The Red Handkerchief...

[Garry Wroe]

You don't seriously think I'm going to continue with this nonsense, do you?

Anyone with an atom of moral fibre would concede that they'd been in error, apologize to those they'd maligned, and show a little more humility when entering into similar debates in the future.

Don't worry, I'm not holding my breath.

[Wickerman]

You don't seriously think I'm going to continue with this nonsense, do you?
.

Now that you have received your mistake served up on a silver platter, I don't see any way you can.

Should you ever decide to resume this line of argument, it may be advisable that you FIRST locate something tangible that actually places Abberline AT Commercial Street Station at 6:00 pm on 12th Nov.

Yes, actual EVIDENCE, as opposed to opinion.

[Roy Corduroy]

This being a George Hutchinson suspect thread and all, a thought occurred to me:

His suspect status is based on that after murdering the other victims, George Hutchinson lurked on Dorset Street and murdered Mary Kelly. Then the day of the inquest he walked up to Shoreditch Town Hall, where he spotted the woman (Sarah Lewis) who had seen him on Dorset Street that night, and he feared she had testified about the lurking man. Him.

So immediately Hutch came forward to give a cover story to the police. And fooled the police doing that.

Well, there's another thing he knew, too. He knew the inquest was over, that it concluded in one day.

Knowing that, he felt more confident coming forward. Because the inquest was over and done. If the Mary Kelly inquest were to continue more sessions, such as the other inquests into his murders, some of which ran several days, then he might be required to attend the inquest as a witness.

He wouldn't want that.

Roy

[Garry Wroe]

Now that you have received your mistake served up on a silver platter, I don't see any way you can.

My mistake?

My mistake?

This just keeps getting better and better.

Should you ever decide to resume this line of argument, it may be advisable that you FIRST locate something tangible that actually places Abberline AT Commercial Street Station at 6:00 pm on 12th Nov.

Ah, that’s it. When you’ve lost the argument, and your dignity to boot, simply respond by attributing to other posters views which they neither hold nor have expressed.

Go on, then, produce the quote in which I stated that Abberline was at Commercial Street at six o’clock.

Yes, actual EVIDENCE, as opposed to opinion.

You might care to remember that sentence when you next resort to an argument based upon fantasy and wishful thinking.

[Sally]

Yes, actual EVIDENCE, as opposed to opinion.

Oh, that's funny Jon. I might have to bookmark that one.

I'm starting to wonder if you're entirely serious....

[Ben]

Hi Roy,

Well, there's another thing he knew, too. He knew the inquest was over, that it concluded in one day.

Knowing that, he felt more confident coming forward. Because the inquest was over and done. If the Mary Kelly inquest were to continue more sessions, such as the other inquests into his murders, some of which ran several days, then he might be required to attend the inquest as a witness.

He wouldn't want that.

Indeed not. I will be accused of horrible bias, but yours strikes me a very sensible "thought", and certainly one I hadn't before considered.

Hi Jon,

Well, I cheerfully admit defeat on one point at least. It appears that the 14th November press version of Hutchinson’s account had indeed copy and pasted, so to speak, from the police-circulated description that appeared in the papers the previous day. With the exception of “gaiters” being substituted for “spats”, it does appear to be a verbatim quote, and I chastise myself severely for having failed to notice it until now.

You realise what this means, of course?

Yep, that’s right, it means that all those claims about Hutchinson being so consistent with his evidence and relaying “at least forty” points of corroboration can now be dismissed as false, especially if we accept your argument that it was the police who engineered the publication of his description on the 13th. In which case, the similarity between the original statement and the press version was not the result of Hutchinson himself providing “points of corroboration” on two separate occasions (JohnG’s words), but rather an entire description pilfered from a publicly available source that the police had circulated.

Whoops.

What also emerges from your eagle-eyed discovery is that the only parts of the description that weren’t copy-and-pasted were pure embellishments – details that did not appear in either the original statement or the 13th November description.

“Certainly I think the killer was a "respectably dressed" male, middle-aged, well educated, local, living by himself.
You trying to say I am keeping it a secret?”

Heavens no, Jon. On the contrary, you allow your fixation with this suspect-type to creep into most, if not all your posts to Casebook, specifically with regard to eyewitnesses and the Kelly murder, and an unfortunate by-product of this is a tendency to trivialise genuine sightings of the likely ripper; Lawende’s in particular is pooh-poohed by you all-too-frequently, owing to the not-so-“respectable” appearance of the man he described.

