THE LONG SHADOW - mon 9pm ITV. TV PACE. NO SPOILERS

[Blondeshavemorefun]

The Long Shadow is a seven-part series that will start at 9pm on Monday September 25 2023 on ITV1, with subsequent episodes broadcast every Monday evening from thereon.

The Long Shadow is based in part on Wicked Beyond Belief by Michael Bilton, a critically acclaimed account of the case. It sensitively tells the stories of the victims who crossed Sutcliffe’s path, as well as their families and survivors. It also highlights alarming parallels between the so-called Yorkshire Ripper’s terrible crimes and tragic events in our more recent history.

Between 1975 and 1980, Peter Sutcliffe terrorised Yorkshire in a killing spree that left 13 women dead and seven others lucky to be alive after they managed to survive his brutal attacks.

His horrific crimes left a deep scar on the nation’s psyche and have been the subject of numerous films and documentaries, but the grief and pain that continues to be felt by his victims’ families is often forgotten.

Opening in October 1975, with the murder of Wilma McCann, a mother of four young children from Leeds, this week’s first episode goes on to follow the story of Sydney Jackson and his wife Emily, who would be Sutcliffe’s second victim.

Like many people in Britain during the period, the Jacksons were struggling to make ends meet in tough economic times, and Emily made the difficult decision to become a part-time sex worker in a bid to support their three children.

The police initially suspect Sydney of killing his wife, until it soon becomes clear the two murders are linked – and the start of a terrifying killing spree.

As the series progresses, Sutcliffe’s crimes launch the biggest police manhunt Britain has ever seen, but many of the detectives harbour misogynistic attitudes that hamper their investigation.

However, one detective who understands the situation is DCS Dennis Hoban (Toby Jones) who takes up the case in its early stages.
Sutcliffe avoided detection for years due to a series of missed chances by police to catch him. He eventually confessed in 1981 after a police check discovered stolen number plates on his car

The cast is amazing

•	Toby Jones (<a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toby_Jones)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toby_Jones)</a> as DCS Dennis Hoban
•	David Morrissey (<a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Morrissey)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Morrissey)</a> as DCS George Oldfield
•	Daniel Mays (<a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Mays)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Mays)</a> as Sydney Jackson
•	Lee Ingleby (<a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Ingleby)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Ingleby)</a> as DCS Jim Hobson
•	Katherine Kelly (<a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Kelly_(actress))" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Kelly_(actress))</a> as Emily Jackson
•	Shaun Dooley (<a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_Dooley)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_Dooley)</a> as DCS Chris Gregg
•	Daisy Waterstone (<a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy_Waterstone)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy_Waterstone)</a> as Jacqueline Hill
•	Jill Halfpenny (<a class="break-all" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Halfpenny)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Halfpenny)</a>

as Doreen Hill

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Jasmine Lee-Jones as Marcella Claxton

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Molly Wright (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Wright_(actress))
as Donna Deangelo

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Liz White (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_White_(actress))
as PS Meg Winterburn

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Mark Stobbart as
Peter Sutcliffe (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sutcliffe)

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Alexa Davies (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexa_Davies)

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Chloe Harris

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Stephen Tompkinson (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Tompkinson)

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Jack Deam (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Deam)

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Michael McElhatton (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_McElhatton)

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Adam Long (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Long_(British_actor))

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Ruth Madeley (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Madeley)

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Dorothy Atkinson (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Atkinson)

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Rob James-Collier (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_James-Collier)

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Charley Webb (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charley_Webb)

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Steven Waddington (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Waddington)

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Kris Hitchen

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Victoria Myers
[1]

It isn’t Arabella Weir, it’s Dorothy Atkinson. But they do look very similar.

I honestly think if they’d given the original detective DCS Hoban more time they would have caught PS earlier, I doubt he would have dismissed Marcella’s experience so readily, I nearly screamed when that just shut her photo fit image of him in the drawer.
I have lived in West York sine the 70s, and it came out that one of the victims children was in my year at school.
It is making me really angry watching it, there are other murders that they didn’t want to link to PS as they couldn’t cope, I noticed this was acknowledged in the second episode when they were reluctant to link the first Bradford murder Patricia Atkinson, until the pathologist showed the matching boot print.
Carol Wilkinson was murdered in Bradford 3 months before Yvonne Pearson, she was on her way to work at the local bakery . An innocent man was charged and convicted, this was later. quashed . I believe there has been a documentary about it Yorkshire Ripper: The Secret Murders.

@SuperFi I think police also investigated the possibility that he may have committed two unsolved murders in Sweden, as his name was on a ferry passenger list around the right time. They believed that the same man committed both crimes but I’m not sure they were able to definitively link them to him.

