25 YEARS OF THE DIARY OF JACK THE RIPPER: THE TRUE FACTS by Robert Smith

[Abby Normal]

A bit like if you look up the words 'infallible' and 'frustrated' they will be accompanied by a photo of David Orsam?

Love,

Caz
X

In the words of a master of big words Caz-methinks thou dost protest too much.

[caz]

1. She says that Anne "collated" Mike's notes. Is this supposed to be the same as "tidied up"? For me they convey different impressions. Collated gives the impression of the notes merely being organised whereas "tided up" suggests that they have been changed and improved.

2. She says the notes were "typed", not "re-typed". Why did she use the word "re-typed" in her 2003 book? Just a mistake or is there some significance to it?

If the original notes were made by hand, possibly on undated scraps of paper collected and kept in no particular order [and were possibly typed up first by Mike in an equally random fashion, but not necessarily - Shirley would have depended on Mike or Anne to tell her], I would suggest that Anne put his information, with appropriate punctuation and corrected spelling, in the order it appears in the final version, along with Shirley's own notes, to form a coherent document.

3. She says (as she says in her book) that the notes were created before Mike brought the Diary to London. If it is now being said that the notes were probably created AFTER he brought the Diary to London how did she get it so badly wrong both in her response to Harris and in her book which appear to have been written about six years apart?

Christ on a bike, how hard can this be? They were not 'probably' created after April 13th; they must all have been created after March 8th, when Mike could not yet have known that the diary would soon be landed in his lap.

Shirley would have been working from Mike's claim to have been "doing something with it" since Devereux advised him to do just that in the summer of the previous year.

What is essential, if we are shortly to be told that the Diary came from Battlecrease on 9 March 1992, is that the full version of Mike's research notes MUST be produced in full so that everyone can examine them. This is especially true if the notes in any way contradict the notion that Mike received the Diary on 9 March 1992. They cannot any longer reasonably be withheld.

You are in touch with Keith Skinner by email, David. He will be on the diary panel with Shirley next month. I'm sure you can work out how best to go about this new campaign of yours, and it's not bleating on a message board about your considerable frustration that these notes have not yet been made available for all eyes to see.

I have a copy, but if you think I'd give you the drippings from my nose after the condescending way you treat any information I have provided, you can take a long walk off a short pier.

Besides, I would need permission as it is not mine to broadcast, and I'm not about to ask for it when that is something you could easily have done yourself by now [and got the kudos for it] if you could have dragged yourself away from this place for all of five minutes.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

If, as Robert Smith and the "Diary Team" are going to tell us in this new book, the Diary came from Battlecrease on 9 March 1992, it means that the inept, incompetent and unimaginative Mike Barrett was telling a highly sophisticated lie to Howells here, cleverly hiding from him the fact that he knew from DAY ONE that the Diary was from Battlecrease (although he also couldn't keep a secret!).

Not quite sure I follow this one. Does anyone know if Mike was told on DAY ONE that the diary was from Battlecrease? Did any of those involved even know the name Battlecrease then, or that this used to be the name of the house the diary came from, or that this house belonged to James Maybrick in Jack the Ripper's time? Why would they have told Mike any of this anyway, if they just wanted to offload a bit of stolen property onto him for a small amount of dosh? He'd have been left to work it out for himself, just as he was left to work out what the diary was all about. Even when he must have suspected where it had really come from, he wasn't going to talk and lose any claim he otherwise had to a potentially priceless document.

And not only does he tell this sophisticated lie, but lo and behold he produces some research notes which show that he has been researching the Diary since August 1991, about seven months before anyone knew it even existed, without a single clue for ages that it had anything to do with Battlecrease and James Maybrick!!

Which 'show' or which 'prove', David? This is rather an important distinction when we are talking about Mike. It's hardly the equivalent of Dr Shipman's computer time and date-stamped tamperings with his victims' medical records, is it?

