Evidence of innocence

[Trevor Marriott]

I just wonder have they looked at the case from all angles, how knowledgeable they are in the subject or have they just seen the evidence which seems to point to that suspects guilt ?

You have hit the nail on its proverbial head

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Fisherman]

In reply to your post 2484 Mr Barnett,i am missing no point.Fisherman stated only accusative evidence is allowed at a Prima facie hearing.

I most certainly did no such thing. It was YOU who introduced the term prima facie hearing, not me. And what I said was - and remains - that what Scobie said was tha a prima facie CASE exists against Lechmere.

[Fisherman]

Christer, is Cutting Point going to be available on Kindle in amazon UK in the future?

There are no such plans, no.

[Fisherman]

Why was only Scobie QC used to give his opinion when he is a defence expert? it would have been nice to have heard what a prosecutor would have said about it to get both sides.

I cannot answer that question. A barrister will of course be well versed in both disciplines, and so it should cover the matter regardless which side he or she comes from. And although it is always nice to have more people and informatin involved, the docu was only 45 minutes long, and much had to be covered.

[Fisherman]

This thread will run and run and run.
Back and forth , forth and back.

one thought which will send the thread into farce if it isn’t there already is …
put Letchmere/ cross on trial

Evidence for versus evidence against
facts not theory’s

Guily or not guilty.

in order opening facts for the prosecution
followed by the defence


As far as I can see having read this thread and the book the prosecutions case will be fairly short.

“ Members of the jury before you is Mr Charles cross accused of not 1 but 5 murders.
The prosecution states as fact that Mr cross found a body and along with another worker on his way to work reported it to the first policeman they found.
Mr cross was later found to have a previous surname that he did not use.
Ladies and gentlemen I rest my case .

Again, just as you say, the two sides will stand by their respective takes it seems. And until an expert was brought in, both sides could well look equally versed in legal matters. Once Scobie had his say, though, it changed things permanently.
Nowadays, it is not credible to claim that a case, stated by a barrister to be likely to end in a conviction if no evidence to the contrary was produced, would be dismissed quickly in court.

[Fisherman]

Silly indeed.

Seeing some of the toe rags that Scobie has defended against overwhelming evidence (toe rag being his own phrase), do you honestly think he would balk at defending CAL against the non-existent case that's been leveled against him? Seriously? He'd be chomping at the bit.

It was a performance for television. As Fish pointed out earlier, CAL died in 1920 so there was no real chance of putting him on trial. Scobie knows this, so his shop-talk should be viewed accordingly.

By the way, your comment makes no sense from a legal standpoint. CAL was not charged with any crime in the 1876 accident. Further, if he had been charged, he could not have defended himself. A man who has been charged cannot defend himself before a coroner's court. That's why Sadler sat mum at the Coles' inquest.

Personally, I believe Trevor Marriott's account. But there's little chance that a QC who went on record saying he would prosecute a man would retract his statement publicly. The optics wouldn't be good.

Scobie offered his professional insights when commenting, and any suggestion that he could not care less are simply a tad tasteless. Sorry.

[Fisherman]

You are deliberately misunderstanding me. I said the evidence set that he was given was biased. You agree, but appear to be unable to bring yourself to say it. The evidence he was given did not outline alternative explanations, and as Trevor tells us, left out some pretty basic information - that is the definition of a biased set of evidence. If one is only given evidence, all presented as if it points to guilt, then the conclusion will be driven by the inherent bias within the evidence. You want to twist my words to make it appear that I'm accusing Scoobie of being biased in his thinking, which even a cursory reading of what I've been saying would make it clear that is not an accurate description of what I'm saying. Hopefully this time I am able to put you right on that and you can stop misrepresenting me.

