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

[Herlock Sholmes]

You, RJ and John Wheat seem pretty adamant that Mike and Anne wrote it.

Only because that's what all the evidence points towards, Scott.

If you don't know what that evidence is by now, I don't think anyone can help you any further.

[caz]

Hi Caz,

When it comes to the handwriting, didn’t you say in a post on 7 July 2017 (#3655 of "One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary" thread):

"But everyone who has a hand and a pen gives away their identity by merely looping their letters in a certain way, at a certain angle, etc."

You said that, right?

You then expressly invited a comparison with Anne's documented writing.

At that time, I don't think any examples of Anne's handwriting were publicly available (other than the test sample provided to Keith Skinner in 1995) but in 2018 we saw a few pages of Anne's writing which showed that she looped some of her letters in a certain way, similar to the diarist.

Have you changed your mind that the forger will have given away their identity by the way they looped their letters?

You keep saying that Anne would have "known" that the handwriting in the diary didn't "remotely resemble" Maybrick's. But please explain how she would have known this? At what time in her life would she ever have seen Maybrick's handwriting?

It was an assumption on my part, that a professional handwriting examiner would look for certain features, akin to a 'signature' if you like, that were common to the samples being compared, and would also know if there were no points of sufficient similarity to identify the same hand at work beyond reasonable doubt. Maybe I was expecting too much of the experts, but how much faith am I now meant to put in a small bunch of amateur conspiracy theorists, to have correctly detected an Anne Graham 'signature' in the diary? I don't believe for a single second that she has 'given away her identity' as a forger, and I wouldn't bet thrupence on that day ever dawning.

Assuming Anne had no clue what Maybrick's handwriting may have looked like, perhaps you could explain how she could possibly have thought her own disguised handwriting might bear some resemblance to his. Perhaps I should have said that Anne would have known the chances of her handwriting remotely resembling that of any other individual, whose handwriting she had never seen. In short, she knew what she didn't know.

And then you go and spoil it all by saying something stupid, like:

I also don't think Anne needed to be a document examiner to know that it's impossible for an expert to positively identify the author of disguised handwriting. Surely that's common knowledge isn’t it? It just can't be done, for obvious reasons, although clues can be found in the way a person loops their letters, as you identified in 2017.

But you would still need a handwriting expert to identify those clues and estimate the probability of the diary being in the same hand, albeit disguised. But if you are telling me that the expert has not yet been born who could positively identify a forger from their disguised handwriting, I don't know what else to say. Was RJ Palmer wasting his own and everyone else's time by complaining that no formal comparison had been made between the diary and his suspected forger? Would there have been any point, if what you say is true? Does it work the other way round? Can anyone suspected of having penned the diary ever be positively ruled out on the handwriting alone, if it was disguised? I'm not counting anyone with an obvious learning disability, such as dysgraphia, who could not have been ruled in.

[rjpalmer]

Was RJ Palmer wasting his own and everyone else's time by complaining that no formal comparison had been made between the diary and his suspected forger?

What I said was a simple statement of fact. Don't you like facts?

Or are you perhaps confusing me with Keith Skinner?

Didn't Keith once call for Anne Graham's handwriting to be analyzed, and didn't he even say that the diary's supporters should pay for it?

Was he similarly wasting everyone's time twenty years ago when he made a similar 'complaint'?

My own comment was to challenge a false impression. You have stated many times that the diary cannot be shown to be in either Maybrick's handwriting nor in Mike's nor Anne's. Sometimes you're more adamant than that.

Yet, this is deceptive; the best handwriting experts and document examiners in the world specifically checked Maybrick's handwriting against the diary and kicked it to the curb, whereas no such comparison was ever made to Mike or Anne's. The experts weren't asked--for obvious reasons. Therefore, it's a false equivalency, but I suspect you knew that when you wrote it.

I certainly don't know that a highly qualified handwriting expert couldn't compare disguised handwriting against a person's 'normal' handwriting and come up with a compelling or intelligent assessment. Some claim (including, if I recall, Dr. Giles) that a person can't entirely disguise their handwriting. So yes, I think it is possible, and would be worth doing, but the question is whether it would be conclusive in a legal sense. That's a big problem, isn't it?

