The Long Shadow - ITV1 - Monday September 25th at 9pm

[Southeastdweller]

Anyone else looking forward to watching this seven part drama?

https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/the-long-shadow-release-date-newsupdate/

The comedy copper from Father Brown is in it as ... a copper! Not comedy though

I'm up to about episode 4 and the men - all of them pretty much - are coming across very badly. They all clearly viewed women as 'lesser'. On the one hand you have the sex worker who is forced, by a man, to go out on the streets to sell sex, then punched in the face and sexually assaulted by a punter, then picked up by the police who treat her with contempt and ridicule her as though she is sub-human. On the other hand you have the young, female police officer who is persuaded to go undercover as a sex worker, with only 6 months policing experience under her belt, purely picked for her looks and not her ability, and then told to remove her tunic so they could look her up and down to determine whether she would look the part. Even back at the police station, after being left terrified by the experience, her BF who she thinks is a good man turns to her and suggests she wears the sex worker outfit at home for him, causing her to rush from the room in distress. Horrible misogyny in every quarter. Ill treatment of women everywhere you look - that's even before you get to what Sutcliffe did to those women. Even the first one to survive an attack was treated with contempt and impatience because they assumed incorrectly that she was a prostitute. No condolences for the loss of her baby. Treated so coldly.

In an aside, I understand that the actor Bruce Jones from Coronation Street actually found the body of the one of Sutcliffe's victims in an allotment he was working on with a friend back in the 1970s. Absolutely traumatising for him, and he also became a suspect, the stress and fallout of which caused him to lose his wife and children. A lot of lives ruined by one wicked man.

Yes, I think the only male characters who have been better-disposed towards women are Toby Jones's police officer, who made a point of saying that Wilma was a mother not 'just' a prostitute, and the doctor who examined Marcella and seemed to listen to her and was quite gentle with her.

According to the Netflix programme, a policeman who interviewed Sutcliffe referred him upwards as someone who should be a definite suspect because he looked so like the photofit and a number of the other clues pointed to him. However, when he told his boss that Sutcliffe didn't have a Geordie accent he was told to fuck off and stop wasting everyone's time.

It was really odd that they knew where the £5 note came from, presumably none of the staff there recognised the voice on the "I'm Jack" tape, yet they still kept such faith in the tape.

I’m glad this programme was made it’s highlighting the deep rooted misogyny which was prevalent within the police force. Actually it probably still is. Such a good programme.
I was saying to dh that my own believe is that despite questioning Sutcliffe 9 times, they police officers had such ingrained stereotypes that the fact he lived in a nice house, was married, softly spoken etc etc. made them think that no, it can’t be him. I really believe that they thought it was ‘a loner’ ‘a loser’ someone who wasn’t married, didn’t have a nice wife at home, probably lived alone or with his mother. This prevented them from missing obvious clues.
As for believing the hoax letters and tape, again allowing stereotypes to cloud their judgement and not listening to reason. Several victims told the police the man who attacked them Spoke with a local Yorkshire accent yet these facts were discarded. Handwriting experts told the police they thought the letters were fake, again this was disregarded. I’ve said this before, someone from the FBI studied the tape and said it was fake, yet all this was disregarded.

'and the doctor who examined Marcella and seemed to listen to her and was quite gentle with her.'

Poor Marcella, a key witness just disregarded . I hope the portrayal of the Doctor was accurate, it was nice to see a professional display empathy and kindness in amongst all the incompetence and the awful misogyny and disrespect shown to the victims.

Yes,Marcella ,recollection of Sutcliffe was very accurate and yet the police didn't believe her and kept implying it wss a black man who.had attacked her
She was treated terribly.

Marcella's story is just awful. Imagine going through that and not being believed. The letter from the Criminal Injuries board was awful. I'd like to think there was a nice doctor who showed her some compassion.

I think it was mentioned earlier in this thread, but I thoroughly recommend ‘Somebody’s Mother, Somebody’s Daughter’ by Carol Ann Lee. (her other books are excellent too about Ruth Ellis & Myra Hindley)
The book is very sympathetic to all the victims, and again, exposes the horrible misogyny in the police and media at the time.
At the end of the trial at the Old Bailey, Sir Michael Havers QC had this to say - again, reinforcing the view that the victims who were sex workers ‘deserved it’ were not ‘respectable’ and ‘immoral’

"Some were prostitutes, but perhaps the saddest part of the case is that some were not. The last six attacks were on totally respectable women."

