New Ideas and New Research on the Diary

[Herlock Sholmes]

If Anne would not have put anything of an incriminating nature in her private letters to Mike, then she presumably didn't consider anything she wrote was potentially incriminating, so I'm glad if we have now got that one sorted out. Previously, the very mention of the word 'blackmail' had Barrett theorists all excited that they had found evidence against her.

I think I would have been just a little bit upset at the prospect of my ex circulating an affidavit containing lies about me and accusing me of fraud. I might even have promised to retaliate if he did anything of the sort. Maybe I'm funny that way. But Anne didn't actually need to tell Mike that his affidavit was a pack of lies, because they would both have known it.

I'm still waiting to be told why the Barretts were capable, physically, mentally or psychologically, of creating the diary - by someone who would actually know.

Meanwhile I will continue to presume that they were not - not least because the evidence we do have strongly indicates that it already existed before Mike first clapped eyes on the "old book", as it has been referred to by Battlecrease witnesses. The laws of physics would render the Barretts incapable in that respect.

Love,

Caz
X

I'm not aware of anyone having been excited that evidence had been found against Anne in her letter Caz. I only mentioned it to confirm the date of her divorce. It was you who seemed interested in the content of the letter. Anyway, as I said, it seems a bit odd for her to have been describing Mike's threat to release the affidavit as "blackmail". I'm not sure how you've satisfied yourself that Anne wouldn't have put anything incriminating into her private letters with Mike though. She might have been careful not to say anything by which she openly admitted her role in the forgery (if she did indeed have a role in the forgery of course) but that doesn't mean she wouldn't have written something incriminating. Not everyone is a master criminal incapable of slipping up.

It's still odd to me that Anne didn't say something like "what you're proposing is ridiculous because it's all lies". The letter doesn't prove anything but it's still odd in my opinion, and consistent with Anne being one of the forgers.

To repeat, I've never claimed that the Barretts were capable of forging the diary. I don't know their capabilities. But I thought you were claiming they were incapable. Have I got that wrong?

What Battlecrease "witness" has referred to the diary as an "old book", by the way? Could you identify who you are talking about and what they claim to have witnessed please?

[Herlock Sholmes]

You might have had a point if only Mike had not made such a thorough mess of that affidavit, regarding dates, details and order of events. Anne wasn't the heavy drinker, so if she had been involved in forging the diary with Mike, she'd have known precisely which claims were outright lies, or contained provable errors, that collectively would have rendered his account impossible.



One more time - I don't need to do that. The onus is on you to prove he was involved in creating the diary, if that's what you have actually been led to believe - not by any real evidence, which doesn't exist, but by the arguments you have read.



Ah, that makes sense. Why do you suppose the newspapers were not biting again in January 1995? Was it because Mike's forgery claims from the previous June were immediately retracted on his behalf by his solicitor? Or perhaps because they were now hearing a complete change of story from Mike's new spokesperson, Alan Gray, and they didn't want to touch this one with a barge pole, not least because of the libel implications?

Love,

Caz
X

I’m sorry Caz, but there's no onus on me to say that Mike Barrett was involved in creating the diary because I'm not saying this. I'm saying I don't know of any reason why he couldn't have done it. I thought you, on the other hand, are positively saying that he definitely didn't do it. So surely the onus is on you to explain why not.

I don't really understand your point about the affidavit. Sure, if there were mistakes in it Anne would have realized that immediately but, if she had assisted her husband in the forgery, wouldn't there have been a danger to her in him announcing this to the world? After all, didn't she get extremely upset and defensive when Mike said in June 1994 that he had created the diary, without even mentioning Anne? Didn't she regard his confession as an attack on her personally even though she hadn't been mentioned in it?

In any case, what Anne did or did not think when reading the affidavit isn't the relevant point here. Surely, the relevant point is what was in Mike's mind at the time. He, presumably, wouldn't have known about the mistakes in the affidavit. What I'm saying is that if the whole thing was a tissue of lies, he would have known that and Anne would have known that and he would have known that Anne knew that, which makes his attempt to use the affidavit for the purposes of blackmail very odd. You surely must agree with that at least?

