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

[Iconoclast]

I’m convinced that if we had video footage of Anne and Mike forging a diary someone would suggest that they were rehearsing a play or that they had invented a new game or that David Orsam had hired two people to disguise themselves as Anne and Mike.

And if we had video footage of Mike Barrett handing over £20 (or whatever) in The Saddle to Eddie Lyons with a date stamp of 09-03-1992, you wouldn't attempt one of your famous body swerves?

[rjpalmer]

RJ attempted a blindside pat-on-the-back-but-shut-the-****-up-before-you-make-an-even-bigger-arse-of-yourself, but sometimes a juggernaut out of control simply can't be stopped.

1.5 billion, Ike.

1,500,000,000 Amazon customers are disappointed with what they ultimately received in the mail, even in this age of internet photographs, customer reviews, and long, detailed descriptions.

Your job is to convince your readers that Mike, who was an impulsive afternoon drinker, was more cautious and precise while listening on a rotary telephone in 1992 than the people who placed these 1.5 billion orders last year with the advantage of cell phone cameras and internet browsers.

That won't be easy.

What is equally strange is that we skeptics have to constantly remind you lot that criminals and hoaxers take risks.

In the strange world of diary defending, there is no crime, because no one is willing to risk anything. A hoaxer wouldn't risk fitting up Maybrick, because this bloke who has been dead for 100+ years might have an alibi on one of 5 days in 1888. This has actually been argued.

The latest is that Mike wouldn't risk accepting an 1890 or 1891 diary because Mike would have been petrified that a forensic analysis of the paper might find a new material had been introduced into the papermaking process in 1890.

This is the same Mike Barrett who once robbed a lady in broad daylight and then ran into a one-way cul de sac.

Does that strike you as a bloke adverse to risk taking? And who thinks everything through?

You speak of 'special pleading,' but the irrational hurdles that the diary defenders place in the path of the sensible proposition that Mike and Anne were up to no good resemble the same highly unpersuasive special pleadings that one hears from a defense attorney shortly before his or her client is convicted by a jury.

[erobitha]

replied to wrong post -

[erobitha]

Hi Jay,

I hope we can have a calm, rational, and non-judgmental conversation, so, in that spirt, can I point out that your first question has been asked and answered many times, including this week? One can keep asking it over and over, but why expect a different answer?

So instead, ask yourself: if it was you, and you were guilty of forgery, what would you have done?

Seriously, mate. What would you have done?

Would you have denied the purchase and risked being caught out as liar by Keith if he traced the purchase without your cooperation? Clearly, Keith had gotten wind of this purchase, or he wouldn't have asked you about it. Wouldn't that have been very risky? And Keith would never trust you again if he found out Earl's name?

Or would you cooperate with Keith, winning his confidence, and trust your ability to convince him it was an innocent or irrelevant purchase? Which would have been a relatively simple matter since you had a cheque stub showing it was purchased in May--after Barrett had brought the diary to Doreen in London. Cooperating would HELP you sow a false trail due to the odd details of the payment.

Seriously. Isn't the choice a simple one--instead of the inherent risks of being an outright liar, Anne trusted her ability to leave a false impression?

As to your second question, two points.

1. Anne herself admitted to being manipulative, which is another oddity.

2. Martin Fido, who was a highly perceptive person, and had access to Feldman's transcripts, also characterized Anne as manipulative. His exact word.

Again, I am not pretending to be holier than thou, or holier than Keith. (And I will certainly never be holier than Tom). I never met Anne Graham, and if I had, maybe I would have been impressed by her, too. But in the cold light of transcripts, she can be seen contradicting herself many times and making any number of highly implausible claims. She also lied outright.

What baffles me is that, if you believe the diary came out of Dodd's house, you must also believe that Anne lied to Keith repeatedly over a period of many years. You must believe Anne coached her father. You must believe Anne made up an oral family tradition of Formby knowing Yapp, unless by some miracle Eddie Lyons sold the diary to a man whose wife had a direct link to Maybrick's household.

As with Caz, in your own theory, Anne is completely untrustworthy. So why ask us if Anne was manipulative? Haven't you answered that question yourself?

Bizarrely, Caz is now so committed to the proposition that Anne was entirely cooperative that she is even willing to question Keith's competence.

Because Herlock's point is a fair one, isn't it? If Anne revealed to Keith that the diary was ordered "pre-Doreen" why in the heck is Keith telling everyone four years later (in 1999) that it had been ordered post-Doreen, ie.,May 1992?

I think we can all agree that Keith isn't a liar and is also careful about trying to get precise dates. He must have appreciated the importance of learning exactly when the diary had been ordered.

So, do you and Caz believe that Keith dropped the baton during this simple assignment, or is it infinitely more likely that Anne Graham deliberately left him with a false impression that the diary had been purchased and ordered in May 1992?