It took the Northumberland police to point out to the Yorkshire cops that the letters looked like clear attempts to copy what the original Jack the Ripper wrote. Also one of the bodies wasn't discovered for a couple of months, and it was the Northumberland police who noticed that it was just a bit odd that the author of the letters didn't mention that murder until after the body was discovered.

By being so dismissive and misogynistic W. Yorks Police missed the fact that many of the women, right from the outset, weren't sex workers at all. Olive Smelt, who was I think Sutcliffe's first victim (she survived) was not a sex worker, she was just walking in the park near her home when he attacked her with a hammer, completely unprovoked. Wilma McCann too was labelled a prostitute, simply for being out late at night having had a few drinks and walking home. It was utterly wrong, sexist, judgmental and vile, not only to label many of the women as something they weren't, but to see women who were sex workers as being less important and just less valuable human beings. I liked that the writers didn't try and hide this though - the vile attitudes are there for us to see. No wonder it took those bungling dinosaurs so long to catch Sutcliffe - they were so full of their own prejudices and pre-conceived ideas that they didn't see what was right in front of them.

I thought the scene in the police station, where Meg shows the officer who's going to be conducting the inquest into the conference room and shows him all the photos, including the one of Sutcliffe from 1969 when he was first arrested and all the photo-fits that were so accurate and so clearly of him, very moving.

*public inquiry, not inquest

I thought it was odd that they didn't mention anything about the £5.00 note found in Jean Jordan's handbag as that was a pivotal part of the investigation and a missed opportunity to catch Sutcliffe.

I'm guessing the loved ones of Vyonne Pearson and Marguerite Walls didn't give their permission to have include them in the drama. Vyonne Pearson was given a different name and wasn't even included in the tribute at the very end. Marguerite Walls' name was never mentioned and was only referred to briefly as another one Sutcliffe confessed to.

I've got Covid so have been 'binge' watching this. Now on episode 6.
I grew up in the '70s. Not in the North but small town, at the more deprived end of the working class, illegitimate, saw DV, experienced CSA. Hence, not much shocks me as I remember the attitudes towards women all too well. But I'm sitting sobbing at this.

Episode 6 made me cry too @medianewbie - half sadness and half rage/frustration.

How many episodes are there? I’m on tv pace not succumbed to bingeing yet 😏

7

My word, the ending to episode 6 was powerful. I cry easily but I couldn't cry at this because I feel so angry. Angry it took so long to catch him and all those women who died in the meantime and angry that the streets still aren't safe for women.

Wasn't it just? I was crying at the end of 6 but was also so angry at the treatment of victims and the sheer incompetence and stubbornness which caused the police to ignore good information over and over again. I read that for the scenes of the Reclaim the Night march the writer used the slogans on placards from the Sarah Everard protest to make the point that sadly nothing has changed decades on.

I've now watched the final episode (7). All I will say is that I think it very clearly wanted to honour the memories of all affected by PS & did so. Outstandingly.

My dh isn't into crime dramas and doesn't really pay attention to women's issues. He has been playing on his phone while I've binge watched this. The glaring mistakes by the police and their misogyny highlighted in this drama has actually got him to put his phone down and pay attention!
There's a huge amount of familiar actors in this drama. I'm wondering if a lot of people wanted to be involved or ITV threw a lot of money at this production as they wanted it to matter. Katherine Kelly is a fairly big name but was only in it for a short time. Having such a strong actress play the victim really made her stick in the mind.

I knew a bit about the various missed opportunities to catch Sutcliffe from watching documentaries such as the Netflix one and the series on the BBC a little while back. But I don't think I really 'got' how awful the police attitudes had been until watching this drama. There's something about watching characters come out with the most appalling stuff that brings it home in a way that documentaries and books don't. Even right at the end the Leeds coppers couldn't be arsed to go to Sheffield when there was a suspect in custody. Just utterly shocking.

This was the article I read about the writer's approach:

The police were totally inept ,even with all the hindrances in the 1970_s
Such as no.computer system
No DNA etc
It just made them look like bungling ,fools
Particularly with a George old field believing the letter and tapes were actually real.and not a hoax despite what the actual survivors were saying

I'm watching a People Magazine doc on the Lin
Long Island serial killings. The chief of police actively quashed investigations into the bodies showing up on Gilgo beach (including of a mother and toddler) because he was running his own prostitution ring.

I've finished watching the whole series and what stands out for me is the police never trusted the words of what all the women said . they believed in themselves and their own egos more .
In the end uniformed officers sorted it instead of the high rankers with the large egos .
My thoughts on whole of it all make me very angry .
They treated the women like shit .