The Red Handkerchief...

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
We should not just surmise that ''You will be comfortable'' suggests a cozy room, it could be indeed be a reference to sex..
And did not A Man allegedly say''You will be alright ,for what I have told you'' what exactly does that mean?
It sounds like a promise, but Hutchinson never spoke of hearing other words,so does that suggest that 'A' was referring to something said from a prior meeting.?
Hutchinson only mentions the two dialogues ..
Regards Richard.

[GUT]

But of course A-man [if he existed] knew he was going to her room, one would presume.

He could have meant I told you I've got money, you'll be right.

[Bridewell]

''You will be alright ,for what I have told you''

I read this as being, in all probability, a straightforward promise to make good on a payment offer made to Kelly on their first encounter.

A less likely alternative is an indication that Kelly will be well-rewarded if she goes along with all the things he plans to do with her. If that is the correct interpretation she obviously changed her mind - and paid a high price for doing so.

[GUT]

G'Day Bridewell

Good pont he wanted what she wasn't prepared to deliver?

[Wickerman]

Hutchinson's police statement has Kelly inviting Astrakhan into Miller's Court and providing the reassurance that Astrakhan will be comfortable. Seems pretty clear to me.

Offering to make him comfortable is what a prostitute does.
What is reasonable to conclude is that Kelly was offering this client more than a knee-trembler in a dark corner. The implication is that they were headed for a bed.
What Hutch would not know is, in who's bed was she intending to make him feel comfortable, his or hers?
From that brief exchange Hutchinson has no indication as to who's room they were headed.

Clearly jumping to conclusions is the main problem with all these Hutchinson debates.

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

“So why is it so hard to understand why he played a waiting game, to see what facts might be established before putting his head above the parapet?”

Because the suggested mentality behind his supposedly doing so is ludicrous, in my opinion. If he knew full well that all the earlier ripper crimes were committed in the early hours of the morning, and that the majority of press reports indicated a similar time of death in Kelly’s case, there was such an obvious incentive to come forward on the assumption that his evidence was relevant. Playing the “waiting game” in the unlikely event that the less-covered later time of death should prove correct makes no sense whatsoever. When we consider that Hutchinson would realistically have heard of Kelly’s death less than ten hours after his sighting, the assumption that his evidence might not be relevant seems all the more unreasonable. He would have realised, at the very least, that she must have been murdered at some stage between his leaving the scene at 3.00am and hearing about the murder a few hours later. Best to get his evidence in on the assumption that it was probably valid, surely, especially as he wasn’t likely to lose any sleep if it turned out not to be.

The fact that confusion existed made it more likely for an honest, innocent, eager-to-help witness to come forward – especially if the murder victim was his friend/acquaintance of three years who he’d seen with a stranger just a few hours previously – not less.

“Conversely, if Hutch was the killer, he must have wanted to kiss Carrie Maxwell and her ilk, for "seeing" MJK alive, if slightly unwell, long after he had left her lifeless and ripped to shreds. All the while stories like this continued to appear in the papers (especially any referring to Maxwell's apparent honesty and certainty)”

A guilty Hutchinson would have welcomed it, certainly, but he would also have known that all the other ripper victims were killed in the early hours of the morning, and that the paper-reading populace were unlikely to be swayed by the relatively few papers that stressed Maxwell’s evidence over the more frequently inferred early time of death, in accordance with the evidence of Mrs. Kennedy (which did the rounds extensively on the 10th November).

“If she had done so, he could then have made his excuses on the basis that he believed Maxwell, and assumed that he had nothing to tell the police himself.”

That’s no good, though, because in this scenario, Hutchinson would still have been hauled in as a suspect, which carried the implied risks I discussed on the other thread of subsequent identity parades with other witnesses. If he came forward voluntarily as a witness, he was only at risk of being grilled as a suspect if it ever entered the minds of the police that Jack the bloody Ripper might just enter the police station and request an audience with the police, which is irrefutably unlikely, despite what anyone else says. I doubt very much that the police would accept any excuses for his delay in coming forward “on the basis that he believed Maxwell”. They would surely realise, just as we realise today, that the chances of being swayed by Maxwell’s evidence – whilst inexplicably overlooking or ignoring the press reports indicating a much earlier time of death – were incredibly slim.