No documented evidence of any research going on during those seven months is not all that different from no documented evidence that no research was going on, in terms of how sophisticated a lie this would have had to be for Mike to maintain. How does one show, or prove, that Mike did not go to the library and make all sorts of notes before March 1992? Yet it ought to have been easy enough to find some witness evidence if he spent more than a few days doing just that.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

And you want irony? Surely the irony here is that, for years, the Diary’s detractors have been suggesting that Mike's research notes were fake and that Anne's story, and her father's story, about the Diary being her family for years and her giving it to Tony Devereux is false. Such claims have been vigorously resisted by the 'Diary Team' but now we are presumably to be told, oh well, actually the detractors were right, the research notes are faked and Anne's story is all rubbish. But, hey, it's okay, we've found a timesheet.

I don't know who you include in your 'Diary Team' or what your definition of 'for years' is, but certainly you won't find me, Robert Smith or Keith Skinner 'vigorously resisting' at any time over the last thirteen years the suggestion that Devereux never had the diary.

Why don't you wait for next month, instead of making sarcastic remarks which, if there is any justice, will come back to bite you in the bum?

There is no 'team'; just individual researchers with varying beliefs, who have mostly been beavering away independently of one another behind the scenes for many, many years, in their efforts to uncover the truth, whatever that may prove to be. You can sneer your head off, but I have known most of these people personally for years and you do them - and ultimately yourself - a grave disservice with your smart remarks and dismissive attitude.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Interested to read Caz's response.

Are you, Henry? Are you really?

You got it.

Love,

Caz
X

[David Orsam]

Here's a question:

Who, other than the literary agent, did Mike Barrett "blab" to about the diary between 9th March and 13th April 1992? If no-one, does that show he was perfectly capable of keeping a secret?

But if he wasn't capable of keeping a secret, and spoke to no-one else about the diary between 9th March and 13th April 1992, does that mean that the diary was only completed (i.e. forged) shortly before 13th April?

[David Orsam]

Of course, as everyone knows, there is not a shred of evidence that Mike blabbed about the diary to anyone prior to 9th March 1992.

Well, except to his daughter, Caroline, of course.

According to Feldman, in the presence of Paul Begg and Martin Howells, the following occurred:

"Paul and Martin were relentless. The poor kid [Caroline] had barely sat down in the car when they started a cross examination. 'Do you remember when your dad came home with the diary? Do you remember whether your dad phoned Tony and asked him where he got the diary from? Do you remember the row when your dad told your mum he was going to it published?'…Caroline remembered clearly the day her dad came home with the diary. She remembered her dad pestering Tony, and she could not forget the row between her mother and father. Caroline told the truth; that is all a kid of eleven can do."

Now, that is curious because Tony (Devereux) died in August 1991. How did Caroline recall her dad pestering Tony about the Diary at least seven months before he even knew of its existence? Or did Mike speak to dead people? Or was it a physical impossibility?

Some people might call what Caroline told Paul Feldman, Paul Begg and Martin Howells "evidence" that Mike was in possession of the Diary prior to March 1992, and some people clearly have done, but now it doesn't fit the new theory it can be safely discarded and forgotten about as if it never existed.

[David Orsam]

I must say, I feel very sorry for all those who have ordered this new book expecting to find all the answers in there upon its publication on the 4th September. Apparently, they will now have to wait until the 22nd September AND travel to Liverpool to hear what the panel members have to say before they actually learn something. Makes me wonder why all the relevant information is not (apparently) going to be included in the book but I suppose that is the 'Diary Team' for you!

[David Orsam]

Perhaps I haven't made myself clear to everyone. We need to know what the facts about these so called 'research notes' are. If they were typed we need to know it. If they were re-typed we need know it. If Shirley's memory was in a muddle in 1997 and/or 2003 that is one thing but what is the actual answer? What we don't need is uninformed speculation from someone who knows nothing about it.

What we also need to see is to see these notes in full because, in view of a forthcoming claim that the Diary was only found on 9 March 1992, it is essential that any potentially conflicting evidence is produced so that it is possible to consider the new evidence in the wider context. This evidence should not any longer be withheld for no apparent good reason. And a full explanation as to what is known about the way the notes were prepared should be provided. What we cannot have is two different explanations on the record.

All that should be perfectly obvious and require no explanation from me.

