New Ideas and New Research on the Diary

[Herlock Sholmes]

I'm chuckling at the suggestion, Herlock, that anything this compulsive liar ever said on the record about the diary, out of his own mouth no less, would not have been considered a 'very important fact' to take into account by any fair-minded person trying to get to the truth of the matter.

A very important fact here is that before any fair-minded person can begin to understand Mike's account they first need to acknowledge the equally important fact that his relationship with the truth was abnormal in the extreme, not helped by the personal demons that plagued him long after the loss of his wife and only child in January 1994. Any allegation he made against Anne after that time requires supporting evidence at the extreme end of robust. Without it, no fair-minded person in the world should be giving this man the benefit of the doubt.

Love,

Caz
X

But Caz you're ignoring the fact that it was Ike who was using Barrett's own words (or at least what he understood to be Barrett's own words) to undermine the idea that Barrett was involved in the forgery.

My response was to say that if you want to use Barrett's own words, you need to look at the entirety of what Barrett was saying to understand the account he was giving.

If what you're saying is we shouldn't be discussing anything Barrett said, then fine, but, in which case, why do you and Ike keep going on about what is said in Barrett's affidavit, considering that we all agree he was a compulsive liar?

Either you want to examine Barrett's version of events or you don't. If you don't then let's all completely stop talking about what Barrett said about anything, knowing that he was a compulsive liar.

The problem is that even compulsive liars, and perhaps especially compulsive liars, can forge historical documents. So how do we get to the truth?

My approach is not to focus on anything Barrett said and look at the independent evidence.

As to that, we can see from Roger's detective work that the diary must have been written after 1988. We know that Barrett was a professional journalist during the 1980s, either with or without the assistance of his wife. We know that in March 1992, at the same time that Doreen said she was interested in seeing the diary of Jack the Ripper, he contacted Martin Earl to obtain a genuine Victorian diary with blank pages. We know that certain of the expressions used in the diary match those used by Mike himself. We know that the diarist makes similar grammatical errors to the Barretts such a "I seen". We know that the way Anne formed certain characters is similar to the way the diarist formed certain characters. We know that the Barretts were poor spellers with poor grammar, like the diarist, and we know that Mike was likely to make factual errors regarding the Ripper and Maybrick of the type found in the diary. We know that the diary has no history prior to emerging from 12 Goldie Street. We know that Mike was the only person who was able to find the source of the line "Oh costly intercourse of death." We know that Mike, astonishingly, owned the series of literature books in which this very rare quote is to be found. We know that Mike was aware of Bernard Ryan's book on Maybrick but covered up his knowledge of it in his research notes for Shirley Harrison. We know that Mike owned a book containing two chapters relating to the Maybrick case. To me, it all builds up a picture. I'm not saying that he was definitely the forger but I'm just not seeing any reason why he and his wife couldn't have been. I keep asking for a reason but I'm not given one.

[rjpalmer]

First and foremost, Mike needed to explain how he had come by such a remarkable document, because they don't grow on trees, as Doreen observed. It was Tony Devereux who provided that explanation by having died in August 1991.

Let's see. Devereux decided to make the ultimate sacrifice and die in August 1991 so when Ed Lyons gave the priceless Diary of Jack the Ripper to Barrett seven months later Barrett would have one of those provenances that don't grow on trees?

Can't you grasp that this 'coincidence' of timing is more of a problem for Doreen's theory than for anyone else's? According to your own theory, Tony's timely death can't be anything other than dumb luck.

The way I see it, the idea of the 'Diary of Jack the Ripper' had been kicking around in Mike and Anne' head for years (if not decades, if Steve Powell's shifting memory contained a core of truth) but they never got the damned thing whipped up into professional shape. Further, Barrett had no idea how he could manufacturer a suitable provenance if he decided to go full-blown hoax.

Thus, it sat, in nebulas form, on Barrett's word processor with no way forward.

Then, when his casual acquaintance/friend Tony D. died in August 1991, it soon dawned on Mike that a suitable provenance had presented itself. No one who doesn't own a crystal ball could know if Barrett would have mustered the confidence to make that initial that phone call if Tony had lived another 10 or 15 years.

But Devereux did die, so Mike dusted off the typescript and forged ahead, confident that he finally had a provenance that would satisfy an overeager literary agent and an equally overeager publisher.

This isn't an objection at all.

[caz]

You're doing a bit of wriggling there Ike. Your original claim was that "the red diary theory does not work" because of what was said in Mike's affidavit. That's fallen apart. Of course it works (assuming that by "the red diary theory" you mean the idea that Mike was intending to forge the diary of Jack the Ripper in a diary from the 1880s with blank pages sourced from Martin Earl).

