Proof of Innocence?

[Michael Banks]

Hi Michael,

Your inner miser is a spendthrift.

When I was researching 1888/89 trains times to the Continent I went to the Internet Archive.

Regards,

Simon

Simon, where’s your sense of Sherlockian romance? Can you imagine the Great Detective asking the Good Doctor to check the Internet Archive to find out the time of the next train to Dartmoor? He’d have choked on his brandy.

[Christer Holmgren]

I’d say that every single suspect mentioned in the case is more likely to have been innocent than guilty. Also, I don’t see a single sign suggesting that Druitt was gay unless we conclude that every unmarried man was likely to have been gay?

You suggest Fish that the small percentage of serial killers that commit suicide probably did so because of fear of apprehension and incarceration. This might be the case but I don’t think that it can be stated as a fact and we also have to consider that Druitt might have felt that an arrest was close. If he confessed to a family member for example he may have believed that they would go to the police? Also, in the suicide note he compared himself with his mother. This could be read as being about his mental condition alone of course but it could indicate a fear of incarceration in an asylum. Isn’t it possible that someone with an unbalanced mind might have preferred death to a lifetime in an asylum?

Nowhere near enough to rule our Druitt imo. And this isn’t coming from a man who believes that he was definitely the killer. I just think that over the years he’s been to easily dismissed and imo nothing has changed.

Regardless of the reason serial killers have for committing suicide, it remains a fact that it is a very uncommon thing. Therefore, Druitt would have been a remarkable exception to that rule if he was the Ripper. And what I am saying is that when we build suspect theories, it is disadvantageous to start by nominating people who are illogical from the outset. And that applies universally, so regardless if we portray Druitt as somebody with an unsound mind, fearing for incarceration, he remains an example of a person doing what sexual serial killers normally never do. It is a simple matter of stataistics. 94 per cent of all serial killers do not do away with themselves, and as there is reason to believe that the more psychopathic and narcissistic the killer, the lesser the chance that he will commit suicide (again, Ridgway, Rader, De Angelo, Bundy, Cottingham etc, etc). And the Ripper murders are very, very much murders that lend themselves to the suggestion that the killer was a clear cut psychopath.

So yes, it MAY be that Druitt was the odd one out, but no, it is not to be expected. Not at all.

The cricket match is just another nail in Druitts suspect coffin for me, I´m afraid. It is an example of what was never a good suspect turning an even worse one. And to me, that colours how I look upon the MacNaghten memoranda; an already weak display of so called suspects have turned even weaker.

As for your first paragraph, where you say that every suspect is more likely to have been innocent than guilty, I of course disagree. We have one suspect about whom a barrister says that he would warrant a modern day trial, SUGGESTING HE WAS GUILTY. That means that said barrister thought that he was more likely to be guilty than innocent. And I agree.
About any other suspect, however, I agree with you instead: none of them make the scales tip over in favour of guilt. Not nearly so.

As I said, I like the idea that people conduct research into every suspect, regardless of what I personally think about their suspect value. It has been interesting to follow Druitt, not least as a sort of archetypical victorian suspect, supposedly revealing his guilt by taking his own life. And then, once he had killed Kelly and cut away her abdominal wall in large sections, ANOTHER killer does away with Liz Jackson the year after Druitts death - and this killer copies Druitts interest in removing the abdominal wall. Amazing!

But that is of course for another thread.

[Joe Chetcuti]

Joanna, thank you for sharing your research with us. It is appreciated that you chose a Jtrforums message board to do this on.

You might consider submitting your work to one of the journals in our field. (Ripperologist, Whitechapel Society Journal, etc.) Your fine research would be shown to a wider audience and it would be preserved for years to come. Your work on Druitt is significant, and I'm sure the editors of these journals would be happy to assist you in presenting the material.

One aspect of this new information on Druitt that may be looked further into is the fact that in 1888 he wasn't adverse to loaning out his athletic services to a cricket team other than Blackheath. I wonder if there were any other clubs besides the Isle of Purbeck who he joined up with. Those who can access the British Newspaper Archive would have a lot of work to do if they were to check out the scorecards of the many cricket matches played during the Aug 6-8, 1888 or the Sept 7-9, 1888 time period.

[Steve Blomer]

Joanna, thank you for sharing your research with us. It is appreciated that you chose a Jtrforums message board to do this on.