[David Orsam]

If the two individuals who are supposed to have found the Diary in Battlecrease are denying that they found any such thing it is going to be a little bit difficult to establish what they told Mike Barrett when they spoke to him, if they, in fact, ever met the man and gave him anything.

But it is rather hard to believe that that they did not tell him where it came from at the time. Well the whole thing is rather hard to believe. In Shirley's 2003 book we are told that one employee of Portus and Rhodes recalls picking up two employees from Battlecrease "At the end of one day" at which time one of them said "I've found something under the floor boards. I think it could be important". Well if it's the "end of the day" that they emerged from Battlecrease (and perhaps the timesheets will tell us the exact time they finished work), are we expected to believe they met up with Mike Barrett in a pub in Anfield, gave or sold him the diary, without telling him where they got it, and then he was able to get back home in time to look up the telephone number of the Robert Crew Literary Agency, call them and manage to speak to an assistant who was in the office? Was that person working late? And the impression we get from Inside Story is that Barrett rang back later that same day when he spoke to Doreen Montgomery.

Anyway, it all leads to another interesting paradox. If Mike Barrett wasn't told that the Diary came from Battlecrease did he manage to work out the Maybrick connection all by himself? Is this reflected in his 'research notes' of which we've never been allowed to glimpse more than a few sentences?

So does this mean he really DID spend time in Liverpool library researching the diary between 9th March and 13th April? It should of course be easy enough to find witness evidence of Mike doing some intense research during this period, er, if you are the police and have plenty of resources to spend time questioning people at the library, because it's in no way twisted logic to suggest that the absence of such evidence means that Barrett wasn't there.

[David Orsam]

It is time to make public why the diary team is confident it is a genuine Victorian document.

Now, why would anyone posting in this thread think that there is a "diary team"? I just can't work it out.

(I've always said my posts are worth repeating.)

[David Orsam]

I suppose that Shirley Harrison never bothered to ask Mike for his original handwritten research notes because these were obviously so unimportant as she had Anne's re-typed (or is that just typed?) and tidied up version of those notes. Yes, just a small oversight on her part, despite the fact that these notes were so important to her belief in the authenticity of the Diary, and, of course, the original notes were never destroyed, it's just that no-one has apparently ever seen them or knows where they are or what happened to them.

[Observer]

Some months ago someone mentioned over on the other Maybrick thread, I can't find the post at the moment, that there was going to be a revelation which would point to the Diary as having came out of Batlecrease House. I said at the time that I'd hope it wouldn't involve the two electricians who claimed to have found it under the floorboards, as said revelation would soon come a cropper. Paul Feldman's book on the whole is pure fantasy, but it does have some decent reference material. Paul Feldman had dealings with the two gentlemen in question, and soon saw through the scam in which they would "confess" to him that they did indeed find the Diary insde Battlecrease House.

[Observer]

Don't know what happened there, my post went off without me finishing it. To continue.

The two electricians, as I said would "confess" to having found the Diary inside Battlecrease House for a certain fee. Feldman who was no mug where money is concerned decided to call their bluff, and he approached Mr Dodd, the then owner of Battlecrease House. He suggested to Mr Dodd that he was in effect the owner of the Diary, and if he would accept five per cent of the Diaries worth would he not contest it's ownership. Mr Dodd consented to this deal, and so Paul Feldman approached Mike Barrett, and told him that an electrician was claiming the Diary was found by him under the floorboards of Battlecrease House, however the owner of the house was willing to not contest ownership, if he received five per cent of it's worth. Mike Barrett's reply was "Tell him to F off, it didn't come out of the house". Mike Barrett, then visited one of the electricians and told him he was lying, and he could sing for his money.

Paul Feldman thoughts on the matter were these

"My worst fear had been realised. My contact, and his fellow electrician would lie for the right price. I was no nearer the truth".

Seems a bit strange that 25 years after this incident took place, there are those who would cite this incident as being "proof" that the Diary came out of Battlecrease House.

[Yabs]

I think the diary possibly did belong to Maybrick.
I also think it could have been found during the refurbishments at battlecrease.
It's also possible that at some point the diary got in the hands of some bright spark that had the idea to remove anything Maybrick wrote, and in the remaining pages give him a whole new story.