“And no, I don't suspect Druitt, nor do I suspect Thompson, but I believe they are nearer to the class of the actual killer than Blotchy.”

And you’re more than welcome to that belief. Most people would disagree, though, and for good reason.

“Ah, so when Hutchinson adds detail, it's because he's lying, yet when Sarah Lewis does it, it's because she was tired”

No, I’m simply observing that the circumstances under which Sarah Lewis was compelled to provide evidence (i.e. confined within the same court in which the brutal murder of her near neighbour had been committed hour earlier) were not present when Hutchinson came forward, and the latter’s embellishments in no way compare to Lewis’s in terms of detail and quantity. Oh, and Lewis attended the inquest and was never discredited, at least not as far as anyone is aware, unlike Hutchinson.

“Yes, the reporter obtained the extra information because he asked questions, not asked by Badham.”

Which would make the latter desperately incompetent, and Abberline equally so for forwarding an incomplete and largely worthless document to his superiors. Interesting theory. Badham has become your convenient whipping boy, I notice.

"Appears", "seems?, you mean they are not sure?
Didn't the police give them a firm statement, what kind of source was this that shares vague opinion?”

They couldn’t provide a “firm statement” in the absence of proof that Hutchinson fabricated his story, as I’ve explained a great many times. But if the necessary caution exhibited on 13th doesn’t quite do it for you, there is always the much “firmer” statement that appeared in the same newspaper the following day, presumably in light of even later “investigation”, which observed that Hutchinson had been:

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

It is a fact that the Echo received accurate case-related information from the police at Commercial Street police station on the 14th November, as proven on numerous occasions,...

That was public knowledge, as has been demonstrated many times.

No it wasn’t, and no, it hasn’t been “demonstrated”, let alone “many times”.

“No-one alive today knows what the procedure was in 1888, the opinion previously given reflects the method used today.”

No, it doesn’t.

It reflects that particular poster’s valuable and knowledgeable opinion with regard to the likely “methods” adopted in 1888, and you do him a great disservice by implying that he offered an entirely irrelevant, non-applicable piece of information. He related his experience because he considered it applicable to Hutchinson in 1888. His opinion was very obviously that Hutchinson's information was elicited using a "question and answer" format, which was then transcribed into statement form, and not, as you appear to envisage, by Hutchinson delivering a lengthy monologue which some poor policeman had to scribble down at furious speed. In fact, I'd venture a guess that "your” method of obtaining eyewitness testimony has never happened at any point in police history, given how hopelessly and comically impractical it would be to implement.

Nor will he be impressed by your rejection of his expertise on the grounds that he is not a “police historian”. I can only wonder at what excuses you might come up with should a “police historian” support the conventional (i.e. contrary to your own) understanding of the means by which interrogators extract information from witnesses.

“Daily Reports have nothing to do with suspect interrogations, anything contained in the Daily Reports is superficial at best.”

And this obviously wrong assertion is based on what knowledge, Jon? You continue to trivialise the role of Donald Swanson, which involved the collation of all paperwork associated with the case. It really wasn’t a case of “You boys on the ground solve the case, and drip-feed us superficial fag-ends of information if and when you decide they are important enough to warrant our scrutiny”, despite what you appear to envisage. If the sole purpose of Abberline’s report was to “account for his time”, as per your hilarious suggestion, then why would he forward an original document such as the actual statement of George Hutchinson? Please think about it. All paperwork was fed up the hierarchal chain which, shockingly enough, did not stop at Abberline.

"I went to the court" does the same, Sgt Badham had no idea someone a hundred years later would misinterpret what he wrote.”

The misinterpretation is all yours, and yours (reassuringly, and as-per-usual) alone, if you think going “to the court” meant he actually went through the Miller’s Court passage. As others have sought to impress upon you, Hutchinson made a clear distinction between “to the court” (outside the entrance on Dorset Street) and “up the court” (entering the court itself). Just read the original statement again:

“I then went to the Court to see if I could see them, but could not. I stood there for about three quarters of an hour to see if they came out they did not so I went away”

Are you suggesting that Hutchinson stood inside the court for three quarters of an hour? And what do you mean the press “cleared that up”? Cleared what up? According to press versions of his account, Hutchinson went “up” the court and stood there for “a couple of minutes”. To almost everyone else, this is a blatant contradiction, but do explain why you think the two accounts correlate.

