The Ripper Files

[DuggeesWoggle]

Is there no thread about this 3 part series?

Just finishing watching this on iPlayer. Growing up in the north just after this all happened I heard talk of the ripper but have never really seen it all put together like this.

Fascinating documentary, and what a damning indictment of the misogynistic, racist, classist and downright poor police inquiry. And how moving to hear the victims' stories and hear them finally being treated with respect.

I wonder how many women would have been saved if the police hadn’t been so fixated on the idea of a prostitute killer and cocked up the investigation. They had an eye witness and description from one of the earliest surviving victims that they pretty much ignored .
Fascinating series, also because I keep seeing areas from my childhood in the news footage, just as I remember it. My mum was scared witless by it all at the time, some of the attacks were very local.

Wilma McCanns son too, that story is heartbreaking and he is very eloquent.

Yes Pigeon I really felt for him, what a life to be plunged into. He spoke so genuinely and honestly about his experiences.

What really shocked me was the blatant disregard for the eyewitness accounts of those who survived being attacked by Sutcliffe. The black woman who was told that her attacker was black, despite her repeatedly stating that he was white. The overt and crude racism, the treatment of these women as little more than scum who almost deserved what they got because they were sex workers. The policeman who laughed at Tracey Browne's description of her attacker, which as it turned out was a perfect description of Sutcliffe. Just staggeringly arrogant and blinded.

Men like that had too much power for too long - still do in many areas. They have blood on their hands and should have been held fully accountable for conducting such a dreadful inquiry.

Glad to find others who have watched this programme. I found it a devastating watch but it held my attention unlike anything else in a very long time.

I am still thinking about it.... particularly Wilma McCanns son. Such dignity!

The events shown happened before I was born and when I was a very young baby, and I watched the series with growing horror throughout. Not just the crimes but the portrayal of the classist, sexist, misogynist society and institutions of the UK in the 1970s.

I am so grateful that this documentary was made, focusing on the women who were attacked... giving them and their families a voice, and shining a light on just how awfully many aspects of the investigation were conducted. The arrogance and egos of the leaders of The Ripper Squad, as well as some of the legal minds involved in the eventual prosecution, were just nauseating.

I appreciate those men dedicated years of their lives to the investigation but the disregard and contempt with which they treated anyone who didn't fit their preconceived notions of who the perpetrator was, well, it was indefensible.

I watched this too as I was primary school age when the Ripper was at large, in Yorkshire but not Leeds/Bradford. I remember people being frightened of him.

I found it interesting but it made me so angry. I couldn't believe the attitudes, like you all have said. The sexism and racism; the investigation being run by complacent, mediocre middle-aged white men.

I hadn't known that that was where the 'reclaim the night' march originated from, and I loved the activist who explained that the men didn't understand it at all, and probably just thought they were all mad. In fact there was an ex-policeman interviewed who still didn't understand why it was wrong to tell (or 'advise') women to stay inside in the evening.

I was so angry on behalf of the victims; of poor Wilma McCann and her children, of any women who had to do sex work to make ends meet; of their vilification but somehow blame evading any men (Who they hell did they think was buying all these women's bodies?); of the way the police (and society) made a distinction between victims who were prostitues and those who weren't ('innocent' victims).

Also the utter ineptitude of the ongoing investigation: How Tracy went in to a police station to say one of the photo fits matched hers, and how they dismissed her with something like 'oh it's prank day today is it?' They never acknowledged her attack was by the ripper until he admitted to it in prison. How they refused to accept Marcella's assertion that her attacker was white and used the most abhorrent language to dismiss her.

It was fascinating and enraging.

Sounds like this is worth a watch. I have met Richard MCCann several times through work, he does motivational speaking. I have heard him speak about his story probably about 4 times and he doesnt get any less moving or inspiring. He is amazing and really friendly to talk to as well.

I was in my teens when Sutcliffe was finally caught. DF was one of the thousands interviewed (ultimately pointlessly) because of the Wearside Jack tape.

