One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[rjpalmer]

Hi Scotty,

The problem always comes back to the fact that there is zero evidence that Devereux knew about the diary, beyond what Mike or Anne Barrett claimed at various times.

Hi Scott,

I wonder if Martin Howells would agree about there being 'zero' evidence?

He seemed to have been quite impressed by the fact that Mike's personal copy of Tales of Liverpool, with its two chapters on the Maybrick case---not to mention it being the same booklet cited in Mike's research notes and elsewhere--was provably in the possession of Tony Devereux since at least July 1991. (Long before Dodd's floorboards were lifted). This suggests Devereux & Barrett discussed Maybrick, and even Paul Feldmann accepted this as convincing circumstantial evidence.

And speaking of Barrett's notes have you ever noticed this?

Barrett mentions Odell & Wilson's "Summing Up & Verdict" throughout, as well as Paul Harrison's "The Mystery Solved," and when he does, he almost always gives page numbers:







I could go on, but you get the point.

But what about Mike's reference to Tales of Liverpool in the same notes?



Notice anything?

No page number given.

And why might that be?

We are told Barrett presented these notes to Shirley Harrison in July/August 1992.

Barrett couldn't give the page number because he no longer owned the volume.

Why? Because it was in the possession of Devereux's daughter and had been since at least the previous July!

Nobody challenged this fact until the 'Battlecrease" provenance emerged, and now it needs to be swept aside because it obviously flies directly in the face of it, since the booklet mentioned in Barrett's research notes pre-dates the electrical work done on Dodd's house.

Around and around we go.

And when Bonsey the policeman showed up at Barrett's house and wanted to see the book, Barrett dug around and went upstairs, etc. but couldn't produce it. Because it was now in the possession of Devereux's daughter.

There's enough smoke there for me to suspect fire.

RP

[Trevor Marriott]

The problem is, barny, Trevor doesn't know our "take" on the case, or even if we tried to present one - which would have been tricky since all three of us had different "takes" - because he hasn't read the book. So what is it that he just doesn't believe?

Love,

Caz
X

Hi Caz
The fact is that there is a legal and signed affadavit that sets out in great detail who was involved in making the diary a modern day hoax. The content of that which has come straight from the horses mouth to my mind is prime evidence of a conspiracy and no one it seems has been able to disprove the content.

I havent read your book but if you can show me that in that book you have been able to conclusively prove with prime evidence to support that proof that the affadavit is all made up and has no truth to it then I might be tempted to read the book.

I dont have a horse in this race but from what I have seen and read previoulsy Lord Orsam did a lot of damage to your take on the diary and much of what is contained in the book and I also belive that The Sunday times had an expert examine the diary and also concluded it to be a modern day hoax. Both Lord Orsam and the other experts who have been involved in coming to the conclusions that the diary is a modern day fake also have no hidden agendas.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[caz]

Sorry, Ike, but it's still funny.

If you can't see the desperation hidden in your final sentence, I really can't help you. It takes sunny optimism to an all-new level, so thanks for the laugh--seriously.

But really, in reading these posts, and particularly Caz Brown's posts, I now know how Ingrid Bergman must have felt in Gaslight.

Anne and Mike spent months--or in some cases years--gaslighting the diary researchers, and, in turn, the diary researchers now spend their time gaslighting us lowly critics. Some I suspect know they're doing it, others not so much; they are unaware that their own gaslight is just a dying reflection of the glow first emitted by the Barretts.

Thus, the only answer not permissible in this 'debate' is the correct one. And if one does suggest the correct answer--that it's a modern hoax and the Barretts were up to their elbows in it---that person is the one who is barking mad and has not studied the facts carefully and studiously enough to form the 'correct' opinion. They rushed in, dear reader, they rushed in! Such psych-ops make Charles Boyer look like an amateur.

That's what I learned from my time here: gaslight is contagious. It gets in the skin, somehow. It becomes an insidious disease. And Anne Graham was Patient Zero.

If you want to know about gaslighting, ask RJ. He seems to know all about it.

But what RJ really needs is an expert in Barrett hoaxbusting.

