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I have decided to take a look at Steven Blomers attempt at debunking the so called Mizen scam in his book ”Inside Bucks Row”. It does not mean that I will not keep singling out people to debate with; Once we have gone through the Mizen scam matter, I intend to return to that practice, and I am currently thinking that I will choose the poster who goes by the name of Fiver next. But when it comes to this particular thread, I welcome anybody who wants to join in to do so, as long as we try to keep things civil instead of getting personal and untidy. I will do my part on that score, and I hope others will do the same.
So here we go, let’s begin by quoting Steve Blomer from ”Inside Bucks Row”, the chapter ”A Scam Indeed”.
This is what Steve Blomer writes:
”The classic ‘Mizen Scam’ relies entirely on the belief in two things: that Mizen told the truth and that
Lechmere being the killer who was attempting to escape, lied. Those who propose this seem to pass
over Neil’s claim to first see Mizen in Bakers Row, suggesting that for Mizen to be there was
unrealistic, or that it would place off his beat. These arguments are misleading; Bakers Row was
almost certainly part of his beat.
Our new hypothesis is different, and is supported by several sources:
• Both Charles Lechmere and Robert Paul disagreed with PC Mizen’s account
• PC Mizen initially denied that he saw anyone leaving the scene
• PC Neil’s testimony of where he sees PC Mizen is at odds with Mizen’s
• The timings, while never 100% accurate, remain a reliable indicator that Mizen did not
respond immediately as he claimed and that he did not proceed with any urgency
• At the inquest Robert Paul is not asked to clarify the situation. It may be because it is not
relevant to the murder or possibly that a view has already been taken on events by the police,
who do not wish to reopen the issues, expediently preferring to leave things looking like a
possible misunderstanding
• The police report on the 19th gives the Lechmere version of events and omits PC Mizen’s
version. This would indicate the police have possibly decided Mizen’s account is unsafe
• Mizen does not raise his account before Sunday night and possibly not until Monday
• The Lloyds Weekly article, after Neil gives his testimony of where he sees Mizen, changes
everything for Mizen.”
What is evident to anybody reading the chapter is that Steve Blomers piece de resistance is the last point, the Lloyds Weekly article (from September 2). He says so himself, effectively. I will not give the text here in full, but instead, I will reproduce the important bit, with the bit Steve Blomer considers most important in bold:
”John Neill, police-constable 97 J, was sworn, and said: Yesterday morning I was proceeding down Buck's-row, Whitechapel, going towards Brady-street. There was not a soul about. I had been round there half an hour previous, and I saw no one then. I was on the left hand side of the street, when I noticed a figure lying in the street. It was dark at the time, though there was a street lamp shining at the end of the row. I went across and found the deceased lying outside a gateway, her head towards the east. The gateway was closed. It was about nine or ten feet high, and led to some stables. There were houses from the gateway eastward, and the School Board school occupies the westward. On the opposite side of the road is Essex wharf. Deceased was lying lengthways along the street, her left hand touching the gate. I examined the body by the aid of my lamp, and noticed blood oozing from a wound in the throat. She was lying on her back, with her clothes disarranged. I felt her arm, which was quite warm from the joints upwards. Her eyes were wide open. Her bonnet was off and lying at her side, close to the left hand. I heard a constable passing Brady-street, so I called him. I did not whistle. I said to him, "Run at once for Dr. Llewellyn," and seeing another constable in Baker's-row, I immediately sent for the ambulance. The doctor arrived in a very short time. I had in the meantime rung the bell at Essex wharf, and asked if any disturbance had been heard. The reply was "No." Serjeant Kirby came after, and he knocked. The doctor looked at the woman, and then said, "Move the woman to the mortuary. She is dead, and I will make a further examination of her." We then placed her on the ambulance, and moved her there. Inspector Spratley came to the mortuary, and while taking a description of the deceased examined her clothes, and found that she was disembowelled. This had not been noticed by any of them before. On the body was found a piece of comb and a bit of looking-glass. No money was found, but an unmarked white handkerchief was found in her pocket. There was a pool of blood just where her neck was lying. The blood was then running from the wound in her neck.”
Now, here is how Steve Blomer reasons:
John Neil saw another constable in Bakers Row, after having signalled down John Thain. This constable was Jonas Mizen. It applies, Steve Blomer then says, that the outlet from Bakers Row was not visible from the murder spot. Therefore, John Neil could not have seen Jonas Mizen from that position.
However, Steve Blomer adds, if John Neil left the murder site and walked over from the southern to the northern pavement of Bucks Row, the outlet would come into sight. But only a third of it, roughly. And than part was the southernmost part of the outlet. Accordingly, Steve Blomer reasons that when John Neil saw Jonas Mizen in Bakers Row, Mizen must have been visible on that spot - the southernmost third of the outlet of Bakers Row into Bucks Row.
