One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[rjpalmer]

Is he the guy who fished the diary out of the skip?

There was no skip according to Dodd. The job didn’t require demolition work or remodeling.

Owens is mentioned once and once only in Inside Story. In the early Spring of 1994, Feldman sent him a somewhat threatening letter, saying he would refer his name to Scotland Yard. We are told that Owens was also an electrician, but we aren’t told who he worked for or when.

There were clearly other theories before Eddie Lyons was placed in the hot seat. Dring, Owens, the Knowsley Buildings, etc.

[Scott Nelson]

Is he the guy who fished the diary out of the skip?

[rjpalmer]

As I said the other day, she can't tell the truth because Mike can just say "I hid the creation of the scrapbook from Anne and only let her see what I'd created in early March 1992", so - she's got the smarts, you see - she knows she has to tell a porker but she's okay with that because her objective is to shut Mike up (to protect the scrapbook, to protect young Caroline, perhaps even to continue to receive her share of the royalties now that she was unemployed and looking after her daughter).

Ah, I see, Ike.

Anne Graham--a quiet, inoffensive woman with no shady past (unlike her abusive ex-felon of a husband) was so terrified that Feldy and his team would believe Mike's word over hers that she felt compelled to tell them--and continue to tell them---a string of 'porkers' for several years?

In a word: no.

Riddle me this. What does a questioned (and highly questionable) document need beyond a legitimate provenance?

It needs a spokesman or spokeswoman that the public can trust. Someone like Donald Rumbelow to tell them, "this is where I found it. This is what happened."

The diary doesn't have that.

Once it was Mike Barrett, the 'umble scrap-metal dealer who wanted to buy a greenhouse. But Barrett was unmasked.

Next came Anne, whom you now characterize as a woman who "knows she has to tell porkers."

Nor will Eddie Lyons work, for you also characterize him as a thief, a liar, and a fence, and he denies everything, nor can you prove otherwise.

So, good luck with rehabilitating the diary, Old Bean. You've left the public without a single dry spot of land to stand on.

But there's good news. I tend to think that Anne will never come forward and clear the air, so you can keep peddling your theories indefinitely.

If she doesn't talk, I'm left impotent. I'll never have the satisfaction of telling you and Caz "I told you so."

But the reverse is also true; Eddie has no story to tell and without Anne you can't prove a thing, so ultimately, all you have is a rumor mill involving non-existent skips and men running down driveways several months too late.

Who is Jedd Owens?

Do you know?

[Iconoclast]

It's not rocket science.

No, it's definitely not rocket science, Roger, you are right. Unfortunately, that's where your correctness ends. The overwhelming evidence (whether it is correct or not) points to Mike Barrett receiving the Maybrick scrapbook from Eddie Lyons and/or Jim Bowling presumably in The Saddle Inn on or around March 9, 1992. Bongo goes home and rings Rupert Crew that very day to enquire if they'd be interested in Jack the Ripper's diary. They say "Yes". Does he agree to take the scrapbook to Doreen Montgomery straightaway? No, strangely there is a delay. Mike possibly hasn't actually got the book in his hands yet. It takes us a few days to get the scrapbook and then a few weeks go by whilst he quickly researches what he can and comes up with his Tony Devereux provenance. He discovers James Maybrick through the references to Battlecrease, etc., and he feels confident that the scrapbook is the real deal now so he arranges to come to London with it. Anne is not involved because she knows it's almost certainly hookey and wishes her husband would stop what he is doing. Mike goes ahead and the book is published.

Mike makes his idiotic 'confession' to Harold Brough in June 1994. At this point, Anne believes it to be authentic and doesn't want its place in history denigrated. She needs to cut Mike short and do so quickly so she plays a brilliant Chess move: she says she gave it to Tony Devereux to give to Mike and that's Mike right out of the game - a genius move (it ought to be called The Graham Defence). Mike's 'confession' is immediately worthless because everyone can suddenly 'understand' how the story fits together.

As I said the other day, she can't tell the truth because Mike can just say "I hid the creation of the scrapbook from Anne and only let her see what I'd created in early March 1992", so - she's got the smarts, you see - she knows she has to tell a porker but she's okay with that because her objective is to shut Mike up (to protect the scrapbook, to protect young Caroline, perhaps even to continue to receive her share of the royalties now that she was unemployed and looking after her daughter). It was such a clever move and she stood by it for as long as she needed to but then (in the early noughties) withdrew from the debate entirely, and who can blame her? She told a strategic untruth and she didn't ever want to have to back it up again. Clever play all 'round, I'd say.