Can you appreciate that any such attempt at a comparison would almost certainly lead to legal complications? I suspect Anne Graham wouldn't like it, and we would have to rely on Keith's treasure trove of examples of Anne's writing, so he, too, might find himself entangled unless he could obtain Anne's explicit permission. [If I recall, you yourself complained, didn't you, when David 'Orsam' uploaded a sample of Anne's private correspondence?] So, while I suspect someone with Dr. Giles' experience could attempt such a comparison, and give us an intelligent assessment, would they be willing to go on record and risk a libel suit if it can't be conclusively proven?

Maybe that's why Keith never proceeded with this twenty years ago?

So, you're quite right. All we have is amateur opinion. It is very likely that is all we will ever have¹. And your own opinion falls squarely into that category: amateur.

I wish I could be as confident as you are that the writing isn't Anne's. I really wish I could be.

But I'm not.


1. Unless it's after the death of the party concerned. One can't libel the dead.

[Herlock Sholmes]

It was an assumption on my part, that a professional handwriting examiner would look for certain features, akin to a 'signature' if you like, that were common to the samples being compared, and would also know if there were no points of sufficient similarity to identify the same hand at work beyond reasonable doubt. Maybe I was expecting too much of the experts, but how much faith am I now meant to put in a small bunch of amateur conspiracy theorists, to have correctly detected an Anne Graham 'signature' in the diary? I don't believe for a single second that she has 'given away her identity' as a forger, and I wouldn't bet thrupence on that day ever dawning.

Assuming Anne had no clue what Maybrick's handwriting may have looked like, perhaps you could explain how she could possibly have thought her own disguised handwriting might bear some resemblance to his. Perhaps I should have said that Anne would have known the chances of her handwriting remotely resembling that of any other individual, whose handwriting she had never seen. In short, she knew what she didn't know.

And then you go and spoil it all by saying something stupid, like:



But you would still need a handwriting expert to identify those clues and estimate the probability of the diary being in the same hand, albeit disguised. But if you are telling me that the expert has not yet been born who could positively identify a forger from their disguised handwriting, I don't know what else to say. Was RJ Palmer wasting his own and everyone else's time by complaining that no formal comparison had been made between the diary and his suspected forger? Would there have been any point, if what you say is true? Does it work the other way round? Can anyone suspected of having penned the diary ever be positively ruled out on the handwriting alone, if it was disguised? I'm not counting anyone with an obvious learning disability, such as dysgraphia, who could not have been ruled in.

I don't believe that anyone has ever said they can see anything remotely resembling Anne Graham's "signature" in the diary. All that has been noted is what can be seen with our own eyes, namely that some of Anne's loops and curls of certain letters are characteristic of the way the diarist loops those letters. You don't need to put any faith in "a small bunch of amateur conspiracy theorists". You can do the comparison yourself. What I've never seen from you is any acknowledgment of any similarity. I'd be interested to know if you really can't see any similarities in the comparisons that have been done. Would you be prepared to admit it if you can see the similarities? Or would you simply refuse to make any such admissions in case it encourages people to think that Anne might have been the author?

If you can point to where I have ever said that Anne "thought her own disguised handwriting might bear some relation" to Maybrick's I will provide the explanation you've asked for. But I'm confident I've never said anything like that Caz. On the other hand, you categorically said that "she'd have known it didn't resemble Maybrick's" and I asked you to tell me how you she would have known this, but you haven't been able to do so.

Yes, I am telling you that an expert cannot positively identify a forger from disguised handwriting. If you want to know more about what a handwriting expert can and can't do you might want to consider reading some books on the subject, rather than asking me.

I always find it interesting how you excise parts of my post that you don't wish to respond to. For example, in the post to which you were supposedly responding, I asked you:

"But can I please ask you to explain why the handwriting sample Anne provided to Keith Skinner in 1995 looks so different to her normal handwriting in her correspondence? Do you not find that suspicious?"

Can I ask why you've cut those questions out from the quote of my post and not answered them? Do you find them difficult questions? They strike me as very important ones.

