Hutchinson's Sunday Sighting

[Monty]

Monty,

Do excuse me if I don't bow, scrape and pay homage.
From down here on the ground amongst the plebs, as a non-person in Ripperology, unworthy of valid comment, I will not be getting upset and leave the boards either, like another valid commentator you crossed swords with in discussion this week.


To all others incl Ben, Fish, Abbey, Lechmere, Jon,

My sincerest apologies, ladies and gentlemen for any thread disruption. I will retire from the thread.

kindly and respectfully

Phil

Grow up Phillip,

I hold no status within this field. I listed what I have done as proof that I am fully aware of how we all aide each other in the genre, how I have helped others and NOT to state I'm superior, which I am not. So quit the sarcastic self deprecation.

I assume the person you are referring to as having left the boards Babybird? It seems to me you are stating it was I who drove her away? If that is the case then I refute that allegation as there were others she crossed swords with. Also, just before she left we had an amicable exchange of posts.

Jen is a grown up and makes her own choices, however to suggest I am to blame for her departure is unfair and cruel.

If that's what you are stating then you really should consider an apology or a retraction.

Monty

[Phil Carter]

Monty,

If that's what you are stating then you really should consider an apology or a retraction.

Suppositon.... as I said no such thing. Therefore I have no need to reconsider anything nor retract anything

I will not apologise for YOUR mis-interpretation and suggesting where, or even IF I place blame (I didn't). I don't need YOUR mind telling me what I mean either.

All I said was that it happened and you crossed swords with that person. She was upset and left. You were not the only one she was upset with.

Now try growing up yourself, try not deliberately trying to get people into trouble on here and try not being so presumptious.

You are now on ignore.. so any comment made will not be seen by me. This is being invoked by me in reference and in accordance with "Rules and Consequences, Rule No.6. which suggests..
" ...if you have a personal distaste for a particular poster/ theory/topic, ignore them/it."


I apologise again to the other ladies and gentlemen for having to repond. I shall not be commenting on this thread further.

kindly

Phil

[Monty]

My my, someone has spat the dummy.

For the record, I asked the question as clarification, not interpreted at all.

And I'm on ignore, which is quite a bonus, as I will not have to endure inane comments in response to my posts.

Quite a good day really.

However, I also apologise for side tracking this thread. I do not take veiled accusations lightly nor acts of hypocrasy.

Monty

[Abby Normal]

Abby:

"The only logical reason why George Hutchinson was not at that inquest that I can think of is that he did not want to be there."

It is all a product of how we reason, Abby. If you cannot think of any other logical reason for Hutchinson not to have come forward than a reluctance to do so, then that is your view and you are welcome to it.

Thing is, it makes every other potential reason, no matter what - work, not being present in London etcetera - "illogical", and this is simply not true. If this was true, then every time somebody is not present at an inquest, it must per definition owe to"illogical" reasons.

This is what happens when we judge without evidence. When we decide in advance that whatever we are going to hear, we will not accept it, since we have already made our minds up, and passed the verdict accordingly.

Does that work for you? It does not for me.

"And i might add, that everything we hear from Hutch is from his mouth only after this inquest is held-right after actually. An odd "coincidence", i think."

Is it? Odd, I mean? Then why did Hutchinson do it? We are being told that Hutchnson is a very wary fellow, taking the precaution not to mention having seen Lewis, since this would give away that he only came forward because of his knowing about her testimony. So why is it that he would act so "oddly" here, and - arguably - give away that he only came forward since he had knowledge of what was said at the inquest?

Why does he deflect in one move what he embraces in another? If you are truly interested in "logical" explanations, where is the logic in this one?

The best,
Fisherman

Spock should know.

[The Good Michael]

Monty,

I was going to put you on ignore, but that would leave me with no one to talk to... except for Fisherman, and he's kind of long-winded

Mike

[Monty]

Mike

Phil makes it sound like ignore is a bad thing. "This is being invoked...." Feck me, what pomposity.

And he keeps returning to edit his last post, why?


Mean ol badass Monty

[The Good Michael]

And he keeps returning to edit his last post, why?


)

Because he hasn't put himself on ignore yet? I agree about ignore. It works wonders for me and keep hair on my head.

Mike

[Monty]

I wonder if you quotes of my posts show up Mike?

That would kinda balls up the plan.

Anyway, Hutchinsons Sunday jaunt.