It doesn't work with Mike's statement that Tony Devereux was alive, but severely ill, after the red diary had been rejected and the diary created from the photo album over eleven days. Tony wasn't known to be severely ill in any case. His fatal heart attack was sudden and unexpected, happening while the Barretts were away on holiday. Why would they have been waiting for Tony to recover, as Mike claimed, with the diary completed and ready to go? What difference did Tony's state of health make to their plans for unleashing it on the world? Quite a lot, apparently, if he had to die so that the diary would have a provenance that couldn't easily be disproved. One can almost hear the cogs turning in Mike's brain as he was dictating the guff about Tony to Alan Gray.

The other little problem with the little red diary is that Martin Earl's standard practice was to give his customers a full description of any item located, to save the time and expense involved in taking and fulfilling an order which didn't meet their requirements. Martin told us in no uncertain terms that he would not have taken Mike's order without telling him the diary located was for the year 1891. This seems all the more obvious, considering the date was outside the parameters set by his customer. It has been argued, somewhat desperately, that Martin may not have had a more detailed description from the supplier, and Mike may have placed his order without asking for more details - such as whether the diary on offer was the size of a cigarette case, or had 1891 printed on every damned page. A quick call by Martin to the supplier would have secured all the details a budding hoaxer could have needed to know in advance, and all three had a tongue in their head, so only a serious lack of communication between the parties involved could have resulted in Major Misunderstanding ordering something so completely useless, if its purpose had been to provide a home for Maybrick's Memoirs and the bestseller its new owner was already counting on.

Even if people want to argue that Mike was really that dim, or that Martin Earl was yet another irrational businessman who failed to give a straight account of how he ran his own business, or that I'm 'imagining' things that come from the same record that Keith Skinner and others have access to, nobody seems to want to explore what Anne thought she was doing, if she was trusting Mike "Liability" Barrett with the task of discreetly sourcing any of the raw materials for a fake diary. Is it because they are reluctant to come out and say that the woman could not have been right in the head?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

All you've done in that long post, Ike, is essentially repeat in a convoluted way what I said in much shorter form when I talked about why it's not very clear what Mike was saying through the middle-man medium of Alan Gray. You're using the context of the affidavit to try to explain one sentence which, if Gray didn't fully understand the context himself, would be a significant mistake.

What you are, of course, totally ignoring, as usual, is what Michael Barrett said, out of his own mouth, in May 1999, from which it WAS very clear that that the idea to create a fake diary occurred to him as early as 1988, while Tony Devereux was alive, but the purchase of the photograph album, and the physical writing of the diary, only took place after he spoke to Doreen on March 9th 1992. That chronology is as clear as crystal. Any fair-minded person trying to get to the truth of the matter would surely want to take that very important fact into account if they want to understand Barrett's account, rather than ignore it.

I'm chuckling at the suggestion, Herlock, that anything this compulsive liar ever said on the record about the diary, out of his own mouth no less, would not have been considered a 'very important fact' to take into account by any fair-minded person trying to get to the truth of the matter.

A very important fact here is that before any fair-minded person can begin to understand Mike's account they first need to acknowledge the equally important fact that his relationship with the truth was abnormal in the extreme, not helped by the personal demons that plagued him long after the loss of his wife and only child in January 1994. Any allegation he made against Anne after that time requires supporting evidence at the extreme end of robust. Without it, no fair-minded person in the world should be giving this man the benefit of the doubt.

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

Nice one, Cyril - sorry - Ike.

I have never been able to get this fact through to the opposing team, that the late Tony Devereux was very much out of the diary loop, if he was ever in it while breathing, when Mike inexplicably ordered a diary for the year 1891, having already interested Doreen in one signed by Jack the Ripper, with only the one date at the end: May 1889. First and foremost, Mike needed to explain how he had come by such a remarkable document, because they don't grow on trees, as Doreen observed. It was Tony Devereux who provided that explanation by having died in August 1991. This was a fact, and a convenient one for Mike to repeat in March 1992, because dead men can't tell tales or deny any lies told about them.

The 'Great Barrett Hoax' conspiracy theory [or GBH for short] relies on Mike having forgotten by the start of 1995 that the only thing Tony was capable of doing, by the time Doreen got to hear about the diary and its provenance, and Martin Earl was asked to find one from the 1880s, was silently pushing up the daisies.

Love,

Caz
X

What I've never been able to get through to "the opposing team" (whoever they may be) is that Michael Barrett repeatedly said that the idea to write a fake diary first occurred to him at the very end of 1987/early 1988 when Tony Devereux was very much alive. For that reason, Devereux could have assisted in the drafting of the diary at any time before his death in 1991. I'm not sure why this is such a difficult concept for the team to handle nor why they keep insisting that Mike "ordered" an 1891 diary when it was the only diary, outside of his desired period to boot, that was offered to him.

[caz]

I notice you haven't commented on Shirley Harrison's statement, Ike.

"I hope you all have better luck like than I did with... Oathwaite...."

