One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[caz]

Time for what Caroline Brown likes to call "housekeeping."

Tom tells us--no, not tells us---he literally shouts it in upper-case letters--that the Barretts had no money motive because they were NOT struggling financially.





I'd be interested in knowing, then, why the authors of Ripper Diary: The Inside Story seem to be saying something quite different:

"After Maggie's death [1 Jan 1988 for y'all at home] Anne wanted to move near her father, who would now be alone. Consequently, they moved across the city and bought 12 Goldie Street, exchanging a low housing association rent for a large mortgage (and a deposit of £600)."


"Not only was there now a 'crippling' financial pressure but Barrett was not happy in the new neighbourhood."

I won't color-code that, Ike, nor put it in size 18 font, but I will repeat it:

'crippling financial pressure'

So, let's have it, Tom. Were the authors--apparently working with Anne Graham---wrong in stating Barrett was under 'crippling' financial pressure during this era?

What was this windfall of cash and where did it come from that the Barretts were now on Easy Street in 1991/1992? Barrett was still unemployed, wasn't he?

Another red herring, this financial motive argument.

How is it evidence that Mike was planning to fake this diary, as opposed to seeing it down the pub, reading the name at the end and seeing the same pound signs light up before his eyes, only much faster and demanding almost no effort?

Palmer appears to imagine that only people who are not comfortably off financially have a motive to commit crimes such as fraud or theft.

I hate to disabuse anyone of such a quaint notion, but I really don't need to, in the face of a wealth of evidence that the world is full of rich rogues seeking to become ever richer while the poor get poorer. How wealthy does someone have to be, to be cleared of having any potential motive to increase their wealth, by fair means or foul?

[Iconoclast]

What was this windfall of cash and where did it come from that the Barretts were now on Easy Street in 1991/1992? Barrett was still unemployed, wasn't he?

He was AS unemployed in 1992 as he was when he signed up to his "crippling" mortgage in 1989 so this begs the question of how they managed to get by for three long, gulag-like years until finally Barrett snapped and decided to create the hoax to end all hoaxes despite having no priors in that game.

He was also prone to a spot of drama and - if he had said to Shirley that they had "crippling" mortgage debt when in reality they didn't - I'm not sure why his co-author would not simply accept that and mention it in the book that ended-up being hers and hers only. It wouldn't make it true but at that time she wouldn't know nor need to care.

By the way, I've never seen any evidence that Mike Barrett ever made a mortgage payment in his life. On the other hand, I've seen Anne Barrett's bank statement from May 1992 and it shows the payment of a loan to the tune of £107.56 which is about what I would expect their mortgage to be for a house of that value in 1989. I bought my first flat in December 1989 for £30,000 and the monthly payment was a bit more than this but not much more so I have the overwhelming suspicion that that £107.56 per month was the value of the Barrett mortgage which was comfortably covered by Anne's salary which was also shown on the statement (never mind Mike's disability allowance). Interest rates went through the roof around May 1989 but - if they were sensible - they'd have been on a fixed-rate mortgage. Mrs Iconoclast had a £25,000 mortgage when first we got together (by coincidence, May 1992) and she was paying around £150 per month.

Barrett may have had a mortgage but I suspect it was his wife whose cash was funding it ...

[Iconoclast]

What is your source for the Barretts buying the house in 1989?
The relevant passage in Ripper Diary seems to imply that it was in 1988--but it's a little vague.
Do you have a 'hard date' for the actual purchase date?
Thanks.

I would have to ask Keith, Caroline, or Seth (or anyone else who knows better than I) as I can't recall the specific reason for thinking it was 1989. Off the top of my head, I have to assume it was because the Williams were registered at 12 Goldie Street in the 1988 electoral register and the Barretts in the 1989 one, but clearly the Barretts could have moved in between the publication of the 1988 electoral register and the end of that year.

[rjpalmer]

He was also prone to a spot of drama and - if he had said to Shirley that they had "crippling" mortgage debt when in reality they didn't - I'm not sure why his co-author would not simply accept that and mention it in the book that ended-up being hers and hers only. It wouldn't make it true but at that time she wouldn't know nor need to care.

Who mentioned Shirley Harrison? Why are you implying this was a lie told by Mike Barrett to Shirley?