I'm not going to concern myself with your unwillingness to accept that Trevor spoke with Scoobie and Scoobie revealed there were a lot of basic facts that he was unaware of. The fact that he says they might have changed his opinion reflects his professional nature. Clearly, whatever they spoke about, was sufficient for him to express that his opinion was not rock solid. Like any professional, he would want time to think over the new information. But if his opinion was anywhere near as strong as you make it out to be then when Trevor presented him with new information it wouldn't have made a difference. He would have an answer for such things if working only from a guilty-biased evidence set was sufficient for him to determine if there was a case to answer. It appears he did not have such answers at the ready, which is hardly surprising, because the bias in the evidence provided would not have prepared him, and quite possibly led him to erroneous conclusions about the strength of the evidence against Cross/Lechmere. For example, and I have to make up an example because I don't know what he was given, but let's say all he knew was that he presented his testimony under the name Cross, but his registered name is Lechmere, and it is Lechmere that appears on various other documents, but the evidence didn't point out that Cross was his step-father's name, or that he used the name Cross years earlier in court. If the evidence set doesn't include the fact that he gave the police his address, his place of work, his correct first and middle name, then all of a sudden it does look like he's hiding his identity. But once one sees all of the evidence, including that which is not suitable for making a guilty accusation, the "hiding his identity" myth vanishes into the wishful cloud it came from. It's not Scoobie's fault he was given insufficient information to form an accurate assessment.

I have no idea what the piano reference is about. You're stirring up all sorts of dust to create confusion, which tends to smack of desperation. I would advise against using that as a tactic. But if you think it looks good, go for it.

Also, you seem to be misconstruing the fact that I don't find your arguments as being convincing as me being biased. Again, we see a version of "guilty looking behavior leads to guilt and innocent behavior leads to guilt" rationalization. Those who agree with you are unbiased, those who do not, are biased. If you could present something that actually pointed to Cross/Lechmere being guilty, I would be more than willing to accept that. I have no reason to prevent Cross/Lechmere from being identified as JtR if, in fact, he were. But nothing at all you've presented, despite your unyielding belief in it, actually indicates he was involved in any way. Again, being able to make up a story does not make the story true. And none of the evidence shapes the story you're telling, rather, it is the story that is used to shape the evidence. And that is biased thinking - by definition.

- Jeff

I´ll let people out here decide for themselves who of us is biased, Jeff. Our respective posts of laterly should tell a very clear story on that score. I am in no way "deliberately misunderstanding" you, I am understanding you quite well. One could say that my understanding of you dates back to the post where you accused me of sweeping things under the carpet and a few more not very nice things, and then had a very hard time trying to deny it.

Since then, I have regarded you as a through and through biased poster, bent on denying anything that points to Lechmere being the culprit we are looking for, and your latest posts have given me no reason whatsoever to change that impression.

I used to think you were a more reasoned poster, but I was apparently wrong. Now that I´ve said that, you can claim that I only say that becasue yu don´t agree with me - it is the common thing to do, so be my guest.

A common approach like forming a prima facie case by looking at the accusatory evidence is NOT a bias. It is a strictly unemotional method of approaching legal cases. Presenting a prima facie case in a documentary has nothing to do with a bias either. If Scobie had been presented as a person who had assessed the WHOLE case, the fors and against, while in fact he had only looked at the accusatory evidence, THEN you could speak of a bias.

Then again, to be honest, it seems you can speak of a bias in any context, so I may have jumped the gun there.

[Greenway]

not really

I suppose that concludes our discussion of the interesting new research - back to the nonsense then?

[Fisherman]

So, finally, we have arrived at R J:s long awaited post in answer to my questions. Let´s put this issue to rest once and for all! Here we go:

Hi Fish.

It beats the heck out of me why you find any of this mysterious.

I don´t find it mysterious at all. I never did. Others, though, have spent many pages on these boards flaunting their lacking understanding of it.

It is commonplace in homicide investigations for journalists to publish misinformation in the first 48-72 hours, if not longer.

There is actually no set time limit, R J. But generally speaking, yes, as ling as there is no clear picture, there is always a risk that doubtful information creeps in. There is a demand from the public to know, and that carries risks with it.

