"Jack the Ripper: Hidden Victims" (Channel 5, 2020)

[Chris Phillips]

I don't know whether this has been discussed here already, as it was made a couple of years ago, but I received a notification that it's now available online:

https://www.channel5.com/show/jack-the-ripper-hidden-victims/season-1/

I haven't watched any of it yet, but it has recently been discussed on Casebook, and was criticised for factual inaccuracy and promoting the "Rubenhold agenda":

https://forum.casebook.org/forum/ripper-media/audio-visual/visual-media/786977-i-dont-know-if-people-here-have-watched-this

[Michael Banks]

I can’t recall the names of all of the presenters but one was a Forensic Psychologist (I think) and someone that I’ve seen before on crime documentaries. The second was a former senior Police Officer who I hadn’t seen before. The third was Ruth Goodman the well known social historian (regular on tv) No one else was used; no other ‘experts’ and certainly no ripper expert.

They certainly state that there is zero evidence of prostitution in the victims. It was interesting that Ruth Goodman claimed that Stride was only listed as a prostitute in Sweden because she was an unmarried mother and that it was the done thing for unmarried mothers to be registered as such. They were then subject to regular and very invasive health checks. This is stated in the documentary by Ruth Goodman as a proven fact. They even appeared reluctant to mention any of the possible sightings of Stride - no doubt not wishing to suggest that she ‘might’ have been with more than one man. She is emphatic that there’s not a shred of evidence for prostitution in the victims. They’re keen to show how the victims had had decent starts in life (nothing wrong with that of course) and how poor treatment and alcohol had been the cause of their situation and their deaths.

After hearing them discussing the first 4 victims I looked forward to hearing how they treated Kelly re prostitution. Would they concede the very obvious? I’m afraid that wasn’t a part of the plan and a position that would have made a politician proud was taken. Kelly had admitted to formally resorting to prostitute in the ‘gay house.’ It was left at that with the very obvious insinuation that she had only resorted to prostitution in her past. I could almost sense a Boris Johnson-like sense of “let’s move on, there’s nothing to see here,” going on.

It ended in a very preachy way. How those women have been neglected, the misogyny involved, the glorifying of violence toward women, a dig at ripperology naturally. I was expecting a voiceover saying “This was a party political broadcast on behalf of the Rubenhold Party.”

[Gary Barnett]

It’s something I seem to repeatedly find and then lose again, but there was an interview with a friend of Strides, a woman who had once been a prostitute herself but had ‘reformed’ and taken to cleaning for prostitutes who had their own rooms. She spoke of the difference between these slightly upmarket prostitutes and ones like Stride who conducted their business on the streets.

The woman was described as living in a court in or near Tiger Bay, so probably somewhere pretty near Berner Street.

HR would probably argue that that wasn’t hard evidence, but she uses similar anecdotal stuff when it suits. If someone mentions that a woman was a laundress, a charwoman or a hawker, that’s accepted without question, but if she’s called an unfortunate, you need a notarised statement signed in blood.

[Chris Phillips]

It was interesting that Ruth Goodman claimed that Stride was only listed as a prostitute in Sweden because she was an unmarried mother and that it was the done thing for unmarried mothers to be registered as such. They were then subject to regular and very invasive health checks. This is stated in the documentary by Ruth Goodman as a proven fact.

I didn't get as far as Liz Stride when I tried to read Rubenhold's book, and I haven't looked much at that section since then, but I think that is essentially the line she takes.

Looking at Ruth Goodman's profile online, I would think that she's probably going by what Rubenhold says, rather than that she's gone back to Swedish sources and checked it. I don't think it's safe to take anything Rubenhold says on trust.

[Gary Barnett]

From the Daily News of 3/10/88:

[Gary Barnett]

Unless you have an agenda, I can’t see any other way you can interpret that than as evidence of Stride being a street ‘unfortunate’. By which I mean soliciting and providing her services in dark corners off the streets. If it hadn’t been for the activities of the club Dutfield’s yard would have been a perfect spot for Stride and a customer to go.

[Chris Phillips]

I didn't get as far as Liz Stride when I tried to read Rubenhold's book, and I haven't looked much at that section since then, but I think that is essentially the line she takes.

Looking at Ruth Goodman's profile online, I would think that she's probably going by what Rubenhold says, rather than that she's gone back to Swedish sources and checked it. I don't think it's safe to take anything Rubenhold says on trust.