[rjpalmer]

Yet, this is deceptive; the best handwriting experts and document examiners in the world specifically checked Maybrick's handwriting against the diary and kicked it to the curb, whereas no such comparison was ever made to Mike or Anne's. The experts weren't asked--for obvious reasons. Therefore, it's a false equivalency, but I suspect you knew that when you wrote it.

In addition, I should have acknowledged Mike's original point.

Whereas it is bizarre to think that 'Maybrick' would disguise his own handwriting while dropping hint after hint to his own identity, including naming his own residence and employee Lowry, etc. (the diarist obviously wanted to be identified as 'Maybrick') it is entirely reasonable to think that a hoaxer would disguise her or his handwriting, so as to have, as Lombro likes to say, "plausible deniability." Only in this case, it really would be plausible deniability.

[caz]

All you've done by reproducing Martin Earl's words is that you've proved you were wrong to say that Mike received the 1891 diary "on approval". Nowhere does Martin Earl say this. It's just your misinterpretation of what he said.

Martin Earl was very clear wasn't he:

"Customers could always return items if they were not as described."

Pretty straightforward?

It means customers could not return items if they were as described.

If Martin Earl had correctly described the 1891 diary to Mike based on the full description provided by Earl's supplier, which I'm sure he did, then Mike had no basis upon which to return the diary. He'd already purchased it and Earl would have sent him an invoice.

So why do you suppose Martin Earl allowed some of his customers to receive an item without paying for it, when most items had to be paid for up front, sight unseen, once the customer had ordered them over the phone? What do you think might have made the difference in Mike Barrett's case, when he placed his order for the 1891 diary, but asked to see it before sending any money and Martin Earl agreed? Did it have anything to do with the description Mike was given? Or was he just trying it on, because Anne was the keeper of the cheque book and he had no means of paying for what was on offer without telling her what he was doing and getting her active agreement? A bit of both, perhaps?

If, in spite of Martin Earl's claim that all items located were fully described to the customer before placing an order, Mike was only given the good news that a Victorian diary had been located, albeit for the year 1891, which was almost entirely unused, but was not told the bad news from his point of view as a budding forger, that it was a tiny appointments diary with printed dates throughout, did he forget he was a con man when it arrived in the post? Could he not have phoned Martin Earl straight away to complain that he had been misled by a description that didn't begin to tell him what to expect?

Then when it comes to Earl's statement about "Customer orders book", yes that's how it was normally done with books with titles and authors. If, say, I wanted a first edition of "Oliver Twist", and Earl could source it, I would place an order for it. I wouldn't expect Earl to come back and offer me a first edition of "Great Expectations" instead. But that's what happened in this case with the diary. Mike wanted or, if you prefer, ordered, a diary with blank pages from the period 1880-1890 (although, of course, he wasn't obligated to purchase it if Earl found one). But Earl couldn't source one. So, instead he offered him a diary from 1891. Mike agreed to purchase it even though it wasn't what he had wanted. So it's very different from Earl's usual trade. For that reason, you are mis-using the word "ordered" in this scenario which provides a misleading picture, suggesting that an 1891 diary was what Mike wanted. Mike never really ordered an 1891 diary. He simply agreed to buy it.

Mike might have agreed to buy it, before he saw what it was, but he didn't end up buying it. Anne did. He already knew it wasn't what he had asked for, at least in terms of the date. You can't claim that it wasn't what he wanted, when you don't know what he wanted it for. He told Martin Earl he wanted to see it, so all we know for certain is that he wanted sight of what had been located, regardless of how it had been described over the phone. If he wanted to judge the availability to any practical joker in 1992 of suitable items for faking Jack the Ripper's diary, he needed to see how this genuine Victorian diary would compare with the one he had already promised to show Doreen, with its one handwritten date after the final entry. He'd have seen immediately that there was no comparison, and that would have been that. Anne would be paying for that privilege.

And for the last time, Mike didn't 'order' a diary from the period 1880-1890, did he? And he wasn't asked to send any money, before a diary for the wrong year - 1891 - was sent to him, was he?