Seriously. Which is more likely?

What evidence is there that Anne ever stressed that she and Mike had been late payers? Are we supposed to believe that it slipped her mind? That Anne didn't remember that vitally important detail or simply forget to relay it to Keith?

You asked, and I've answered. That's all I can do.

What I would ask in return is why you don't see Anne as a subtle manipulator? This is the same person who once told Feldman that her name was not Anne Elizabeth Graham and that she was a former member of MI-5.

Does that strike you as cooperative?

RP

To me your arguments are rational, and I only speak for me.

However, I, too, have never met Anne. But as someone who has met Keith and spent a bit of time with him both virtually and in real life, I believe in his judgments and feelings. He had worked closely with Anne, and he just never got the impression she was playing any game with him as far as I'm aware. You are basically saying he was a victim of her manipulation, but I don't think he ever felt that to be the case. I trust his judgment. He knew her. Again, I speak for my views and don't speak for Keith.

Her behaviour is in line with a master manipulator playing a high-stakes game so as not to lose Keith's confidence. But equally, it is the same behaviour displayed by someone who genuinely does not believe the advert was anything meaningful - another one of Mike's hair-brained ideas based on flawed logic.

I cannot say I trust Anne, but I can't help but feel on this specific issue around the small red diary - I think I do.

[rjpalmer]

However, I, too, have never met Anne. But as someone who has met Keith and spent a bit of time with him both virtually and in real life, I believe in his judgments and feelings. He had worked closely with Anne, and he just never got the impression she was playing any game with him as far as I'm aware. You are basically saying he was a victim of her manipulation, but I don't think he ever felt that to be the case. I trust his judgment. He knew her. Again, I speak for my views and don't speak for Keith.

Thanks, Jay.

So, if you are comfortable answering, how do you square Keith's judgment about Anne's honesty with your own belief that the diary came out of Dodd's floorboards on 9 March 1992?

I can't be the only one who notices a glaring contradiction. If Keith's judgement about Anne is to be trusted, don't we have to believe that Anne had seen the diary in the late 1960s? And that it was Anne who gave the diary to Tony Devereux, and not Ed Lyons giving it to Mike?

And, unless Anne's name isn't Anne Elizabeth Graham, and that she really did work for MI-5, isn't she a proven deceiver?

I'm not trying to be a wise-arse, but it strikes me as awfully convenient to accept Anne's honesty in this particular instance, especially when cooperation would have allowed Anne to leave a false impression about when the diary had been really ordered.

Nor has anyone attempted to explain why Keith was still telling an audience in 1999 that the diary had been order in May 1992 if Anne had truly stressed to him that it had been "pre-Doreen."

But those are questions you and others will have to ponder and answer to your own satisfaction.

Cheers.

[erobitha]

Thanks, Jay.

So, if you are comfortable answering, how do you square Keith's judgment about Anne's honesty with your own belief that the diary came out of Dodd's floorboards on 9 March 1992?

I can't be the only one who notices a glaring contradiction. If Keith's judgement about Anne is to be trusted, don't we have to believe that Anne had seen the diary in the late 1960s? And that it was Anne who gave the diary to Tony Devereux, and not Ed Lyons giving it to Mike?

And, unless Anne's name isn't Anne Elizabeth Graham, and that she really did work for MI-5, isn't she a proven deceiver?

I'm not trying to be a wise-arse, but it strikes me as awfully convenient to accept Anne's honesty in this particular instance, especially when cooperation would have allowed Anne to leave a false impression about when the diary had been really ordered.

Nor has anyone attempted to explain why Keith was still telling an audience in 1999 that the diary had been order in May 1992 if Anne had truly stressed to him that it had been "pre-Doreen."

But those are questions you and others will have to ponder and answer to your own satisfaction.

Cheers.

You are quite right. It's tricky for me to square away. I can't speak for Keith, only he can do that.

However, it is important to note that Keith wasn't present at the meeting Feldman had with Anne in the hotel, nor was he present at Billy Graham's "testimony", so he can only go from his own personal interactions with Anne. Which I think is more than fair enough. I trust his judgement on his own experience.

The MI5 thing was a bit of silliness (in my view) by Anne to see how far Paul Feldman would go in believing anything he was told. Why she did that, we can only speculate. And we do.

I have a big question mark over that hotel meeting, how it came about and who instigated what, but it most certainly feels fishy to me. I just don't know if that fish is a Feldman-shaped fish or an Anne-shaped one. June 1994 Mike confesses to hoaxing the diary. In July 1994, Anne claims "in the family" provenance. These cannot be unconnected. It's far too convenient, in my opinion. It would be churlish not to accept the possibility that Anne instigated things, but if I were pushed, I feel Feldman did, and Anne played along. The "master manipulator" Anne theory cannot be ruled out. Neither can just an ordinary woman trying to navigate what was in front of her to her own advantage, possibly taking advantage of an ex-husband she was happy to see the back of. It's these nuances that are fascinating and ultimately crucial.

