The Diary—Old Hoax or New?

[Iconoclast]

... so keep it to yourself, won't you?

[Iconoclast]

Remember, everyone - it was a secret ...

[Iconoclast]

So why would Melvin Harris receive a copy of the thing he most craved in all the world, and then do nothing with it, dear readers?

Was it:

A) He simply had too much integrity, the old softy?
B) It went to his old address and his redirection had lapsed? or
C) He immediately realised it was a complete crock of ****?

[Iconoclast]

People not knowing something does not a 'secret' make. The reality is this. Barrett wrote the January 5, 1995, affidavit to get Harris off his back. He deliberately made it utterly mincelike in every respect so that it was useless to Harris (well done, Mike - right enough, Harris put it away in a drawer for eternity).

I would be shocked if anyone reading this recent series of posts genuinely thought that Barrett's infantile and surreal affidavit of January 5, 1995, was ever meant to be kept a secret.

Let's stop for a moment and think this through. How could it have gone down? How about:

Mike: I'll do an affidavit if you can promise me it will be kept absolutely secret from the world. And by 'secret' I obviously mean that common or garden term 'non-circulating'.
Gray: Oh, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. Not a soul outside of us will ever know about it because it's critical that the terrible truth of your guilt is never revealed.
Mike: I'm going to do this in order to blackmail Anne into letting me see little Caroline.
Gray: Of course, Mike, of course. Absolutely. I get it. She's evil. She wrote all of the diary text, or half of it, and Tony did the other two-thirds, I get it - so get it down on paper and I'll type it up. I'll then eat the paper you wrote it on, type it up, and then we'll put it away in a solicitor's safe and no-one will ever know about it, ever, ever, never.
Mike: That sounds great, Alan. You're such a great and trustworthy friend, you really are. I really must pay you one day.
Alan: Oh, just create and sign that affidavit, Mike, and we'll be done with it - no payment required!
Mike: That's amazing friendship, Alan.
Alan: That's what friends are for, Mike.
Mike: But will I not be immediately nicked?
Alan: No - just the opposite, you'll be fully-protected by it. We'll need lot of details, Mike, so make sure you put in all the crucial steps and provide us with the evidence.
Mike: Sure, Alan, I can do that no problem. "I did it" - there's all the evidence you need! By the way, who is this 'us' you've referred to a couple of times? Just you and me, right?
Alan: Absolutely, Mike, absolutely. Oh, and [inaudible].
Mike: Who?
Alan: [Inaudible].
Mike: I can't hear what you're saying, Alan.
Alan: Melvin Harris.
Mike: Melvin Harris. Isn't he the diary's biggest and most vocal critic? The bloke who published a book about a totally implausible candidate just as the industry's biggest seller hit the shops and appeared to try desperately to stop it ever hitting the shops because of all of that integrity he had?
Alan: Yep, that's him.
Mike: Well, surely he's got a huge vested interest in publishing any detailed confession I make and making sure that the world thinks James Maybrick's diary is a hoax?
Alan: No!
Mike: You sure about that, Alan?
Alan: Of course, Mike. He told me himself that he is all about integrity. If he had evidential proof that the diary was actually a hoax after all but he had promised not to say anything, then he'd put it away in a drawer and never mention it again.
Mike: That's a relief, I can tell you. Well, I'll tell you what, with that in mind, let's also send a copy to Maurice Chittenden of The Sunday Times, Nick Warren of Ripperama, and the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
Alan: Great idea, Mike. Here's a pencil, mate.

[Iconoclast]

Of course, Anne knew about the affidavit. She was Barrett's intended audience! The Barretts were going through an ugly divorce, and he was threatening to expose their dirty little secret unless he was allowed to see their child.

Anne openly referred to Mike's affidavit - highly embarrassed by her ex-husband's antics, no doubt - on January 18, 1995, after Shirley Harrison et alia had spent the morning with Mike Barrett:

AG: Did anything else come up? I, I, I was expecting you – to be honest – to come back and go on about the forgery thing [Barrett’s affidavit of January 5, thirteen days earlier].
SH: No. Not that at all [So Shirley knew about it].
[Inaudible background discussion.]
AG: Yeah. I thought you’d have the forgery story and not, I really did.
SH: None of that at all.
AG: Did that other chap turn up?
[General discussion around how helpful Ken Forshaw had been with Barrett.]
AG: I dread to think what he said [laughs].
SH: Oh, he wanted us to buy him a bottle of Scotch.