My source for the Barretts being under "crippling financial pressure" is Morris, Linder, and Skinner--I stated that quite plainly in my post--and they were presumably supplied that information by Anne Graham.

I don't think your readers will appreciate the old "switcheroo," Ike.

If it was indeed Anne that gave this account, what possible reason would she have had for lying about their financial status?

But anyway, thanks for admitting that you don't actually know that the Barrett's bought the house in 1989 and thus your mortgage musings are irrelevant. We need precise data.

[caz]

Thanks, Ike, for transferring the onus onto yourself, but you spectacularly miss the point.

There is no need for you to do so--it is up to me to prove my case, just as it is up to you to prove yours.

Just as it is up to Caz to prove that Eddie Lyons stole the Diary of Jack the Ripper from under Paul Dodd's floorboards, fenced it to a stranger, and then lied about it.

The difference here is that I am not trying to prove this and am not nearly naive enough to think I could ever open a closed mind and hope to change it, even if we had the equivalent of DNA evidence. There is always wriggle room for those who have invested more time and effort in following their fixed beliefs than in an unbiased assessment of all the evidence in context. All I need do is sit tight and watch others as they carry on failing to put meat on the bare bones of 'auction theory'. If they don't have a prayer of doing it, that's their concern. The evidence for the "old book" coming out of Battlecrease is not going away, and will still be sitting there rock solid long after I'm gone, telling its own story.

But, just for fun, let me dismantle your facile arguments.


1) The obvious one - they had no motive.

Barrett was unemployed, living off a tiny disability check, and had new mortgage payments since moving to Goldie Street. That's motive.

Once accepted, the Diary had pre-orders in the tens of thousands, became a bestseller, and has been translated into multiple languages.

Money is a motive.

But money is always a potential motive, even for the richest man on earth.

It was an obvious motive for Mike, regardless of whether he faked the diary over two or three years and then had to wait another 18 months to see if it would even be publishable, or immediately saw its potential one day in March 1992 and swiftly purloined it.

Money tells us nothing we didn't already know.

Moving swiftly on to number 3...

3) Neither had any known track record whatsoever of attempting such a feat before....

Really, Ike, is this the best you got? Timothy McVeigh had no 'track record' of blowing up buildings, does that make him innocent of bombing the Oklahoma City Federal Building? Barrett had a 'track record' of purse snatching and assault--which is far worse than a literary hoax.

What relevance does any of this have to the complete absence of any 'previous' for creating literary hoaxes - or even for so much as attempted cheque forgery? If money was too tight to mention, and Mike needed it quickly and didn't care how he got it, why the flipping heck would he embark on a plan that would take time, effort, research and basic literacy skills - none of which he was blessed with and he knew it - without a clue if he could even recover the expenses involved? I should think blowing up buildings, bombing, purse snatching and assault would all be doddles by comparison - undoubtedly 'worse' than pulling off a literary hoax at the first attempt, but that only emphasises the gulf between those types of offence - and highlights the much closer link between a purse snatched by an opportunist thief and, erm, help me out here - no - it'll come to me in a second - ah yes, a potentially priceless old book snatched by an opportunist with a record for theft.

[Iconoclast]

Who mentioned Shirley Harrison? Why are you implying this was a lie told by Mike Barrett to Shirley?

Because it was very likely a lie (or at least a line) that Mike fed to Shirley. You don't know, I don't know, but I know what I suspect was the case, and it wasn't that Anne claimed it because - to my knowledge - she never did.

My source for the Barretts being under "crippling financial pressure" is Morris, Linder, and Skinner--I stated that quite plainly in my post--and they were presumably supplied that information by Anne Graham.

It all sounded so categorical until you slipped in that pesky little 'presumably'. Where did you get your source that it was 'presumably' Anne Graham? Why have you decided to exclude the far more likely candidate, that utter gobshite Mike Barrett?

I don't think your readers will appreciate the old "switcheroo," Ike.

When I attempt one, I'm sure they'll let me know.

If it was indeed Anne that gave this account, what possible reason would she have had for lying about their financial status?

Dear readers, please feel free to look up the meaning of the word 'if'.

But anyway, thanks for admitting that you don't actually know that the Barrett's bought the house in 1989 and thus your mortgage musings are irrelevant. We need precise data.

