Mister Astrakhan's Moustache

[caz]

Hi Caz!

This could be as simple as a copper doing his due diligence and checking Hutch's story and finding out that Hutch wasn't staying at the VH that night, but was seen, say in Romford by credible witnesses. If he's checked and found to have been lying about the VH or whatever, I can't imagine they wouldn't look at him hard for the Kelly murder and by extension the others. That would be the dumbest thing imaginable. It's remotely possible they just kicked him out without checking him out, but I don't think even the Keystone Kops would have done that in such circumstances.

Hi Chava,

Absolutely!

If they didn't initially waste valuable ripper hunting time checking out whether Hutch could have been in a position to see Mary pick up her last customer and follow the pair back to the court when he said he did, there is no way on earth they would have shrugged and just called him all the silly sausages under the sun, after his second account hit the papers and the whole story was discredited.

By all accounts they went straight back to believing Blotchy was the last man in, around midnight, which would automatically have made mincemeat out of Hutch's claim to have clocked a 2am outdoor encounter involving Mary and anyone. At best he could have got his dates muddled - similar encounter, same time, another night. The police would at the very least have made it their business to find out where he was and what he was really doing between 2 and 3am that night, once they concluded that Mary would have been in her room all that time, not far off her final moments, and certainly not exchanging pleasantries with Hutch or any unusually affluent-looking gent on Commercial St.

Love,

Caz
X

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

The police would at the very least have made it their business to find out where he was and what he was really doing between 2 and 3am that night

I'm sure they "made it their business" to try, but whether they actually succeeded in that regard is another matter entirely, and they probably didn't. I don't think the police could possibly have been "certain" that Kelly was in her room at the time that Hutchinson claimed to have seen her out and about, but that's not to say they couldn't have arrived at the collective opinion that she wasn't.

All the best,
Ben