Vetting Hutchinson

[Garry Wroe]

I am asking you to tell me that you can, with absolute certainty, exclude the possibility that he meant the Court at the back.

Here’s Thomas Bowyer as recorded by the Daily Telegraph, 13 November, 1888:-

‘By the Jury: When did you see her last alive ? - On Wednesday afternoon, in the court, when I spoke to her. McCarthy's shop is at the corner of Miller's-court.’

McCarthy’s shop was on Dorset Street adjacent to the interconnecting passage. Since Bowyer described it as ‘at the corner of Miller's Court’, it would be safe to assume that he, at least, regarded the passage as being part of the court.

The Daily News, 13 November, 1888, attributed the following to Carrie Maxwell:-

‘I know Mary Jane Kelly by the name simply of "Mary Jane" … I saw her standing at the corner of the court on Friday morning at about eight or half-past eight o'clock. I was then coming out of the house where my husband acts as a deputy ... I said, "Why, Mary what brings you up so early?" She said, "Oh, Carry, I do feel so bad." I asked her if she would have a drink, and she replied, "I have just had half-a-pint of beer and brought it all up again." I saw it in the road, about three yards from where she stood-on the pavement.’

So Kelly was standing ‘at the corner of the court’, ‘on the pavement’, about three yards from a pool of vomit lying ‘in the road’. In other words she was both on Dorset Street and standing at the corner of the court.

Produce as many maps as you like, Jon, but you are completely missing the point. The important factor here, the thing you are refusing to countenance, is not what a surveyor or cartographer would have made of the Dorset Street topography, it was the perception of the locals who knew and inhabited the district. Harry has already informed you of his direct experience of such matters, and the news reports leave no room for ambiguity. The entrance passage, sometimes referred to as ‘the entry’, was considered to have been part of Miller’s Court.

Extraordinarily, you are also expecting us to believe that police accepted what you insist was Hutchinson’s admission that he had stood outside Kelly’s room at a time critical to her death without any further questioning, without any further elaboration. As I’ve stated previously, you have a great deal to learn about police procedures both past and present.

So, in answer to your question, the evidence is overwhelmingly suggestive that when Hutchinson stated that he ‘went to the court’, both he and his police inquisitors understood that he meant he’d looked into the court whilst standing on Dorset Street at the mouth of the interconnecting passage.

Now, if you have any evidence to the contrary …

[Amanda]

It can't be to scale as it shows McCarthy's shop and back shop equaling 26'4" the rest 50' but on the drawing it is more than twice the size.

But McCarthy's home isn't shown on this plan.

Hi Gut,
Sorry, I meant McCarthy's shop.

So according to the incorrect scale, the passageway could actually have been a lot wider than shown.
Therefore 'going up the court' or 'going in to the court' could have meant one and the same thing.
Amanda

[GUT]

Hi Jon,

Just as an aside note, is the map of Dorset Street/Millers Court drawn to scale?

If so, Mary Kelly's room seems very large compared to McCarthy's home & the rest of the tenement houses.
Regards,
Amanda

It can't be to scale as it shows McCarthy's shop and back shop equaling 26'4" the rest 50' but on the drawing it is more than twice the size.

But McCarthy's home isn't shown on this plan.

[Amanda]

Hi Jon,

Just as an aside note, is the map of Dorset Street/Millers Court drawn to scale?

If so, Mary Kelly's room seems very large compared to McCarthy's home & the rest of the tenement houses.
Regards,
Amanda

[harry]

Jon,
He could have said I went to number 13.Would not have been an admission of going into number 13.So I went to the court, was not an admission of going into the court'.The passage way was a part of the court.If Hutchinson stated he went to the court,I believe he meant the beginning of the passage way,any further and I believe he would have said into the court.Your argument seems to be that the passage way should not be included as part of the court,because the diagram appears to show it as not being so.Your interpretation is at fault.You could say number 13 was not part of the court,just that it adjoins it.Same thing.

[Wickerman]

Need to say any more?

[Wickerman]

Garry.
I am asking you to tell me that you can, with absolute certainty, exclude the possibility that he meant the Court at the back.

"I went to the Court" - means, I went up the passage to the Court, or
"I went to the Court" - means, I went to the entrance to Millers Court.

[Wickerman]

There are just tenement houses at the back.

#13 is the first door a few feet in from the short passage. Once clearing the passage its just a step to her front door.

Why did he need to go there?

"...to see if I could see them..."

Why do you think he went there?

[Garry Wroe]

A Passage is not a Court, and a Court is not a Passage … When Hutchinson told police he "went to the Court", you, none of you, can assert in any conceivably logical way that he did not mean the Court at the back … Another one of your (collectively) aimless arguments crumbles to dust.

So you persist with your assertion that the interconnecting passage was neither part of Miller’s Court, nor seen as such by those who actually lived in the area at the time?

Okay, then. Let’s look at what an actual resident of Miller’s Court had to say on the issue. The Daily Telegraph, 13 November, 1888:-

‘Mary Ann Cox stated: I have known the deceased for eight or nine months as the occupant of No. 13 Room. She was called Mary Jane. I last saw her alive on Thursday night, at a quarter to twelve, very much intoxicated.

Where was this ? - In Dorset-street. She went up the court, a few steps in front of me.’ (My emphasis.)

