The Diary — Old Hoax or New or Not a Hoax at All?​

[Iconoclast]

There wasn't an "original question", Ike.

It's just a perfectly acceptable alternative for 'issue'.

Nothing to see here, dear readers, bar the green shoots of utter desperation of course.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I assume you mean the Cloak & Dagger Club meeting in 1999?

Unfortunately, Mike appeared to be inebriated so his terrible performance and failure to provide any corroborating evidence or even speak cogently of the events detailed in the affidavit have provided his supporters with a Get Out of Jail card. You should perhaps refer to Orsam's A Man in a Pub article on his website as a truly priceless example of what you have been attempting to do with the affidavit - that is, ignore everything which is just patently incorrect or unproven and shoehorn in a story which happens to fit the story you want to tell. It's a classic.

I'm surprised you directed me to Orsam's site, Ike. I'd have thought you'd have wanted to set it all out yourself. But, okay ,I went over there, and I've copied and pasted everything he's recorded Mike as saying about creating the diary during his interview by Keith Skinner. I've done my best to try and include everything material and relevant:

'I’ve been writing, god knows, I’ve been writing for an awful long time. So I phoned David Burness. And he produces a magazine. And the magazine is called Celebrity magazine. This is very, very, important. This is where the Diary starts. Now, David Burness produces Celebrity magazine. Meanwhile, I go along and, you can go and check these facts, look at the people I interviewed. I interviewed Kenneth Williams, Bonnie Langford, various people… and I do all the interviews, so I come back and I write it on a word processor. Right. And I’m only making about £120 if I’m lucky. Then Maggie dies. Now you are going to ask, 'who is Maggie?' Maggie is Billy Graham’s father, mother, sorry I do apologise. And when she dies, she dies on New Year’s Eve. And I thought to myself, my life has totally changed here, 1987, get that wrote down, 1987. So, in 1987 I turn round and thought to myself oopsie daisie and Anne - Anne - wants me to build up a mortgage. I didn’t have the money. That’s a fact. I’ll be perfectly honest with you. I only had £600 at the time. £600 wasn’t enough to pay for the mortgage. It was like that. It was half and half. So I paid the mortgage and we moved to 12 Goldie Street, G-O-L-D-I-E S-T-R-E-T-T right, and the reason I’m spelling all this is just to prove that I’m not illiterate. I think that’s exceedingly important because according to Anne I can’t string two sentences together. So we moved to Goldie Street and Goldie Street was, shall we say, a tie around my neck, and I mean literally a tie around my neck, it was hanging me, I couldn’t keep up with the mortgage so I thought to myself, okay, I’ve been writing for David Burness, Celebrity magazine, I’ve been writing for Chat Magazine, I’ve been writing for Look-In Magazine. I’ve been writing for all these magazines. And I thought to myself, okay Michael, let’s do a Sir Walter Scott. Now anybody is in here, is shall we say familiar with English literature? Sir Walter Scott, if you know anything about Sir Walter Scott. Sir Walter Scott was in a hell of a lot of trouble in the past. And what Sir Walter Scott done, he wrote himself out of it. I mean, literally, he wrote himself out of it. He wrote Ivanhoe. And that’s a god given fact. And that is a god given fact. So I thought to myself, I’ll do the same, I’ll write myself out if it. I’ll write myself out of the – well, if you forgive me ladies and gentleman, I do apologise, s-h-i-t. Right. Because I don’t want to swear. So I thought to myself I’ll write myself out of it. So I wrote myself out of it. Well, I thought I wrote myself out of it. … I’m serious.....So when I wrote it, all of a sudden the Diary gets on the shelf [by which he means in the shops], the Diary becomes genuine and I know and I totally know that the Diary is false. I know because I know I’ve wrote it, but I haven’t wrote it. Anne’s wrote it. Now always remember that fact ladies and gentlemen. Anne wrote it. It’s in her handwriting. Now always remember that fact. That’s a god given fact. So all of a sudden, oopsie daisie. I said, “I’m not having this”. And remember I’ve got a daughter. I’ve got a daughter called Caroline. And I haven’t seen her. I’ve lost track of her. I know she lives in [gives her address] Liverpool. Or do I?.... I’ve lost a daughter. And I turned round and said to Anne, you don’t, no matter what you do, and