Monty

[Lechmere]

FrankO
Reading the histories of various policemen involved in this case tells me that many were ditched for poor behaviour of some sort or another. It isn’t really sensible to suggest a survey
Some are suggesting that it is implausible that any policeman would not have acted immediately upon Hutchinson going up to them on Sunday morning. It is sufficient to point out that this isn’t necessarily the case.
If Hutchinson acted as he said he did in the early hours of Friday morning then it would seem to have been out of momentary noisiness. That doesn’t equate to a potential desire to become a major witness in a murder case – nor does it show that he was ‘eager’ on that Friday morning.

[Lechmere]

Bob – fair enough about marching to and from the beat – I had heard that before but it had slipped my mind.
But we don’t know that there wasn’t an attempt to locate the officer Hutchinson said he spoke to. We might presume there would have been an attempt, whether it was found to be true or not. The fact that there is no extant record of such an attempt is not very significant, seeing as how there is so little of the official police record left in existence.
And I did give possible explanations as to why Hutchinson didn’t come forward sooner:
• He may have been reluctant as many East Enders were to involve themselves in a police investigation – once he did he did with gusto – but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have been initially reluctant. He may have suddenly enjoyed the limelight that he had never tasted before. And he may well have been paid by journalists and the police, which may have changed is attitude somewhat.
• He may have not appreciated that he held a special clue – he may not have grasped the potential significance of his sighting (he may have heard that Kelly was seen alive in the morning).
• He may have deliberately avoided coming forward to avoid losing a day’s pay by attending the inquest.
• And yes there was a report that suggested the reason for Hutchinson not coming forward sooner was known but the reason was held back.
But I would repeat to those who say he deliberately missed the inquest – he may well not have known it was talking place on the Monday. But he may have kept a low profile until he knew it was over (early evening press reports on the Monday) for the reasons given above.

As for this ‘certainty’ that Hutch = Lewis’s loiterer, the connection does not seem to have been made at the time, so I think we should be much less sure now.
PC L63’s ‘evidence’ tends to point against Hutchinson’s presence there if anything.

However my personal general opinion about Hutchinson was that he was a false witness who came forward to get money out of it. I think some of his story is true, some embellished and some made up.

Ben you also ignore coincidences when it suits you – I only need mention the word... Toppy.

[Ben]

Wow, Fisherman. So you’re really are in the mood for a prolonged, repetitive and identical discussion to the one we’ve had many times on many other threads of seemingly interminable length? “Life’s too short” isn’t a philosophy you particularly embrace, is it? Fine by me, but don’t be too surprised if I provide the very same responses I provided when you raised this issue before.

“But my feeling is that this is because the Dew perspective has not been discussed over the years.”

Of course it has been discussed. It just hasn’t been taken very seriously as a realistic proposal. Martin Fido drew attention to it in his book on Cohen/Kosminski as far back as 1987, and it is fair to surmise that a great many students of the case have this book in their ripper library. Did they all skim over the section that dealt with Dew’s views on Hutchinson, or is a little more realistic to assume they did read and digested it, but never considered it worth reviving as a realistic proposal? Fido sensibly recognised that Dew’s “honest confusion” hypothesis was borne of his preference for the 1.00am time of death. Of course, Dew’s own book was published in 1938.

“From the moment that discussion got started, the group of same-man-disciples started to shrink.”

Really? Please reassure me that you’re not serious here, Fisherman. I don’t know of anyone who aborted their previously held opinion that Hutchinson was Lewis’ man on the basis of your reminding them about Dew’s extremely unpopular Hutchinson-musings. If any such people exist, a mean-spirited but discerning person might consider them ripe for the ridicule for requiring you to tell them about a piece of cast related commentary that has been around for over seven decades.

“I think you will agree with me that most people do not regard Hutchinson as the killer of Kelly, and that means that there are a lot of people out there scratching their heads in disbelief over this.”

The first part I agree with, yes; no suspect theory will every be endorsed by the majority, but as for the second; no, I believe you are very much mistaken. I believe it is a significant minority of commentators who “scratch their head in disbelief” over Hutchinson’s failure to mention Lewis. You have to remember that there are those who believe that Hutchinson the non-murderer realised he’d been seen by Lewis and came forward to account for his presence.

“Sarah Lewis claimed that the man SHE saw, stood on the other side of the street.”

