Was Sir Edward ヒース／荒れ地 the real Jack the Ripper? After two 共謀 theories about the former PM and Victorian serial 殺し屋, CRAIG BROWN says it's hard to know which one is more nutty?

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Sir Edward ヒース／荒れ地 during his days as an MP

Another day, another 共謀 theory. Or, rather, another two 共謀 theories.

First, Wiltshire 長，指導者 Constable マイク Veale is said to be ‘120 per cent sure’ that the former 首相 Sir Edward ヒース／荒れ地 was a paedophile.?

その上に, the police are 明らかに 調査／捜査するing （人命などを）奪う，主張するs that ヒース／荒れ地 was part of a ‘悪魔の（ような） sex 教団’ 伴う／関わるd in 16 殺人s.

On the same day, the excitable American 罪，犯罪 小説家 Patricia Cornwell （人命などを）奪う，主張するd to have 暴露するd new 証拠 to support her long-standing 有罪の判決 that the real Jack the Ripper was 非，不，無 other than the 広大な／多数の／重要な painter Walter Sickert.?

She is, she says, ‘more sure than ever’ that Sickert was the Victorian serial 殺し屋.?

‘I put his （死傷者）数 at a dozen, maybe as many as 20, or かもしれない more.’

It’s hard to know which of these ideas is the more nutty.

A dozen years after his death, Sir Edward (権利) remains an 異常に 人気がない 人物／姿／数字, but even his worst enemies 疑問 he was a paedophile.

Writer Matthew Parris, who worked for Mrs Thatcher before becoming a 保守的な MP, has 解任するd 主張s against ヒース／荒れ地.?

‘If ヒース／荒れ地 was a child abuser, then I’m an aardvark,’ he says.

The 事例／患者 against Sickert might seem, at first, rather more solid.?

Fifteen years ago, Cornwell spent $2million 研究ing a 調書をとる／予約する that argued Sickert was the Ripper.

Fifteen years ago, Patricia Cornwell (pictured) spent $2million 研究ing a 調書をとる／予約する that argued Sickert was the Ripper

When the 調書をとる／予約する was 解任するd by critics, she spent yet more money on 十分な-page 宣伝s in the 独立した・無所属 and 後見人 需要・要求するing her work be taken 本気で and arguing that the Ripper’s 犠牲者s ‘deserve 司法（官）’.

Having spent £500,000 and 15 years 組み立てる／集結するing new 証拠, the film director Bruce Robinson published a 調書をとる／予約する two years ago in which he 宣言するd himself ‘100 per cent’ 確かな that Jack the Ripper was the 著名な Victorian 作曲家 Michael Maybrick.

At the same time, he 解任するd Cornwell’s 主張s against Sickert as ‘mind-numbing and outrageous . . . nonsense’.

For some 推論する／理由, Ripperologists, as these people call themselves, prefer to collar celebrities for the 罪，犯罪s.?

Over the years, 調書をとる／予約するs have been written arguing the Ripper’s 殺人s were committed by, in no particular order, 吊りくさび Carroll, Dr Barnardo, Queen Victoria’s brother, Sir Winston Churchill’s father, George V’s brother, William Gladstone, the 小説家 George Gissing and the poet J. K. Stephen.

It can’t be long before someone 始める，決めるs out to 証明する they all did it together, along the lines of 殺人 On The Orient 表明する.?

Patricia Cornwell’s 証拠 is patchy, to say the very least.?

Her new 調書をとる／予約する, Ripper: The Secret Life Of Walter Sickert, 回転するs around the idea first put about by an unknown man called Joseph Gorman.

In the late Sixties, Gorman 発表するd he was the 非合法の grandson of Walter Sickert.?

He subsequently changed his mind, 説 he was, in fact, the son of Walter Sickert and the grandson of Prince Albert 勝利者.

This also made him the 広大な／多数の／重要な-grandson of Edward VII, and the 広大な／多数の／重要な-広大な／多数の／重要な-grandson of Queen Victoria, and so on and so 前へ／外へ.

Gorman then （人命などを）奪う，主張するd that the 王室の 内科医, Sir William Gull, was the real Jack the Ripper and that Walter Sickert had told him this just before he died, in 1942.

A 新聞記者／雑誌記者 called Stephen Knight then adapted Gorman’s （人命などを）奪う，主張する, 明言する／公表するing in his 1976 調書をとる／予約する Jack The Ripper: The Final 解答 that Sickert was a co-conspirator in the 殺人s.

Two years later, Gorman once again changed his mind, 説 that his Ripper 共謀 theory was ‘a hoax ― I made it all up’.?

Sir Edward ヒース／荒れ地, who died in July 2005

He was, it seems, something of a perpetual fantasist.

He once told the author Colin Wilson that he often went to tea with the Queen.?

In 2000, he （人命などを）奪う，主張するd he had been left several Sickert pictures in the will of Sickert’s third wife, Therese, even though Therese had not left a will.

However, it is a golden 支配する of 共謀 理論家s that a total 欠如（する） of 証拠 is the surest 調印する of a cover-up. This means that Patricia Cornwell is more 納得させるd than she’s ever been.

I wonder if she realises that Walter Sickert once met Edward ヒース／荒れ地??

In 1934, the 18-year-old ヒース／荒れ地 went carol singing 近づく his home in Broadstairs, Kent, and happened to sing outside the house of the 74-year-old Walter Sickert.

‘結局 the curtain at the window was drawn aside and through the chink we saw a small, wizened, grey-bearded 直面する,’ ヒース／荒れ地 解任するd in his 1976 調書をとる／予約する, Music: A Joy For Life.

‘Almost すぐに, the curtain slipped 支援する again. We waited. Then the door, on a chain, was opened a fraction.

‘“Go away!” said Sickert and we left.’

For Patricia Cornwell’s next 調書をとる／予約する, I 勧める her to join 軍隊s with 長，指導者 Constable Veale.?

ヒース／荒れ地 And Sickert: The Real Jack The Rippers could 証明する just th e tonic publishers need for a 大当り next Christmas.