Metropolitan Police view of Tumblety today

[Dan Norder]

You have completely misread the posts. I haven't argued that Tumblety was 'out on police bail and then brought in on a warrant for the same charge.'

Sorry, but apparently you misread my posts, because I never claimed you had argued that. You don't have to argue that for it to be true.

Based upon the information provided by Tim (including links to older information provided by a variety of people), we know that people did, in fact, get police bail for an initial charge and then get brought in on a warrant later for the exact same charge. So your argument that it had to be for two separate charges is not supported by the evidence.

[Gideon Fell]

Sorry, but apparently you misread my posts, because I never claimed you had argued that. You don't have to argue that for it to be true.

Based upon the information provided by Tim (including links to older information provided by a variety of people), we know that people did, in fact, get police bail for an initial charge and then get brought in on a warrant later for the exact same charge. So your argument that it had to be for two separate charges is not supported by the evidence.

The argument that I was offering was based on the evidence of the report in the New York Daily Tribune (see post #15 above) where it was stated that Tumblety was arrested as a suspect for the Whitechapel crimes but released for lack of evidence. My contention being that this initial arrest and release occurred on 7th and 8th November. The Tribune report goes on to say that he was rearrested on another charge. My contention here is that a warrent was obtained on 14th November (as shown on the court calendar) and he was then arrested and taken before the court on 16th November. So the evidence supporting this argument is the Tribune report (which admittedly could be argued to be inaccurate) and the issue of the warrant on 14th November as shown on the court calendar. The court calendar (as I pointed out) was a retrospective document printed at the end of December (after Tumblety got back to the USA) and therefore the column entries give final results. So although the gross indecency offences are shown in the next column to the 'When received into Custody' column they do not necessarily show the reason for the initial arrest as the offences column is headed 'Offence as charged in the Indictment' which are the offences the offender was finally charged with for court. Below is the whole double-page entry of the court calendar book.



This is an interpretation (as good as any other) of what may have happened. The calendar shows that an arrest warrant was issued for Tumblety on 14th November 1888 and that would not have been done if he was already being held. I'm not trying to argue that he's Jack the Ripper but he certainly was a suspect and there were dozens of suspects arrested at the time of the murders who were subsequently released without charge through lack of evidence. You need only suspicion to arrest but you need evidence to charge for court.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Cap’n Jack.

You’ll notice that I put the word “nominal” in quotation marks because I was quoting. The word nominal appeared in a couple of American news reports regarding Chief Inspector Byrnes’ opinion of Tumblety’s offense and the possibility of extradition. For example the Brooklyn Eagle of 4 December, 1888, wrote “The inspector replied that, although Tumblety was a fugitive from justice, under $1,500 bail, for a nominal offence in England, he could not be arrested here” (my italics). This, then, was the New York police view of the matter.

The identity of the man who shadowed Tumblety is unknown. News reports out of New York indicated that he was “an English detective.” For example:
“He wanted to know about a feller named Tumblety, and I sez I didn't know nothink at all about him; and he says he wuz an English detective and he told me all about them Whitechapel murders, and how he came over to get the chap that did it.” (The World, 4 December, 1888.) It has been assumed that this man was sent by Scotland Yard but, as I pointed out, this expense was unnecessary.

GF (shouldn’t that be Dr.?)

The date of 7th November is shown in the Received into Custody column as it was the date he was first arrested, albeit on suspicion of the murders and not for the gross indecency.

I think that you have misunderstood what the court record is telling us. The entry is not a litany of all of Tumblety’s police problems but, instead, the history of one charge: gross indecency and indecent assault with force and arms against four men. Any earlier arrest connected with the Whitechapel murder investigation would not appear in this record.

Tumblety was arrested on the 7th of November for the gross indecency charges but, as you admit, he must have been freed at some point in order for the warrant for his arrest to have been sworn out on the 14th. The theory of Police Bail supports the facts perfectly if Tumblety failed to show up at the appointed time to answer his bail requirements.

He’s arrested on the 7th and, if he was granted Police Bail, would be told to reappear in one weeks time, i.e. the 14th, while the police gather evidence. If he failed to reappear at the appointed time a warrant for his arrest would be sworn and, in fact, this is the exact time that the warrant was sworn. He then is rearrested, or he appears late and is arrested (either way there’s the second arrest on his gross indecency charge), then bailed on the 16th. He next appeared at the Old Bailey on the 20th before fleeing to France sometime after this date.