I really wouldn’t advise bringing up this nonsense again, unless you have years and years at your disposal to spend battling this out, despite it having been raised before and regurgitated into oblivion. There is absolutely no evidence that Hutchinson and Lewis stood on opposite sides of the street. As I mentioned on the original thread – and I’d hate to have to copy and paste my original response if you’re bored enough to persist – Dorset Street was of a negligible width from pavement to pavement; the length of a Vauxhall Astra, in fact. Any part of the street in front of the Miller’s Court entrance would have qualified as meeting Hutchinson’s “to the court” criteria.

As for Lewis’ evidence, I think it was established pretty conclusively that it was only you who distrusted her evidence.

“You treat it as a certain thing, Ben, that the two men stood at the same spot. It is not.”

I didn’t say that. I said that the compatibility between Hutchinson’s evidence and that of Lewis with regard to her loiterer is sufficient to conclude that they were the same person. They were standing in the same location to within a Vauxhall Astra’s length, which is an absurd distance to quibble over, especially given the likelihood that the loiterer in question didn’t root himself to one particular location like a statue.

“It is therefore only if we accept that Hutchinson AND Lewis were correct in their timings, that we should deduct that the man was most probably one and the same.”

Well, we should accept it, obviously. In the absence of any indication that Lewis was mistaken as to time in her inquest testimony and police report, we’re obliged to accept that she was correct. If, in the unlikely and zero-evidence scenario, she was wrong in her timing, that would lessen the “coincidence” factor, but we have absolutely no reason to think that she was. As for Hutchinson, Walter Dew did not “state” that Hutchinson was “out on the dates”. He offered his own personal speculations that some witnesses make errors as to time and date, and if Maxwell goofed up in this regard, why not Hutchinson – or so Dew argues. This idea has found support in the case of Maxwell, but no so Hutchinson, for obvious reasons.

Regards,
Ben

[Chris]

I wonder if you quotes of my posts show up Mike?

That would kinda balls up the plan.

I suppose it would.

We'd better be careful not to quote you.

[Chris]

Monty

You think he should do what??

I'm not sure that's even anatomically possible.

[Ben]

“Ben you also ignore coincidences when it suits you – I only need mention the word... Toppy”

Oh, but of course, Lechmere. The “rarely out of work” plumber from Norwood and the labourer from the East End who used to be a groom – what an intimidatingly striking coincidence. Off-topic Toppy fight, anyone?

“He may have been reluctant as many East Enders were to involve themselves in a police investigation – once he did he did with gusto – but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have been initially reluctant. He may have suddenly enjoyed the limelight that he had never tasted before.”

The fact that the psychology implicit in the suggestion is all over the place speaks volumes for its implausibility. Reticent one minute and going at it with “gusto” the next – scarcely credible, really. In this case, the victim was allegedly a friend or acquaintance of three years. Is it credible that he should allow the trail of his friend’s murderer to grow cold purely because of an irrational “reticence” of the police that he instantly and mysteriously lost once he decided to take the plunge and contact them?

The idea that he withheld his evidence on the basis that it might not be relevant to the time of death of his three year friend/acquaintance is utterly ridiculous. The bulk of “rumour” on the streets in the aftermath of the murder was most assuredly NOT to the effect that Kelly was murdered around 9.00am. It was far more popularly supposed that the killer had struck in the small hours, as stated by the Daily Telegraph on 10th November.

We can certainly forget the deeply silly smoke-and-mirrors claim by a few distinctly B-Team newspapers that Hutchinson had a secret, special reason for coming forward late that all the more reputable papers mysteriously missed out on. Indeed, the Daily Telegraph stated that it had NOT been ascertained why he had failed to come forward before, and the Echo stated – as a result direct police communication – that his evidence had been discredited, in part, because of his failure to come forward earlier.

As an aside - and this isn't aimed at you, Lechmere - but if there's one Hutchinson-related argument that I find wholly unstomachable, it's the notion that he somehow remained oblivious to news of Kelly's murder until Sunday 11th November. I regard it as impossible, unless Hutchinson ventured out into the countryside after allegedly aborting his Miller's Court vigil and shoved his head down a rabbit hole for two days. The murder happened in Dorset Street, virtually on his doorstep, and his presence at the Victoria Home "in the morning" of 9th November ought to put in beyond dispute that he would have picked up on the very earliest rumours of a murder in Dorset Street. Even the Saturday papers in Manchester was aware that the victim was a Mary Kelly who was murdered in Dorset Street, Spitalfields.

[Monty]

Monty

You think he should do what??

I'm not sure that's even anatomically possible.

Ha ha ha,

I said he should....wait, he won't see this, I'm wasting my time.

Monty