Vetting Hutchinson

[Bridewell]

It is, yes.
The original suggestion which initiated this exchange is becoming lost.

My response, to which you commented, was in reply to the suggestion that Dew was nothing more than a minor official and would not have been told, or would not have learned, why the hunt for Astrachan had ceased (assuming it did).

I can understand an ordinary beat constable not learning the complete details, but I expect that a Detective Constable would have more knowledge from the investigation side of the murder inquiry.
That essentially, is what the debate was about.

Fair enough.

[Abby Normal]

I already showed you.

He told the police & the Press the same story, that has been proven, in fact Ben referred to it just yesterday.
Lets do it again...

Item A - Police version:
"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."

Item B - Press version:
" I went to look up the court to see if I could see them, but could not. I stood there for three-quarters of an hour to see if they came down again, but they did not, and so I went away."

Are you seriously trying to argue that those two sentences are completely different?
That they don't mean the same?

Anybody else want to explain how those two sentences are different?
Anybody want to join Abby?

So then we read that Hutchinson provides extra detail in the Press version which fully explains what he meant.

Item C:
" I went up the court, and stayed there a couple of minutes, but did not see any light in the house, or hear any noise."

Seeing as how the Press version, Item B, is the same as the Police version, Item A, then once we have an explanation for one, we also have an explanation for the other.
Simple!

If you told two different people the same story, but, you then explain what happened in detail to only one of them, how is that lying?
How can you possibly be accused of lying to the other person - explain that.

hi wicker
well I guess were never going to agree on it but let me ask you this.
Why would hutch omit that very important detail when talking to the police?

[Abby Normal]

So, 'going to the court' absolutely excludes the possibility of going into the court? Because... if it isn't in the exact language you want... then it isn't literal enough and all things important are literal? How simple is your world? I do wish mine were so black and white. I could become a conservative. I have to go to the toilet now.

Mike

CONTEXT. and if you dont understand that then your world is much simpler than mine!

I have to go to the toilet now.

Which, I guess in your world means your going into your toilet-better bring a towel.

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon,
Well, if that's what happened, then he was concealing vital information from the police for no good reason, thereby inviting suspicion.

Hi Ben.
I can see you are very unfamiliar with witness statements and their content.
You might like to ask those who have taken such statements to see if it is their considered opinion that the witness knows in advance what the police consider important, and generally speaking how complete their initial statements are without police assistance.

Unless I've misunderstood your argument, you usually cite the Hutchinson-alleged presence of Astrakhan man on the streets to demonstrate the supposed ordinariness of well-dressed men - your preferred ripper type - frequenting the area in the small hours.

I think you have it the other way around.
I have often cited other situations where well-dressed men have been seen out late on the streets in order to justify Hutchinson's claim.

I hope you won't object to my quoting you on this the next time someone argues that Abberline saw nothing overtly ludicrous about the idea of a man fitting Astrakhan's description sauntering the small-hours streets of Whitechapel. Perhaps he did, but perhaps he also subscribed to the "a unique mutilating serial killer just might..." school of thought that you espouse.

I can see you are trying to make a joke there, but it comes across a little muddled.

If Badham did a half-arsed job of eliciting information from Hutchinson, as you controversially now contend,...

You must have been gone for longer than I thought (great to see you back, by the way). I have commented on Badham's lack of questioning, little to none existent, for months now, neither Harry nor Garry would accept it.
It is however, quite evident. My interpretation though is, that it was quite intentional - he let Hutchinson tell his own story in his own way.

...why didn’t Abberline seek to redress that half-arsedness when he reviewed the statement himself? If he was remotely unhappy with the paucity of information contained within the statement, why didn’t he rectify that situation before submitting what he knew to be an incomplete statement to his superiors?

Who said he reviewed the statement?
He would naturally use it as a prompt during the subsequent interrogation, and equally naturally Abberline's interrogation record would include all the extra details not raised in the initial statement.

If Abberline extracted other crucial information; answers to questions overlooked by Badham, they would have logically appeared in the accompanying letter.

Has a policeman told you that, or is this another guess?
I maintain you are wrong. The written record of the interrogation is quite a separate document.
Did you even read Stewart's observations?

What possible reason did he have for withholding these and only mentioning comparatively trivial information, such as the detail that Hutchinson occasionally gave her money?

Your suggestion of "withholding" is brought on by your refusal to accept the existence of the written interrogation.
You create your own problems.

I’m afraid if Badham is to be accused of incompetence, Abberline must share the blame for making no effort to rectify the problems and clear up the supposed grey areas before feeding the information up the chain; in which case the “mystery” as to how Hutchinson could have pulled the wool over his eyes is rendered not to mysterious at all.

