Thomas Fogarty

[Gary Barnett]

I am afraid I have not read all through but just wanted to say there is an Ellen Fogarty born 1825 Ireland in the 1901 Mile End Old town district infirmary. Right age for Thomas's mum. She is blind too....
Pat............

Yes, Pat, I think that’s Foggy’s old ma. A widow and a retired tailor?

I think she may have died in 1903.

[Pat Marshall]

In the 1892 Admissions Raine street Workhouse there is a tailoress widow Ellen Fogerty b1824 seems to have an address of Batty Street ?? It does not say she is blind just destitute. In 1887 In March 1887 Discharges (same place Raine street) it states she lives at 2 Battys place.

Pat

[Gary Barnett]

In the 1892 Admissions Raine street Workhouse there is a tailoress widow Ellen Fogerty b1824 seems to have an address of Batty Street ?? It does not say she is blind just destitute. In 1887 In March 1887 Discharges (same place Raine street) it states she lives at 2 Battys place.

Pat

Yes, that’s her, Pat. Foggy’s parents lived in Batty Place/Queen’s Court for decades. There are some 200+ records of him moving in and out of the Raine Street workhouse, largely between the death of Pearly Poll in 1895 and his commital to Claybury Asylum in 1903.

I read of another blind man who, although not ill, was admitted to the Raine Street infirmary rather than the workhouse, which was apparently the procedure at the time.

[Pat Marshall]

Is that the court when Mrs Keur was supposed to live Gary?
Pat

[Edward Stow]

Gary
You seem to be losing yourself in pedantry.
Read back over what I said.
I made it very clear that I had no evidence that Pearly Poll had ever been formally cautioned.
I think it is likely that she was familiar with the process. I think it is very unlikely that she wouldn't be.
Perhaps you think otherwise? Each to their own!

I haven't conducted a survey to see if other witnesses were cautioned alongside their normal oath, nor am I going to. You can if you wish of course!

I do suggest it was to reinforce the importance of the oath in Pearly Poll's mind. That seems the only logical reason.
How many different ways do you want me to say the same thing?

If you think there was some other reason then why not share it with us?

Before you got embroiled in Foggy Suspectology I feel confident that you would have shared my opinion on these matters.

You have been silent as to whether you still maintain that the police disbelieved Pearly Poll about the soldiers.
Again, in those halcyon pre Foggy Suspectology days you readily accepted the overwhelming evidence that police accepted that Tabram had gone off with a soldier at one point in the evening - several hours before she was murdered. Surely Gary you haven't succumbed so readily to that curse?

[Gary Barnett]

Is that the court when Mrs Keur was supposed to live Gary?
Pat

Wasn’t that Batty Street?

I think Batty Place ran between Batty Street and Christian Street.

[Pat Marshall]

Ah I thought it was the alley between Batty street and Berner street. That would have been interesting....Thanks
Pat

[Edward Stow]

For the sake of completeness we have an interview given by Inspector Reid to the News of the World after he retired. This version was reprinted in the Daily Gazette for Middlesborough on 15th April 1896.

If Read is to be taken literally when he said: ‘we never in one single instance found a person who had seen a man with any pf the murdered women on the evenings they were murdered’, then as far as he was concerned:

Polly Nichols didn’t speak to the unnamed deputy at the Thrawl Street lodging house.

Frederick Stevens didn’t have a drink with Annie Chapman.
William Stevens, John Evans and Timothy Donovan didn’t talk to Annie Chapman at her lodging house.
It also means that Reid disbelieved Elizabeth Long when she said she saw Annie Chapman with someone outside 29 Hanbury Street.

And I could go on and on about the other victims, bearing in mind Reid believed there were nine in total.

Reid discounted the bystanders who clearly had nothing to do with the murders and hazy witness sightings that were unclear, unidentifiable and may or may not have been the Ripper.

Reid believed Tabram to be one of nine Ripper victims and he believed the culprit to be a local man. So Reid did not think the soldiers were responsible which puts them into the category of someone who were earlier bystanders and people who were also unidentifiable.

Reid was imprecise in his interview – that is all that can be said.

[Gary Barnett]

For the sake of completeness we have an interview given by Inspector Reid to the News of the World after he retired. This version was reprinted in the Daily Gazette for Middlesborough on 15th April 1896.
[ATTACH]20369[/ATTACH]
If Read is to be taken literally when he said: ‘we never in one single instance found a person who had seen a man with any pf the murdered women on the evenings they were murdered’, then as far as he was concerned:

Polly Nichols didn’t speak to the unnamed deputy at the Thrawl Street lodging house.

