a match could not be ruled out, later on revealing that this wording was the standard wording of his department when a positive hit on the lower end of the scale was at hand.

If you say something "cannot be ruled out", you're declaring it "not impossible", a stance which accurately reflects my own on the subject of the signatures. If he then upgraded to "probable", I'm afraid he radically altered the stance from his initial commentary, and the defence that "his department" are continually in the habit of altering clear-cut unambiguous definitions to mean something completely different is thoroughly unimpressive.

That said - and not before - I will happily drop that particular subject too

Thanks. I'll do the same.

the ones who are faced with two signatures that tally are the ones who are left with that specific trouble

Well, I haven't been faced with any such thing, so I'm left in no such trouble.

I've simply noticed a trend, that's all. Whenever an objection is raised to the Toppy-as-Hutch theory, you'll debate it for a while before ultimately resorting to the signatures. That's nothing remotely to do with you being "untrustworthy". It's just a recognition of the futility of the exercise, and of the inevitability that all Toppy-related discussions will eventually result in a repetetive argument about signatures and document examiners.

Best regards,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Just to elaborate on what I mean when I say that the police and press seemed to have felt humiliated, I think a way of exemplifying this would be to theorize that the police could have subjected Hutchinson to some sort of test that established that he did not know who Kelly was or what she looked like. If, for instance (and purely theoretically) he was shown a photo of somebody else than Kelly, and if he was fed the wrongful information that the pic WAS one of Kelly, he may have given away that he had no idea of how Kelly really looked.
In such an instance, both police and press would quickly agree that he was probably an attention-seeker, since he had actually stated that he knew Kelly well. It would, however, be hard to prove that he had intentionally led them astray, and they would have had better things to do than to waste any further time on Hutchinson, once they realized that he was a bluff. Also, it would be embarrasing for Abberline and the press to admit that they had been taken for a ride, and so they would probably act in exactly the way they did - drop it and leave it uncommented.

That is the sort of thing I think we are looking at here. And Garry Wroe´s suggestion that the police escorting Hutchinson around the East End in search of Astrakhan man may well have been the ones who realized that Hutchinson was a fraud, more or less, is a very sound one, I believe.

The best,
Fisherman