“Abberline added a footnote to the end of Sarah Lewis's statement, alluding to the fact she did offer other observations not included in the above statement.”

Whereas no such footnote was appended to Hutchinson’s statement; only a few extra details that did not affect his credibility one way or the other.

“The fact Abberline said he had to interrogate Hutchinson tells us that he held suspicions about him, or his story. We do not know what those suspicions were, that is all.
What ever they were, Abberline's suspicions were satisfied.”

The use of the word “interrogate” does NOT imply that he “held suspicions”. It was necessary to interrogate anyone presenting themselves as a witness in order to separate genuine informants from fame-seekers, and since the latter had been particularly prevalent throughout the investigation, it was all the more essential to ensure that Hutchinson did not belong in that category. In addition to which, it might be remembered that Abberline was communicating with his superiors, and “interrogate” reads slightly better than "had a chinwag over tea and hobnobs with...". But even if Abberline did have suspicions, he cannot possibly have resolved them as a result of an interrogation. In the absence of any time to conduct an investigation (at that stage), Hutchinson’s claims could only have been accepted on faith.

“That being the case, there are a number of unknown witnesses out there who were slated to appear.”

Says you without any evidence, but even if you were right, the idea that the most important witness would have been withheld from the first “sitting” is quite clearly nonsense. Make no mistake, if Kennedy really was believed by police to have last seen Kelly herself at 3.00am on the morning of her murder, she would have been the last witness to have seen the victim alive, and would piddle all over Cox and Lewis in terms of “importance”. And yet, according to you (and only you), her evidence was not considered valuable enough to merit an appearance at the “first” inquest and then wasn’t used altogether. Unless we’re happy with the idea of a particularly cretinous police force and coroner, I think we can safely ditch that theory.

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

“Okay, Ben, so an innocent Hutch might also have had reason to give evasive answers to Abberline about his own movements and motivations, but you are still presuming his answers were evasive, and there is no evidence for that.”

But more conspicuously, nor is there any evidence that the police even asked the questions that some of us today insist must have been asked, and which Hutchinson must have provided convincing answers to. The idea that it was all neatly cleared up “off-record” doesn’t bear scrutiny, since Abberline was obliged to reveal such details to his superiors (as opposed to keeping them to himself for no good reason). As it stands, the official “reason” for Hutchinson’s 45-minute vigil on Dorset Street was his alleged preoccupation with a man of such an appearance associating with Kelly, and before we’re tempted to reject the idea on the grounds that a detective as brilliant as Abberline “couldn’t possibly” have fallen for such a thin excuse, reflect that other witnesses had previously admitted to loitering on the street at the time of their sightings, with no good reason for being there, and apparently without being quizzed or censured about it – William Marshall of Berner Street being a notable example.

“On the other hand, if Hutch gave clear, detailed explanations to those questions, in line with his clear and detailed witness account, it would make perfect sense of Abberline's brief report, concentrating on the latter after stating his opinion that it was truthful.”

But they could still have been bogus explanations, despite how “clear” and “detailed” they may have been – the point being that Abberline could only accept these explanations on faith. It’s one thing to provide superficially convincing excuses for loitering outside a murder scene shortly before that murder was committed, but quite another to demonstrate the truthfulness of those excuses. Unfortunately, Abberline sent his thumbs-up message to his bosses before any time had elapsed in which to investigate them.

Once those investigations had been conducted, the result was a “very reduced importance” attached to Hutchinson’s account, which according to the Echo was prompted by his failure to come forward earlier. This cannot have been the only reason for Hutchinson’s discrediting, for reasons Garry has pointed out, and it may even have been a minor contributory factor designed to conceal more important grounds for doubt over Hutchinson’s truthfulness. What the Echo articles do reveal, however, is that the diminished importance was due to doubts about his credibility. If a failure to come forward in time for the inquest is cited as a reason for according a witness a “very reduced importance”, I fail to see how it cannot concern the issue of credibility.

