Abberline: The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper Read Online Free PDF Page A

country to France. Did Newton warn Somerset that his arrest was imminent? This was denied by Lord Salisbury and the Attorney General, Sir Richard Webster. The Prince of Wales wrote to Lord Salisbury expressing satisfaction that Somerset had been allowed to leave the country, and asked that if Somerset should ever show his face in England again, he would remain unmolested by the authorities; however, Lord Salisbury was also being pressured by the police to prosecute Somerset. On 12 November, a warrant for Somerset’s arrest was finally issued. By this time, Somerset was already safely abroad and the warrant caught little public attention.
    This now left the question open as to Arthur Newton’s relationship with Lord Salisbury. Had the Prime Minister himself passed this privileged information on to Newton, for the express purpose of it then being relayed to Lord Somerset? After all, it was Newton who had supplied the money that Charles Hammond used to escape to Belgium and America, and it was Lord Salisbury who had said that he did not consider it appropriate for an official application to be made for Hammond’s extradition.
    Arthur Newton was subsequently tried for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, after he was caught attempting to pay off the telegraph boys to go abroad before they could testify. He was found guilty and sentenced to just six weeks’ imprisonment; another ridiculously lenient sentence!
    As more names and rumours started to emerge, the young editor of the North London Press , Ernest Parke, decided to publish the names of Somerset and Henry FitzRoy, Earl of Euston, hinting that ‘They had been allowed to leave the country and thus defeat the course of justice, because their prosecution would disclose the fact that a far more distinguished and higher placed personage than themselves was involved in these “disgusting crimes”.
    Parke wasn’t any different to most newspaper editors: he saw a good story and decided to cash in on it. These names and the rumours surrounding them were being widely spread in Britain, whilst on the continent they went even further and printed allegations in their newspapers that Prince Albert Victor, the heir to the throne, had been a regular visitor to the Cleveland Street brothel.
    The Earl of Euston, however, wasted no time in taking legal action against Parke, suing him for libel. He admitted that he had been to the premises, but not for the purpose that Parke had alleged. He claimed that his reason for visiting the Cleveland Street house was because he had been misinformed that the house was a sort of ‘theatre’, where one could see naked women posing motionless – all very arty and not at all against any law. As the case continued, both sides tried their best to implicate the other, calling long lists of witnesses. At the same time, the rumours about Prince Albert Victor’s involvement intensified. Whether this actually worried the prince or not is difficult to judge accurately, for he left the country just about the same time as the trial started, for a royal wedding in Greece and an extended tour of India, which would last the best part of seven months.
    Parke called every witness he could muster to try to prove his allegations against the Earl of Euston, but found the odds stacked against him with hardly a word he was saying being believed. He constantly mentioned other evidence which would prove his allegations without a doubt, but when pressed he said he could not divulge this without betraying his source. As everybody knows, rumours and unfounded allegations are not enough to convict anyone in a courtroom it was now a case of ‘put up or shut up’. The name that was then being bandied about was none other than Inspector Abberline. Could it have possibly been him? Whoever it was, it certainly didn’t help Parke, for he was found guilty and sentenced to a year in prison for libel.
    The Cleveland Street scandal, as it had come to be known, ended with