Wolf.

[Gideon Fell]

Cap’n Jack.
GF (shouldn’t that be Dr.?)

I think that you have misunderstood what the court record is telling us. The entry is not a litany of all of Tumblety’s police problems but, instead, the history of one charge: gross indecency and indecent assault with force and arms against four men. Any earlier arrest connected with the Whitechapel murder investigation would not appear in this record.

Tumblety was arrested on the 7th of November for the gross indecency charges but, as you admit, he must have been freed at some point in order for the warrant for his arrest to have been sworn out on the 14th. The theory of Police Bail supports the facts perfectly if Tumblety failed to show up at the appointed time to answer his bail requirements.

He’s arrested on the 7th and, if he was granted Police Bail, would be told to reappear in one weeks time, i.e. the 14th, while the police gather evidence. If he failed to reappear at the appointed time a warrant for his arrest would be sworn and, in fact, this is the exact time that the warrant was sworn. He then is rearrested, or he appears late and is arrested (either way there’s the second arrest on his gross indecency charge), then bailed on the 16th. He next appeared at the Old Bailey on the 20th before fleeing to France sometime after this date.

Wolf.

Hello Wolf and thank you for that. No, I wasn't misunderstanding the court calendar (it is not a court record as such, merely a touchstone guide for court dates and therefore lacking in much specific information). When the information was restrospectively gathered for it the date of the first arrest (7th November) might have been given in an ongoing record of a Tumblety investigation. But it's just a theory and an alternative to the bail argument and is based on the Tribune's report of two arrests; one for suspicion of the murders and a second for gross indecency. His arrest on suspicion of the murders also appeared in several other US press reports.

[Gideon Fell]

GF (shouldn’t that be Dr.?)
He’s arrested on the 7th and, if he was granted Police Bail, would be told to reappear in one weeks time, i.e. the 14th, while the police gather evidence. If he failed to reappear at the appointed time a warrant for his arrest would be sworn and, in fact, this is the exact time that the warrant was sworn. He then is rearrested, or he appears late and is arrested (either way there’s the second arrest on his gross indecency charge), then bailed on the 16th. He next appeared at the Old Bailey on the 20th before fleeing to France sometime after this date.
Wolf.

Wolf, where did you get the idea that Tumblety appeared at the Old Bailey on 20th November?

[johnnyerwin]

What gives?

I'm a bit confused here. Gideon Fell put this line of the Court Calendar on here earlier:


However the link to the older thread located at http://www.casebook.org/forum/messages/4922/6656.html has this screen capture (re-ordered for clarity):


These don't appear to be from the same page of the Court Calendar. For instance you will see that the name entry of "Francis Tumblety" is not the same between the two documents, as indicated by the location of the "(Bailed 16th..)" below the name. In addition, the next part of the screen capture shows two columns, one saying "Ditto" and the other with the 7th Nov Date. What is the Ditto reffering to? The last part of the capture seems to be the same as the whole court calendar image just displayed by Gideon.

I'm not trying to make a big mystery out of this, but this is somewhat perplexing. Is there another entry in the Court Calender Gideon? The screen captures are obviously composites and it would be nice to see the whole "page" of that document being displayed to see what the entire line of that entry says.

Comments?

[Gideon Fell]

I'm a bit confused here. Gideon Fell put this line of the Court Calendar on here earlier:


However the link to the older thread located at http://www.casebook.org/forum/messages/4922/6656.html has this screen capture (re-ordered for clarity):


These don't appear to be from the same page of the Court Calendar. For instance you will see that the name entry of "Francis Tumblety" is not the same between the two documents, as indicated by the location of the "(Bailed 16th..)" below the name. In addition, the next part of the screen capture shows two columns, one saying "Ditto" and the other with the 7th Nov Date. What is the Ditto reffering to? The last part of the capture seems to be the same as the whole court calendar image just displayed by Gideon.

I'm not trying to make a big mystery out of this, but this is somewhat perplexing. Is there another entry in the Court Calender Gideon? The screen captures are obviously composites and it would be nice to see the whole "page" of that document being displayed to see what the entire line of that entry says.

Comments?

There are two separate lists. In the one you have queried the 'Ditto' stands for 14th November, the same date as for the entry above which relates to a George Bartlett.



