One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[caz]

Tell me if I've misunderstood, but your argument is that Baxendale got it wrong over solubility, isn't it?

In support of this argument you have said:

#2315

"Eastaugh also reported that 'it was clear that the solubility of the ink was similar to the Victorian reference material and unlike the modern inks dried out for reference'".

And

#2624

"Eastaugh did confirm that it was 'clear' that the solubility of the diary ink was 'similar' to his Victorian reference material and 'unlike' his modern inks dried out for reference".

No. I have no way of knowing if Baxendale 'got it wrong over solubility' or not. My argument has been, from the outset, that you appeared to be cherry picking the evidence you wanted from Baxendale to help make your case for a 1992 Barrett production.

I brought in Eastaugh's observations (for what they are worth - again I have no way of knowing if he was right or wrong) and have pointed to Baxendale's evident lack of confidence in his own ability to conclude, from the ink's solubility alone, that it had been applied to the paper since 1989. He only went as far as to consider it 'likely' that the diary was created more recently than 1945.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

As for his "drastic change of opinion", there never has been any such drastic change of opinion bearing in mind that 1989 occurred in a period of time 'since 1945'.

Literally correct, but skating over the underlying point. 'Since 1945' means Baxendale was allowing for the ink to have met paper as early as the late 1940s. If he subsequently tells the Sunday Times, or anyone else, 'no earlier than 1989' (that is, within the last two or three years, which is the 'expert' opinion you appeared to be relying on initially), that is a drastic moving of the goal posts, surely? Why do you suppose he was unable or unwilling to narrow the diary's creation down to the last two or three years when reporting to Robert and Shirley? They were the ones preparing to publish the thing!

Love,

Caz
X

[Graham]

If anyone is genuinely interested, nigrosine is a dye of the group known as aniline dyes which have a history going back to the fourth quarter of the 19th century. Read all about them at:

http://www.pencilpages.com/articles/bp17-05.html

I feel sure this reference has been posted on Casebook in the past, but maybe prior to the Great Crash.

Graham

[caz]

Can you clarify this please? Are you saying that his wife paid for both the advertisement and the purchase of the 1891 diary? Was she equally angry on both occasions?

I don't know who paid for the advert, but there is no evidence that Anne even knew what Mike was doing or why, until a demand for payment was received (they had Mike down as a late payer) and Anne settled it.

What was it that put his fears to rest about him having a priceless stolen document on his hands then?

We know he had fears about giving Doreen his real name, and these were put to rest before she issued an invitation to 'Mr Barrett' (no longer Mr Williams) to bring the diary to London on April 13th 1992. I don't know how she managed to reassure him on that score or precisely when. There must have been some communication between them in the interval, during which he felt able to reveal his real name, exposing himself in the process as a liar for the first time, for having given her a false one. So if his fears extended to his acquisition of the diary (whether he had yet to obtain it from O&L and write the thing, or was given it by a friend or acquaintance, with the writing already in situ), and what Doreen's reaction might be on seeing it, she was presumably able to say all the right words in the right order to put him at his ease before he boarded the train at Lime St.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I mean, come on Caz, even you must surely admit that there is something very suspicious about Mike Barrett's extensive efforts to acquire a Victorian diary with blank pages only a short time before magically producing the "Diary of Jack the Ripper" in a Victorian guard book with over 60 pages removed from the front, showing forensic traces of photographs having been extracted from it. Yes? No?

Well I might have done, had it not been for the fact that I have never believed that Mike or Anne had anything to do with the diary's creation, and Keith's Battlecrease documentation has done nothing to alter that belief, and plenty to support it.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

The "likes" of me? I have no idea what that means.

I am the person to whom you said he could take or leave the Battlecrease evidence and replied that he would rather leave it. So if you continue to address posts to me about the Battlecrease evidence I think I not only have the right to object but also to state that I won't continue to discuss this topic with you if you do so.

Of course you have the right to 'object' to anything I post and to express that objection by discontinuing your responses and questions to me. I meant what I said. I won't be told by the likes of you what I may or may not post, if I consider it relevant to my own responses - the "likes" of you referring to any of my fellow casebook members who would like to censor me.