[erobitha]

You're again confused, Jay. What concern of it is mine that Anne's story was obvious malarky and didn't solve her problems?

Shouldn't you be taking this up with your colleague Tom?

He's the one who called Anne's 'in the family' provenance brilliant, clever, and 'effective.'

I'm with you; it was none of those things. It was just a desperate attempt to undermine Barrett's confession, because she knew it was basically true.

It's not rocket science.

Conveniently you skip over the fact that the Battlecrease provenance has much more circumstantial evidence going for it than a Barrett/Graham hoax.

I understand. It’s rather tricky for you to square that off with your theory.

[rjpalmer]

One of the many problems you have RJ with your “overwhelmed by guilt” angle is that by doing what she did by claiming she gave the book to Devereux is that it didn’t solve any of those issues did it? If anything she opted to put the spotlight on her and her family even more.

You're again confused, Jay. What concern of it is mine that Anne's story was obvious malarky and didn't solve her problems?

Shouldn't you be taking this up with your colleague Tom?

He's the one who called Anne's 'in the family' provenance brilliant, clever, and 'effective.'

I'm with you; it was none of those things. It was just a desperate attempt to undermine Barrett's confession, because she knew it was basically true.

It's not rocket science.

[Iconoclast]

Hi Lombro II,

“If she wasn’t involved”? What if she was involved with Feldman? She was, wasn’t she? And didn’t someone say the family provenance theories for both artifacts originated with him?

This has only ever been implied by Mike Barrett himself in his jealous mind regarding all things Anne-related. There is no evidence whatsoever that Anne and Feldman had any form of romantic involvement. Anne joined Feldman at his home with his wife and daughter in the summer of 1994. It was only Mike Barrett's fretting which caused the tittle-tattle regarding an affair. I can't say for certain that it didn't happen, but - given the absence of any evidence at all - we should not infer it to be true.

For the record, the evidence points very strongly to a Battlecrease provenance for the scrapbook. It can be inferred that Anne knew the scrapbook was therefore hookey so - when Mike started to blab about being the world's greatest forger - Anne simply shut him down by presenting a new version of Mike's original provenance story in which Mike's creative involvement is instantly reduced to nil.

As I say, a brilliant Chess move.

[Lombro2]

“If she wasn’t involved”? What if she was involved with Feldman? She was, wasn’t she? And didn’t someone say the family provenance theories for both artifacts originated with him?

But I think I see what you mean now. I thought you were saying “lying badly” or making a “bad forgery” is worse than stealing and fencing, or it’s more embarrassing, so it’s more reason to make up a better doozie!

[erobitha]

One of the many problems you have RJ with your “overwhelmed by guilt” angle is that by doing what she did by claiming she gave the book to Devereux is that it didn’t solve any of those issues did it? If anything she opted to put the spotlight on her and her family even more.

However, the main problem with your theory is that you cannot explain away the following for the Battlecrease provenance:

- The double event of 9th March 1992
- The various documented witness statements (even now with no benefit at all to those individuals) of various workmen and others linking Eddie to the scrapbook
- Eddie’s appearance with Mike at a meeting with Robert Smith

The above is all rather inconvenient to your theory of an Anne and Mike hoax.

Which to me means she lied for other reasons than being party to the hoax.

[rjpalmer]

RJ claims Anne's story was designed to protect the hoax she knew her and her husband were complicit in. Worried her husband was about to derail the gravy train, she criminally masterminded her chess move.

I'd prefer if you didn't put words in my mouth. I never said that, Jay.

I believe the only thing that makes any sense is that she was embarrassed and ashamed that she and Barrett had created a hoax, and didn't want to admit it. Recall that this is the same woman who didn't want to go to the book launch and described it as "nightmare." Any idea that her motivation was to keep the "gravy train" running are your words---not mine. The evidence shows that she was ashamed by the whole affair--until, perhaps, Feldman got her under his wing.

I agree self-protection was a motivating factor, but not to protect the hoax that RJ believes she was bullied into assisting with. Surely, this is the perfect time to confess if that was true. She was getting divorced, and by not cashing her royalty cheques, she could claim she wasn't personally benefitting financially and, therefore, committed no crime and point the finger firmly at Mike without remorse.

That would only be true of the Eddie Lyon's provenance theory--no matter how much Anne knew or didn't know about the details, she had no reason not to admit what she knew to Feldman and his team, or Harrison and her team.

It's an entirely different matter if she had helped Barrett create a hoax. It would have been embarrassing, damaging to her reputation, and perhaps a financial liability depending if Smith made her pay back any of the earlier royalty payments.