It was originally reported that Neil found the body of Polly Nichols--full stop.

Yes, it was.

But, as the day progressed, it was learned that two men (Lechmere and Paul) had earlier found the body, but the exact details of this was not yet known; the two men had told a copper about it.

It was not "learned", R J - it was claimed. But since the police denied it on the 3rd, they had not learnt anything by that stage. There was a rumour afloat, and it would have taken a number of shapes, as rumours generally do. The version that crept into The Star on the 31st claimed that PC Neil had been accompanied to the murder site by two men.
It is easy to see a number of things here:
The story in the Star is the same story Paul told in Lloyds - but muddled. Same originator, different story. And Neil is named because it was common knowledge that he was the finder. It therefore seemed to those who believed in the two men that Neil was stealing the thunder from the real finders. That would not have been looked favourably upon; the police were not well liked by the Eastenders.

A journalist, jumping to a wrong conclusion, decided this copper must have been Neil, and that the two men had accompanied him. We know this is wrong. It was Mizen, and the two men had not accompanied him.

I´m not sure that the journalist himself jumped to the conclusion about Neil. It may just as well be that Paul told his story to numerous people on the Friday, and that these people, having taken part of the news later in the day, stating Neil as the finder, were the ones who added the PC to the story and fed it to a journalist. That, however, is not very important per se.
As you are aware, we know that the story in The Star was wrong. We also know that it was Pauls story, but slightly reshaped. True, we also know that the PC that WAS involved was Jonas Mizen - but the ones reading what Neil said, both at the inquest and on the evening of the 2nd, were fed the information that the two PCs to the east and west in Bucks Row, were brought into the errand by Neil. So nobody would suspect that one of these PCs was actually NOT engaged by Neil - and that he was instead walking towards the murder site after having been informed about the woman in Bucks Row by Charles Lechmere.
The outcome was that everybody accpeted that Neil was the finder - until the story of the two men surfaced. After that, since Neil had himself brought Mizen and Thain into the errand as per his testimony and the article of the 2nd, it was thought that Neil had been the man guided/called to the body by the two men. There were seemingly no other options.

Helson denied the story, as he should have.

Helson let Neil do the denying.

As the inquest proceeded, this muddle was resolved. The man had not accompanied Neil of J Division. They had told Mizen of H-Divison, but had continued on to work. The initial confusion (from the journalist's perspective, if nothing else) was probably increased by Mizen and Neil being in two different divisions, and the embarrassment Mizen might have felt by not getting the men's names, but instead continuing to knock up people in the neighborhood. The police were probably not eager to publicize a ****-up until Paul's statements to a journalist forced their hand.

Mizen had no reason to be embarrased about not taking the names of the men - he was informed that another PC in Bucks Row had sent the men to look for a PC, and so if there had been any initial reason/s to take their names down, that duty lay on the PC in Bucks Row. And Pauls statement was not what forced the police to admit that the story of the two men was true. We know that the story doing the rounds was denied by Neil on the evening of the 2nd, and so the police, far from accepting Pauls story, pooh-poohed it.

This is how it works, R J:
If the police had been contacted by Lechmere early in the process, something you suggest as a likely solution, then it would be very odd if the police denied the story on the 2nd.
Would they put Neil forward to say that "it was not true that he had been called to the site by two men", in such a case? Would they not instead have had him say that "it was not true that he was the PC that had been called to the site by two men"? That Mizen was the man?

Why not provide the true story, instead of only denying the false one - which is what you suggest happened. What would the object of such a tactic be?

Furthermore, Neil also says on the 2nd, just as he did in court, that after finding Nichols he signalled down Thain and Mizen. Meaning that he still believed on the evening of the 2nd, that HE was the one bringing Mizen into the story. And all the while he would instead know quite well that this was not so? But clammed up about it?
Again: why, R J?