If you mean by that comment that I am accusing Mike Barrett's wife of writing the diary I need to correct you. It was Mike Barrett who accused his wife of writing the diary.

I know you are not accusing Anne - you wouldn't be so foolish. You sit behind a dead man and let him do all the accusing, while arguing against anyone who suggests his accusations were false.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Are you saying that I can't rely on Mike's actions in attempting to acquire a Victorian diary with blank pages in March 1992?

Not at all, David. You could rely on my cat to help you date the diary if you so wished. I won't be relying on anything Mike said or did from March 9th 1992 until he shuffled off, to tell me who wrote the diary, when or why.

As I previously asked you, but don't recall an answer, do you think this was all part of a grand plan to put future investigators onto the wrong scent?

I probably didn't answer because I don't understand the question. What did you mean by 'this'? What 'grand plan'?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Only here could this diary scam still hold anyones attention.

It's a fair point, Michael.

I wholeheartedly admit to being diary-curious. I would be fascinated to know what kind of person (or people) created it, when and to what purpose. That is why it will continue to hold my attention. If I believed it was James Maybrick, writing his true confession in 1888/9, I would not be here. If I believed it was a Barrett production from the late 1980s/early 1990s I would not be here.

I don't give a second thought to the Hitler Diaries. I wouldn't visit a fake moon landing site if you paid me (don't even know if one exists and won't be looking it up). Life's far too short to knock on the doors of Jehovah's Witnesses to tell them the error of their ways. Mind you, I did rashly invite one into my home once, sat him down with tea and cakes, spent ten minutes discussing the weather, my bunions and the cat's fleas, then after an awkward pause in the conversation I asked him why he had called round. He said: "I have absolutely no idea, I've never got this far before".

And that sums it up for me. Why does anyone bother with the diary and the diary-curious once they are satisfied there is no mystery?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

So this is an interesting philosophy you adopt. Because my imagination can't think of any innocent explanation for the purchase of the 1891 diary you think I won't accept one if it is provided.

Well that's not the case. But what I can't accept is that Mike wanted to write out some parts of the diary text in his handwriting into the back of a genuine Victorian diary, otherwise filled with genuine Victorian diary entries, in order to take to London to provide Doreen with a "taster" of what the real diary of Jack the Ripper (or parts of it) would look like. Because of course he would have assumed she could not imagine what a Victorian Diary of Jack the Ripper would look like without seeing his handwritten version of it first.

Still not quite what I had in mind, David. Initially it would have been Mike wondering how the diary he had acquired (or was about to fake, if you prefer) might compare to anyone else's actual diary from 1889 or thereabouts. He didn't know what Doreen was likely to make of it, did he? If he wasn't sure what a real diary from the period would look like, because he'd never seen one before, he could only guess if Doreen would be equally unsure or had seen hundreds of the things.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

As to the factual position, I find myself having to quote your book at you. After stating that Kenneth Rendell told Shirley Harrison that a word processor had been found with a transcript of the Diary on disc, your book states:

"Back in March 1992, when he [Barrett] was due to take the Diary to Doreen Montgomery, he claimed he had decided that it would be a good idea to type out a transcript of the Diary which would be easier to read. His own attempt at typing was so poor that it was eventually typed by Anne, a secretary by profession, while Barrett dictated."

I believe this account was subsequently confirmed by Anne Graham in person, so I assume that means you will not question it.

However, if you don't think that Barrett's account is true then it simply raises the question of why he or his wife had the text of the diary on their computer, and when exactly it was typed.

Mike wasn't 'due' to take the diary to Doreen until April 13th 1992. Assuming he had it when phoning her on March 9th, there was plenty of time for Anne to type the transcript from the diary after that date. Unless Anne was listening in on each call between Mike and Doreen, Mike may have told her the transcript was his idea, even if it was Doreen's or if they had both thought of it. Anne's confirmation doesn't help you pinpoint when the typing was done, but explains why the diary text was on their word processor.