It's a no-brainer. If she wasn't involved, she would have no motive to deceive everyone around her.

RP

[erobitha]

Not all of us trust Anne's story. I have some very strong concerns over the veracity of it and have made it known on here and elsewhere.

This is where the Venn diagram of my and RJ's opinions ends.

RJ claims Anne's story was designed to protect the hoax she knew her and her husband were complicit in. Worried her husband was about to derail the gravy train, she criminally masterminded her chess move.

I agree self-protection was a motivating factor, but not to protect the hoax that RJ believes she was bullied into assisting with. Surely, this is the perfect time to confess if that was true. She was getting divorced, and by not cashing her royalty cheques, she could claim she wasn't personally benefitting financially and, therefore, committed no crime and point the finger firmly at Mike without remorse. She could have come out of this as a victim, living in terror of her violent and alcoholic husband, and now she was free of him able to tell her side of the story.

No. She opted to go from curious bystander to main character.

That bothers me. People do not go from victim to criminal mastermind overnight.

[rjpalmer]

brilliant chess move, I'd say.

Yes, Tom, this is the third time you've characterized lying as a 'brilliant chess move.'

Which makes me think you don't actually believe this. You're just saying it because you also think that ingenuous statements are "brilliant chess moves."

[Iconoclast]

Why couldn't she have simply told the truth, if Barrett had brought the diary home from the pub in March 1992?

If Anne's objective was to stop Barrett in his tracks from making a false confession, then the above (even if it were true) would not suffice, would it? Mike could simply argue that he 'brought it home' in March 1992 but had had it home for five years (as he claimed) as he worked on his brilliant forgery before 'bringing it home' (i.e., from out of wherever he had been hiding it in the house) in March 1992.

By saying that she had handed it to Tony D, Mike simply gets cut out of the creative process entirely. He can't have been a hoaxer, she is saying, because I saw the scrapbook in 1968 or 1969, long before I met Mike Barrett in the Irish Club in 1976.

I think she was more than clever enough to have worked out how to cut Mike out of his remarkable claims to Harold Brough.

brilliant chess move, I'd say.

[rjpalmer]

So again, why did she make up that lie because it was a forgery, and not because it was stolen and her ex was saying it was a forgery?

Not a very well-thought-out question, Lombro.

Clear back at the very beginning of the fiasco, Anne asked Barrett in front of complete strangers, "did you nick it, Mike?"

No one was twisting her arm--she said it herself without prompting.

That doesn't sound like a woman who was terrified that people would think such a thing, does it?

But now you suggest that two years later, after already having left Barrett, and having refused her royalty cheques, and having filed for divorce, she's telling elaborate lies to everyone around her to avoid admitting precisely the same thing that she herself had already spontaneously suggested?

Doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense, Old Bean.

Why couldn't she have simply told the truth, if Barrett had brought the diary home from the pub in March 1992?

[caz]

Mike believed Feldman turned Anne and Caroline against him. There was no love lost between these two men from what I understand.

Mike used his forgery claim to try and negotiate with Anne, to get her to talk to him. As far I’m aware, Anne stayed resolute.

My guess is Mike was more annoyed that Feldman pulled a fast one on him that his ego could not handle it. So he convinced himself to pursue the forgery claim and the rest is history. Mike could not admit where he actually got it from as he would lose his right to it and may face criminal charges.

At least this way he feels he gets to have the last word.

That he did. This is the mess he left behind.

Hi ero,

What some people miss, because they see the diary as a shabby shambles, created over a wet weekend in Anfield, is the fact that Mike Barrett considered it a work of genius. He was flattered to know that some quite intelligent people actually believed he had written it himself. Like Bruce Robinson, our Mike would have given his eye teeth to have done so. Proving it was to be another matter entirely.

Mike's fakery claims can be viewed in that context. They were not merely mendacious and malicious; they also had 'ego' writ large all over them. What a clever fellow he had been to fool the likes of Feldman. His first claim, in June 1994, took all the dubious 'glory' for himself. It was only after Anne claimed to have charmed Tony Devereux into passing her father's diary on to Mike with no explanation, and then got daddy to play his part too, that Mike set about trying to stitch them all up while retaining control over his masterpiece.

Mike typically kept the best bits for himself. While Devereux was in the know and Billy paid for the scrapbook, Anne only did the handwriting because Mike's was too 'distinctive' - a risibly euphemistic description if ever I saw one. Mike had to be the creative genius behind it all. If the diary was going down in history as a fake, he was going down with it, as his intellectual property.

Love,

Caz
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