I love the way you rubbish a conclusion you don't like on the basis of an irrelevant detail. We saw it recently with - I think - your attempted dismissal of the March 9, 1992 miracle, and now we see it again. The Barretts clearly acquired a mortgage at some point in 1988 or 1989. I think everyone else worked that out from my original comment. I find your attempt to worm your way out of an awkward one frankly rather embarrassing.

[Iconoclast]

[From Caz.] What relevance does any of this have to the complete absence of any 'previous' for creating literary hoaxes - or even for so much as attempted cheque forgery? If money was too tight to mention, and Mike needed it quickly and didn't care how he got it, why the flipping heck would he embark on a plan that would take time, effort, research and basic literacy skills - none of which he was blessed with and he knew it - without a clue if he could even recover the expenses involved? I should think blowing up buildings, bombing, purse snatching and assault would all be doddles by comparison - undoubtedly 'worse' than pulling off a literary hoax at the first attempt, but that only emphasises the gulf between those types of offence - and highlights the much closer link between a purse snatched by an opportunist thief and, erm, help me out here - no - it'll come to me in a second - ah yes, a potentially priceless old book snatched by an opportunist with a record for theft.

Dear readers, please absorb this and think deeply - perhaps for the first time in the case of some of you - regarding the consequences of believing that Michael Barrett, failed 'journalist', man in a hurry for cash, had conceived of and executed the brilliant hoax that ended-up making so much money and for rendering walls near Goldie Street, Liverpool, unlickable.

... why the flipping heck would he embark on a plan that would take time, effort, research and basic literacy skills - none of which he was blessed with and he knew it - without a clue if he could even recover the expenses involved?

It's such a simple question, but have you ever stopped to ask yourself it or do you just blindly go on believing the nonsense theory of two men with no evidence to support it?

Try the question a different way. Imagine you have taken on a mortgage and soon realised that you were out of your depth financially. Imagine this was true (not simply made up) and you genuinely had to generate some money quickly to pay the mortgage. Imagine that your partner was not working and earning more than enough to cover the mortgage themselves.

Now imagine what you would do about it. What would you do to bridge the gap in your finances?

Presumably you'd be looking for a quick return as presumably each month's payment was getting harder and harder to find.

What's that you say? "What would you do, Ike?". Well, it's an excellent question, thank you, dear reader. What I would do is seek a longer term for my mortgage in order to reduce the monthly repayments. I would also seek to re-mortgage in order to reduce the payments. I would inform my bank who might allow me a mortgage holiday. I would sit down with my partner and work out which 'luxuries' (excluding alcohol, obviously) we could cut back on to free up more cash to meet the mortgage payment. I would go to Citizen's Advice and ask if there was any government support available. I would check with the Job Centre to see if there was any work I could do despite my disability. I would ask my partner if she could find better-paid work. I would turn to my relatives and ask them if they could loan me some money.

At the end of trying all of that, if I still could see no end in sight, I would look at the possibility of downsizing (hard, given what they'd bought, but not impossible) in order to reduce the mortgage payments; or seek help from the council to see if we could secure affordable housing through them (and selling the house).

I'd do all of these things before it ever entered my head to - how did Caz put it?

... why the flipping heck would he embark on a plan that would take time, effort, research and basic literacy skills - none of which he was blessed with and he knew it - without a clue if he could even recover the expenses involved?

So which of us seriously thinks Michael Barrett was actually in debt and was unable to pay his mortgage despite there being no evidence to support this (and some evidence to the contrary) and that - in order to get himself quickly out of the mire - decided to write a hoaxed 'diary' of Jack the Ripper targeting as implausible a foil as it was possible to muster and thought that the money would come rolling-in quickly enough to save the family home and all of this in the face of the terrible dangers of he or he and his partner being charged with fraud, serving time, and losing their precious daughter who was just 10 years old at the time?

Not I for one.

And you shouldn't either.

None of you.

Not one (but sadly that is not possible).

[rjpalmer]

It all sounded so categorical until you slipped in that pesky little 'presumably'. Where did you get your source that it was 'presumably' Anne Graham? Why have you decided to exclude the far more likely candidate, that utter gobshite Mike Barrett?

What a bizarre question.