Naturally you will not let go of the possibility that they were both lying about the sequence of events, and that the transcript was already typed before the call to Doreen, before the guard book was even acquired and before the text was transferred by hand into it. But good luck if you think it can ever be proved.

Love,

Caz
X

[David Orsam]

Nice thought, David, but Mike's affidavit doesn't include enough details about the order and purchase of the little red diary (and implies it was obtained in early 1990) for anyone to have confirmed the thing's existence, never mind find the paper trail. It was only found with Anne's full co-operation and assistance, which would make it entirely her slip up, and a rather astonishing one, if she was knowingly involved in a criminal scheme with her husband.

Well Caz, Mike's affidavit states that Anne paid for the diary with a cheque drawn on her personal Lloyds Bank account from her Walter Street branch. Let's assume the rest of the story in Mike's affidavit was true for the moment. When asked if it was true that she had paid for the diary, Anne would have been faced with two options. Deny it (and lie) or tell the truth. If you think that telling a lie would have been a good idea considering that there was a paper trail by which that lie could potentially have been exposed then I don't think you would make a very good criminal.

And please don't ignore the point I have made in another post that the purchase of the diary was not in itself incriminating because an innocent explanation could have been given for it (as Anne did). The thing that makes the purchase incriminating is the wording of the advertisement placed in the trade journal. In other words, it is the fact that Mike was seeking a Victorian diary with blank pages which is incriminating rather than the fact that he acquired a Victorian diary. But I believe that at the time Anne handed over the documentation relating to the purchase of the diary, the existence of the advertisement had not been discovered.

So I would say you are quite wrong to describe Anne's admission of the purchase as an "astonishing" slip. It was not astonishing at all, nor a slip, but the only sensible thing to do.

[David Orsam]

I don't need to 'think' David. It is there in perfectly plain English, in Baxendale's own words. His conclusion was based on the ink being freely soluble but the year he plumped for - [since] 1945 - relates directly to his wildly mistaken belief about the earliest use of nigrosine (which was never confirmed present in any case, while he missed the iron which was present). Once again, why allow for the ink being possibly as old as 45 years when he tested its solubility in 1992, if he was confident that the result demonstrated it was in fact no older than two or three years?

Can you honestly not see the lack of confidence he was demonstrating about this?

I haven't read Baxendale's report Caz so I don't know what he says about the diary's age in context, i.e. in the context of his findings on solubility. It seems to me possible, however, that the question he was directing his mind to in the report was in respect of whether the Diary was written by Maybrick in 1888/9 because that is what he was being asked about. Saying conservatively that the diary was written post 1945 was his way of saying that it was a fake; but when approached by the Sunday Times he relayed his view that it was actually written more recently. I don't know but unless he has disputed the opinion attributed to him by the Sunday Times it seems reasonable to conclude that this was indeed his opinion.

[David Orsam]

I neither accept nor reject it, David. I have no way of knowing, because even the best 'experts' on the planet don't always get everything right, and we know that this one was wrong about the history of nigrosine, failed to find any of the iron in the ink and chose to hedge his bets on when it could have met paper by more than four decades [1946-1992].

I fail to see what Baxendale's knowledge of the history of nigrosine has to do with his findings on solubility if he is a competent forensic document examiner.

[David Orsam]

Naturally, if you do accept his 'since 1945' conclusion, it allows - if nothing else is taken into consideration - for Mike to have been involved in a 1992 production, but it falls way short of proving anything of the sort.

That conclusion is good enough for me Caz. I've never said that the expert findings "prove" anything. They simply back up my opinion that Mike Barrett was, or could well have been, involved in forging the diary. That opinion, as you know, is based on Mike Barrett hunting for a Victorian diary with blank pages in March 1992.

[David Orsam]

No. I have no way of knowing if Baxendale 'got it wrong over solubility' or not.

Then you are confusing me for I thought that your claim is that the Diary is a hoax produced either in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century.

Tell me how you can sustain such an claim without arguing that Baxendale got it wrong over solubility.