Yes, Earl technically placed an "order" with his supplier for the 1891 diary on Mike's behalf, because that's how the system operated, but it's just an alternative word to "purchase".

If you say so, but if the customer was committed to paying for any item ordered on their behalf with their agreement, can you think of any reason why Martin Earl didn't ask for payment in advance for all items and from all customers?

I note that you haven't dealt with my point about Earl having already paid the supplier (which is something Earl confirms he would have done) and thus HE could only have got his money back from the supplier if the diary hadn't been properly described to him by the supplier. That's a fatal blow to your claim that Mike could have sent it back simply if he didn't like it. You say your post is possibly "To be continued" which suggests to me that you can't actually answer this.

No, I merely ran out of time when I reached your 'money motive' argument, later in the same post, which had nothing to do with Martin Earl's terms and conditions. I did continue my post, by addressing that part of yours in a separate post.

One can only suppose that Martin Earl paid the supplier, on the assumption that he had been given a full and proper description to pass on to his customer, and must have had some reason to trust "Mr Barrett" with a diary worth £25 in 1992, which he had not originally asked for, nor yet paid for. I'm still not entirely sure how Martin would have hoped to get his money back if Mike had not been married to someone who was willing and able to pay the debt, but that would have been Martin's problem if he'd been dealing with fraudsters.

You can argue a (poor) theoretical lawyer-type point that Mike could have made a bad faith attempt to wriggle out of paying for the diary because, with the dates being on every page, it wasn't truly "blank", until you're blue in the face. It will get you nowhere for two reasons. The first is that Mike would have had to have appreciated that he could make this terrible argument. There's no reason to think it would ever have occurred to him. The second is that this entire debate commenced because you said that Anne could have declined to pay for the diary in May 1992. As you now seem to accept, by May the standard 30 day period to pay Earl's invoice had passed. She was out of time. There was no way out of paying for the diary at that stage. So your argument fails.

Either Martin was dealing with fraudsters or he wasn't. By May 1992, that would have included Anne if she had helped create a fake the previous month, which was being taken seriously by the people in London. Are you seriously suggesting that a pair of fraudsters could have seen 'no way out' of paying for that little 1891 diary, at any stage, but still managed to pull off a scam that would go on to make them thousands of pounds?

[caz]

When it comes to evidence of Anne's participation in the diary's creation, things may become clearer when you deal with the question of why the handwriting sample she provided to Keith Skinner in 1995 seems to be so different to her normal handwriting Caz.

Do you also accept that a number of sensible members of this forum have commented that they can see similarities between the way Anne loops and curls some of her letters and the way the diarist loops and curls those same letters?

You incorrectly attribute to me a belief that I wouldn't expect any evidence of Anne's evidence to have survived. Read what I wrote again more carefully Caz. What I said was directed to whether, if that evidence has survived, we would know about it. By which I mean has her potential role as a forger been properly investigated? I don't think so. She was asked to provide a handwriting sample in 1995 but, if there had been a proper investigation, examples of her pre-1992 handwriting would have been examined. As it stands, we don't seem to have any (although Roger recently mentioned seeing some).

Other than that, though, if you are prepared to assume for the sake of argument that Anne was the forger who wrote out the text of the diary at her husband's dictation in 12 Goldie Street, please tell me what type of evidence could possibly exist to prove her involvement? The testimony of her husband? Well he repeatedly and consistently said that the diary was written by Anne but you discard that entirely. The testimony of her daughter? Well she refused to speak to you for your book, didn't she? And she apparently continues to refuse to speak.

So what else could there be? If you can't answer this there really is no merit in an argument which relies on the absence of evidence to rule out Anne's involvement.

You said in a previous post that it is impossible for a disguised hand to be positively identified and attributed to the individual actually responsible, so have you changed your mind already?

What do you think would have been the point of trying to investigate Anne's potential role as a forger, if you can't see 'what type of evidence could possibly exist to prove her involvement'? How could it have been 'properly' investigated, using examples of her handwriting, if even the experts can't positively identify a forger that way?