I mean this, and I mean this today, you don’t use children, you don’t use children. Anne did. Anne did. No question about it. She used Caroline. And she used me. It’s what we call emotional blackmail for want of a better word. It’s not blackmail but I have to say it was emotional blackmail. Anne turned round to me and said "If you tell the truth about the Diary of Jack the Ripper, that you wrote it and I wrote it, right, I’ll make sure", a god given fact, – and she swore on the bible, "I’ll make sure, I’ll guarantee, that you never see Caroline again." Well that to me is totally blackmail. My advice is never to give in to blackmail. My advice will go to its grave and I'll still never give in to blackmail. But Anne said that. Anne, true to her word…And she really did say it. And she blackmailed me, and she blackmailed me with my daughter....I said I think I’ve got the diary of Jack the Ripper here, do you understand? Doreen fell for it left, right and centre. So all I had to do was come out and find the Diary of Jack the Ripper and write it. It took me eleven days flat to write..... if she wouldn't have believed the con, I would never have carried on with the con.....I was doing a con. Right....I said I think I've got the Diary of Jack the Ripper. Right. I'm not "sure", I'm not "certain" but I think I really have got it. Right. Remember, I know it's a con... looked in the bookshelf and I found Pan Books. So I phoned Pan Books up and I said "Listen, I really sincerely believe I own the diary of Jack the Ripper - however, I don't have 100% proof. I can't prove it." And they advised me, they said, "We don't work it this way, we don't work it this way, you need an agent." Emphasise an agent. So, they turned round and said, "Doreen Montgomery"....The red ledger, if you understand me, is so small it's untrue. And I thought to myself "Oh sugarlumps". It's no good...It's a Victorian diary but I thought to myself "no good". So I said to myself "Whoopsie daisy. I've just gone and sold the idea to Doreen Montgomery. Now I've got to produce the goods." Are you with me?...Now I'm stuck...all I've got is a little red diary...So I turn around and I go to Outhwaite & Litherland which is operating.... I want to bring her in now. Anna Koren... The person who write this diary, according to Anna Koren, the world’s [greatest] handwriting expert and what have you, has got a multiple, and I mean multiple, because I’m quoting....Anna Koren, Anna Koren states quite categorically. Paul Feldman flies her in from Israel. She’s the world’s leading handwriting expert, agreed? Or not? Will everybody agree with me because that’s what’s in the Diary. So Anna Koren gets flied in, right, from Paul Feldman, she looks at the Diary. She doesn’t know it’s the diary of Jack the Ripper.....I never hand wrote it, Anne hand wrote it, that’s the difference.,,,Anne actually wrote it in her handwriting......Anne blackmailed me with Caroline. She turned round to me...at the book launch and said I’ll never see Caroline again. I’m telling the truth.....I'll tell you how it hurts. Excuse me ladies and gentlemen. I’ll tell you how it hurts. It hurts there through the heart. It kills me from the heart because Anne has lied and she’s used Caroline as a blackmail threat.....What do you do with the ink? You put a little bit of sugar in it.....I’ll tell you what, we’ll go down there if there are any shops here open now, and we’ll go and get the ink, and we’ll go and get sugar, when you put the sugar in the ink, and you go… the molecules are totally messed up so therefore you can’t produce the exact ink.....So when you do the Diamine ink, right I’m thinking to myself oh I’ve got Diamine ink here, do you understand what I mean, I thought to myself, ooh sugar lumps here. And I mean literally sugar lumps. I thought to myself I can’t produce that Diamaine ink. That can be traced. That can be traced. So I’m putting sugar in and mixing it all up and about, that can’t be traced.'

Perhaps best to concentrate on this story from his own lips rather than one from someone else who might have misunderstood what he was saying.

[Iconoclast]

In the meantime, the following are the glorious truths revealed by Mike Barrett's sworn affidavit of January 5, 1995, which to date have been confirmed and which give you, Orsam, and RJ such hope (did you ever think you'd be such a Barrett Believer that you would so quickly join such illustrious company?):

she paid for the Diary by cheque in the amount of L25 which was drawn on her Lloyds Bank Account, Water Street Branch, Liverpool.

When this Diary arrived in teh post

it was very small.

