Wicked Beyond Belief: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper

WHITELAW, WILLIAM: Home Secretary, 1979/80.

ZACKRISSON, DAVID: Detective inspector in Northumbria police. Wrote report in 1979 warning the ‘Geordie’ tape was an elaborate hoax.

CHRONOLOGY

1969

30 SEPTEMBER: Bradford, West Yorkshire. Peter Sutcliffe arrested in the red-light area and charged with going equipped for theft ‘with a hammer’.

1975

5 JULY: Keighley, West Yorkshire. Anna Rogulskyj attacked. Senior investigating officer (SIO): Detective Superintendent P. J. Perry.

15 AUGUST: Halifax, West Yorkshire. Olive Smelt attacked. SIO: Detective Chief Inspector Dick Holland.

28 AUGUST: Silsden, near Keighley. Tracey Browne attacked. SIO: Detective Superintendent Jim Hobson. Unacknowledged Ripper attack.

30 OCTOBER: Leeds, West Yorkshire. Wilma McCann murdered a hundred yards from her home. SIO: Detective Chief Superintendent Dennis Hoban.

20 NOVEMBER: Preston, Lancashire. Joan Harrison murdered. SIO: Detective Chief Superintendent Wilf Brooks, Lancashire CID.

1976

20 JANUARY: Leeds. Emily Jackson murdered. SIO: Detective Chief Superintendent Dennis Hoban.

9 MAY: Leeds. Marcella Claxton attacked at Roundhay Park. SIO: Detective Chief Superintendent Jim Hobson. Unacknowledged Ripper attack.

1977

5 FEBRUARY: Leeds. Irene Richardson murdered in Roundhay Park. SIO: Detective Chief Superintendent Jim Hobson.

23 APRIL: Bradford. Patricia Atkinson murdered in her flat. SIO: Detective Chief Superintendent John Domaille.

26 JUNE: Leeds. Jayne MacDonald murdered. SIO: Assistant Chief Constable (ACC) (Crime) George Oldfield.

10 JULY: Bradford. Maureen Long attacked. SIO: ACC (Crime) George Oldfield.

1 OCTOBER: Manchester. Jean Jordan murdered. SIO: Detective Chief Superintendent Jack Ridgway, Manchester CID.

14 DECEMBER: Leeds. Marilyn Moore attacked. SIO: Detective Chief Superintendent Jim Hobson.

1978

21 JANUARY: Bradford. Yvonne Pearson murdered. SIO: Detective Chief Superintendent Trevor Lapish.

31 JANUARY: Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. Helen Rytka murdered. SIO: ACC (Crime) George Oldfield.

25 APRIL: Special Homicide Investigation Team (Ripper squad) set up at Millgarth police station, Leeds, under Detective Chief Superintendent John Domaille, with Detective Superintendent Jack Slater as his deputy, plus ten other detectives.

16 MAY: Manchester. Vera Millward murdered. SIO: Detective Chief Superintendent Jack Ridgway.

1979

MARCH: Detective Superintendent Dick Holland takes over Ripper squad at Millgarth; also in charge of the centralized incident room.

4 APRIL: Halifax. Josephine Whitaker murdered. SIO: ACC (Crime) George Oldfield.

2 SEPTEMBER: Bradford. Barbara Leach murdered. SIO: Detective Chief Superintendent Peter Gilrain.

1980

21 AUGUST: Leeds. Marguerite Walls murdered at Farsley. SIO: Detective Chief Superintendent Jim Hobson. Unacknowledged Ripper killing.

24 SEPTEMBER: Leeds. Uphadya Bandara attacked at Headingley. SIO: Detective Superintendent Tom Newton. Unacknowledged Ripper attack.

5 NOVEMBER: Huddersfield. Teresa Sykes attacked. SIO: Detective Superintendent Tony Hickey. Unacknowledged Ripper attack.

17 NOVEMBER: Leeds. Jacqueline Hill murdered. SIO: Detective Superintendent Alf Finlay.

25 NOVEMBER: ACC (Crime) George Oldfield sidelined as head of the Ripper inquiry. Jim Hobson takes over with temporary rank of ACC.

26 NOVEMBER: External advisory team appointed by Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary, Mr Lawrence Byford. Reports to the chief constable before Christmas.

1981

2 JANUARY: Peter Sutcliffe arrested in a car with a prostitute in Sheffield, South Yorkshire.

5 JANUARY: Peter Sutcliffe charged with murder of Jacqueline Hill.

22 MAY: Peter Sutcliffe found guilty of thirteen murders. Sentenced to life imprisonment.

2006

18 OCTOBER: John Humble arrested in Sunderland and later convicted for being the sender of the Ripper hoax letters and tapes.

PREFACE

Poor Wilma. A strong-willed and feisty woman, she was determined to live life on her terms. It was either her way or no way. A driver picked her up. She agreed, late one night in October 1975, to a risky proposition from a total stranger: sex for a fiver. With a bunch of small kids to care for on her own, this was how she got by. And now? She was dead, the first publicly acknowledged victim of the Yorkshire Ripper.

Her body – shrouded by a low-hanging mist at the edge of a football field – was found early the next morning. The damp and miserably cold vapour clung as grimly and insistently to the frail corpse lying on that grassy bank as it did to the rest of the city of Leeds that autumn.

The fog was almost a symbol of the terror and fear that was to come. It seemed to hang perpetually over the North of England for some considerable time, like some mysterious and impenetrable miasma. And it never lifted for five long years. It enveloped and chilled the lives of millions who lived there, men and women, young and old. But most of all women.

A year later, MPs in the House of Commons voiced deep concerns about a major police investigation that turned into a fiasco with tragic results. There was little or no glory for the detectives who had led the hunt for the notorious killer called the ‘Black Panther’, who turned out to be Donald Neilson from Bradford – a vicious and cold-blooded criminal, wanted for the murders of three sub-postmistresses and the kidnapping and murder of heiress Leslie Whittle. As in the Yorkshire Ripper case there had been an all-important hoax tape-recording that threw detectives off the trail of the real killer. Like the Ripper case the hunt involved several police forces. Like the Ripper case there was a great deal of resistance to calling for help from outside, and when the end came it was two bobbies in a patrol car who made the arrest, not realizing they had caught a vicious killer. Finally, as in the Ripper case, when it was over there was a need for scapegoats: the officer in charge suffered the humiliation of being shifted sideways – out of CID and into uniform.

Some MPs demanded an inquiry into the mismanaged conduct of the Black Panther investigation, but the then Labour Government refused. Home Office Minister Dr Shirley Summerskill told Parliament the case:

has been discussed by chief officers of police collectively and I am quite sure they are fully aware of the need to learn any lessons which may be learned from such an investigation … the fact that a particular investigation is a matter for discussion by chief officers of police is a reflection of our system of policing in this country. The local control of police forces is an essential element of that system. Chief constables in this country, unlike some continental countries, do not come under the direction of a Minister of the Interior, in the enforcement of the law. The responsibility of deciding how an offence should be investigated is for them and them alone.