It might have something to do with one of the co-authors of that book, Caz, stating every five minutes that nothing Mike Barrett ever says can be trusted.

Are you suggesting that she, Keith Skinner, and Seth Linder entirely abandoned that advice and stated as a fact that the Barretts were in "crippling financial pressure" based on nothing more than the word of Mike Bongo Barrett, without any attempt to confirm it with Anne (who they were in contact with while writing the book) or some other documentation?

Were Mike and Anne feeding off champagne and oysters in 1991-1992, and cruising around in a Bentley, and we've been misinformed?

Again, why you are inserting Harrison into this conversation and implying it was a lie Barrett told her?

If you refer to the relevant passage on page 153 of Ripper Diary, it would seem that the immediate source was not Harrison, as you gratuitously speculate, but something Mike claimed in the still off-limits Barrett/Gray tapes, and we can only hope was confirmed by other sources.

Since you are exchanging posts at this very moment with one of the co-authors, why don't you simply cut to the chase and ask her what her source was--and if she still stands by what was written--instead of speculating?

Why is this so difficult?

[rjpalmer]

Another red herring, this financial motive argument.

How is it evidence that Mike was planning to fake this diary, as opposed to seeing it down the pub, reading the name at the end and seeing the same pound signs light up before his eyes, only much faster and demanding almost no effort?

Palmer appears to imagine that only people who are not comfortably off financially have a motive to commit crimes such as fraud or theft.

Where did I ever make any such argument?

Forgive me, but you always come across as so thoroughly confused when it comes to who is claiming what.

I asked for one incontrovertible, unequivocal reason why the Barretts couldn't have faked the diary. I never made any claims at all about their financial situation.

Instead, Tom, playing along, claimed that the Barretts wouldn't have hoaxed the diary, because...

"Despite Barrett's claims, they were NOT struggling to pay the mortgage or indeed the gas bill, newspaper boy, or milkman (kids, ask your grandparents for the latter two)."

I merely pointed out that your own book seems to kick the stool out from under Tom's very first attempt to answer my question. He was the one making a positive assertion--not me.

So, is Tom correct? Were the Barretts financially secure in 1991-1992 with plenty of money rolling in?

All that ever goes on here is the game of turning the tables.
.

[caz]

Time for what Caroline Brown likes to call "housekeeping."

Tom tells us--no, not tells us---he literally shouts it in upper-case letters--that the Barretts had no money motive because they were NOT struggling financially.





I'd be interested in knowing, then, why the authors of Ripper Diary: The Inside Story seem to be saying something quite different:

"After Maggie's death [1 Jan 1988 for y'all at home] Anne wanted to move near her father, who would now be alone. Consequently, they moved across the city and bought 12 Goldie Street, exchanging a low housing association rent for a large mortgage (and a deposit of £600)."


"Not only was there now a 'crippling' financial pressure but Barrett was not happy in the new neighbourhood."

I won't color-code that, Ike, nor put it in size 18 font, but I will repeat it:

'crippling financial pressure'

So, let's have it, Tom. Were the authors--apparently working with Anne Graham---wrong in stating Barrett was under 'crippling' financial pressure during this era?

What was this windfall of cash and where did it come from that the Barretts were now on Easy Street in 1991/1992? Barrett was still unemployed, wasn't he?

My timeline gives the date for the move as Sunday 13th March 1988, but this is followed by a question mark, because it was Mike who supplied this date to Keith Skinner during his interview on 14th April 1994.

The first appearance of the Barretts in electoral registers at 12 Goldie Street is February 1989, for which the qualifying date was 10th October 1988. This would run from 16th Feb 1989 to 15th Feb 1990.

Without a page number, and not instantly recalling the source of every detail we included in Inside Story all those years ago, I'm afraid I'm struggling to find the above quote, so I can't immediately shed further light on Seth's use of the word 'crippling' to describe the financial pressure that Anne or Mike claimed to have been under following the move.

We did hear it from both Barretts that Mike was not happy in his new environment and Anne herself dated his heavy drinking back to the move.

My source for the Barretts being under "crippling financial pressure" is Morris, Linder, and Skinner--I stated that quite plainly in my post--and they were presumably supplied that information by Anne Graham.

I don't think your readers will appreciate the old "switcheroo," Ike.

If it was indeed Anne that gave this account, what possible reason would she have had for lying about their financial status?