What is interesting is the fact that on the night of Monday 12 November Bartlett was initially detained by Inspector Reid in Spitalfields on suspicion of being the murderer, Reid having had his attention drawn to Bartlett as he was carrying a black shiny bag and his appearance 'somewhat answered the description circulated of a man who had been seen in the neighbourhood of the recent murders' (possibly the Hutchinson supplied description which had just been taken). Bartlett objected to his bag being opened and it was secured with a padlock. At Commercial Street Police Station the bag was opened and found to contain a sceptre and in his pocket he had a silver mounted shell. On Tuesday 13 November a break in was discovered at the Church of Old St. Pancras. Bartlett was taken before the Worship Street magistrate that day and given back into Reid's custody to be charged at Clerkenwell with sacrilege.

[Gideon Fell]

What is really odd about all this is the total absence of Tumblety's name from all the English press reports, while in the USA at the same time it is being freely reported. The English press weren't too shy to report gross indecency offences as can be seen in the reports posted on this thread. Yet Tumblety was arrested, twice according to a US press report, and appeared at Marlborough Street Police Court on 16 November before the magistrate, J. L. Hannay, and was remanded on bail to appear at the Central Criminal Court. Yet nothing in the press, very odd. Was his case heard in camera? Were the police having it kept quiet for some reason?

[Cap'n Jack]

Thanks Wolf
going on the report you quote from - New York World of December - it appears extremely unlikely that the bumbling 'caricature' detective mentioned had anything to do with Scotland Yard, or any other police authority.
Sounds more like Norman Wisdom to me.
Or even Le Grand of the Strand.

[timothy]

Grossly Indecent London

Hi all,

The lack of mention of Tumblety's case is not unusual. Between 1885 and 1894, there were approximately 400 cases of gross indecency charged in London with a conviction rate of about a third. Of those, fewer than twenty were listed in the newspapers.

Best,

Tim

[Dan Norder]

So although the gross indecency offences are shown in the next column to the 'When received into Custody' column they do not necessarily show the reason for the initial arrest

I would find that very difficult to believe. If you could document an actual example of this having happened in another case this would seem a more reasonable argument. This is an actual court document, which should definitely trump news reports from another country on the reliability scale.

The calendar shows that an arrest warrant was issued for Tumblety on 14th November 1888 and that would not have been done if he was already being held.

This seems to be the crux of the disagreement, so let's focus on this again:

If he had been released on police bail -- which is the default understanding as presented by authors on the topic and fully supported by the evidence then the warrant most definitely would have had to have been used to bring him back on that same charge. The police bail would have been completely separate from the bail on November 16th.

If Tumblety was out on police bail -- and he couldn't have been held that full length of time without a warrant on that charge -- then your statement "if he was already being held" should already be out of consideration, and thus any conclusions you base upon that premise are meaningless. He would not have been in custody, so if the police wanted to pursue the homosexual acts violations, which they clearly did, then they would have had to have used a warrant, which undeniably happened.

This is why there's no reason to think that this court document in any way supports the idea that the earlier arrest was for the Jack the Ripper case instead of the homosexual acts investigation.

[johnnyerwin]

There are two separate lists. In the one you have queried the 'Ditto' stands for 14th November, the same date as for the entry above which relates to a George Bartlett.

Thanks Gideon, that clears up that aspect; although I'm a bit curious why there are two different lists, especially since some of the other names on these lists are different. Different categories?

I have to say though that there doesn't appear to be any solid footing here for saying that Tumblety was arrested as a suspect on the 7th. Here's how I see things here:

7th Sep - Tumblety taken into custody for something. Court calendar entry(s) made later state this is for "gross indecency".

14th Sep - Warrant Issued. Again entry in in Court Calendar entry(s) state this is in regard to "gross indecency".

16th Sep - Tumblety bailed.

So as far as "official" documentation is concerned, there is no connection with the Whitechapel Murders. The only documentation that supports that is:

- The Littlechild letter
- Some newspaper articles outside of the UK
- Tumblety's own statements

The Littlechild letter is clearly the opinion of the author, and he even clearly mentions several items that would argue against the opinion.

Although interesting, the newspaper articles cannot be counted on to be entirely acurate, especially since the UK ones don't mention this aspect. I cannot fathom a UK blackout on this topic at a time I am sure they would have been rabid for information of this sort.