“I just don't see Hutch being clued up enough, immediately after the inquest, on what the police did or didn't know, to feel comfortable coming forward with his account, and then blabbing it to the papers, if he killed MJK himself, not long after being seen by Lewis, and not long after he admitted being there.”

It’s the very fact that he can’t have been “clued up” that makes the possibility of a guilty Hutchinson injecting himself into the investigation a tantalizing and plausible one. I’ve never argued that he felt “comfortable coming forward”. I’m quite sure that whoever the killer was, he was never “comfortable” as England’s most wanted man. It is when the culpable parties are not sure of “what the police did or didn’t know” that they come forward in an effort to both gain knowledge of investigative progress, while directing suspicion in a false direction.

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

“So are you saying here that Hutch must have seen Lewis clocking him as he was waiting to enter the room and kill MJK, and been able to commit her facial features to memory, so that when (not if, surely?) he turns up in the crowd to scrutinise the inquest witnesses, he recognises her again as she is 'ushered' in by the authorities and his worst fears are confirmed that she will be giving evidence against him?

Or have you since realised this sounds so unlikely…”

I am advancing the above as a plausible explanation – if not the only one – but I missed the part where you demonstrated that it is “so unlikely”. I’m simply observing the screamingly obvious, which is that Hutchinson’s act of coming forward and admitting to loitering opposite Miller’s Court very shortly after it was publicly divulged that an independent witness had seen someone loitering opposite Miller’s Court was not a huge “coincidence”.

There is, realistically speaking, a causal relationship between these two events. He must have heard of Lewis’ evidence somehow. That much is obvious, unless you accept that the two events are pure “coincidence”, which is unlikely - so unlikely, in fact, that I don’t feel the need to explain how he might have heard about it. I simply explore possibilities in that regard. Personally, I think it less likely that he attended the inquest (though this is by no means implausible), and more likely that he recognised Lewis in the crowds thronging Shoreditch Town Hall as the woman who had seen him loitering opposite the Court on the night of the murder. It’s just as feasible that he heard Lewis’ tale via word of mouth.

It is those arguing for the mammoth “coincidence”, as expounded above, who have the trickier time defending their claim that two obviously related events were unrelated.

“The 'official' explanation given by Hutch, that he was 'curious' to see a man like that in MJK's company, doesn't even begin to address why he would have waited nearly an hour to see him again. No way would any half competent East End copper have left it at that and considered himself satisfied that Hutch was being entirely truthful. Makes no sense whatsoever, and never has done.”

I completely disagree.

Remember that according to Hutchinson, his lodging house had closed, leaving him to “wander about all night”, according to the press accounts at least. It wasn’t as if there was anywhere else he needed to be, especially as he appeared to have satisfied the police that he had no money to gain access to any of the other lodging houses. If Hutchinson never elaborated beyond the explanation he gave in his statement, i.e. that he was surprised to see such a well-dressed man in her company, what grounds for suspicion did the police have if they’d already accepted that his circumstances had forced him to spend that night outdoors?

You can argue that the police might have read between the lines and assumed Hutchinson wanted to cosy up with Kelly once she had jettisoned Astrakhan man. Even if they'd asked him outright if he wanted to sleep with Kelly, and he denied it, they would reasonably assume that he was simply being discreet and/or felt bashful over disclosing that he was a user of prostitutes. Either way, the very last thing they were likely to conclude from Hutchinson’s reticence was “Gosh, what a suspicious potential eviscersator”.

It is also possible that he actually told police that he was waiting for Kelly’s bed to free up, but this is very unlikely considering that no such detail appeared in Abberline’s accompanying report (when other, far more mundane peripherals did), and there is no reason to assume any such claim was true just because Hutchinson said so in his soon-to-be-discredited account.

[Ben]

“If he wasn't even there at all, and was merely a time-waster, or was there to commit murder, I strongly suspect his answers would have been of a very different nature - and would have come across that way to Abberline”

Different to what?