Repeating over and over that he has the 'correct' answer won't make it so. The handwriting remains to be 'correctly' identified, as does the source of the scrapbook.

Mike had a similarly simple but flawed philosophy. If he told enough stories about the diary's origins, he could make everyone - including himself - believe in at least one of them.

He was wrong.

Yet he is RJ's ultimate authority on a Barrett hoax, supposedly armed to the teeth with the means, motive and opportunity to have bust a Barrett hoax wide open, just by telling the truth.

If Barrett himself couldn't do it, there is a very simple explanation for the impotence of RJ and others to do it for him, and it's staring them in the face.

No gaslighting needed by those of us who can see what that explanation looks like.

[rjpalmer]

The handwriting remains to be 'correctly' identified, as does the source of the scrapbook.

Well, it didn't take long for this non-sequitur to be brought back out of the moth balls, Caz.

One last time, from the top.

You believe the diary is an old hoax... without having identified the handwriting.

Ike thinks the diary is real... without having identified the handwriting [A paradox, to be sure, since it is not Maybricks!]

I believe it is a proven modern fake... without having identified the handwriting, though I have my suspicions.

In brief, I don't need to identify the handwriting to justify my beliefs, any more than you do. I think there is enough evidence to conclude it is a modern hoax, and that puts the ball squarely in the court of "Mrs. Williams."

I also think Mike demonstrated inside information. As I've said a number of times, I don't feel the need to name the getaway driver to be confident that John Dillinger robbed the bank.


As for Barrett giving no evidence, here's a small point for Keith Skinner to ponder. I don't expect a 'swift answer'; he can respond or not, it's entirely up to him.

Mike Barrett told Harold Brough of the Liverpool Post as early as 26 June 1994 that he bought the scrap book at Outhwaite & Litherland. I think that Keith will agree that this was the spontaneous, poorly thought-out outburst of a man who was currently a physical, emotional, and mental wreck--so much so that he was soon whisked away to rehab, and his confession dismissed as the ravings of a drunk.

Yet, if Barrett had merely made up this detail, how in the blazes could he have known that Outhwaite & Litherland really did hold an auction of Victorian and Edwardian items three years earlier (on 31 March 1992)—which dovetails perfectly with his later admission (confirmed admission!) of buying a red diary that proved "too small" and "useless," thus forcing him to go shopping for another at the auction house? Are we supposed to believe that the ever-spiraling downward Barrett, with one foot in rehab, worked it all out?

Nope; Mike was not that subtle.

Further, notice that this account also dovetails too perfectly with Mike's repeated admission that he obtained the scrapbook so late in the game that it left him only 10 or 11 days to transpose the [pre-existing] typescript before he was to meet with Doreen Montgomery in London.

How do you explain this?

Again, the details are too subtle and too perfect to have been dreamed up by a man in Barrett's mental state in June 1994. He is, after all, the same bloke that Caroline Brown insists on calling an idiot. And the guiding hand of the evil Melvin Harris and the desperate and cowardly Alan Gray (to use Ike's characterizations) were not yet pulling the puppet strings.

Surely, Mike couldn't have known that years later someone named Lord Orsam would have chased down the advertisement in Bookfinder, checked with the auction dates of O & L, and worked out the chronology, realizing it fit with Barrett's "11 day" admission?

Too clever by half, no? Or is it too clever by a country mile? Barrett's spontaneous lies were never this subtle. They were transparently barking mad--like his claim that he worked for MI5, etc. --which I have always interpreted as the ravings of someone who wanted everyone to think he was totally crazy, because by now he was "walking back" an initial confession--a truthful confession-- that he now regretted. Nor do I entirely dismiss the suggestion of Maurice Chittenden that Barrett was paid-off to keep his gob shut by someone with a big investment in a still pending film deal, though I hasten to add that there is no proof of this beyond Barrett's unconfirmed claim (in the same affidavit) that Anne Graham told him to keep his mouth shut and he would soon get a paycheck. (I think she was specifically referring to pending royalties).