I'm familiar with this case
However, not an easy watch
The misogyny is off the scale
I do hope the mindset has changed but I'm not holding my breath
Those poor women 😭

And if it wasn't for vile entitled men there would be no prostitutes

I can remember him being caught in Sheffield & hearing it on the radio news one Sunday night straight after the Top 40. My family have a connection to the prostitute who he was with when he was arrested, she had her children taken into care, my cousin adopted her little girl, she had severe behaviour problems & by the time she was 10 she was back in the care system as nobody could cope with her.

I've seen the first three episodes and I think it's great. Episode 3 did a brilliant job of showing how misogyny was (still is) part of the fabric of society. Virtually all the men are just awful, have their own agendas, and have no empathy at all for women. I think the series has shown really well just how terrifying it must be to get into a car with a strange man, in the dead of night, with your life totally in his hands

Great performances all round. Im not sure I've seen Lee Ingleby in anything before, but what a terrific actor. Katherine Kelly always marvellous too

Another shattered family. I wonder what kind of counselling she had, if any.

PTSD in its most profound form, I'd imagine - the enormity of knowing that the police's chance actions that night quite literally saved you from almost certain death. If they hadn't checked his number plate and intuited something 'off' about the situation...god know how many more victims there would have been.

It really does beggar belief how inept the investigation was, I have now watched the entire series, there is a scene in the final episode which really shows how bad it was.
The documentary Yorkshire Ripper: The Secret Murders is also on ITV X.
One of the girls featured who was murdered( Carol Wilkinson) , PS had actually asked her out, she had rebuffed him, and he was seen hanging around the estate, and her dad had reported him for loitering around their house.

I just watched Episode 3. The sound is dreadful and there are no subtitles available to Irish viewers on Virgin TV3. I can't make out the dialogue.

That's so sad 😥
What horrors had that poor child seen .

@SgtCatherineCawood

E4 tonight

Oh I remember now I didn’t fancy it so didn’t put it in. I just thought it was something new! I’ll blame lack of sleep. Sorry @Blondeshavemorefun 😳

Lol. No worries. It's quite good

Awful how the victims were treated and how crap the police were 🥲🥲

Not just the victims, @Blondeshavemorefun - that poor lad that Oldfield was convinced was the killer - sat there a day and a night (or so it appeared) in his pyjamas, no solicitor, no caution, nothing to eat/ drink by the looks of things, his mother left with no idea what had happened to him, and then just dumped in the street outside his house, not even taken to the door and escorted in, no apology - nothing. All of the neighbours saw him arrested - nobody saw him released.
And where was he? It wasn't the police station - was it an old empty school?

My heart ached for the latest victim, too - damaged as much by the knowledge that everyone thought she was a prostitute, as she was by the attack.

Anyone else find the sponsorship 'break bumper' ads a bit insensitive in this drama? A car driving round deserted city streets at night, ffs. 🙄

I always ff ads

You can sign up for a weeks free trial of ITVX Premium and the ads are removed.

Think this is 7 parts and getting tired /bored of this now

The slow drawn out pace of the series is deliberate I think, the investigation itself was long and drawn out. The Wearside Jack tapes, I’ve never forgotten that voice, it was played on the radio, tv often enough. None of the survivors who heard him Sutcliffe’s voice recognised it. The police disregarded the idea that Wearside Jack wasn’t the Ripper. Their incompetence left a nasty legacy.
Their treatment of the survivors was terrible,
Jaqueline Hill, his last victim, and her mum Doreen on tonight’s episode made me gasp, they looked so much like them. The actor who played her dad not so much though.

Keep going @Blondeshavemorefun. The last episode is exceptional and very moving. But the police incompetence or narrow mindedness is so frustrating.
Did Peter Sutcliffe's wife know or not?

I know a relative of one of the victims.

They feel this is the first time their relatives has been sensitively portrayed.

The families have been asking for an apology from the police for years for their attitudes and prejudices against these victims.

They finally received an apology following one of the victims families giving an interview about this drama.

Sutcliffe's wife (and maybe his mil, did I read somewhere?) gave him at least one alibi for the many times police spoke to him about being clocked in red light districts. I have no idea why. Maybe one of those wives who suspected that her husband was using prostitutes but didn't want to admit it to outsiders. She did have mental illness and was perhaps zoned out on medication a lot of the time.

That's nice to know

I watched it on 7 consecutive evenings on streaming and I wasn't bored. How would you have improved it @Blondeshavemorefun? I was hoping for more focus on the victims as individual people - we only saw that with Emily and maybe Jacqui - but maybe the families didn't want that to happen.