A new critique of the Cross/Lechmere theory from Stewart Evans

[Lechmere]

No
As here doesn't seem to have been anything in the press I would presume they went around the pubs and stopped people in the streets - that sort of thing.

Of course if Paul had handed himself in on 31st as Wickerman thinks there would have been no need for appeals as they would have had his address.
they could have called at any time - so again no need to fetch him in the middle of the night either.
And they would have already questioned him if Wickerman is right so no need to question him all the next day.

[Robert]

I am wondering how much Paul really wanted to stay out of the inquest. On the one hand, in a Lloyd's item for Sept 2nd he said that he worked at Covent Garden. On the other hand, Covent Garden was a big place so maybe he felt that the police would never trace him by asking questions there.

[Lechmere]

He worked at Corbett's Court as a carman, delivering to Covent Garden.
However I doubt he thought about the consequences of giving his story when he did.
He probably assumed Mizen would have reported their presence, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
I don't know that an average person would realise that if they were involved in witnessing a murder that they would be called to the inquest.

[Wickerman]

...
I always make it a habit to avoid baseless conjecture.

Interesting that you conclude the following post with the above line.

I'll hi-lite what is your conjecture.

I see you think this extract is based on separate interviews with Holland (I so very brief) the three watchmen (why are all unnamed) and presumably PC Neil. The obvious explanation is that the information all came from one source and if read in context it is obvious it came from Helson. If you insist it was not Helson then it was clearly someone ‘in the know’ in the police.
But apparently according to you not sufficiently ‘in the know’ to be aware of Lechmere and Paul.

We have Spratling being by your account unaware of Lechmere (Cross) and Paul on 31st August – although you seek to provide excuses for this.
We have Paul going to the press and saying he had only spoken with Mizen on 1st September.
We have the above accounts on 2nd September written in a context that strongly suggests they were said by Helson together with his other remarks on that Sunday night.
We have it repeated on numerous occasions that Neil found the body without the slightest hint from an official source that anyone else did, and we have countless pre inquest leaks of information (eg Holland, the night watchmen and Llewellyn, Neil and Helson) that was later given in evidence at the inquest.
We have Paul being raided in the middle of the night at a later date and questioned all day long.
We have Lloyds heading up the main body of Paul’s account ‘Remarkable Statement’ – clearly because it ran counter to the received wisdom of the train of events, namely that PC Neil had discovered the body.

This in total makes it overwhelmingly and abundantly clear that the evidence of Lechmere and Paul (besides the Lloyds account which like many newspaper stories was not officially believed initially) was unknown until not long before Lechmere’s appearance at the inquest on the 3rd.

For the police to have known all along about Lechmere and Paul, we must believe that the police for some unfathomable reason chose not to have either appear at the opening day of the inquest, when logically in the narrative of how the body was discovered they should have. Note that when Abberline and Swanson later produced their summaries of the case, both started their narrative with the discovery of the body by Lechmere (Cross) and Paul.

For the police to have known about them, we must also believe that the Police deliberately misled the press about the circumstances of the case for no obvious reason. All the other details of the case up to that point were in wide circulation and the evidence of other unheard witnesses was flying around all over the place. Yet you think the police held back just the details about Lechmere and Paul.

The trouble with your hypothesis Wickerman is that you can produce not one shred of evidence to back it up. It is baseless conjecture.
I always make it a habit to avoid baseless conjecture.

And just to reiterate, Paul did not claim to have been questioned all day long, what we read is:

Mr. Paul says that after he made his statement to our representative, which appeared in Lloyd's, he was fetched up in the middle of the night by the police, and was obliged to lose a day's work the next day, for which he got nothing.

It has been offered to you twice, that Robert Paul lost work due to him having to appear at the Inquest on the 17th.
Unless, you think he did get paid for this day, or
Unless you think he did not mind losing a days pay for this day, then it must be obvious that his forced(?) appearance was precisely the cause of his complaint.

Or let me put it simpler.
Are you suggesting Paul lost a days pay due to being questioned, but did not lose a days pay when he appeared at the Inquest?

Your 'being questioned' is your conjecture, yet we know witnesses lost pay when attending an Inquest - yet you want us to believe he made no complaint about this fact?

[Robert]

Lechmere, according to your theory, Cross knew where Paul worked and tried to implicate him by killing Chapman on the 8th. Now, you say that the police didn't know where Paul lived until after the 3rd Sept inquest session. My question is, would not the police have asked Cross if he knew where Paul worked? If Cross told them, then the police would have found Paul around 4th Sept. In which case, would not the smear attempt of 8th Sept look too unlikely? Would the police expect a man whom they had just questioned, to go out and commit a murder so close to where he worked? The smear attempt works better if the police only found Paul after Sept 8th. But in that case, they either didn't ask Cross if he knew where Paul worked, or Cross lied to the police - which would have been risky, given that Paul had (according to you) actually told Cross where he worked.

[Wickerman]

Why did Inspector Helson say that the policemen at either end of the row had seen no man leaving the spot to attract attention?

Helson did not say this.

Why did Helson bother to mention that PC Neil hadn’t been called to the scene by two men?

Helson never said this, it was PC Neil. And, an obvious confusion between PC Mizen & PC Neil, by the reporter.

Why on 1st September did Paul only mention the conversation with Mizen and not the fact that he (according to you) had already given a statement.

I don't know 'when' Paul spoke to police, nor even 'if' he spoke to police. What I am pointing out is that the pieces of information you provide do not suggest that the police were not aware of his claims.

For all we know he may have read about PC Neil's discovery in the Friday night press, then complained to a reporter about him finding the body, while he was on his way to Commercial St. station to make them aware of the fact.