Doesn't really inspire confidence, does it?

No, the correct spelling is Outhwaite, so Palmer managed to misquote Shirley in this regard - more than once.

Shirley could have been quietly confident that she and her contacts at O & L had done enough to cast considerable doubt on Mike's auction claims, while challenging others - with the merest hint of sarcasm - to see if they would have 'better luck' in getting from the auction house the evidential equivalent of blood from a stone.

If there was any confirmation on record to be had, of an actual event resembling Mike's description, it wasn't found on Shirley's watch - simple as. The likes of Peter Birchwood, Alan Gray and Melvin Harris could each have used all their powers of persuasion - and asked for the records to be checked right up to 13th April 1992, if they didn't think it mattered if Tony Devereux was dead or alive for Mike's lucky auction find - but it would have taken more than persuasion, and more than 'better luck', if the auction house simply had no record of it. It should have been easier to confirm Mike's story if there had been any truth in it, than to prove it never happened if the entire story was false, and only made slightly credible with the red diary hook, which smells like a red herring to those of us who knew or met the man who relied on 'alternative facts' long before the catchphrase became popular among today's practised deceivers.

If Peter Birchwood did contact O & L himself, I don't recall reading about it, and I doubt he'd have been reticent if the auction house had been in any way unhelpful or obstructive. If he asked about the records from 1992, for instance, and they had not already been pulped, he must have had no more luck than Shirley or we'd all have heard about it.

[caz]

Thank goodness - for the pursuit and defence of the truth - the breweries have run dry and I have finally sobered-up ...

And not a day too soon, it appears, as someone has to point out that you cannot say categorically that 'they checked the wrong dates' unless you are seeking to mislead people.

The bit that you rely on is where Barrett claimed in his January 5, 1995 affidavit:


We know the red diary was ordered in March 1992 (and paid for in May 1992) so you want everyone to believe that the only possibility based upon Barrett's January 5, 1995 affidavit is that he misremembered the events of 1992 for two years earlier.

But you intentionally (because you have an angle to spin here) disregard the bit that buggers up your argument:


Tony Devereux sadly died on August 8, 1991, as well you know. So Barrett could not have been remembering 1992 at all when he went to O&L so the red diary could not have been required for the 1992 'hoax' you cling so desperately to. Barrett's affidavit is very clear that the O&L scrapbook came after the failed red diary and both came before Tony's sad demise which totally buggers up your argument that the purchase of the red diary is evidence that he was seeking a vehicle for a hoaxed diary of Jack the Ripper in the run-up to the only O&L auction that month (the 31st). He already had the scrapbook, didn't he (according to Barrett)? It had already been completed and there was a delay in operations due to the unexpected passing of co-conspirator Tony on August 8, 1991. The dates can all be ignored. All we need to understand is that the affidavit you place such faith in clearly states the following timeline: the red diary is ordered, it is too small, so Barrett gets the scrapbook from an O&L auction, the scrapbook is completed, Tony D sadly dies, and you and your lot are jolly rogered up the arse by man's inability so far to travel back and forth through time.

The red diary theory doesn't work, does it? Unless you argue that Tony D was still alive in March 1992 which can obviously be firmly contradicted by the sad evidence. And you can't believe some bits of the affidavit which you like and which work for the angle you're aiming for here and simultaneously skip over the awkward bits which make the 'key' bit of your theory simply incorrect, can you? I'm sure you can't. After all, as I understand it, your sort are almost bunged-up with all that integrity inside you.

Nope, 'they' didn't check the wrong dates. They checked the right dates - the ones the affidavit tell us must be the true ones. Ha ha.

It's all in black and white, Roger - Howe your team's strategy falls apart before it ever got started. Puts me in mind of a game of football I saw recently ...

Nice one, Cyril - sorry - Ike.

I have never been able to get this fact through to the opposing team, that the late Tony Devereux was very much out of the diary loop, if he was ever in it while breathing, when Mike inexplicably ordered a diary for the year 1891, having already interested Doreen in one signed by Jack the Ripper, with only the one date at the end: May 1889. First and foremost, Mike needed to explain how he had come by such a remarkable document, because they don't grow on trees, as Doreen observed. It was Tony Devereux who provided that explanation by having died in August 1991. This was a fact, and a convenient one for Mike to repeat in March 1992, because dead men can't tell tales or deny any lies told about them.

The 'Great Barrett Hoax' conspiracy theory [or GBH for short] relies on Mike having forgotten by the start of 1995 that the only thing Tony was capable of doing, by the time Doreen got to hear about the diary and its provenance, and Martin Earl was asked to find one from the 1880s, was silently pushing up the daisies.

Love,

Caz
X

[Scott Nelson]

Yes, of course. It must have been a lie.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I love the way you take Caz's and my posts literally but you cunningly rewrite the above. Read it back, old friend, and don't misrepresent me to pretend you're making a point.



