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[caz]

I noticed some time ago David Barrat’s comment to your claim that the affidavit remained unknown for a long time. It would seem that on page 170 of Inside Story a meeting is mentioned during which Keith Skinner and Shirley Harrison discuss it in January 1995.

I don’t have the book at hand but given that he quotes the passage, it seems relevant. Perhaps you could read it and comment?

It’s this page, section “Shock fake (?) news”

Apologies if Inside Story misled anyone by sticking to the chronology of what we know happened on what date, without always going the extra mile to explain who knew about it and when.

I have still seen no evidence that Mike, or Alan Gray, or Melvin Harris, or anyone on Melvin's behalf, shared the news of this particular affidavit, or its content, with anyone else until early 1997, when Shirley and Keith first saw copies, courtesy of Mike himself. If anyone has such evidence, I'll be happy to be corrected.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Thanks for clarifying Caz.

Which means my own 74% UNPROVEN/FALSE score stands. Handy.

And another thing...

Mike's claim to have been telling everyone since 'December 1993' that the diary was a 'fraud': UNPROVEN.

The first documented mention was in June 1994.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

As a keen student of this whole debacle, Michael Barrett to me was a man with the world on his shoulders and much of it self-inflicted. The line between fiction and truth was blurred in his mind a long time before the "diary" surfaced. His self-pity for failing as an author (which he claimed was his profession on his 1995 affadavit - a detail I chose to skip over), he always wanted the be the driving force behind a bestseller. With money run out, wife gone, kid gone, health worsening - I can see why it was attractive for him to spin another yarn in the hope he can cling on to some kind of relevance - even within his own life. He was bitter, angry, bemused, confused, sad, insecure, arrogant, stubborn, aggressive, pitiful and at times could be charming and disarming. A complex human no doubt, but does that include an ability to mastermind this "hoax"? The evidence we do have thus far shows that to be both highly unlikely and highly improbable.

To answer Trevor's question why would he sign an oath that to me is 74% UNPROVEN/FALSE, I have not the foggiest - but that 1995 statement is not proof of anything.

Great post.

Another question for me would be: why would Mike have felt obliged to admit to this 'fraud' if he did it? Who was forcing him to incriminate himself, by swearing this affidavit in the first place? The paradox is that if he didn't do it, he needed an affidavit, because he knew there would be no hard evidence against him. And if he did do it, he wouldn't have needed an affidavit unless there was no hard evidence for it. I'm surprised the latter wasn't pointed out to him at the time.

I suspect he was into damage limitation by June 1994, when his personal world had imploded, due mainly to the diary's presence in it, and the diary itself had been declared a modern fake. One way of coping with all this was to try and show the world that he had not been taken in by a fake, but had in fact masterminded it, fooling his nemesis Feldman in the process. This was more important to him than the fear of being nicked for forgery. If push came to shove, they'd have to prove it and he knew they'd find nothing.

Love,

Caz
X

[Ven]

Well, let's wait and see on Saturday! It may all be moo!

[Trevor Marriott]

Great post.

Another question for me would be: why would Mike have felt obliged to admit to this 'fraud' if he did it? Who was forcing him to incriminate himself, by swearing this affidavit in the first place? The paradox is that if he didn't do it, he needed an affidavit, because he knew there would be no hard evidence against him. And if he did do it, he wouldn't have needed an affidavit unless there was no hard evidence for it. I'm surprised the latter wasn't pointed out to him at the time.

I suspect he was into damage limitation by June 1994, when his personal world had imploded, due mainly to the diary's presence in it, and the diary itself had been declared a modern fake. One way of coping with all this was to try and show the world that he had not been taken in by a fake, but had in fact masterminded it, fooling his nemesis Feldman in the process. This was more important to him than the fear of being nicked for forgery. If push came to shove, they'd have to prove it and he knew they'd find nothing.

Love,

Caz
X

But the content and the composition of the affidavit does not indicate it was penned by the deluded individual you portray!