Anne remains integral to this story, one way or another, whether she likes it or not. I hope something soon prompts her to talk again.

[Herlock Sholmes]

To me your arguments are rational, and I only speak for me.

However, I, too, have never met Anne. But as someone who has met Keith and spent a bit of time with him both virtually and in real life, I believe in his judgments and feelings. He had worked closely with Anne, and he just never got the impression she was playing any game with him as far as I'm aware. You are basically saying he was a victim of her manipulation, but I don't think he ever felt that to be the case. I trust his judgment. He knew her. Again, I speak for my views and don't speak for Keith.

Her behaviour is in line with a master manipulator playing a high-stakes game so as not to lose Keith's confidence. But equally, it is the same behaviour displayed by someone who genuinely does not believe the advert was anything meaningful - another one of Mike's hair-brained ideas based on flawed logic.

I cannot say I trust Anne, but I can't help but feel on this specific issue around the small red diary - I think I do.

I have to say Jay, you're thinking on this issue seems more than a little muddled to me.

In your #1147 you say of the red 1891 diary, "she genuinely did not see it as the smoking gun some on this post think it is."

The only people who claim that the red 1891 diary is a smoking gun are Caz and Ike, because they been desperately trying to argue that Mike's purchase of it proves that he wasn't seeking a Victorian diary to fake the 1888 Ripper dairy.

I've never said that the red diary is a smoking gun, nor has Roger.

The smoking gun is the advertisement placed by Martin Earl on Mike's behalf because it shows us that Mike wanted a Victorian diary with blank pages. The red diary doesn't tell us this. Indeed, on its own, the red diary was easily explained away by the possibility that Mike just wanted it to see what a genuine Victorian diary looked like. This, of course, is exactly what Anne claimed Mike wanted it for. It's only because of the advertisement that we know this isn't the case.

If your reason for trusting Anne on this issue is because "she genuinely did not see it as the smoking gun", that's because it wasn't a smoking gun. It presented no danger to her whatsoever. Further, the date on the cheque she gave Keith suggested that the diary hadn't even been purchased until after Mike had brought the Maybrick diary down to London. So it couldn't have been used to create that diary. Certainly, this is what Keith believed for at least four years after he spoke to Anne. For some reason, she didn't think to tell him that Mike came to her as a late payer and that the payment should have been made in April for a diary received in March. She must have been aware of the significance of this for some months before speaking to Keith because Mike had given her a copy of his affidavit in which he mentioned the reason for the purchase of the diary and had expressly stated it was paid for by a cheque written by Anne. I'm not sure how you think she was supposed to deny that she'd written such a cheque. It seems to me that she did the bare minimum, gave Keith a false reason for why Mike wanted the diary and didn't tell him why the diary was only paid for in May 1992.

More importantly, though, I don't even know what you mean when you say you trust Anne about the red diary. What are you trusting her about? Her claim that Mike bought the diary to see what a Victorian diary looked like? Well that can't be true because we now know what type of diary he was seeking. What else is there to trust her about? So she gave Keith a copy of the cheque which Mike had already described in his affidavit. So what?

Even if she thought that Keith might get in touch with Martin Earl as a result of the cheque, and she knew or suspected that Mike had told Earl that he specifically wanted a diary with blank pages and she feared that Earl would disclose this information to Keith, well so what? Because that's what actually did happen! And how has that caused any problems for Anne? It hasn't, has it? She now simply refuses to speak about the dairy to anyone.

For all these reasons, your posts on this subject seem to me to be illogical and don't make sense but if you want to trust Anne on something, despite believing she lied repeatedly and deliberately about the origins of the diary, I certainly can't stop you.

[rjpalmer]

You are quite right. It's tricky for me to square away. I can't speak for Keith, only he can do that.

Has Keith already done so?

In claiming that he believes, with something like 99% certainty, that the diary came out of Dodd's house, isn't he candidly admitting that Anne had deceived him back in 1994-2002? Which, on a human level, is a rather brave admission.

It wasn't a matter of Anne being "the only game in town," as Caroline likes to claim. He didn't have to go to bat for Anne, and he made no secret about the fact that he believed her. Perhaps he still does in some small way. I don't know.

I think it might be worth your time, and all our times, to carefully study Anne's statements to Paul Feldman as told by Paul Feldman, and to review Paul Daniel's account (in The Ripperologist, reprinted on this website) of his meeting with Anne, Sally, and Feldman, as they discussed Anne's provenance tale and her supposed familial connection to Florence Maybrick.

I'm certainly left with the impression that Anne supported and encouraged Feldman's beliefs in these moments.