You might consider submitting your work to one of the journals in our field. (Ripperologist, Whitechapel Society Journal, etc.) Your fine research would be shown to a wider audience and it would be preserved for years to come. Your work on Druitt is significant, and I'm sure the editors of these journals would be happy to assist you in presenting the material.

One aspect of this new information on Druitt that may be looked further into is the fact that in 1888 he wasn't adverse to loaning out his athletic services to a cricket team other than Blackheath. I wonder if there were any other clubs besides the Isle of Purbeck who he joined up with. Those who can access the British Newspaper Archive would have a lot of work to do if they were to check out the scorecards of the many cricket matches played during the Aug 6-8, 1888 or the Sept 7-9, 1888 time period.

A very good suggestion, while i don"t think this research , while outstanding, is conclusive, its significance is that it might lead to more conclusive information of a similar type.

[Michael Banks]

Regardless of the reason serial killers have for committing suicide, it remains a fact that it is a very uncommon thing. Therefore, Druitt would have been a remarkable exception to that rule if he was the Ripper. And what I am saying is that when we build suspect theories, it is disadvantageous to start by nominating people who are illogical from the outset. And that applies universally, so regardless if we portray Druitt as somebody with an unsound mind, fearing for incarceration, he remains an example of a person doing what sexual serial killers normally never do. It is a simple matter of stataistics. 94 per cent of all serial killers do not do away with themselves, and as there is reason to believe that the more psychopathic and narcissistic the killer, the lesser the chance that he will commit suicide (again, Ridgway, Rader, De Angelo, Bundy, Cottingham etc, etc). And the Ripper murders are very, very much murders that lend themselves to the suggestion that the killer was a clear cut psychopath.

So yes, it MAY be that Druitt was the odd one out, but no, it is not to be expected. Not at all.

The cricket match is just another nail in Druitts suspect coffin for me, I´m afraid. It is an example of what was never a good suspect turning an even worse one. And to me, that colours how I look upon the MacNaghten memoranda; an already weak display of so called suspects have turned even weaker.

As for your first paragraph, where you say that every suspect is more likely to have been innocent than guilty, I of course disagree. We have one suspect about whom a barrister says that he would warrant a modern day trial, SUGGESTING HE WAS GUILTY. That means that said barrister thought that he was more likely to be guilty than innocent. And I agree.
About any other suspect, however, I agree with you instead: none of them make the scales tip over in favour of guilt. Not nearly so.

As I said, I like the idea that people conduct research into every suspect, regardless of what I personally think about their suspect value. It has been interesting to follow Druitt, not least as a sort of archetypical victorian suspect, supposedly revealing his guilt by taking his own life. And then, once he had killed Kelly and cut away her abdominal wall in large sections, ANOTHER killer does away with Liz Jackson the year after Druitts death - and this killer copies Druitts interest in removing the abdominal wall. Amazing!

But that is of course for another thread.

If only 5 people out of a 100 have hazell eyes is would it be in any way remarkable if I’d predicted to you that the next man coming around the corner would have hazell eyes….and he did? Would you accuse me of setting it up because it was so unlikely? Or if 5 people in a room of only 15 had hazell eyes?

I have no issue with the fact that statistically it might be the case that very few serial killers commit suicide but I’m afraid that means little for me. Life isn’t run on percentages. And without wishing to derail the topic I’ve asked in the past ‘how many serial killers can we name that killed directly on their way to work?’ If it was discovered to have been a similarly small percentage (and I’ve yet to see a single example of it) would you then agree that Lechmere would have been an unlikely serial killer? Or does this only apply to Druitt?

The cricket match isn’t a nail in the coffin at all. Druitt would have had pretty much a whole day to have caught a train back. There simply is no issue. Now some may see that as slightly strange behaviour but I don’t. I’m not criticising anyone for thinking it strange but there could have been any number of reasons that we just aren’t aware of. Do serial killers never murder then get on with there lives normally the next day? Lechmere for example would have had to. So if Druitt didn’t have any work commitments on the 1st what’s strange about him travelling back down during the day of the 31st to play cricket the next day. Serial killers don’t spend 24 hours in a vegetative state post-murder after all.

Yes, Scobie felt that he had a case to answer. But this was a man who believed that Lechmere had left the house at 3.30 rather than about 3.30 so he was under the assumption that there was a proven, unaccounted for gap of time in Bucks Row, which there wasn’t. This is a huge balance-tipper for anyone forming an opinion on a case that they’ve had no previous knowledge of.

