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

[Iconoclast]

If you want to persist in the fiction that Barrett diligently say down and wrote his affidavit, giving full consideration to all the facts, then you will undoubtedly come to the conclusion that he was lying. If, on the other hand, you were to take the view that Alan Gray was fully responsible for the contents of the affidavit which a drunken Barrett carelessly signed, you might come to a different, more realistic, conclusion.

Our little escapade with tapes over the last couple of days has taught us one thing: Alan Gray typed Barrett's November 5, 1994 report to the police on Barrett's word processor (you can clearly hear him typing all of those long spaces at the start of each paragraph) and Barrett is right next to him, apparently sober. Gray can be clearly heard reading out the statement word for word (which he has come up with) and Mike can be clearly heard agreeing with him. We even get the exquisite addition at the end by Barrett which explains why the last sentence ends with a full stop and then immediately picks up again with a comma. Wonderful. It was like being in the room when it all happened and - in a sense - we all can be, can't we?

We can assume that this same process was followed for Barrett's infamous January 5, 1995 affidavit. Gray typing-up what he thinks is the story and reading it back to Barrett for his confirmation.

On November 23, 2002, Gray wrote to Seth Linder and stated:

I refute completely his [Barrett's] claim that his affidavits were made by him when he was drunk and that he was unaware of their contents. Every written statement made by him was read over to him when he was stone cold sober and before he signed. One such statement was in fact read to him and witnessed by a police detective [the November 5, 1994 report to the police, presumably], The others were read to him by solicitors who checked every paragraph with him. At no time did he state that he wanted even a single line aitered [the example I gave above was one where Barrett asked for an addition not an alteration].

But then you get a line or two of Sgt. Abrahams' recollections of his meeting with Barrett and Gray on November 5, 1994 (source needing to be confirmed):

SH [Shirley Harrison] confirmed with Det Sergeant Abrahams, “now in charge of the case”, that MB had been there with the detective and signed statement about receiving death threats, which has been passed on to Det Sergeant Thomas at New Scotland Yard. Abrahams knew almost nothing of MB but was worried about the detective and wasn’t sure which one of them, or both, were drunk.

So nothing in this case is ever categorical, it seems. Nothing unequivocal. Nothing undeniable. The search for the truth of the matter goes on ...

[caz]

Caz,

Why do you think Barrett didn't widen his search to all those years before 1880 which would have produced far more options for documents Maybrick could have legitimately written in in 1888 and 1889?

Cheers,

Ike

In short, Ike, I don't believe Mike had a scooby-doo what he had at that point, and didn't even know if 'Jack the Ripper' might be identifiable as a real person within its pages. He only saw 3rd May 1889 and went from there. Had he known there was a real person to identify, who had died a few days later, that would have informed his immediate decisions.

His request came hot on the heels of his first conversation with Doreen, claiming to have JtR's diary, so it all hangs on what she asked him on that occasion about the physical diary - its condition and so on - and what seeds of suspicion may have been sewn in his mind as a result, prompting his call to Bookfinders, when he had told Doreen he was off to York later in the week.

If Mike hadn't even sourced a book yet for Anne's creative writing, he would have had no answers for Doreen and I think I would have smelled a very large rat in her shoes [I'd be in the shoes, not the rat, in case Herlock is confused] if he refused to say another word until his return from the city formerly known as Eboracum.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I knew exactly what you meant when you said you felt ill, Ike. Likewise, I expected you to know what I meant when I asked the question because the answer is that no-one is relying on Barrett's affidavit, so who cares if it contains some dating errors?

Now you're going to have to forgive me for asking for a silly little thing like supporting evidence but please provide me a direct quote in which Alan Gray says on tape in December 1994 that Harris is seeking an affidavit. I do hope you're sure about this Ike and are not misremembering something to suit your narrative? Are you quite sure it wasn't Harris simply suggesting to Gray that it would be in Barrett's interests for Barrett to prepare a statement, as opposed to Harris wanting it himself?

And let me get this right, on the basis of Harris suggesting that Barrett prepare a statement or affidavit in December 1994, and nothing else, you are prepared to tell me as a fact that Gray then gave this statement/affidavit to Harris, almost certainly the day after it was sworn, and attached no confidentiality to that document? It's kind of beyond belief if that's all you've got. It's just a complete guess on your part, in other words, right?

But, frankly, unless you can (sensibly) tell me what you think Harris should have done with the affidavit in the two years or so before it was made public on the internet, even if he felt he could do what he liked with it without the permission of its author, it's all meaningless anyway.

