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

[StevenOwl]

To use one of my ex husband's lovely mother-in-law's expressions, I've got "fun up me 'ole" this week.

Heh heh, you certainly have.

[caz]

How silly of me not to think that when, during a "relentless" cross-examination by Paul Begg and Martin Howells, Caroline Barrett was asked if she remembered her father speaking to Tony, she got confused and thought they were asking if he had been speaking to one of the electricians. Naturally it didn't occur to her that they were asking her about the late Tony Devereux, her father's friend. Why would it?

But Martin Howells had already been told by Mike about his conversation with Tony that Caroline was supposed to have overheard. According to "Inside Story", Mike had said in respect of having received the Diary from Devereux in May or June 1991:

"So I come home that day and when I come home Caroline is in the room with me. And I skipped through the pages and I come to the last page, but it's not the last page, because there's no last page, you know there's "Jack the Ripper," and I thought what the f@cking hell are you playing at? So I phoned him [Devereux] immediately and said "Come on Tony, tell me the truth, what are you playing at?"

In other words, Howells (and no doubt Begg too) was asking Caroline about this specific incident. It would be a remarkable amount of confusion if they managed to mess up the questioning about it so that Caroline didn't know quite what she was being asked to remember.

And how odd it would be for Mike to have conjured up a fabulous cover story about him having been researching the Diary for months, with 'research notes' in support of the cover story, and for him then to have inserted Caroline into the picture (when all she could have remembered was a conversation with an electrician in March 1992) and allowed her to be "cross-examined" about it when none of it was true and without having ensured that she would remain on message.

But of course he probably knew she would be confused and would remember his conversation with the electrician, thinking it was Tony, even though he had been dead for seven months!

I don't think so somehow but the desperate attempt to try and shift Caroline's story into being consistent with the "Battlecrease under the floorboards" story suggests to me that some people are already running scared.

No, it's just you, David, catching yourself in the mirror.

You sound for all the world like you are making an argument for Mike's original story to have been far too complex and sophisticated for it to have been a lie fashioned from the truth and stuck with until he decided more than two years later to claim it had all been bollocks, including what Caroline thought she had witnessed. She evidently didn't recall witnessing her Mum and Dad actually writing out the diary, or if she did she was presumably threatened with some dire punishment if she ever mentioned that.

Here are the options again:

A) Did Caroline witness her Dad on the phone pestering Tony Devereux for information about the diary in the May or June of 1991?

B) Did she witness her Dad on the phone pestering someone else for information about the diary in the March or April of 1992?

C) Did she witness her Dad and Mum transferring the diary text into the guardbook between the end of March and April 13th 1992?

D) Is there a D?

Assuming you haven't had a sudden change of mind [which would be totally hilarious but adorable], you don't believe A), do you? So one way or another you believe Mike twisted the truth and was able to manipulate his daughter so she would recall something you never believed actually happened.

Or did you forget that?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

The truly wonderful thing about Mike Barrett's typewritten 'research notes' is that there is a THIRD version as to their genesis.

According to "Inside Story", Mike's original notes "were scribbled in his own bad handwriting all over the place".

Your thinking is 'all over the place' too, David.

IIRC that's pretty much what I suggested here, isn't it? Assuming he didn't transport his word processor to the library, I imagine his options would have been somewhat limited.

Then we are told:

"He claims

[my emphasis]

to have bought the word processor second-hand to input the notes, Anne showing him how to use the keyboard and correcting his spelling."

Again, I believe I suggested the possibility that Mike tried to type up his own notes. As you ought to be able to imagine by now, what Mike claimed and what we can really know are two different things.

Whether Anne's assistance in showing Mike how to use the keyboard and correcting his spelling is the equivalent of her typing, or re-typing or collating or tidying up those notes, as variously told to us by Shirley Harrison, is something that quite obviously needs to be clarified.

So no email to Keith yet then? What have you been doing with yourself? My uninformed speculation, that Anne may have re-typed Mike's attempts at typing up his own notes, cut no ice with you, so I'm not sure what you expect to gain from repeating yourself silly unless it's to put everyone else here into a coma.

And for anyone who is deluded enough to think that Mike's 'research notes' were not destroyed, we find that Barrett told Keith Skinner (according to "Inside Story"):

“He didn’t, he says,

[again, my emphasis]

keep the hand written notes.”

So they WERE destroyed and it's a mystery why anyone who is supposed to know the facts might have suggested otherwise.

