Hutch in the 1911 Census?

[Fisherman]

Crystal writes:

"I have already said -
A copy is a copy
An original is an original
They are not comparable. One is derived from the other.
A document is not 2 dimensional. It is a 3 dimensional object. That applies whether it is an original, or a copy.
Nevertheless, a copy, however good, 'flattens' the images contained therein, obscuring detail which might otherwise be telling. A copy is not the same document, therefore, signs of its use, and of wear will be absent. "

Okay! Chris Lowe posted this snippet of an investigation that is very telling when it comes to the subject of photocopied signatures and document investigations. It is called ”Investigating forensic document examiners´skill relating to opinions on photocopied signatures”, and was published in ”Science and justice”, volume 45, No 4, 2005, p 199.

”Many forensic document examiners are hesitant to express authorship opinions on photocopied handwriting as the photocopying process results in less feature information than original writing. This study aimed to test the accuracy of 15 examiners´opinions regarding whether photocopied questioned signatures were genuine or simulated. Each examiner received the same set of eighty questioned photocopied signatures comprising of genuine and simulated signatures. The overall misleading (error) rate for the grouped examiners´opinion was 0,9 % providing strong evidence that examiners can make accurate observations regarding the authorship of non-original handwriting.”

Now, did I go to the authors and ”bombard” them until they sided with me? Nope – it was written five years ago.
Did I distort it? Nope – if it is distorted, it must be Chris´doing (sorry, Chris, but you will take the point...!)

And what does it tell us? It tells us that photocopied signatures are quite enough for the examiners to work with! Which is EXACTLY the point Sam has been pressing, while being castigated for doing so.
And please weigh in that this investigation dealt with genuine AND simulated handwriting, that is – forgery! Without seeing the originals, the examiners were able to pin 99,1 per cent of the origins. That is an almighty overweight.
And in our case, we are NOT dealing with a signature that is deliberately trying to look like another. Our case is much simpler.


The best, all!
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Just noticed that this thread has run up 2026 posts. Myself, I have totally posted to Casebook 2010 times after the crash.
Somehow, it feels as if those posts all went to this thread...

Fisherman

[richardnunweek]

Hi Guys,
This thread is getting silly, only about one in twenty posts make any layman sense.
We may as well go back to the days when this thread was unborn, and accept that only one person on casebook, who occasionally brought up the subject of Topping, and was always rejected,.. was myself.
I could live with that then , and i could live with that now, but all this twaddle, page after page, which now mostly consists of, my expert is better then your expert, and now the intimidation of, i am 6 foot plus. and over 17st, but i will only contain you, which reminds me of the childhood sayings 'my dads a policeman, or my dads bigger then yours.
All part of a thread which in my opinion, and incidently i am not alone , has reached a ...lets shake hands STALEMATE.
Regards Richard.

[Fisherman]

Hi Richard!

You are too pessimistic! This thread has moved Toppys candidacy into a very compelling reality, just like you have always proposed. Piece after piece has fallen into place; we now have an expert that has examined a lot of the signatures involved, and who says that he would be surprised if Toppy was not the man who signed the police protocol, we have found out that Iremongers verdict lacks all forms of detail and can - and should - be questioned when it comes to what she did and said, and we have material that tells us that photocopies are a very useful material to deduct from, telling us that Leanders verdict is much more viable than what has been hinted at.
It is a very strong material, and arguably much superior to that of the opposing side. So no stalemate! Well, stale perhaps, but not mate ...

I do, however, agree with you that the thread as a whole has been a disgrace, with accusations flying through the air in a very unflattering manner. To me, this has been at least a bit of a surprise, and it goes to show how very hard it is for people to accept wiews and evidence that goes against their convictions. It has meant that the discussion has been of a very unfriendly tone, and that impression has been added to with every surfacing bit that goes against the wiew that Toppy was not our man.
As for the part of hinting about physical violence, it shows much the same thing, and I agree that it is silly, just as I have pointed out at two occasions now. This is a discussion board, and should be used as such.

The best, Richard!
Fisherman

[Crystal]

Fisherman

How you can claim that copies are as good as originals - and infer at the same time that therefore Toppy is our man is a mystery to me.

Didn't you see the extracts above my posts of this morning? Or did you just choose to ignore them?