Yet--and this is not nice to say---it strikes me that Anne was also two-faced about Feldman. While in Feldman's company she led him along and encouraged his theories.

But when away from Feldman, she joked about his methods and questioned his theories--showing skepticism of them to Harrison and others. This is documented in Inside Story and by Shirley Harrison.

This is significant, and it also puts grave doubts on Caroline Brown's insinuation that Anne went along with Feldman because he had offered to "make her a millionaire."

In reality, Feldman gave Anne very little money and Anne didn't support his theories with anything approaching zeal, even being lukewarm about them on the Bob Azurdia show.

So, no, I don't think Feldman's promise of filthy lucre explains Anne's behavior.

[erobitha]

I have to say Jay, you're thinking on this issue seems more than a little muddled to me.

In your #1147 you say of the red 1891 diary, "she genuinely did not see it as the smoking gun some on this post think it is."

The only people who claim that the red 1891 diary is a smoking gun are Caz and Ike, because they been desperately trying to argue that Mike's purchase of it proves that he wasn't seeking a Victorian diary to fake the 1888 Ripper dairy.

I've never said that the red diary is a smoking gun, nor has Roger.

The smoking gun is the advertisement placed by Martin Earl on Mike's behalf because it shows us that Mike wanted a Victorian diary with blank pages. The red diary doesn't tell us this. Indeed, on its own, the red diary was easily explained away by the possibility that Mike just wanted it to see what a genuine Victorian diary looked like. This, of course, is exactly what Anne claimed Mike wanted it for. It's only because of the advertisement that we know this isn't the case.

If your reason for trusting Anne on this issue is because "she genuinely did not see it as the smoking gun", that's because it wasn't a smoking gun. It presented no danger to her whatsoever. Further, the date on the cheque she gave Keith suggested that the diary hadn't even been purchased until after Mike had brought the Maybrick diary down to London. So it couldn't have been used to create that diary. Certainly, this is what Keith believed for at least four years after he spoke to Anne. For some reason, she didn't think to tell him that Mike came to her as a late payer and that the payment should have been made in April for a diary received in March. She must have been aware of the significance of this for some months before speaking to Keith because Mike had given her a copy of his affidavit in which he mentioned the reason for the purchase of the diary and had expressly stated it was paid for by a cheque written by Anne. I'm not sure how you think she was supposed to deny that she'd written such a cheque. It seems to me that she did the bare minimum, gave Keith a false reason for why Mike wanted the diary and didn't tell him why the diary was only paid for in May 1992.

More importantly, though, I don't even know what you mean when you say you trust Anne about the red diary. What are you trusting her about? Her claim that Mike bought the diary to see what a Victorian diary looked like? Well that can't be true because we now know what type of diary he was seeking. What else is there to trust her about? So she gave Keith a copy of the cheque which Mike had already described in his affidavit. So what?

Even if she thought that Keith might get in touch with Martin Earl as a result of the cheque, and she knew or suspected that Mike had told Earl that he specifically wanted a diary with blank pages and she feared that Earl would disclose this information to Keith, well so what? Because that's what actually did happen! And how has that caused any problems for Anne? It hasn't, has it? She now simply refuses to speak about the dairy to anyone.

For all these reasons, your posts on this subject seem to me to be illogical and don't make sense but if you want to trust Anne on something, despite believing she lied repeatedly and deliberately about the origins of the diary, I certainly can't stop you.

Firstly, Herlock, let me applaud you for having such clarity in your own convictions. I’m not quite there yet, so apologies if I appear muddled to you. It’s factual. I am on certain aspects which conflict with my theories.

My smoking gun reference was for the fact that for some, it appears as intent to hoax, which was my point. Perceived intent versus actual intent. This is a subjective debate, and I personally see nothing wrong with Mike having a hare-brained idea. He had many. I feel he was seeing how hard it was to source a Victorian diary with blank pages because he wanted to see how easy or hard it was. Not to hoax but to see if he had been hoodwinked. But it’s pure speculation as is as anyone’s views on Mike’s motive. It is not absolutely clear evidence of intent to hoax.

I trust Keith’s view and interpretation of how Anne interacted with him. That’s first-hand experience which cannot be so easily brushed off as some might think. It needs to be considered. She actively assisted Keith with many things related to the research on the diary. She might well yet be proved to be a master manipulator.

I don’t believe Anne felt the red diary was anything more than a silly idea Mike had which doesn’t prove an intent to hoax. In actual fact, Mike claims in his 1995 affidavit that Anne sourced the diary when Tony D was still alive. This is not factually correct.

It’s easy to apply a subjective view when we have so few facts as I am doing. As you are doing. As others are doing.