It's a mystery why someone like you, David, who is supposed to be so good at absorbing facts, can so quickly forget that a) what Mike said happened is not necessarily what did happen and b) you were lecturing me only the other day on the vast difference between 'destroying' handwritten notes and merely consigning them to the waste paper basket. Since when does 'not keeping' handwritten notes imply that they were 'destroyed' rather than thrown away for the dustman to collect? And why are you suddenly relying on Mike's word for what may or may not have become of them anyway?

Have you found anything at all to suggest that Mike used the word 'destroyed', or meant 'destroyed' by saying he didn't keep them? I don't mind in the least if you have, because I can't keep every blessed little detail in my head at all times and he was nothing if not the male equivalent of a drama queen, and 'destroyed' does give the wonderful impression of a man with something nasty in the woodshed to hide, doesn't it?

But what is clear is that it is not only highly frustrating that Mike's surviving 'research notes' have not been produced in full to public scrutiny but it is utterly incomprehensible that this has not already been done.

Oh I don't know. Could it be that Shirley doesn't post here and may have no idea who you are and would be horrified at the thought of trying to relieve a complete stranger's frustration in public?

Of course, if she knew you were asking and why you were asking, and if you could bring yourself to ask her politely, via an email sent to Keith Skinner, who knows? You might find yourself making some progress. I don't think I have any current contact details for our Shirl, but I wouldn't want to do the job for you in any case and make you feel totally impotent.

Or perhaps that's not what this is all really about?

Love,

Caz
X

[David Orsam]

It occurs to me that when I speak of being frustrated at not being able to see the full set of Mike Barrett's 'research notes', the first thought that might pop into some sick people's heads, by way of twisted Freudian word association, is sexual frustration and perhaps they themselves are wholly sexually frustrated, I have no idea, although it would not surprise me, but the kind of frustration I am actually referring to is that of the researcher who is not allowed to see all the available documentation that might assist in forming a conclusion about a certain matter. I trust that clarifies the issue for anyone who might be in any doubt.

[David Orsam]

Now, let's see if it is possible to work out what happened to Mike Barrett's handwritten 'research' notes.

Mike said he didn't keep them.

They have never been seen by anyone else in 25 years.

No-one knows where they are.

I think it is safe to say that those notes were destroyed.

Oh hold on, perhaps they were merely thrown away for the dustman to collect which obviously means they were not destroyed, just kept safely for posterity in a landfill waste disposal site in a huge pile of rubbish.

Nothing sinister going on here, despite the fact that we are told that Mike's notes were actually part of a fake cover story designed to show that he had been researching the Diary for months in Liverpool Library when, in reality, he'd only had it in his possession for a few weeks at the time he was supposed to have created them. So no reason for him to destroy those original notes at all.

Perhaps it is about time that the version that was typed by Mike, with spelling mistakes corrected by Anne, then typed or re-typed by Anne, then collated by Anne then tidied up by Anne, then (apparently) added to by Shirley Harrison, is finally produced for public inspection.

[David Orsam]

Thinking about it, I suppose that if I was in contact with Keith Skinner I could ask him some of the questions I have asked on this forum – if I was being so forward, and indeed rude, to put him on the spot in a private email – but I'm not in contact with Keith Skinner. In fact, I'm absolutely certain I have never once mentioned on this forum being in contact with Keith Skinner. Just like I have never mentioned on this forum being in private contact with ANYONE outside this forum. Not that it's anyone's business whether I am in contact with Keith Skinner or not. But I am not. So, as I'm not in contact with Keith Skinner, I haven't asked Keith Skinner about Mike's 'research' notes and, even if I was in contact with Keith Skinner, which I'm not, I probably wouldn't ask him any such questions because I don't want private information that I can't talk about (not that that is anyone else's business either); I want these questions answered publicly, not for myself or my own personal interest, but in the interests of all researchers and people who are interested in the origins of the Diary.

[David Orsam]

Ho hum, I suppose I should make it clear to anyone in this thread deluded or egotistical enough to think that I am addressing them, that all my posts (unless specifically addressed to an individual), and all my requests for these 'research' notes, are addressed to everyone and no-one in particular. If no-one reads and responds then so be it. That is up to them. The 'Diary Team', whoever they may be, can do as they wish. But I would suggest that it is both disgraceful and incomprehensible from a researcher's point of view that a full copy of the 'research' notes has never been made publicly available. It naturally makes me wonder what is being hidden.