Notice how you run off on your own tangent, making it up as you go. Then you try to suggest that what you just wrote makes no sense - well, here's the easy solution to that, stop assuming.

In the old days it was the "Hutchinsonians" who stood accused of relying on the 1888 police being incompetent to sustain their argument, but it appears those tables have turned.

You still are, the above sentence is your work, is it not?

Nobody apart from you has insisted there must have been an “interrogation report” – that is entirely your construct, and it is obvious that nothing of the kind existed in reality. Stewart, whose participation in this discussion you seem eager to recruit, suggested that Abberline made “notes”, which is certainly not an “interrogation report”,...

Oh, and you already asked Stewart what he meant by that, did you?
Of course not!

I notice there are now two of you who live in this black and white world - it seems endemic among this small group of Hutchinsonians.

While we're on the subject, didn't you just quote Garry yesterday?
Was that you crying for help from Garry?

Stewart has had his say on this subject, I would hazard a guess he is not about to entertain you with his presence over these misguided interpretations of yours.

Committing the words of the witness/suspect to writing IS taking notes, it IS a record, it IS a report, it IS also a statement, and it WAS required.
It does not need to be book-length. Whatever the witness replied to specific questions, and is worth retaining IS committed to writing - do I need to hold your hand and guide you through this?

...and much more in alignment with what I suggested several months ago. From the 2nd March:

“Abberline most assuredly did not transcribe the full interrogation, and nor was he duty-bound to, or else it would have been submitted to his superiors along with the statement. That’s just obvious, and it seems to be only you who won’t accept that. A few personal notes in his pocket book, yes, maybe; but not full transcripts containing crucial information that he inexplicably kept to himself.”

It depends on what you mean by "duty bound", are you sure you know what his duties were?
I'm also not sure what you mean by "full interrogation" (but also, I'm not sure you do either), how many lines, paragraphs, pages, chapters, are you talking about?
You were close there with "a few personal notes", except they are not personal because they are evidence in a murder investigation - I can tell you forgot that small point.

[Wickerman]

Hi Ben,

Thanks for the informative reply. Would Hutchinson have been paid by the Central News Agency? Did this agency have a reputation for sensationalizing accounts, or sensationalist journalism?

Where did the Dear Boss letter come from?

[Wickerman]

hi wicker
well I guess were never going to agree on it but let me ask you this.
Why would hutch omit that very important detail when talking to the police?

In academic studies, only what is written can be analyzed, what is omitted and why, will forever remain conjecture.

That said, we know from the detail provided in Item C, what Hutchinson meant.
He offered that explanation to the reporter to explain his previous statement (Item B), so it also applies to the Police version - Item A.
That being the case, in Hutchinson's mind he omitted nothing - when he said "I went to the Court", he did mean the open yard at the back, because that is what the explanation (Item C) indicates.

So the short answer to your question is, in his own mind he omitted nothing.
You may ask, "then why did Badham not also ask for an explanation?"

One answer could be that Badham also knew what he meant.
Another answer could be that he did ask but Badham did not include it in the statement.

The taking of Police statements has changed over the last century, today they are more controlled, more detailed, due to legal concerns in potential trials. Back a hundred years ago that does not appear to be the case.

All we can question is the "why did", not the "why did nots".

[Ben]

Hi Jon,

I can see you are very unfamiliar with witness statements and their content. You might like to ask those who have taken such statements to see if it is their considered opinion that the witness knows in advance what the police consider important

If I'm "unfamiliar with witness statements and their content" (as against your vast knowledge and hands-on experience of such things, naturally), then you seem to be having trouble getting to grips with basic human nature if you are seriously suggesting that Hutchinson did not voluntarily offer the detail that he stood right outside the murder victim's window, had it truly occurred. I've already sought to impress upon you that according to the wording of the original police statement, Hutchinson never even entered the court itself, which is entirety different to the “couple of minutes” outside Kelly’s room that he later informed the press about. This is a blatant contradiction, not just an extra “detail” that an extraordinarily goofy Hutchinson never thought to provide to the police because the latter supposedly never asked about it (as per your eccentric mischaracterizations of both parties).

“I have often cited other situations where well-dressed men have been seen out late on the streets in order to justify Hutchinson's claim."

…And, in turn, “justify” the presence on the streets of precisely the type of well-dressed, black package-carrying suspect that you want to have been Jack the Ripper.

“I can see you are trying to make a joke there, but it comes across a little muddled.”