Either he wrote it himself because it was true, or he wrote it with others who formulated it for him and was still true.

i am having difficulty in coming to terms with the suggestion that out of the blue he went to all those lengths to pen this affidavit with all that detail included, and I have to ask why?

When he was first interviewed by the police what account did he give? That he got it from Tony Deveraux and he believed it was genuine who could disprove that at that time certainly not the police because Deveraux was brown bread, Then it finished up with Robert Smith who says he took it in good faith as being genuine so no evidence of dishonesty from a police perspective at that time agaibst Barret or Smith or any others who were involved up until then.

Following the police investigation and no one being prosecuted all the parties fall out for what reason is not clear and Barrett was hell bent on confessing, which brings in the affidavit.

And how would penning the affidavit stop him from prosecution it would be hard evidence against him. So an afterthought was the second affidavit where he could introduce the criminal defence of duress being placed on him by the other co-conspirators if he was re-interviewed

I suspect that there is an undercurrent with all of this somewhere, and those ripper researchers "directly" involved with Barrett in this probably know a lot more than has been disclosed.

The truth is out there!!!!!!!!!!!

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Trevor Marriott]

In answer to Trevor's request here is my tuppence worth. I have rated each piece of information based on my understanding of present outcomes from Mikes 1995 affidavit - with no commentary other than the results. This is simply my intepretation.

- Name - TRUE
- Address - TRUE
- Personal Injury - FALSE
- Diary idea - UNPROVEN
- Timeline of starting said idea - UNPROVEN
- Funds withdrawn on dates described - UNPROVEN
- Funds provided by William Graham - UNPROVEN
- Auction date and event - UNPROVEN
- Military man at auction - UNPROVEN
- Auction items purchased - UNPROVEN
- Auction process described - UNPROVEN
- Soaking scrapbook in linseed oil - UNPROVEN
- Drying the scrapbook in the oven - UNPROVEN
- Kidney-shape carving in scrapbook - TRUE
- Purchase of nibs and pens on Bold Street - UNPROVEN
- Purchase of Diamine Ink from Bluecoat Chambers - UNPROVEN
- Dictation of "diary" to Anne - UNPROVEN
- Footage of such pose - TRUE
- Timeline on Tony Devereux death - TRUE
- Ink blot covering the word James - UNPROVEN
- Page 226 Punch Magazine Quote - TRUE
- Page 228 ink blot covering S - UNPROVEN
- Page 250 quote from SPHERE HISTORY OF LITERATURE - UNPROVEN

23 pieces of information

TRUTHS = 6 (26%)
UNPROVEN = 16 (70%)
FALSE = 1 (4%)

So UNPROVEN/FALSE scores 74% for me.

But the uproven does not automatically mean it didnt happen or could not have happened !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Ven]

No, it just means "unproven" let the others work it out!

[Iconoclast]

But the content and the composition of the affidavit does not indicate it was penned by the deluded individual you portray!

Either he wrote it himself because it was true, or he wrote it with others who formulated it for him and was still true.

The truth is out there!!!!!!!!!!!

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Hi Trevor,

Or he wrote it himself and it wasn't true, or he wrote it himself with others who formulated it for him and it wasn't still true.

Looks like others have beaten me to the analysis part. What I would say is that you (and others) are possibly being influenced far more by Barratt's 'creative juices' in his affidavit than in the accuracy of it.

If I had time (one day I will, though Lobster Day is likely to have buggered that up by then) I would dig into the specifics of how Mike came to make his affidavit in Jan 1995. It does seem that he was being manipulated to do so by Alan Gray and - behind him - very possibly Melvin Harris, which leaves me with a strong sense of someone having written it for him. Now, clearly he would have had to have come up with the details, and it appears that he did, but was he actually truly motivated to do so or was he simply being carried on the wind of someone else's agenda?

Alan Gray himself signed an affidavit some years later (Jan 1998) in which he tells of meeting Mike in the late evening one day in Liverpool and the two of them come metaphorically to blows because Gray has finally (long since) seen through Mike and his funny little games. Gray ends with the most wonderful line which I think sums up how everyone who ever tried to get any sense out of Mike Barrett came quickly to feel:

AG: Don't ring me anymore or contact me. I am going now before I kick the shi t out of you.