As you can see, it is not my version of events that should be labelled "bizarre", R J - it is yours. The evidence allows us to conclude that Lechmere had not come forward on the evening of the 2nd. It is beyond reasonable doubt. And it is further bolstered by how Mizen formally identified Lechmere at the inquest. You say that this was done for the benefit of the coroner and jury, and yes, I agree. Of course it was. But it could and would have been done earlier - IF the carman had been available, which he was not. Also bear in mind that the man identified by Mizen at the inquest, arrived there in his working clothes.
It all adds up in one way only, and it is not your way.

The good news is that it was eventually sorted, and I would advise you against trying to glean too much information from early, inaccurate accounts, when confusion still reigned.

Does this answer your question?

Once we add my information, the questions are answered. The one possibility I can see for how Lechmere can have surfaced early on would be if the police deliberately kept Neil out of the loop, and frankly, RJ - why on earth would they? And how could they? Plus, of course, if they did not want Neil - or anybody else - to divulge that they had the carman, why not just sit tight and wait until the inquest the following day? What was the rush to misinform the press and public all about? Any ideas?

It makes no sense whatsoever.

Oh, wait, I see now that there is another possibility: That Neil actually knew about the carman all along, but he and his superiors wanted to keep it under wraps until Lechmere was presented. And so Neil simply obliged and told his story at the inquest AS IF he was the finder. He actually would not have lied in such a case, he would only have withheld vital information.

Which of these two versions is it you believe in, R J? And just how much do you believe in it?

[harry]

So Fisherman ,I am to blame for introducing the Primae facie evidence.I thought you have always argued it was Scobie,in a documentary.I suppose now you will claim it was I who also alluded to'Pattern of offending ', and' Area of offending' ,other comments you claim Scobie made.Surprisingly,I have heard nothing from the'Cross did it' group that show any patterns exist.Perhaps it is because they do not detect any patterns,or they have lost faith in Scobie.More interesting,is the fact that there doesn't appear any of your faithfull followers believe Cross was the killer of Nichols.

[Fisherman]

So Fisherman ,I am to blame for introducing the Primae facie evidence.I thought you have always argued it was Scobie,in a documentary.I suppose now you will claim it was I who also alluded to'Pattern of offending ', and' Area of offending' ,other comments you claim Scobie made.Surprisingly,I have heard nothing from the'Cross did it' group that show any patterns exist.Perhaps it is because they do not detect any patterns,or they have lost faith in Scobie.More interesting,is the fact that there doesn't appear any of your faithfull followers believe Cross was the killer of Nichols.

You said that I would have claimed that only accusatory evidence is allowed in a prima facie hearing. I never did.
I dislike being misrepresented.

Good luck with amassing followers for your line.

[MrBarnett]

So Fisherman ,I am to blame for introducing the Primae facie evidence.I thought you have always argued it was Scobie,in a documentary.I suppose now you will claim it was I who also alluded to'Pattern of offending ', and' Area of offending' ,other comments you claim Scobie made.Surprisingly,I have heard nothing from the'Cross did it' group that show any patterns exist.Perhaps it is because they do not detect any patterns,or they have lost faith in Scobie.More interesting,is the fact that there doesn't appear any of your faithfull followers believe Cross was the killer of Nichols.

There’d be no point, Harry. You’d probably misunderstand what was being said - again.

Fish has already explained your error - in capitals, but still you don’t get it. And neither do you seem to understand what Scoobie (thanks, Jeff) meant when he spoke of a ‘pattern of offending’.

[MrBarnett]

You said that I would have claimed that only accusatory evidence is allowed in a prima facie hearing. I never did.
I dislike being misrepresented.

Good luck with amassing followers for your line.

Is it Groundhog Day already?

Perhaps this time it will sink in.

[harry]

Well yes fisherman you do not like being misrepresented.Pity you do not mind misrepresenting.
Would I Mr Barnett.So please, YOU tell me what Scobie means,and we will see if I do not understand.

[Fisherman]

Is it Groundhog Day already?

Perhaps this time it will sink in.

Apparently not. I experience Groundhog Day every time I log in here.