[caz]

I think we both agree that once Mike swore his affidavit he put it through Anne's letterbox, and then did nothing else with it.

What I'm saying, however, is that this doesn't necessarily tell us why he agreed to do the affidavit in the first place.

But even if showing it to Anne was prominent in his mind, and he was hell bent on revenge for Anne wanting to divorce him, it doesn't necessarily mean that he had a motive to lie about having done the forgery with Anne. To my mind, the fact that he only sent it to Anne as a form of blackmail is more consistent with Anne having been involved the forgery.

You might have had a point if only Mike had not made such a thorough mess of that affidavit, regarding dates, details and order of events. Anne wasn't the heavy drinker, so if she had been involved in forging the diary with Mike, she'd have known precisely which claims were outright lies, or contained provable errors, that collectively would have rendered his account impossible.

I appreciate that you disagree with me but that's because you don't think that Mike was involved in the forgery. What you're not giving me are reasons why what I'm saying can't be true.

One more time - I don't need to do that. The onus is on you to prove he was involved in creating the diary, if that's what you have actually been led to believe - not by any real evidence, which doesn't exist, but by the arguments you have read.

Just to add that my source for the newspapers not being sufficiently interested in Mike's story is in the Alan Gray tapes where Gray was obviously trying to get newspapers interested in the story but none of them were biting. I'm not saying that they were offered the affidavit, only that if they weren't interested in the story in the first place, the affidavit, which could only ever have been supporting evidence for the story, was of no practical use for that purpose

Ah, that makes sense. Why do you suppose the newspapers were not biting again in January 1995? Was it because Mike's forgery claims from the previous June were immediately retracted on his behalf by his solicitor? Or perhaps because they were now hearing a complete change of story from Mike's new spokesperson, Alan Gray, and they didn't want to touch this one with a barge pole, not least because of the libel implications?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I wasn't putting Anne's letter forward as evidence of anything relating to the affidavit, Caz.

Can I remind you how this discussion started? I only mentioned the letter (in #96) because it shows that the Barretts weren't yet divorced as at February 1st, 1995. You then raised a question (in #106) about what else was in the letter, so I told you what else was in the letter.

The good thing is that I think we both agree that Mike had said to Anne something along the lines of "Speak to me or else I'll publicize this affidavit". For me, that's kind of odd if the entire story was untrue and Mike knows that Anne knows it's all untrue. It's also odd to my mind that Anne described it as blackmail and seemed to be upset by the prospect of Mike circulating the affidavit to the point where she threatened to retaliate. But, hey ho, people do odd things. At the very least, though, Mike's threat and Anne's response is consistent with them both being involved in the forgery. And Anne never says in her letter to Mike that his affidavit is a pack of lies, which, frankly, I would have expected her to do if that was the case.

So, anyway, I'm still waiting to be told why the Barretts weren't capable of doing the forgery

If Anne would not have put anything of an incriminating nature in her private letters to Mike, then she presumably didn't consider anything she wrote was potentially incriminating, so I'm glad if we have now got that one sorted out. Previously, the very mention of the word 'blackmail' had Barrett theorists all excited that they had found evidence against her.

I think I would have been just a little bit upset at the prospect of my ex circulating an affidavit containing lies about me and accusing me of fraud. I might even have promised to retaliate if he did anything of the sort. Maybe I'm funny that way. But Anne didn't actually need to tell Mike that his affidavit was a pack of lies, because they would both have known it.

I'm still waiting to be told why the Barretts were capable, physically, mentally or psychologically, of creating the diary - by someone who would actually know.

Meanwhile I will continue to presume that they were not - not least because the evidence we do have strongly indicates that it already existed before Mike first clapped eyes on the "old book", as it has been referred to by Battlecrease witnesses. The laws of physics would render the Barretts incapable in that respect.