My wife is now in possession of this Diary in fact she asked for it specifically recently when I saw her at her home address XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

During this period

Tony Devereux was house-bound, very ill

which I purchased in 1985, from Dixons in Church Street, Liverpool City Centre.

When I eventually did the deal with Robert Smith, he took possession of the Diary and it went right out of my control.

and my Solicitors are now engaged in litigation.

I became so frightened that I sort (sic) the help of a Private Detective Alan Gray and complaints were made to the Police which I understand are still being pursued

It was about 1st week in December 1994 that my wife Anne Barrett visited me

and we even made love

I don’t know about anyone else, but reading these confirmed elements of Barrett’s affidavit sends a shiver down my spine at the ruthless cunning and daring of this pair. I feel like I’m literally transported to 12 Goldie Street in April 1992 as Mike and Anne worked for eleven (eleven?????) crazy days in the goldrush of forging passion to produce a document barely dry on the page which fooled so many people a few days later and which still brings raging debate today, thirty-odd years later. It’s a chilling document filled with fine and obviously felicitous detail. “When this Diary arrived in teh post”, ”Tony Devereux was house-bound, very ill”, “and my Solicitors are now engaged in litigation” – it’s a cascade of self-evident revelation and God’s Honest Truth, and what have you. It really makes you wonder why so few people believe a word of it!

[Iconoclast]

What you should be focusing your energy on is the central story of the affidavit which is that Mike dictated the text of the diary to his wife who wrote it down in eleven days. As to that, I've seen references in posts to Mike telling the story of the forgery at a public meeting a few years after the affidavit. Are you able to tell me exactly what he said at that meeting in respect of creating the diary? It seems to me we'd be better off focusing on what he definitely said rather than what someone else typed in an affidavit on his behalf.

I assume you mean the Cloak & Dagger Club meeting in 1999?

Unfortunately, Mike appeared to be inebriated so his terrible performance and failure to provide any corroborating evidence or even speak cogently of the events detailed in the affidavit have provided his supporters with a Get Out of Jail card. You should perhaps refer to Orsam's A Man in a Pub article on his website as a truly priceless example of what you have been attempting to do with the affidavit - that is, ignore everything which is just patently incorrect or unproven and shoehorn in a story which happens to fit the story you want to tell. It's a classic.

[Herlock Sholmes]

It has just occurred to me that I should have challenged this conclusion somewhat more assertively than I did.

The original question was around how much of Barrett's affidavit had been confirmed (or accepted as true) so everything which had NOT been confirmed got coloured red by default. This left open the possibility that someone might come along and suggest that the amount of red was irrelevant because actually just because it wasn't yet confirmed didn't logically mean it could not be confirmed in the future. In truth, many aspects of this affidavit could never be confirmed because they were actually false claims

Here's where I should have been more clear: I should have colour-coded those things which had been shown to be untrue a different colour to those things which were simply unconfirmed.

These would have included:

Since December 1993 I have been trying, through the press, the Publishers, the Author of the Book, Mrs Harrison, and my Agent Doreen Montgomery to expose the fraud of ' The Diary of Jack the Ripper ' ("the diary"). [This has been shown to be false because there should be a record of it somewhere starting in December 1993 and there is not a scrap of evidence to support this claim and that doesn't mean it could be unconfirmed - it means it is patently false. It is not an unproven claim because its significance would be too apparent]

Nobody will believe me and in fact some very influential people in the Publishing and Film world have been doing everything to discredit me and in fact they have gone so far as to introduce a new and complete story of the original facts of the Diary and how it came to light. [This is false - only his wife Anne had introduced "a new and complete story of the original facts".]

... she made the purchase through a firm in the 1986 Writters Year Book [This is false as HP Bookfinders did not advertise in the W&A Yearbook - Martin Earl of HP Bookfinders has stated that he assumed Barrett found his firm through the Yellow Pages but even this may not be correct as Barrett would have only had the Merseyside edition of the Yellow Pages, but either way the actual claim is patently false.]

At this stage I was given a ticket on which was marked the item number and the price I had bid. I then had to hand this ticket over to the Office and I paid L50. This ticked was stamped ... I then returned to the Auction Room with my stamped ticket and handed it over to an assistant ... I was then told to return return (sic) my ticket to the Office ... [This account has been denounced by Kevin What of O&L as not consistent with how their auction process worked.]

