Why did Abberline believe Hutch ?

[pinkmoon]

Hi all,do you not think that if the police thought there was any chance at all of old hutch been our killer then they would have put him under surveillance and if they did that then it would be noted in the police files somewhere.Could it also be possible that if they checked him out he had perfect alibis for the other murders.

[DVV]

this pun is eternal

Now for sure you're getting saucy, son.

[Wickerman]

That's precisely what he did, Jon.

Cheers

If it's a faithful representation of what he said, or verbatim, then perhaps. Though exaggeration in memoirs seems to be a consistency among the recently retired officials involved in the case.
As none of the doctors offered such a high commendation for the killer then we might be wise to be wary, Abberline was not qualified to judge himself, and he doesn't appear to be quoting anyone that we know of.

[DVV]

Would you expect Abberline to stick his neck out if the various medical opinions could not provide any real consensus?

That's precisely what he did, Jon.

Cheers

[Fisherman]

I have nothing to add. You do the work for me.

Fisherman

[Ben]

Youīve had your say, I have had mine. Letīs leave it at that, shall we?

Oh alright then, Fisherman.

I would have preferred a foul-tempered stamina war, but since I've successfully recruited Jon for that, I will respect your request. Just a very quick copy and paste on the subject of the "interrogation" business.

This time over you fail on one point - you claim that Lechmere would have been subjected to the same type of interrogation and investigation as Hutchinson, but we know that only the latter was described as having been interrogated, just as we have a good pointer (the name) that this never happened to Lechmere.

No, we do not have a "good pointer" in that regard.

As I've made clear on the other thread, there is no possibility - that's right, no possibility - of Lechmere's name remaining a secret if he went by that name socially, and at work. Abberline's interrogation of Cross could have amounted to a couple of lazy jars at the T̶e̶n̶ ̶B̶e̶l̶l̶s̶ B̶r̶i̶c̶k̶l̶a̶y̶e̶r̶s̶ H̶o̶r̶n̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶P̶l̶e̶n̶t̶y̶ B̶r̶i̶t̶a̶n̶n̶i̶a̶ Queen's Head, and his identity would still have been discovered.

Hutchinson was no more "interrogated" than any other witness whose truthfulness, or otherwise, needed to be established. Abberline was bound to use the word "interrogate" when speaking to his bosses. "Had a cosy, marmalde-fuelled chinwag with..." doesn't create quite as favourable an impression

Regards,
Ben

[Ben]

Would Abberline have been concerned with 'checking out' his story of walking from Romford [had it even been possible to do so]? I think it doubtful.

I agree entirely, Sally.

Another over-looked point here is that Abberline's first priority would have been to expedite the pursuit of Astrakhan man. That was the immediate concern. If the police had invested all their resources trying to determine how many cows Hutchinson saw on the way back from Romford, or if Freddie the fishmonger saw Hutchinson gazing at the Romford flood waters, they would have been wasting precious Astrakhan-collaring time, effectively allowing his trail to grow cold. Even if they suspected that the man might have been a fabrication, their first priority was to get that description out there and pursue that lead as soon as possible, as they couldn’t risk a lead slipping through their fingers on the assumption that it was false. It might not have been.

That would have been Abberline’s first investigative port of call – circulate the description and set the Astrak-hunt (still funny!) afoot before he has an opportunity to get spooked into fleeing the area or rapidly changing his hilariously conspicuous appearance. Fannying about with unverifiable aspects of Hutchinson’s story would have been a colossal waste of time and resources.

It is nonsense, as you point out, to argue that there were “checking” points associated with his Romford narrative. No there weren’t, or else he would not have been discredited. It would have taken a considerable length of time, in those days, for potential Romford-verifiers to be identified. Abberline would have had to send the wire, the Romford coppers would have been required to track down the individuals concerned, interview them, and wire back. By the time it would realistically have taken for a resolution of that issue to arrive on Abberline’s desk, Hutchinson’s statement had long since dropped off the map having failed "later investigations" for whatever reasons. If Hutchinson lied, on the other hand, there was nothing to verify, and nobody to wire, and all he needed to do in order to skirt round the issue of verification was make out that he was alone. Who was in a position to prove him wrong or lying? Absolutely nobody.

Hutchinson was unlikely to have plucked Romford completely at random. It’s possible that he did have some sort of connection there, and was accordingly familiar with the extent of flooding, and yet still lied about visiting the town on Thursday.

“So what you say in general might be true, but then we have to consider if Abberline would have given "every lead" such a glowing report to his superior as he did with Hutchinson.”

He didn’t give it a “glowing” report, Jon. What a weird thing to say. He simply expressed the faith-based, short-lived opinion that his statement is true. Nowhere near enough time had elapsed in which to verify the bulk his statement by the time Abberline came to write his report, which wasn’t the priority at the time anyway. The priority at the time was to circulate the description, hope for the best, and ask questions later if all didn’t pan out, which it didn’t.

“Any one of those could have reported seeing Hutchinson that night.”

No, you don’t get to plonk a load of strategically located Hutch-spotters on the streets or gazing out of their windows in the small hours, especially with no evidence. Hutchinson makes clear that he encountered nobody during his Dorset Street vigil, and since you take him at his word, you’ll just have to accept it. Oh, and it’s still not the case that the police never shared anything with the press – obviously, and provably not the case, in fact.