This doesn't answer any of your questions, Trevor, I appreciate, but I post it as an indication that Mike Barrett - who should indeed have been the perfect foil for a forger of the scrapbook - was the very least likely foil of all, unless you like your foils to be straight out of Village Idiot School.

Sorry I can't be more helpful.

Cheers,

Ike

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi Trevor,

Or he wrote it himself and it wasn't true, or he wrote it himself with others who formulated it for him and it wasn't still true.

Looks like others have beaten me to the analysis part. What I would say is that you (and others) are possibly being influenced far more by Barratt's 'creative juices' in his affidavit than in the accuracy of it.

If I had time (one day I will, though Lobster Day is likely to have buggered that up by then) I would dig into the specifics of how Mike came to make his affidavit in Jan 1995. It does seem that he was being manipulated to do so by Alan Gray and - behind him - very possibly Melvin Harris, which leaves me with a strong sense of someone having written it for him. Now, clearly he would have had to have come up with the details, and it appears that he did, but was he actually truly motivated to do so or was he simply being carried on the wind of someone else's agenda?

Alan Gray himself signed an affidavit some years later (Jan 1998) in which he tells of meeting Mike in the late evening one day in Liverpool and the two of them come metaphorically to blows because Gray has finally (long since) seen through Mike and his funny little games. Gray ends with the most wonderful line which I think sums up how everyone who ever tried to get any sense out of Mike Barrett came quickly to feel:

AG: Don't ring me anymore or contact me. I am going now before I kick the shi t out of you.

This doesn't answer any of your questions, Trevor, I appreciate, but I post it as an indication that Mike Barrett - who should indeed have been the perfect foil for a forger of the scrapbook - was the very least likely foil of all, unless you like your foils to be straight out of Village Idiot School.

Sorry I can't be more helpful.

Cheers,

Ike

I am simply trying to get all things in perspective by asking relevant questions, which it seems some have no answers to other than to keep portraying Barrett as the village idiot, which I don't believe was the case for one minute.

A village idiot would not have been able to formulate the affidavit in such detail without help, and if he did have help where did that help come from and is another question?

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Iconoclast]

I am simply trying to get all things in perspective by asking relevant questions, which it seems some have no answers to other than to keep portraying Barrett as the village idiot, which I don't believe was the case for one minute.

A village idiot would not have been able to formulate the affidavit in such detail without help, and if he did have help where did that help come from and is another question?

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Well Lord Orsam explicitly accepts that Alan Gray was a driving force behind the creation of the affidavit and it is therefore very likely indeed that the driving force behind Alan Gray was one Melvin Harris himself.

Now, Alan Gray appears to be about as literate as Mike Barrett, so that - to me - leaves the finger pointing very strongly at the remaining party.

Where did the exquisite detail come from? I have to accept that that all came from Mike Barrett. If that makes him a Village Idiot Savant, then fair enough. I suppose such an oxymoron is possible.

Cheers,

Ike

[John G]

Wow. This is like the World Record for Inaccurate Reporting Blatantly Intended to Influence the Feeble-Minded! I honestly don't know where to begin to pick through the twisted nature of the story you have just unfolded for us.

If ever there was a case of "playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order", this is definitely it.

Please, if the whole drama wasn't about to finally end at 2pm next Saturday, I'd advise you to read a book on the subject or ask someone who knows what they're talking about before you post.

I think you have maybe 30 bits of Maybrick-related information in your collection and you've just randomly picked-up 10-15 of them and thrown them equally-randomly into a post.

In that regard, it is a masterpiece of obfuscation.

Ike

On yer bike, Ike!.

Do you have a specific point to make, ir are you just randomly hitting the keyboard?

And this from someone who seems to think that Maybrick was living in Whitechapel for years with Sarah Robertson. Hilarious!