Of one thing we may be certain, and that is that the police informed the Echo – rightly or wrongly - that it was Hutchinson’s late presentation of his evidence that resulted in the reduced importance alluded to. It wasn’t the Echo rushing to their own erroneous assumptions and passing them off as accepted police wisdom, as you’ve recently suggested, or else there wasn’t a hope in hell of the police receiving them the following day at Commercial Street police station, (after they brazenly lied about the opinions of, and actions taken by, the “authorities”), and supplying them with accurate information. It would also be decidedly odd if the Echo extrapolated from the ongoing Blotchy-hunt that Hutchinson had been ditched, unless they couldn’t get their noggins around the idea of more than one eyewitness account being treated as important, which is extremely unlikely.

“If they were furious with Hutch for spilling the beans they might well have wanted the press to think it was all a flash in the pan, while quietly carrying on their enquiries.”

Well no, because the 13th November Echo article pre-dated any knowledge on the part of the police that Hutchinson had “spilt the beans” to the press. The “bean-spilling” article was published in the morning papers on the 14th, and may account for the less equivocal language we see in that evening’s edition of the Echo. Gone are the “seems” and “it appears” from 24 hours earlier, to be supplanted with “considerably discounted”, downgrading further to “now discredited” in the next morning’s edition of the Star. Evidently, the embellishments and contradictions that appeared in his unsanctioned press account had undermined his credibility further, i.e. after the initial seeds of doubt were sewn during Hutchinson’s walkabout with the police.

Even though you might have considered it a prudent move on the part of the police to keep press, public and killer in the dark about which witness accounts were being taken seriously, such an approach was evidently not adopted in practice. They made no particular secret about the fact that Packer and Violenia had been ditched as unreliable, so why they change tactics and resort to subterfuge with Hutchinson? I accept your point regarding the use of “disinformation” to mislead the killer, but that surely would not have extended to the police pretending that every bit of rubbish purporting to be eyewitness evidence was being treated as genuine and accurate?

If they secretly considered Hutchinson the star witness but wished to conceal that information for whatever reason, there were surely better ways of going about it than character assassination; inventing a “problem” with Hutchinson’s late evidence and then allowing a newspaper to publish that fictional gripe at the expense of Hutchinson’s credibility. If I was innocent old Hutch in that situation, I’d be ruing my decision to help the police!

No, the modern rejection of the Echo reports seems to rely on the idea of the police resorting to highly irrational smoke-and-mirrors tactics (when the discrediting of yet another bogus witness was no biggie in the grander scheme of things), or the press lying about the decisions taken by the “authorities” and then being inexplicably invited back for another audience with the police. Neither explanation works for me.

“Abberline did not need to judge that statement truthful, and would have looked a right twit to do so, if his colleagues or superiors at the time would have found it so hellishly unlikely that anyone of that description could exist, or would have chosen to kill prossies in the East End dressed like a cheap Del Boy or Joey Essex - very possibly from the Old Clothes Market, Petticoat Lane. This was not toff gear.”

It exuded opulence, and was about the last impression anyone sauntering those streets would have wished to convey, least of all the most wanted man in London. It doesn’t matter how phoney that watch chain may have been in reality, it was the real deal from the perspective of an ostensibly average local Joe like Hutchinson, and it is doubtful that any mugger in the locality would have thought differently. It is "hellishly unlikely", irrefutably so, but then so were mutilating, eviscerating serial killers to the police of 1888. The sheer novelty of the phenomenon may have made the police allow for the extraordinary in other aspects of areas of the man’s existence beyond his murderous activity, such as his appearance.

If we’re worried about the supposed unlikelihood of Abberline falling for such a whopper, reflect that his Klosowski-the-ripper theory is no less whacky than the image of an ostentatious toff or toff-wannabe ripper allowing a witness to stoop down and peer at his mug before allowing that witness (potentially a plain clothes copper or vigilance committee member) to follow him to his intended murder destination…with its single entrance/exit.

All the best,
Ben

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon,

Well, I cheerfully admit defeat on one point at least. It appears that the 14th November press version of Hutchinson’s account had indeed copy and pasted, so to speak, from the police-circulated description that appeared in the papers the previous day. With the exception of “gaiters” being substituted for “spats”, it does appear to be a verbatim quote, and I chastise myself severely for having failed to notice it until now.

That doesn't quite sound right Ben.
It was the description contained within the press story that was copied from the police press release, not his whole story, the police never released that. The 42? points were enumerated between the story and the description, not just the description alone.
That said, I appreciate you taking the time to make a comparison.
Learning something new is always a plus, right Ben

[DJA]

Gaiters or spats.

