Something I've always wondered - (and forgive me if it's covered in Rob House's book, which I have not yet had the pleasure of reading): if the police had genuinely been fairly sure that they had the Ripper, though not the evidence to convict him, would they not at least have made some public statement to that effect?
They didn't have to name names, or risk prejudicing any future trial. A statement saying, essentially, something like we believe that a man currently caged in an asylum is very likely to have been the Ripper, a witness has identified him as looking very similar to a suspect seen with one of the victims, we continue to investigate the suspect in the hope that conclusive evidence can be found, we can't say more than that at this time.
The public and the Stead media gave the police a thorough kicking over their failures regarding the Ripper, and it seems to me almost beyond comprehension that the police could have been privately satisfied that they had the man, that he was safely caged - and yet they didn't see fit to attempt even the slightest salvaging of their own reputation by making any kind of public statement to that effect at the time, waiting instead until about twenty years had passed before mentioning any of this in private interviews, or little-read memoirs, or personal memoranda.
Anyone else troubled by this aspect?
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Indeed Doctor,
He wouldn't have been allowed to refuse. Prejury if he did so an open to a prosecution.
However its not truly ascertained if the testimony was legal or merely informal.
Monty
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The witness that refused.
I was reading about the Kosminski suspect, and when i read about the witness that refused to testify that the person he saw was JTR. I was thinking, would the Police not look at that as an obstruction offence?
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