Nope, you're doing a really bad job of this, old friend. If you don't know the relevance of this, you don't want to know it, and no-one will be able to explain it to you. Please don't ask me to - I honestly think you're taking the piss.



Never, never, never happened. I answered every one of his claims and I'm happy to do it again if he wants to start it up again. I may not have any serious lecturing creds in statistics but I do have undergraduate and postgraduate experience and I had sufficient experience that the Metropolitan Police were happy to employ me as a statistician in their management services directorate at the old New Scotland Yard so I feel I can hold my head above water on a simple matter such as this.



I'm a bit confused now, old friend. I've noticed that you Barrett-believers will just grab hold of whatever you think will suit your argument in the moment. I'm not sure which story you're backing here: was Anne involved in a forgery in this version or did she have nothing to do with it? I only ask because if it was the former, then Mike confessing it was a hoax would clearly not have suited his co-writer now, would it? Hardly grounds for a reconciliation, even in 'the mind of Mike'.



Stop it, old friend - you're showing yourself up! The only 'evidence' we have is Anne and Mike claiming it. Taking a lead from you, maybe Anne didn't help Mike? If you can chuck in mysterious auctions and mysterious auction-attenders, I don't think you should be questioning my strict adherence here to the actual evidence of co-authorship which is non-existent other than Mike and Anne's claims. They are claims, not evidence. They aren't even circumstantial evidence. Now you may scurry off and look for occasions where you feel I may have done the same, but that will be because you want to run from the fact that you are patently seeking to have your cake and eat it. Isn't that unusual from the anything-is-possible-whenever-it-suits brigade?



Well, she was either lying or telling the truth (Caroline Barrett was, that is) - that's true of most undocumented events. My challenge to you was how you knew which was the case that you could slander her if she was actually telling the truth? How did you know she was lying?

I'm satisfied that I summarised your arguments correctly, Ike.

Regarding Mike's writing career, either he wrote the articles himself or Anne helped him. It doesn't matter which. Your attempts to try and whitewash the fact of his journalistic career, because it points towards a conclusion you don't like, are in the finest traditions of denialism.

As for young Caroline, I did not say I knew she was lying. I was careful with my words which you have chosen to misrepresent for your own purposes. I said there was good reason to think that she and her parents were liars. The good reason in her case is that she claimed something that appears to be untrue, namely that her father was given the diary by Tony Devereux. You don't think her father was given the diary by Tony Devereux. I don't think her father was given the diary by Tony Devereux. Q.E.D. we both agree it must have been a lie.

[Iconoclast]

Like I've said to you before, the date of Barrett's confession is a matter of record.

That is obviously true.

There was no point him trying to lie about it.

That is obviously not. He had every reason to lie if nothing (or practically nothing) of what he described actually happened in the way and for the reasons he gave.

So the obvious conclusion is that it was a mistake in the affidavit, whether made by Barrett or Gray.

So many errors, old friend. Not just 'a mistake' but a series of mistakes. You'll let them off with anything, won't you?

The time spent obsessing over it is out of proportion to any significance it can possibly have.

I couldn't agree more. There is absolutely no justification in twisting and turning the way you do to try to create a purse out of your sow's ear. Mike Barrett did not create the Maybrick scrapbook text. End of.

And, oh dear, do I really have to explain the possible motive for the June 1994 confession all over again? Clearly I do. Mike had been lying for two years flat about how he obtained the diary, quite possibly to people he liked and who he felt trusted him. He had deliberately kept secret from them all that he'd been a former journalist. He'd allowed Shirley to publish a book, of which he was supposed to be the co-author, where this information was omitted. Now he knows his secret is about to be exposed. He's not looking forward to all the people asking him why he hadn't told them about being a journalist. More than this, he probably felt that the game was up. Once they discovered he was a journalist, they'd know he had authored the diary. It was blooming obvious! The pressure was too much for him. He thought he'd get ahead of the story and own it, doing the exposure on his own terms in the newspaper. He then got blind drunk so he didn't have to speak to anyone. Oddly enough, it seemed to work! With a few months all was forgotten, there were no consequences and he was allowed to continue to say that Tony had given him the diary.

The man who pulled off the greatest hoax in history (his words, not mine) was so spineless that the threat of a few Celebrity articles being uncovered would suddenly scare the **** out of him? Look, I can't say to you it definitely wasn't the case (just as you can't say it was), but surely I'm not alone in thinking how desperately implausible your little scenario is? And you think this was all part of a plan to reconcile with Anne - confessing that the scrapbook she was so intimately associated with hoaxing was a hoax??? Come on, old friend, please concentrate before you type your latest 'new version of an old theory' and add yet another to the pile which one day will undoubtedly be immolated in a gigantic blaze.