[Fisherman]

Hi Fish - That's ok, you're welcome. It was a particularly wet Autumn that year. You might find this article from the Romford Recorder of interest:

http://www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/new...ring_1_2305546

I think that there are lots of explanations that Hutchinson could have given Abberline to account for his trip to Romford which would have been perfectly plausible. But as I said in my earlier post, I think the trip to Romford would have been a lesser concern. It wasn't unusual for people to walk from Romford to London.

Remember, Hutchinson gave his statement as a voluntary witness - there's no indication that he was under suspicion by the police for so doing. Would Abberline have been concerned with 'checking out' his story of walking from Romford [had it even been possible to do so]? I think it doubtful.

I donīt think it would have been Abberlines primary concern - that would have been pinning Hutchinson on the murder street and -night, and - of course - establishing as much confirmation/knowledge as possible about Astrakhan man.
Secondarily, however, yes, I do believe that if Abberline did not find out about why Hutchinsons story did not pan out before, he would have checked the Romford business too. If nothing else, it could help to establish a schedule. And establish, of course, whether Hutchinson had gotten the days right or not.

The best,
Fisherman

[Sally]

The Romford Floods of '88 are also discussed in this thread from JtrForums:

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=6158

There are some additional pictures of the flooding to look at - and note particuarly Bob Hinton's post mentioning an article from the local paper on an East End labourer being arrested in a Romford pub on suspicion of being Jack the Ripper...

[Sally]

Precisely so. Which goes to confirm what I am saying - there is always the risk of having these things happen in a town like Romford, whereas a fishing trip will not spring any surprises on you (other than in finned shape ).
Not that I know exactly what damage it caused Romford and when, but one can easily imagine how Abberline could have asked about to what extent the flooding was still visible in the streets or something like that.
Like I said before, there WILL be checking points, more or less useful ones, and the manner in which a suspect/witness responds to questioning about them will govern the picture the police gets.

Thanks for the info, Sally - I had no idea of the flooding.

The best,
Fisherman

Hi Fish - That's ok, you're welcome. It was a particularly wet Autumn that year. You might find this article from the Romford Recorder of interest:

http://www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/new...ring_1_2305546

I think that there are lots of explanations that Hutchinson could have given Abberline to account for his trip to Romford which would have been perfectly plausible. But as I said in my earlier post, I think the trip to Romford would have been a lesser concern. It wasn't unusual for people to walk from Romford to London.

Remember, Hutchinson gave his statement as a voluntary witness - there's no indication that he was under suspicion by the police for so doing. Would Abberline have been concerned with 'checking out' his story of walking from Romford [had it even been possible to do so]? I think it doubtful.

[Fisherman]

Actually, there had been flooding in Romford that Autumn, Fish - it's quite well known. The river burst its banks and caused considerable damage to local buildings. There may have been extra casual work there to carry out repairs.

Precisely so. Which goes to confirm what I am saying - there is always the risk of having these things happen in a town like Romford, whereas a fishing trip will not spring any surprises on you (other than in finned shape ).
Not that I know exactly what damage it caused Romford and when, but one can easily imagine how Abberline could have asked about to what extent the flooding was still visible in the streets or something like that.
Like I said before, there WILL be checking points, more or less useful ones, and the manner in which a suspect/witness responds to questioning about them will govern the picture the police gets.

Thanks for the info, Sally - I had no idea of the flooding.

The best,
Fisherman

[Sally]

Actually, there had been flooding in Romford that Autumn, Fish - it's quite well known. The river burst its banks and caused considerable damage to local buildings. There may have been extra casual work there to carry out repairs.

[Fisherman]

You are responding to something you didn't understand. I was conjecturing that perhaps 'going to Romford' was a regular excuse used by the labor class when they didn't have an alibi. It was speculation of a concept and not necessarily about Hutch. It would be like saying, 'I was fishing' and there would be no way to check it out. If Romford was constantly a sort of overflow place for laborers who walked there, hitched rides on carts, or whatever, it would be impossible for police to check it out unless the person being checked upon had found employment. Who else could be asked?

Mike

Hi Mike!

I understood alright. And I still say "I was fishing" would be the much better suggestion, since that normally puts you in contact with the fewest people, whereas visiting a middle sized market town has other implications.
Sure enough, you may go unseen and unnoticed in such circumstances too, though. And therefore maybe Romford WAS used the way you suggest. Thereīs no telling.
One more point would be that in a town like Romford, there is always the risk of a massive fire, a sudden flooding from the sewers, etcetera, that can give you away if you do not know of them, whereas such things very rarely happen when you are out fishing.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Wickerman]

My own take on matters is that Abberline would have checked out as much as he could on as many points as he could, and potentially, there would have been a great many points to check.

Certainly, and the police had gone door-to-door interviewing hundreds of residents in Dorset St. and around the adjoining streets over the weekend.
We tend to work with about nine witnesses who appeared at the Inquest, there were hundreds who did not.
Any one of those could have reported seeing Hutchinson that night.
Abberline & his team had considerably more information to work with, none of which they shared with the press.

Check him out he certainly would, but we are in no position to determine to what length.

[Wickerman]

......let's look at this from abberlines put of view he is investigating a series of major crimes he has no real clues so he would have to give Mr Hutchinson the benefit of the doubt just in case he was telling the truth a chance of a clue is better than no clue at all

There is a comment among the police sources somewhere that informs us they entertained every lead, no matter how ridiculous it appeared to be.
So what you say in general might be true, but then we have to consider if Abberline would have given "every lead" such a glowing report to his superior as he did with Hutchinson.