[David Orsam]

As for the explanation as to how and when Mike Barrett's 'research' notes were created, it is for Shirley Harrison, and her alone, to explain why she has categorically stated that the notes were created in a certain way and at a certain time if her only information about them came from someone she knew to be an unreliable source. I think that she personally needs to clarify what she knows about them in view of the inconsistent statements that have been made on this subject. Again, whether she does so is entirely up to her and whether she even knows I am asking is something that is not known by me at all. Just like I have no idea how or whether she managed to put her own information and input into those notes.

[David Orsam]

The Current State of Knowledge

On the current state of knowledge and information, by which I mean publicly available information, I would suggest that the best argument for the Diary being old (and thus genuine) is undoubtedly the evidence of Anne Barrett that the Diary was in her family for generations, as corroborated by Billy Graham, and that she gave it to Mike via Tony Devereux in 1991 as corroborated by Mike himself initially and their eleven year old daughter, supported by the evidence of Mike's 'research' notes.

If, however, all this was complete fabrication – a tissue of lies – then the only reasonable conclusion on the basis of the currently available information is that the Diary is a modern forgery, as supported by the results of Dr Baxendale's solubility test, by Mike's purchase of a Victorian diary with blank pages in March 1992, by the unhistorical phrases in the text and, with allowances for some bad memory (or what might be referred to as "a Shirley Harrison type muddle"), by Mike Barrett's affidavit of 5 Jan 1995.

The idea, as reported in certain newspapers, that the Diary was found by electricians under the floorboards on 9th March 1992 is a total non-starter at the moment bearing in mind that we don't know if the electricians were working in Battlecrease House on other days in March 1992, and, indeed, during February and/or April 1992 either. If they were, it would make timesheet evidence that they were in there on 9 March of such little value as not even being worthy of consideration.

[Abby Normal]

I want to make this perfectly clear, as David has brought it up and I think it very important to the subject, that I am NOT sexually frustrated, at least at this point in time, and any frustration that I have exhibited in this thread in no way, shape or form has any thing to do with sexual frustration, nor with the Rolling Stones classic hit of 1965 (I Can't Get NO) Satisfaction. Quite the opposite in fact-I am VERY sexually satisfied. In fact, I cant keep my wife's hands off me! Bless her heart.

I think this is a very important point that everyone involved in this thread needs to come clean where they stand on this issue, INCLUDING the "Diary Team". Also, It would be very helpful if everyone gives there specific reasons why they are or are not (please include graphic details).

Please also include whether you like the Rolling Stones classic hit of 1965 (I Can't Get NO) Satisfaction and if you think lead singer Mick Jagger really meant it, or was just kidding. (he must have just been being sarcastic right? I mean, a big rock star like that? He must have been getting more ass than a toilet seat, right??)

No harm was intended to anyone in this thread who actually is or is not sexually frustrated or to Mick Jagger and apologies to anyone who is offended by this post, including the "Diary Team".

I look forward to the responses and Happy Friday.

[GUT]

O.K. I admit it I am normally (maybe constantly) sexually frustrated. But then I've been married a looooooooong time,

[Abby Normal]

O.K. I admit it I am normally (maybe constantly) sexually frustrated. But then I've been married a looooooooong time,

Appreciate the honesty Gut-best of luck.

[c.d.]

Why thank you kindly, Steven. You're a wise owl for noticing.

To use one of my ex husband's lovely mother-in-law's expressions, I've got "fun up me 'ole" this week.

Love,

Caz
X

Hello Caz,

To what exactly does the "one" refer to in that sentence? Numerous ex husband's or expressions? Not quite clear.

c.d.

[John G]

I want to make this perfectly clear, as David has brought it up and I think it very important to the subject, that I am NOT sexually frustrated, at least at this point in time, and any frustration that I have exhibited in this thread in no way, shape or form has any thing to do with sexual frustration, nor with the Rolling Stones classic hit of 1965 (I Can't Get NO) Satisfaction. Quite the opposite in fact-I am VERY sexually satisfied. In fact, I cant keep my wife's hands off me! Bless her heart.

I think this is a very important point that everyone involved in this thread needs to come clean where they stand on this issue, INCLUDING the "Diary Team". Also, It would be very helpful if everyone gives there specific reasons why they are or are not (please include graphic details).

Please also include whether you like the Rolling Stones classic hit of 1965 (I Can't Get NO) Satisfaction and if you think lead singer Mick Jagger really meant it, or was just kidding. (he must have just been being sarcastic right? I mean, a big rock star like that? He must have been getting more ass than a toilet seat, right??)