Worn both, the latter with a Gordon's Highlander Kilt. Ceremonial kit.

Each hide the buttons on button up boots.Which I've never worn.

Nifty little hook device which is almost essential for both spats and those boots.

Almost an antique these days.

[caz]

They couldn’t provide a “firm statement” in the absence of proof that Hutchinson fabricated his story, as I’ve explained a great many times. But if the necessary caution exhibited on 13th doesn’t quite do it for you, there is always the much “firmer” statement that appeared in the same newspaper the following day, presumably in light of even later “investigation”, which observed that Hutchinson had been:

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

Hi Ben,

Banging your head against this particular brick wall is not a good look. As Garry and I have taken pains to explain to you, the word 'because' doesn't belong in that sentence. If the police gave this as a reason to 'considerably discount' Hutch's statement, they were clearly fobbing the Echo off. They had been aware from the start that it hadn't been made at the inquest, yet they initially considered it an important lead. Lawende didn't come forward late – he didn't come forward at all. The police had to go to him, yet this affected his credibility not one whisker. As Garry said, Hutch's lateness could not have been a genuine reason for discounting his story – not even one of the reasons. It was a 'red herring', or 'window dressing', because the police had no intention of giving the Echo any useful information on the subject.

You wrote to Jon:

The misinterpretation is all yours, and yours (reassuringly, and as-per-usual) alone, if you think going “to the court” meant he actually went through the Miller’s Court passage. As others have sought to impress upon you, Hutchinson made a clear distinction between “to the court” (outside the entrance on Dorset Street) and “up the court” (entering the court itself). Just read the original statement again:

“I then went to the Court to see if I could see them, but could not. I stood there for about three quarters of an hour to see if they came out they did not so I went away”

Are you suggesting that Hutchinson stood inside the court for three quarters of an hour? And what do you mean the press “cleared that up”? Cleared what up? According to press versions of his account, Hutchinson went “up” the court and stood there for “a couple of minutes”. To almost everyone else, this is a blatant contradiction, but do explain why you think the two accounts correlate.

But not, apparently, a blatant enough contradiction to make the police sit up and take notice. You will no doubt argue that they had no time to scour the newspapers for such things, but why would a guilty Hutch have taken that risk? Would he really have given Abberline and co the distinct impression that he went no further than the entrance on Dorset St, only to admit to the world and his wife that he had in fact gone right into the court - as he must have done if he murdered Kelly? Having pulled the wool so successfully over Abberline's eyes, why would he have gone out of his way to contradict his police statement like that?

What the Echo articles do reveal, however, is that the diminished importance was due to doubts about his credibility. If a failure to come forward in time for the inquest is cited as a reason for according a witness a “very reduced importance”, I fail to see how it cannot concern the issue of credibility.

I know you fail to see, Ben, but that's your problem, not mine or Jon's. The Echo's cited reason has not only been 'considerably discounted' by Garry and me; this red herring has been blown out of the water. How can Hutch's lateness have had any bearing on his personal credibility, when Lawende's failure to come forward voluntarily most certainly didn't?

Of one thing we may be certain, and that is that the police informed the Echo – rightly or wrongly - that it was Hutchinson’s late presentation of his evidence that resulted in the reduced importance alluded to. It wasn’t the Echo rushing to their own erroneous assumptions and passing them off as accepted police wisdom, as you’ve recently suggested, or else there wasn’t a hope in hell of the police receiving them the following day at Commercial Street police station, (after they brazenly lied about the opinions of, and actions taken by, the “authorities”), and supplying them with accurate information.

Right, so if the Echo didn't dare make things up, or contradict anything said during these alleged conversations with the "authorities", lest the police read all about it and react accordingly, would that not have applied with knobs on to Hutch, if he had killed Kelly and needed the police to believe he could tell a straight story?

It would also be decidedly odd if the Echo extrapolated from the ongoing Blotchy-hunt that Hutchinson had been ditched, unless they couldn’t get their noggins around the idea of more than one eyewitness account being treated as important, which is extremely unlikely.

Well I think there's evidence in certain newspaper reports that this is precisely what some members of the press couldn't 'get their noggins around'. Sam (Gareth) posted one such article a while back, which had the wrong end of the stick by assuming one witness sighting had been ditched in favour of another, on account of conflicting timings. If the police seemed to be on the hunt for Blotchy, despite him being seen with Kelly a good two hours before Hutch claimed to see her with a completely different man, I can see how the press may have misinterpreted this as a considerable lessening of the latter's initial importance – any story being better than none.