What struck me was the egotism of the people leading the investigation. They were told that the letters and tape were a hoax but allowed themselves to be flattered and fatally diverted by them. They were like detectives from a different age trying to catch some sort of evil genius. In the end Sutcliffe was caught by chance.

Was he mad? Hearing voices from God? Or is this a story he now believes having told it so many times.

It was good that the program talked about the victims as real people not cyphers. They had lives, they mattered.

There was a thread about the program on the Feminist Board

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

YY to what has already been posted here. The police in this instance wernt very well read were they?

When i saw a previous documentary about "Wearside Jack" i couldnt see why they couldnt work out it was a hoax.

It was word for word the "Dear Boss" letter purported to have been sent by Jack The Ripper and had been mentioned in many books about it.

I must watch this on iPlayer. This is very close to my heart as I was a student in Leeds at the time. I left the house just before the evening news to go to the swimming pool at Beckett Park, and missed the announcement that he had murdered a student just yards from where I was walking from the bus stop.

When I walked into the changing room everyone was shocked that I had been wandering around in the dark in Headingley. The Yorkshire Ripper decimated our social life, and seminars and lectures had to be rearranged so that they finished by 4pm. Quite a few of us used to travel in by train, and we all walked to the station en masse after lectures. I think the club I went to folded because all the girls stopped going.

The relief when they caught him was unimaginable.

I was at middle school when the Ripper was on the loose and this programme brought it all back vividly.

Stunned at the ineptitude of the officers in charge, the misogyny and casual racism and their closed-mindedness, particularly over the letter and tape, when there was nothing to suggest it was genuine. Staggering to think of the time wasted and the additional lives lost.

It was a great series,so well done. Most of it horrifying and I'm not talking about the murders! Some of the attitudes were appalling.

We had a primary school teacher who told us in great detail about the Yorkshire Ripper, he hadn't been caught at that point, that man was responsible for many a nightmare.

Wish we could see more of Joan Smith on our screens she’s excellent

I'm finishing the 3rd episode now. It's making me so angry. The attitude towards these poor women is horrifying.
The barrister interviewed has a terrible approach.
They should all be ashamed of themselves.

Excellent program but not good for the blood pressure

Extraordinary that two of the victims produced such accurate identikit pictures which were all but ignored by the investigation which preferred to focus on the tape and letters (and refused to believe that one of the women was even a victim on the basis that she was not a prostitute). I grew up in Leeds at that time and remember the climate of fear and never being allowed to walk home alone from anywhere. A couple of my dad's friends were interviewed because they had Newcastle accents - although this clearly flew in the face of first hand evidence of women who had survived attacks. The other thing that struck me was how much more difficult it must have been to conduct an investigation on that scale in those days without the benefit of computers. Everything being recorded by hand and cross-checked by hand to say nothing of the absence forensics, security cameras and mobile phone information. There was some good police work going on, in spite of the incompetence at the top, with the tracing of the £5 note for instance and the research on the tyre tracks (later abandoned) and it was good policing that caught him in the end although ironically by another force, but you couldn't help feeling it was pretty much a stroke of luck for them that he was practically caught red-handed and then promptly admitted it as the dim-wits running the investigation would have probably have ruled him out on the basis that he came from Yorkshire and his hand writing didn't match the letters.

DD and I commented on how much stronger the Yorkshire accents were 38 years ago. They reminded me of Michael Palin in Ripping Yarns.

Disclaimer I lived in Leeds for 17 years and now live near Sheffield, and people don't seem to have such strong Yorkshire accents these days.

I watched this expecting it to be the usual gory true crime type documentary, but I thought it was very insightful and really looked into the attitudes of society of the time, especially how women were either seen as respectable or whores but weren’t seen as deserving of respect by white middle aged men.

The only thing that irked me was that they kept referring to the voice on the tape as a Geordie accent, it wasn’t, it’s was a very strong Sunderland accent which is why he was known as Wearside Jack.