New Ideas and New Research on the Diary

[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

[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?

[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?