Tumbelty: What constitutes an arrest ?

[How Brown]

Thread for description and discussion of what an 1888 arrest in Britain would constitute.....no time for me to set it up,since I have to shove off to work...but more later.

Unless someone else would care to fill in this space for us. Thanks........

If one would also like to provide information in my absence this morning on what American arrests were like compared to British ones, please do so.

[Nemo]

Stewart Evans' comments on LVP and modern arrest procedures can be found in this Casebook article

http://www.casebook.org/authors/interviews/stewart_evans.2.html

He does state here that he thinks Tumblety would have been released after his arrest as the charge was a misdemeanour - he would then be due to appear in court at a later date

[Simon Wood]

Hi Nemo,

You remind me of myself. In the 1970s I believed that other people knew better, and I proposed that if a sufficiency of "experts" sat around a table they would soon come up with the answer.

A fat lot I knew.

Like a cat on a hot tin roof, you have so many ideas that you don't know which paw to put down next.

This is healthy. Keep it that way. Sign up for Barnett, Druitt, Lewis Carroll, Tumblety or any one of the other 100+ Ripper suspects and you'll soon get suckered into a blinkered world of perpetual twilight from which there is no escape.

Keep your options open and trust no one when it comes to the truth. And if you think I'm nothing more than an old cynic [I've been at this Ripper lark for well over thirty years], just keep in mind that 121 years of research has got us absolutely nowhere.

There has to be a reason for that.

And it's our duty as Ripperologists [a disgusting appellation] to discover why.

Regards,

Simon

[Nemo]

That's wise advice Simon and I absolutely respect your opinion, though I must respect the "experts" opinions really, as it saves me an immense amount of research, but I will always question their reasoning and deductions

I'm a bit of a scientist and like to draw my own conclusions from the facts

With Ripperology, I think there is a misconception that being a published author somehow equates with being an expert - not so, as I'm sure you will agree. I could write a "publishable" book on this subject tomorrow but I certainly wouldn't be an expert

I feel as though the Ripper case has been unnecessarily complicated by some of the so called "experts"

The solution is much simpler than many people expect I think - but will they accept it if/when we arrive at a conclusion to the case?

This is off topic though so - back to the thread!

[Simon Wood]

Hi Nemo,

I am too old fashioned and far too discreet to mention names, but it wouldn't take a genius to work out the names of my "experts".

And I agree with you 100% that any published Ripper book does not automatically confer upon its author any degree of understanding.

I have read any number of "Ripper" books which I can only classify as [a] "AB", [b] "CB" [c] "TB" and [d] "T&CB".

PM me for a translation if you're really interested.

Regards,

Simon

[Nemo]

I'll guess - all BS, complete BS, trashy BS, trash and complete BS:tape:

You might get a PM in a minute - lol

[Simon Wood]

Hi Nemo,

Let me save you a PM.

"Absolute", "Complete", "Total" and "Total and Complete".

Sorry, I forgot one very important classification.

"U".

"Utter"

Regards,

Simon

[How Brown]

This is a segment of SPE's interview with Chris George nearly 9 years ago...

Germane to this whole question on Tumblety is his arrest on 7 November 1888, two days before the Kelly murder. All who have read our book will know the options here, but it obviously needs saying again as so many do not understand police procedures and powers. There are no surviving police documents on the arrest of Tumblety. All we have is the Crown Court Case Calendar for the period, which is not a police document but a printed Court list for cases coming up for trial at the Old Bailey. It has basic columns listing basic facts about each of the defendants. One of the columns is headed "When received into Custody," which is merely the date of first arrest of the defendant. Now there is always a long time between this date (when the police first detain the offender) and his court appearance. It is only in the more serious of cases that an offender is actually locked up from when he is first "received into Custody" and when he finally makes his court appearance. In the majority of cases the prisoner is either bailed to a Magistrates' court for committal to the higher court, or he is given police bail for a week to re-appear at the police station for charging and bailing to the Court. These rules applied then, as they do now. The Court Case Calendar we have here does not list any interim police bails, nor arrests on answering such bail. All it records is the initial time of being taken into custody.

Tumblety's arrest was for a misdemeanor, not a serious one, and was, initially in all probability for only one offence of gross indecency. Police inquiries from one "victim" to the next undoubtedly led to the other three offences. So the options for the police on 7 November 1888, when Tumblety was initially arrested were to charge him and take him before a court to remand him in custody, or to grant him police bail for a week to return in seven days to be charged and taken before a court. If he had been charged, taken before a court, then held for a week it should have been shown on the record, but is not. As the offence they had arrested him for was relatively minor (it carried only 2 years' imprisonment as maximum penalty) the high probability is that he was granted police bail for a week to return to the police station for charging, thus giving the police time to gather their evidence for the four charges. Unfortunately all the police arrest, charge and bail books do not appear to have survived, so there is no police record known of Tumblety's arrest. The police had to charge him and take him before a court within 24 hours of his arrest, or release him on Police bail for 7 days. The fact that a warrant was issued against him on 14 November, two days before his actual appearance before the magistrate shows that this was almost certainly the case. He would have been released on police bail for a week within 24 hours of his arrest on 7 November. It was the law then, as it still is today. -end
**************************************


This, however, does not refer to the "arrest" of Tumblety for anything relative to the WM.

[How Brown]

Let me ask this once more and on this thread for the first time...

WHY do we assume without any tangible evidence in any direction...that he was arrested ( as claimed ) in The East End?

Are we not taking it for granted that this is so?

If he was under surveillence and lived in the West End...who's to say that the men compiling the "large dossier" on him didn't nab him on a West End street instead of actually within the boundaries of the East End?

?????

[Tim Riordan]

Tumblety was arraigned at Marlborough St. As far as I know, that is in the West End of London.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Tim,

Marlborough Street Magistrates Court is opposite Carnaby Street and next door to the stage door of the London Palladium. In the 1970s the building on the other side of the Court was occupied by a branch of the security services.

Regards,

Simon

[How Brown]

Dear Tim:

A thousand apologies for the incomplete question you answered.

I should have said:

WHY do we assume without any tangible evidence in any direction...that he was arrested ( as claimed ) in The East End as is alleged for something relative to the WM?

Are we not taking it for granted that this is so?

If he was under surveillence and lived in the West End...who's to say that the men compiling the "large dossier" on him didn't nab him on a West End street instead of actually within the boundaries of the East End for something relative to the WM?

I actually was asking anyone who believes he was arrested for something relative to the WM and hoping for their answer.

Again, my mistake in the phrasing Tim.


"