No harm was intended to anyone in this thread who actually is or is not sexually frustrated or to Mick Jagger and apologies to anyone who is offended by this post, including the "Diary Team".

I look forward to the responses and Happy Friday.

The Rolling Stones are still one of my favourite bands; and I'm generally frustrated about most things, including this thread at the moment!

[Observer]

The Evening News on 8 September 1888 reported "In the dress of the dead woman two farthings were found, so brightly polished as to lead to the belief that they were intended to be passed as half sovereigns, and it is probable that they were given to her by the murderer as an inducement for her to accompany him.” Other newspapers reported the same.

As I recall, if the diary was a creation of the 1990s then its author would most probably have been sufficiently well-informed to have accepted the then common belief that the farthings were a fiction. And if he was reading McCormick and the hard-to-find Casebook by Whittington-Egan, then it's likely that he would have been fairly well-read and well-informed. It was further argued that someone well-informed about the Ripper probably wouldn't have referenced McCormick's "Eight Little Whores" either.

When Mike Barrett was first visited by Paul Feldman he was clearly anxious to secure his rights to the diary by claiming that he had read widely and had thus been able to identify Maybrick as the author, but it was obvious that his knowledge of Maybrick and the Ripper wasn't considerable at all. It was doubted that he had the knowledge, small as it might be, to write the diary. This was among the reasons which suggested that Mike was not the author of the diary.

Let me first say that I believe the Diary, initially, began life as a work of fiction. Indeed after it's completion it was still being regarded as a work of fiction by it's authors. Initially it was not intended to deceive. It's my contention that not only did Mike, and Anne Barrett have access to Whittington-Egan's "A Casebook on Jack The Ripper", they also had access to Whittington-Egan's Liverpool series book, "Tales Of Liverpool Murder Mystery and Mayhem".

Authors who base works of fiction on true life events invariably take liberties with the truth. I believe this is what happened with the Diary.

The "hard to find" A Casebook On Jack The Ripper, was in my local Library in the early nineties, it is a standard book on Jack The Ripper, and I'll bet my bottom dollar that it was in Liverpool Central Library in the late eighties/early nineties. I'd also bet my bottom dollar that Whittington-Egan's book "Murder Mystery Mayhem" being a book devoted to murder mystery, and mayhem in the environs of Liverpool was in Liverpool Central at the time stipulated above. Whittington-Egan's book, of course, features the Maybrick murder. I'd say the two books sat next to each other on the shelves of the true crime section of the library, and I contend that Mike Barrett used both of these book to concoct the Diary in question.

Mike Barrett was a fantasist, fantasists make good novelists. Mike Barrett I believe is on record as describing himself as an author.

I knew a man, long gone now, who worked in a bus depot, his job was to hose down the buses at the end of the day. He wasn't too bright, God bless him, and I doubt whether he knew one end of the hose from the other, but what a fantasist. He was the first man to sail around the World single-handed. He was a founder member of the Hells Angels movement, and he would show you a hand made tattoo, a cross between a dagger, and a rubber chicken in appearance, with the word DETH beneath it. This he said was his initiation tattoo. He was in the jungle during WW2, and his role was to seek out Japanese snipers. One sniper in particular was of significance to him for when he inspected the dead sniper, and going through the man's wallet he found a photograph of himself with Japanese script below it. When the scipt was translated by an officer who spoke the language, it read " Get this man at all cost". There are many more tales I could recount, far more outrageous then the ones stated above, but you get the idea. If this man had sought out someone who could have turned his fantasies into a book, then James Thurber's book would pale into insignificance.

What prompted Mike Barrett to consider Jack The Ripper, as a suitable subject to concoct a story which became "The Diary Of Jack Thje Ripper"? I believe the media coverage during the centenary of the crimes in 1988 was in all probability the culprit. It's possible he took Whittington-Egan's book on JTR out on loan from Liverpool Central Library, and then seeing "Murder Mystery Mayhem" also read that one. He then linked the two. I believe his wife also had a hand in this endeavour

Regarding your assertion that Mike Barrett had very little knowledge of the JTR or Maybrick cases, I'd say this. Why did he need to show that he had a good working knowledge of the cases in his head? He'd already written the Diary using works of reference. What I'm saying is he was not a devotee of the cases, and after he had written the Diary his memory did not retain detailed knowledge of the cases.