If they secretly considered Hutchinson the star witness but wished to conceal that information for whatever reason, there were surely better ways of going about it than character assassination; inventing a “problem” with Hutchinson’s late evidence and then allowing a newspaper to publish that fictional gripe at the expense of Hutchinson’s credibility. If I was innocent old Hutch in that situation, I’d be ruing my decision to help the police!

What 'character assassination'? The "problem", assuming there was one, was not with Hutch's evidence being volunteered late. Once again, that was either the police fobbing the Echo off, or the Echo being left to reach their own faulty conclusion. From this tiny piece of non-information, you have invented a problem with Hutch's personal credibility which is not defined in print anywhere outside the narrow confines of modern suspectology. I'm not saying the police secretly carried on considering Hutch an important witness – whatever happened the trail must have gone cold with time, as with Blotchy and all (or almost all) other witness sightings. But concealing information is not quite the same as not revealing it, so if one newspaper report suggested Hutch's suspect was still being sought, while another suggested he had been ditched (and we know there were unresolved inconsistences like this), the police were under no particular obligation to issue corrections or clarifications – assuming they had time to absorb what was being printed of course.

No, the modern rejection of the Echo reports seems to rely on the idea of the police resorting to highly irrational smoke-and-mirrors tactics (when the discrediting of yet another bogus witness was no biggie in the grander scheme of things), or the press lying about the decisions taken by the “authorities” and then being inexplicably invited back for another audience with the police. Neither explanation works for me.

I'm not surprised, when you put it like that. But nobody is suggesting smoke-and-mirror tactics as such (unless you count Garry's 'red herring' dangled in front of the Echo instead of a genuine reason); just a bit of natural discretion over how much the public – via the press - deserved or needed to know. And again, unless the police had time to read the papers and notice any glaring contradictions in Hutch's statements, they wouldn't have noticed the papers making up 'audiences' with them at the nick either, or claiming semi-educated guesswork as exclusive inside knowledge.

Whatever next? A newspaper claiming semi-educated guesswork as exclusive inside knowledge? Shock, horror, gasp.

Love,

Caz
X

[Abby Normal]

Hi Ben,

Banging your head against this particular brick wall is not a good look. As Garry and I have taken pains to explain to you, the word 'because' doesn't belong in that sentence. If the police gave this as a reason to 'considerably discount' Hutch's statement, they were clearly fobbing the Echo off. They had been aware from the start that it hadn't been made at the inquest, yet they initially considered it an important lead. Lawende didn't come forward late – he didn't come forward at all. The police had to go to him, yet this affected his credibility not one whisker. As Garry said, Hutch's lateness could not have been a genuine reason for discounting his story – not even one of the reasons. It was a 'red herring', or 'window dressing', because the police had no intention of giving the Echo any useful information on the subject.

You wrote to Jon:



But not, apparently, a blatant enough contradiction to make the police sit up and take notice. You will no doubt argue that they had no time to scour the newspapers for such things, but why would a guilty Hutch have taken that risk? Would he really have given Abberline and co the distinct impression that he went no further than the entrance on Dorset St, only to admit to the world and his wife that he had in fact gone right into the court - as he must have done if he murdered Kelly? Having pulled the wool so successfully over Abberline's eyes, why would he have gone out of his way to contradict his police statement like that?



I know you fail to see, Ben, but that's your problem, not mine or Jon's. The Echo's cited reason has not only been 'considerably discounted' by Garry and me; this red herring has been blown out of the water. How can Hutch's lateness have had any bearing on his personal credibility, when Lawende's failure to come forward voluntarily most certainly didn't?



Right, so if the Echo didn't dare make things up, or contradict anything said during these alleged conversations with the "authorities", lest the police read all about it and react accordingly, would that not have applied with knobs on to Hutch, if he had killed Kelly and needed the police to believe he could tell a straight story?



Well I think there's evidence in certain newspaper reports that this is precisely what some members of the press couldn't 'get their noggins around'. Sam (Gareth) posted one such article a while back, which had the wrong end of the stick by assuming one witness sighting had been ditched in favour of another, on account of conflicting timings. If the police seemed to be on the hunt for Blotchy, despite him being seen with Kelly a good two hours before Hutch claimed to see her with a completely different man, I can see how the press may have misinterpreted this as a considerable lessening of the latter's initial importance – any story being better than none.