There's no doubt that Anne knew of the affidavit because Mike posted it through her letterbox immediately after swearing it.

I'm not querying this (I believe it too) but I don't think either of us can be 'certain'. Maybe I've forgotten the actual evidence but - as I recall it - we have to rely on Mike claiming it was true and I get the jitters whenever I have to do that thing.

Where there is a great deal of doubt is that she mentioned the affidavit, even obliquely, when she spoke to Keith and Shirley on January 18 1995. I've looked back at what you posted in September last year about this meeting. All you're relying on is that Anne said to them, "Did anything else come up? I, I, I was expecting you – to be honest – to come back and go on about the forgery thing". According to you, that was a reference to the affidavit but I've no idea why you think that. Mike had publicly confessed in June 1994, and by January 1995 had never retracted, so why shouldn't Anne have told Keith and Shirley that expected Mike to "go on" about having forged the diary, especially if, as she knew, Mike did forge the diary, with her assistance. Why does that need to be a mention of the affidavit?

Well, you've just said Mike delivered it through Anne's door so that would be a good start, surely? If he hadn't, then maybe she was indeed referring to his claims of June 1994, but so much had gone down since then, it feels less likely than that she was referring to something very recent. We don't know for 'certain' but a recent source for her comment doesn't feel unrealistic to me.

And surely if it was a mention of the affidavit she would have first ask Keith and Shirley if they'd seen the affidavit, wouldn't she? In fact, as far as I'm concerned this just shows Anne being worried about what Mike was going to say about the forgery, especially bearing in mind what she knew he'd said in his affidavit.

And if Anne had received the affidavit and had thought "Oh good God, this man is such an embarrassment to this family" and had hoped desperately he hadn't shared it with anyone else? Perfectly plausible that she would test the water the way she did and then move on if she thought her company were unaware of what you claim were Alan Gray's facile claims.

So she was probably reassured by the fact that Mike hadn't said anything on that day about forging the diary. You need to do a lot better Ike, you really do.

Yes, that's my very point - she was reassured that Mike had not said anything that morning about the affidavit he had (as we understand it) posted through her door. Looks like I don't even need to do better than that - you've just done it for me!

[Iconoclast]

If you seriously think that workmen doing work in an old house on the day that Michael Barrett called Doreen Montgomery is the greatest coincidence in the history of the human race, it really is about time for you to call it a day, Ike old friend.

I love the way you take Caz's and my posts literally but you cunningly rewrite the above. Read it back, old friend, and don't misrepresent me to pretend you're making a point.

And don't think I didn't notice the old switcheroo you pulled. One minute we were talking about what happened on 9th March 1992, next minute you're saying "one of the workmen drank in the same pub that Michael Barrett drank in". What's that got to do with 9th March 1992?

Nope, you're doing a really bad job of this, old friend. If you don't know the relevance of this, you don't want to know it, and no-one will be able to explain it to you. Please don't ask me to - I honestly think you're taking the piss.

Maybe you forgot, or just blanked it out of your mind, but an actual expert in statistics, Jeff Hamm, did comment on your statistical theory and told us that there was nothing amazing or extraordinary going on.

Never, never, never happened. I answered every one of his claims and I'm happy to do it again if he wants to start it up again. I may not have any serious lecturing creds in statistics but I do have undergraduate and postgraduate experience and I had sufficient experience that the Metropolitan Police were happy to employ me as a statistician in their management services directorate at the old New Scotland Yard so I feel I can hold my head above water on a simple matter such as this.

Do I really have to explain things that are really very simple? I've already explained why Mike might have felt the need to confess due to his imminent exposure as a journalist. But, hoping for a reconciliation with Anne, he kept her name out of it. It seems reasonable to think that this would have kept her happy but, as we know, she regarded his confession as an attack on her, personally. I don't think he could reasonably have anticipated this reaction.

I'm a bit confused now, old friend. I've noticed that you Barrett-believers will just grab hold of whatever you think will suit your argument in the moment. I'm not sure which story you're backing here: was Anne involved in a forgery in this version or did she have nothing to do with it? I only ask because if it was the former, then Mike confessing it was a hoax would clearly not have suited his co-writer now, would it? Hardly grounds for a reconciliation, even in 'the mind of Mike'.

As for your views on Mike's writing career, you contradict yourself. On the one hand, you seem to accept that Anne helped Mike tidy up his articles, as she claimed, on the other hand you say there's "no evidence" that Mike was part of a writing team with his wife. But you already cited the evidence! If she helped him with his articles she was obviously part of a writing team with him. Talk about trying to deny the obvious!