Here's one I started to prepare some time ago but didn't get around to posting until I saw your post just now, Herlock:

Alan Gray is on tape telling Mike on 12th December 1994: "What he [Melvin Harris] was saying to me was as soon as Mike comes out [he is being treated in hospital for a self-inflicted injury to his hand, just 5 days after Anne divorced him], 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."

Interpret Melvin's role in this as you wish. But my take is that Melvin is waiting with bated breath by this point to 'read all about it' - whatever Alan Gray manages to get Mike to swear to. If the newspapers take it, so much the better. On 8th December the Evening Standard quoted Melvin saying: "There is now no doubt whatsoever that they [the diary] are a recent fake...The identities of the three people involved in the forgery will soon be made known."

If Melvin was always going to wash his hands of Mike's affidavit personally, I wonder what he was hoping to achieve in December 1994, if not to coerce someone else – Mike presumably, with Gray's encouragement - into going public with it? What would that say about Melvin's ethics, considering that Mike was a physical and emotional wreck by this point? If Mike had gone to the papers again this time, as he had in June 1994, his solicitor would have been even quicker to retract this new statement on his behalf, given the Barretts' very recent divorce and the libel implications, in addition to Mike's continued downward spiral. Did this not dawn on Melvin? Or didn't it bother him, because once the story was in print the damage would be done, and the mud would stick to the Barretts, while his own hands would remain squeaky clean in the background?

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

How would Mike have known that the photo album was of the right period, if he had obtained this from an auction sale just a few days after the disappointing 1891 diary arrived in the post? Did he learn something about scientific dating of old paper in the interim?

Caz,

Why do you think Barrett didn't widen his search to all those years before 1880 which would have produced far more options for documents Maybrick could have legitimately written in in 1888 and 1889?

Cheers,

Ike

[Iconoclast]

No, Ike, I don't agree that Barrett should have sought an undated document from earlier than 1870 or later than 1900. He couldn't have been sure it wouldn't be scientifically dated to those (incorrect) periods. I certainly wouldn't have known if I was in his position; As you put it yourself, he wanted a diary from around the time of the Ripper murders. What's so difficult to understand about that?

What's difficult to understand is why a scrapbook from, say, 1837-1888 would be incorrect? (I'm not sure what I meant with 'later than 1900', though - I thought I'd suggested 1890-1899 as I assumed no test could possibly date a document that precisely that those years of manufacture would have mattered but I must have mistyped I guess.)

I would have thought a scrapbook from, say, 1837-1888 would be ideal for Barrett when he was looking for a vehicle for his 'hoax'. Any one of those years (1837-1888) would have been perfectly legitimate as each would have tested 'authentic' as a genuine 'Victorian' document. Just because it was made in, say, 1866 would not have stopped James Maybrick writing in it, would it?, so Barrett unnecessarily restricted his options at a time when he was really under the cosh to produce the goods, I'd say.

Not sure you thought that one through, to be honest ...

[Herlock Sholmes]

Morning Herlock,

Just catching up and saw this one. Had Mike's affidavit been presented to a court of law, and all the dating errors corrected, the whole house of cards would have collapsed under the weight of the impossible chronology. Yes, the court could have given him the benefit of the doubt that his stated order of events was all over the place due to his heavy drinking and grief over his very recent divorce, but that wouldn't change the fact that his 'confession' - as sworn - was wholly unreliable. It most certainly could not have been used in evidence against his wife, for instance, when it became clear that the little red diary was not ordered and received until March 1992, despite Mike stating on oath that Tony Devereux was very much alive, if not literally kicking, throughout the forgery process, from sourcing all the raw materials to blotting the last page of writing.

In short, Mike was lying. There is no other explanation, plausible or otherwise. He only involved Tony in the process after Anne claimed to have given him the diary to give to Mike.

There is a choice here. If you think Mike told the truth about Tony living to see the day when the diary was completed, but made an innocent mistake over his date and year of death [8th August 1991], you have to toss out the red diary as unconnected to the forgery process.

If you think the red diary is proof that Maybrick's diary had yet to be created in late March 1992, you have to toss out Mike's entire chronology of the forgery process.

Love,

Caz
X

Morning Caz,

But if all the dating errors were corrected, how would the chronology have been impossible? Can you elaborate? Wouldn't the story then have been the same as the one Barrett told at the 1999 meeting for which the chronology is straightforward?

How can your statement about Devereux being alive to the blotting of the last page of writing possibly be correct once the chronology is corrected?