We have no evidence, remember, that Abberline wasn’t satisfied – at least initially – with Hutchinson’s given reason for loitering where he claimed to have loitered, and for as long as he claimed. The “reason” we have on record may seem a weak and unconvincing one, but then Hutchinson had effectively covered his tracks by laying down the circumstances – true or false, and probably the latter, in my view - that “innocently” placed him on the streets of Spitalfields in the small hours, when the ripper was known to be active. He’d supposedly just got back (2.00am) from somewhere a long way away, but with a closed Victoria Home and no money for any other lodgings.

Let’s face it, if the real Jack the Ripper was ever in a sticky spot, and needed a convenient excuse for wandering the streets of the murder district in the small hours, then the one Hutchinson provided was as good as any, and better than most.

“So if his delay in coming forward is seen today as suspicious, callous, dishonest or anything else (assuming his claim to know MJK was truthful), why then would it not have caused equally raised eyebrows back then?”

It did.

It was the principle factor in Hutchinson’s account suffering a “very reduced importance”. One can be “suspicious” of a witness account without that suspicion implying murderous culpability. In this case, it evidently only extended to “suspicion” that Hutchinson was not the squeaky-clean witness he presented himself as, but rather a two-a-penny publicity-seeking liar of the type that often derail police investigations.

“Yet we are meant to believe they never bothered to ask Hutch, or at least they asked and got no satisfactory explanation, so they merely shrugged, admitted to the papers that because they were still asking themselves about his (unexplained?) delay in coming forward, they were now attaching a much reduced importance to the story itself.”

But what more could they do, after concluding that Hutchinson was yet another bogus witness, beyond “shrugging” and moving on? Once again, we find useful comparison studies in Packer and Violenia – two dud witnesses who apparently never ‘fessed up to their lying ways, and who were never entertained as possible suspects. There is no evidence that punitive measures were taken in either case, and unsurprisingly so, considering that they could simply retort with “prove I lied!” and go home. Hutchinson was evidently lumped into the same category, and probably not – as far as the police were concerned – at the crime scene that night as he claimed.

As for the issue of reports, you seem to have misunderstood me. I never suggested that there is no such thing as a missing file, and nor have I claimed that the surviving paperwork is all that was written at the time. I know that’s not true, but the problem I have with some theorists is that they attempt to shore up a highly speculative position on a subject by invoking the “lost report” which, according to them, must have said what they want it to have said once upon a time. I don’t need to do that. It is established from the proven police communication with the Echo that Hutchinson’s account was “considerably discounted”. There must, therefore, have been some sort of internal police communication to this effect. I’m very confused by your last comment to Michael:

“Funny how Ben wants it both ways - he wants a report if Hutch admitted to anything 'dodgy' while being questioned, but doesn't worry that there is no report concerning his discrediting, or the reasons for it being passed on to the press.”

What do you mean I “want” a report? I’ve got one. Abberline’s report on the Hutchinson “interrogation” has survived, but unfortunately, it contains no admission from Hutchinson that he did anything dodgy, which it certainly would have done had he made such an admission. And you’re right, I don’t “worry that there is no report concerning his discrediting”. That would only be a worry if he wasn’t factually established from other sources that a “very reduced importance” was attached to Hutchinson’s account, which it is.

[Ben]

“The fact that no such detail appears must mean (in your world) that no such admission was made by the police to the press. As usual, the press made it up - possibly as a result of fishing and getting a negative response re the importance of Hutch's sighting, which they misinterpreted.”

None of that bears any relation to “my world”. I have never denied that we don’t have all the original material at our disposal, but in this case, we have the certainty that the detail concerning Hutchinson’s discrediting was true, thus dispensing with the need to speculate that there might have been a police report to that effect. You can immediately forget the idea that the press “made it up”. They made personal enquiries at Commercial Street police station, and there ascertained details that we know for a fact to be (a) true, and (b) only obtainable from police sources. This indicates that an unusually good relationship of communication existed between the police and this particular newspaper. Would the police have supplied this information knowing full well that the same pressmen were telling lies about them the previous day? I don’t think so, somehow.