Tumblety himself cannot be relied upon to tell the truth about anything, based upon the information about his entire life. He may have found it quite amusing to tell this aspect of the tale, and certainly more palatable than to explain the real charges laid against him in London. He wasn't claiming to be the ripper from what I see.

As far as the period from the 7th to the 14th is concerned there doesn't appear to be a lot of information available, unless there's some items I'm not aware. Was he in custody that whole time? Was he out on Police Bail? Was there charges on the 12th? Those all appear to be theories, and certainly plausible, but without proof they cannot be confirmed. Again, if there's some other proof available it would help clear that up for a few people here including myself.

Cheers

[Cap'n Jack]

Thanks Dan & John for both summing up the very serious doubts that do plainly exist in regard to the unsubstantiated claims that Tumblety was ever arrested, or even questioned in regard to the Whitechapel Murders.
Tumblety was a very clever man indeed, and he knew, damn well, that if he made up a fine old tale of how he had been arrested in connection with the Whitechapel Murders - by the pie munching and beer swilling detectives of Scotland Yard for wearing a slouch hat - then the true story of his serious offences against young men would be swamped out of the American Press by the overwhelming media interest in the Whitechapel Murders.
Just try a little experiment... see how many American newspapers ran with the story of Tumblety as a suspect in the Whitechapel Murders after he fled England; and then see how many American newspapers ran with the story of Tumblety's arrest for homosexual offences against young men.
The result is really very crucial to our understanding of exactly what was going on here.
As I said a long time ago, smoke and mirrors, but some are still fooled by Tumblety, even now.

[timothy]

I have spent a long time looking at legal textbooks of the period to see what laws would apply to Tumblety’s situation (Thank heaven for Google Books!). Not being a lawyer, my eyes are beginning to cross. Based on what was recorded in the court record, and the legal background to that record, the following is an explanation of what Tumblety was charged with and his travel through the system.

Tumblety was arrested on November 7th on charges of gross indecency. Whether this was for one incident or four, there is no way of knowing. We can assume that he was taken to the Marlborough St. Police Station as this was the court which would later hear the case. He was arrested without a warrant. If there had been a prior warrant, it would have been listed in the Court Calendar.

Having arrested Tumblety without a warrant, the Police had three legal choices. The first was, within 24 hours of his arrest, to bring him before a court of summary jurisdiction. If that were not possible or desirable, it was up to the inspector of police whether to keep the person in custody or release the person on bail. This was not an arbitrary decision but had to be based on whether the alleged crime was “enormous,” and whether the person was a danger to others. If neither of those could be alleged, the person was entitled to bail. This could be as simple as the inspector determining the name of the person and their address. In most cases it was not necessary to put up any money. The person was told when to go to court for the hearing to determine if he should be charged. Based on the charges which are recorded, the police would have had no legal justification for holding Tumblety. Had he been held for over a week on these charges, his lawyer could have sued the police for false imprisonment.

As Stewart Evans contended, the procedure was to have a warrant issued and to have the person rearrested on the same charges prior to the hearing. The police magistrate’s court issued the warrant for Tumblety on November 14th. Tumblety was to return to the police station on that day and surrender his police bail. He would have then been held until the hearing on November 16th. At the hearing, the magistrate found that there was sufficient evidence to prosecute and set a trial date at the Queen’s Bench. At the same time, Tumblety was granted bail on the warrant by which he was arrested.


A modern, easy to read, reference for these procedures is : “Criminal Litigation” by Peter Hungerford Welch, 2004

A more contemporary reference is : “Encyclopaedia of the Laws of England with Forms and Precedents by the Most Eminent Legal Authorities, Second Edition”, 1906

[Cap'n Jack]

Timothy, nicely done, and it is good to see someone prepared to take the time to research their subject in the manner you have done so here.
But I feel we stand on very shaky ground here, firstly because as you say, if the detaining inspector honestly felt that Tumblety was the Whitechapel Murderer, who was obviously a 'danger to the public' - I think we can safely classify the slaughter of five women as of an 'enormous' nature - then he would not have released him, would he?
But he did, didn't he?
I think what many ask us to believe here, is that Tumblety was arrested for offences of indecency, and that the police of the day said 'excuse me old chap, you didn't happen to murder five girls down old Whitechapel way in the last six months did you?'
What's the chances of that?