Acquiring A Victorian Diary

[caz]

Well this is a bit embarrassing.

According to Robert Smith in the 2019 version of his book, at a 2018 meeting with James Johnston and Keith Skinner:

“Lyons had admitted on film that he had indeed been working at Battlecrease on 9^thMarch 1992…”

Now Caz tells us for the first time, six years after Smith’s published claim about Eddie having admitted being at Battlecrease on 9^th March 1992, that:

“having revisited Eddie's fascinating account from 2018, I can confirm that no actual dates were mentioned by him”

Embarrassing, Herlock? For whom?

If I 'admit' to being at a Rod Stewart concert back in the late 80s/early 90s, I don't need to remember the date when I can describe the moment Rod signed my concert ticket while he was standing next to Rachel Hunter at the Hilton afterwards. Other evidence beyond my personal recall supplies the actual date. It's strange how RJ Palmer had the exact same problem with this logic.

She then asks a strange question “how could they be?”, as if the idea of Eddie having mentioned that he was in Battlecrease on 9^th March 1992 was an obvious impossibility, despite it being the very thing we’d been assured had happened!

Why should Eddie have remembered the exact date, when I would need to go upstairs and rummage around to retrieve my dated - very dated - concert ticket. But I don't need to prove to myself I was there. Would you have expected Eddie to reel off "9th March 1992", for circumstances he was describing from memory in June 2018, in the drive of Battlecrease? Would that not have appeared odd to say the least?

And still, incomprehensibly, no transcript is provided of what Eddie Lyons said in February 2018 let alone the video recording of the event. We have to rely on Caz’s own interpretation of what Eddie supposedly said. For some reason, we are not allowed to see for ourselves what he said and she doesn’t quote a single word spoken by him.

Unsubstantiated, unsupported claims are utterly worthless I’m afraid, as Smith’s unsubstantiated and unsupported 2019 claim proves.

Absolutely, Herlock. They are utterly worthless to anyone who does not currently have free access to someone else's research. So you are free to dismiss anything I post on the subject, while speculating to your heart's content that it's all nonsense.

I'm getting used to it.

[caz]

According to Caz, Eddie Lyons voluntarily and freely gave up sufficient information in 2018 which put himself "at the scene of the crime", or, rather, at Battlecrease on 9th March 1992.

Eddie had read the diary books, and knew why he was 'in the frame', having an Anfield pub in common with Mike Barrett. But none of the books came close to pinning down the when of it. The 'crime scene' was speculated to date back before Eddie was employed by Portus & Rhodes [he was only with the firm from November 1991 to July 1992], while Shirley had assumed, just like Brian Rawes, that Eddie's "important" find in Dodd's house was made in July 1992, too late to have been Jack the Ripper's diary.

In short, Eddie had no idea, when describing his first visit to the house, that this could be dated independently of his recollections to the first ever recorded mention of Jack the Ripper's diary, providing a potential crime scene which now appeared to tick the right boxes.

Had Eddie known the full implications of his admission, I dare say he'd have been more wary. He didn't even need to be there in June 2018, after all, and could have pretended to have little or no memory of working in the actual house. He didn't know if his presence there might already have been established by dated work records retained by his former boss, Colin Rhodes, so it would have been foolish to deny anything outright. But nobody could have blamed him if he couldn't recall the details so many years later. Eddie did recall them, and consistently so, during separate recorded conversations.

[rjpalmer]

Embarrassing, Herlock? For whom?

If I 'admit' to being at a Rod Stewart concert back in the late 80s/early 90s, I don't need to remember the date when I can describe the moment Rod signed my concert ticket while he was standing next to Rachel Hunter at the Hilton afterwards. Other evidence beyond my personal recall supplies the actual date. It's strange how RJ Palmer had the exact same problem with this logic.

I would hope that it would be embarrassing to Robert Smith (the publisher, not the singer).

Herlock was merely doing a bit of what you like to call "housekeeping." Smith's comment was imprecise and misleading.

Why shouldn't Herlock hold Smith to the same standards of precision that you hold your perceived opponents?

Let me ask this. If you were at two Rod Stewart concerts back in the late 80s, how do we know that you aren't confusing what Rod did at one concert with what Rod did at the other?