“...in which case Hutch would have described Blotchy - a genuine person of interest, with his own distinguishing features - blotchy skin and red whiskers - who would then be the 'last man in' according to Cox, and confirmed by Hutch.”

You don’t mean “would have”. You mean “should have” in your opinion, and it’s an opinion I disagree with. The whole purpose of Hutchinson’s decision to come forward – in the “guilty” scenario we’re currently exploring – is to legitimise his loitering presence outside the crime scene whilst deflecting suspicion away from himself. Using Blotchy would have defeated this purpose, considering that he was an ostensibly working class local, just like Hutchinson himself, was not tall but stout, just like Hutchinson himself, and wore a wideawake/billycock hat, just like Hutchinson himself. Moreover, there was every chance that Blotchy – being a real person, and not a fictional one – might come forward and informe the police that he left the room much earlier than Hutchinson claimed to have seen him. A fictional character, by contrast, would never come forward (or get discovered) with his own version of events that drastically undermined Hutchinson’s, and all the better to make that character the well-dressed Jewish bogeyman that everyone wants him to be.

“If the authorities had informed the Echo directly that they were a) asking why Hutch hadn't come forward earlier, and as a result b) attaching a very reduced importance to his statement, there would have been no need for 'it appears that', followed by 'seems to be now'.”

But this was a mere 24 hours after Hutchinson first made himself known. Of course there was uncertainty. But bear in mind that this report was followed by a visit to Commercial Street police station, the result of which was reported in the same paper (the Echo) the next day, when it was reported that Hutchinson’s statement had been:

"considerably discounted because the statement of the informant had not been made at the inquest in a more official manner"

No “appears” or “seems to be” here, but rather a clear, unambiguous statement relaying factual information obtained directly from the police, confirming the rumours of the previous day. No “interpretation” and certainly no “short shrift”. As I’ve mentioned, this was the same visit in which the Echo were informed about the origin of the two similar accounts (as published on the 13th and 14th November). Since this conformation was only obtainable from police sources, it follows that the information regarding Hutchinson's "considerably discounted" statement was obtained at the same time, and was also true. Unless you want to argue that the Echo would deliberately sabotage a good relationship of communication with the police (and one denied to most other press sources) by printing falsehoods of the type the latter could easily read about…

[Ben]

Finally, Caz...

“And you don't suppose a man with Hutch's fertile imagination and cunning could have come up with a different explanation to suit the circumstances, if he had been waiting for Blotchy to come out so he could go in and kill Kelly?”

Let’s not perpetuate the fallacy that if X individual didn’t tell a very good lie, it can’t have been a lie at all. It doesn’t remotely follow that if he lied, he would have lied better, so therefore he didn’t lie. That doesn’t make sense at all. I’ve already explained why it wouldn’t have made sense to use a real character, let alone one with Blotchy’s appearance. It would have defeated the purpose of deflecting suspicion away from himself, and carried the obvious risk of his version of events being challenged by Blotchy.

I’ve also explained why the police were unlikely to have been sceptical about Hutchinson’s excuse for loitering for as long as he did, i.e. on the grounds that his “suspicions were aroused” by seeing such a well-dressed man in his company. The police had already accepted that he had no lodgings that night, and that he had little choice but to endure a night outdoors in the “inclement weather”. If he was asked why he didn’t seek a roof over his head, any crap excuse would have done the trick; “I get bollocked if I’m found sleeping in a sheltered doorway or stairwell”…”I didn’t have money for any other lodging houses”…and so on. Having successfully depicted himself as having nothing else to do, it shouldn’t be surprising that the police bought into his excuse.

I’m afraid you’ll get nowhere arguing that Hutchinson told the truth because he would have “used” Blotchy had he been a liar. He wouldn’t have done, in all likelihood, because it would have made no sense. Blotchy was real, he could contradict Hutchinson, he didn’t conform to the bogeyman image of the killer, and he looked like Hutchinson. Not a very sensible choice of “fall guy” in comparison to Astrakhan man, with his Jewish appearance, surly glares and knife-shaped black parcel (and yes, I’m reminded of Abby’s sensible point that Hutchinson’s obvious attempt to implicate a Jew may be considered in the contact of the ripper’s behaviour on the night of the double event, which could also be construed as an attempt to incriminate the Jewish community).

