John Richardson

[Herlock Sholmes]

But such is the nature of the evidence [ just look at the amount of different newspaper reports that give different versions of the same event !] provided to us, in perticular the witness testimony that cant be proven 100%, thats just it ! . I would have thought that was plainly obvious given the amount of post on the subject explaining this, using the inquest testimony .

Based on the inquest testimony and the evidence it provides, its also believable that Chapmans body was there earlier than 5.30am

Based on the inquest testimony and the evidence it provides……..we have a Doctors estimation which facts tell us was arrived at by the use of unreliable methods. This doesn’t mean Doctor’s couldn’t and didn’t get TOD’s right. Of course they could. But we have absolutely no way of testing his estimation using modern day methods so, in effect, his estimation is little more than neutral. We also have to remember that he made a caveat too, pointing out that because of the conditions cooling could have occurred more rapidly than usual reducing that time gap between murder and examination. So at best Phillips is 50-50 as it stands.

Therefore we look to other events which might point us one way or the other and we only have three of them and all three point to a later ToD. Long of course was an example of witness identification which can be mistaken. Cadosch heard a voice and a noise from number 29. He might or might not have expressed uncertainty about the ‘no’ but not the sound. It came from a fence that he was standing a very few feet away from and we can think of no reasonable explanation of how this sound could have occurred if a body was already there. Richardson was 100% certain that he couldn’t have missed a body had it been there. And we have no reason to doubt what he said.

[Wickerman]

EVERYONE: Since we actually have footage of 29 Hanbury St, let's use it. I maintain that it would be unnatural to slide from the top step into a sitting position. You would walk your feet to the flagstones and then sit back. Here I have freeze-framed Mason walking to the flagstone. Picture three is the most telling. I have in fact edited and moved 'Richardson' backwards from where the freeze-frame has him, because I think if you were proposing to sit back rather than walk forward, you wouldn't take as large a step. So this is where he would be before sitting back. Yes, the door would be more this way if it shuts on itself, but I believe it would be natural to hold it open whilst you got into position. Even if Richardson weirdly did not do that perfectly natural thing, I do not believe the door would impede his view.

GEORGE: I know part of your scepticism comes from your belief that he couldn't remove a boot and faff with it for under two minutes. I tried removing and putting on a mate's awkward boot last night. Took me 15 seconds for the entire thing. That leaves 105 seconds for everything else, which by chance is the same time as the famous 1980 Coe V Ovett Olympic 800m men's final. Watch it, and then ask yourself if during that time you could walk down a couple of steps, sit back, faff about a bit, get up and then go.

Very good, I agree with your point, and this post also supports my contention of which steps Richardson did not go down - the comment did not refer to the house steps.
Richardson described himself going down the steps to sit back on the middle step, so the court already knew he went down the house steps.
Any remark as to Richardson, who "did not go down the steps", obviously referred to some other steps - specifically the cellar steps.

[Wickerman]

Have you never had a boot/shoe that started to rub and become uncomfortable as you started to walk? I went on holiday last year and bought some new trainers which I tried on in the house and they felt fine. The first day walking around in them they began to rub my toes causing a blister.

Exactly the type of response I had in mind.
Trevor seems to take direction from some hypothetical Book of Life, he seems to have little to no real world experience on many issues.

[Trevor Marriott]

Exactly the type of response I had in mind.
Trevor seems to take direction from some hypothetical Book of Life, he seems to have little to no real world experience on many issues.

I know that if I had a pair of boots which I had been wearing for days and they had started to hurt me I would have addressed the problem before putting them on and going out to work and then realising there was a problem. Boots don't suddenly develop a problem overnight.

This reply comes with years of world experience in the circle of life which you seem to have avoided

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Herlock Sholmes]

Exactly the type of response I had in mind.
Trevor seems to take direction from some hypothetical Book of Life, he seems to have little to no real world experience on many issues.

Sometimes I’m almost lost for words. Almost.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I know that if I had a pair of boots which I had been wearing for days and they had started to hurt me I would have addressed the problem before putting them on and going out to work and then realising there was a problem. Boots don't suddenly develop a problem overnight.

This reply comes with years of world experience in the circle of life which you seem to have avoided

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

And you have the nerve to call my response pathetic?

He could have tried repairing it at home, thought that it was ok by just taking a few steps but when he did some serious walking the next morning they started to hurt because he hadn’t cut enough off. What’s not believable about that? None of us know exactly what happened so we don’t have enough information to start imagining problems.