On the contrary, it was a very serious point, and one which I thought I made very clear. You seek to justify an unlikely or improbable theory (associated with the ripper’s identity and behaviour) on the grounds that a person who is capable of behaving in such a “unique” way may be “unique” in other aspects of his behaviour and appearance. Pursuant to this, I then suggested that Abberline may have been of a similar mindset when contemplating the image of a gold chain wearing toff, or toff-aspirant, murdering prostitues in the sort of flashy garb that would ordinarily attract muggers and vigilantes like moths to a lightbulb.

“You must have been gone for longer than I thought (great to see you back, by the way)”

Kind of you to say so, Jon. Always important, I feel, to have a break from this sort of thing once in a while (hint, hint!). If you’ve only started criticising Badham a couple of months ago – which was about the time I dropped off the map for a bit – that still qualifies as very recently, to my mind, and I’m afraid your “interpretation” that he “let Hutchinson tell his story in his own way” doesn’t quite tally with Colin's (Bridewell’s) information with regard to the standard means of extracting a statement from a witness, which does seem to be based on more knowledge and experience than either of us non-coppers possess.

“He would naturally use it as a prompt during the subsequent interrogation, and equally naturally Abberline's interrogation record would include all the extra details not raised in the initial statement.”

And yet of “all the extra details” Abberline might have obtained during the interrogation process, the only ones he saw fit to pass on to his bosses were the “details” that Hutchinson had known Kelly for three years and had occasionally lent her money. So unless Abberline was grossly incompetent and very illogically selective about the information he fed up the chain, there was clearly nothing particularly juicy in that “interrogation” that might have come to the rescue of a modern-day, self-styled Hutch-exonerator.

At least have a bash at providing a reasonable and logical explanation for why Abberlinr would supposedly withhold critical information from his superiors, take meticulous note of comparatively unimportant peripherals, and send a police statement up the hierarchal police chain despite recognising it to be an inferior, incomplete document thanks to the supposed bungling of his subordinate. This is the nonsensical argument that you’ve cornered to yourself into, and I’m afraid that gassing on about a non-existent “written interrogation” (which nobody but you insists occurred) is going to extract you from it.

“Committing the words of the witness/suspect to writing IS taking notes, it IS a record, it IS a report, it IS also a statement, and it WAS required.”

Says you with lots of capitalization and bold letters, but without any evidence. Why would information such as this be withheld and an inferior, meaningless statement (according to you) sent in its place?

“That being the case, in Hutchinson's mind he omitted nothing - when he said "I went to the Court", he did mean the open yard at the back, because that is what the explanation (Item C) indicates.”

But he said he stood “there” (and nowhere else) for 45 minutes before leaving the area altogether, and if he spent the whole of that time “in the open yard at the back”, then he can’t have been the man seen by Lewis on Dorset Street at around 2:30am, and he didn’t go anywhere else for “a couple of minutes”. I do wish you’d hurry up and grasp this. If you accept the police statement, Hutchinson spent his 45-minute vigil in one location which was either the court itself or outside the court on Dorset Street. Pick whichever of the two you fancy, but neither options accords with the story he told the press, which is that he spent most of his time on Dorset Street and a “couple of minutes” on the other side of the wall from where Kelly lay sleeping or dead.

Regards,
Ben

[Ben]

Where did the Dear Boss letter come from?

Joseph Isaacs, using a violin bow daubed in red handkerchief dye and written on prison stationery.

[harry]

Jon,
Neither Harry nor Garry would accept it. I have said,if you read and understand,that Hutchinson came to the police station and orally gave a statement.To whom is not named.How much information he imparted at that time is unknown,but it was thought important enough to send for Aberline.Aberline states he interrogated Hutchinson.Consequently two reports were submitted,one by Aberline and one by Badham.Those reports,and only those two reports are accepted by us,and by Ben and others,as being the only reports.It is you that argues otherwise.

Hutchinson would no doubt have been asked if he himself wished to write his statement.That was his right,as was his right to have someone do it for him.Badham had the choice of how it should be written.As first person,or as a witness statement.He chose the first.Hutchinson need not have been present as it was written,but in either case he would be asked to read out loud what was written or have it read to him.He would be asked to sign.He could decline both.In fact,after the initial oral submission,he could have turned and walked away.Besides knowing what powers the police had,it is necessary to also understand the rights of the citizen.

[Wickerman]

Hi Jon,
I've already sought to impress upon you that according to the wording of the original police statement, Hutchinson never even entered the court itself,...

Hi Ben.
No, that is not correct.
If it were "according to the wording", then we would be reading, "I never walked up the passage".
As he certainly did not say that, then any assumption that he did is, once again, all down to you.