That really is my only point on the subject of the small red diary. It’s no smoking gun. For anyone. In my humble view.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Firstly, Herlock, let me applaud you for having such clarity in your own convictions. I’m not quite there yet, so apologies if I appear muddled to you. It’s factual. I am on certain aspects which conflict with my theories.

My smoking gun reference was for the fact that for some, it appears as intent to hoax, which was my point. Perceived intent versus actual intent. This is a subjective debate, and I personally see nothing wrong with Mike having a hare-brained idea. He had many. I feel he was seeing how hard it was to source a Victorian diary with blank pages because he wanted to see how easy or hard it was. Not to hoax but to see if he had been hoodwinked. But it’s pure speculation as is as anyone’s views on Mike’s motive. It is not absolutely clear evidence of intent to hoax.

I trust Keith’s view and interpretation of how Anne interacted with him. That’s first-hand experience which cannot be so easily brushed off as some might think. It needs to be considered. She actively assisted Keith with many things related to the research on the diary. She might well yet be proved to be a master manipulator.

I don’t believe Anne felt the red diary was anything more than a silly idea Mike had which doesn’t prove an intent to hoax. In actual fact, Mike claims in his 1995 affidavit that Anne sourced the diary when Tony D was still alive. This is not factually correct.

It’s easy to apply a subjective view when we have so few facts as I am doing. As you are doing. As others are doing.

That really is my only point on the subject of the small red diary. It’s no smoking gun. For anyone. In my humble view.

If Mike simply "wanted to see how easy or hard it was" to source a Victorian diary with blank pages, surely when Martin Earl called him to tell him that no unused or partly used diaries could be found from 1880-1890, but that one, and one only, from 1891 was available, he had his answer. Why did he need Earl to send him the 1891 diary for which he'd have to pay £25?

And that, of course, was just via one second hand bookseller in Oxford. Surely Mike must have been aware that a forger could have sourced a Victorian diary from many other sources, including antique shops, auction houses and small ad sections of newspapers, plus, of course, other second hand booksellers around the country. So why engage on such a futile exercise in the first place, which could never tell him anything useful in a million years, and then why pay £25 unnecessarily?

How did he even know that the old photograph album/scrapbook/diary was Victorian, let alone from the 1880s? The only evidence of a date is in the text. If he thought it might have been a fake, it could have been a twentieth century item couldn't it? It's yet another reason why what you suggest makes no sense at all Jay.

And if it was important to Mike to see how easy or hard it was to source a Victorian diary, why did he keep the whole process secret from Shirley Harrison with whom he, and his wife, signed a collaboration agreement before the diary had even been paid for?

Tell me, Jay, if you trust Keith Skinner's view and interpretation so much, what do you make of the quote attributed to him by Shirley Harrison (page 280 of her 2003 book) about Anne Barrett's story that the Diary had been in her family for many years, that:

"I was involved from the very first and I was present at most of the meetings of Paul and Billy. If the story had been forced I would have detected it by now."

But it seems that he does now think that the story had been forced, so that his contemporary view and interpretation was totally wrong.

Even worse, what do you make of the second quote attributed to Keith by Shirley that:

"Those who believe Anne is lying, or that she has been bought in by Paul must include me in the plot as well".

Doesn't that give you pause when it comes to weighing up Keith's views about Anne? He seems to have believed just about everything she told him, didn't he? And he was wrong to do so, wasn't he?

I’m sorry it Jay but you are being disingenuous when you say that Mike claimed in his affidavit that the diary was purchased while Tony Devereux was still alive. This is not stated at all in the affidavit. You appear to be referring to a dating error which says that a decision was made to write the diary of Jack the Ripper around January or February 1990 but it should be obvious to you that "1990" was a mistake. In fact, this was confirmed in a tape recording between Barrett and Gray on 26 January 1995.

The fact that you repeat the statement that the diary was "no smoking gun" makes me wonder if you read my last post at all.

While I appreciate that you might have seen me writing a lot of posts about the red diary, that's only because it's Caz and Ike who seem to think it's significant. They are the ones who would like to bamboozle you into thinking it's important.

I have no interest in the red diary. All it does is prove Mike's willingness to pay for a Victorian diary with blank pages. The smoking gun is the advertisement but Anne has not only never been asked about the advertisement but what she said about the reason why Mike wanted the red diary is contradicted by the advertisement. So you have a big problem there in explaining why she made a false statement to Keith Skinner about the red diary.

[Lombro2]

Mike asked for a diary from 1880-1890 with at least 20 blank pages.

The question is, Did he ask for that because ... :

1. ... he had a journal that had been used as a diary, right in front of him already, with 17 blank pages and with an entry dated May 3, 1889, and he wanted a similar one for plausible deniability with maybe copying some of the text in it, and he cocked it up because of his confusion as to what was in front of him?