Steve Blomer then goes on to reason about what this means, and concludes that since Jonas Mizen would have arrived to the outlet from the northern part of Bakers Row, heading south, then he should arguably have turned left into Bucks Row at the northern half of it if he was hurriedly headed towards the murder site, directed there by Charles Lechmere. Instead, he is observed in a position at the southernmost part of the outlet, suggesting that Jonas Mizen never took the quickest route into Bucks Row. It would instead seem that he may even have been contemplating to pass the outlet, carrying on down Bakers Row, with no intention at all to go to Bucks Row and take a look at the woman he had been told about.
This, Steve Blomer tells us, is the REAL Mizen scam, and the scammer is not Charles Lechmere but instead Jonas Mizen, who would have lied about his diligence, and who would have been supported by the Met in doing so. This is, in short, Steven Blomers position.
There are a few question marks when it comes to Steve Blomers alternative scam suggestion. The first one is the question about why John Neil would walk over the the other side of the street, once he had found the body of Polly Nichols. This poses no real problem to Steve Blomer, who correctly points out that we know that Neil crossed over to Essex Wharf at some stage, to speak to Walter Purkiss et al. Furthermore, Steve Blomer points out that that there would have been a need to search the overall premises, and the other side of the street belonged to them.
Once we read the inquest articles, it becomes clear that the order in which Neil describes his actions, seems to put Neils visit to Essex Wharf at a remove in time AFTER he had seen and signalled down Jonas Mizen. It is said that he called Thain and Mizen to his assistance, and sent them to fetch the doctor and an ambulance, and it then goes on to say in one paper that ”in the meantime”, apparently meaning before Llewellyn arrived, Neil contacted the people in Essex Wharf. So it seems impossible that this visit was when he was on the northern side of the street, and thereby able to see Jonas Mizen in Bakers Row. But I have no problem admitting that Neil must not have stood on the south side of Bucks Row throughout, so there is no problem in that department.
What we - or to be more exact, Steven Blomer - have here is seemingly a water tight case. Neil said he saw Jonas Mizen in Bakers Row. It was impossible to see the Bakers Row outlet into Bucks Row from the murder site. Therefore John Neil must have at some relatively early stage have moved closer to the northern side of the street, since he was actually able to see Jonas Mizen. These parts are mutually supporting each other. And since Mizen would only have been visible at the southern half of the outlet, it seems he may have had the intention of skipping over the trek to Bucks Row.
So why did he change his mind, one wonders. Well, says Steven Blomer, we know that Neil tried to signal him with his lantern, and once Neil did that, Mizen would know that he had been observed and so he had no other choice but to go to join Neil. So this is why the supposedly lazy and indifferent Mizen did go to the murder site after all, as per Steven Blomer.
Having arrived at this stage, let’s instead revisit the stage at which John Neil drew Thains attention to himself. It is an exercise that will help us understand why the scenario suggested by Steven Blomer is - in my view - likely wrong.
John Neil noticed Thain by way of the sound he made. Neil HEARD Thain in Brady Street and flashed his lantern to flag his colleague down.
Question: If Neil could not see John Thain, but only hear him, how was he able to tell that Thain was in Brady Street? What if he was instead fifteen yards into Bucks Row as Neil noticed him? Surely, John Neil could not tell sounds of steps from 115 yards away from sounds of steps from 130 yards away?
Of course he couldn’t. Nor did he need to be able to perform that feat, for the obvious reason that John Neil knew quite well that Thain would not walk into Bucks Row. His beat took him down Brady Street, past the Bucks Row inlet. Therefore, when Neil heard the steps of a fellow PC, he knew it emanated from the PC patrolling the beat next to his, covering Brady Street but not Bucks Row. Thain could only be in Brady Street, there were no other options.
Now, let us return to Bakers Row and Jonas Mizen. How was he noted? Well, he was noted because John Neil saw him. But there is a problem involved here, and that is the darkness of the streets. John Thain was heard from around 130 yards away, but Jonas Mizen would have been around twice that distance away from Neil. Can we see somebody 260 yards off, in deep darkness? No, we can’t, and Steven Blomer recognizes this. Therefore he adds that what Neil must have seen would not have been Jonas Mizen, but instead his lantern. That should per se not be any problem, since where the lantern was, Jonas Mizen was too.