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

Hi Bridewell,

“Also (and I don't address this to, or about, any particular individual) Abberline is a wise and astute man most of the time but becomes a complete numpty when his opinion runs counter to what is being proposed”

Actually, I’ve used none of these descriptions in connection with Abberline. I certainly don’t consider him a “numpty”, but then I wouldn’t know if he was particularly wise and astute either – at least no more so than other senior police officials involved in the case. Incidentally, do you believe that Severin Klosowski the ripper was an expert surgeon who extracted organs from Whitechapel prostitutes in response to the request of an American specimen collector; who went to America to commit more murders because he hadn’t quite collected enough specimens in England? Or would you “propose” that this isn’t remotely the case? If the latter, then Abberline's opinion runs contrary to what is being proposed by you. Wouldn’t that make him a “numpty”, according to your reasoning? And is it really any more ridiculous to buy into that nonsense regarding Klosowski than it is to buy into Hutchinson’s ultimately discredited and obviously suspicious statement?

Why do you keep italicising the word “interrogated”, by the way? I’m sure you realise that the report of this “interrogation” was submitted just a few hours after first meeting Hutchinson, before any investigation into any of his claims could realistically have occurred. Abberline would have been working from a combination of faith and interpretations of body language, and the latter is a notoriously unreliable barometer of truthfulness, as experts such as David Canter acknowledge. It is often considered a “con” rather than a “pro” to have a face-to-face meeting, as it carries the risk of the content being masked by clever presentation.

Author James Tully, who had no vested interest in promoting Hutchinson either as a liar or a killer, conceded that Abberline’s opinion that “his statement is true” is not particularly significant considering that the police were ready to “clutch at any straw” at that stage

“As his (Hutchinson's) failure to come forward earlier than he did is the subject of so much comment, then and now it is, in my submission, inconceivable that he (Abberline) didn't go into this (a) at some length and (b) during the course of his interrogation.”

But remember that Abberline was only the first investigator to hear Hutchinson’s narrative. The fact that he bought into it (including whatever reason he provided for his late appearance) doesn’t mean that his superiors had to. Moreover, the Echo reported that a “very reduced importance” had been attached to Hutchinson’s account in light of “later investigations”, and it is likely that these investigations undermined his claims and poured water on his alleged reason for coming forward late. According to the papers, he came forward only when he was advised to do so by a fellow lodger. If he gave the same excuse to Abberline, it was evidently swallowed as accurate, at least initially.

“If, at any point, Hutchinson was thought to have lied through his teeth about such an ostensibly important sighting, what is the first course of action which any self-respecting officer would take?”

Investigate accordingly, and determine whether or not the individual in question was genuine or a publicity-seeker.

Ultimately, Hutchinson was consigned to the latter category.

On the subject of street lighting, I’m quite sure Abberline did have a good knowledge of the street lighting, but it isn’t always possible to envisage it precisely in terms of what is possible and impossible. If someone claimed to have witnessed an event on my road at night, and I believed it, only for it to be undermined later by a great many people insisting that the witness in question could not have seen what he claimed to have seen in those lighting conditions, I should not be surprised if I visited the location in question and learned that the others were right, despite me being extremely familiar with that location at night time.

I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me a “self-appointed expert”, by the way. Compared to others who research the subject, I’m not remotely an “expert”, less still one who “appoints” himself as such.

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

Hi Jon,

“We know from a variety of press reports over the next couple of weeks after the Kelly murder that police still showed interest in men wearing similar attire as described by Hutchinson.”

