Would Tumblety Have Assumed That He Was Being Followed?

[Trevor Marriott]

A misdemeanour would not have involved committal proceedings as it would have been dealt with in the lower court (Petty Sessions). Just one small point which occurs to me:

Gross Indecency is a misdemeanour punishable (at the time) with up to 2 years imprisonment, with or without hard labour. Between Tumblety's initial arrest and his absconding, however, there must be a possibility that further evidence came to light which was sufficient to prove anal intercourse. If that were the case the charge would be the felonious crime of sodomy - punishable with life imprisonment. The unearthing of such evidence (or even Tumblety's fear that such evidence had been unearthed) would be a strong motivation for flight.

N.B. I am not arguing that such evidence was unearthed - just that it might have been.

Gross indecency was an indictable misdemeanor triable only at a higher court than magistrates

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[Bridewell]

A misdemeanour would not have involved committal proceedings as it would have been dealt with in the lower court (Petty Sessions). Just one small point which occurs to me:

Gross Indecency is a misdemeanour punishable (at the time) with up to 2 years imprisonment, with or without hard labour. Between Tumblety's initial arrest and his absconding, however, there must be a possibility that further evidence came to light which was sufficient to prove anal intercourse. If that were the case the charge would be the felonious crime of sodomy - punishable with life imprisonment. The unearthing of such evidence (or even Tumblety's fear that such evidence had been unearthed) would be a strong motivation for flight.

N.B. I am not arguing that such evidence was unearthed - just that it might have been.

[Mayerling]

Absolutely, the prosecution would have needed an extremely good reason even to make such a claim on a ("minor") misdemeanour offence, let alone for the magistrate to accept it. Trevor's argument that because Tumblety knew the names of the witnesses meant he was going to threaten or bribe them is a joke. In desperation, he has invented the notion of bail being refused due to the possibility of such threats "before committal" because he now knows that Tumblety legally had to be released on committal, when he could have made exactly the same threats (or bribes). But the whole thing is nonsense because if the police seriously believed that Tumblety (or someone on his behalf) would threaten their witnesses they could simply have put them under police protection. It wasn't a bail issue and the simple fact is that for misdemeanour offences of the type Tumblety was charged with you just don't find contested bail applications during the 1880s for the simple reason that it was accepted by everyone involved that bail would be granted for those offences at both remand and committal hearings.

Sorry to be continuing off topic.

Oh, what's the use David...

As far as I can guess the reason I can't see Tumblety taking the initiative of threatening or bribing would-be witnesses is the time element. Even once bail had been set, Tumblety would have to face personal choices of how to constructively set his limited time to work for him. He either concentrates on fleeing, or he starts seeking out the witnesses to confront them and threaten or bribe them. We (of course) might assume that in the latter situation the Doctor might have a kind of advantage that an agreeable witness (one who will take a bribe) is one faster to deal with - a disagreeable witness would be one whom is either going to 1) run to the police; 2) run to his/her stronger friends for help against the threatening doctor; 3) turn out to be the sort who has a handy knife, gun, or weapon available and make the Doctor quickly wish he hadn't been born. My guess is that the Doctor would have quickly considered all these possibilities (especially as he would have known who the witnesses were, and what they were like), and would have rapidly decided what his time option would allow him to do. And since he fled, my guess is that he realized that any involvement with witness tampering was out of the question.

Now (one hopes) back to this thread! PLEASE!!

Jeff

[David Orsam]

As a matter of interest, surely anyone charged with a crime and released on bail could pay off, intimidate, or otherwise do whatever they could to silence a witness to or vicim of a crime? Somewhere along the line I assume someone assesses the probability of the person charged doing this. So where is the probability that Tumblety would interfere with a witness or witnesses?

Absolutely, the prosecution would have needed an extremely good reason even to make such a claim on a ("minor") misdemeanour offence, let alone for the magistrate to accept it. Trevor's argument that because Tumblety knew the names of the witnesses meant he was going to threaten or bribe them is a joke. In desperation, he has invented the notion of bail being refused due to the possibility of such threats "before committal" because he now knows that Tumblety legally had to be released on committal, when he could have made exactly the same threats (or bribes). But the whole thing is nonsense because if the police seriously believed that Tumblety (or someone on his behalf) would threaten their witnesses they could simply have put them under police protection. It wasn't a bail issue and the simple fact is that for misdemeanour offences of the type Tumblety was charged with you just don't find contested bail applications during the 1880s for the simple reason that it was accepted by everyone involved that bail would be granted for those offences at both remand and committal hearings.

Sorry to be continuing off topic.

[Bridewell]

I shouldn't need to state that the fact that a magistrate issues a warrant does not mean that the evidence is very strong otherwise every warrant would end in conviction. It's just a prima facie case.