The explanation was given in English, and in layman's terms in the press version, and he makes it clear walking up the court is exactly what he meant.
It's really no good trying to make a career out of this, the answer is right there for all to see.

…And, in turn, “justify” the presence on the streets of precisely the type of well-dressed, black package-carrying suspect that you want to have been Jack the Ripper.

To which you respond, if I recall, that it could be too dangerous to go out at night looking like that, they would get mugged or worse.
And yet we read in the press of men appearing in court as the victims of mugging, watch theft, and the like.
Ben, they have to be out to get mugged, and get mugged they did.

Next you will be telling me that people do not cross the road because it can be too dangerous, yet people do, and they get knocked down every day.
Since when did "because its dangerous" ever stop anyone from doing what they please?
How many times a day do you walk across a road?

(..it'll never happen to me, right? )

On the contrary, it was a very serious point, and one which I thought I made very clear. You seek to justify an unlikely or improbable theory...

What I read was this:
"... although your contention that Kelly was serviced by two successive well-dressed dandies carrying black packages that night - the second being her killer - is really quite unique, to couch it in polite terms."

Neither men were what would be termed "dandies", that is just you treating everyone to your unique sarcasm.
Astrachan gave the appearance of a Jew, and a local Jew at that. Hutchinson did not describe him as a West End Gent.
Also, there is no detailed description of the Britannia-man to enable us to judge his wealth.
Therefore, as is often the case, you make unwarranted assumptions, then jump to exaggerated conclusions.
More to do with ridicule than serious debate, but your point was these two clients (alleged) were unique, yet as is also often the case you have no data whatsoever to make such a suggestion.

I debate with a master in the art of guesswork, don't I Ben?

Kind of you to say so, Jon. Always important, I feel, to have a break from this sort of thing once in a while (hint, hint!).

Well, you're not the only one who enjoys a good Hutchinson debate, but we might be the only two.

If you’ve only started criticising Badham a couple of months ago – which was about the time I dropped off the map for a bit – that still qualifies as very recently, to my mind, and I’m afraid your “interpretation” that he “let Hutchinson tell his story in his own way” doesn’t quite tally with Colin's (Bridewell’s) information with regard to the standard means of extracting a statement from a witness, which does seem to be based on more knowledge and experience than either of us non-coppers possess.

I'd have to look back at Colin's post but, I think he was talking in the present tense. I had pointed out, as well had Stewart in his analysis, that much has changed with regard to statement taking due to the more clinical requirements in the modern legal system.
You know, "Legal Eagles", and all that.
Now the police have to dot their 'I's" and cross their "T's".

And yet of “all the extra details” Abberline might have obtained during the interrogation process, the only ones he saw fit to pass on to his bosses were the “details” that Hutchinson had known Kelly for three years and had occasionally lent her money. So unless Abberline was grossly incompetent ....

See, there you go again, it must be your way, or else the police are incompetent. You are forever throwing that "incompetent" card in the ring.

Stewart called that brief collection of notes, a Covering Report.
Covering for what Ben?
A cover report for the interrogation record, where (for the umpteenth time) answers to many of the outstanding questions will have been documented.

Says you with lots of capitalization and bold letters, but without any evidence. Why would information such as this be withheld and an inferior, meaningless statement (according to you) sent in its place?

How many times has this been explained to you?

But he said he stood “there” (and nowhere else) for 45 minutes before leaving the area altogether, and if he spent the whole of that time “in the open yard at the back”, then he can’t have been the man seen by Lewis on Dorset Street at around 2:30am, and he didn’t go anywhere else for “a couple of minutes”.

He explained by adding, "I stood there for three-quarters of an hour to see if they came down again, but they did not, and so I went away."

We now know where "There" is, due to him including, "to see if they came down".
So the couple walked "up" the court, and then he walked "up" the court. However, he later stood for 45 minutes waiting for them to come "down". So naturally then he is no longer in the Court, but out at the street end of the passage.
Why are you pretending that this is so difficult?

The whole piece tells us that he first arrived at the passage entrance, he went up the passage to see if he could see or hear anything, waited a couple of minutes, then walked back down the passage and waited for about 45 minutes, then he left.


That is all we are talking about here, nothing complicated.

The only reasonable question we have is, at what point did he stand outside Crossingham's, assuming Sarah L. did indeed see Hutchinson.