I soaked the whole of the front cover in Linseed Oil, once the oil was absorbed by the front cover, which took about 2 days to dry out. I even used the heat from the gas oven to assist in the drying out. [This scrapbook has been examined by numerous experienced people. None have ever mentioned that linseed oil - or any sort of oil - had been identified during their examination - it is a truly ridiculous claim which is patently false.]

During this period when we were writing the Diary, Tony Devereux was house-bound, very ill and in fact after we completed the Diary we left it for a while with Tony being severly (sic) ill and in fact he died late May early June 1990. [Tony Devereux did on August 8, 1991.]

During the writing of the diary of Jack the Ripper, when I was dictating to Anne, mistakes occurred from time to time for example, Page 6 of the diary, 2nd paragraph, line 9 starts with an ink blot, this blot covers a mistake when I told Anne to write down James instead of thomas. The mistake was covered by the Ink Blot. [I can't locate this ink blot right now but my recollection is that the word covered over was 'regards' not 'Thomas'.]

Page 226 of the Book, page 20, centre page inverted commas, quote "TURN ROUND THREE TIMES, AND CATCH WHOM YOU MAY". This was from Punch Magazine, 3rd week in September 1888. The journalist was P.W. WENN. [This was John Tenniel - a small point but still a false one.]

The Discs, the one Photograph, the compass, all pens and the remainder of the ink was taken by my sister Lynn Richardson to her home address, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. [Barrett's sister denies this happened.]

I have even had bills to cover expenses incurred by the author of the book, Shirley Harrison. [This is not so much false as simply a statement of fact - Harrison and Barrett equally incurred costs - but Barrett spins it so it appears to be egregious.]

I finally decided in November 1993 that enough was enough and I made it clear from that time on that the Diary of Jack the Ripper was a forgery Either it was November 1993 or it was December 1993.]

One might yet argue that not all of these examples are specifically falsehoods, but there are falsehoods and there are errors and I perhaps should not have treated them as 'equal' to that which is unconfirmed by colour-coding them all red. I would hate my dear readers to think there was substance to that which remains unconfirmed about Mike Barrett's farcical affidavit of January 5, 1995.

There wasn't an "original question", Ike. There was just a statement from Roger that some elements of the affidavit had been confirmed. That was correct but for some reason you and Erobitha questioned it and all you ended up doing was confirming it!

The red in your version of the affidavit just demonstrates how much hasn't been shown to be false. So it's a massive self-own.

I can't believe you're still going on about the December 1993 date, the date of Tony Devereux's death and the writer's year book. They're obvious errors. What could Mike Barrett have gained by lying about things that are matters of public record? It's madness to keep banging on about obvious mistakes.

So Mike got the name of the Punch artist wrong. How does that tell us anything? He could have made that mistake just as much if he was the forger than if he wasn't. It just looks like you're desperate for things to include in the list.

In your list, you even include argument. Stuff that I think remains disputed. It shows how desperate you are to find things to include.

What you should be focusing your energy on is the central story of the affidavit which is that Mike dictated the text of the diary to his wife who wrote it down in eleven days. As to that, I've seen references in posts to Mike telling the story of the forgery at a public meeting a few years after the affidavit. Are you able to tell me exactly what he said at that meeting in respect of creating the diary? It seems to me we'd be better off focusing on what he definitely said rather than what someone else typed in an affidavit on his behalf.

[Herlock Sholmes]

What I meant - as well you and everyone else knows - is that so very few things have ever been confirmed and what has been confirmed (or, at least, accepted as true largely because they really don't matter that much) was essentially irrelevant to the hoax claim, and that everything that remained (and it was a lot) was in red, therefore not confirmed.

When someone is making a series of claims about anything (as Barrett did in his affidavit), the burden of proof lies heavy on their shoulders and to have so very little confirmed means that no-one should take any of it seriously.

Is this the same conclusion as spinning it around so that very little has been proven to be untrue? I don't think so. If I claim a unicorn walked through my garden this morning, the fact that it remains unconfirmed is a serious problem for my claim, and this problem is not levelled-up by someone else pointing-out that the claim hasn't actually been shown to be false either.