Or

2. ... he wanted to forge a diary written sometime between 1880 and 1890 or 1891, seeing as he didn't know he was going to start his diary entries after they moved into Battlecrease or didn't know at that point that they moved in in February of 1888, and seeing as he also somehow forgot that Maybrick died on May 11, 1889?

Which meant he asked for a diary for a time range that he didn't need and was out of range, and he asked for a diary when he didn't need an actual diary (what made him think Diary when he had nothing in front of him and the end result only had one date in it?) so he cocked it up because he was a complete c***-up but he was still a credible forger?

[Iconoclast]

I’m sorry it Jay but you are being disingenuous when you say that Mike claimed in his affidavit that the diary was purchased while Tony Devereux was still alive. This is not stated at all in the affidavit. You appear to be referring to a dating error which says that a decision was made to write the diary of Jack the Ripper around January or February 1990 but it should be obvious to you that "1990" was a mistake. In fact, this was confirmed in a tape recording between Barrett and Gray on 26 January 1995.

For those of you who have not yet sat and painfully transcribed the recording of Barrett giving Ace Detective the ultimate runaround on January 26, 1995, let me say that the only person being disingenuous here is Herlock Sholmes. At the point we join them, Barrett has already stated that he did not buy the watch but - rather - had paid some unknown accomplice £150 (an eye-watering £430 in 2025 money) to take the watch across the water to a jewellery shop in Wallasey and that he had bought the watch for £150. He's clearly very drunk so that will be Holmes' get-out card, but - then - that should imply that he was very drunk three weeks earlier when he signed Alan Gray's affidavit for him.

MB: I just want to confirm this again. If I hadn’t any success with that jewellers -
AG: - you’d have gone elsewhere -
MB: - I would have -
AG: - this is very clever, this; it’s very clever.
MB: - and so I went elsewhere -
AG: When was this, Mike?
MB: As usual -
AG: - unfortunately, you’re bad on dates; about -
MB: - nah -
AG: - roughly.
MB: - everyone says I’m bad on dates; I’m not bad on dates -
AG: You just do it on purpose, do you?
MB: I do it on purpose.
AG: Like [inaudible].
MB: Nineteen-ninety. Jesus Christ.
AG: In nineteen-ninety, you went into that jewellers and bought that watch.
MB: I’ll tell you who I went with as well.
AG: Who?
MB: ******* hell, Anne, you’re always going to lose but the point is the dead can’t speak -
AG: Is that who you went with, Billy? Tell me, Mike, I don’t know.
MB: I hope she hears this [inaudible] actually. The dead can’t speak. Tony Devereux.
AG: You went with Tony, eh? In nineteen-ninety? Now, you said you got a receipt, Mike.
MB: Yeah.
AG: Will you let me see it, please?
MB: [Inaudible].
AG: This is for you as well as for anybody else, you know.
MB: I go back to Anne, and this is what I’m saying. This is no bullshit, this.
AG: Yeah. Well, I’ll move on this, as you instruct me – but only if I have the receipt.
MB: Yes, and this -
AG: Got the receipt, I’ll, I’ll make it, as you say, Anne -
MB: - this is no bullshit -
AG: - yes.
MB: - this is why you’ve got to go to Anne.
AG: Right.
MB: Tony Devereux lives in a hundred and thirty-seven Fountain’s Road, [inaudible]. He’s dead and buried now. The house is all boarded-up. Tony and I done all that, we kept everything at Tony’s house -
AG: Yeah.
MB: - we kept the lot in Tony’s house, and I’ll tell you where it is. It’s in the front room, by the gas meter, under the gas meter. That’s where the bloody receipt is, and I’ve not been able to -
AG: - and what’s the number of the road?
MB: - a hundred and thirty-seven Fountains Road, and I can’t get in there -
AG: You just told me you had it in your back pocket.
MB: I know. I honestly haven’t. I was just seeing how far you’d go, just seeing what you would do. Just see how much you, been, but I’ll tell you where it is, and this is [inaudible], well I swear, and I will swear, unfortunately I haven’t got a Bible here so you’re going to have to take my word, on the sacred heart of Jesus [inaudible].
AG: [Inaudible].
MB: The point is, I’ll tell you exactly where the receipt is.
AG: Why did you tell me before you had it in your back pocket?
MB: Why?
AG: Yeah.
MB: ‘Cause I wanted to tell yer, in a sense, oh well, that, that, that’s very easy to explain -
AG: Yeah.
MB: - you’re that desperate to prove it -
AG: Yes.
MB: - I’m that desperate to prove it, but I can’t bloody well prove it until either one of you, you better not [inaudible], either you and I or the police break into Tony’s house.