It seems to me that you are falling into the trap of claiming "despite Mike saying on oath" when it was really Alan Gray's understanding of events contained in the affidavit. Did Mike actually ever say that Devereux was alive when the diary itself was "completed" other than, perhaps, a first draft being completed? I don't mean did he say in the affidavit, I mean say in his own words.

If you want to persist in the fiction that Barrett diligently say down and wrote his affidavit, giving full consideration to all the facts, then you will undoubtedly come to the conclusion that he was lying. If, on the other hand, you were to take the view that Alan Gray was fully responsible for the contents of the affidavit which a drunken Barrett carelessly signed, you might come to a different, more realistic, conclusion.

[caz]

No, Ike, I don't agree that Barrett should have sought an undated document from earlier than 1870 or later than 1900. He couldn't have been sure it wouldn't be scientifically dated to those (incorrect) periods. I certainly wouldn't have known if I was in his position; As you put it yourself, he wanted a diary from around the time of the Ripper murders. What's so difficult to understand about that?

How would Mike have known that the photo album was of the right period, if he had obtained this from an auction sale just a few days after the disappointing 1891 diary arrived in the post? Did he learn something about scientific dating of old paper in the interim?

Even Baxendale could find nothing iffy about the paper.

So Mike originally thought he needed a diary dating from 1880-1890, but then had to settle for the undated old book he should have asked for in the first place?

Or did he ask for an unused or partly used diary from the 1880s, having just seen the year 1889 at the end of the last entry in an old book that had been partly used as a diary?

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

Thought for the day, Ike: On Saturday 11th April 1992, Liverpool were down in balmy Birmingham, being thrashed by Aston Villa, 0-1.
So pretty much any spotty red teenager at a loose end in Anfield could have been invited like the fly into the parlour by Mike 'Spider' Barrett to spend that dreary afternoon writing Maybrick's diary.
I'm warming to this one...
Love,
Caz
X

You might have just cracked the case wide open, Caz!

[caz]

Sorry, Geddy2112, you mustn't spend much time on the Maybrick threads as I was actually being ironic. It's too convoluted to go into but gan canny man am not losin it like a knew exactly what a was sayin me bonnie lad.

We've just lost at home to Fulham and Arsenal have just thrashed the reigning Champions of the Universe 5-1 so I'm taking nothing for granted. Fourteen years ago TODAY, it was Newcastle 0, Arsenal 2 in the time it teks uz te make a ******* saveloy and pease pudding scottie man (just 3 minutes), 0-3 after just 9 minutes and 0-4 after half an hour so am tekkin nowt for granted.

Obviously, it didn't end 0-4 ...

Thought for the day, Ike: On Saturday 11th April 1992, Liverpool were down in balmy Birmingham, being thrashed by Aston Villa, 0-1.

So pretty much any spotty red teenager at a loose end in Anfield could have been invited like the fly into the parlour by Mike 'Spider' Barrett to spend that dreary afternoon writing Maybrick's diary.

I'm warming to this one...

Love,

Caz
X

[Iconoclast]

It was all an utterly embarrassing failure on the part of Robert Smith in 2017 but the fact that you still rely on it eight years later may be even worse.

Well it certainly sounds like a failure, but it certainly doesn't sound like I am relying on it! I very clearly stated I didn't know the details and - because of that - I asked if anyone could fill me in on them.

Hey, looks like we can all get bits wrong from time to time, eh?

[Iconoclast]

One off instance proved categorically, beyond all doubt that the diary is a fake. [#513]

https://www.etymonline.com/word/one-off

"Ngrams are probably unreliable" (see line immediately beneath graph, above). Surely not? Surely Ngrams is the very tool we use to establish exactly when words and phrases entered the lexicon?


(Same source.)

David Barrat has shown categorically that the term 'one-off' was used way back in the Victorian period as a manufacturing term - long long long long long before 1927.

Does this mean that we should anticipate a figurative use of the term long long long long long before 'later' than 1927?

Barrat cites July 1 1884 as his first printed example of the term 'one off' (no hyphen) in The American Journal of Railway Appliances. This does seem extraordinary as I have just read a short article in The New York Times from 2010 (https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/m...anguage-t.html) in which American confusion with 'one-off' is explained as their not understanding its British manufacturing roots.

