The Diary—Old Hoax or New?

[caz]

Hi Ike.

What you are up against is that this tiresome trope has no feet.had nothing else to negotiate with

No one who believes the diary is a modern fake believes Barrett was trustworthy---some of us even suspect Mike had a personality disorder.

Yet--that is just the sort of bloke who would be brash enough to fake the Diary of Jack the Ripper and have enough gall to try and pawn it off in London. An unhinged pathological liar.

Extraordinary.

Palmer can see who and what Mike was, and why this would have made him supremely qualified to fake the diary and try to 'pawn it off' in London. In brief, Mike can be moved around the board like a pawn to fit the brief.

Does Palmer not think that Anne, after many years of marriage, would have seen rather more clearly than anyone else on the planet, precisely who and what Mike was by the early 1990s, and - more to the point - who and what he wasn't?

One minute, this female pawn has the 'talent' apparently needed to put her husband's audacious plan into action; the next minute she would have misplaced her sanity and gone ahead with it, only to find her right mind again after filling 63 pages with her own disguised handwriting, and realising she might just have opened Pandora's box.

Mike's sworn affidavit of 5 January 1995 is a different kettle of fish because it was not meant for public consumption. It was secret and non-circulating.

But Mike could not have known or controlled this. Once Alan Gray had compiled and typed the pages up for him, there was nothing to stop copies being distributed, including the copy sent to Melvin Harris as a direct result of his own advice to Gray in the December to get a detailed statement from Mike. It was in Melvin's hands, as much as Mike's, to keep it from public scrutiny, and we don't know if Mike had more than the one copy at the time, which he supposedly hand delivered through Anne's door while she was away for the weekend.

What's the point of making a bogus confession only to keep it secret?

What would have been Melvin's point in requesting and securing a genuine confession from Mike only to keep it secret?

It's very common for people going through an ugly divorce to 'dish' on one's spouse. Especially when there are children involved. One sees it all the time in the papers. It's called leverage.

And?

It's equally common for people going through an ugly divorce to invent faults on the part of their spouse. I've been there and got the T shirt, so I know exactly what lies an ex will tell their family, friends and even the court, to make out they are the innocent victim with the genuine grievance.

I was listening to a podcast a few weeks ago where this happened. The couple was divorcing, and she wanted sole custody. So, she threatened to reveal their dirty secret: that he had been a drug pusher for years. He ended up killer her, unfortunately. 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.

It's quite a leap, into the world of drugs and murder, to make a comparison with the situation Palmer believes the Barretts had made for themselves by 1994.

How on earth would Anne have imagined she could pull the rug from underneath Mike, with an unprovable new provenance for the diary, if they had created it together and he could therefore have spilled the beans at any time? How would her unprovable story have trumped a single dated receipt for any of the raw materials used? How is 'on the verge' even relevant? If Anne knew he had the beans to spill, he could have lodged them already with his solicitor and given her no chance to pull the rug. Mike either had the beans from way back in 1992, or he didn't have any beans by July 1994. Anne was the only person on the planet who would have known either way. So she stood to gain nothing from an assumption that she was getting her story in first, unless she knew Mike had no provable story of his own. This is such a simple concept that Anne must surely have been capable of grasping it, even if Mike evidently struggled. If he thought his affidavit would panic her into talking to him, or letting him see Caroline, he thought wrong.

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.

In a sense, this is right. But Mike's attempt to blackmail his wife - who had so recently divorced him - suffered from a weapon that could only fire blanks. He had nothing else to negotiate with, but desperately wanted his family back. As I think Shirley once observed, his behaviour only made this outcome less and less likely. In fact, it was exactly the kind of behaviour one might associate with an 'unhinged pathological liar'.

As for Gray's attempt to peddle the exclusive rights to Mike's confession, how well did that go and who was standing in his way, apart from Melvin Harris, who was in the best position at that time to assess the worth of Mike's words?

But there's little market for a confession to having perpetrated a hoax, though there's always a market for a Jack the Ripper solution.

Ah, I see. This is Palmer's explanation for Melvin's sudden draining away of enthusiasm for Mike's confession, after having prodded Gray into obtaining one, with not a little difficulty, from a man who had been nursing a badly injured hand from smashing the glass outside his wife's home? According to Anne, they divorced on 7th December 1994, and we know that just five days later, on 12th December, Gray visited Mike at the Liverpool Royal Infirmary where he was being treated for this nasty, self-inflicted injury. Cause and effect?

As a handy reminder, this was the occasion when Gray told Mike that Melvin Harris had said that: "as soon as Mike comes out, it's in the best interest of everyone to take a concise statement and all the newspapers will [take it] and at the end of it we go down together and swear it as an affidavit and that will be it nailed down, right. It will take a few hours."