I hope my dear readers get that. I know you won't.

The responsibility of confirming or disproving what was in the affidavit rests with those investigating that affidavit. So, saying that not everything is confirmed (or disproved), only reflects on the performance of the investigators.

If no-one's bothered to carry out any investigations, then to say that nothing is confirmed or disproved is meaningless.

Contrary to what you seem to think, it's not for a deponent to prove what's in a sworn affidavit because that affidavit itself is the evidence the deponent is presenting.

Where we end up is back with what Roger said, i.e. that Barrett's story is worth intelligently investigating, particularly because some elements have been proved to be true. That's all. The rest is noise.

[Iconoclast]

When you talk about "what the rest of us could not miss", do you mean the fact that, obvious errors of dating and chronology aside, nothing material in Barrett's affidavit about how the forgery was done had been demonstrated to be false?

It has just occurred to me that I should have challenged this conclusion somewhat more assertively than I did.

The original question was around how much of Barrett's affidavit had been confirmed (or accepted as true) so everything which had NOT been confirmed got coloured red by default. This left open the possibility that someone might come along and suggest that the amount of red was irrelevant because actually just because it wasn't yet confirmed didn't logically mean it could not be confirmed in the future. In truth, many aspects of this affidavit could never be confirmed because they were actually false claims

Here's where I should have been more clear: I should have colour-coded those things which had been shown to be untrue a different colour to those things which were simply unconfirmed.

These would have included:

Since December 1993 I have been trying, through the press, the Publishers, the Author of the Book, Mrs Harrison, and my Agent Doreen Montgomery to expose the fraud of ' The Diary of Jack the Ripper ' ("the diary"). [This has been shown to be false because there should be a record of it somewhere starting in December 1993 and there is not a scrap of evidence to support this claim and that doesn't mean it could be unconfirmed - it means it is patently false. It is not an unproven claim because its significance would be too apparent]

Nobody will believe me and in fact some very influential people in the Publishing and Film world have been doing everything to discredit me and in fact they have gone so far as to introduce a new and complete story of the original facts of the Diary and how it came to light. [This is false - only his wife Anne had introduced "a new and complete story of the original facts".]

... she made the purchase through a firm in the 1986 Writters Year Book [This is false as HP Bookfinders did not advertise in the W&A Yearbook - Martin Earl of HP Bookfinders has stated that he assumed Barrett found his firm through the Yellow Pages but even this may not be correct as Barrett would have only had the Merseyside edition of the Yellow Pages, but either way the actual claim is patently false.]

At this stage I was given a ticket on which was marked the item number and the price I had bid. I then had to hand this ticket over to the Office and I paid L50. This ticked was stamped ... I then returned to the Auction Room with my stamped ticket and handed it over to an assistant ... I was then told to return return (sic) my ticket to the Office ... [This account has been denounced by Kevin What of O&L as not consistent with how their auction process worked.]

I soaked the whole of the front cover in Linseed Oil, once the oil was absorbed by the front cover, which took about 2 days to dry out. I even used the heat from the gas oven to assist in the drying out. [This scrapbook has been examined by numerous experienced people. None have ever mentioned that linseed oil - or any sort of oil - had been identified during their examination - it is a truly ridiculous claim which is patently false.]

During this period when we were writing the Diary, Tony Devereux was house-bound, very ill and in fact after we completed the Diary we left it for a while with Tony being severly (sic) ill and in fact he died late May early June 1990. [Tony Devereux did on August 8, 1991.]

During the writing of the diary of Jack the Ripper, when I was dictating to Anne, mistakes occurred from time to time for example, Page 6 of the diary, 2nd paragraph, line 9 starts with an ink blot, this blot covers a mistake when I told Anne to write down James instead of thomas. The mistake was covered by the Ink Blot. [I can't locate this ink blot right now but my recollection is that the word covered over was 'regards' not 'Thomas'.]

Page 226 of the Book, page 20, centre page inverted commas, quote "TURN ROUND THREE TIMES, AND CATCH WHOM YOU MAY". This was from Punch Magazine, 3rd week in September 1888. The journalist was P.W. WENN. [This was John Tenniel - a small point but still a false one.]