Frederick Stevens didn’t have a drink with Annie Chapman.
William Stevens, John Evans and Timothy Donovan didn’t talk to Annie Chapman at her lodging house.
It also means that Reid disbelieved Elizabeth Long when she said she saw Annie Chapman with someone outside 29 Hanbury Street.

And I could go on and on about the other victims, bearing in mind Reid believed there were nine in total.

Reid discounted the bystanders who clearly had nothing to do with the murders and hazy witness sightings that were unclear, unidentifiable and may or may not have been the Ripper.

Reid believed Tabram to be one of nine Ripper victims and he believed the culprit to be a local man. So Reid did not think the soldiers were responsible which puts them into the category of someone who were earlier bystanders and people who were also unidentifiable.

Reid was imprecise in his interview – that is all that can be said.

Yes, that was the point I made earlier.

Makes you wonder about the value of Reid’s opinions.

[Gary Barnett]

Let’s do this a bit at a time.

What was the purpose of the police caution we are discussing? Was it a warning to a witness to tell the truth? Or was it a warning to a suspect not to inadvertently tell a truth that might be used against them?

If the latter, and assuming the oath sworn in a coroner’s court was the ‘truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth’ one we are so familiar with, there seems to be a conflict between the two.

[Edward Stow]

I've given you my opinion on that bit several times.
Your opinion is the mystery.

Regarding Reid's opinions, I always find it remarkable when a theorist throws everything someone said away (eg Dew or Reid) just because they make a loose remark somewhere along the way.

Come on Gary - come clean!

Do you now accept - as you used to do - that the police believed Pearly Poll's soldier story?

[Gary Barnett]

Let’s do this a bit at a time.

What was the purpose of the police caution we are discussing? Was it a warning to a witness to tell the truth? Or was it a warning to a suspect not to inadvertently tell a truth that might be used against them?

If the latter, and assuming the oath sworn in a coroner’s court was the ‘truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth’ one we are so familiar with, there seems to be a conflict between the two.

From a legal point of view, the addition of the caution doesn’t seem to add anything to enforce the witness’s truthfulness. Once she had sworn the oath, Poll was legally obliged to tell the truth.

Perhaps there was a psychological aspect to it. That Poll would have been more impressed by a caution requested by an H division copper than an oath required by a coroner?

It’s a good job Wynn’s Baxter wasn’t the coroner.

[Edward Stow]

That's the explanation I gave about twenty posts ago!
I'm gratified we agree.

Now what about the next bit?

[Gary Barnett]

I've given you my opinion on that bit several times.
Your opinion is the mystery.

Regarding Reid's opinions, I always find it remarkable when a theorist throws everything someone said away (eg Dew or Reid) just because they make a loose remark somewhere along the way.

Come on Gary - come clean!

Do you now accept - as you used to do - that the police believed Pearly Poll's soldier story?

This is where I can play my cake and eat it card again,

First, I’m not wedded to the idea that Fogarty killed Tabram, I just think it’s s perfectly plausible idea that is worthy of consideration.

Second, the theory that the soldiers were a complete fiction isn’t actually essential to the theory. If Martha’s soldier existed and came and went without offering her any violence, we still have the possibility of Foggy moving in on her subsequently. If Poll’s story is true, Martha was her pal, and Foggy was still the vicious beggar based in 1888 in the same tiny alley as Poll who would go on to marry her.

How many times do I have to explain that my previous comments were a reaction to what I thought then and think now is the overwrought ‘Lords of Spitalfields’ theory? I thought there was a perfectly plausible explanation for Poll’s actions that covered all the apparent anomalies that Tom highlighted. Not entirely innocent, perhaps, she may well have told a few porkies, but she wasn’t the ‘Lords’ special agent. However, when the idea of her being coerced by a violent boyfriend occurred to me, I thought that was equally plausible.

[Gary Barnett]

That's the explanation I gave about twenty posts ago!
I'm gratified we agree.

Now what about the next bit?

It was, but is it credible? Would Poll have been so much more overawed by a local copper than by the real gent presiding over the inquest that it was necessary to undermine the coroner’s authority?

I haven’t done a David Orsam (god forbid) but I have looked for another example where it was felt that a coroner didn’t have sufficient authority in his court to make it necessary for a copper to insist that a witness was given a police caution.