Eddy, if we believe him, was at Dodd's house twice, though there is nothing in the public record to show that he has ever acknowledging this. So your analogy isn't apt. It is incomplete and conveniently leaves out an important element.

If you didn't specify which Rod Stewart concert Rod belted out a cover of Tiptoe Through the Tulips, would it be kosher for Smith to report that it happened at the first concert? Or not even explicitly reveal that there was a chance of confusion since you had attended Rod Stewart concerts twice?

Let us be fair-minded, Caz. If a "Barrett Believer" pulled a stunt like this, you'd be the first person to swoop down and do a bit of cleaning up, no?

[rjpalmer]

Absolutely, Herlock. They are utterly worthless to anyone who does not currently have free access to someone else's research. So you are free to dismiss anything I post on the subject, while speculating to your heart's content that it's all nonsense.

I'm getting used to it.

Hold on. Isn't your behavior in conflict with the established ethos of this forum?

We've all seen posters over the years make sensational claims but--when asked for the proof--claim they couldn't yet reveal their secret information. It was being saved for a future publication, etc.

These people have been uniformly given the bum's rush. I recall Ally Ryder, in particular, has had very little toleration for this sort of behavior.

If you aren't willing or able to give your full sources, shouldn't you refrain from making sensational claims until the time comes when you have more liberty to present all the necessary information?

Have a great day.

P.S. Let me just add that I would agree with anyone that you are fully within your rights to challenge the Barrett/Graham 'theory.' Absolutely. Bash away, if you can. But what isn't 'kosher,' in my view, is insisting that you can disprove it with secret conflicting information.

[Admin]

We are receiving Report Post after Report Post in the last few days, all on Diary threads. Anyone who is reported from this point on for cause will be banned from posting on the Diary threads for a year.

Knock this **** off. Apologies to all who are impacted.

[caz]

It is of course correct that a skilled interviewer should not inadvertently lead the witness with loaded questions.

Of course. But Feldman was long dead when Chris Jones, Keith and James invited Eddie to join them in the drive of Battlecrease in June 2018 and talk about his memories of working there back in 1992. It was unfortunate that Chris had to leave while the conversation was in progress, or he'd have been able to give a fuller account of it.

However, once Lyons gave his account, it would be entirely appropriate to ask follow-up questions to test whether he could have been confused since we know that he HAD BEEN at Dodd's house later that summer, and that 25 years have passed.

Quite right.

Simply asking, 'were you ever at Dodd's house before or later?' would not have been a leading question.

Quite right.

We also have no way of knowing what muddled thoughts Feldman and the rumor mill may have planted in his brain all those years ago. Sometimes if people keep saying or implying that you did something, and your memory is cloudy, you'll come to believe it.

Again, Palmer is quite right - except that according to Eddie, he only remembers Feldman phoning him once, possibly twice, way back in 1993, and getting no confession out of him, real or imagined. There is also nothing cloudy about Eddie's memory of being sent with Jim Bowling to help out on the first floor of Dodd's house on the Monday, when the Skem job had to be suspended after end of play on the Saturday. He had to be reminded that the timesheets showed him working there again in the July.

Palmer makes it sound like Eddie was frogmarched to the drive of Battlecrease, where he was forced to listen to the Spanish Inquisition telling him repeatedly that he was in the house when Mike Barrett's diary leapt up from under a floorboard and pressed itself into his hands - and poor helpless Eddie ended up believing it:

"No, no, anything but Keith Skinner poking me with soft cushions. Feldman was putty in my hands back in '93 by comparison. I confess, damn it all! I was there! Clap the darbies on me, I can't take any more."

But whatever. I'm resigned to never actually seeing any of the witness statements.

I wouldn't worry. They have probably been redacted anyway, to delete the references to torture.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Embarrassing, Herlock? For whom?

If I 'admit' to being at a Rod Stewart concert back in the late 80s/early 90s, I don't need to remember the date when I can describe the moment Rod signed my concert ticket while he was standing next to Rachel Hunter at the Hilton afterwards. Other evidence beyond my personal recall supplies the actual date. It's strange how RJ Palmer had the exact same problem with this logic.



Why should Eddie have remembered the exact date, when I would need to go upstairs and rummage around to retrieve my dated - very dated - concert ticket. But I don't need to prove to myself I was there. Would you have expected Eddie to reel off "9th March 1992", for circumstances he was describing from memory in June 2018, in the drive of Battlecrease? Would that not have appeared odd to say the least?