Funny, they would seem to rather go against your self-interested view. Note that they were not posted by myself, by Ben, David, or anyone else so far accused of Anti-Toppy bias.

Accept that your view is faith-based and lets' move on.

[Ben]

Fisherman,

Your posting style is very bombastic, and it belies your earlier claim to be a good journalist.

He never phrased it like that, no. What he DID say though, is that it would surprise him if the signatures were not a match.

Yes, but he never said that originally.

So if he's saying that now, he's contradicting himself most grotesquely, since that observation contrasts so markedly with his earlier observation that Toppy "cannot ruled out", and that the differences militate against the similarities. The fact that he changed his mind is indicative that he either radically revised his stance, or meekly succumbed to pressure. The latter would be particularly annoying, since his observations were perfectly reasonable first time around.

Do you think, Ben, do you really, really think that this material does not allow me to say that Leander is of the mind that Toppy was probably the Dorset Street witness?

But you acknowledged posts ago that he was saying no such thing, and I recognised that it bothered you at the time. So what did you do? You went straight back to Leander and got him to "upgrade" his views to make them markedly more Toppy-endorsing than they originally were, and a cursory perusal through Leander's comments suggests that this is precisely what happened. He gradually became more Toppy-happy, and the end result was that his original post bore little to no resemblance to his later stuff.

If I'm to accept Leander as a credible source, I cannot responsibly accept ALL his observations, since they contradict eachother, as reported by you. I will therefore listen to his initial "spontaneous" comment posted on page #126 (post #1255).

You cannot just deny things that are pretty damn obvious, Ben. If a person says that one out of three objects, A, B and C, are red, and adds that A and B are NOT red, then C MUST be the red object. Admittedly, the person in question has never stated "object C is red" - but it goes without saying, Ben

None of that was remotely analogous to anything being discussed here.

Besides, when it comes to Iremonger, you seem very allowing when it comes to how much we can allow ourselves to read in, with no proof and no recorded wording AT ALL.

Several reputable sources attested to the fact that Sue Iremonger compared the signatures and came to the conclusion that Toppy was not the witness. Any reasonable doubt that she did anything other than precisely that must safely be eradicated, unless you wish to paint any of those reputable sources as untrustworthy.

But that does not make him of much use to substantiate what Iremonger saw, does it?

Of course it does, unless you're seriously suggesting that he lied about what occured with the comparison, and that Paul Begg and Bob Hinton were involved in this major conspiracy. Jonathan Menges was astute enough to recognise that their observations would be of great value for the purpose of shedding light on the Iremonger issue, but according to you, his attempts were in vain, since none of the sources referred to therein were "much use".

We have no confirmation of what she saw, only your assertion that she MUST have seen the correct signatures - which, of course she "must" not have. We have no wordings, and no pointing out of any element involved in her judgement.

That's because no reasonable doubt could possibly be entertained that she did precisely as she was reported to have done, which was to compare the signatures after volunteering her professional services. Document examiners will compare originals wherever possible, as Chris Lowe's post attests to, and in this case, it was eminently possible. Thus, the overwhelmingly probable conclusion in that she examined the original documents.

But that conclusion is of extremely poor value until we have some substantiation - that goes beyond your own good will - telling us that she saw the right material.

But we'd only need that if it wasn't overwhelmingly probable that she examined the originals herself and came to the conclusion that they didn't match. But so ridculously nonsensical are the suggestions to the contrary than they can be cast aside as unworthy of consideration. Your "heaps of scepticism" that you delight to cast in her direction obviously belongs in the latter catergory, since there is nothing to be remotely "sceptical" about.

[Ben]

This thread has moved Toppys candidacy into a very compelling reality, just like you have always proposed.

Oh, but here it comes - the triumphalist rhetoric.

The "Haha, I've won the argument because I say I have" school of dogma.

All complete nonsense, of course, but a good sign that the opposition is pretty much out of arguments.

Piece after piece has fallen into place; we now have an expert that has examined a lot of the signatures involved

...Who cautioned that his view should not be misconstrued as a "full expert opinion", since that cannot be done with the material involved. Unfortunately, the expert in question eventually offered up radically contrasting views that effectively ennervated any worth that might have characterized his initial stance.

we have found out that Iremongers verdict lacks all forms of detail

We know that she examined the signatures and came to the conclusion that they didn't match. Fisherman is not an expert in the field, and so he would not, in any case, be in any strong position to "assess the assessment" of those whose insight and expertise count for more than his.