You seem to be arguing against yourself here, to make a pointless point about not being able to prove or disprove Anne's involvement on evidential grounds. Where does that get you? I don't need to get Anne off the hook as a potential forger, even if I wanted to. By your own argument, she is not on the hook and there can be no evidential grounds for putting her there or keeping her there.

I don't think I've read so much unadulterated piffle since your previous post, Herlock. You write with the unique clarity of someone untroubled by any evidence.

[Herlock Sholmes]

So why do you suppose Martin Earl allowed some of his customers to receive an item without paying for it, when most items had to be paid for up front, sight unseen, once the customer had ordered them over the phone? What do you think might have made the difference in Mike Barrett's case, when he placed his order for the 1891 diary, but asked to see it before sending any money and Martin Earl agreed? Did it have anything to do with the description Mike was given? Or was he just trying it on, because Anne was the keeper of the cheque book and he had no means of paying for what was on offer without telling her what he was doing and getting her active agreement? A bit of both, perhaps?

If, in spite of Martin Earl's claim that all items located were fully described to the customer before placing an order, Mike was only given the good news that a Victorian diary had been located, albeit for the year 1891, which was almost entirely unused, but was not told the bad news from his point of view as a budding forger, that it was a tiny appointments diary with printed dates throughout, did he forget he was a con man when it arrived in the post? Could he not have phoned Martin Earl straight away to complain that he had been misled by a description that didn't begin to tell him what to expect?



Mike might have agreed to buy it, before he saw what it was, but he didn't end up buying it. Anne did. He already knew it wasn't what he had asked for, at least in terms of the date. You can't claim that it wasn't what he wanted, when you don't know what he wanted it for. He told Martin Earl he wanted to see it, so all we know for certain is that he wanted sight of what had been located, regardless of how it had been described over the phone. If he wanted to judge the availability to any practical joker in 1992 of suitable items for faking Jack the Ripper's diary, he needed to see how this genuine Victorian diary would compare with the one he had already promised to show Doreen, with its one handwritten date after the final entry. He'd have seen immediately that there was no comparison, and that would have been that. Anne would be paying for that privilege.

And for the last time, Mike didn't 'order' a diary from the period 1880-1890, did he? And he wasn't asked to send any money, before a diary for the wrong year - 1891 - was sent to him, was he?



If you say so, but if the customer was committed to paying for any item ordered on their behalf with their agreement, can you think of any reason why Martin Earl didn't ask for payment in advance for all items and from all customers?



No, I merely ran out of time when I reached your 'money motive' argument, later in the same post, which had nothing to do with Martin Earl's terms and conditions. I did continue my post, by addressing that part of yours in a separate post.

One can only suppose that Martin Earl paid the supplier, on the assumption that he had been given a full and proper description to pass on to his customer, and must have had some reason to trust "Mr Barrett" with a diary worth £25 in 1992, which he had not originally asked for, nor yet paid for. I'm still not entirely sure how Martin would have hoped to get his money back if Mike had not been married to someone who was willing and able to pay the debt, but that would have been Martin's problem if he'd been dealing with fraudsters.



Either Martin was dealing with fraudsters or he wasn't. By May 1992, that would have included Anne if she had helped create a fake the previous month, which was being taken seriously by the people in London. Are you seriously suggesting that a pair of fraudsters could have seen 'no way out' of paying for that little 1891 diary, at any stage, but still managed to pull off a scam that would go on to make them thousands of pounds?

One very simple reason Earl might have allowed a customer to receive an item without first paying for it is if that customer wanted the item in a hurry.

I think you need to understand that it made no difference whether payment was made up front or after receiving the item. The customer could still return it if it wasn't as had been described, but still had to pay for it if it was as described.

So Earl could also have been allowing the customer to see for themselves that the item was as it had been described before they needed to physically pay for it. But, if it was as had been described, the customer did need to pay for it, and couldn't return it, per Earl's standard terms and conditions.

I don't think I can make it any simpler.

I can't tell you, of course, what Barrett was thinking. Perhaps he just wanted the diary in his hands and put aside any thoughts of how to pay for it until later, knowing he could rely on his wife. But that's just speculation which gets us nowhere.