But anyway, thanks for admitting that you don't actually know that the Barrett's bought the house in 1989 and thus your mortgage musings are irrelevant. We need precise data.

I do appreciate that we need precise data, as opposed to Palmer merely presuming that Anne was working with the authors and telling us about this crippling financial pressure.

I too can see no reason for Anne lying about this, if I am able to confirm she was our source. But then if money had been Mike's motive for supposedly faking the diary, Anne would have been better off not admitting it if they were in dire financial straits at the time, or pretending they had no such worries at all. [This reminds me of Eddie, who said he had not pinched the diary, citing his lack of any financial incentive to do so.]

We do have Anne complaining that Mike was sent out with money to do the food shopping and came back with little to show for it and that, together with his increased drinking, while she was paying the mortgage, home insurance and other household bills, would undoubtedly have caused friction. If he spent money as soon as he got it, and was resentful when he didn't get it, one can imagine the financial pressure on Anne to try and keep everything on an even keel.

[rjpalmer]

I do appreciate that we need precise data, as opposed to Palmer merely presuming that Anne was working with the authors and telling us about this crippling financial pressure.

Or opposed to Tom Mitchell--who was the one making the claim--presuming it was a blatant lie Mike Barrett told to Shirley Harrison?

You're always so fair-minded, Caz, and so remarkably transparent.

[erobitha]

Could his father's previous work as an Engraver have given James the practical skills to have written his signature on the watch?

RD

I raised this previously. I believe so.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

So which of us seriously thinks Michael Barrett was actually in debt and was unable to pay his mortgage despite there being no evidence to support this (and some evidence to the contrary) and that - in order to get himself quickly out of the mire - decided to write a hoaxed 'diary' of Jack the Ripper targeting as implausible a foil as it was possible to muster and thought that the money would come rolling-in quickly enough to save the family home and all of this in the face of the terrible dangers of he or he and his partner being charged with fraud, serving time, and losing their precious daughter who was just 10 years old at the time?

Hi Ike,

The evidence to support this is "Inside Story", so I guess that's not a reliable source now? It wasn't an unreasonable point RJ made. The authors state the Barretts were under financial pressure. If that's an unfounded assumption the fault doesn't lie with RJ. Without irony though, the rest of your post is an assumption of what Mike Barrett would do to better manage his financial situation other than create a hoax for profit. But woe bedite someone uses Inside Story for reference and assumes the information is A) accurate and B) came from Anne since Mike was a hopeless liar and consistently drunk. But, as you point out, if there's no evidence the Barretts were under financial pressure then I'll have to assume it's just hyperbole Linder chose to throw in there. Of course, if Caz can confirm Anne as the source, then you've jumped on RJ's case for nothing. If she's not, then we do need to know the source as you yourself are questioning the validity of the statement.

​​​​But it's not really about Inside Story, it's about suggesting Mike Barrett might actually have been responsible for the hoax. That's where visitors to the greatest thread go wrong. You can suggest some convoluted three diary theory, you can safely talk about an old hoax with little push back, but suggest that the Barretts of Goldie Street might actually have pulled a fast one....

I'll sign off with a point Caz raised:

"There is always wriggle room for those who have invested more time and effort in following their fixed beliefs than in an unbiased assessment of all the evidence in context​"

I'd say that's spot on. Personally, I wouldn't say I've got a rigidly fixed belief. I am however missing all the evidence and what little bits I see are missing the context. Where evidence is absent, theory will thrive. If what's needed to kill the Barrett theory is all the evidence, then, well, you know the rest.

Cheers.

[Iconoclast]

Hi Ike, The evidence to support this is "Inside Story", so I guess that's not a reliable source now?

It is no more or less reliable than any document which makes any claim. Questioning the validity of a single claim does not immediately invalidate an entire document. I'm sure the authors of this or every other book ever written would be the first to say that not every single word written has a clear evidence trail to back it up. We will await to see if any of the three authors can recall the source of this claim but - if they can't - I won't be particularly surprised. I read a letter yesterday that I had originally written in 1987: not only could I now not back up most of the claims I made in it, I had no recollection whatsoever of even having written it in the first place. Does that make my letter unreliable? I don't think so. Does the failure (currently) to identify the source of a single claim in Inside Story invalidate that claim or any other claim made in the book? I don't think so.