Barrett is all over the place. It would appear that he had enticed Alan Gray to his house with the promise of seeing the receipt for the Maybrick watch (which he both did and did not buy, it transpires) but when Gray presses Barrett on it, once again we find that Barrett cannot deliver. The receipt is not in his back pocket, it's hidden in a gas cupboard in Tony Devereux's home in 137 Fountains Road. At the end of the tape, we hear Gray talking as he is searching for 137 Fountains Road which - it turns out - does not exist.

Key in this exchange for me is that Barrett says he's deliberately bad on dates but that he does it deliberately, and then he iterates his January 5 claim that this all happened in 1990. So he's not bad on dates, it transpires, and all of this happened in 1990, just as he claimed in his affidavit. So '1990' is not '1992' at all. It's 1990. Just like he said it was.

Obviously, I take everything Barrett said around this time as attention-seeking, but - if you want to rely on Barrett's claims - you can't pick and choose them. He can't fake having a bad memory and still get 1990 mixed-up with 1992. At least, not in a reasonable person's mind.

Last note from me on this exchange, check out Barrett's tell-tale signs that he's lying: he stalls when he's caught out, and he deflects the conversation away. He does it all far better in Holmes' treasured April 1999 Cloak and Dagger Club meeting, but this one's a corker too:

MB: The point is, I’ll tell you exactly where the receipt is.
AG: Why did you tell me before you had it in your back pocket?
MB: Why?
AG: Yeah.
MB: ‘Cause I wanted to tell yer, in a sense, oh well, that, that, that’s very easy to explain -

At which point, it's so easy to explain, he doesn't bother ...

I haven't read on beyond this in the transcript so apologies if I've missed anything - I've got an appointment in 15 minutes and got to dash. I just hope the building actually exists when I get there!

[John Wheat]

The evidence clearly suggests that Anne and Mike Barrett are the authors of the Diary.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Mike asked for a diary from 1880-1890 with at least 20 blank pages.

The question is, Did he ask for that because ... :

1. ... he had a journal that had been used as a diary, right in front of him already, with 17 blank pages and with an entry dated May 3, 1889, and he wanted a similar one for plausible deniability with maybe copying some of the text in it, and he cocked it up because of his confusion as to what was in front of him?

Or

2. ... he wanted to forge a diary written sometime between 1880 and 1890 or 1891, seeing as he didn't know he was going to start his diary entries after they moved into Battlecrease or didn't know at that point that they moved in in February of 1888, and seeing as he also somehow forgot that Maybrick died on May 11, 1889?

Which meant he asked for a diary for a time range that he didn't need and was out of range, and he asked for a diary when he didn't need an actual diary (what made him think Diary when he had nothing in front of him and the end result only had one date in it?) so he cocked it up because he was a complete c***-up but he was still a credible forger?

Hi Lombro,

A couple of questions for you:

1. In your mind, is 20, and any number greater than 20, the same as 17?

2. Do you realise that the words "he wanted a similar one for plausible deniability" are gibberish?

[Herlock Sholmes]

For those of you who have not yet sat and painfully transcribed the recording of Barrett giving Ace Detective the ultimate runaround on January 26, 1995, let me say that the only person being disingenuous here is Herlock Sholmes. At the point we join them, Barrett has already stated that he did not buy the watch but - rather - had paid some unknown accomplice £150 (an eye-watering £430 in 2025 money) to take the watch across the water to a jewellery shop in Wallasey and that he had bought the watch for £150. He's clearly very drunk so that will be Holmes' get-out card, but - then - that should imply that he was very drunk three weeks earlier when he signed Alan Gray's affidavit for him.

