New Ideas and New Research on the Diary

[caz]

I paid for the book Caz. Where else do you think the money might have gone? I'm not sure what this has got to do with him instructing a professional etymologist though? I think it’s a fair point to make. The strongest point against the diary being genuine is an anachronistic phrase. So why wouldn’t someone with a vested interest in proving that the diary was genuine want to knock refute that particular point?

Why not ask Robert yourself?

[caz]

Hi Caz,

Apologies for intervening in a discussion you are having with Lombro but it's so rare to see what Mike said in 1999 even being mentioned that I wanted to ask you a question about it.

Is it fair to say that there is a very big difference between (a) Barrett, as the forger, adding sugar to the ink and (b) Barrett's understanding of what adding sugar might do to the ink?

Do you not think that (b) is somewhat irrelevant? As to (a) is there any scientific evidence which tells us that sugar was not added to the ink?

Isn't it also the case that Barrett said in 1999 that he forged the diary with his ex-wife who, he said wrote the manuscript, and that he also said this in November 1994? I only mention it because it's not in your chronology of events

My 'chronology of events' must stretch by now to many hundreds of pages, Herlock. Forgive me for not giving you chapter and verse on everything Mike Barrett ever tried to claim about the diary. If I lived that long, the readers would lose the will to do so.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Caz,

Are you able to provide the full quote in which Alec Voller confirms that it was glue above the ink (and how he managed to do so) and also that the ink was the same as the ink in the rest of the diary? Out of interest, whereabouts in the diary is this glue stained ink to be found?

Can I also ask you, when did the Barretts get divorced? I mean when did the divorce absolute come through? That's when a marriage ends, isn't it?

Might Mike's motive in "coming clean" in November 1994, which I think is when he started telling the story that ended up in his Jan 1995 affidavit, be that he was hoping to sell his story to the newspapers and Alan Gray was pressing him hard to finally tell the truth? Just a thought.

I asked you a question about Mike's motive in the "Hoax" thread but perhaps you've not yet had time to get round to responding. What do you think of the motive for Mike confessing in June 1994 (but leaving Anne's name out of it) being that he knew he was shortly about to be exposed as a former journalist and had no idea how he was going to explain to Shirley and all the others why he'd never told them about this before?

I have no time left now, but from memory the divorce came through on 7th December 1994.

Mike could have hoped to sell his story to the newspapers whether it was a pack of lies or had any truth in it at all. But the evidence would suggest he used the affidavit as a bargaining tool to get Anne to speak to him - which would not have worked if he had instead sold the story to the highest bidder.

I have a lot to catch up with on this and some of the other threads, so you will have to be patient.

I don't recall Mike ever claiming that his motive for 'confessing' in June 1994 was because 'he had no idea how he was going to explain to Shirley and all the others' why he'd never told them about his brief encounter with journalism. May I ask who suggested this to you, assuming it wasn't your own speculation? The cause and effect seems all over the place. Why go to the extreme of a public confession to forgery, just because he hadn't previously confessed in private to this rather underwhelming episode of his life? Besides, he had already told Scotland Yard about his creative writing ambitions and achievements back in October 1993, and they had taken no further action, so what was the big deal in June 1994?

As for Alec Voller's visual observations, the best thing to suggest when you write to Robert Smith is to ask whether he has any plans to have the stains tested forensically.

Love,

Caz
X

[Herlock Sholmes]

Why not ask Robert yourself?

There's no need for me to do that, Caz. I already answered the question myself in the post which started this whole discussion. By way of reminder, I said:

"But in all these years neither he nor anyone else has taken that step. Why? Because they know what the answer would be. FAKE."

[Herlock Sholmes]

My 'chronology of events' must stretch by now to many hundreds of pages, Herlock. Forgive me for not giving you chapter and verse on everything Mike Barrett ever tried to claim about the diary. If I lived that long, the readers would lose the will to do so.

Love,

Caz
X

I can only conclude then Caz that I'm right in thinking that there is no scientific evidence which tells us that sugar was not added to the ink.?

[Herlock Sholmes]

I have no time left now, but from memory the divorce came through on 7th December 1994.

Mike could have hoped to sell his story to the newspapers whether it was a pack of lies or had any truth in it at all. But the evidence would suggest he used the affidavit as a bargaining tool to get Anne to speak to him - which would not have worked if he had instead sold the story to the highest bidder.

I have a lot to catch up with on this and some of the other threads, so you will have to be patient.

I don't recall Mike ever claiming that his motive for 'confessing' in June 1994 was because 'he had no idea how he was going to explain to Shirley and all the others' why he'd never told them about his brief encounter with journalism. May I ask who suggested this to you, assuming it wasn't your own speculation? The cause and effect seems all over the place. Why go to the extreme of a public confession to forgery, just because he hadn't previously confessed in private to this rather underwhelming episode of his life? Besides, he had already told Scotland Yard about his creative writing ambitions and achievements back in October 1993, and they had taken no further action, so what was the big deal in June 1994?

As for Alec Voller's visual observations, the best thing to suggest when you write to Robert Smith is to ask whether he has any plans to have the stains tested forensically.