The Torso murder argument is yet another unproven and probably unprovable tangent.

[Michael Banks]

I agree with Joe’s suggestion in post SPECIAL EVENTS If there is a point that categorically eliminates Druitt as a suspect then cricket matches are a probably the likeliest source unless he had a case in Edinburgh at the time of one of the murders of course.

Thats weird, when I typed hash 32 SPECIAL EVENTS came up and when I tried to click on it to delete it I was taken to a special events page. The mysteries of technology.

[R. J. Palmer]

Hi Michael -- I did a bit of poking around, and Christer's 6% suicide rate is apparently based on a study by David Lester and John White (the precise number was 6.2%).

But I noticed something interesting in their abstract:


"In a sample of 483 serial killers, 6.2% were documented to have committed suicide. Those who committed suicide were found to come from more dysfunctional homes characterized by more psychiatric disturbance in the parents. [note: Druitt's mother was institutionalized for insanity]. The sexual acts involved in the murders by the suicides seemed to be more deviant in some aspects, such as committing more bizarre sexual acts or more often taping the murder."

So in other words, the more freakishly sexual the murders were, the more likely the murderer was to commit suicide, which changes things considerably. Lack of evidence of direct sexual interference aside, one might argue that the Ripper murders were "off the charts" when it came to sexual deviancy, so maybe Macnaghten was not so off-the-mark to think the murderer may have tossed himself in the Thames shortly after the perversions of Miller's Court.

A few more relevant points:

1. 6.2% is not a small number. It is a BIG number. I just checked -- the suicide rate in Sweden hovers at 0.12%, while the rate in my own deeply dysfunctional country is a bit higher at around 0.14% and climbing. Thus, roughly speaking, "serialists" are nearly FIFTY TIMES more likely to commit suicide than the general population, which is significant and cannot be seen as a white flag.

2. Lester and White don't tell us how many others TRIED to commit suicide, but failed. This cuts both ways. If one is incarcerated, the rate would presumably go up due to despair, but might also be lower than expected because inmates share cells with other inmates and there is often a 'suicide' watch or at least frequent walkthroughs as well as access to medical treatment.

3. Studies have linked clinical depression with violent behavior. I don’t see any reason to think a narcissist couldn’t also be suicidal—I think that assumption is too simplistic; the behavior is widely seen as overcompensation for low self-esteem. Indeed, I found the following abstract: "The relationship of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) to suicidal behavior is understudied. The modest body of existing research suggests that NPD is protective against non-fatal suicide attempts, but is associated with high lethality attempts." In other words, when they attempt suicide, they succeed!

4. Here is a biggy. Lester and White’s statistic of 6.2% is based on SOLVED CASES. This is unavoidable because they can only study cases where the murderer was captured or at least identified. But that fact alone may skew the results and create a bias and an untrustworthy number. What about the unsolved cases? Theoretically, a large swath of the unsolved murders may have involved suicides who were never captured because they had killed themselves and thus stayed below the radar—and this could especially be true because of the link between clinical depression and violence. Indeed, in recent memory alone, advances in DNA have solved three cases of “serial” homicide, having successfully traced the murders back to someone who had committed suicide:


In 2021 in France, a policeman committed suicide when the net began to close --advances in DNA testing showed that years earlier he had murdered several young girls.

This year, using advances in DNA testing, three murders in Oregon dating back to the 1980s were traced to a man who had committed suicide in jail in 1988.

There was a similar case recently reported in Colorado. "Suspect Joe Michael Ervin killed himself in 1981 after being arrested in the shooting death of Aurora police officer." DNA tests have since linked Ervin to the previously unsolved murders of four women.


Thus, Christer might well be jumping the gun. As DNA testing techniques get better, Lester and White's estimate of 6.2% might turn out to be far too low.

[Gary Barnett]

Hi Michael -- I did a bit of poking around, and Christer's 6% suicide rate is apparently based on a study by David Lester and John White (the precise number was 6.2%).

But I noticed something interesting in their abstract:


"In a sample of 483 serial killers, 6.2% were documented to have committed suicide. Those who committed suicide were found to come from more dysfunctional homes characterized by more psychiatric disturbance in the parents. [note: Druitt's mother was institutionalized for insanity]. The sexual acts involved in the murders by the suicides seemed to be more deviant in some aspects, such as committing more bizarre sexual acts or more often taping the murder."