Love,

Caz
X

[Lombro2]

James Maybrick could have created the diary.

In which case, we’d all look foolish in front of the whole, wide, World Wide Web!

[Scott Nelson]

Devereux could have "created" the diary.

[John Wheat]

More and more ridiculous as one of your fellow Barrett Believers tries to express your shared belief.

Ridiculous post the Barretts created the diary.

[Lombro2]

A frankly ridiculous thread that just gets more and more ridiculous.

More and more ridiculous as one of your fellow Barrett Believers tries to express your shared belief.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Really? I thought the same regarding your arguments to keep the Barretts in a distinctly ill-fitting frame.



But is confession ever any good for arsouls like Mike? How much good did his forgery claims do his soul, when he was still at it five years later? He didn't even leave a dying declaration of his supposed skulduggery, but instead claimed that the transcript taken from the diary - which has its own thread here - was all his own unaided work. He couldn't even tell the truth when all he had left to look after was his soul.

The whole 'journalist' argument is beyond absurd as far as I'm concerned, and I can only wonder how anyone was able to sell it to you, unless they were banking on you being unfamiliar with all the twists and turns and thought they could add - or subtract - one or two of their own. Nothing about the argument makes the least bit of sense. There was no pressure on Mike to confess to anything in June 1994, nor in January 1995, nor yet in April 1999, whenever he came out with his various forgery claims, or changed his story like the weather to suit himself and his audience - much less that all this nonsense was triggered by his failure to mention his previous attempts to make a living out of writing. The idea that Mike, of all people, was remotely bothered by this 'revelation' - apart from possibly the humiliation factor of having needed Anne's help - let alone that his minuscule conscience had weighed 'very heavily on him' at any time in his entire life, is purely theoretical, as you yourself admit, while all the evidence screams out against it.

Advice, meant kindly: a theory that lacks evidence is not a new idea in Diary World, but a theory that falls under the weight of what evidence is available is not going to get up off the ground by itself.

Love,

Caz
X

You seem to be asking me to tell you what was in Mike Barrett's soul, Caz. I can't do that.

I've read your paragraph about what you refer to as "the journalist argument" carefully and I can't see for one second how or why it's absurd. How are you possibly able to say that Mike felt under "no pressure" to confess as a result of Nick Warren's forthcoming exposé? How do you know what he was feeling at the time? Can you provide some evidence if you say this is the case Caz?

My argument may be theoretical but it fits the timing. And we certainly know that Mike was extremely agitated by Warren's forthcoming article in May 1994, don't we? He even threatened to sue him for libel if he went ahead with publication?

How could Shirley's reaction to discovering in July 1994 that Mike was a former journalist, absent his confession in June, have been anything other than one of complete shock? How could she have not instantly demanded an explanation for this bombshell from Mike? She had told the world that Barrett was only ever a merchant seaman, chef and scrap metal dealer in her book. How was she going to explain the omission of journalist to the world? It would have been a complete disaster, surely.

Of course, Mike's confession in June, followed fast by Anne's new story about where the diary came from - which I assume you think is a complete lie but, curiously, aren't too bothered - changed the entire dynamic but it got Mike out of a hole.

I'm not convinced, incidentally, that Mike "changed his mind like the weather". If you want to make that point good you'll need to set out some evidence for it. But I certainly don't think you've pointed to any evidence yet against the idea that Mike confessed because of the imminent exposure of his journalism. It certainly seems to fit the timing better than him doing it to get back at Anne a full six months after she had left him while not even mentioning Anne in the confession! I can't see how that one even makes any sense to be honest Caz.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I tend to agree for once, John. Certainly nothing new here.

I agree entirely with both you and John, Caz. This thread is utterly pointless and should never have been started.