And that was something you categorically ruled out; to you, "cannot be ruled out" could NEVER classify a hit on the positive side

I said it was the minimum form of positive commentary that can be offered on a subject. In other words, the best one can say is that it is not impossible. That is what the phrase means, unless it is used sarcastically, and even then it would be a very odd form of sarcasm. If people are misappropriating that phrase, that is most unfortunate, especially if the people using it are claiming to be experts.

and we have material that tells us that photocopies are a very useful material to deduct from, telling us that Leanders verdict is much more viable than what has been hinted at

No, there was never any suggestion that this was the case, as you'll discover if you listen to Leander himself. Go back and count the number of times he reiterates that his was not in position to arrive at a full expert opinion because he did not have the originals at his disposal. He mentioned it continually. Of course, if you wish to challenge that now, you'd be contradicting all those cautionary reminders he made that photocopies and computer images are a poor substitute for the real thing.

But I'm guessing this is the bit where you bombard Leander again, in order for him to radically change his tune and nod in meek acquiescence; "Oh yes...what Fisherman says! Forget everything I said about the originals being more desirable!".

But here is what he said originally:

"I wish to strongly underline your wiew that comparing research into signatures must be done using the original material and I/we would not have the possibility to write a full expert´s opinion on the material supplied. In conclusion, you must see this as a spontaneous, personal comment from me and not as a full expert opinion, since such things cannot be done from a material like this"

So no, it isn't a stalemate.

The case against Toppy is stronger, and the majority of expert opinion still says that Toppy probably wasn't the witness.

Who's up for more interminable postings?

Fisherman, you are. You'll jump to my beck and call, like this...

[Fisherman]

Crystal asks:

"How you can claim that copies are as good as originals"

That wasn´t me, Crystal - that was the meaning of the people who made the investigation that was published in "Science and justice". I only reiterate what they found. And they found that there has been a prejudice, more or less, among document examiners that has told them that originals are very superior to photocopies - something that the investigation disspells efficiently.

There may be other investigations pointing in another direction, oc course, and you are welcome to look for them. For now, though, we have this investigation that tells us that examiners working from photocopies of real and faked signatures will be able to tell which is which with an error factor of only 0,9 per cent.

Maybe it baffles you, Crystal. It really should, given your defence of the originals and their built-in values. But it remains a very factual pointer to just how useful photocopies are!
I do not wish to quibble over this. I think that the gunsmoke produced out here has been allowed to obscure far too much already. Moreover, I myself have no problems realizing that the originals will have to provide more material to work with than copies. But I remain at my stance that the advantages this provides, lies more in an increased chance to unveil forgery, than in realizing which two signatures are alike and which are not - that is something that we can see with our bare eyes to a very large extent - and the fifteen document examiners involved in the investigation mentioned could do so to 99,1 per cent! We don´t have a comparison number for investigations using originals, of course - but the 99,1 per cent effectivel removes any possibility of a large discrepancy!

"Accept that your view is faith-based and lets' move on."

That question has become harder and harder to answer, Crystal. I CAN say that I entered the discussion in a very unbiased state of mind. When i wrote my essay in Ripperologist No 95, on Fleming, I simly left Hutch out of the discussion, for the simple reason that I did not know what to think of his role. I have earlier professed to the belief that he was telling hogwash, at least to a significant extent.
But somehow, battling it out on this thread won´t leave you unaffected. I have been forced to prove every point I have tried to make, and I have been called many an unflattering thing, and - admittedly - I have retalliated. That has a tendency of obscuring the clear mind that we all should try to keep. But if I have failed in this respect, I don´t see that I have done so more than those I have debated against. It is strange to hear that somebody "would be very happy to see Toppy confirmed as the witness", only to realize that these same people will NOT accept a single point that goes against them, no matter how obvious it is.
Leanders wiew has been one of great consistency throughout, and it could of course be used as evidence in favour of Toppy, as could this last investigation into the worth of photocopied signatures.
But none of the ones who really wanted to see Toppy confirmed seem to be very happy that evidence has piled up, enabling us to take such a stance and be bolstered by expert knowledge and scientific investigations. And that leads my thoughts to the possibility that other posters than me may have been the biased ones. The faith-based ones. The fundamentalists, if you like.
I am being asked to look away from a number of posts from Leander. Not all of them, mind you - only the ones where he is very clear. At the same time, I am asked to accept that an investigation that none of those discussing out here had ever seen! I find it beyond belief.
And now it seems that you will not award the "Science and justice" investigation - to the best of my knowledge the ONLY one that has investigated this very factor - no value at all? Or am I misinterpreting you, Crystal?