No, we don’t. We have a variety of press reports of alleged Astrakhan sightings from members of the public who were unaware that Hutchinson’s narrative had been discredited. We might also have the odd newspaper working on out of date and unreliable information. But what we certainly don’t have is any evidence of the police actively seeking out Astrakhan types after 15th November. You depict the Star as being the lone voice for Hutchinson’s discrediting, ignoring – or rather denying with futility - the fact that other newspapers had established for certain that his statement had been “considerably discounted” because of his late appearance and failure to present his evidence “on oath”.

“Abberline also has the note books from the beat constables, one of which walked across the top of Dorset St. seen by Hutchinson.”

But what is the source for a beat constable walking across the “top” (?) of Dorset Street?

That’s right – Hutchinson himself. Any corroboration for this? I mean actual corroboration, not an assumption that there must have been corroboration once upon a time.

“Abberline had access to so much more information that we can ever know about. His opinion is of prime importance.”

But when he offered his opinion on Hutchinson’s statement, he “had access” to sod all beyond Hutchinson’s soon-to-be-discredited say-so.

“Hutchinson had nowhere to go, he allegedly had no money, no place to sleep, so what else was more important to him at this moment in time?”

I agree, but it’s when we explore the back-story that supposedly legitimatises his presence on the very streets where the ripper was known to be active (and at the same time) that we encounter problems. It wasn’t remotely common for “people” to loiter in the small hours of the morning, in very bad weather conditions, unless they found themselves in a predicament similar to the one alleged by Hutchinson.

“Well, we know the description is not altogether fanciful, at least one person did fit the description and that was Joseph Isaacs, who did live down the street from Kelly.”

No.

Still no.

There is no evidence whatsoever that Isaacs matched the description provided by Hutchinson, at least in terms of clothing and accessories. There is simply no way that a homeless thief could have worn such expensive-looking clothes accessories unless he nicked them, and he wasn’t likely to parade around in them if he had. If there was a similarity between Isaacs and Astrakhan, it extended to age, ethnicity, estimated height, and that’s about it. And you’re certainly not about to start that argument all over again.

“Sitting face to face with a witness is the great advantage that Abberline had over us”

Not according to the experts it isn’t. If anything, it’s a potential distraction. You can forget the idea that “Abberline had much more”. Much more what? As I’m growing tired of explaining, this big exciting “interrogation” occurred just after meeting Hutchinson, and the report was written shortly after that. There is no way Abberline could have investigated all of Hutchinson’s claims in so short a space of time

So no, he most assuredly did not – and could not – have had “much more”.

“It is far too easy to claim that Hutchinson is a good suspect because the police made a mistake. We have no basis for that conclusion.”

Yes, we do. We have the fact that knowledge of serial crime, and the habits of serial offenders, was essentially non-existent back then, and we have the reality that mistakes are commonly made during the course of major investigations. You provide a good parallel example with the Yorkshire ripper case. If there is “no basis” for assuming the police got things wrong, then there is “no basis” for assuming that Anderson was wrong in his conclusion that it was a “definitely ascertained fact” that the killer was a Polish Jew. But hardly anyone agrees with that, so where is the justification for ruling out Hutchinson as a suspect because there is “no basis” for concluding the police were in error?

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

Continued…

“We do not know what he told the police as to where he spent the night or with whom.”

Had he related that he stayed with someone else, it would definitely have appeared in Abberline’s accompanying report (unless the latter really was a “numpty”). He told the press that he “walked about all night”, which, as Abby correctly points out, means that he certainly did not have an “alibi” for the likely time of death. If you’re walking about all night, you are engaging in an activity that can be neither verified nor contradicted. A rather useful excuse for the ripper to churn out, I would have thought. No “ifs, buts or maybes” there.

“Where is there any evidence that Abberline changed his mind?”

Well, there’s the fact that Hutchinson was discredited by the police at the time (copy and pastes at the ready if you want to go through all that again), and there’s his Pall Mall Gazette interview where he mentions that the witnesses only got rear views of their suspects. Star witness Hutchinson’s vivid front-on description of the man is conspicuous in its absence.

“Whether Hutchinson had suspicious intent, towards Kelly or her client, is a different matter than accusing him of being a murderer.”