Now please name the names of anyone else who knew about this 'widely circulated' secret affidavit and also explain why Mike denied its very existence nine months later on the Bob Azurdia show. The idea that it was made to destroy Feldman is clearly a myth.

People not knowing something does not a 'secret' make. The reality is this. Barrett wrote the January 5, 1995, affidavit to get Harris off his back. He deliberately made it utterly mincelike in every respect so that it was useless to Harris (well done, Mike - right enough, Harris put it away in a drawer for eternity). But Barrett had a secondary objective - he was (and in this regard you and I are in complete agreement) seeking to blackmail Anne to let her see his daughter: "Let me see Caroline or else I go public that you and I hoaxed the diary of Jack the Ripper". See how it cuts both ways? You think he was blackmailing her over the truth of the matter, and I know he was blackmailing her over a lie he was prepared to tell about her. Anne was unmoved. She didn't scare that easily, that lass. I wonder why? The truth will set you free, RJ, just as it had Anne.

The funny thing is, Anne was not withholding access to Caroline from Mike: his own antics had achieved that - Caroline had made it clear to her mum she had no wish to see her father again.

Why did he deny it to Bob Absurdia? Well, having realised that his little blackmail was falling on deaf ears, he evidently thought it pragmatic for his own best interests to take yet another tack.

Go figure. That was Mike all over.

[Kattrup]

Sorry Ike, but you have written so much utter nonsense and inaccurate claptrap in your last few posts that I have lost the will to even respond, and if I do respond in the manner it deserves, I'll be breaking the rules of this website in reference to politeness and propriety and I'll find myself, as you so often have found yourself, suspended.

Very sensible position, RJ. I applaud your efforts.

[rjpalmer]

As I said in my post, Keith and Shirley were told about it by Anne during the January 18, 1995, interview but neither of them picked up on what she had said. Realising this, she then said no more.

Thanks for proving my point, Ike.

Of course, Anne knew about the affidavit. She was Barrett's intended audience! The Barretts were going through an ugly divorce, and he was threatening to expose their dirty little secret unless he was allowed to see their child.

And Alan Gray knew about it because he helped create it, and Harris knew about it because he was giving advice to Gray.

Now please name the names of anyone else who knew about this 'widely circulated' secret affidavit and also explain why Mike denied it's very existence nine months later on the Bob Azurdia show. The idea that it was made to destroy Feldman is clearly a myth.

I have sympathy for your plight--I really do. You have misinterpreted what was going on and it must be a shock to your system for your ideas to be challenged. All I can do is advise you to read your friend David Barrat's article "Blackmail or Mrs. Barrett." This will lay out the finer points in detail. I don't think the article is currently available on his website, but I can probably find a way to get a copy to you.

Football beckons. Cheers. Got to run.

[Iconoclast]

This is no more accurate than your previous claim that Kenneth Rendall [sic] ignored Rod McNeil's ion migration test when in fact he broadcast it far & wide.

Here we go again. This is what I actually said:

Kenneth Rendall avoided Rod McNeil's awkward evidence that the ink was laid on paper as early as 1909 or as late as 1932. Instead, he focused on the hard evidence of his opinions and basically just didn't like it. Time Warner got seriously burned but Rendall didn't care.

It’s clear that I was talking about Rendell’s report for Time Warner in which he provided McNeil’s conclusions but drew no inference from them. He has lots to say about his own incredulity but nothing of insight or substance to say of McNeil’s damning analysis which showed that the ink had hit the paper a long long time ago.

The snide comments about my posts do not faze me in the slightest, RJ, and I can only hope that my dear readers see through them.

[Iconoclast]

It was "definitely out there" very quickly, yet the diary's chief researcher, Keith Skinner, didn't get wind of it until two years later, and Feldman nowhere mentioned it in his book.
Q.E.D.

This is an excellent example of what I keep warning my dear readers about: you have taken a specific situation (Keith Skinner not knowing about Mike’s foolish affidavit until two years later and Paul Feldman not mentioning it in his book) and applied it as a contradiction to the general situation which is that the affidavit was very much NOT secret at all. As I said in my post, Keith and Shirley were told about it by Anne during the January 18, 1995, interview but neither of them picked up on what she had said. Realising this, she then said no more and I don’t blame her - she immediately realised they weren’t talking about Mike’s affidavit and so she left it there. She thought Keith knew about it (from Shirley) then realised he did not appear to. She was not attempting to hide this fact - she proactively mentioned it.