Stop it, old friend - you're showing yourself up! The only 'evidence' we have is Anne and Mike claiming it. Taking a lead from you, maybe Anne didn't help Mike? If you can chuck in mysterious auctions and mysterious auction-attenders, I don't think you should be questioning my strict adherence here to the actual evidence of co-authorship which is non-existent other than Mike and Anne's claims. They are claims, not evidence. They aren't even circumstantial evidence. Now you may scurry off and look for occasions where you feel I may have done the same, but that will be because you want to run from the fact that you are patently seeking to have your cake and eat it. Isn't that unusual from the anything-is-possible-whenever-it-suits brigade?

The good reason to think that Caroline Brown wasn't telling the truth has already been discussed. She said that she remembered her father getting the diary from Tony Devereux and then asking Tony Devereux questions about the diary at a time when we all accept Tony Devereux was dead. Or do you think she was telling the truth about this? If so, where does that leave the Battlecrease discovery theory?

Well, she was either lying or telling the truth (Caroline Barrett was, that is) - that's true of most undocumented events. My challenge to you was how you knew which was the case that you could slander her if she was actually telling the truth? How did you know she was lying?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Seriously, does anyone consider this to be a plausible 'dating error'? Get a month wrong, yes. Get a year wrong, okay. But get them both so badly wrong? Did Gray mishear or misremember? Or just randomly chuck in a month and a year because he knew it would be irrelevant to readers of it if Mike Barrett wasn't actually typing it?



Hardly the 'best motive' at all! If you're about to be 'exposed as a former journalist' what does it matter whether you 'confess' your nefarious hoax before you are 'exposed as a former journalist' or after you are 'exposed as a former journalist'? Surely you ride the odds and wait to see if you are indeed going to be unmasked and 'exposed as a former journalist'?

I stress the 'exposed as a former journalist' bit in the hope it might just sink into people's brains how contrived this interpretation is of one of The Writing Circle's most inept alumni.



Or she ignored the ramblings of her desperate, alcoholic ex- (or soon-to-be-ex-) husband whose motivations she could well see through after so many years of marriage, whilst she was utterly free of any concerns regarding her liberty (knowing - as she did - that she had no hand in the creation of the scrapbook). It is clear that she did know about the affidavit - the January 18, 1995, meeting with Shirley, Keith and Sally shows that she tentatively touched on it but moved on quickly when it was evident that they were either unaware of his affidavit or that they were not excited enough about it to talk with her about its contents.

If you don't think that someone in January of any year couldn't mis-date something which had happened in June of the previous year to December of the year before, you really must have been living in a cave all your life, Ike. People make dating errors of this nature all the time, every single day of every single week. It's called human memory. It's very fallible, especially when it comes to trying to date an event. Then, to add to the mix, we have a situation where Alan Gray was probably trying to piece various notes together to try and form a coherent narrative when typing up the affidavit. He could easily have muddled up his notes to confuse June 1994 with December 1993. Like I've said to you before, the date of Barrett's confession is a matter of record. There was no point him trying to lie about it. So the obvious conclusion is that it was a mistake in the affidavit, whether made by Barrett or Gray. The time spent obsessing over it is out of proportion to any significance it can possibly have.

And, oh dear, do I really have to explain the possible motive for the June 1994 confession all over again? Clearly I do. Mike had been lying for two years flat about how he obtained the diary, quite possibly to people he liked and who he felt trusted him. He had deliberately kept secret from them all that he'd been a former journalist. He'd allowed Shirley to publish a book, of which he was supposed to be the co-author, where this information was omitted. Now he knows his secret is about to be exposed. He's not looking forward to all the people asking him why he hadn't told them about being a journalist. More than this, he probably felt that the game was up. Once they discovered he was a journalist, they'd know he had authored the diary. It was blooming obvious! The pressure was too much for him. He thought he'd get ahead of the story and own it, doing the exposure on his own terms in the newspaper. He then got blind drunk so he didn't have to speak to anyone. Oddly enough, it seemed to work! With a few months all was forgotten, there were no consequences and he was allowed to continue to say that Tony had given him the diary.

You can put forward any other alternative explanations for this or for why Mike delivered the affidavit to Anne but Caz asked me the questions and I answered them.

There's no doubt that Anne knew of the affidavit because Mike posted it through her letterbox immediately after swearing it. Where there is a great deal of doubt is that she mentioned the affidavit, even obliquely, when she spoke to Keith and Shirley on January 18 1995. I've looked back at what you posted in September last year about this meeting. All you're relying on is that Anne said to them, "Did anything else come up? I, I, I was expecting you – to be honest – to come back and go on about the forgery thing". According to you, that was a reference to the affidavit but I've no idea why you think that. Mike had publicly confessed in June 1994, and by January 1995 had never retracted, so why shouldn't Anne have told Keith and Shirley that expected Mike to "go on" about having forged the diary, especially if, as she knew, Mike did forge the diary, with her assistance. Why does that need to be a mention of the affidavit? And surely if it was a mention of the affidavit she would have first ask Keith and Shirley if they'd seen the affidavit, wouldn't she? In fact, as far as I'm concerned this just shows Anne being worried about what Mike was going to say about the forgery, especially bearing in mind what she knew he'd said in his affidavit. So she was probably reassured by the fact that Mike hadn't said anything on that day about forging the diary. You need to do a lot better Ike, you really do.