So in other words, the more freakishly sexual the murders were, the more likely the murderer was to commit suicide, which changes things considerably. Lack of evidence of direct sexual interference aside, one might argue that the Ripper murders were "off the charts" when it came to sexual deviancy, so maybe Macnaghten was not so off-the-mark to think the murderer may have tossed himself in the Thames shortly after the perversions of Miller's Court.

A few more relevant points:

1. 6.2% is not a small number. It is a BIG number. I just checked -- the suicide rate in Sweden hovers at 0.12%, while the rate in my own deeply dysfunctional country is a bit higher at around 0.14% and climbing. Thus, roughly speaking, "serialists" are nearly FIFTY TIMES more likely to commit suicide than the general population, which is significant and cannot be seen as a white flag.

2. Lester and White don't tell us how many others TRIED to commit suicide, but failed. This cuts both ways. If one is incarcerated, the rate would presumably go up due to despair, but might also be lower than expected because inmates share cells with other inmates and there is often a 'suicide' watch or at least frequent walkthroughs as well as access to medical treatment.

3. Studies have linked clinical depression with violent behavior. I don’t see any reason to think a narcissist couldn’t also be suicidal—I think that assumption is too simplistic; the behavior is widely seen as overcompensation for low self-esteem. Indeed, I found the following abstract: "The relationship of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) to suicidal behavior is understudied. The modest body of existing research suggests that NPD is protective against non-fatal suicide attempts, but is associated with high lethality attempts." In other words, when they attempt suicide, they succeed!

4. Here is a biggy. Lester and White’s statistic of 6.2% is based on SOLVED CASES. This is unavoidable because they can only study cases where the murderer was captured or at least identified. But that fact alone may skew the results and create a bias and an untrustworthy number. What about the unsolved cases? Theoretically, a large swath of the unsolved murders may have involved suicides who were never captured because they had killed themselves and thus stayed below the radar—and this could especially be true because of the link between clinical depression and violence. Indeed, in recent memory alone, advances in DNA have solved three cases of “serial” homicide, having successfully traced the murders back to someone who had committed suicide:


In 2021 in France, a policeman committed suicide when the net began to close --advances in DNA testing showed that years earlier he had murdered several young girls.

This year, using advances in DNA testing, three murders in Oregon dating back to the 1980s were traced to a man who had committed suicide in jail in 1988.

There was a similar case recently reported in Colorado. "Suspect Joe Michael Ervin killed himself in 1981 after being arrested in the shooting death of Aurora police officer." DNA tests have since linked Ervin to the previously unsolved murders of four women.


Thus, Christer might well be jumping the gun. As DNA testing techniques get better, Lester and White's estimate of 6.2% might turn out to be far too low.

All these numbers presumably concern killers who had been apprehended and were facing life imprisonment or execution. I would imagine the prospect of spending the rest of their lives behind bars or being executed may have been a major factor in their decision to commit suicide.

[R. J. Palmer]

All these numbers presumably concern killers who had been apprehended and were facing life imprisonment or execution. I would imagine the prospect of spending the rest of their lives behind bars or being executed may have been a major factor in their decision to commit suicide.

A reasonable observation, which is why I wrote "The rate would presumably go up due to despair...[at incarceration]"

But how can we ever really know that this is the only answer, unless the police start randomly checking the DNA of ever suicide against unsolved cases? It is an angle that is understudied or maybe even unstudied. I personally don't like these black holes where there is no data and no certainty.


Further, Sims wrote of Druitt (evidently based on information from Macnaghten) "the police were looking for him alive when he turned up dead."

We don't know why Sims wrote this, and even some Druittists doubt it (for reasons I never quite understood) but we have no way of knowing whether or not this was true. Theoretically, MJD may have faced potential incarceration for whatever had happened in Blackheath to get him suspended, or there may have been some entirely different reason the police wanted to talk to him, provided Sims was accurate.

If, as Lester and White claim, the ones who commit suicide in prison were also the ones who committed the most sexually depraved murders, we still might be faced with an enigma and might still have a problem.