Love,

Caz
X

Thanks for the answer, Caz, but Orsam posted on his website in 2020 an extract from a letter written to Mike by Anne dated 1 February 1995 in which she tells him that the decree absolute "will be through in a few weeks time and we will be divorced". You can find it on the Wayback archive if you're interested in seeing it. So you might want to amend your chronological timeline of events.

I'm surprised you ask me whether Mike actually claimed that his motive for confessing was because he never owned up to his years of paid journalism. You always tell us not to believe anything Mike said, so what would it matter if he claimed this or not? But I don't know if he was ever asked or if he explained why he had confessed at all. Didn't he say something about feeling under pressure? That would be consistent with the theory. Although I don't suppose you'd believe him if he did say that. But, no, that theory is one that has been put forward elsewhere which I read and I mentioned it to you to see what you thought about it. I'm surprised that you don't think it of significance. After all, Shirley had set out Barrett's life history in the book they had supposedly written together and there was not a word about his journalistic career in it, was there? You may not think it of importance today but I can't help feeling it would have been extremely important information back in 1994. A bombshell in fact. Wouldn't Shirley, Doreen, Smith, Feldman, Skinner and others asked him why he'd never mentioned it to them? After all, you would assume that he'd been pretty much eliminated as a suspect for having written the diary because he was a humble virtually illiterate scrap metal dealer. Isn't that right? Wouldn't news of his apparent writing ability have come as a massive shock to everyone at the time? Wasn't Barrett threatening to sue Nick Warren for libel if he published the article which contained this information?

Can you tell me what the evidence is that he told Scotland Yard of his journalistic career in October 1993? Where can I read a copy of this statement?

I'm not planning on writing to Robert Smith, and I guess your answer (or non answer) about Voller means that he wasn't able to positively determine there was any glue over any diary ink. The whole area of investigation is pointless anyway. The diary wasn't 90 years old in 1995. That's impossible due to the appearance of "one off instance" in the text.

[Lombro2]

I think you meant the watch repairer, Tim Dundas, who claimed there were no scratches in a watch that had nothing in common with Albert's.

Suzanne's father could not tell anyone about anything by the time this became an issue, because he was suffering from dementia and couldn't be questioned.

He presumably told his daughter and son-in-law everything he knew about the history of the watch when still of sound mind, but they just never thought to pass on any of the details to their customer, which they remembered clearly enough when Albert returned a year later to ask.

Love,

Caz
X

Thanks for the correction, Caz.

So does that mean the “man from Liverpool” Provenance came from Murphy, who supposedly heard it from Stewart who supposedly recalled, out of all the whole stock of watches he handed over to Murphy upon retirement, that that watch came from some unknown Liverpudlian. And Murphy “recalled” that too? Do we have a third and imaginary Verity to go along with the Johnson and the Dundas Verities?

This would appear, to me, to mean that Suzanne’s father played no real or actual part in the cover-up. He already had dementia, I assume. Is he then the Watch version of Devereau?

[rjpalmer]

Yes, I've heard of the expression caveat emptor, Caz, usually in the context of scam merchants and dodgy sellers of goods.

Hi Herlock,

speaking of Robert Smith, I heard that he is acting as Russell Edwards' literary agent--Edwards who has been all over the press recently, pushing the Eddowes' shawl scam and now the bogus 'Tilly' letter.

Those who preach the philosophy of 'caveat emptor' should seek employment with Elon Musk and D.O.G.E. This is the unelected and probably illegal department that recently defunded the Consumer Protection Agency under the principle that the unwitting public does not deserve to be protected from scammers.

So, in the same spirit, let the Ripper scams continue. Long live the scammers!

And don't worry if they are discrediting a field you're interested in. It doesn't matter. Nihilism walks hand in hand with the same philosophy. Nothing matters, least of all the truth.

Cheers.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

speaking of Robert Smith, I heard that he is acting as Russell Edwards' literary agent--Edwards who has been all over the press recently, pushing the Eddowes' shawl scam and now the bogus 'Tilly' letter.

Those who preach the philosophy of 'caveat emptor' should seek employment with Elon Musk and D.O.G.E. This is the unelected and probably illegal department that recently defunded the Consumer Protection Agency under the principle that the unwitting public does not deserve to be protected from scammers.

So, in the same spirit, let the Ripper scams continue. Long live the scammers!

And don't worry if they are discrediting a field you're interested in. It doesn't matter. Nihilism walks hand in hand with the same philosophy. Nothing matters, least of all the truth.

Cheers.

Hi Roger,

So he now supports two ‘solutions’ to the case. I’ve heard of hedging your bets but this is pushing it. After the Saddleworth Moor escapade I’m surprised that anyone will give Edwards the time of day. Then again…money talks.

[Scott Nelson]

You'd need some evidence that Eddie Lyons had any 'colleagues', or indeed knew anyone who had worked at that address previously. We know he was only taken on by Portus & Rhodes in late November 1991, along with Jim Bowling, for a lengthy contract in a different area.

This would have been a major reason for Feldman dismissing his Battlecrease contacts as liars, because he believed Tony Devereux had to be somewhere in the chain, but he was dead by August 1991. Feldman never knew about the double event of 9th March 1992, or he may not have been so hasty.

Thank you Caroline. Just a couple of questions. Couldn't Eddie Lyons have heard about early work at the house after late November 1991? Couldn't Devereux have given the diary to Mike before August 1991?