Mrs. Maybrick's Own Story: My Fifteen Lost Years

by Florence Elizabeth Maybrick

“I have proved that this terrible mockery of justice, the conviction of an innocent man for a series of crimes that it was quite impossible he could have committed, was brought about by the action of the leading counsel for the Treasury, which action was supported by the Common Sergeant, Sir Forrest Fulton.

“I have proved that the evidence of the policeman, Eliss Spurrell, which was used at the police-court to assist in getting Beck committed for trial, was kept out at the Old Bailey, where it would have insured Beck’s acquittal.

“I have proved that at the police-court in 1896 Mr. Gurrin, the Treasury expert, reported that all the documents connected with the 1896 frauds were in the handwriting of John Smith of 1877.

“I have proved that at the 1896 trial at the Old Bailey Mr. Gurrin swore that, to the best of his belief, all the documents were in the disguised handwriting of Mr. Beck.

“I have proved that no one in his senses could at the trial have accepted the theory that Adolf Beck was John Smith after listening to the evidence of Major Lindholm, Gentleman of the Chamber to the King of Denmark, Col. Josiah Harris, and the Consul-General for Peru at Liverpool.

“The Common Sergeant accepted as true their evidence of a complete alibi for Mr. Beck, so far as 1877 and the years Smith was in prison were concerned, or he would, it is to be presumed, have taken measures to have those gentlemen prosecuted for committing wilful and corrupt perjury in order to defeat the ends of justice.

“I have proved that Beck, after his imprisonment, compelled the Home Office authorities to acknowledge that he was not Smith, and to admit the physical impossibility of his being Smith—Smith was a Jew, and he, Beck, was not—and that therefore, by the evidence of the Treasury witnesses, he had been wrongfully committed.

“I have proved that Beck was stripped and officially examined for body marks before his trial, in order that such marks might be compared with those on the record in the possession of the authorities as the body marks of John Smith.

“I have proved that Adolf Beck had none of the body marks of John Smith, the man in whose handwriting Mr. Gurrin had declared the incriminating documents of 1896 to be.