Evidence of innocence

[Fisherman]

I can't believe you are saying this Fisherman, you are an experienced student of the crimes and you know full well the September and October police reports are summaries. The reports are only a synopsis. The reports we read in the Ultimate were compiled and produced in heavily edited form in the central police office.

Underlying these reports there was a mass of investigative data, consisting of the activities conducted by policemen and detectives pounding the pavement, doing interviews, checking, verifying. This data was contained in the police notebooks.

You were here Christer, when Stewart Evans explained to us on Casebook that those police notebooks are now missing.

Paddy

So, Paddy Goose, it seems you beleive that both names were in the police notebooks, Cross as well a Lechmere? Do you have any idea wht the police decided on using Cross only in theor reports, thereby effectively giving away any chance to find the carman in the registers in the future?

Oh, and since I have you on the line, so to speak, donīt you think it is funny that the same thing seems to have happened in 1876 too? I mean, what IS the allure with the Cross name?

[Fisherman]

A witness is interviewed as part of an investigation, and a statement taken, and would you believe that the statement contains the witnesess name and address and is taken at his home address

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Absolute drivel.The statement can be taken at a thousand different places and the name it contains is the one given by the witness, who can lie if he wishes to.

[MrBarnett]

Then I shall have to read up on Metropolitan London in the late victorian period, of course. Should be interesting, so thanks for the tip!

It’s common sense - and if only those pesky notebooks hadn’t gone awol, we could prove it.

[Fisherman]

But he was interviewed and a statement from him and would have been compared to the statement of Paul and any ambiguities would have been identified and acted upon.

Thats is common sense police procedures back then and now.

Do you and all the other Lechmerians out there in Lal La Land really beleive that when he came forward after that length of time they woud not have treated his actions with caution?

Its not satifactory to keep saying he was not investigated because you cannot prove that, but the inferences that can be drawn suggest he was.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Again no; the one inference we have is the name, and it suggests what it always have suggested - that he was not investigated.

[Fisherman]

The Lechmere suspect theory throws both the Metropolitan police, and the London working class under the bus. Or under the lorry as you say.

Charles Cross and Robert Paul were walking to work in the dark. People today have a hard time wrapping their head around that. But in fact, workmen walking to work in the wee hours was not uncommon. There were a number of police on foot throughout the district, which had a population density then three times that of today's.

Cross and Paul did the right thing. They notified the nearest policeman. Absolutely the police checked out the employment status of Charles Cross at Pickford's. That's common sense. All of the police notebooks are gone. Stewart Evans told us that right here on Casebook if you were paying any attention. These notebooks contained the intricate details of their investigations.

It requires a historical understanding of Metropolitan London in the Late Victorian Period to put these events in context.

Not guilty.

Paddy

And if I am correct, you are trying to throw the truth under the bus. You see, somethingīs gotta give in these matters.

[Fisherman]

In this case, of course, PC Mizen didn’t take down the witnesses names or addresses...

... which in itself is a fair indication of how Mizen worked from the assumption that the carman had told him that anothjer colleague - who would have seen to that part if necessary - was already in place in Bucks Row.

[MrBarnett]

Absolute drivel.The statement can be taken at a thousand different places and the name it contains is the one given by the witness, who can lie if he wishes to.

If a witnesses’ name and address are taken at a crime scene, it may we’ll be that he/she gets a call at home from the police who then take a statement there.

But if a witnesses’ address is not taken at the scene and he voluntarily calls in at his local nick to give a statement, do the police take him back to his home to take the statement? Or do they take it there and then at the police station. Only Trevor, our resident expert on such matters, will knows the answer to this.

[Fisherman]

If Charles Cross is the name he was known at Pickford's, then Charles Cross is the "correct name." Because he was walking on his way to work at Pickford's, when he noticed the body and notified the policeman. The police would of course check with Pickford's that a Charles Cross was employed there. And of course Pickford's answers yes. And the circle is closed. The police are satisfied.

If the police knew that Charles Cross actually was Charles Lechmere legally, so what? It wouldn't change the fact that he came across the victim on his way to work, would it? At work where he was known as Charles Cross. No. it wouldn't change anything. Knowing that a working class man in London in the LVP was going by a different name would not change the police investigation at all, and why should it. It's a moot point.