The Discs, the one Photograph, the compass, all pens and the remainder of the ink was taken by my sister Lynn Richardson to her home address, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. [Barrett's sister denies this happened.]

I have even had bills to cover expenses incurred by the author of the book, Shirley Harrison. [This is not so much false as simply a statement of fact - Harrison and Barrett equally incurred costs - but Barrett spins it so it appears to be egregious.]

I finally decided in November 1993 that enough was enough and I made it clear from that time on that the Diary of Jack the Ripper was a forgery Either it was November 1993 or it was December 1993.]

One might yet argue that not all of these examples are specifically falsehoods, but there are falsehoods and there are errors and I perhaps should not have treated them as 'equal' to that which is unconfirmed by colour-coding them all red. I would hate my dear readers to think there was substance to that which remains unconfirmed about Mike Barrett's farcical affidavit of January 5, 1995.

[Iconoclast]

When you talk about "what the rest of us could not miss", do you mean the fact that, obvious errors of dating and chronology aside, nothing material in Barrett's affidavit about how the forgery was done had been demonstrated to be false?

What I meant - as well you and everyone else knows - is that so very few things have ever been confirmed and what has been confirmed (or, at least, accepted as true largely because they really don't matter that much) was essentially irrelevant to the hoax claim, and that everything that remained (and it was a lot) was in red, therefore not confirmed.

When someone is making a series of claims about anything (as Barrett did in his affidavit), the burden of proof lies heavy on their shoulders and to have so very little confirmed means that no-one should take any of it seriously.

Is this the same conclusion as spinning it around so that very little has been proven to be untrue? I don't think so. If I claim a unicorn walked through my garden this morning, the fact that it remains unconfirmed is a serious problem for my claim, and this problem is not levelled-up by someone else pointing-out that the claim hasn't actually been shown to be false either.

I hope my dear readers get that. I know you won't.

[Herlock Sholmes]

And of course, fences never try to mix their stolen goods with legitimate ones, and thereby pretend innocence and ignorance so they can get away with fencing…

https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/c..._being_caught/

Hi Lombro, rather than trying to compare apples with pears, perhaps you can explain to us how any of the different scenarios discussed at the link you posted could be said to apply in any way to Mike Barrett in March 1992, and, in particular, why he needed a Victorian diary with blank pages in order to "pretend innocence and ignorance".

[Herlock Sholmes]

Yes indeed, RJ has proven to us all that he was bang on the nail - at least six or more (RJ’s original claim as I recall) statements in that affidavit have been confirmed or can at least be taken to be true. Hoorah for investigative journalism of the highest order! Only a true Barrett-believer could manage to avoid mentioning what the rest of us could not miss.

Now you’ll excuse me whilst I go back to work to pay for that red ink toner I now need for my printer …

When you talk about "what the rest of us could not miss", do you mean the fact that, obvious errors of dating and chronology aside, nothing material in Barrett's affidavit about how the forgery was done had been demonstrated to be false?

[Iconoclast]

The diary was clearly a recent creation so we need look no further than the Barretts.

Polly Nichols was clearly only recently dead so we need look no further than Charles Lechmere.

Brilliant post Lombro2.

It's this kind of logic which shines a light on some of the facile thinking which so frequently drives ripperology's desperate search for a solution - any solution.

[Lombro2]

I agree. Ditto.

But at least, it wasn't five pages of rubbish.

[John Wheat]

The diary was clearly a recent creation so we need look no further than the Barretts.

Polly Nichols was clearly only recently dead so we need look no further than Charles Lechmere.

Rubbish post.

[Iconoclast]

So, after all that, you've proved that elements of Michael Barrett's affidavits have been confirmed, just as Roger said. Thanks Ike

Yes indeed, RJ has proven to us all that he was bang on the nail - at least six or more (RJ’s original claim as I recall) statements in that affidavit have been confirmed or can at least be taken to be true. Hoorah for investigative journalism of the highest order! Only a true Barrett-believer could manage to avoid mentioning what the rest of us could not miss.

Now you’ll excuse me whilst I go back to work to pay for that red ink toner I now need for my printer …

[Lombro2]

And of course, fences never try to mix their stolen goods with legitimate ones, and thereby pretend innocence and ignorance so they can get away with fencing…

https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/o997q5/how_do_fences_keep_from_being_caught/