You italicise the word "fully", as in "fully described" but it really has no meaning in this debate. Earl, or more to the point, Earl's supplier, didn't know, and couldn't have guessed, that Mike wanted the diary in order to forge an 1888 diary, so information that might be relevant to a forger might not have been regarded as relevant by Earl's supplier at the time. As I said to Ike the other day, for a normal collector of diaries, as one would have assumed Barrett was, the key information would have been condition, year, size, colour and, of course, as Mike had specified a requirement for blank pages, the fact that the diary contained more than 20 blank pages. Whether Earl's supplier would have felt the need to say that the diary had the year 1891 emblazoned on the cover, or dates printed on every page, none of us can possibly say. I assume that Earl himself is unable to say after all these years, otherwise he would surely have told Keith. All he seems to confirmed is that he would have told Mike that it was an 1891 diary (or course he would!) but he evidently can't say more than this. To pretend otherwise would be wrong.

I'm afraid I can't see the distinction between Mike buying it and Anne buying it, which you seem to be making. Surely Anne paid for the diary at Mike's request. There was no choice at that time but for the diary to be paid for. So that's where I think you went wrong in your earlier post on the subject. Plus Mike didn't receive the diary on approval.

You don't seem to realize how contradictory, and indeed nonsensical, your argument is. You say, "If he wanted to judge the availability to any practical joker in 1992 of suitable items for faking Jack the Ripper's diary, he needed to see how this genuine Victorian diary would compare with the one he had already promised to show Doreen, with its one handwritten date after the final entry." But, if he'd been told by Earl that all he could source was an 1891 diary, with 1891 emblazoned all over it, wouldn't that immediately have told him that no such suitable Victorian diary was available? So why did he want to see it? Or do you accept that he might not have been told these things? And if he received the diary on approval, as you seem to think, why not just send it back once he'd looked at it?

Do you think that Mike could possibly have thought that Victorian diaries only came in one shape, size and colour and were only sourced through a second-hand telephone bookseller in Oxford? If not, how could he possibly have judged "the availability to any practical joker in 1992 of suitable items for faking Jack the Ripper's diary?" from a single Oxford second-hand telephone bookseller only being able to locate an 1891 diary with blank pages? Surely it would have told him nothing. But, if you think that's what he was up to, he'd discovered that Earl was unable to source any Victorian diaries from 1880 to 1890 with blank pages, so why did he need to see one from 1891 that he would already have been told looked nothing like the large black old photograph album you think he possessed? I'm afraid it really makes no sense at all. Further, you seem to have forgotten that the advertisement placed on his behalf asked primarily for an unused Victorian diary. How would an unused, totally blank Victorian diary have enabled him to make any kind of comparison with the Ripper diary containing 63 pages of written entries?

Then there's Roger's point. If he obtained the 1891 diary for the purpose of researching whether the Ripper diary was a forgery, why didn't he share the results of his research with Shirley with whom he'd signed a collaboration agreement? Why didn't Anne, who also signed the collaboration agreement, ever mention it? If Mike had thought it was important to compare a genuine Victorian diary with the Ripper diary, why not tell Shirley all about it?

I'm afraid I don't understand your question: "And for the last time, Mike didn't 'order' a diary from the period 1880-1890, did he?" That is precisely what he asked for but none were available from Martin Earl. So I just don't know what you're getting at. Nor do I know what you mean by "for the last time".

As for your question: "And he wasn't asked to send any money, before a diary for the wrong year - 1891 - was sent to him, was he?" I've already dealt with this but have to pick you up on your claim that 1891 was "the wrong year". It was not "the wrong year". It was certainly outside the decade Mike had originally asked for, but an 1891 diary could, of course, have been used to fake an 1888 Ripper diary, as I've already demonstrated in my posts to Ike. This should be uncontroversial.

As for your question: "can you think of any reason why Martin Earl didn't ask for payment in advance for all items and from all customers?". Not only have I already answered it (i.e. item wanted in a hurry) but it's odd that you or Keith didn't ask this question of Earl himself. Regardless, I must repeat to you - because you seem strangely baffled by it - that it made no difference to Earl whether payment came before or after receipt of the item. The terms and conditions remained exactly the same.