What did Melvin know, eh? Did he do the research over the festive period and conclude that he had been wrong, and there was 'little market for a confession to having perpetrated a hoax'? He'd gone to all that trouble and given Mike and Gray all that grief for nothing?

What about the Hitler Diaries, with at least two very good drama documentary series to date, showing in forensic detail how it was done and how the culprit confessed? Down with that sort of thing, there's little market for it.

[caz]

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.

'Out there', meaning that Mike could have done nothing to stop it getting 'out there' as soon as Alan Gray had typed it up and whizzed it off to Melvin Harris. Melvin could have got it 'out there' by sending copies to Feldman, Shirley, Keith, Robert, Doreen and every newspaper in the land and the Barretts could have done nothing about it.

The question has always been why Melvin treated it like the last roll of lavatory paper left in the shop during a chronic shortage and was afraid to use it even when he was desperate.

[caz]

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.

What a shame this thread was not to Ike's liking! You'd have to be made of bitter stuff for the above scenario not to raise a titter.

But it does pack a serious punch, for those who have allowed themselves to be fooled by Mike Barrett's woefully inept attempts to claim responsibility for the diary's existence. They twist themselves in knots to make the unworkable work for them, because the alternative is unthinkable.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Good Lord, Tom, you really are struggling.

We know that Mike, Alan, and Melvin knew about the secret, non-circulating confessional affidavit. Mike & Alan are the ones who created it, and Alan was taking advice from Melvin or at least keeping him in the loop. This has been established and is not in dispute.

My question is who was Mike's intended audience? What was his motive for signing it and lodging it with his solicitor?

I've already given you Keith's theory from 2018 in an earlier post. His explanation (and he can correctly me if he thinks I'm a misstating it) is that Mike made a false confession because "he hated Paul Feldman" (the owner of the visual rights) and wanted to get back at him.

I'm trying to establish the legitimacy of that hypothesis.

If this was the case, what is the evidence that Barrett circulated this allegedly bogus confession to potential film companies, or to newspapers, or to the media, etc., which certainly would have complicated Feldman's quest for a major motion picture?

There isn't any. No evidence has been provided.

Instead, you have identified an audience of one: Anne Elizabeth Graham. Which is exactly what your good friend David Barrat has argued. Again, I suggest that you chase down a copy of his dissertation.

Thus, we are faced with the bizarre fact that Barrett, with Gray's help, created a supposedly bogus confession and then released it solely to the only person in the entire world who would have personal insight into its authenticity or inauthenticity. Anne Graham.

It doesn't compute. No matter how much you wriggle, you can't make it make sense.



I used the word 'leaked' deliberately because I've seen no evidence that Barrett agreed to the release of the affidavit. Maybe he did and maybe he didn't; perhaps Stephen Ryder, if you contacted him, could clarify matters, but my assumption is that Melvin Harris released it.

Whether he had Barrett's permission, I couldn't say, but the first public airing this secret, non-circulating confessional affidavit came two years after its creation.

Those are the facts.

A might strange delay if the motivation was to harm Paul Feldman. No; whatever the motivations of Gray and Harris, Mike was clearly using the affidavit as 'leverage' over Anne, and Mike's private notes to Anne confirm this.

But the motivations of Gray and Harris, to get this statement out of Mike, are pretty crucial to explore, are they not?

Would Mike have produced that affidavit, for instance, if Gray had not been advised by Harris to try and obtain one?

The fact that Mike saw an opportunity to use it to get to Anne is neither here nor there, because it was destined to fail in that mission. It made no difference to her resolve not to dance to his tune, and he had no say in who else would be allowed to read it.

Harris would have used it in January 1995, no question, in his campaign against Shirley and Feldman, had it contained damning evidence of what Mike was claiming. But I'd be surprised if Harris was not aware that an affidavit relies on the word of the person swearing it and is no substitute for proof, even if that person is of good character and not known for making things up - which could not have applied less in Mike Barrett's case. It was in fact worse than worthless to Melvin Harris in this regard, being the clearest example yet of Mike's ability to lie and lie again without compunction, shame or self-awareness. If it had contained an ounce of truth it would have been a unique document, considering its source.

[rjpalmer]

Melvin could have got it 'out there' by sending copies to Feldman, Shirley, Keith, Robert, Doreen and every newspaper in the land and the Barretts could have done nothing about it.

This is a smokescreen, by the way.

Barrett's secret, non-circulating affidavit was lodged with his solicitor and would have been protected by attorney/client privilege. Melvin would have known that.