And, of course, Baxendale's solubility test is independent confirmation that the diary really could have been created that recently. As Lord Orsam once noted, Barrett had cried wolf so many times that by the time he finally got around to spilling the beans, no one took him seriously.

As far as I am concerned, that's the end of the affair and the correct answer.

RP

[caz]

Hi Trevor -- From Stephen Ryder's review of Ripper Diary:

"Linder, Morris and Skinner admirably show no direct support for either side of the argument, but it becomes abundantly clear after only a few pages that their collective compass tilts ever so slightly toward the pro-diary claimants."

I think 'ever so slightly' was diplomacy on Stephen's part—he’s a nice guy. Similarly, the Leaning Tower of Pisa tilts ever so slightly, as does a sapling in a strong wind.

And what direction were the authors tilting? Towards the belief that Anne Graham’s claim of having owned the diary since the late 1960s was utterly true, as confirmed by Billy Graham’s account of having been given the diary years earlier.

Beliefs that two of the authors have now completed abandoned, and, at times, violently argue against--- by implication, at least--as they now argue that the diary really came out Battlecrease in 1992!

Confused yet?

Changing horse in midstream is their choice, obviously, but if they now acknowledge that they were so utterly wrong the first go round, why should you believe they have it right now?

Why didn't you just ask Stephen Ryder if 'diplomacy' led him to write what he did about our book, instead of interpreting it that way, in a mean-spirited attempt to bring it ever so slightly closer to your own take, where you demonstrate yet again your inability to tilt in a different direction, no matter what new information might come your way.

Are you saying Stephen was totally incorrect to claim that we showed 'no direct support' for either side of the argument, while you are correct in your assessment that, in stark contrast, we tilted in the direction of Anne's story being utterly true?

But don't bother providing Trevor with any actual evidence form our book for your 'utterly true' claim. It's just an opinion of yours that would appear to clash with Stephen Ryder's, as if you had read two different books, and Trevor can't even be arsed to read the one, before airing his own opinions on it.

We can't be accused of completely abandoning beliefs that were never set in stone, nor expressed in our book. You judge us by your own standards when you talk of changing horse in midstream being our choice. Whenever new evidence comes along that challenges the existing evidence, it's not a weakness to go back and reassess everything in that light. It's a strength to acknowledge that we simply don't have enough information to conclude who, if anyone, has ever told the truth about where the diary really came from. You make it a simple case of being right or wrong and admitting it, because you already have a belief that is now so firmly entrenched that you no longer have the tools to test it against anything new that emerges. You would consider it a weakness to do so, because it would be an admission that your belief might not be correct after all.

We happy few, who have nothing yet to be right or wrong about, have all the tools we need to keep testing the evidence to see what gives. It must be quite restricting to make up your mind and then lose the capacity to question it, and the freedom to change it.

[caz]

Correction to RJ's latest spin:

I don't claim to 'believe' the diary is an old hoax.

I certainly can't claim to know when it was written or who wrote it, so what good would 'belief' do me?

I merely continue to question the 'correctness' of a belief in the Barretts as hoaxers, working right up to April 1992 on their joint enterprise.

RJ will just have to get used to it.

[PaulB]

Well, it didn't take long for this non-sequitur to be brought back out of the moth balls, Caz.

One last time, from the top.

You believe the diary is an old hoax... without having identified the handwriting.

Ike thinks the diary is real... without having identified the handwriting [A paradox, to be sure, since it is not Maybricks!]

I believe it is a proven modern fake... without having identified the handwriting, though I have my suspicions.

In brief, I don't need to identify the handwriting to justify my beliefs, any more than you do. I think there is enough evidence to conclude it is a modern hoax, and that puts the ball squarely in the court of "Mrs. Williams."

Just a thought regarding the handwriting, what am I getting wrong? If I understand you properly, you think the diary was penned by Mike or Ann, but the handwriting doesn't match, which is an obvious problem for you. Similarly, if Ike believes the diary is genuine, the handwriting not matching Maybrick's is a problem for him. However, if Caz has not identified an author, the handwriting doesn't present a problem for her at all, does it? If she refuses to throw in her with the Mike and Ann wrote the diary school of thought, isn't she quite right to say that the handwriting still needs to be correctly identified?