You’re bending over backwards to try and manufacture problems.

[Herlock Sholmes]

No more stunned than I am with your repetitive posts and your dismissal of the facts and the evidence.

There is nothing sinister in putting forward a plausible explanation for Richardson's actions at No 29 because as it stands his and Chandlers testimony are in conflict with each other one of the two has been less than liberal with the truth and Richardsons doe not come up to close scrutiny

And you are clearly rattled by your sarcastic comments and by those you are showing to people how low you will go to achieve your object in propping up a later TOD

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Chandler and Richardson could only be said to have been in conflict if we had a response from Richardson to Chandler’s comment. But we don’t because Chandler testified after Richardson at the inquest. So we have no way of knowing what he might have said. If Richardson had been asked “did you mention repairing your boot to Inspector Chandler,” it’s entirely possible that he would have said “no I didn’t. I had no need to mention why I’d sat on the step.” In which case there would have been no conflict. We can’t know of course because Richardson was never asked. So you just assume it in an attempt to create the illusion that Richardson was dishonest. I wish that you’d ditch these tactics Trevor and stick to what’s known.

[Fleetwood Mac]

Unless you’re talking about another article and not the one entitled Eyewitness Testimony And Memory Bias I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. There is no second page. It’s a one page article with 6 section headings plus a Conclusion paragraph.

The first section is What Is Eye Witness testimony - self-explanatory.

The second section is Why Is Eyewitness Testimony An Important Area Of Psychological Research - self explanatory.

The third section is about The Misinformation Effect and it’s not relevant to Richardson or Cadosch.

The fourth section is about Identifying Perpetrators so clearly not relevant to Richardson or Cadosch.

The fifth section is Kinds Of Memory Bias which aren’t relevant to Richardson or Cadosch.

The sixth section is False Memory which isn’t relevant to Richardson and Cadosch.

The a conclusion.

Cadosch wasn’t an eyewitness and Richardson sat on a step and all that he had to do was to recall looking into a yard less than three hours earlier and state if he could have missed seeing an entrails-strewn corpse that hadn’t been there the last time he’d visited.

As I said……totally irrelevant.

As I said, you cannot have read the article and digested what it means for Albert.

Either that or you are willfully ignoring professional studies.

Why do you think the 'misinformation effect' is not applicable to Albert? The article spells it out for you.

[Wickerman]

I know that if I had a pair of boots which I had been wearing for days and they had started to hurt me I would have addressed the problem before putting them on and going out to work and then realising there was a problem. Boots don't suddenly develop a problem overnight.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Richardson was asked about why he felt the need to deal with the problem, he replied:
"-It hurt my toe and I cut a piece out the day before, but I found I had not cut enough."

Isn't that "addressing the problem", in your view?

Cut some leather off - wear them for a few hours, then cut more off if required?

[Herlock Sholmes]

As I said, you cannot have read the article and digested what it means for Albert.

Either that or you are willfully ignoring professional studies.

Why do you think the 'misinformation effect' is not applicable to Albert? The article spells it out for you.

Because Albert heard a noise from a fence that was probably little more than 5 feet from him after already being alerted to a presence in the yard by the ‘No.’ So he would have known straight away where it came from. Could it have come from elsewhere? No. So the fact of him hearing of the murder at number 29 wouldn’t have changed anything. Not everyone is affected by the Misinformation Effect either

[Herlock Sholmes]

Richardson was asked about why he felt the need to deal with the problem, he replied:
"-It hurt my toe and I cut a piece out the day before, but I found I had not cut enough."

Isn't that "addressing the problem", in your view?

Cut some leather off - wear them for a few hours, then cut more off if required?

It’s a wonder that some people don’t injure themselves performing all of these contortions simply to dismiss a witness or two Wick.

[Hair Bear]

Hi Hair Bear,

FAFF - spend time in ineffectual activity. I've not seen that word before. Thanks. Good word.



To be clear, you are talking about a fully laced up boot, as shown above, that fitted snugly in your size. You unlaced it down to the instep and loosened the laces on the instep, took it off, put it back on, relaced and tightened all the laces in 15 seconds? You asked me to video my step sitting procedure - did you video this exercise? I was never able to complete that procedure in any where near 15 seconds, so I'd like to see where I went wrong. Did you try manoeuvring a 5" knife into the toe area?

You did a great job with the Mason still frames, and I would like to take the liberty of making a few comments.