[Herlock Sholmes]

As much as I try to avoid spending 30 minutes of my day replying to Casebook posts, it seems that my role here is simply never done ...



I hope no-one is falling for this statistical mince? There were (and still are) thousands of old houses in Liverpool. All that actually happened on March 9, 1992, was that some workmen appeared to have done some work involving floorboards in James Maybrick's last residence (103 years earlier). Now, James Maybrick's name had no association with the authorship of the crimes of Jack the Ripper (except highly tangentially via the 'Maybrick Case') up until that day. All that then happened on March 9, 1992, after James Maybrick's last residence had workmen in was that a man called Michael Barrett rang a London literary agency saying he thought he might have the diary of Jack the Ripper and would they be interested in seeing it. All that actually happened after that included the discovery that one of the workmen drank in the same pub that Michael Barrett drank in. That's all that actually happened (which is significantly more significant than the 'all that happened' which you chose to describe).

If there is anyone on Casebook who genuinely thinks the March 9, 1992, 'double event' is just 'one of those things', please take a course in statistics because I promise you, if it were a coincidence, it is one of the greatest in the history of the human race. If, however, you think it is just 'one of those things' because that helps your argument along hugely, then please get yourself a good mirror, look in it, and ask yourself, "Why is it so important to me that I feel the need to do that?".



Credible evidence is very much in short supply regarding the Maybrick scrapbook. Fortunately for me, absolutely none of it whatsoever was wasted on supporting Mike Barrett's claims, ever. Nor none wasted on the quality of Alan Gray's hearing, it would appear.



If he was hoping for a reconciliation, why did he 'confess' in the first place?



I personally would not equate the claim that Anne helped Mike to 'tidy up' his celebrity interviews during his very short-lived attempts at a writing career with anything even vaguely as creative as the format of the Maybrick scrapbook text, nor do I see Mike's 1980s literary efforts as anything other than what he implied when he admitted that he had been part of a 'writing circle'. As I recall, 'The Writing Circle' was a fee-paying process by which you 'learned your craft', part of which may very well have consisted of recommending that one's career could start with simple short stories and perhaps even celebrity interviews to the gossip rags. By the early 1990s, there is no evidence whatsoever that Barrett was part of a writing 'team' with his wife, nor that he ever actually had been. There is actually no evidence that he was still striving to be a writer which makes his wife's claim that she gave Tony D the scrapbook to give to Mike a particularly questionable one altogether. To me, the only evidence that is relevant here is that Barrett's attempts at a writing career in the 1980s would have been the reason why he ended up with a hookey scrapbook from a meeting in the pub in the early 1990s - Barrett's literary braggadocio presumably as evident then as it certainly was during his patronising 'confession' on stage in April 1999 (the event you harp on about so much, note).



I am drawn back to RJ Palmer's insightful comments on Barrett of just a few short days ago:

"Calling him a pathological liar, while true, only grazes the surface. He was not a liar in the sense of someone who wants to deceive you. That sounds bizarre, but that's the mistake people make. In reality, Mike doesn't care if you believe him. At times, he is overjoyed that you know he's lying. His aim is less than that, and it's more than that. He's not clever, but he is a mental terrorist. His aim is to exasperate and to sow doubt. If you walk away convinced that he knows nothing at all (which is what many have concluded, wrongly), he's fine with that, too. Indeed, he loves that conclusion. If he was the hoaxer, why wouldn't he be?"

I'm thinking of sticking this into SocPill25 because it's one of the finest things RJ has ever written. Call it as you see it, say I - it was well-crafted. Barrett was a mental terrorist and a spectacular one at that as his actions have derailed the truth for over thirty years now.



To adopt your own stance on these things, can you please provide your evidence that Caroline Barrett - aged around ten years - was a liar? If you cannot, can you - to adopt your own stance on these things - retract the claim, please?

I can't seem to get away from this place because whenever I put my head back in over a leisurely cup of Tesco's Rooibos decaffeinated tea, my sense of fair-play is assailed by a thousand claims regarding Mike and Anne Barrett for which no-one appears to have much more than a fancy and a whisper and a rumour and a mishearing here and there to back up some seriously trenchant views on what actually happened.

Ike

If you seriously think that workmen doing work in an old house on the day that Michael Barrett called Doreen Montgomery is the greatest coincidence in the history of the human race, it really is about time for you to call it a day, Ike old friend.

And don't think I didn't notice the old switcheroo you pulled. One minute we were talking about what happened on 9th March 1992, next minute you're saying "one of the workmen drank in the same pub that Michael Barrett drank in". What's that got to do with 9th March 1992?