You can ask Martin Earl how he dealt with defaulters in his business, and it's odd that you or Keith didn't already enquire of him about this, but it's all totally hypothetical. We know what in fact happened. For whatever reason, Mike didn't pay for the diary within the 30 day required period and Anne paid for it in May. There's nothing more to this. It tells us nothingwhatsoever about why Mike wanted the diary in the first place.

Your question about whether Mike and Anne could have seen a way out of paying for the diary is just ridiculous. You might as well ask me why they didn't shoplift all their groceries every week and carry out insurance frauds for a living. Honestly, Caz, by May, Barrett was legally obliged to pay for the diary and failure would have just led to a county court judgment being obtained against him and the subsequent arrival of the bailiffs at 12 Goldie Street. Paying the £25 was the most sensible option, and indeed, the only realistic one

[caz]

I'm intrigued, Caz. What do you think a handwriting expert can do that Roger or the rest of us aren't able to do with our own eyes?

If there are similarities in the handwriting of Anne and the diarist, which there clearly are, as many people have agreed, that is surely enough for us to form our own opinion, especially in circumstances where Mike repeatedly said that the diary was in Anne's handwriting, even though on the surface it doesn't look like it.

Do you believe that Mike just got very lucky that the diarist looped or curled certain letters in the same way Anne does? Or do you think he'd cleverly spotted this himself through careful examination and thus falsely attributed the writing to Anne?

Well, if you and others can see these similarities, presumably you would have to agree that Mike could have recognised them too, with no luck involved?

He'd have had a motive to look for any similarities before claiming she wrote it, by comparing letters she had sent him with the facsimile in Shirley's book. But did he consider the possibility back in April 1992, of any glaring similarities pointing to his wife's poorly disguised hand - and miles away from Maybrick's, natural or unnatural?

Or were both Barretts on safe ground because they knew that no expert could identify a forger from their handwriting, as long as some attempt was made to disguise it?

Jesus, I've just noticed your signature, Herlock. It's not much of a compliment, is it? Clever Trevor probably thinks anyone who is his intellectual equal must be a genius, which would make clever clogs of 90% of the population.

[caz]

Prior to purchasing it, Mike hadn't seen it, that's the whole point.

We got there in the end! He didn't 'purchase' it until he'd seen just how utterly useless it would have been for Maybrick's 1888-9 diary if that's what he had wanted it for.

That's the whole point.

[Herlock Sholmes]

You said in a previous post that it is impossible for a disguised hand to be positively identified and attributed to the individual actually responsible, so have you changed your mind already?

What do you think would have been the point of trying to investigate Anne's potential role as a forger, if you can't see 'what type of evidence could possibly exist to prove her involvement'? How could it have been 'properly' investigated, using examples of her handwriting, if even the experts can't positively identify a forger that way?

You seem to be arguing against yourself here, to make a pointless point about not being able to prove or disprove Anne's involvement on evidential grounds. Where does that get you? I don't need to get Anne off the hook as a potential forger, even if I wanted to. By your own argument, she is not on the hook and there can be no evidential grounds for putting her there or keeping her there.

I don't think I've read so much unadulterated piffle since your previous post, Herlock. You write with the unique clarity of someone untroubled by any evidence.

Yes, I did say it's impossible for a disguised hand to be positively identified by a handwriting expert and positively attributed to the individual actually responsible. What is it that makes you think I've changed my mind? There's nothing in my post which even suggests I think anything to the contrary.

But you haven't answered this question:

"Do you also accept that a number of sensible members of this forum have commented that they can see similarities between the way Anne loops and curls some of her letters and the way the diarist loops and curls those same letters?"

Why are you ducking this?

I didn't say about Anne that I can't see 'what type of evidence could possibly exist to prove her involvement'. I was asking you to tell me what evidence could exist which that proves her involvement. Have you forgotten already that you are relying on the absence of evidence of involvement to say she wasn't involved?