MB: I just want to confirm this again. If I hadn’t any success with that jewellers -
AG: - you’d have gone elsewhere -
MB: - I would have -
AG: - this is very clever, this; it’s very clever.
MB: - and so I went elsewhere -
AG: When was this, Mike?
MB: As usual -
AG: - unfortunately, you’re bad on dates; about -
MB: - nah -
AG: - roughly.
MB: - everyone says I’m bad on dates; I’m not bad on dates -
AG: You just do it on purpose, do you?
MB: I do it on purpose.
AG: Like [inaudible].
MB: Nineteen-ninety. Jesus Christ.
AG: In nineteen-ninety, you went into that jewellers and bought that watch.
MB: I’ll tell you who I went with as well.
AG: Who?
MB: ******* hell, Anne, you’re always going to lose but the point is the dead can’t speak -
AG: Is that who you went with, Billy? Tell me, Mike, I don’t know.
MB: I hope she hears this [inaudible] actually. The dead can’t speak. Tony Devereux.
AG: You went with Tony, eh? In nineteen-ninety? Now, you said you got a receipt, Mike.
MB: Yeah.
AG: Will you let me see it, please?
MB: [Inaudible].
AG: This is for you as well as for anybody else, you know.
MB: I go back to Anne, and this is what I’m saying. This is no bullshit, this.
AG: Yeah. Well, I’ll move on this, as you instruct me – but only if I have the receipt.
MB: Yes, and this -
AG: Got the receipt, I’ll, I’ll make it, as you say, Anne -
MB: - this is no bullshit -
AG: - yes.
MB: - this is why you’ve got to go to Anne.
AG: Right.
MB: Tony Devereux lives in a hundred and thirty-seven Fountain’s Road, [inaudible]. He’s dead and buried now. The house is all boarded-up. Tony and I done all that, we kept everything at Tony’s house -
AG: Yeah.
MB: - we kept the lot in Tony’s house, and I’ll tell you where it is. It’s in the front room, by the gas meter, under the gas meter. That’s where the bloody receipt is, and I’ve not been able to -
AG: - and what’s the number of the road?
MB: - a hundred and thirty-seven Fountains Road, and I can’t get in there -
AG: You just told me you had it in your back pocket.
MB: I know. I honestly haven’t. I was just seeing how far you’d go, just seeing what you would do. Just see how much you, been, but I’ll tell you where it is, and this is [inaudible], well I swear, and I will swear, unfortunately I haven’t got a Bible here so you’re going to have to take my word, on the sacred heart of Jesus [inaudible].
AG: [Inaudible].
MB: The point is, I’ll tell you exactly where the receipt is.
AG: Why did you tell me before you had it in your back pocket?
MB: Why?
AG: Yeah.
MB: ‘Cause I wanted to tell yer, in a sense, oh well, that, that, that’s very easy to explain -
AG: Yeah.
MB: - you’re that desperate to prove it -
AG: Yes.
MB: - I’m that desperate to prove it, but I can’t bloody well prove it until either one of you, you better not [inaudible], either you and I or the police break into Tony’s house.

Barrett is all over the place. It would appear that he had enticed Alan Gray to his house with the promise of seeing the receipt for the Maybrick watch (which he both did and did not buy, it transpires) but when Gray presses Barrett on it, once again we find that Barrett cannot deliver. The receipt is not in his back pocket, it's hidden in a gas cupboard in Tony Devereux's home in 137 Fountains Road. At the end of the tape, we hear Gray talking as he is searching for 137 Fountains Road which - it turns out - does not exist.

Key in this exchange for me is that Barrett says he's deliberately bad on dates but that he does it deliberately, and then he iterates his January 5 claim that this all happened in 1990. So he's not bad on dates, it transpires, and all of this happened in 1990, just as he claimed in his affidavit. So '1990' is not '1992' at all. It's 1990. Just like he said it was.

Obviously, I take everything Barrett said around this time as attention-seeking, but - if you want to rely on Barrett's claims - you can't pick and choose them. He can't fake having a bad memory and still get 1990 mixed-up with 1992. At least, not in a reasonable person's mind.

Last note from me on this exchange, check out Barrett's tell-tale signs that he's lying: he stalls when he's caught out, and he deflects the conversation away. He does it all far better in Holmes' treasured April 1999 Cloak and Dagger Club meeting, but this one's a corker too:

MB: The point is, I’ll tell you exactly where the receipt is.
AG: Why did you tell me before you had it in your back pocket?
MB: Why?
AG: Yeah.
MB: ‘Cause I wanted to tell yer, in a sense, oh well, that, that, that’s very easy to explain -

At which point, it's so easy to explain, he doesn't bother ...

I haven't read on beyond this in the transcript so apologies if I've missed anything - I've got an appointment in 15 minutes and got to dash. I just hope the building actually exists when I get there!

Hi Ike,

I'm sorry you've wasted your time with that transcript but 26 January 1995 was a typo on my part, I should have referred to the recording of 29 January 1995.

The conversation I was referencing had nothing to do with the watch. It is a conversation between Gray and Barrett during which they try to work out the date on which Barrett came down to London and met Doreen Montgomery. Barrett initially thinks it was 13th April 1990 but then concludes, by reference to the date when Tony had a fall in 1990, that it must have been 13th April 1991.

Hence, Mike says: "Right. So it’s the 13^th April 1991 was the first time I met Doreen Montgomery and Shirley Harrison."

Gray sums up their conversation by saying: "So what you’re saying, Mike, is in March 1991 you went to Outhwaite & Litherland and got the stuff there…and you wrote the bloody diary in about 11 days you said, okay." Mike replies, "Yes".

As I said to Jay, the date in the affidavit of "1990" is thereby confirmed to have been an error. It would appear that the affidavit was corrected in manuscript and the date of 1990 changed to 1991 accordingly. Mike obviously still didn't get it right because we know as a matter of fact that he first met Doreen and Shirley on 13th April 1992, which means that the affidavit should have said that he went to Outhwaite & Litherland in March 1992 and then wrote the diary in 11 days. The purchase of the red diary within that corrected chronology clearly also occurred in March 1992 (which, of course, we know for a fact is the correct date)..