[Herlock Sholmes]

And I explained my objections in some detail. If you still don't or can't understand them, in the context of what was happening in 1994 and early 1995, in the lives of the Barretts, I'm not particularly inclined to go through it all over again - there is nothing new here. But how could Mike not have seen the affidavit in terms of his relationship with Anne, which was nearing the bitter end for him by then, when he put it through her door at the earliest opportunity? There is no evidence that he had any further purpose in mind for it, so what was it all for, from Mike's point of view? We know why Harris wanted it, but Mike was the one whose name was attached to the contents.



Agree to disagree, Herlock. It'll be easier for both of us and our long-suffering readers.



I disagree.



But Mike didn't get any money for his first forgery story back in June, so if he was hoping to sell a spiced-up version of it by the December, what happened? What is your source for the newspapers being approached but none of them being 'sufficiently interested'? Is this something new and real at last?



What's that saying about revenge being a dish best served cold?

I think Mike's problem was that it hadn't worked when it was still piping hot, so it was more a case of 'if at first you don't succeed...'.



Really? You sound pretty sure of yourself from where I'm sitting.



But a failed marriage is rarely simple and never straightforward. I left two of my own, but what do I know?



No, you don't 'have' to repeat yourself on that score. I think we all know that you believe the Barretts were perfectly capable, but you haven't produced any actual evidence of it, or that they had the means, motive or opportunity to turn a partly used photo album, allegedly bought at an auction sale, into the Maybrick diary. I don't need to prove they did nothing of the sort. I'll just sit and wait for the evidence that they did - and I don't mean what Mike Barrett claimed they did.

In RJ Palmer's dreams, for one, he seems to have been with the Barretts throughout their adult lives, and on intimate terms with their individual capabilities back in the early 1990s. Hell, he's probably joined them on cycling tours round the moon - when he wasn't escorting the brothers Johnson to see life on Mars.

Back in the real world, has anyone whose views you most admire and repeat ever even met these people, never mind got to know anything about them as individuals? Or would you not consider that to be of any importance?

If everyone who knew Charles Lechmere in the 1880s had been asked if they thought he was capable of extreme violence, and they all said "not a chance", whose views would you take more seriously? Theirs, or some armchair theorist in the future, who didn't know the man from Adam?

Love,

Caz
X

I think we both agree that once Mike swore his affidavit he put it through Anne's letterbox, and then did nothing else with it.

What I'm saying, however, is that this doesn't necessarily tell us why he agreed to do the affidavit in the first place.

But even if showing it to Anne was prominent in his mind, and he was hell bent on revenge for Anne wanting to divorce him, it doesn't necessarily mean that he had a motive to lie about having done the forgery with Anne. To my mind, the fact that he only sent it to Anne as a form of blackmail is more consistent with Anne having been involved the forgery.

I appreciate that you disagree with me but that's because you don't think that Mike was involved in the forgery. What you're not giving me are reasons why what I'm saying can't be true.

It's interesting that you tell me that I sound "pretty sure of myself" because I fear that all along you've misunderstood what I'm saying which is no more than that the diary is a modern forgery (of which I'm sure) and that I don't know any reason why the Barretts couldn't have forged it. But I'm not saying any more than that.

And to clarify - because this is very important - I'm not saying the Barretts were capable of doing the forgery. I have no idea about their capabilities. I think I said this to you many weeks ago. I'm saying that no one has explained to me why they weren't capable.

Just to add that my source for the newspapers not being sufficiently interested in Mike's story is in the Alan Gray tapes where Gray was obviously trying to get newspapers interested in the story but none of them were biting. I'm not saying that they were offered the affidavit, only that if they weren't interested in the story in the first place, the affidavit, which could only ever have been supporting evidence for the story, was of no practical use for that purpose

[Herlock Sholmes]

So basically, none of this is evidence that Anne was involved in creating the diary - which she tried and failed to destroy physically back in 1992, and which Mike tried and failed to destroy with all his forgery claims. She is challenging Mike to do so, but he doesn't make a public exhibition of himself in January 1995, by taking his affidavit to Harold Brough, does he? If he had, I don't suppose she would have sat quietly back and taken it, to be publicly accused of writing the diary, with Caroline as a witness. But there was no need for Anne to do anything, because Mike waited until April 1999 to make a semi-public exhibition of himself at a packed Cloak & Dagger Club meeting, by which time she had moved on with her life, and all Mike's attempts to get Anne to "speak to me or I'll....." had failed to work, just as she told him in that letter.