[John Wheat]

The Diary is so obviously a modern hoax.

[caz]

I have just now been catching up with various diary related posts, which I missed over the festive season due to illness or other more pleasant distractions, and would like to refer on this thread to some specific observations I noted, where my name was invoked but I had no chance to read or respond directly at the time. I'm assuming that this is acceptable to everyone concerned, as the thread's title seems appropriate and I'm sure nobody wants me to start a new one for the purpose!

Firstly I noted that RJ Palmer wanted to explain why he 'can't buy into Caz's theory that Anne Graham lied to everyone around her because Feldman promised her millions.'

I would just like to state for the record that this misrepresents my position, where I clearly stated that it was a fact that Feldman promised Anne money in return for her signature on a document, but was offering no opinion on whether or not this motivated her to lie 'to everyone around her'. Only Anne can possibly know her own reasons for doing or saying anything, so I would prefer it if Palmer would make it clear in future when he is arguing against an inference he has made, as opposed to anything I actually wrote. It's not merely annoying and poor form - particularly when it hangs around uncorrected - but it does him no favours if he needs to do this to strengthen his own position.

Palmer goes on to argue that Anne was 'terrified of being linked to Barrett's hoax', which is an odd position to take for someone who believes it was Anne who gave birth to the diary in April 1992, while her husband watched his new baby come into the world, and just two years later she is so 'terrified' that her secret is about to be revealed, that she tempts Mike to do the revealing by telling Feldman she saw the diary back in the 1960s. I have to say that her 'terror' was evidently unfounded and remains so to this today, because while Mike was clearly provoked by her 'in the family' story into taking action against her, she must have been rather relieved when he only demonstrated his own impotence.

Palmer then asks me how confident Anne could have been by July 1994 to tell Feldman her story if she still didn't know where Mike had got the diary from and rather suspected that it had been nicked. Well, a damned sight more confident, I would think, that nobody was going to realise it was missing after two years, and claim it back with proof of ownership; or that anyone involved in stealing or receiving it would come out of the woodwork and confess, with proof; than if Mike had possessed all the beans since March 1992 and was heavily motivated to spill them and ruin his wife's first summer without him, in revenge for her ruining the rest of his life.

Palmer then observes that it is 'borderline ludicrous' [cheers] to think that Mike could have worked out the 'ten/eleven-day timetable' for the diary's creation as described in his affidavit, 'since he couldn't even remember what year it was'. He forgets that this 'borderline ludicrous' thought was never one of mine, because Mike certainly didn't need to remember the year if he was merely being crafty and using his recollection of the days spent jointly creating the transcript - in time for his unforgettable trip to London - to represent the creation of the physical diary. This was the easy bit, because he could never forget that date, even in his cups: Monday 13th April 1992. He just worked his sweet way back the appropriate number of days when recalling his greatest feat - the transcript. But he gave the year as 1990, arguably because even Mike assumed 1992 would be considered a tad too recent for the diary's creation.

[rjpalmer]

I would just like to state for the record that this misrepresents my position, where I clearly stated that it was a fact that Feldman promised Anne money in return for her signature on a document, but was offering no opinion on whether or not this motivated her to lie 'to everyone around her'. Only Anne can possibly know her own reasons for doing or saying anything

So, I misunderstood you? My humble apologies.

To me, Anne's bizarre behavior is a key question, and since you have written at enormous length about all-things Maybrick Diary, and have even co-written a book that investigated (among other things) Anne's provenance, I am surprised that you can offer no insights for Anne's extraordinary behavior other than a simple 'only Anne knows.'

If you have no theories or explanations for these vexing questions, just as you now admit that you have no explanation why Barrett sought a blank or nearly blank Victorian Diary 1880-1890, from Martin Earl, I certainly don't have any further questions.

And I also have little desire to keep up a discussion with someone who only refers to me in the third person. I find that peculiar.

Thanks for the clarification, though.

That sounds like a wrap.

[The Baron]

I have just now been catching up with various diary related posts, which I missed over the festive season due to illness or other more pleasant distractions, and would like to refer on this thread to some specific observations I noted, where my name was invoked but I had no chance to read or respond directly at the time. I'm assuming that this is acceptable to everyone concerned, as the thread's title seems appropriate and I'm sure nobody wants me to start a new one for the purpose!

Glad to see you back and catching up Caz, hope you are fully recovered and that the festive season had more of the pleasant distractions than the not so pleasant ones.

It is always interesting when you dive into a thread, you tend to notice things most of us overlook!

Threads like this do seem a little brighter with your perspective around.



The Baron