[John G]

You are so right about Chinese whispers, John. But there is no excuse for posters here, with an imperfect grasp of the evidence, the chronology, the context and the accounts given by all the individuals concerned, to mislead the readers with Chinese whispers of their own! Your post is brimming over with them! Where do I start?

The documentary evidence we have to date shows this actually happened in late 1992. In addition, Davies had been on sick leave for the previous six months, since a nasty car accident on 13th June that year.



I don't believe in shops having powers of memory. Davies enquired about the diary he'd heard about before his accident, and was told it had been sold in a pub in Anfield and therefore no longer on the market.



As I say, where do I start with this lot? Might it not have been simpler to wait for The Baron to prove the bloody thing could not possibly have come from the house at any time, presumably because it was Anne Graham who planned and executed the hoax?

It was on a Friday afternoon - POETS day - 17th July 1992, to be exact, and Brian Rawes had one more job to do, with Arthur Rigby, before they could knock off. Brian had no 'employees' to pick up. He had been sent by the boss to pick up the firm's van, which was at Battlecrease and was needed for the two-man roofing job at Halewood police station. Brian didn't know the way to Riversdale Road as he had never been to the house before, so Arthur Rigby drove them both in his car, then drove himself back to the office to wait for Brian to return with the van, so they could load up and take the van together to Halewood.

While Brian was reversing the van down the drive at Battlecrease, Eddie emerged - he was working on the ground floor with Graham Rhodes and used his own car for work - and told him he had found a book in the house under the floorboards and thought it could be important. Brian was in a rush, and knew the boss's son was inside, so he advised Eddie to mention it to the boss. I don't know where you got the idea that Brian ever suggested that 'whatever was found was discovered at the end of the day'. How would he know? Eddie didn't mention when he'd found it, and Brian simply assumed it was recently. He had no reason to think otherwise. The conversation was brief and not at the end of anyone's working day. Brian had no idea that Eddie might have been talking about a find on his previous visit to the house, back on 9th March. By the July, Mike was no doubt itching to brag down the pub about securing a publishing deal for the "old book", so if Eddie heard the latest gossip was that Bongo had an "important" book that was going to be published, the timing of his conversation with Brian that afternoon makes perfect sense. What if Bongo had mentioned Eddie's name to anyone? The connection would be made back to Battlecrease and he'd be buckled. "What did you tell 'em, Mike?" "Don't worry, lad. Would I split on a mate - er - while he's still alive and kic8king and able to kick the crap out of me? Not bloody likely. I told 'em all I was given it a year ago, by that old boy who lived on your road and then died of a heart attack in the summer holidays. I said he never told me where it came from, which is the God's honest truth - technically speaking. And I still don't know because you haven't told me either."

Eddie had helped out with his mate Jimmy B, back on Monday 9th March, when floorboards on the first floor had to be lifted. Arthur was there that day and did a full day's work, while the other named electrician, Jimmy C, put in just two hours. Eddie and Jimmy B were only "filling in", so were unlikely to have hung around for the whole day, considering the young lad was only needed for two hours. As I say, Eddie had his own wheels and his local was the Saddle, where Mike spent every weekday lunchtime while waiting to pick up his daughter from the school over the road at 3.15. Doreen Montgomery rarely arrived at her office in London until late morning, and often stayed late into the evening, so the end of 'normal business hours' was very flexible as far as she was concerned.



Yeah, it might have been funnier if I hadn't come to your rescue with a more realistic timeline of events.



The way you tell it, it's more than that, John. Anyone can make up a deeply unsatisfactory scenario and then argue that it's deeply unsatisfactory.

Love,

Caz
X

Is there any evidence for any of this? According to Robert Smith the diary was found on the 9th March, the same say MB phoned the literary agent, not that I believe it was! Meanwhile, Brian Rawes told SH that whatever had been hiding under the floorboards was discovered in June 1992. And this counts as provenance? What a complete mess.

Are you suggesting the diary was found 4 months after MB phoned the literary agent? Actually, what are you suggesting?

