Of all the many Ripper theories, the Stephen Knight version has made the biggest impact on the public, earning him a fortune in the few years before his untimely death. And I'm not the only one to have been fooled for a while. An Australian researcher, Ray McGregor, crossed the world to walk in the steps of the Ripper and his wretched victims in those dark lanes that still carry such emotional force - most of this film being his own interview with the author.
Knight was an obscure young reporter on Whitechapel's last remaining newspaper, when he was approached by a nervous, chain-smoking individual who claimed to be the illegitimate son of one of England's best-loved painters, Walter Sickert, by a secret daughter of Prince Eddy, Heir Presumptive to the throne, elder brother of the future King George the Fifth. On these grounds, he was apparently being persecuted by the Freemasons, for fear that he would reveal the Royal plot that lay behind the murders. Any professional reporter would immediately realise that he was listening to a fantasist, as Knight must have done. But of course he could smell money.
Like many sensational exposés, the story appears to add-up, provided you accept it at face value. The blackmailing of Sickert... the cover-up by corrupt police... the disembowelling of the victims according to masonic ritual... There's no doubt, it all makes for an unusually engaging and involving detective story. (Indeed, Patricia Cornwell has endorsed the theory so enthusiastically that you could believe it was her own.)
But on investigation, it all starts to crumble. No, England was not on the verge of revolution, so there was no need for desperate measures to silence any witnesses to a Royal scandal. No, Sickert's model was not a catholic, and even if she had been, marriage with Eddy would have been null without the Queen's approval. (In any case, Knight is conflating two different girls, Annie Cook and Annie Crook.) No, Prime Minister Salisbury was not a freemason. No, the police inspector's diaries handed to Knight by the fantasist were not genuine. And finally, the fantasist withdrew his claims anyway, for reasons not disclosed.
First-class entertainment it was. A final solution it was not.