Absolutely, Herlock. They are utterly worthless to anyone who does not currently have free access to someone else's research. So you are free to dismiss anything I post on the subject, while speculating to your heart's content that it's all nonsense.

I'm getting used to it.

Surely you can appreciate that I can't just take your word for something in circumstances where you have access to information which is denied to me. And denied for no good reason of which I'm aware. If I, or anyone, claims something to be the case we would surely expect to have someone request evidence for it.

As for the embarrassing issue, it doesn't matter whether, in the abstract, I would have expected Eddie to have rattled off a specific date or not. Robert Smith's book said he did this. Even you don't seem to be arguing that the statement in Robert Smith"s book that Eddie "admitted" on film to having been working at Battlecrease on 9th March 1992 is accurate. It's just inference. That being so, I don’t understand the purpose of your post.

[caz]

We are receiving Report Post after Report Post in the last few days, all on Diary threads. Anyone who is reported from this point on for cause will be banned from posting on the Diary threads for a year.

Knock this **** off. Apologies to all who are impacted.

Apologies if I have been part of the problem. Everyone knows there is more information out there, but I try my utmost to restrict myself to what has already been posted and appears to have been missed. I don't think I have posted new information without giving a source, who could be contacted privately for confirmation, clarification or comment, but apologise if I have done so inadvertently.

Must try harder.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hold on. Isn't your behavior in conflict with the established ethos of this forum?

We've all seen posters over the years make sensational claims but--when asked for the proof--claim they couldn't yet reveal their secret information. It was being saved for a future publication, etc.

These people have been uniformly given the bum's rush. I recall Ally Ryder, in particular, has had very little toleration for this sort of behavior.

If you aren't willing or able to give your full sources, shouldn't you refrain from making sensational claims until the time comes when you have more liberty to present all the necessary information?

Have a great day.

P.S. Let me just add that I would agree with anyone that you are fully within your rights to challenge the Barrett/Graham 'theory.' Absolutely. Bash away, if you can. But what isn't 'kosher,' in my view, is insisting that you can disprove it with secret conflicting information.

I don't think I've insisted that I can disprove anything, but I'm sorry if Palmer has got that impression.

[rjpalmer]

Palmer makes it sound like Eddie was frogmarched to the drive of Battlecrease, where he was forced to listen to the Spanish Inquisition telling him repeatedly that he was in the house when Mike Barrett's diary leapt up from under a floorboard and pressed itself into his hands - and poor helpless Eddie ended up believing it

Hmmm. These Pythonesque scenes you conjure in your mind's eye are as amusing as ever, but are they an accurate rendition of what I suggested? Eddy didn't end up believing anything about finding a diary. He denied it back in the day and he denies it now. I'm suggesting a far more mundane mistake.

I continue to wonder--quite rationally, in my opinion--if he had inadvertently admitted to the being at Dodd's house at a time when he wasn't there. My suspicions are only strengthen by your current admission that Eddie didn't remember being there in July--even though it is a documented fact that he was there. And others remembered well enough him trotting down the driveway in July with concerns about having found something.

So that confirms what I've been wondering all along. Eddie only remembered being at Dodd's house once. Interesting indeed. His recollection is supported by the documented evidence. As far as the iron-clad documentation shows, he was at Dodd's house once---in July. A question I would ask Dodd, if I had the chance, is whether he could assure us that floorboards weren't lifted in July. This was a lighting project, but from what Dodd told Harrison, I am under the impression that floorboards would be lifted for lighting, assuming the lighting was intended for the ground floor below. One would access the necessary wiring by lifting the floorboards in the room above the room where the light fixtures were going.

Meanwhile, you must be familiar with Chris Jones's opinion that Eddie's admission to having been at Dodd's house is a strong indication of his innocence.

Documentation could not place him there, but he was fine with placing himself there, even though you and others are accusing him of a crime.

That's pretty dang weird, isn't it?

It's a bit like the Kray Twins insisting they were at the scene of a gangland shooting when there was no evidence that they had been there. "But damn it, we WERE there when the shootings you are accusing us of took place! I remember it!!!"

Is that behavior consistent with what a guilty person would say? Not to me, it isn't. I can't find a flaw in Chris Jones's logic and would be interested in hearing how you reconcile this in your own mind.