As for movin on, that is exactly what I have been doing for weeks on end. The ones that do not like the added information on Toppy, Leanders assessment and the article telling us the true worth of photocopied signatures are the ones who have never wanted to move on. The ones who have told us to sit tight with Iremonger and the apparent misbelief that the signatures never tallied.

Fisherman

[Crystal]

Fisherman

Stop spouting nonsense. Posts 2012 - 2014.

Look.

[Fisherman]

Ben:

"he never said that originally.
So if he's saying that now, he's contradicting himself most grotesquely"

That, Ben, you will have proven when you publish a quatation from Leander saying that the match is a poor one and that he never believed that Toppy would have been the witness. Until that he is not in any way contradicting himself - let alone "grotesquely". And since we now know that "cannot be ruled out" is an expression that places the match on "lowest, most careful side of the positive scale", that is not the quotation you are looking for.

" the expert in question eventually offered up radically contrasting views"

...and while you are at it, let´s see some proof for this too, shall we?

"We know that she examined the signatures and came to the conclusion that they didn't match."

We do not know that she examined THE signatures, Ben. Your assertion that you must be right is not the kind of proof that will hold water, as I have already told you. And I think it has before been said that she came to the conclusion that on balance, she was inclined to think they were a mismatch.
Since you will not allow me to quote Leander without pouncing at me for any little deviance, I think we need to be fair on this point too. And being fair is to realize that we have not a scrap of Iremongers work to look at.

"I said it was the minimum form of positive commentary that can be offered on a subject. In other words, the best one can say is that it is not impossible. That is what the phrase means, unless it is used sarcastically, and even then it would be a very odd form of sarcasm. If people are misappropriating that phrase, that is most unfortunate, especially if the people using it are claiming to be experts."

...and that means nothing, Ben, since we KNOW that "cannot be ruled out" belongs to the positive end of the scale. Leander tells us this! He SAYS that this is an expression that goes to point TO-THE-POSITIVE-END-OF-THE-SCALE!! Once we KNOW this, it matters nothing if the expression used was "A terrible mismatch" - once we have an expert´s word that the expression is USED when he needs to point to the positive end of the scale, we cannot argue that we ourselves do not like that use of language. How daft would that be? It would be like saying that we must have 15-45 after 15-30 in tennis, since we have established that the two points before have resulted in fifteen points and not ten - we would be mathematically right, but what would it matter, since tennis has ALWAYS used that way of counting points, illogical though it is. Here - same thing: the expression "cannot be ruled out" points to the lower form of positive connection, and we KNOW it. We KNOW IT, Ben!
Are you going to build your defense about this detail much longer? I do not wish to spend another second with it, since it is passé. It is gone. There are no more possibilities to raise the point, since we have our answer to how it is used!

"No, there was never any suggestion that this was the case, as you'll discover if you listen to Leander himself. Go back and count the number of times he reiterates that his was not in position to arrive at a full expert opinion because he did not have the originals at his disposal."

No suggestion, Ben? You think that the investigation in "Science and justice" does not even suggest that this is the case??? I think, Ben, that it firmly establishes the fact. That is way beyond a suggestion - it is a confirmed fact. That, by the way, is how you establish facts - you identify a problem, you make an investigation, and you see what turns up. In this case, it turned up that photocopies are extremely useful to establish who wrote a signature.

I think you may need to take two more things into account here:

1. The investigation tells us that there is a misconception in the field of document examination - the examiners are of the opinion that originals are more superior than they are. That was one of the things that the investigation told us. And Leander may well - in accordance with this - have overestimated the value of an examination of the originals.
2. What Leander says is not only that he would want to see the originals - he would also like to see more samples of the signatures. You should not single out the importance of the originals - it is not just because he lacks these he says that his investigation is incomplete. The lack of many enough signatures would play a massive role here.

Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Crystal writes:

"Stop spouting nonsense."

Once again, the ones who are "spouting nonsense" here are the ones who made the scientific investigation into the matter and published it in "Science and justice".
I would be very much interested in why you consider this investigation nonsense, Crystal. I will also require another investigation, pointing away from these findings, before you dub it nonsense.
How could it be nonsense, Crystal - you tell me that! Fifteen document examiners are treated to eighty signatures, some of them false, some genuine, but all of them photocopies. The examiners pin 99,1 per cent of the material, and "Science and justice" publishes, telling us that this goes a long way to prove that photocopies are very useful when it comes to establishing who wrote and who did not.

Since you call this "nonsense" you may need to disprove it...?

Fisherman
waiting

[Crystal]

OH

Hang on... Leander on the phone....

[Ben]

Fisherman,

Condense!

Succinct!

Brevity is the soul of wit. That should be the motto of everyone in your trade.

I only reiterate what they found. And they found that there has been a prejudice, more or less, among document examiners that has told them that originals are very superior to photocopies - something that the investigation disspells efficiently

But they didn't find that at all, if you actually examine the remarks themselves, and as you learn from Leander himself, the originals are vastly preferable to using scans, unless you're suddenly dismissing Leander, or more likely intending to contact him a against with a view to altering his perspective in a radical and timely fashion. Every expert has reinforced the necessity for using originals in preference to photocopies. Here is Leander again:

"I wish to strongly underline your wiew that comparing research into signatures must be done using the original material and I/we would not have the possibility to write a full expert´s opinion on the material supplied. In conclusion, you must see this as a spontaneous, personal comment from me and not as a full expert opinion, since such things cannot be done from a material like this"

So either you agree with that stance, or you don't. It appears you do, since Leander described it as being in agreement with "your" view. If you do, you're regrettably talking nonsense now, but if you don't, then you cannot responsible accept anything else he says, or else you'd risk selectively picking and choosing which hits help your cause and discarding the bits that don't. It had nothing whatsoever to do with forgery either, as Leander appeared to recognise full well.

But somehow, battling it out on this thread won´t leave you unaffected. I have been forced to prove every point

I honestly don't know what you see when you read these threads that you delight to do battle in, but your perception of yourself doesn't reflect what the rest of the world sees. This fantasy that you're this valiant knight emerging from "battle" victorious after "proving" every point you've made is just a joke. You haven't proven a single argument you've made. I've only seen your continued attemps to force-fit inconvenient evidence in your conclusions.

I will accept a point that does against me if I see one?

Will you ever do any such thing?

I've seen no indications of that so far. Even the strong factors that do militate heavily against your thinking are apt to be dismissed on the basis of truly specious reasoning - Sue Iremonger for one.

Leanders wiew has been one of great consistency throughout, and it could of course be used as evidence in favour of Toppy, as could this last investigation into the worth of photocopied signatures.

It hasn't.

His neutral stance was coloured over time the more he was contacted, and so significant was the colouring that it eventually led to a radical alteration of his initial stance, and after all that, it now appears that you disagree with Leander over the necesity for using original document, even in cases which don't involve forgery.

But none of the ones who really wanted to see Toppy confirmed seem to be very happy that evidence has piled up, enabling us to take such a stance and be bolstered by expert knowledge and scientific investigations. And that leads my thoughts to the possibility that other posters than me may have been the biased ones. The faith-based ones. The fundamentalists, if you like.

Fundamentalist faith-based contributors are those who keep insisting, for no good reason, that the "evidence has piled up". It has done nothing of the sort, since the majority of expert opinion is still of an anti-Toppy stance, just as the majority of expert opinion is still of a mindset that the originals are both desirable and necessary.

I am being asked to look away from a number of posts from Leander. Not all of them, mind you - only the ones where he is very clear.

He was "very clear" from the outset, and when addressing his comments, I took care to quote from his actual words, as I have done in this posts. But you didn't like his actual words, so they suspiciously altered over time.

The ones who have told us to sit tight with Iremonger and the apparent misbelief that the signatures never tallied.