Love,

Caz
X

I wasn't putting Anne's letter forward as evidence of anything relating to the affidavit, Caz.

Can I remind you how this discussion started? I only mentioned the letter (in #96) because it shows that the Barretts weren't yet divorced as at February 1st, 1995. You then raised a question (in #106) about what else was in the letter, so I told you what else was in the letter.

The good thing is that I think we both agree that Mike had said to Anne something along the lines of "Speak to me or else I'll publicize this affidavit". For me, that's kind of odd if the entire story was untrue and Mike knows that Anne knows it's all untrue. It's also odd to my mind that Anne described it as blackmail and seemed to be upset by the prospect of Mike circulating the affidavit to the point where she threatened to retaliate. But, hey ho, people do odd things. At the very least, though, Mike's threat and Anne's response is consistent with them both being involved in the forgery. And Anne never says in her letter to Mike that his affidavit is a pack of lies, which, frankly, I would have expected her to do if that was the case.

So, anyway, I'm still waiting to be told why the Barretts weren't capable of doing the forgery

[caz]

You seem to be making this more complicated than it needs to be Caz.

Really? I thought the same regarding your arguments to keep the Barretts in a distinctly ill-fitting frame.

It's really very simple. As at June 1994, Mike is expecting to be exposed by Nick Warren as having been a former journalist. You seem to quibble with the description of "journalist" but I can't think of any other word that is better or more accurate or appropriate. By this time, he had clearly concealed this information from Shirley Harrison and Doreen Montgomery. There was no good excuse for not having told them. He would have known for sure that they were going to ask him about it once Nick Warren's article was published. And, indeed, we know for a fact that Shirley was sufficiently interested to write to the editor of Celebrity to check the position. Mike only needed to be slightly paranoid to feel under enormous pressure that his entire cover story of being a mere scrap metal dealer was going to collapse around him. If we assume that he was responsible for the forgery, it's not difficult to appreciate that the guilt of all his lies, and the feeling of being suspected by everyone of the forgery, might have been weighing very heavily on him at this time. There is a well known saying that you might have heard of: "Confession is good for the soul".

But is confession ever any good for arsouls like Mike? How much good did his forgery claims do his soul, when he was still at it five years later? He didn't even leave a dying declaration of his supposed skulduggery, but instead claimed that the transcript taken from the diary - which has its own thread here - was all his own unaided work. He couldn't even tell the truth when all he had left to look after was his soul.

The whole 'journalist' argument is beyond absurd as far as I'm concerned, and I can only wonder how anyone was able to sell it to you, unless they were banking on you being unfamiliar with all the twists and turns and thought they could add - or subtract - one or two of their own. Nothing about the argument makes the least bit of sense. There was no pressure on Mike to confess to anything in June 1994, nor in January 1995, nor yet in April 1999, whenever he came out with his various forgery claims, or changed his story like the weather to suit himself and his audience - much less that all this nonsense was triggered by his failure to mention his previous attempts to make a living out of writing. The idea that Mike, of all people, was remotely bothered by this 'revelation' - apart from possibly the humiliation factor of having needed Anne's help - let alone that his minuscule conscience had weighed 'very heavily on him' at any time in his entire life, is purely theoretical, as you yourself admit, while all the evidence screams out against it.

Advice, meant kindly: a theory that lacks evidence is not a new idea in Diary World, but a theory that falls under the weight of what evidence is available is not going to get up off the ground by itself.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

A frankly ridiculous thread that just gets more and more ridiculous.

I tend to agree for once, John. Certainly nothing new here.