A prima facie case is one which, if not countered, would result in conviction. "Just" a prima facie case is therefore a contradiction in terms. One of the things magistrates are always wary of is issuing a warrant of any kind without good reason (fishing expeditions).

To return to the subject of the thread, I'm not sure that Tuumblety would have assumed" that he was being followed, but he would have been foolish not to have been aware of the possibility.

It's a shame that SPE no longer posts on this forum because he knows more about this man than anyone.

[Trevor Marriott]

As a matter of interest, surely anyone charged with a crime and released on bail could pay off, intimidate, or otherwise do whatever they could to silence a witness to or vicim of a crime? Somewhere along the line I assume someone assesses the probability of the person charged doing this. So where is the probability that Tumblety would interfere with a witness or witnesses?

Yes you are right but the interference issue is just one of a number of grounds for refusal in the grand scheme of things.Its commonly called loading the dice against the suspect The more objections to bail the more likely a court will order a remand in custody.

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[PaulB]

I am going to vacate this thread now but before doing so I would point out that Tumblety would have been aware of the names of the victims at the point of charge. So if he had been granted bail he could have easily have contacted them and perhaps even paid them off, or made threats towards them. That is why given such concerns they would not have granted him bail before committal.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

As a matter of interest, surely anyone charged with a crime and released on bail could pay off, intimidate, or otherwise do whatever they could to silence a witness to or vicim of a crime? Somewhere along the line I assume someone assesses the probability of the person charged doing this. So where is the probability that Tumblety would interfere with a witness or witnesses?

[Trevor Marriott]

Can we return to the issue of whether or not Doc T suspected he was being followed? Like GUT I'd like to return to this issue.

Personally I suspect he would have felt so - even without being arrested (FOR WHATEVER REASON) - due to his self-awareness of his own actions and whether or not they might cause police surveillance.

Jeff

P.S.

GUT I have seen no reason to suspect Tumblety was attempting to interfere with witnesses. However, if his arrest was solely on the morals issue, whomever were his partners in such matters probably would have been tipped off by him as a friendly matter - in that case it is interference, but not like he threatened them or bribed them.

Jeff

I am going to vacate this thread now but before doing so I would point out that Tumblety would have been aware of the names of the victims at the point of charge. So if he had been granted bail he could have easily have contacted them and perhaps even paid them off, or made threats towards them. That is why given such concerns they would not have granted him bail before committal.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Mayerling]

Can we return to the issue of whether or not Doc T suspected he was being followed? Like GUT I'd like to return to this issue.

Personally I suspect he would have felt so - even without being arrested (FOR WHATEVER REASON) - due to his self-awareness of his own actions and whether or not they might cause police surveillance.

Jeff

P.S.

GUT I have seen no reason to suspect Tumblety was attempting to interfere with witnesses. However, if his arrest was solely on the morals issue, whomever were his partners in such matters probably would have been tipped off by him as a friendly matter - in that case it is interference, but not like he threatened them or bribed them.

Jeff

[Trevor Marriott]

Sister lived in Liverpool



They had no proof at that time.

The grounds for refusal are proof enough that he was a flight risk


Your conjecture is meaningless, anyways, because we know full well no less than three Scotland Yard officials -Anderson, Andrews, and Littlechild - considered him a suspect AFTER the Kelly murder. All three of these officials believed the Kelly murder a Jack the Ripper murder.

Sorry Trevor.

After the murder ! We are not concerned about what happened after the murder. We are concerned as to whether he would have been granted bail and be free to have committed the Kelly murder. Not that he committed any of the other murders.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[GUT]

Where on earth is the Evidence that he was likely to interfere with Witnesses.

Where is the Evidence at the time, rather than looking back, that he was likely to abscond.

[mklhawley]

Did he have any family ties in the UK- No

Sister lived in Liverpool

Was he a flight risk -Yes

They had no proof at that time.


Your conjecture is meaningless, anyways, because we know full well no less than three Scotland Yard officials -Anderson, Andrews, and Littlechild - considered him a suspect AFTER the Kelly murder. All three of these officials believed the Kelly murder a Jack the Ripper murder.

Sorry Trevor.

[Trevor Marriott]

Well the last part of that doesn't make sense. A magistrate did not have power to refuse bail "outright" for a misdemeanour of the type Tumblety was charged with. It was compulsory upon committal and, that being so, it was pointless to refuse it at the remand hearing. This was the practice of magistrates on a day to day basis in 1888 which why I said it was highly likely if not a certainty that it would have been granted on application at the remand hearing. There would have been no reason to refuse it and if you look at what happened in actual hearings in the 1880s you would see that such applications were invariably granted.



