The Yorkshire Ripper Files

Tinkerbell, I hope it would be reported differently now, even in West Yorkshire where they have a legalised prostitution zone which the police appear to have washed their hands of. I was a teenager in Leeds during the years this was happening and I can recall this was very much the tone of the reporting. However, the police's dismal failures over the various grooming gangs doesn't inspire confidence. Some people seem to write teenage girls off as soon as they enter puberty if they are found to be sexually active. No enquiry about why this might have happened, are they being groomed/abused, were they abused earlier in life, do they have decent family support, what's happening to their education. Just a shrug of the shoulders and a flip response of 'No better than she should be, she was asking for it, I blame the parents, no decent girl would do ...' etc etc etc ad nauseam.

The death of a prostitute is not sad then, according to WYPol? Are prostitutes not daughters, sisters, mothers, friends etc?

I know this is an old thread and I'm late on the up take but I was really impressed with this documentary. I came across it on iplayer last night and almost didn't watch it as I thought it would be the usual sensationalising of PS and violence against women but I think the film maker has done really well to shift the focus onto the women and the families left behind.

I have yet to watch episode three but so far I can only remember PS being referred to as 'the killer', I don't think his name has even been mentioned nor has his picture been shown. It's a real contrast to other reporting and documentaries of this type.

Vashta it's infuriating, upsetting and moving but it's not grisly or unbearable IMO.

Another plug for Joan Smith's Misogynies. Not all the essays are as strong as the Sutcliffe piece but that one is phenomenal.

Those of you who have watched it - how upsetting is it to get through? It sounds like something I ‘should’ watch but feel so sickened by the whole thing.

I've just spotted Joan's on twitter - and she has an upcoming book on men who commit terrorism and (almost inevitably) domestic violence

twitter.com/polblonde

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07D2G18CZ?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

*electric

*electrically brilliant

take your pick

I don't know whether it was mentioned in the documentary but Mrs Thatcher was instrumental in getting him caught. She had to be dissuaded from going up to Yorkshire to take over the investigation herself because she thought the police were so incompetent. She thought that nobody cared about the victims except her. Due to her intervention, a new team were brought in jto advise the investigation and were able to correctly identify who the police should be looking for.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1317190/How-Margaret-Thatcher-helped-catch-Yorkshire-Ripper.html

I highly recommend the series and the excellent Joan Smith book Misogynies. It's £3.79 on kindle and it's electrical

www.amazon.co.uk/Misogynies-Joan-Smith/dp/1908906189?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

The names they give them makes them sound like they're baddies in a comic

This is such an important point.

A catchy name serves to glamorise the man behind the crimes. It must never happen again.

One thing that caught me about the documentary was how grim the area looks in old news reels. I don't remember it being like that but it must have been. Surprised that the alibi's PS was given were not mentioned. This held the police investigation back a great deal. It was talked about in the area after his arrest and brought up at his trial but there was no mention in the documentary of any police investigation into the possibility of false statements given to alibi him during the manhunt.
The victims families came across as dignified. The documentary was well made and I thought respectful to the families. Strong people

Life On Mars was a documentary not fiction.

I accept Sutcliffe was mentally ill. I can even accept some of the excuses for West Yorkshire Police. (I've not watched the doc yet but they were filing information by hand on index cards.) What I find harder to accept is - beyond being concerned for family and girlfriends - how little men seemed to care.

I'll never forget reading Jill Tweedie in The Guardian, before Sutcliffe was caught, asking why men didn't seem that upset, why weren't they talking about it, writing to newspapers, questioning themselves. Boy were they cross with her. They seemed far more outraged about that article than they were about the killings.

I learned a lot about men during that time, none of it good.

Yorkshire Ripper? Suffolk Strangler?

Give me a fucking break..

If I was in charge of the stupid names I wouldn't fuck about - I'd call them what they are:

Yorkshire ARSEHOLE.

Suffolk INADEQUATE.

The names they give them makes them sound like they're baddies in a comic.

I remember the case and I remember a lot of criticism of the press coverage after the first "innocent" victim was murdered. People reacted quite strongly against it.