[Gary Barnett]

A reasonable observation, which is why I wrote "The rate would presumably go up due to despair...[at incarceration]"

But how can we ever really know that this is the only answer, unless the police start randomly checking the DNA of ever suicide against unsolved cases? It is an angle that is understudied or maybe even unstudied. I personally don't like these black holes where there is no data and no certainty.


Further, Sims wrote of Druitt (evidently based on information from Macnaghten) "the police were looking for him alive when he turned up dead."

We don't know why Sims wrote this, and even some Druittists doubt it (for reasons I never quite understood) but we have no way of knowing whether or not this was true. Theoretically, MJD may have faced potential incarceration for whatever had happened in Blackheath to get him suspended, or there may have been some entirely different reason the police wanted to talk to him, provided Sims was accurate.

If, as Lester and White claim, the ones who commit suicide in prison were also the ones who committed the most sexually depraved murders, we still might be faced with an enigma and might still have a problem.

What’s the context of the Sims quote? Was he saying they were specifically looking for MJD alive when he turned up dead?

Druitt has never really interested me, but I’m feeling the urge to look into him a bit more. Help!!

[R. J. Palmer]

I think the "Rev" must just be an error. I don't think there was another male Druitt with those initials. There is no other who would be alive at that date in the FreeBMD index.

Small complication, Chris.

I think there was another Druitt with the initials M.J. Druitt down south--if not in Dorset, just across the county-line in Hampshire. More research is needed.

Now, let me state first off that I have studied Druitt's cricket record in some detail and I believe the bloke playing for the Isle of Purbeck is MJD, but I found the following--also in the Blandford Weekly.

Note the date: 7 November 1889.

It's an account of a football match. The chap from Christchurch is listed as M.J. Druitt. Yet this is 11 months after MJD drowned in the Thames.

Clearly, this has to be either Mayo Druitt or Melville Druitt, the sons of James Druitt, the solicitor---who I believe was a cousin of Montague's and who worked closely with MJD's brother William.

Mayo would have been just under 19 in September 1888 and Melville would have been 21 or 22. (Melville was a family name and Sir Melville Macnaghten was related to the Mayos).

I'm not immediately finding their middle initials, but, as I say, the father's name was James.

It is not impossibly this other MJD played a spot of cricket along with football, although obviously the bowler MJD is by far and away the most obviously player in Blandford. I know Arthur Druitt played cricket down in Dorset in some of these matches with the older gentleman and he was roughly the same age as Melville and Mayo.

It is a very slim chance, perhaps, but it should be investigated nonetheless.

[R. J. Palmer]

Melvill(e) and Mayo in Christchurch in 1891--a solicitor and an Oxford under-graduate. Wrongly transcribed as Dewitt.





One of them played cricket---here he is with his cousin Arthur Druitt (MJD's younger brother) in 1890.

[Chris Phillips]

Melvill(e) and Mayo in Christchurch in 1891--a solicitor and an Oxford under-graduate. Wrongly transcribed as Dewitt.

That's very interesting. Like you, I'm not finding a middle name for either of them, despite copious records turning up. I suspect they didn't have middle names, and that the "J" in that report is a mistake (perhaps through confusion with Montague?).

Of course it raises the possibility that a similar mistake could have been made in 1888. A Druittist could point out that while Wimborne is closer to Blandford than Christchurch is, they are roughly equidistant from the Isle of Purbeck...

[Chris Phillips]

1. 6.2% is not a small number. It is a BIG number. I just checked -- the suicide rate in Sweden hovers at 0.12%, while the rate in my own deeply dysfunctional country is a bit higher at around 0.14% and climbing. Thus, roughly speaking, "serialists" are nearly FIFTY TIMES more likely to commit suicide than the general population, which is significant and cannot be seen as a white flag.

That's a very good point. Statistical inference is a slippery thing.

And equally, suicides are roughly 50 times more likely to be serial murderers than the general population. (One can't always make that statistical equivalence, but in this case the numbers justify it.)

[Christer Holmgren]

If only 5 people out of a 100 have hazell eyes is would it be in any way remarkable if I’d predicted to you that the next man coming around the corner would have hazell eyes….and he did? Would you accuse me of setting it up because it was so unlikely? Or if 5 people in a room of only 15 had hazell eyes?