She went up the court. Kelly’s door lay just beyond the interconnecting passage. On entering her room, therefore, she barely penetrated the court as you have defined it. The only way in which Mary Cox’s words make sense is if the passage itself was considered to have been part of Miller’s Court. So when Hutchinson stated that ‘I then went to the court to see if I could see them’, he was clearly referring to the passage entrance on Dorset Street. No question about it. Had his police inquisitors thought otherwise he would have been encouraged to elaborate on what he saw and heard from his position directly outside Kelly’s room, and this information would have been included in his statement. The fact that it wasn’t ought to speak volumes. I suspect that it won’t in certain quarters.

[Batman]

A Passage is not a Court, and a Court is not a Passage.
People live in a Court, they do not live in a passage.

When Hutchinson told police he "went to the Court", you, none of you, can assert in any conceivably logical way that he did not mean the Court at the back.
That, is the point.

For your arguments to make any sense you have to exclude the possibility that he meant the Court at the back.
You have to show that he couldn't have meant the Court at the back.

If you can't, which is patently obvious that you can't, then you are resigned to admit that he could have mean the Court at the back - therefore, he didn't change his story.

There are just tenement houses at the back.

#13 is the first door a few feet in from the short passage. Once clearing the passage its just a step to her front door.

Why did he need to go there?

[Wickerman]

Precisely, Harry. The Miller's Court street sign was directly above the archway on Dorset Street. Thus the passageway was part of the court and appears to have been viewed as such by those who knew the area.

Fancy, putting the sign to Millers Court out in Dorset St., what on earth were they thinking...
Any normal person would put the sign down the other end of the passage, in the Court, where no-one could see it

A Passage is not a Court, and a Court is not a Passage.
People live in a Court, they do not live in a passage.

When Hutchinson told police he "went to the Court", you, none of you, can assert in any conceivably logical way that he did not mean the Court at the back.
That, is the point.

For your arguments to make any sense you have to exclude the possibility that he meant the Court at the back.
You have to show that he couldn't have meant the Court at the back.

If you can't, which is patently obvious that you can't, then you are resigned to admit that he could have mean the Court at the back - therefore, he didn't change his story.

Another one of your (collectively) aimless arguments crumbles to dust.

[Sally]

Cheating!
You are reading the same script that Ben uses when he is backed into a corner.

What corner? I don't see any corners here, Jon. Mind you, I don't live in a box...

Huh!
That is quite different from what you told me.
Quote:
"The working hypothesis that he lied; or at very best, exaggerated his tale; is based on actual, factual, evidence.

What's your point? Is there a point? I know what i said, thanks - and the same remains true.

Ben tells me there is proof, now you tell me there isn't.
But previously you suggested the accusations are based on "factual evidence".

Are you confused, Jon? What, still?

Lets just have it straight, you all believe he may have lied, and that he may have been discredited, but there is no proof either way.
Now, if you could just sign off on that, then the Astrachan argument, or the need for it at least, will just go away.

There is, as you are often told, ample evidence in support of the premise that Hutchinson lied.

But whilst we're on the subject, I think it's time the Isaacs/Astrakhan [as you call it ] argument did 'just go away'

Otherwise, you'll have to explain how Hutchinson's account does not seem to have described the real Isaacs:

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread....ghlight=isaacs

[#39]

Twenty years down the line and still trying his luck. This is the man you envision to be Hutchinson's Astrakhan Man?

And who was, as we know from his prison record from 1887 - you know, the one with the clarinet - a mere 5'3" tall; unlike Hutchinson's Astrakhan Man, who was a lofty 5'6"

Please do stop and think before you suggest that Hutchinson, man of extraordinary visual awareness and recall, could have misjudged by three inches.

You can't have it both ways.

[Garry Wroe]

This, from someone who cannot provide one simple example of evidence/proof/fact, in debate after debate, and at every stage falls back on nothing more convincing than, "opinion".

And this coming from the person who claims an intimate knowledge of Anderson's innermost thought processes.

Have you not noticed that this is a common theme amongst you all?
Nothing you (collectively) assert is supported by factual information, it is always, "your opinion".

What most of us do is express opinion which has been shaped by weighing the available evidence. Hence the Echo and Star references to Hutchinson's 'diminution' taken alongside the comments of Anderson, Swanson and Dew constitutes evidence which leads to the irresistible conclusion that Hutchinson became a discredited witness. This you contested for years. When finally the penny dropped you proposed the Isaacs nonsense which supposedly demonstrates Hutchinson's truthfulness and thus the existence of Astrakhan. To bolster this contention you even resort to misrepresenting the Lewis testimony by stating that she saw a couple (Astrakhan and Kelly) enter the court as she made for the Keylers. This, to my mind, is outright dishonesty. Worse still, you seem oblivious to the fact that you are using Astrakhan (from Hutchinson's discredited story) to support the notion of Isaacs as a realistic suspect in order to substantiate Astrakhan and thus Hutchinson's discredited story.

Breathtaking.

Then you wonder why people such as myself no longer bother to engage you in debate.

[Garry Wroe]

A court,and I know because I was born in such,would be the area from the pavement to the back end.You were at the court if you were at the beginning of the passage way.Now this is factual information.When Hutchinson states he went to the court,it need be he went no further than the entrance to the passageway.

Precisely, Harry. The Miller's Court street sign was directly above the archway on Dorset Street. Thus the passageway was part of the court and appears to have been viewed as such by those who knew the area.

[Batman]

You don't need to go down the passage to see if anyone has come out because MJKs door is at the end of the passage which is between 20-30 ft away from the street. Since Hutchison has such great vision for detail why does he need to be 2 feet away from a door to see if anyone has come out?