The contrast between the coverage of the Ripper and that of the Cambridge Rapist - who only attacked "nice girls" was striking. I was living in Cambridge at the time and we were all on very high alert.

Regarding Sutcliffe's MH, I met two forensic psychiatrists some years later, one of whom had been involved in the case. They told me that Sutcliffe was so ill that he thought God was talking to him even during the trial. But the British public demanded a trial so there had to be one even if he wasn't fit to stand. It was one of those establishment fixes, a bit like the Bulger murder.

The backlash against the reporting of the Ripper case paid off, if slowly. The victims of the later serial killer, the Suffolk Strangler, were covered in a much more sympathetic way. They were portrayed as precious sisters, daughters, rather than being defined just as prostitutes. Having lived through both the difference was striking.

emily he was diagnosed at the time by 4 psychiatrists but had his diagnosis confirmed just before he was moved to Broadmoor. He refused treatment for 9 years (you'd think if he was sane and it was all a lie he'd accept treatment) before a court order was obtained to treat him. His behaviour in prison and in Broadmoor was very much consistent with someone who's deeply disturbed and he was repeatedly attacked because of it. I don't think there's much doubt that he's mentally ill.

I actually don't know how I feel after reading a bit about it. The judge essentially insisted trial go ahead as a result of the public interest, rather than accepting Sutcliffe was mentally ill.

Not watched the documentary yet but its good to read about what people think about it here.

I did read Wicked Beyond Belief: the hunt for the Yorkshire R. Michael Bilton (2003) last year. It deals with the case really comprehensively if anyone wants to do any further reading.

I think people wanted to believe he was somehow ill, mentally not right, because it was just too awful to think someone could be that evil but totally 'normal'.

But that is also a snare, because the law decrees that someone who is cured (as far as that can be ascertained) should be released - because if they were acting only because of an illness that has now been resolved they are legally deemed no longer to be a threat.

And if ever there was someone who should never be released, Sutcliffe must be towards the top of the list

I'm not convinced he was a paranoid schizophrenic, his wife was and I thought a lot of experts since believed that he was able to convince people he was because he knew so much about the condition after living through it with her.
I think the fake letters and tapes clouded people's judgement. He seemed to latch onto the myth that he was driven by voices to 'rid the streets of prostitutes'.
A view which wouldn't quite wash today.
It's kind of along the lines of 'ridding the streets of non whites' a view which would have been acceptable in the 70s/80s amongst a lot of people.
I think a lot of people thought there had to be a reason to do what he did.
It's actually thought he attacked a man but the man overpowered him so he thought he'd better only attack women from then on.

I didn't realise Peter Sutcliffe had Paranoid Schizophrenia actually - it was before my time.

That doesn't mean he shouldn't have been locked up, he was an incredibly dangerous individual who refused treatment for years but he should have been sent straight to Broadmoor

I watched all 3 episodes yesterday, they were all available on catch-up. I remember lots of details about the case, but to see it all drawn together, with the interviews from now contrasted with the historical footage really hit home just how completely useless and incompetent W Yorks police were.

I didn't know about the £5 note though - and the fact that the police could have pursued that line of enquiry and caught him sooner.

The police displayed totally unacceptable sexist and racist views, but above all what came across was just how arrogant and stupid they were.

Heartbreaking to think how those poor women suffered.

I’m watching it now. My dad was taken for questioning by police, wrong accent in the wrong place when the police were utterly desperate. He didn’t mind, but he did say they kept asking him about “prozies” in an awful manner. He’s not sure if they were just goading him a bit in the hope they had their guy or if that was the general consensus of the police. I fear it was the latter

I mentioned Red Riding books to my dh last night. Spot on

Yes the reaction to the suggestion of a curfew on men was very telling. It wasn't just concern about the practicalities - men were outraged at the idea that they should undergo any inconvenience at all. Reclaim the Night marches were derided.

I'm stepping away for a while now before I self combust. It's interesting how angry I still am about it.

Jimmy Seville 🍊**