Stewart Evans has explained right here on Casebook that the great many police notebooks with the investigative details are all lost to time. All that remains are the summary type police reports, inquests, memorandum, etc. which Stewart so kindly compiled for our use in the Ultimate. Christer knows this. If other people don't know it, and won't take my word for it, so be it.

Lechmere was his registered name and the name he always supplied authorities with. Therefore it is an anomaly that he didnīt supply the police with the same name. That will never change, regardless of how many times it is challenged. It is an ironclad fact.

When he went to the police, he did NOT go to work. He went to the authorities. And saying that he went there as a carman is simply not very clever. He answered the census takers as a carman too, stating his profession and his name. As a carman. And that name was Lechmere.

The police notebooks has nothing at all to do with that.

[Fisherman]

Why do you keep banging on about police notebooks? Of course most people know they once existed but no longer do.

Because, of course, the known facts do not allow for Paddy Goose to create an alternative truth. But lost notebooks do!

[Fisherman]

We agree he was known as Cross at work.

You may thinbk that this was so, but alas, that does not turn it into fact. Itīs too much alchemy involved for that to happen.

[Fisherman]

In answer to your post 2212 Fisherman,I have no catching up to equal you or Scobie,I am well ahead. What significance in the other murders does Scobie have,since you mentioned it?What evidence have you or him presented that shows Cross was present at any of the other murders? Absolutely none.All you and Scobie quote equals nothing but suspicions,and those suspicions have never been proven. Suspicion in itself is usefull,it may point a direction for police to seek evidence,but without being prooven,suspicion is useless.You are not behind in the race,you haven't even started.

Oh, I have, but you were on the loo when I did.

Yes, the case is built on suspicion and not on proof. How many times need I tell you thatb before it sinks in?

Suspicion can be more or less well grounded. If it is very well grounded and supported by circumstantial evidence, it can send people to the gallows.

When you get out of the loo, I will tell you more. Have a good wipe and Iīll see you afterwards!

[Fisherman]

Hilarious as it may seem to you, a person’s name is an aspect of their identity.

What???

[Fisherman]

I asked this question before and was attacked by RJ Palmer as being in some sort of conspiracy with another poster. I am not in a conspiracy with anyone, but just pose the simple question:

Has it been ascertained that Lechmere was known as Cross at Pickfords?

Cheers, George

The long and the short of it: No, it has not.

[MrBarnett]

Lechmere was his registered name and the name he always supplied authorities with. Therefore it is an anomaly that he didnīt supply the police with the same name. That will never change, regardless of how many times it is challenged. It is an ironclad fact.

When he went to the police, he did NOT go to work. He went to the authorities. And saying that he went there as a carman is simply not very clever. He answered the census takers as a carman too, stating his profession and his name. As a carman. And that name was Lechmere.

The police notebooks has nothing at all to do with that.

When he found (or whatever) Nichols he was closer to home than work. We don’t know which police station he presented himself at - it could’ve been Bethnal Green. But perhaps he was wearing his Pickfords apron when he gave his statement and whenever he donned that he immediately forgot he was Charles Allen Lechmere.

[Fisherman]

If a witnesses’ name and address are taken at a crime scene, it may we’ll be that he/she gets a call at home from the police who then take a statement there.

But if a witnesses’ address is not taken at the scene and he voluntarily calls in at his local nick to give a statement, do the police take him back to his home to take the statement? Or do they take it there and then at the police station. Only Trevor, our resident expert on such matters, will knows the answer to this.

Last time I looked, he had gone from "The name is taken in the witnessī home!" to "Most names are taken in the witnessī home". So we are getting there.

The truth will out, as the saying goes. Letīs see what Trevor has to say about your scenario, and letīs press him a little further: If an important witness turned up at the threshold of an inquest room in the Working Lads Institute as the inquest he was relevant to was about to start - would the police tell the coroner to hold his horses while they took the witness back to Doveton Street for identification purposes? Or to Bow? Or to Swansea, Ulan Bator or Antananarivo?
Or would they be flexible enough to take the witnesses details where they stood?