[Wickerman]

Jon,
Neither Harry nor Garry would accept it. I have said,if you read and understand,that Hutchinson came to the police station and orally gave a statement.To whom is not named.How much information he imparted at that time is unknown,but it was thought important enough to send for Aberline.Aberline states he interrogated Hutchinson.Consequently two reports were submitted,one by Aberline and one by Badham.Those reports,and only those two reports are accepted by us,and by Ben and others,as being the only reports.It is you that argues otherwise.

Hutchinson would no doubt have been asked if he himself wished to write his statement.That was his right,as was his right to have someone do it for him.Badham had the choice of how it should be written.As first person,or as a witness statement.He chose the first.Hutchinson need not have been present as it was written,but in either case he would be asked to read out loud what was written or have it read to him.He would be asked to sign.He could decline both.In fact,after the initial oral submission,he could have turned and walked away.Besides knowing what powers the police had,it is necessary to also understand the rights of the citizen.

Harry.
Are you now saying that you do not contest my suggestion that Hutchinson was not questioned to any real degree, possibly hardly at all?

First of all, the handwriting does not match Hutchinson's, nor Abberline's, neither does it match Arnold's, nor Ellisdon's.
The handwriting only matches that of Badham.

There is no point in suggesting Hutchinson not being present, he was right there in the building.
No-one is going to listen to his story, orally, then run off to another room and write it up from memory, with the witness sitting down the hall.
I'm surprised you would suggest such a thing.

[Wickerman]

...Aberline states he interrogated Hutchinson.Consequently two reports were submitted,one by Aberline and one by Badham.Those reports,and only those two reports are accepted by us,and by Ben and others,as being the only reports.It is you that argues otherwise.

Only me?

Please read Stewarts dissertation, and point out to me where he agrees with what you suggest.

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

[harry]

Jon,
I am saying what I have said all along.INITIALLY on arriving at the police station,he would have orally given information that need only have been enough for Aberline to be contacted.It was later,after Aberline arrived,that full disclosure was made.

You would be surprised how many statements are written as I described,but again if you are able to understand,you would be aware I wrote that it could have happened,not that it did.Aberline himself wrote his statement without Hutchinson signing.Do you believe Hutchinson was present when that statement was written.

It is you that is claiming that Aberline wrote two reports,one of which was lost.Do not present false claims that others have done so.

No one is disputing Badham wrote a statement.

[Wickerman]

Jon,
I am saying what I have said all along.INITIALLY on arriving at the police station,he would have orally given information that need only have been enough for Aberline to be contacted.It was later,after Aberline arrived,that full disclosure was made.

I have never doubted that Hutchinson would have approached the desk Sergeant, or whoever, and told them why he had come, and a brief summary so they can determine the value.
After which, he would have been taken aside and sat in front of Badham & possibly Ellisdon, and repeated his story in full. The statement being the product of this interview.
That much is obvious.

At what point Abberline was sent for may be debated, but as things stand we have no cause to contest the report we possess that tells us this statement was dispatched by Special Detective to Abberline at Headquarters.

You would be surprised how many statements are written as I described,...

I stopped being surprised after joining Casebook all those years ago.

...but again if you are able to understand,you would be aware I wrote that it could have happened,not that it did.

There are various possibilities, interesting that you only chose that one "could have", as opposed to any other more consistent with the evidence at hand.

Aberline himself wrote his statement without Hutchinson signing.Do you believe Hutchinson was present when that statement was written.

Abberline wrote a cover note, not a statement. There is no need for Hutchinson to sign another copy of what has already been written and signed elsewhere.

It is you that is claiming that Aberline wrote two reports,one of which was lost.Do not present false claims that others have done so.

No one is disputing Badham wrote a statement.

Then perhaps you need to take note of what is already widely known.

"Unfortunately Abberline's notes of that interview have not survived the passage of time, although we do have his covering report, which does supply a few extra details."

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

Count them Harry, it reads like two documents to me, and I dare say everyone else.
One has not survived, sound familiar?
What were you saying about false?

[harry]

Well Jon you do write a lot,but say very little.We do not know what would have been done or what was done before Aberline arrived. We can only guess.The only certainity is that Hutchinson entered the police station and gave information.I would guess orally.

I would also guess that Aberline had issued instructions that he(Aberline) was to be contacted immediately should anything of importance come to notice.So no, there would be no delay until a formal interview had been conducted by someone else.My opinion.

Could have',is the best comment consistent with the circumstances.

Aberline conducted an interrogation.He (Aberline says so).Call it what you like, a statement of what was said , is in writing.It did not contain the same information as the statement written by Badham.

So what is your point.

W hat would have happened if Hutchinson had fronted a constable on a beat and given his information,insted of going to the police station?I know it didn't happen,but it could have.You of all people,should be able to answer that question.