The Yorkshire Ripper Files

[hackmum]

I haven't watched this documentary, but there's a very good review by Tim Dowling:

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/mar/27/the-yorkshire-ripper-files-a-very-british-crime-story-review-a-stunningly-mismanaged-manhunt

Some of it is so chilling. West Yorkshire Police's multiple errors were the result not just of staggering incompetence but deep misogyny.

And this quote from the attorney-general's speech at the trial is just extraordinary:

“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.”

I'd love to say things were different now. But they're not.

I watched it. One woman who was attacked but survived was described in police reports as having loose morals - because she was attacked coming home from the pub without her husband. There was a lot of talk at the time about the innocent victims, as opposed to the prostitutes. Those women deserved so much better.

Part two is on tonight.

Dehumanising women in order to explain away male violence.

What channel please?
I remember the Take back the night marches, scarey time.

It was shocking how they felt the women deserved it. So many horrible men featured, not just Peter Sutcliffe - the police officers who spoke differentiated between innocent women and ones who deserved it etc, the husband who sent his wife off to prostitute herself while he waited in the pub and then refused to identify her body but sent his 17 year old son instead, the father of Wilma McCann who abused her and then abused her motherless children and killed their dog. Such vile attitudes, and in my lifetime!

I felt so much for Richard, Wilma's son. He has experienced so much sadness. I hope he has peace and happiness now.

I watched the programme last night and it's an excellent examination of the horrific misogyny around that case and in the culture generally.

I had to read up on the Ripper case as part of a dissertation I wrote as a student many moons ago and as part of the research I read the essay Joan Smith wrote in her brilliant book Misogynies. She appeared in the programme last night too.

It was an utter eye opener and completely enraging. It had a huge effect on me at the time wrt VAWG and misogyny and made me question a lot of things. It's one of my earliest feminist awakenings.

I can still remember (I think) a quote from someone involved in the case along the lines of

The Ripper hates prostitutes. Many people do - just jaw dropping.

Richard McCann is an amazing man, have heard him speak before. His Mum would be so proud of him.
Sadly his sister had too many demons to cope with and took her own life . Having heard her speak about what happened to her Mum I thought she was a lovely girl and just so wish she’d been able to overcome her issues.

West Yorkshire Police's multiple errors were the result not just of staggering incompetence but deep misogyny.

Fancy that. West Yorkshire Police, you say.

Great big sarcasm smiley.

There's a very good book by an ex-policeman that suggests Sutcliffe is responsible for more missing women in Britain, particularly in London. And a few men too.

I worked in a police station during the Yorkshire Ripper years (not WYP but not a million miles away either) and all I can say is that Life On Mars wasn't complete fiction.

I felt so sad hearing about the women who lost their lives because they had no other way to put food on the table.
The wife who turned to prostitution after the family business went under with her husband waiting for her in the pub...

Fancy that. West Yorkshire Police, you say.

I know, right. You'd hope that they'd learn from their mistakes, wouldn't you? In their place, I'd feel an enormous amount of shame about the way the force had let women down, and a determination to do better.

But no, on they go, blundering along, still blaming victims more than 40 years later.

I watched this programme last night, and knew one of the women or a relation of hers as i recognised the name and area she lived in in Halifax as i lived across the road from this family
When the ripper was at his most notorious, my son brought a man home he had met in a pub, who spoke with a Geordie accent, the man had nowhere to stay that night and i was furious as it was just when they were looking for the man with a Geordie accent
However he did stay on my settee for the night, and in the morning had lit the fire and put the kettle on,
As it happened he wasnt the Yorkshire ripper, thank god, but he was wanted for an armed robbery in Leeds, and was arrested soon after,

TheQueef - it's on BBC4 at 9pm. It's a three-part series on over 3 consecutive nights. Tonight is part 2. I assume last night's is on iPlayer.

I lived in the area when it was all going on (was in my mid-teens) and it's all seared into my memory. My brother would come and meet me at the bus stop (unheard of before then!) in the dark.
There was a big rumour going round that he dressed as a woman so that he could offer lifts to women who were scared of the Yorkshire Ripper.
It was a scary time.

Ta Pearl I'll watch it later at Ddads, he will remember loads too.

Yes, the former superintendent (I think) laughing at investigating or arresting kerbcrawlers but happily arresting prostitutes and fining them so they had to go back onto the streets

And when they were fined, they had no money to pay the fines so they went back out on the streets to earn the money to pay the fines and then they got arrested and convicted and fined again... They were caught up in a vicious spiral.

I went on the 1977 Reclaim the Night March in Leeds. So much anger.

All three episodes are already on iPlayer. All very good if excruciating to watch.

The Reclaim the Night march features!

Totally shocking.
Made my blood boil
Why should women be told to stay off the streets and walk around in pairs, tell men to get off the streets!
Oldfield was incompetant and a mysoginist.

I was in student accommodation a few hundred yards from where Jackie Hill was murdered. We had a visit from WYP telling us not to go out alone - there were a couple of long-haired male friends with us at the time and they were told the same thing as they looked like women from behind.

Seeing footage of the Reclaim the Night marches, which I went on, and the women’s minibus, brought it all back to me. I’d moved 200 miles away from my family to go to uni. It was such a frightening time when it should have been so exciting.

This is a real eye opener about the case. I knew about the whole “loose morals” and lack of respect given to victims who were prostitutes but I wasn’t prepared to hear murder victims referred to in the present day as “girls” by the former GP/pathologist. I was completely enraged when the retired police officer referred to murders of prostitutes versus “normal” murders and continuing to talk about women with a lack of morals.

I go shopping just next to where one woman was found. Its at the back of the shopping centre where I park the car. I always say a tiny little prayer for her.