If 1884 was the first time the manufacturing term went into print (or, at least, the earliest occasion so far uncovered), then the question is simply, "What does 'later' mean?" because we are told that the term 'later' gained figurative extension. I ask the question because we know the term later gained figurative extension (because we use it in that way) and we know that words and phrases enter spoken language often well before they are ever documented in dictionaries. If they can be spoken before they enter dictionaries, they can also be handwritten or typed before they enter dictionaries (without ever remaining on the record for Ngrams' all-seeing eye to detect a hundred years later and more).

So we can not unreasonably assume that the term 'one off' was being used figuratively at some point 'later' than 1884 (and possibly earlier than some point 'later' than 1884). When was that 'later' point? Was it later than 1927? Or later than 1884? And - if it was the latter - how much 'later'? A few years? Or a few decades?

I'm not claiming that we know how much 'later'.

But, then, that's my point ...

[caz]

And no, an affidavit does not have to be true as a whole or it is full of holes. Any lawyer or judge will know that mistakes can occur. If the situation ever arose when the affidavit was used in a court of law, the dating errors would have been corrected.

Morning Herlock,

Just catching up and saw this one. Had Mike's affidavit been presented to a court of law, and all the dating errors corrected, the whole house of cards would have collapsed under the weight of the impossible chronology. Yes, the court could have given him the benefit of the doubt that his stated order of events was all over the place due to his heavy drinking and grief over his very recent divorce, but that wouldn't change the fact that his 'confession' - as sworn - was wholly unreliable. It most certainly could not have been used in evidence against his wife, for instance, when it became clear that the little red diary was not ordered and received until March 1992, despite Mike stating on oath that Tony Devereux was very much alive, if not literally kicking, throughout the forgery process, from sourcing all the raw materials to blotting the last page of writing.

In short, Mike was lying. There is no other explanation, plausible or otherwise. He only involved Tony in the process after Anne claimed to have given him the diary to give to Mike.

There is a choice here. If you think Mike told the truth about Tony living to see the day when the diary was completed, but made an innocent mistake over his date and year of death [8th August 1991], you have to toss out the red diary as unconnected to the forgery process.

If you think the red diary is proof that Maybrick's diary had yet to be created in late March 1992, you have to toss out Mike's entire chronology of the forgery process.

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

Robert Smith in his History of the Diary of Jack the Ripper claimed that Jonathon Green's Dictionary of Jargon contained the claim that the prison service used the term 'one-off duty' in the LVP/early Edwardian period. Caveat: Let me stress that I'm typing this over a cup of tea at breakfast downstairs and the Smith book is upstairs so I may have got some of the latter details wrong.

But - if the claim is true - why would 'one-off duty' be 'embarrassing? I'm intrigued. I don't have the source material so - if anyone does - please let us all know what the truth of Smith's claim is because 'one-off duty' for a prison officer does sound rather like the use of 'one-off' and an event which we are told is impossible.

Anyway, we'll know more when someone explains this in more detail.

Come on Ike, this was all explained by David years ago. Jonathon Green's 1984 book is a dictionary of modern or contemporary jargon, not Victorian or Edwardian. The entry in Green's book is not "one off duty", it's "one on/one off" which should immediately tell you that's it's got nothing to do with the expression "one off". As Green explained it, when a prisoner is moved around a prison, passing from one set of officers to another, the officer bringing the prisoner announces "one off" as he hands him over to another officer who in turn announces "one on". It’s about prison officers always needing to have a count of how many prisoners were in each area of the prison for the roll calls which occur at certain times throughout the day. So when a prisoner is moved from one area to another one officer tells another that he has to take “one off” the overall count. So the expression doesn't even have anything to do with a type of duty, and Green never said anything about it having a nineteenth century, or even early twentieth century, origin. It was all an utterly embarrassing failure on the part of Robert Smith in 2017 but the fact that you still rely on it eight years later may be even worse.

[Iconoclast]

Bonkers!

Diary-Debonkers?

Now that is funny ...

[Iconoclast]

Years of embarrassing efforts like Robert Smith totally unrelated prison attempt

Robert Smith in his History of the Diary of Jack the Ripper claimed that Jonathon Green's Dictionary of Jargon contained the claim that the prison service used the term 'one-off duty' in the LVP/early Edwardian period. Caveat: Let me stress that I'm typing this over a cup of tea at breakfast downstairs and the Smith book is upstairs so I may have got some of the latter details wrong.

But - if the claim is true - why would 'one-off duty' be 'embarrassing? I'm intrigued. I don't have the source material so - if anyone does - please let us all know what the truth of Smith's claim is because 'one-off duty' for a prison officer does sound rather like the use of 'one-off' and an event which we are told is impossible.

Anyway, we'll know more when someone explains this in more detail.