[Trevor Marriott]

But don't bother providing Trevor with any actual evidence form our book for your 'utterly true' claim. It's just an opinion of yours that would appear to clash with Stephen Ryder's, as if you had read two different books, and Trevor can't even be arsed to read the one, before airing his own opinions on it.

I have not aired any opinions on your book, I simply asked if the book contained conclusive primary evidence, not wild speculative guesses, or conjecture that proves the affadavit to be false because in my opinion the truth about the diary rests with that first affadavit.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Trevor Marriott]

Just a thought regarding the handwriting, what am I getting wrong? If I understand you properly, you think the diary was penned by Mike or Ann, but the handwriting doesn't match, which is an obvious problem for you. Similarly, if Ike believes the diary is genuine, the handwriting not matching Maybrick's is a problem for him. However, if Caz has not identified an author, the handwriting doesn't present a problem for her at all, does it? If she refuses to throw in her with the Mike and Ann wrote the diary school of thought, isn't she quite right to say that the handwriting still needs to be correctly identified?

But surely if you are going to hoax a diary the first thing you are going to do it to disguise the handwriting.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Kattrup]

But surely if you are going to hoax a diary the first thing you are going to do it to disguise the handwriting.

Or, when asked for a sample of your handwriting for comparison, disguise your handwriting in the sample.

[PaulB]

But surely if you are going to hoax a diary the first thing you are going to do it to disguise the handwriting.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Yes, I'd have thought so, but I'd also have thought that a hoaxer would
have made an effort to make the handwriting look like that of the person who was supposed to have written the diary.

Why is it likely that the hoaxer did the one and not the other? Can we be sure that the hoaxer tried to disguise the handwriting at all?

But my point was that Caz was right to say that the handwriting posed problems for the theories of both R.J. and Ike, and that R.J. was wrong - unless I missed something, which is why I asked - to suggest that it posed a similar problem for her.

[PaulB]

I have not aired any opinions on your book, I simply asked if the book contained conclusive primary evidence, not wild speculative guesses, or conjecture that proves the affadavit to be false because in my opinion the truth about the diary rests with that first affadavit.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Is the book infernally expensive? If not, wouldn't it be better to buy it and invest a little time in reading it, then you'd be able to see exactly what was said and praise or damn from first-hand reading?

[Trevor Marriott]

Yes, I'd have thought so, but I'd also have thought that a hoaxer would
have made an effort to make the handwriting look like that of the person who was supposed to have written the diary.

Why is it likely that the hoaxer did the one and not the other? Can we be sure that the hoaxer tried to disguise the handwriting at all?

But my point was that Caz was right to say that the handwriting posed problems for the theories of both R.J. and Ike, and that R.J. was wrong - unless I missed something, which is why I asked - to suggest that it posed a similar problem for her.

I suppose you could argue that because the writing in the diary is not comparable to that of Maybrick then that is conclusive proof that the diary is a fake, which is what all of this is about whether the diary is the real deal or a fake, as to who wrote it is somewhat academic.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Trevor Marriott]

Is the book infernally expensive? If not, wouldn't it be better to buy it and invest a little time in reading it, then you'd be able to see exactly what was said and praise or damn from first-hand reading?

I have not praised or dammed the book I have simply asked Caz to show conclusive proof from the book that the affadavit Barrett swore out on oath is totally false, the whole diary issue stands or falls on that affadavit and so far with the exception of a date issue she nor anyone else has been able to do that. In fact there has been corroboration to show the content of the affadvit is correct.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[PaulB]

I have not praised or dammed the book I have simply asked Caz to show conclusive proof from the book that the affadavit Barrett swore out on oath is totally false, the whole diary issue stands or falls on that affadavit and so far with the exception of a date issue she nor anyone else has been able to do that. In fact there has been corroboration to show the content of the affadvit is correct.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

I didn't say that you had damned or praised the book, I said that you would be able to do so from personal knowledge if you'd read it. As it is you're having to ask the opinion of the authors or somebody else.