But I must run. So long for now.

PALMER

[caz]

I would hope that it would be embarrassing to Robert Smith (the publisher, not the singer).

Herlock was merely doing a bit of what you like to call "housekeeping." Smith's comment was imprecise and misleading.

I can't speak for how much more detail Robert could or should have gone into, to explain how Eddie's memories could be dated exactly by the details he gave.

Let me ask this. If you were at two Rod Stewart concerts back in the late 80s, how do we know that you aren't confusing what Rod did at one concert with what Rod did at the other?

I went to three actually, two at Wembley and one in Brighton, all three with the same friend, who was more of a fan than I was. Rod was only with Rachel Hunter for one of those concerts, and he only signed my ticket on that occasion. Four witnesses to my account, if I include the barman who alerted us to the happy couple about to emerge from the private dining area.

Eddy, if we believe him, was at Dodd's house twice, though there is nothing in the public record to show that he has ever acknowledging this. So your analogy isn't apt. It is incomplete and conveniently leaves out an important element.

Hardly 'conveniently', but I take the point about 'incomplete' as it stands. One day...

If you didn't specify which Rod Stewart concert Rod belted out a cover of Tiptoe Through the Tulips, would it be kosher for Smith to report that it happened at the first concert? Or not even explicitly reveal that there was a chance of confusion since you had attended Rod Stewart concerts twice?

Let us be fair-minded, Caz. If a "Barrett Believer" pulled a stunt like this, you'd be the first person to swoop down and do a bit of cleaning up, no?

Palmer calls it pulling 'a stunt', which is rather harsh, since his analogy doesn't work with specific personal memories of being somewhere for a specific event, which can be dated with or without the help of the person recalling it.

[caz]

Hi Roger,

I was reading the exchange that you mentioned between James Johnston and David Orsam earlier in this thread recently and I saw that David asked James if he was going to show Eddie Lyons the timesheets and ask him whether he could help to reconstruct the days he worked at Battlecrease. James' reply on 10th January 2018 was "Watch this space". I assume that this is what was done when he met Eddie a few weeks later in February 2018 but that he didn't get the answer he was hoping for. He certainly never came back to reveal what Eddie had said, and Caz's post now confirms that Eddie couldn't say what he was doing on 9th March 1992, even with the benefit of seeing the timesheets. Despite this, a myth seems to have arisen that Eddie "admitted" to having been at Battlecrease on that day. What is baffling to me is that James refused to post the transcripts of what Eddie had told him in 2015/6 and now, for some unknown reason, the transcript of what Eddie said in 2018 also remains a top secret. It's a strange way of trying to convince us that the diary was found in Battlecrease.

The other thing that remains unclear to me is whether the timesheets accurately reflect who was working at Battlecrease on any particular day. According to Shirley Harrison, Brian Rawes was able to confirm the date of his brief conversation with Eddie at Battlecrease as having occurred in June 1992 which he did "by reference to an old daily memo book" (p.292 of The American Connection). Yet, as Caz tells us, the timesheets don't show Eddie as having been there in June 1992, while, according to Robert Smith's book, Brian Rawes isn't shown on any timesheets as having been there in June 1992 either. Has anyone ever seen Brian Rawes' daily memo book?

I said nothing about Eddie having the benefit of 'seeing the timesheets'. As you admit, you only assume this happened, because of a question asked in advance by David Barrat, and you assume that James 'met' Eddie in February 2018 but didn't get the answer he was hoping for. Plans can change depending on people's availability and James was not obliged in any case to fit in with anything suggested by a third party, especially if he decided it was better to find out what Eddie could remember without showing him any documentary evidence first, which could be seen as leading him in a certain direction, desired either by James or Eddie. I may be wrong, but I don't think James is trying to convince you or anyone else that the diary was found in Battlecrease.

Brian Rawes wasn't down on any Battlecrease timesheets because he never actually worked there. He only went there the once, on Friday 17th July 1992, and that was to pick up the firm's van and drive it to another job. His daily memo book did not reflect this brief encounter or he'd have been able to date it accurately for Shirley, instead of relying on his memory for when the conversation with Eddie might have happened, with reference to unrelated jobs he had recorded, and coming up with June. Back in October 1993 he'd been able to give the exact date in July 1992, which he could have obtained from Colin Rhodes's records and later forgotten.

