The Ripper

[grassisjeweled]

Anyone watching this? I've watched the first two episodes, seems good so far

Yes I watched it all today. It is very good.

There has been a lot of criticism from two survivors and the families of the victims so I’m giving it a wide berth. Many of them took part in the series under the impression it would be called “Once upon a time in Yorkshire”.

This is from their statement:

“The moniker "the Yorkshire Ripper" has traumatised us and our families for the past four decades. It glorifies the brutal violence of Peter Sutcliffe, and grants him a celebrity status that he does not deserve. Please remember that the word 'ripper' relates to ripping flesh and the repeated use of this phrase is irresponsible, insensitive and insulting to our families and our mothers’ and grandmothers’ legacies."

Couldn’t agree more @Blueemeraldagain. I live in London and whenever I see the “Ripper Tour” guides hanging around Tower Hill tube station it makes my blood boil.

It's a good series and doesn't glorify Sutcliffe at all . It emphasizes the misogyny that infused the investigation and the news coverage. It also discusses (briefly) the effect of the moniker on the police investigation and how it contributed to their tunnel vision.

I've just watched it & found it interesting.

Something I must have misunderstood though-when one detective(?) went with suspicions to his boss about PS he was told to leave it as PS didn't have a Geordie accent.

I thought that the letters were known to be a hoax by then-so surely the tape was also thought to be?

So he looked like the police sketch, drove the make of car that had the same tyres, worked at the place the 5pound note was issued to...

Or had those dots not been connected?

They went all in on that tape Diddl the letters always had suspicions but the tape was considered the key.

The tape was played to the public so much too.

@TheQueef

They went all in on that tape Diddl the letters always had suspicions but the tape was considered the key.

The tape was played to the public so much too.

Strange that they didn't seem to consider at all that it might be a hoax-especially with so much pointing another way!

I'm guessing PS was also being alibied at least for some of the murders.

I mean they caught him with a woman in a car-just about in the act-but I've read that they let him go for a pee & he threw away a hammer that he had on him which was found the next morning & that he hid another weapon(?) in a toilet cistern when he got to the police station!

It was such a shambles I'm almost surprised that they didn't discount his confession due to his accent being wrong!

They found the hammer just outside a school building (Lynwood annex of king Ted vii in Sheffield)
It really was pure luck (maybe coppering because bobby went back to the scene) he wasn't a suspect I think 9 separate occasions they questioned him, his wife alibied him.
If that bit of serendipity didn't happen the victim rate would be higher. He was escalating and the lack of arrest had the North to ransom.

My DS saw this and found it fascinating. He didn’t know anything about the case before.

After they arrested Peter, there were a handful of attacks (imo copy cat) in Sheffield and Leeds, attacks that did stick to sex workers. They were unpublicised, I only knew of them from women I had made pals with on reclaiming marches. Several strange attacks (no sex) with a blade.
Eventually a working woman called Michaela was murdered (still unsolved afaik) and the knife attacks seemed to stop.
It was a strange time.

It was very good. Poor Bruce Jones, I felt for him when he described finding one of the victims. Traumatic.

Also that a couple of women weren't listened to & one knew that it wasn't a man with a Geordie accent!

If it was a TV drama you'd be shouting with frustration.

The fact that it was real life

I must admit I didn’t watch is as a rule I don’t watch serial killer related stuff. @DulciUke I understand the program wouldn’t have glorified suttclife, and I doubt anything or anyone could glorify him. By all accounts he was utterly unremarkable, not particularly intelligent, just very violent and I guess lucky to run up against such blatant police incompetence. I have read some interesting analyses of the police’s prejudices at the time and the way that hindered the investigation. Journalist Joan Smith was directed to the “Pros’ conference” by a PC when she turned up at a press briefing in Leeds in 1979. They didn’t think she could have been a journalist. She has written very interestingly about the whole case and police investigation.
If the TV programme made the points about general societal misogyny and police prejudices hindering the investigation then it's a good thing.

It's filmed with a very different slant to any docs I've seen so far.
I completely agree the title should be dropped.

Journalist Joan Smith was directed to the “Pros’ conference” by a PC when she turned up at a press briefing in Leeds in 1979. They didn’t think she could have been a journalist. She has written very interestingly about the whole case and police investigation.

Joan Smith is interviewed in the series and is very good about the case and insightful about the underpinning misogyny. I have actively avoided series that sensationalise violence against women over the last couple of years and would have turned this series off if it had. It’s a shame about the stupid title, because the series itself talks a lot about the women and girls he attacked, gives the survivors and their families a voice and absolutely shows up the incompetence and complacence of the WYP investigation. It does not glamourise the crimes in my view, though I found some of the detail upsetting. I am still thinking about it a couple of days later and the WYP report that Joan Smith obtained using the FOI laws in the US. The case is probably used to teach police forces and agencies like the FBI how NOT to conduct an investigation. The exclusion of cases that didn’t fit the narrative was appalling. The documentary made me very angry, but also sad for his victims and their families, all of whom came across really well. I’m saddened to hear it has caused them so much upset, as I think it does a good job of showing how badly they were let down by WYP.

@DulciUke

It's a good series and doesn't glorify Sutcliffe at all . It emphasizes the misogyny that infused the investigation and the news coverage. It also discusses (briefly) the effect of the moniker on the police investigation and how it contributed to their tunnel vision.

100% he's barely even mentioned until the last episode

I've just finished watching it all in one go. It was interesting. There was blatant misogyny at play. I felt like shouting at the telly 'but they were ALL innocent victims, not only the young girls who weren't prostitutes!'
More than anything though, it made me see how far we've come - I'm a relatively short time span - in terms of forensic profiling, DNA, etc.

in not I'm

Did they ever identify who sent the tape and letters? The sender of the tape in particular should be held to account for the effect this had on the investigation and the murders that happened afterwards. They said they had narrowed down the accent really locally.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wearside_Jack

He was - he went to prison. He’s dead now.

I saw the first episode. I didn't think it added much to the BBC documentary which was on a few months ago

Agreed - I thought that one was much better.

Thanks Feenie. I didn't realise that the letters and tape were the same person either.

It occurred to me that the imposter ought to have been banged to rights for this. I'm glad they were found and punished.