Mason was intending to walk into the yard so he pushed the door wide open. I suspect that Davis would have have done the same thing, but if Richardson was being deliberately quiet to the point where he was not heard in the passageway, I would not expect him to throw the door open onto the fence. Mason put his right foot on the middle step. I think that Richardson's normal method of lock inspection would have been to put his left foot on that middle step and while holding on to the door jamb with his right hand and the door with his left, crouched down to observe the lock. That's what I think he did that morning, as he told Chandler. How ever if we proceed from there to a sitting position, I would see him putting his right foot next to the second step on the flags between the house steps and the cellar steps, and then his left foot on the bottom step. Usually a step is about 8" high but the bottom step appears to be only about 2" above the flagging level. The seat of a chair is about 18" high, so sitting on that middle step would have put him in a very awkward knees up position to be removing and replacing a boot. With the door self closing, he would have been in a better position had it been resting on his left arm than up against his knees. On completion he would have stood up, still facing his right, turned clockwise, put his right foot on the middle step, and away he went.

There is another quite good video 3D reconstruction here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQxayl3qK8s&ab_channel=Huux

Cheers, George

Thank you for replying, George.

My mate's boot is 'only' eight-holed (yours is nine). I will try to video it next time. No, I didn't try to cut a part off. I didn't want to see my grown-man mate crying, lol.

Thank you also for that video, what a cracker. I can't see how anyone can watch that and believe Richardson missed the body. That is, if he sat down as described of course - and I'm convinced he did because his conversation with the coroner is too natural, for me. "Did you sit on the top step?-No, the second step." Straight in there with "second step" - it's as if he actually sat on the second step. / "Did you go into the yard at all?-Not at all, sir. I thought you went there to see that the cellar was all right?-Yes; but you don't need to go into the yard to see that. You can see the padlock of the cellar door from the back door steps." All that sounds very natural. If he wanted to make up a story he could have said he walked to the cellar to check it. He also said the back door was closed. Again, if he wanted to concoct a story why admit the back door was closed? This leads me to a question. If the doctor had given a time of death of 5:30am would you still disbelieve Richardson's boot story?

"Mason was intending to walk into the yard so he pushed the door wide open. I suspect that Davis would have have done the same thing, but if Richardson was being deliberately quiet to the point where he was not heard in the passageway, I would not expect him to throw the door open onto the fence."

The door was open as Mason arrived. I agree that Richardson would not have thrown the door against the fence, but I'm not sold on the weakling Davis pushing the door wide open (especially as he was heading to the righthand side of the bottom of the garden) and the "rough-looking" "tall" "stout" Richardson gently opening it, despite the time difference. Also take into consideration that Richardson admitted to regularly catching and throwing out unwelcome 'guests'. Combine that with his being security minded (that's why he's there) and it seems weird to me that he wouldn't take a look to see if anyone is in the yard who shouldn't be there, not to mention a look in the direction of the shed (to the left) where they kept wood.

[Herlock Sholmes]

https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=571399955&rlz=1C9BKJA_enGB704GB704&hl=en-GB&sxsrf=AM9HkKlJMw6TSGWHaYgPfvqD64Uak1H8BA:1696624457466&q=james+mason+in+hanbury+street+yard&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwje2OrQouKBAxV3U0EAHZPqBIMQ0pQJegQIEhAB&biw=1024&bih=1247&dpr=2#imgrc=uu765RpZZks9GM

If we imagine John Richardson instead of James Mason, then imagine the canopy at somewhere around the level of the bottom of the window. It’s not difficult to see how far he would have had to have bent forward to have seen the cellar doors even if they were flush to the wall of the building. If they were recessed then it’s another matter…..possibly even impossible. Especially as we don’t know whereabout the lock was.

[GBinOz]

He could have tried repairing it at home, thought that it was ok by just taking a few steps but when he did some serious walking the next morning they started to hurt because he hadn’t cut enough off.

Now then Herlock. You're taking some liberties with the definition of serious walking. Richardson lived at 2 John St, less than 100 yards and a minutes walk from #29.

Cheers, George

[Herlock Sholmes]

Now then Herlock. You're taking some liberties with the definition of serious walking. Richardson lived at 2 John St, less than 100 yards and a minutes walk from #29.

Cheers, George

No problem George. He’d have walked around the house though and even after a few yards he could have felt that the boot was causing him discomfort. I really think this is a non-issue.