But once we know this, that what Neil would have seen was the lantern only, a question arises: How could Neil know that the lantern was in Bakers Row? Well, the answer was provided by the Thain example: John Neil knew that there was a PC patrolling Bakers Row as part of a beat, and he also knew that this PC would not turn into Bucks Row since Bucks Row was part of Neils beat. And so, if Neil saw another constables lantern in the distance to the west, he could bank on the carrier of that lantern being in Bakers Row.
What Neil did NOT know at this stage was that Jonas Mizen had been directed to help another PC, who was in place in Bucks Row, tending to a woman who was flat on her back. Therefore, the basic rules did no longer apply. Suddenly, Jonas Mizen was sure to walk into Bucks Row - but of this, Neil knew nothing.
The impact this has is tremendous: It suddenly becomes obvious that Jonas Mizen may well have been thirty or forty yards down Bucks Row when Neil noted his lantern. But how was John Neil to know that? Could he tell whether a dot of light was 260 or 230 yards away? Of course not. And so the question becomes one of what is likeliest - that Neil saw Mizen in the few seconds, perhaps two or three of them, when Mizen passed up at the Bucks Row outlet, or that he noted his colleague as he was already in the process of walking down Bucks Row and fully visible from the murder site?
If John Neil was searching the ground on the northern side of Bucks Row for evidence relating to the murder when Mizen passed up at Bakers Row, where would the former mans focus be? On the ground or 260 yards off, up at Bakers Row? My bet is that the first suggestion is by far the likeliest one. I also tend to think that Neil would have spent most of his time in close proximity to the body. I think that the sequence of events suggests that Thain was contacted almost immediately after John Neil arrived by the body (the two give the exact same time for when they were drawn into the matter), and then Mizen was noted immediately afterwards, allowing time for Thain to leave before Mizen arrived but not much more.
Weighing this all up, I can only say that I myself feel that there is not much of a chance that Jonas Mizen was in Bakers Row when Neil saw him. At the very least, there is serious doubt about whether Mizen was ever noted in Bakers Row by Neil. The clear indication is that Neil saw a light and concluded that it was the light of the Bakers Row PC. Producing a scenario in which Jonas Mizen must be the one scamming is therefore a very dubious thing to do.
It should also be pointed out that Steven Blomer writes that one paper said that Neil noticed Mizen ”passing along” Bakers Row. Steven Blomer therefore says that this seems to point to how Neil may have seen a movement from north to south on Mizens behalf. Of course, Neil could also have said that he noted his fellow PC ”trodding along” Bakers Row, or ”walking along” the street. It does not mean that he saw any side to side movement, it merely tells us that Mizen was passing along a street, in this case from west to east.
As for the other points listed by Steven Blomer and given above, it remains that the one point they all the others lean against is the claim that Neil must have seen Jonas Mizen in Bakers Row. Once that point is lost, the rest more or less goes lost alongside it. There is no proven disagreement on account of both carmen with Mizens account, it is a matter of interpretation what was said and who said it. We cannot, for example, rely on Lechmer telling the truth about what Paul said. Mizens did not deny that anyone left the scene, he said that nobody did so in a way that would raise eyebrows, more or less. The timings do not imply that Mizen was tardy. Nobody is more careful to point out how timings are sometimes unreliable than Steven Blomer, and that will have to go for this scenario too; Mizens claim to have finished a knocking up matter and then proceeding to Bucks Row may well be perfectly true. And we should note that if there was a scam - and I am convinced there was - then Lechmere would have told Mizen a story that would not make him make all that much of a haste. The fact that Paul was not asked to clarify matters at the inquest does not mean that the matter was resolved at that stage. The police report giving Lechmeres view is nothing strange at all, since he, not Mizen found the body, his version is the completest there is - which does not make it either checked out or correct. The fact that Mizen did not raise his account until late in the process probably only points to how he never knew that the carman was the original finder. In his view, all Neil said panned out. Last, but not least, the Lloyds Weekly article does not change anything at all for Mizen unless we make the untenable assumption that Neil must have seen Mizen in Bakers Row. As has been shown, it is more likely that he never did so, but only anticipated it on account of how there was no other place where Mizen could have been, according to what Neil know at the time.
Strangely, the very obvious option that Neil simply predisposed that Mizen must have been in Bakers Row as he saw his lantern is not even mentioned in ”Inside Bucks Row”. Whether that owes to how the author never realized the possibility or if it has other reasons, I will refrain from speculation about. It is enough, I think, to point this out for Steve Blomers alternative scam scenario to crumble. I hope that in the future, it is added to any new forthcoming version of ”inside Bucks Row”, since it would be unlucky in the extreme if it was kept out of the narrative, as if it never existed.
Any reactions welcomed, not least from Steven Blomer himself. This reduces his claims about the Mizen scam in ”Inside Bucks Row” to spurious guesswork, so any comment would be interesting to hear.
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