There is no evidence that Brian was ever contacted by Feldman, who wanted the names of electricians who had actually worked in Dodd's house.

[rjpalmer]

I really do have to run now, but this needs addressing:

Brian Rawes wasn't down on any Battlecrease timesheets because he never actually worked there. He only went there the once, on Friday 17th July 1992, and that was to pick up the firm's van and drive it to another job. His daily memo book did not reflect this brief encounter or he'd have been able to date it accurately for Shirley, instead of relying on his memory for when the conversation with Eddie might have happened, with reference to unrelated jobs he had recorded, and coming up with June. Back in October 1993 he'd been able to give the exact date in July 1992, which he could have obtained from Colin Rhodes's records and later forgotten.

Even if this is accurate--and I have no way of knowing--why don't you apply the same concerns to the account given by Tim Martin-Wright?

To me, the situation with Mr. TMW is the same or worse. He also had no direct documentation to help him accurately date when the alleged conversation about the diary had occurred--all he could reference was an "unrelated" event....buying a hat rack.

As I understand it, his weird mnemonic system involved knowing that antique stores existed in the same general neighborhood as the security system shop, so in finding a reference to buying a hat rack, he "came up" with the idea that the conversation at the shop happening on the day he bought the hat rack.

Don't you think MTW's account deserves the same skepticism you apply to Mr. Rawes since it is so similar?

Surely, Mr. TMW must have visited the alarm shop on more than one occasion in 1991-1993.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Eddie had read the diary books, and knew why he was 'in the frame', having an Anfield pub in common with Mike Barrett. But none of the books came close to pinning down the when of it. The 'crime scene' was speculated to date back before Eddie was employed by Portus & Rhodes [he was only with the firm from November 1991 to July 1992], while Shirley had assumed, just like Brian Rawes, that Eddie's "important" find in Dodd's house was made in July 1992, too late to have been Jack the Ripper's diary.

In short, Eddie had no idea, when describing his first visit to the house, that this could be dated independently of his recollections to the first ever recorded mention of Jack the Ripper's diary, providing a potential crime scene which now appeared to tick the right boxes.

Had Eddie known the full implications of his admission, I dare say he'd have been more wary. He didn't even need to be there in June 2018, after all, and could have pretended to have little or no memory of working in the actual house. He didn't know if his presence there might already have been established by dated work records retained by his former boss, Colin Rhodes, so it would have been foolish to deny anything outright. But nobody could have blamed him if he couldn't recall the details so many years later. Eddie did recall them, and consistently so, during separate recorded conversations.

I need to correct you on a factual matter, Caz. Shirley did not assume that Eddie's important find in Dodd's house "was made in July 1992". As I previously posted, she assumed it was made in June 1992 on the basis of an old daily memo book of Rawes, about which there are unanswered questions from me to you in another thread (#1516 of "old hoax).

To my mind, you haven't really answered the question as to why Eddie voluntarily and freely gave up information in 2018 which put him "at the scene of the crime". He knew he was suspected of stealing a diary. If that was true, he would have known this occurred in March 1992. I don't see why he wouldn't have pretended to have no memory of working at the house so early in the year rather than provide information to researchers in 2015, 2016 and again in 2018 which could have allowed them to date his presence at the house to that very month. Even more than that, I have no idea why he didn't tell the investigators to leave him alone. Just like Anne Graham now does. Why did he even engage with them? If the answer is to see what the investigators knew, you already told me that he got information from published books and would have been aware that none of them had come close to identifying when it happened. So why does he give people information which does help them pin it down?

At the end of it all, even if he was working in the house that day, it's still a million miles from him finding and taking a diary.

But what I can't understand is why the evidence as to him working in the house isn't made available. Why were we told that he'd admitted something which he never actually admitted? And to answer your earlier question, when I said it was "embarrassing", I obviously meant embarrassing for Robert Smith, as Roger understood. I can't see how it can't be. Whichever way you slice and dice it, Lyons did not admit to working in Battlecrease on 9th March 1992.

[rjpalmer]

P.S.

Surely, Mr. TMW must have visited the alarm shop on more than one occasion in 1991-1993.

(I include the year 1991 because the opening date has been variously reported and I've seen no documentation confirming which date is correct)