But surely it’s only reasonable to acknowledge that a person who acted suspiciously in relation to a victim shortly before that victim’s death is a viable suspect in her murder? Indeed, it would be slightly unusual that there two separate entities that night; a man acting suspiciously towards a woman shortly before she died, and another, deeply suspicious actual murderer of that woman. Safer to assume they were one and the same in my book.

Hutchinson’s behaviour would certainly be considered suspicious to a modern investigator.

“Did you ever consider that there was a natural connection between the two of them?, would this still make him a stalker, looking after an old friend?”

But that’s not what he was doing. He claimed to have entertained no suspicion that the man was the murderer. He was simply being nosy, if we take his account at face value; intruding in a blatant and aggressive way on the occupation of his supposed “friend”, and following her for no good reason beyond idle curiosity. Kelly would be fully justified in considering such behaviour stalkerish, especially if she knew that he followed her and the client all the way home, and loitered outside thereafter for 45 minutes.

As Garry points out, Hutchinson was under no illusion that Kelly was the occupant of Miller’s Court, and Astrakhan the visitor. The “you will be comfortable” line spells that out very clearly indeed. I’m rather amused by the idea that prostitutes sell their wares by advertising the fact that any clients will be “comfortable”. These women were offering sex, not teddy bears, hot water bottles and steaming mugs of Horlix. “Comfort” is what is advertised on Emirates business class, not on the streets of the East End in 1888. There, it was a case of “Are you looking for a good time?” and variations on that theme. Hutchinson obviously wanted his “audience” to come away with the impression that Astrakhan wanted to stay all night (hinty not-very-subtle hint), so he can kill her (more hints) with his knife, lovingly wrapped in dark American cloth (mega hint).

[Garry Wroe]

Further to Ben's excellent and informed responses: why, if Hutchinson should have been viewed with obvious suspicion by investigators doubting his story, had no-one expressed the slightest suspicion concerning Hutchinson or his Astrakhan narrative when I began researching him in the 1980s? And if the link between Hutchinson and Sarah Lewis was so obvious, how is it that this connection was seemingly never made by those policemen and journalists engaged on the case at the time?

Unless, of course, anyone has evidence to the contrary.

[Bridewell]

Hi Bridewell,

Actually, I’ve used none of these descriptions in connection with Abberline. I certainly don’t consider him a “numpty”, but then I wouldn’t know if he was particularly wise and astute either – at least no more so than other senior police officials involved in the case.

Ben, I was careful to preface my remark with:
(and I don't address this to, or about, any particular individual).

Why do you keep italicising the word “interrogated”, by the way?

Because it's the word which Abberline used of his encounter with Hutchinson, and because I choose to emphasise his use of that word to describe the encounter.

I’m sure you realise that the report of this “interrogation” was submitted just a few hours after first meeting Hutchinson, before any investigation into any of his claims could realistically have occurred.

I do indeed realise that his thoughts were documented very soon after the interrogation took place. I am also aware of the value such a contemporaneous and signed record holds, compared with a newspaper report quoting "the authorities".

Abberline would have been working from a combination of faith and interpretations of body language, and the latter is a notoriously unreliable barometer of truthfulness, as experts such as David Canter acknowledge.

Pure conjecture. Where does Abberline state that this is what he was relying on? This is why I keep emphasising his use of the word "interrogated".

It is often considered a “con” rather than a “pro” to have a face-to-face meeting, as it carries the risk of the content being masked by clever presentation.

Is it? I don't know of any experienced police interviewer who would find a face-to-face interview unhelpful in establishing the truthfulness of a witness. Nor do I know of any member of the judiciary who would take that view.

Author James Tully, who had no vested interest in promoting Hutchinson either as a liar or a killer, conceded that Abberline’s opinion that “his statement is true” is not particularly significant considering that the police were ready to “clutch at any straw” at that stage.

I'll note his opinion that Abberline's opinion is not significant.

I understand your reasons for believing that Hutchinson was subsequently discredited and you may well be right. He may have been discredited. The only thing I take issue with is the presentation of this as historical fact rather than what it is, sincerely held and well-argued opinion.