Alan Davies told SH the following:

"He recounted a story by another electrician at Portus and Rhodes, Brian Rawes. At the end of one day, Mr Rawes had been picking up two other employees from Battlecrease House in the firm's van. He recalls one of them saying, "I've found something under the floorboards. I think it could be important."

[Kattrup]

Apologies if Inside Story misled anyone by sticking to the chronology of what we know happened on what date, without always going the extra mile to explain who knew about it and when.

I have still seen no evidence that Mike, or Alan Gray, or Melvin Harris, or anyone on Melvin's behalf, shared the news of this particular affidavit, or its content, with anyone else until early 1997, when Shirley and Keith first saw copies, courtesy of Mike himself. If anyone has such evidence, I'll be happy to be corrected.

I am not sure what evidence would satisfy you, if Keith Skinner’s account in a book he co-wrote does not.

Is your recommendation to researchers that “Inside Story” is generally untrustworthy or is it just the details surrounding the affidavit?


If the meeting January 1995 was not about MB’s sworn statement, what was it about, and why would it be described in a false and misleading manner?

It seems the affidavit being made public quickly is mentioned on several other occasions, David Barret mentions a phone call between Whay and Harrison January 16th, by which date the affidavit was known (page 167).

I’m currently on an island vacationing and don’t have the book close by. If by chance you have a copy, perhaps you could check how much Keith Skinner et al. knew about the affidavit yourself, instead of relying on me googling it off Barrett’s website? It seems to be rather well documented around pages 167-170.

[Iconoclast]

I noticed some time ago David Barrat’s comment to your claim that the affidavit remained unknown for a long time. It would seem that on page 170 of Inside Story a meeting is mentioned during which Keith Skinner and Shirley Harrison discuss it in January 1995.

I don’t have the book at hand but given that he quotes the passage, it seems relevant. Perhaps you could read it and comment?

It’s this page, section “Shock fake (?) news”

This relates to when Caroline Morris wrote to R.J. Palmer on another thread:

... you are assuming that Keith [Skinner] knew about Mike’s sworn affidavit of January 5th 1995 by August 22nd 1995. He didn't. Mike sent a copy of this affidavit to Shirley on January 22nd 1997 and Shirley then gave Keith pages one and two the following day. This was the first Keith knew about its existence. He thinks it’s possible it had been put on the internet by someone in 1996. But in short, he had no knowledge of it, or the content, back in 1995.

Inside Story (p170) states that on Jan 18 1995 (13 days after Barrett signed the affidavit): 'Barrett had assented to a meeting at his house with Keith Skinner, Shirley Harrison, Sally Evemy...to discuss his sworn statement'.

How could Keith Skinner have attended a meeting n January 1995 to discuss with Mike Barrett a sworn statement the existence of which he wasn't aware of until two years later?

I have taken the opportunity to ask Keith for a response to this and he has emailed me the following:

I can clearly see from page 170 how the impression can be easily gleaned that Mike Barrett’s affidavit of January 5th 1995 may have been widely known about by the time of the meeting with Mike on January 18th 1995. But certainly it wasn’t mentioned, publicly or privately to me, at Feldman’s C&D talk on January 7th 1995. Neither was it discussed at the tape recorded meeting with Mike in front of an Independent Observer who Shirley had arranged to be present – a retired officer from Liverpool CID. Having him there proved to be extremely useful as throughout the interview Mike kept telling everybody he would give us the whole truth if somebody went out and bought him a bottle of Scotch. In the end our Independent Observer told Mike it wasn’t a good idea to keep asking because of “compromising your visitors.” But – yes – I agree Inside Story is misleading and it reads like Mike’s detailed account in his affidavit had already been examined in considerable depth. It was probably written that way in order to address it straight away rather than returning to it in the narrative. It’s not until 1998 that Shirley responds to it in the Blake edition of her book.