Maybe you forgot, or just blanked it out of your mind, but an actual expert in statistics, Jeff Hamm, did comment on your statistical theory and told us that there was nothing amazing or extraordinary going on,

Do I really have to explain things that are really very simple? I've already explained why Mike might have felt the need to confess due to his imminent exposure as a journalist. But, hoping for a reconciliation with Anne, he kept her name out of it. It seems reasonable to think that this would have kept her happy but, as we know, she regarded his confession as an attack on her, personally. I don't think he could reasonably have anticipated this reaction.

As for your views on Mike's writing career, you contradict yourself. On the one hand, you seem to accept that Anne helped Mike tidy up his articles, as she claimed, on the other hand you say there's "no evidence" that Mike was part of a writing team with his wife. But you already cited the evidence! If she helped him with his articles she was obviously part of a writing team with him. Talk about trying to deny the obvious!

The good reason to think that Caroline Brown wasn't telling the truth has already been discussed. She said that she remembered her father getting the diary from Tony Devereux and then asking Tony Devereux questions about the diary at a time when we all accept Tony Devereux was dead. Or do you think she was telling the truth about this? If so, where does that leave the Battlecrease discovery theory?

[Herlock Sholmes]

In early 1997, Shirley Harrison finally had sight of Mike's January 1995 affidavit and immediately sent O & L a copy of his auction 'experience' to ask how this compared with the way they conducted their sales. The response she got made it clear that they did not accept what Mike had claimed - no ifs, no buts. I'm not particularly impressed with the argument that it might have made a world of difference if only someone had thought to change Mike's word 'ticket' to 'receipt', as if there would then have been instant recognition of O & L's typical sales practice. On balance, I'd stick to Mike - or Alan Gray - having 'garbled' the details to such an extent that nobody at O & L could have been expected to reconcile his claimed experience as a bidder with their own experience of the business in general.

Love,

Caz
X

I asked a very long time ago for you to produce O&L's response. This was after you claimed that they said that "everything" about Mike's account was wrong. You still haven't produced their response but now you are saying that it "made clear" that they didn't accept what Mike had claimed. But what part of what Mike had claimed were they challenging? That's what I've been trying to get at. I quoted one line from your book where they said that they didn't conduct their auctions in the way Barrett had described in his affidavit. Is that the entire response that you're relying on? To me, it's not good enough. There's no detail of what they were challenging and they haven't explained how they DID conduct their auctions. It doesn't matter whether you're impressed or not with the argument about "ticket" versus "receipt" because the point is that we still don't know, all these years later, if that was the issue or not.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Only 'maybe', Herlock? If Mike didn't attend an auction, and made up those details from whole cloth, where does that leave the Great Barrett Hoax Conspiracy Theory?

Neither Mike nor Alan Gray could be bothered to check with anyone at O&L that the experience as described in the January 1995 affidavit had anything in common with their day-to-day reality, whether the year in question was 1990 or some earlier or later year. Don't forget, Mike told Gray at one point that it had been Anne alone who had bought the job lot which included the journal and compass.

That's not garbling the details 'slightly' when recalling them in November 1994 - that's a total change of story, which reverted just two months later to Mike attending the auction; Mike giving his name as Williams; Mike bidding for the album and compass; and Mike coming home with the goods plus his proof of purchase.

Love,

Caz
X

I already answered your question about the auction in my #342 Caz. For some reason you seem determined to insist that Mike must have bought the photograph album at an O&L auction on 31st March 1992 and nothing else is possible. While this would seem to be quite likely what did happen, if we assume the diary is a Barrett forgery, the only reason to identify O&L as the source is because of Barrett but we know that Barrett was capable of telling lies. You always caution us not to rely on what Mike said. As far as I'm concerned, he could have obtained the photograph album somewhere else, or someone else could have bought the album at the auction on his behalf.

You already made the claim that Gray didn't "bother" to check with O&L but then Roger countered that he did, in fact, try to check but was turned away. Either way, whether Gray (or Barrett) did or did not try to carry out checks it doesn't change the underlying truth of whether the album was or was not bought at the auction so why even bring it up? Is this an examination into Gray's competence as an investigator?

Yes, I do remember hearing Mike saying to Gray that Anne bought the diary at the auction on one of the tapes I listened to (and for all I know that's what happened or perhaps they both went to the auction together) but you always tell us that Mike was a compulsive liar so I put that down to him telling a lie. For me, the best account of Barrett's story is found at the April 1999 Cloak & Dagger meeting. It could, of course, all be a lie but that then brings us back to his secret attempt to purchase a Victorian diary with blank pages in March 1992 and the only reason for him to have done that, surely, is because he wanted to forge a Victorian diary. It's so obvious it's truly hard for me to understand why you don't see what a giveaway it is.