I've noticed that you do this very often. I ask you a question. You don't answer but assume that by asking you a question I'm making a positive statement.

Let me be clear. It's entirely possible that evidence exists which proves Anne's involvement. For example, she might have documents in her possession written in the same handwriting as the diarist. But what I'm saying is that there is no possible way that this evidence can be known to you or I or anyone else at this time. Hence, saying "there's no evidence of Anne's involvement" has no merit unless you can point to evidence which should exist (and be known about) but does not.

A proper investigation would have required, at a minimum, the obtaining of samples of Anne's pre-1992 handwriting (and the same for Michael Barrett). The fact that she was asked to provide her own sample, which doesn't appear to have even been tested against her normal handwriting, is a clear demonstration of an investigation that was not properly carried out.

For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not saying that's the only thing that a proper investigation would have entailed. But it simply demonstrates that one hasn't been done.

I'm not arguing against myself. It's very simple. I'm asking how Anne can be ruled out as one of the forgers. Your only answer seems to be that there's "no evidence" of her involvement, although by saying that you entirely ignore (a) the fact that there are similarities in the way she loops and curls some of her letters and the way the diarist loops and curls those same letters and (b) the fact that Mike repeatedly claimed that the diary was in her handwriting despite the fact that, on the surface, it doesn't look like her handwriting.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Well, if you and others can see these similarities, presumably you would have to agree that Mike could have recognised them too, with no luck involved?

He'd have had a motive to look for any similarities before claiming she wrote it, by comparing letters she had sent him with the facsimile in Shirley's book. But did he consider the possibility back in April 1992, of any glaring similarities pointing to his wife's poorly disguised hand - and miles away from Maybrick's, natural or unnatural?

Or were both Barretts on safe ground because they knew that no expert could identify a forger from their handwriting, as long as some attempt was made to disguise it?

Jesus, I've just noticed your signature, Herlock. It's not much of a compliment, is it? Clever Trevor probably thinks anyone who is his intellectual equal must be a genius, which would make clever clogs of 90% of the population.

Well this is very interesting, Caz. So you think that Mike, in scrutinizing the original diary, noticed that the handwriting of the diarist resembled the handwriting of his wife in some respects? Well he must have got rather frustrated that he kept saying that the dairy was in his wife's handwriting and not a single bloody person manged to spot what he'd seen. And he didn't even bother to tell anyone about those little similarities either. It wasn't until years after his death that the similarities were even noticed.

But at least you now appear to have answered one of the questions that I've been dying to know your answer to.

You accept that those similarities exist!

Hallelujah and praise the Lord.

p.s. The signature is a joke - an obvious one I thought. Strange isn’t it that all that I’ve had to do is post on the subject of the diary to become an instant enemy there to be insulted. You and Ike. Maybe I should have applied for membership before posting?

[Herlock Sholmes]

We got there in the end! He didn't 'purchase' it until he'd seen just how utterly useless it would have been for Maybrick's 1888-9 diary if that's what he had wanted it for.

That's the whole point.

This is the sequence of events:

1. Mike is told about the availability of an 1891 diary over the telephone.

2. Mike agrees to purchase the 1891 diary.

3. Mike is sent the 1891 diary.

4. Anne, on Mike's behalf, pays for the 1891 diary.

As at no.2, Mike has not seen the diary. So "Prior to purchasing it, Mike hadn't seen it".

When he purchases it, he still hasn't seen it.

He only sees it after he purchases it. By that time, for a period of 30 days, he can only not pay for it if it was misdescribed to him (which it probably wasn't, but, even if it was, he never raised that as an issue). By no. 4, the 30 day period is over so he has to pay for it whether it's been misdescribed or not. Anne helps him out.

I truly cannot make it simpler than this.

[Lombro2]

There is infinitely more evidentiary weight in long-standing rumours than in all the old and rotten dredged up cherries of the last 30 years.

[Scott Nelson]

Only because that's what all the evidence points towards, Scott.

If you don't know what that evidence is by now, I don't think anyone can help you any further.

We're just talking past one another. All the evidence doesn't point that way. And I don't think you're the one who can be helped.