Yorkshire Ripper documentary

[lightlypoached]

Am watching part 1 of this documentary and my heart is breaking for the children of the first victim, Wilma.

anyone else watching?

What channel pls?

BBC 4 - part 3 (of 3) is on at 9pm. It's on iplayer.

You might be interested in this thread (that's been running since part 1)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3544279-The-Yorkshire-Ripper-Files

Ive been watching it as well. I thought it was interesting when Wilma's son said the photo of her released by police was really old, a police mugshot taken when she was only 18 and that she didn't even look like that when she was murdered.

Why were they using out of date photos of the victims?

Brilliant thanks med

Brill thanks med

WillGymForPizza I think it was because the man in charge was fixated on the victims and killer being a certain 'type' and he could not or would not change his mind. And her mug shop photo fitted that idea.

The programme did not say why that pic was used. It's possible it's simply because it's the one they had.

I went to a motivational talk by Richard McCann, Wilma’s son and it was an absolutely heartbreaking story but so, so inspiring. Can’t believe those poor kids went out looking for their mum at 5am when they realised she hadn’t returned and passed within metres of her body- although thank goodness they didn’t discover her. So sad.

Richard McCann is amazing. He managed after some very difficult times to forge a career as a motivational speaker and author and create a loving family.

His sister was less fortunate and succumbed to the demons inside her mind and took her own life.

Powerful. Lost opportunities to catch him sooner because senior police tried to mould the facts to fit their theory. And the time wasted on those hoax tapes was horrendous.

The hoax tapes was a massive time waster, how utterly evil of the maker and sender. Lives lost because of their meddling.

The fault lay with the police who didn't listen to the women because they were sexist and self regarding and thought they knew better.

The hoax tapes was a massive time waster, how utterly evil of the maker and sender. Lives lost because of their meddling.

There's a fascinating book - pre "Silence of the Lambs" by the guy who set up the FBI profiling centre. "Whoever Fights Monsters" by Robert Ressler. He writes about visiting Britain to give a talk to the home office and police and being asked about any insights into the Ripper case which was ongoing (late 1970s). He was played the tape and immediately said "That's not the perpetrator." and explained how the action of sending a tape was completely at odds with the observed behaviour of the killer. He stressed that all the experience the FBI had gathered suggested the tape should not be treated as coming from the Ripper.

We all know the rest

I agree Wilma's son is amazing, she would be very proud of him. I cried when he said at the end he was sad for his mum not having a chance at a life and not getting to know her beautiful grandchildren ( who I thought were the spit of her) - he felt that was sadder than him losing his mummy at such a young age.
I lived in Manchester when the Ripper was about and was the same age as his youngest victim. I didn't go out alone..

I've watched the first hour.

The misogyny and blinkeredness is breathtaking.

Just talking about the first victim Wilma McCann and seeing she was an abused woman, who was trying to look after her 2 children and working to keep a home over their heads - rather than an immoral woman - why was this not patently obvious at the time?

And the instant assumption after 2 murders that he was driven by a hatred of prostitutes. On the basis of only 2 murders? The carving up of women into innocent and not-innocent victims. And the ignoring of survivors evidence.

The whole thing was so very very grim. It reminded me also of Hallie Rubenhold's book on the Jack the Ripper victims - taken over 100 years to write a book focussing on the actual victims and show that there is no evidence that some of them worked in prostitution - it was just assumed because they were women who were out at night alone, another investigation fed by misogyny.

All those ‘innocent victim’ comments compared to ‘dubious morality’ is making me lose my shit. All those on here who claim that we don’t need feminism etc needs to watch this.

I lived and worked in Leeds during the Ripper years. Towards the end of the enquiry when everyone was very scared the police would come to our office to walk us back to our cars at night.

If I went out to the local shop at night I would walk as quickly as I could in the middle of the road.

I remember one of our neighbours, originally a Geordie, being heavily questioned by the police because his car had been clocked in a red light area of Leeds. They threatened to tell his wife he was habituating red light areas when in fact it was just his route home at night.

It was difficult for men as well. My husband was walking home from the supermarket in the dark with a woman in front of him. She kept turning round obviously scared and he slowed his pace. Eventually she started running.

Awful, really scary times.

I remember my anger at work when a guy showed his copy of the scum to me and it featured pictures of all the woman and implied it was all their fault and how disgusting they were , etc etc. I rounded on the guy who was one of those "Well they shouldn't have been out of night, they know what was going on" type of blokes".

The police and media's treatment of those poor women was disgraceful and sadly times haven't changed that much.

I was a kid in Bradford when it was going on. My mum walked on canal home in an evening. Much braver than i would be