The signatures don't tally, as most of the people worth listening to have opined.

[Fisherman]

Ben writes:

"he originals are vastly preferable to using scans"

How can they be, when examiners can pin 99,1 per cent using copies? What room is left for the originals to be "vastly" preferable, Ben. You tell me that!

"it eventually led to a radical alteration of his initial stance"

His initial stance was that a match could not be ruled out. He later told us that this expression points to a hit on the positive end of the scale.

So where is "the radical alteration", Ben? To me it seems the exact same thing. The EXACT same thing, that is. The fact that this is a disappointment to you is another story altogether.

"the majority of expert opinion is still of an anti-Toppy stance"

Are you referring to Iremonger, of whom we do not even know what she saw - or said? Or are you referring to Crystal, who says she is not ruling a hit out? Just curious, Ben.

Fisherman

[Ben]

That, Ben, you will have proven when you publish a quatation from Leander saying that the match is a poor one and that he never believed that Toppy would have been the witness

He didn't say that either.

His stance was neutral, albeit inclined towards a lack of enthusiasm for the suggestion, hence the observation that although the differences militated against the similarities, they were insufficient to "rule him out". Because doing so would be to dismiss him an impossible, and I never claimed he was an "impossible" candidate, just an unlikely one. It is a positive comment in the sense that it isn't negative, but it certainly does not mean "probable".

We do not know that she examined THE signatures, Ben. Your assertion that you must be right is not the kind of proof that will hold water, as I have already told you.

Yes we do.

She's an expert document examiner.

That is precisely what they do, and since she volunteered her services on this occasion, it must be regarded as a near-certainty that she examined the originals, which were pefectly accessible. The details of her findings were generously shared with us by Jonathan, who contacted Messrs. Begg and Fido.

...and that means nothing, Ben, since we KNOW that "cannot be ruled out" belongs to the positive end of the scale

You still haven't got the hang on this: "Cannot be ruled out" is the lowest form of positive commentary.

"Can be ruled out" is a negative comment. It means impossible.

Not impossible means precisely that. It's a positive comment, but only just, and it certainly doesn't mean "probably". It Leander uses "cannot be ruled out" as a synonym for "probably" he is not worth taking seriously as an expert, since his misuse of language of simply atrocious. They do not mean the same thing. More likely, he meant "cannot be ruled out" as most people understand the phrase, but then his views were later corrupted, courtesy of excessive bombardment and misleading census-related information.

I do not wish to spend another second with it, since it is passé. It is gone.

I'll hold you to that, but you won't resist.

You can use the lowest form of positive observation without intending that positive observation to mean "probably", because it usually doesn't.

That, by the way, is how you establish facts - you identify a problem, you make an investigation, and you see what turns up. In this case, it turned up that photocopies are extremely useful to establish who wrote a signature.

Really, so how come your friend Leander doesn't agree with you? How come he continued to underscore the necessity for accessing the original documents over and over again? How come he acknowledged that his sponaneous comments shouldn't be taken as a full expert opinion for that reason? So now you're saying that Leander was wrong, and of course, if he can be "wrong" about this (meaning that everyone else in his profession must be "wrong" too) he can be equally wrong in his other claims.

This is the problem with picking and choosing the bits you like and discarding the rest. It immediately announces the agenda. In fact, Leander's insistence that the originals must be accessed is about the only consistent elements in his contributions.

And while we're on the subject of Chris' useful research, ponder the following:

On the question of expertise, results showed that FDEs were statistically better than the control group at accurately determining the genuineness or non-genuineness of questioned signatures. The FDE group made errors (by calling a genuine signature simulated or by calling a simulated signature genuine) in 3.4% of their opinions while 19.3% of the control group's opinions were erroneous.

How can they be, when examiners can pin 99,1 per cent using copies?

Well, document examiners can be accurate in spite of the not having originals, certainly, but the availability of the originals increases the likelihood of all comparison factors being taken into the account. It is the best method of confirming (or otherwise) an earlier impression.

His initial stance was that a match could not be ruled out. He later told us that this expression points to a hit on the positive end of the scale.

Exactly, which is a radical alteration, considering the terminology used.

Are you referring to Iremonger, of whom we do not even know what she saw - or said?

We do know what she saw - the original documents. Any alternative is preposterous.