Looking at a timeline of events I note there is a telephone conversation between Shirley and Mike on Sunday January 15th 1995 – ten days after the affidavit was sworn and my strong suspicion is that word of the affidavit had already been told to Melvin Harris – plus it would be entirely consistent for Mike to have been telephoning people (Shirley, Doreen, Robert, Feldman) to let them know about the affidavit There is a memo sent from Shirley to Doreen, Robert and Feldman on January 16th 1995 confirming that a meeting had been arranged for the 18th January in Liverpool with Mike...”Says diary is 100% genuine and claims to know about Mrs Hammersmith too. Lots of talk about wanting to see Anne, etc.” So although we wrote in Inside story the meeting with Mike was to discuss his sworn statement, none of us had seen it. Indeed I don’t think I had sight of it until the beginning of 1997 (I think) by which time somebody had already posted it on the internet. I know I was mainly concerned with trying to understand the reasons why Mike had confessed to forging the diary back in June 1994.

Hope that might clarify the situation.

It is unfortunate that Inside Story (which I think was primarily written by Seth Linder from Skinner and Morris's extensive research, though I could be wrong) is misleading on this point. The fact is that the transcript of the Jan 18, 1995 meeting makes no reference to a Jan 5 1995 affidavit. Interestingly, Barrett does refer to an affidavit he claims to have signed four years earlier (1991, obviously):

MB: Right. He [Tony D] made his betting slips out as per usual and what have you and I said, “I’ll go an put them all on” and what have you. So I go down, put the betting slips on, come back and what have you and he [TD] said, “Here you are and this is for you.” So I said, “Well what is it?” and he said, “Take it home and look at it”. That’s an affidavit sworn out in Richard’s [Barrett's solicitor] office to this day, to the very day. You can go back and it’s dated four years ago and what have you and I said, “What is it?”, he [TD] said, “Just take it back and look at it”, so I come back and look at it and it’s “Yours truly Jack the Ripper”. I thought, excuse my language, but I thought you know, “I’ll phone him up immediately” and he [TD] was adamant, he was totally bloody adamant.

This 1991 affidavit has never seen the light of day and I assume it never will but it would be fascinating if it did. The key thing is that at no point did Mike reveal:

MB: Oh, and by the way and what have you, I just swore another one of these affadavids a fortnight ago for Melvin Harris in which I claim I forged the DAiry.

This brings out how all over the place Mike Barrett was (especially with affidavits) and people – like Trevor Marriott - are (encouragingly) beginning to ask why and relate those questions to the real world. Hence how vital it is to understand the chronology of when things occurred. It exposes the superficiality of RJ’s and Lord O’s line of reasoning which is more or less along the lines of a calculated conspiracy. It reveals how events to do with peoples' lives and relationships were driving this story and raises it above the level of a cosy armchair mystery involving one dimensional characters. For those who want a greater understanding of Mike’s affidavits, I suggest they listen to Mike Barrett’s Radio Merseyside interviews of September/October 1995.

Mike did make an affidavit on April 26 1993 (reproduced on page 36 of Inside Story and copied below). The date is significant – four days after the story had broken in the newspapers that JM was going to be named as JtR in a book based on his scrapbook. Why does Mike feel it is necessary to swear an affidavit that he was given the scrapbook?



PS I've just heard that the takeover of Newcastle United has been called-off so I may need to lie down for a couple of days. I'm sure the news will feel more bearable for me by then.

Cheers,

Ike

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Hi Ike,

I agree, the chronology and much else is a mess. I was musing over the affidavit a while back, hence I asked Caz to clarify the timeline, which she graciously did. My query was although Mike's affidavit was sworn in Jan '95, Feldman presented Anne to the C+D club very soon after, so I was curious to know who knew what when. Despite not knowing the detail of the affidavit, it seems pretty clear that Mike had been threatening to claim the forgery for a while before that, so any rumours of a statement in Jan '95, I believe, wouldn't have been misunderstood by the relevant parties, even if they didn't read the exact document. It's the exact reason I believe Anne and Feldman went public with the Graham provenance when they did.

By no means am I'm saying this proves Mikes behind it. But even without seeing the affidavit, people knew what he was doing.