The Statement of George Hutchinson

[caz]

Hi Ben,

Paint away all you like but it won't remove or alter the meaning of my original words. Odd that you ridiculed my 'suggestion' when I first made it and you mistook it for a serious possibility. Now you see it as one yourself, when I never did.

What hasn't 'worked'? I have to be more in Sue's camp than Crystal's until I learn more, because I've been told by you that I must pay attention to what the first renowned expert in the field said. If you now want me to change horses I need a bit more than a different opinion from someone calling herself Crystal, whose real name I don't even know!

Obviously I cannot express certainty in the absence of two or more experts who conclude the same things about the same set of signatures. I just wonder how you are going to assess Crystal's assessment of Sue's sig one conclusion as the expert equivalent of "patent bollocks".

Should be fascinating.

Love,

Caz
X

[Ben]

The above advice you gave Fisherman over on 1911 was a wee bit rich, if you don't mind the observation.

She might not.

But I do.

Because it's obviously nonsense.

The people most qualified to determine whether not or Toppy was Hutch are the experts in the field of document examination, and of that number, the most qualified are those who took the trouble to examine the original documents. Since Crystal meets both criteria, I think it more than stands to reason that if anyone is in a position to claim that "Toppy was/wasn't Hutch", it's Crystal and not a layman posting on a message board.

Or you can doubt Crystal

And we can all care.

Or not.

[caz]

Your arguments are weak, and your reasoning is flawed. Have a think and see if you can work it out.

Nope, I can't work that one out, Crystal, unless you are pulling our collective legs and you didn't really come to the opposite conclusion that Sue did about who signed page one.

Failing that, what argument and reasoning would you employ then, to reconcile the different conclusions and trust them both to be reliable?

I obviously need expert advice on this one.

Love,

Caz
X

[Bob Hinton]

Help!!

Due to my well known interest in Hutchinson I should be bang up to date on all these threads, but because of other things I am not.

I understand that a signature in the 1911 is supposed to be the same as the famous statement implying that the person in the 1911 is GH. Do I have the essence of the problem?

If this is so could someone be so kind as to post both signatures so I could compare them?

[Ben]

I'm glad that nothing will remove or alter the meaning of your original words.

Which is why I quoted them directly to avoid confusion. Those words said nothing whatsoever about your speculations being "wrong", and I certainly didn't "ridicule" them. You can't possibly know if your original suggestion was "wrong". It doesn't matter who made the observation anyway - it's a good suggestion that has a fair chance of being correct. Either Iremonger was supplied with an erroneous factoid prior to conducting her analysis, or she and Iremonger disagree on that point. If the latter, big whoop - experts disagree all the time. That certainly doesn't entitle us to think less of them for that reason, or dismiss them as not worth taking seriously.

That's obviously nonsense.

[caz]

Hi Bob,

I'm not sure it's 'supposed to be the same'.

It's just that we have two expert document examiners telling us what's what, but they can't even agree on who signed page one of Hutchinson's damned witness statement.

About as much use as a chocolate teapot - or having Ben 'supporting' your Hutch theory in your absence.

Lots of love,

Caz
XXX

[Ben]

Hi Bob,

The claim being made (by one or two) is that the statement signatures match that of George William Topping Hutchinson (the chap referred to with regularity by Richard Nunweek). Your book contained the interesting detail that Sue Iremonger compared the signatures, and came to the conclusion that they did not match. Since then, another document examiner has compared the signatures and has apparently arrived at the same conclusion. The fact that they might differ on other factors relating to the statement fails to nullify the fact that they do agree on the GWTH issue.

Best regards,
Ben

[caz]

I'm glad that nothing will remove or alter the meaning of your original words.

Which is why I quoted them directly to avoid confusion. Those words said nothing whatsoever about your speculations being "wrong", and I certainly didn't "ridicule" them. You can't possibly know if your original suggestion was "wrong". It doesn't matter who made the observation anyway - it's a good suggestion that has a fair chance of being correct. Either Iremonger was supplied with an erroneous factoid prior to conducting her analysis, or she and Iremonger disagree on that point. If the latter, big whoop - experts disagree all the time. That certainly doesn't entitle us to think less of them for that reason, or dismiss them as not worth taking seriously.

That's obviously nonsense.

Look Ben, if you want to believe that Sue was fed erroneous information leading to one of her conclusions, that's between you and Sue. It's no skin off my nose.

Experts do disagree all the time. That's precisely where I came in - to ask which one we should think less of, or take less seriously, in this case, and why, if we are meant to make that assessment without using our own eyes.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

The fact that they might differ on other factors relating to the statement...

Might differ, Ben?

Which of your experts are you accusing of lying about their opposite conclusions?

Sue was definite about Badham signing page one and not Hutch.

Crystal was definite about Hutch signing page one and not Badham.

Love,

Caz
X

[Ben]

Look Ben, if you want to believe that Sue was fed erroneous information leading to one of her conclusions, that's between you and Sue.

Oh, but it was your suggestion in the first place.

Good suggestion! It might be the correct one for all we know!

That's precisely where I came in - to ask which one we should think less of, or take less seriously, in this case, and why

We're not supposed to do any of those things. Experts can be wrong without giving us cause to think "less" of them or to take them "less seriously", just as we shouldn't think any less of the various authorities on the Whitechapel Murders for arriving at errant conclusions.

[Ben]

"Might differ" in the sense that Iremonger's observation about the first signature "might" have been the result of being fed misinformation, rather than a representation of her personal findings, as per your suggestion. So I'm accusing nobody of lying. I'm just taking your earlier comments on board.

About as much use as a chocolate teapot - or having Ben 'supporting' your Hutch theory in your absence.

For "supporting", read flicking the occasional gnat with a spurious objection.

[Crystal]

How are we heading off into Toppy territory here? This thread is for the statement, in which currently estabished signatures of Toppy played no part. And while we're at it, I haven't yet said anything about Toppy publicly since going to Kew. I have other concerns right now, frankly.

[Ally]

I realize that Ben and Crystal are happy to jump on the argue endlessly with Caz train and completely overlook my very relevant and someone logical question, so I'll just repeat it:

What exactly are "Crystal's" credentials and who has verified them? There is a lot of talk of professional and expert opinion on this thread and so I want to know: who has actually determined she's an expert or professional or is any more qualified than the average joe blow?

[caz]

Oh, but it was your suggestion in the first place.

Hi Ben,

I think you'll find it was you who introduced the idea of 'erroneous' information being 'fed' to Sue. My hypothetical newbie, imagining what could possibly have led to Sue's certainty, involved said newbie wondering if a contemporary file note could have informed her that Badham had signed when an oversight by Hutch was discovered.

I wasn't making a case for anything of either sort. But if I have suggested, anywhere, that you should conclude that Sue was fed information beforehand, erroneous or otherwise, you will be able to quote me doing just that. Good luck.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

How are we heading off into Toppy territory here? This thread is for the statement, in which currently estabished signatures of Toppy played no part. And while we're at it, I haven't yet said anything about Toppy publicly since going to Kew. I have other concerns right now, frankly.

Because, my dear Crystal, a flawed expert is a flawed expert is a flawed expert, whether they are pontificating about who wrote the three witness statement signatures or whether Toppy wrote any of them.

Until we know which expert gave us the flawed conclusion on the former, why and how they failed in their task, there's no way for the layman to identify which of you is the flawed expert, nor indeed of knowing that you aren't both flawed.

Simples - as anyone with the intelligence of a meerkat can see.

Love,

Caz
X