Actually, it is not hard at all to check Rubenhold's sources, because she cites only one: a Stockholm University doctoral thesis written in English, "Policing Public Women: The Regulation of Prostitution in Stockholm 1812-1880" by Yvonne Svanström (2000). Rubenhold cites pp. 146-147 of that thesis. It is available for download as a PDF here:
http://su.diva-portal.org/smash/reco...878&dswid=1059

Perhaps predictably, it doesn't say that unmarried mothers were registered as prostitutes. Nor exactly does Rubenhold say that - she says that prostitutes had to be be registered and examined regularly, and that on the whim of the police women suspected of "lecherous living" could be forcibly registered. In fact, according to Svanström's translation of the regulation, what it said was that "Each and every woman, who is engaged in lecherous living" had to be regularly examined. The sole criterion was "lecherous living" Svanström says that the criterion didn't mention prostitution or that the sexual activity had a commercial aspect.

Rubenhold [p. 171] says that according to Svanström, in Gothenburg there were two separate lists, one for prostitutes and the other for other suspected women. I can't see anything like that in the thesis (which is about Stockholm, though Gothenburg is mentioned incidentally a few times). Unless Rubenhold imagined this, perhaps it came from whoever supplied her with the extracts from the Swedish records. If it's true, surely the fact that Elisabeth was registered as a "public woman" (prostitute) is evidence that she wasn't on the list because simply because she was unmarried and pregnant, but because she was a known prostitute!

[Caroline Brown]

Hi All,

I have a question. Today, if a woman is found murdered outdoors, there is next to no possibility that she will be assumed to be a sex worker, even in a red light district, unless there is clear evidence for it.

What I wondered is whether a woman in Spitalfields in 1888, who was not known to have sold herself, or ever to have entertained the idea of doing so, would have been described by anyone who knew her as an "unfortunate", with its negative moral connotations, if she was found murdered. It seems rather doubtful to me, in an era when speaking ill of the dead was generally frowned upon.

In short, if just one person known to a victim personally implied that she occasionally had to "walk the streets", or make her living as an unfortunate, would that not be very surprising if it simply wasn't true?

Love,

Caz
X

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi All,

I have a question. Today, if a woman is found murdered outdoors, there is next to no possibility that she will be assumed to be a sex worker, even in a red light district, unless there is clear evidence for it.

What I wondered is whether a woman in Spitalfields in 1888, who was not known to have sold herself, or ever to have entertained the idea of doing so, would have been described by anyone who knew her as an "unfortunate", with its negative moral connotations, if she was found murdered. It seems rather doubtful to me, in an era when speaking ill of the dead was generally frowned upon.

In short, if just one person known to a victim personally implied that she occasionally had to "walk the streets", or make her living as an unfortunate, would that not be very surprising if it simply wasn't true?

Love,

Caz
X

It would depend on the credibilty of that witness and the strength of the evidence that witness was able to give i.e if the victim had told the witness directly that she walked the streets then that would be good evidence, if however, the witness only summized that belief from a conversation with the victim without the vicitim disclosing that fact, that would not be good evidence without any further corroboration.

But of course in todays legal system courts and juries are allowed to draw inferences from the evidence presented

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Gary Barnett]

I think Caz’s point is less about whether the evidence would carry weight in court and more about whether the woman’s acquaintances might assume she was a prostitute and say so without anything to support their claim.

I think it’s highly unlikely. And I don’t believe the police assumed that every destitute woman was prostitute. That’s an absurd idea touted by Rubenhold to support her weak argument.

[Simon Wood]

I couldn't help but notice that on the splash page for the series, Jack has only one leg.

Is this a clue we have thus far been avoiding?

Simon

[Caroline Brown]

I think Caz’s point is less about whether the evidence would carry weight in court and more about whether the woman’s acquaintances might assume she was a prostitute and say so without anything to support their claim.

I think it’s highly unlikely. And I don’t believe the police assumed that every destitute woman was prostitute. That’s an absurd idea touted by Rubenhold to support her weak argument.

Cheers, Gary. You understood and responded to my point perfectly, even though Trev didn't appear to grasp it! I'm rather glad I was never interviewed by him in the course of his police career. I'd have needed to hire you as an interpreter.

Love,

Caz
X

[Caroline Brown]

I couldn't help but notice that on the splash page for the series, Jack has only one leg.

Is this a clue we have thus far been avoiding?

Simon

Ah, that would explain why he had to hoperate in the same few streets and must have been a local man.

Bang goes my previous theory that he had one foot nailed to the floor.

Love,

Caz
X