I have no issue with the fact that statistically it might be the case that very few serial killers commit suicide but I’m afraid that means little for me. Life isn’t run on percentages. And without wishing to derail the topic I’ve asked in the past ‘how many serial killers can we name that killed directly on their way to work?’ If it was discovered to have been a similarly small percentage (and I’ve yet to see a single example of it) would you then agree that Lechmere would have been an unlikely serial killer? Or does this only apply to Druitt?

The cricket match isn’t a nail in the coffin at all. Druitt would have had pretty much a whole day to have caught a train back. There simply is no issue. Now some may see that as slightly strange behaviour but I don’t. I’m not criticising anyone for thinking it strange but there could have been any number of reasons that we just aren’t aware of. Do serial killers never murder then get on with there lives normally the next day? Lechmere for example would have had to. So if Druitt didn’t have any work commitments on the 1st what’s strange about him travelling back down during the day of the 31st to play cricket the next day. Serial killers don’t spend 24 hours in a vegetative state post-murder after all.

Yes, Scobie felt that he had a case to answer. But this was a man who believed that Lechmere had left the house at 3.30 rather than about 3.30 so he was under the assumption that there was a proven, unaccounted for gap of time in Bucks Row, which there wasn’t. This is a huge balance-tipper for anyone forming an opinion on a case that they’ve had no previous knowledge of.

The Torso murder argument is yet another unproven and probably unprovable tangent.

Yes, if only five people out of 100 have hazel eyes and you predicged that the next man coming around the corner would have hazel eyes, and he did, then it would have been remarkable. That is the very nature of the statistics involved. You would predict an outcome that only had a five per cent chance of being correct - and get the result you predicted. It would be in conflict with the statistical facts involved.

However, I would of course not accuse you of "setting it up". Why would I? Sooner or later, that kind of prediction must come true - one time out of twenty, to be statistically exact.

It is not about me calling you names for clinging to your belief that Druitt may have been the Ripper. It is about how the known statistical facts are against the proposition.

There are other matters involved in this exercise that we should not forget about. For example, eye colour is not divided into two possible fields only, there are hazel eyes, dark brown eyes, light blue eyes, green eyes etcetera. And eye colour is not linked to processes of the mind. Whether or nbot you are going to kill yourself have two possible outcomes only, you do or you don´t. And it is linked only to mind processes. So your example is not equivalent to the matter at hand other than to a degree, and only purely statistically.

A psychopathic narcissist serial killer is a person who considers himself way above those he co-exists with. He is a person who is consistently legally aware that what he does is not condoned by society, so in that respect, he would have had reason to feel ashamed about it. But that would only work if he accepted and lived by the societal norms. He does, however, not do so. And he is not ashamed for not doing it. He enjoys what he is doing, and far from evoking senses of shame, his deeds instead fires a hunger for doing it again and again.

We should not be surprised that such a person is totally unlikely to kill himself out of shame. The victorians, however, were. As I wrote before, it seems they reasoned that the worse the crime, the likelier it would be that the perpetrator killed himself. And MacNaghten reasoned along the same lines - the brain of the killer would not have been able to cope with what the killer did in Millers Court, and so it gave way and he did away with himself. Very, very clearly, we can see that this is the exact opposite of how psychopathic and narcissistic serial killers function.

Once we discard MacNaghtens romantic misconceptions about how sexual serial killers function, we can see how the very foundation of the accusations against Druitt cave in. And the two points of accusation against him (there are only two) are linked to each other. Accusation number one is that Druitt gave away his guilt by killing himself after the Millers court murder. That is an accusation that is not supported by the known facts (again Rader, again Ridgway, again Bundy, again Cottingham, again De Angelo).
The second point of accusation is that Druitts own relatives may have thought that he was the killer, as per MacNaghten. However, since people of the victorian era shared MacNaghtens misconception that horrific crimes will burn out the brain of their instigators who then go on to kill themselves, why would it be strange if some relative of Druitt made the same error as Mac did?

Again, it has nothing to do with any belief of mine that you are "setting things up". It is a sheer and simple matter of statistics and known facts. And statistics and known facts are in conflict with the notion that Montague Druitt would have been the Ripper. That´s not to say that it is physically impossible. But it IS to say that Druitt is a very unlikely Ripper. And an even unlikelier one after the latest cricket news. If you excuse the pun, it´s tempting to call the suggestion bat shit crazy.

I don´t think that I can be much clearer than this, and I don´t look forward to explaining it again, so I think I will draw the line there. Thanks for the exchange.