Dr Llewellyn – who supposedly should have known your rules – gave a statement to the press on 31st August, before he appeared at the inquest (eg again see Evening News 1st September).

Some doctors had no reservations about talking with the press, but most avoided the publicity, as evident as the murders unfolded.

[Lechmere]

Robert
I always try to stick to the records.
Paul was fetched up in the middle of the night from his house not his workplace.
I have no idea whether the police asked Lechmere about Paul's workplace - he would not know presumably the exact location anyway - only that it was in or near Corbett's Court.

I find it hard to believe that the police would bother that much with Paul just on the basis of his status as a witness with respect to Nichols as he did not add anything of importance to that inquest.

[Wickerman]

Ed. your concern about what Helson is believed to have shared in this 'interview' can be limited to that in bold, below.

Inspector Helson, at an interview yesterday evening, said that the report that blood stains were found leading from Brady street to Buck's row was not true. The place was examined by Sergeant Enright and himself on Friday morning, and neither bloodstains nor wheel marks were found to indicate that the body had been deposited where found, the murder being committed elsewhere. Both himself and Inspector Abberline, indeed, had come to the conclusion that it was committed on the spot. That conclusion was fortified by the post mortem examination made by Dr. Llewellyn. At first the small quantity of blood found on the spot suggested that the woman was murdered in a neighbouring house. Dr. Llewellyn, however, is understood to have satisfied himself that the great quantity of blood which must have followed the gashes in the abdomen flowed into the abdominal cavity, but he maintains his opinion that the first wounds were those in the throat, and they would have effectually prevented any screaming. The blood from those wounds Inspector Helson considers was held by the dress and the ulster, and it is evident, from that view of the matter, that the woman was lying on her back when her throat was cut.
Daily News, 3rd Sept.

So all Insp. Helson has confirmed is that there is no truth to the rumor that the evidence suggests she was killed elsewhere.
And, that the lack of blood around the body is explained by her clothes absorbing much of the blood.
So in total, all he has said is that in the opinion of the police Nichols was killed where found. Hardly a great revelation.

[curious]

No
As here doesn't seem to have been anything in the press I would presume they went around the pubs and stopped people in the streets - that sort of thing.

Thank you, Lechmere.

It does make sense that once Paul's interview was printed, the police would have sought the men who found the body, in exactly the way you have described.

If memory serves, this was suggested as how Cross/Lechmere was located -- on his way to work Monday morning -- thus explaining why he was dressed for work at the inquest, but in the past you did not like the idea.

If Paul was sought in such a manner, why would Cross/Lechmere not also have been?

Only he was found in time for the Monday inquest.Perhaps because he took to same route to work Monday as he had on Friday.

curious

[Lechmere]

Wickerman
you could have saved that post
I said 'baseless conjecture'.
everything in this case is conjecture - I avoid the baseless version.
your case cannot be backed up by a single - not one - piece of evidence.
mine relies on the police reports, newspaper interviews and the way the inquest progressed. All available sources point in one direction - the only arguable point is whether Paul was fetched up before or after the Chapman murder.

I suggest you re-read Paul's complaint about being fetched up.
he missed a day's work and then two more - he used the word 'then'.
why did they fetch him up and why did he subsequently miss a day's work? The only conceivable reason was to interrogate him.
It was not because he had to attend the inquest that day - read his interview!

[Wickerman]

I find it hard to believe that the police would bother that much with Paul just on the basis of his status as a witness with respect to Nichols as he did not add anything of importance to that inquest.

They would, if he had already been summonsed, but failed to appear.
Therein, lies a viable reason for your 'hard to believe' treatment of Robert Paul.

[Lechmere]

And that claim is baseless conjecture

[Lechmere]

Wickerman
Think through your scenario and stop being reactionary.

You think he was fetched up and made to attend the inquest the next day because he had previously failed to attend?

This is a tale totally based on your imagination - but it makes no sense anyway.
When did he fail to attend?

1st - impossible as the only police contact he mentioned he had up to that evening was with Mizen.
3rd - this would mean that he was fetched up on 16th September to attend on 17th.
Maybe that is your suggestion.

[Robert]

Lechmere, it's possible the police asked for Paul in Corbett's Court and were told that he was out delivering. They could have taken his address from the boss and left a message that Paul should contact them on his return. When he didn't, they raided him.

The thing is, you're prepared to believe that the police went around the pubs and stopped people in the streets in their search for Paul, but you're not sure if the police bothered to ask Cross if he knew where Paul worked. They're not going to ask a man who actually spoke to and walked along with the man they were searching for, but asked people in pubs and on streets?

And why should Cross assume that Paul worked in Corbett's Court, unless Paul had said something like 'Goodbye. This is where I work'? If Cross sees Paul turn down Corbett's Court, why would he assume that that was where he worked? Cross might have reflected that he himself had turned down Hanbury St, but worked in Broad St.

[Lechmere]

Robert
We know that the police went to the trouble of getting Paul in the middle of the night and he then missed a day's work.
This implies he was questioned - I would say interrogated - that day. Otherwise why fetch him up and why miss the day's work?
It is abundantly clear that his inquest summons and two days appearance came after that.
We also have Dew remembering -somewhat fuzzily - that the police were actively searching for Paul in some way, which implies that it wasn't straight forward such as merely being necessary to consult the electoral register.
We can say pretty categorically that the police never learnt Lechmere's true name which implies they never visited his house.

Any theory that embraces these matters holds water so far as I'm concerned.
If you think the police would have gone to his workplace, found Paul wasn't there and then turned up at his house in the middle of the night then so be it.