Usually, when validating a claim, one would seek multiple examples to back it up (the more there are, the more the claim is likely to be true). I don't recall anyone other than Michael Barrett claiming that the Barretts of Goldie Street were so impoverished with debt that they needed to break the law and risk the future happiness and safety of their precious daughter. That's not good enough for me, nor is the tangent of attempting (as RJ does) to shift the source to Anne as a means of adding validation where validation is patently absent.

[rjpalmer]

Let me very briefly return to this one, so we can put it to rest.

But no, the services of an in-house writer would not have been called upon to polish up the work Barrett submitted back in the 1980s, and anyone who believes otherwise must be mocked to within an inch of their life. Well, I could believe it on the grounds that you can't polish a turd, if only the published articles were not testimony to the fact that someone involved must have been capable of writing without making any of the horrible bloomers that were dumped in the diary.

Robert Smith did not simply report that anything submitted by Barrett (or anyone else) might have needed the guiding hand of a proofreader or editor; he said that an unidentified and unnamed inhouse writer actually cobbled Barrett's articles together from nothing more than a few select quotes submitted by Barrett.

There is no evidence for this, which is why I objected to it.

As it so happens, a day or two ago I went looking for the exact month that Celebrity magazine went bust and ended up on the 'Very Inky Question' thread.

In a post made a little over a year ago, I alluded to Barrett's published article about a boy from Sierre Leone.

I was pleased to see Caz asked the following very reasonable question (9-6-2022 3:58 PM)

"And why could Anne Barrett not have done the lion's share of the work needed to make this particular example acceptable to the publisher?"

A Very Inky Question - Casebook: Jack the Ripper Forums

Indeed. Why not?

Why couldn't Anne have made Mike's articles "acceptable to the publisher'?

Which is the EXACT question I've been asking for the past three weeks.

So why invent an inhouse writer willing to cobble together nothing more than quotes, turning them into a full-length article? Why has Anne suddenly vanished from the equation??

No one is saying Barrett's submission might not have had a typo or a misplaced comma. We don't know; we weren't there. What I object to is the claim--without a shed of evidence--that someone other than the Barretts submitted these articles in a condition that would be "acceptable to a publisher."

I submit that handing in a muddle of quotes and hoping an in-house writer would do the rest would not be "acceptable to a publisher" and is not how magazines work.

The error that Martin Fido made is believing that Anne Graham was too competent to have written the final version of the diary, because it has spelling mistakes, and the misuse of homophones, etc.

But Martin believed this because he only had access to the one 'professional report' written by Anne (apparently for Shirley Harrison, and not for Paul Feldman as I stated earlier--thank to Keith for questioning this).

Had he seen her private correspondence (as uploaded to this site by David Orsam) he would have known better.

Caz appears to be arguing that Anne's own private correspondence is too sloppy, thus justifying Smith's strictly theoretical claim that an "inhouse writer" would have been needed to make major revisions or additions to the work.

But clearly, there is no contradiction.

Yes, Anne was capable of errors in spelling, etc. (as seen in her correspondence) but when she put her mind to it, she was also capable of the professional work that Martin Fido--who taught writing at Boston University for nearly 20 years--commented on.

What is the difference between the two Annes?

In one instance, in the correspondence supplied by Orsam, she wasn't writing for anyone but her ex-husband or soon-to-be ex-husband, so she didn't give a damn how poorly spelled it might have been. Barrett wasn't going to notice, was he?

In the second instance, she was writing for Shirley Harrison, a professional writer, so she put more effort into it.

A child could work that out.

I thus submit that the final version of the diary, complete with spelling errors, etc., does not contradict any of this, because---according to Anne herself---she didn't want the Diary published. She also stated that she didn't think it WOULD be published--because Mike's literary agents would "just send Mike packing" once they had seen it.

So how much effort was she really going to put into it?

The contradiction that Caz is implying does not exist. Not in my theory.

Caz is making the error of thinking that Anne would have put as much effort into Barrett's hoax as she would have put into the submissions to Celebrity or to Shirley Harrison.

I disagree. I don't think Anne wanted the diary published. I think she was bullied into it by Barrett---a man she characterized as emotionally and physically abusive.