This is a list of grounds you have invented and applied to the nineteenth century without any evidential basis. The first two and the last one are irrelevant bearing in mind that bail was compulsory on committal so it was utterly pointless to apply those grounds to a prisoner at remand (so they were not, in fact, applied). The third assumes bail has already been granted or a willingness to grant it. The only one that would be of any relevance is interference of witnesses before committal but you have simply made this one up, in response to me having explained the law to you, in order to try and keep Tumblety in prison and, in any case, there is no reason why the prosecution would have been able to persuade a magistrate that Tumblety was likely to interfere with any witnesses before committal and, in reality, they would have had no chance in succeeding with such a ridiculous application.



You can certainly forget about police bail but you can't forget about the Indictable Offences Act. If you do, you will continue to make the mistakes that you keep making. And, in any case, by saying that magistrates had a discretionary power on remand you are, in fact, making reference to the very Act that you are telling me to forget!

Now, I refuse to disrupt c.d.'s thread (not Mike's!) any longer and I am not going to discuss this subject with you further in this thread. I suggest you carefully read my article "Tumblety Jail Break!" in Ripperologist 144 (June 2015 issue) in which everything is clearly set out and then, if you really want to challenge anything in it, start a new thread but this one is supposed be about whether Tumblety assumed he was being followed.

There is no need to challenge anything the facts speak for themselves from my perspective. The grounds for refusal are quite plain and simple common sense grounds, and this is where you are missing the point !

As to what the defence might say well what could they say other than to accept some of them.

Did he have a fixed residence- No he lived in lodgings
Did he have any family ties in the UK- No
Was he a flight risk -Yes
Was he likely to receive a lengthy term of imprisonment if convicted- Yes
Was he likely to interfere with witnesses if released and prevent them from coming to a trial - Yes, and this is one of the main reasons that bail was rarely given in these type of cases before committal to prevent interference
Could he at that time produce sureties- that is questionable but given what we now know the answer must be no.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[David Orsam]

You are wrong yet again. As you know, but seem to have forgotten the magistrates had a discretionary power to grant bail at the first appearance and before committal, but they also had the power to refuse bail outright.

Well the last part of that doesn't make sense. A magistrate did not have power to refuse bail "outright" for a misdemeanour of the type Tumblety was charged with. It was compulsory upon committal and, that being so, it was pointless to refuse it at the remand hearing. This was the practice of magistrates on a day to day basis in 1888 which why I said it was highly likely if not a certainty that it would have been granted on application at the remand hearing. There would have been no reason to refuse it and if you look at what happened in actual hearings in the 1880s you would see that such applications were invariably granted.

That refusal would have been as a result of a persons antecedents having been considered and those antecedents deemed suitable or unsuitable for granting or refusing bail coupled with any representations made to the court by the police these grounds to be considered

Likely to abscond
No Fixed residence
No suitable recognizance's at that time before the court,personal or surety
Interference to witnesses (before committal)
Likely to commit further offences

This is a list of grounds you have invented and applied to the nineteenth century without any evidential basis. The first two and the last one are irrelevant bearing in mind that bail was compulsory on committal so it was utterly pointless to apply those grounds to a prisoner at remand (so they were not, in fact, applied). The third assumes bail has already been granted or a willingness to grant it. The only one that would be of any relevance is interference of witnesses before committal but you have simply made this one up, in response to me having explained the law to you, in order to try and keep Tumblety in prison and, in any case, there is no reason why the prosecution would have been able to persuade a magistrate that Tumblety was likely to interfere with any witnesses before committal and, in reality, they would have had no chance in succeeding with such a ridiculous application.

Now I suggest you go away, and sit quietly and get your head round all of this it is quite simple to understand. Forget about police bail, forget about the Indictable offences Act. Just concentrate on what I have written above and I hope in a short time you will concur with me on these points, but I wont hold my breath.

You can certainly forget about police bail but you can't forget about the Indictable Offences Act. If you do, you will continue to make the mistakes that you keep making. And, in any case, by saying that magistrates had a discretionary power on remand you are, in fact, making reference to the very Act that you are telling me to forget!

Now, I refuse to disrupt c.d.'s thread (not Mike's!) any longer and I am not going to discuss this subject with you further in this thread. I suggest you carefully read my article "Tumblety Jail Break!" in Ripperologist 144 (June 2015 issue) in which everything is clearly set out and then, if you really want to challenge anything in it, start a new thread but this one is supposed be about whether Tumblety assumed he was being followed.

[GUT]

But he also talks about what the police told (or should have told) the Court but doesn't for one second insider what the defense may have saud about these issues.