What 'character assassination'? The "problem", assuming there was one, was not with Hutch's evidence being volunteered late. Once again, that was either the police fobbing the Echo off, or the Echo being left to reach their own faulty conclusion. From this tiny piece of non-information, you have invented a problem with Hutch's personal credibility which is not defined in print anywhere outside the narrow confines of modern suspectology. I'm not saying the police secretly carried on considering Hutch an important witness – whatever happened the trail must have gone cold with time, as with Blotchy and all (or almost all) other witness sightings. But concealing information is not quite the same as not revealing it, so if one newspaper report suggested Hutch's suspect was still being sought, while another suggested he had been ditched (and we know there were unresolved inconsistences like this), the police were under no particular obligation to issue corrections or clarifications – assuming they had time to absorb what was being printed of course.



I'm not surprised, when you put it like that. But nobody is suggesting smoke-and-mirror tactics as such (unless you count Garry's 'red herring' dangled in front of the Echo instead of a genuine reason); just a bit of natural discretion over how much the public – via the press - deserved or needed to know. And again, unless the police had time to read the papers and notice any glaring contradictions in Hutch's statements, they wouldn't have noticed the papers making up 'audiences' with them at the nick either, or claiming semi-educated guesswork as exclusive inside knowledge.

Whatever next? A newspaper claiming semi-educated guesswork as exclusive inside knowledge? Shock, horror, gasp.

Love,

Caz
X

hold on a second Caz

But not, apparently, a blatant enough contradiction to make the police sit up and take notice. You will no doubt argue that they had no time to scour the newspapers for such things, but why would a guilty Hutch have taken that risk? Would he really have given Abberline and co the distinct impression that he went no further than the entrance on Dorset St, only to admit to the world and his wife that he had in fact gone right into the court - as he must have done if he murdered Kelly? Having pulled the wool so successfully over Abberline's eyes, why would he have gone out of his way to contradict his police statement like that?

I thought you and wick have been arguing there was no contradiction between Hutchs police and press version? and whos his "wife"?

[Wickerman]

I think Caz is pointing out the weakness inherent in Ben's argument. In other words, even if we take Ben's argument at face value....(if we accept a contradiction)....any contradiction was apparently not blatant enough, etc. etc.

Ben seems to want to identify potential lies given by Hutchinson, that only Ben could see, not Abberline, nor any member of the force who reads newspapers.
(point of trivia: There was one person assigned to look through newspapers)

Ben thinks he has found "lies" told by Hutchinson that no-one else was able to find a hundred or so years ago, and not even keep them a secret, but have his lies published in the press for all the world to see!!!


Only in Ben's mind I'm afraid.

[Wickerman]

... If the police gave this as a reason to 'considerably discount' Hutch's statement, they were clearly fobbing the Echo off. They had been aware from the start that it hadn't been made at the inquest, yet they initially considered it an important lead.

Good luck with that Caz, I have been beating Ben over the head with that glaring fact for years now.
The police had already taken his statement, unsworn, and it was seemingly good enough to pass up the chain of command.

All police statements are unsworn. Police investigations do not rely on sworn statements, something the Echo forgot to mention in their eagerness to fire up the imagination of their readers.
And that, after all, is all this journalistic deception is about.

[Wickerman]

Hi Ben, I had not realized one post was left unfinished, having only replied to the first paragraph...so lets continue.

... an unfortunate by-product of this is a tendency to trivialise genuine sightings of the likely ripper; Lawende’s in particular is pooh-poohed by you all-too-frequently, owing to the not-so-“respectable” appearance of the man he described.

Notable by it's absence is any mention by yourself that Swanson also expressed doubts about the reliability of Lawende's sighting.
Your criticism is only half the story, but that is your intention isn't it, to make it appear I alone make this observation.
I am agreeing with Swanson, not inventing an otherwise unheard of scenario.

No, I’m simply observing that the circumstances under which Sarah Lewis was compelled to provide evidence (i.e. confined within the same court in which the brutal murder of her near neighbour had been committed hour earlier) were not present when Hutchinson came forward, and the latter’s embellishments in no way compare to Lewis’s in terms of detail and quantity.