Rules have to come from the general case not the specific, but you have once again cited the specific in an attempt to deflect from the general.

I can only hope that my dear readers can see what is happening when you do that.

[rjpalmer]

Despite the amount of bullshit written on this thread. The Diary is a fake and is highly likely to have been written by Mike and Anne Barrett.

The poor chap is beyond reach, John. He really deserves our pity rather than our criticism.

It's worth remembering that people like Tom are the victims of a fraud, and our real disdain should be reserved for those who created the hoax and deceived him.

Fraud is a unique crime in some ways, in that the victim will often deny that they have been defrauded (particularly true of the elderly), but whether this is out of embarrassment or shame or naiveté, it is sometime difficult to determine.

[John Wheat]

Despite the amount of bullshit written on this thread. The Diary is a fake and is highly likely to have been written by Mike and Anne Barrett.

[rjpalmer]

So, other than the fact it clearly wasn't secret (it was definitely 'out there' very quickly) and clearly wasn't non-circulating

Author: Caz

08-21-2020, 09:19 AM

Hi Kattrup,

Bottom line is that Shirley and Keith did not get to see Mike's January 5th 1995 affidavit until two years later, in January 1997, when he sent Shirley a copy. This was after a version of it had reached the internet without their knowledge.

---

It was "definitely out there" very quickly, yet the diary's chief researcher, Keith Skinner, didn't get wind of it until two years later, and Feldman nowhere mentioned it in his book.

Q.E.D.

[rjpalmer]

(it was definitely 'out there' very quickly) and clearly wasn't non-circulating (it wasn't in the The Sunday Times, granted, but that's because even they could not be that gullible a fourth time)

Sorry Ike, but you have written so much utter nonsense and inaccurate claptrap in your last few posts that I have lost the will to even respond, and if I do respond in the manner it deserves, I'll be breaking the rules of this website in reference to politeness and propriety and I'll find myself, as you so often have found yourself, suspended.

This is no more accurate than your previous claim that Kenneth Rendall [sic] ignored Rod McNeil's ion migration test when in fact he broadcast it far & wide.

It's like a biologist discussing evolutionary theory with an Evangelist from the deep south. The poor chap is beyond reach.

Believe what you wish to believe, Ike, and good luck in convincing the public.

[Iconoclast]

What I believe is that in Anne's case, she knew Barrett was on the verge of spilling the beans, so she pulled the rug from underneath him by inventing the "in the family" provenance and coaching her elderly father to support her story. You still haven't explained her extraordinary behavior, yet you must also surely believe she was lying to those around her.

Well, what I believe is that your use of 'What I believe' gives you away - you just don't know. You are surmising, and surmising in a way which permits you to maintain the facade that Anne Graham was involved in the creation of James Maybrick's scrapbook. As you know, I believe that the evidence points towards Anne deflecting the terrible impact of Mike's June 1994 'confession' by pulling the rug from underneath Mike's extraordinary claim. She - more than anyone else alive other than Mike himself - knew whether or not Tony D had given Mike the scrapbook or whether it had suddenly appeared in 12 Goldie Street in early March 1992, so she would know more than anyone else alive whether she could pull the rug out from underneath Mike's 'confession' without him ever producing any evidence to then back it up.

I know what's coming. You're going to say, 'How did Anne know that Mike wouldn't then produce one of the electricians to contradict her claims she had given the scrapbook to Tony D first (to hand on to Mike)?'. Well, the answer to that is that she wouldn't have cared a jot because Mike contradicting her claim by producing the very source of the origin of his ownership of James Maybrick's scrapbook would clearly not have backed up his claims of having hoaxed it - it would have rather obviously backed up the published argument that it was actually James Maybrick's scrapbook, and it is perfectly reasonable to believe that Anne had grounds to believe that it was indeed authentic (i.e., she knew that it had originally appeared in 12 Goldie Street on or around March 9, 1992).

[Iconoclast]

I think your friend David 'Orsam' has it right. Mike's secret confessional affidavit was blackmail against Anne Graham. That, and a secondary motive of Gray trying to peddle the exclusive rights to Mike's confession.

Well the latter bit hardly makes it 'secret', then, does it, RJ?

Make your mind up, the two of you.