[caz]

I think I already explained why the dates don't work, Caz. Firstly, you said that the swearing of the affidavit in January 1995 occurred "just after she got a divorce from him." In fact, as at January 1995 the Barretts were still married. Secondly, you said that Mike was "attempting to throw Anne under that bus for having left him". But Anne left Mike a whole year before he swore his affidavit (which itself wasn't made public) and within that period, six months after she left him, Mike didn't mention Anne's name in his initial public confession. But then thirdly, and most importantly, the idea behind the affidavit appears to have come from Harris and thus had nothing to do with the state of the Barretts' marriage.

And I explained my objections in some detail. If you still don't or can't understand them, in the context of what was happening in 1994 and early 1995, in the lives of the Barretts, I'm not particularly inclined to go through it all over again - there is nothing new here. But how could Mike not have seen the affidavit in terms of his relationship with Anne, which was nearing the bitter end for him by then, when he put it through her door at the earliest opportunity? There is no evidence that he had any further purpose in mind for it, so what was it all for, from Mike's point of view? We know why Harris wanted it, but Mike was the one whose name was attached to the contents.

I also think I put forward believable motives for Mike's confessions.

Agree to disagree, Herlock. It'll be easier for both of us and our long-suffering readers.

In June 1994, he was expecting to be exposed by Nick Warren as having been a former journalist. I don't think there's any doubt about that fact. So I'm suggesting as a possibility that he figured that the game was up and that he might as well finally tell the truth, albeit that he wanted to keep Anne's name out of it as a courtesy to her because he still hoped they might get back together.

I disagree.

By December 1994, he was hoping to sell his story and had already told Alan Gray about his wife's involvement. He accepted the advice from Harris to put his story into writing (although no newspapers were sufficiently interested) and, instead, weaponised the affidavit by using it to "blackmaiil" Anne into speaking to him.

But Mike didn't get any money for his first forgery story back in June, so if he was hoping to sell a spiced-up version of it by the December, what happened? What is your source for the newspapers being approached but none of them being 'sufficiently interested'? Is this something new and real at last?

But he didn't go public with his claim that his wife wrote the manuscript until some years later. It may be that the first time he said so publicly was in 1999, more than five years after Anne walked out. That's a long time to wait to attempt to throw someone under the bus for having left him.

What's that saying about revenge being a dish best served cold?

I think Mike's problem was that it hadn't worked when it was still piping hot, so it was more a case of 'if at first you don't succeed...'.

I can't, of course, say this is definitely what happened...

Really? You sound pretty sure of yourself from where I'm sitting.

...but it seems believable to me, and has the advantage of being very simple and straightforward.

But a failed marriage is rarely simple and never straightforward. I left two of my own, but what do I know?

I have to repeat that no-one has given me any reason to think that the Barretts weren't capable of forging the diary and no alternative candidate outside the Barretts or their immediate circle has ever been put forward who could have done it in the post WW2 period.

No, you don't 'have' to repeat yourself on that score. I think we all know that you believe the Barretts were perfectly capable, but you haven't produced any actual evidence of it, or that they had the means, motive or opportunity to turn a partly used photo album, allegedly bought at an auction sale, into the Maybrick diary. I don't need to prove they did nothing of the sort. I'll just sit and wait for the evidence that they did - and I don't mean what Mike Barrett claimed they did.

In RJ Palmer's dreams, for one, he seems to have been with the Barretts throughout their adult lives, and on intimate terms with their individual capabilities back in the early 1990s. Hell, he's probably joined them on cycling tours round the moon - when he wasn't escorting the brothers Johnson to see life on Mars.

Back in the real world, has anyone whose views you most admire and repeat ever even met these people, never mind got to know anything about them as individuals? Or would you not consider that to be of any importance?

If everyone who knew Charles Lechmere in the 1880s had been asked if they thought he was capable of extreme violence, and they all said "not a chance", whose views would you take more seriously? Theirs, or some armchair theorist in the future, who didn't know the man from Adam?

Love,

Caz
X