Just to help me understand your thinking, how/where do you draw the line between extra detail, and embellishments?

Oh, and Lewis attended the inquest and was never discredited, at least not as far as anyone is aware, unlike Hutchinson.

Still attached to that circular argument I see.

Which would make the latter desperately incompetent, and Abberline equally so for forwarding an incomplete and largely worthless document to his superiors. Interesting theory. Badham has become your convenient whipping boy, I notice.

Seeing as how this is an older post, I imagine you have been put straight on that point by now.

It reflects that particular poster’s valuable and knowledgeable opinion with regard to the likely “methods” adopted in 1888, and you do him a great disservice by implying that he offered an entirely irrelevant, non-applicable piece of information.

Isn't this the post you are talking about?

http://forum.casebook.org/showpost.php?p=335046&postcount=87

And with apologies to Colin, this is the paragraph of concern:
"It's been said many times, but it bears repeating, that a statement taker elicits an account from a witness by means of a series of questions. The Officer then formulates the wording based on the account given and makes a decision as to what needs to be included. There is, therefore, no significance, in terms of his veracity or otherwise, to the fact that Hutchinson's statement doesn't include a description of MJK."

The question then becomes, is this an example of the procedure in use today, or the procedure in use at the time.

Whereas Stewart has remarked:
"Only hard earned experience and many years of development has resulted in the high standard of most witness statements to be found today. They have been honed to a fine art by the knowledge of the possible defences that may be raised, the nature of the evidence as regards relevance and the information needed as a result of case law."

And in summary:
"I guess that the police have now come a long way with their statement taking since those dark, far-off days of 1888,..."

http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/rn-witness.html

From Stewart's point of view, Hutchinson's statement is entirely inadequate when compared with today's methods.

And this obviously wrong assertion is based on what knowledge, Jon?

The content, it is superficial.

If the sole purpose of Abberline’s report was to “account for his time”, as per your hilarious suggestion, then why would he forward an original document such as the actual statement of George Hutchinson? Please think about it. All paperwork was fed up the hierarchal chain which, shockingly enough, did not stop at Abberline.

I don't see the problem. Police mail was picked up three (I think) times a day.
Abberline is merely reporting on his day, and provides the statement as a supplement, then mails it to C.O.

The use of the word “interrogate” does NOT imply that he “held suspicions”. It was necessary to interrogate anyone presenting themselves as a witness in order to separate genuine informants from fame-seekers, and since the latter had been particularly prevalent throughout the investigation, it was all the more essential to ensure that Hutchinson did not belong in that category.

First you tell me it does NOT imply he held suspicions, then you give YOUR reason for the interrogation, that Abberline WAS suspicious - that Hutchinson may be lying!
How does that make any sense Ben?
He was interrogated because Abberline had suspicions, it doesn't matter what those suspicions were.

Hutchinson’s claims could only have been accepted on faith.

I do not doubt that in the slightest.
Even though clinically, we can admit that you cannot truly determine if a witness is lying, an experienced interrogator can come away with the impression (ie; attitude, temperament, body language, disposition) that this witness is being honest.

Says you without any evidence, but even if you were right, the idea that the most important witness would have been withheld from the first “sitting” is quite clearly nonsense.

Witnesses are not summonsed in order of importance, you can check that by looking over the extant inquests and noting who appeared and when.

Lets not forget, it is not me who is claiming Kennedy HAD to be a witness, it is you who is claiming she SHOULD have been summonsed.
And, due to the inquest abruptly terminating, we shall never know if Kennedy was slated to appear.
This means your objection is unfounded for lack of information.

[harry]

There is a deal of difference between a trained observer,such as a policeman,and a person of the labouring class.
There is no doubt that had a policeman been the witness,instead of Hutchinson, the witness statement,should and would have contained more detail.A policeman would have made notes at the earliest opportunity,on which to refresh his memory.A policeman would have been alerted at the first sighting of Kelly,and this alertness would have increased,when she met and walked back with AM.A policeman would have reported as soon as possible'
So Hutchinson's account can be expected to be inferior,and the exclusion of detail merely one of inexperience on his part.He may have been asked questions he was not able to answer.
What was of the most importance however,is not missing.That is a connection of a victim with a suspect,and evidence of being together in the room in which she was killed.Aberline and Badham cannot be faulted on that.