New Ideas and New Research on the Diary

[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?

[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!

[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.

[Scott Nelson]

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