Just watching ‘The Yorkshire Rippers New Victims’

[OhDear2200]

On channel 5.

Bloody heartbreaking. What an utter utter evil bastard.

What makes me so angry is the film of the police officers laughing the day after they arrested him. Laughing!!!

What a fumbled investigation by the police

Iirc women were told not to go out at night? Massive amount of victim blaming went on.
Totally evil bastard

You’ve got to wonder whether the police at that time really listened to the voice of women. Those women (and men!) saying they were attacked by him.

I don't know a huge amount but what I understand is

Police weren't interested while he was targeting prostitutes. Only got interested when he attacked a woman who did not do that work

Told women to stay indoors. The thing that shocked me was that apparently there were loads of demos and anger from women about that. They don't tend to mention that when they cover the story- doesn't fit with the narrative?

And of course they totally fucked up the investigation

This is an amazing documentary www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003m05 And tells the story from a woman’s perspective. I really recommend it. It charts the beginnings of the Reclaim the night movement and is very critical of police attitudes.
I lived in Leeds shortly after the ripper was caught. The attitudes towards women were still insidious. I remember posters on buses stating ‘Women reduce your risks’ followed by a long list of things women shouldn’t do, like be out alone after dark. I was studying Women’s studies (those were the days!) and carried a thick felt tip with me at all times so that I could scrawl ‘Kill all men’ on the poster as a rejoinder.

I was just going to recommend that BBC documentary! It really is very good. Terrible that there is so much media about the murders but very little from the pov of women.

That one really does redress this and as you say @MajorBumsore not only the women who were murdered but their families and women generally.

I was a child at the time and remember the newspaper reports showing the women's photographs and thinking they were all prostitutes so sort of "naughty" women, and that's what happened to naughty women. In my defence that's what we were told pretty much and I feel so guilty now that I had such a bad viewpoint for so long.

One of the many heartbreaking moments in it was watching the adult child of one of the murdered women say that he couldn't understand why people were saying his mum was a prostitute. He was just a little boy whose mum didn't come home one night and then he found out she was dead, which is horrific enough, but then he heard all these stories about her. What a traumatising experience for a child.

Really it was disgusting how it was handled. The only reason he got away with what he was doing was because he was a man who hated women operating in a misogynistic society. The police, the press and society in general were all so misogynistic that they couldn't know what they were looking for because really what they were looking for was everywhere.

I’d recommend listening to the Crime Analyst podcast by Laura Richards - she focuses on the victims and the police mishandling (doesn’t seem a strong enough word) of the case. She refers to the perpetrator only by his initials and refuses to use what she calls ‘the R word’ to describe him.

It includes interviews with Richard McCann (son of Wilma, the boy Dogs refers to above) and Julie Bindel who was also a young woman in Leeds at the time.

And, if your blood pressure can stand it, an episode of Radio 4’s The Reunion (on BBC Sounds) from only 5 years ago when some of the detectives involved were interviewed and still distinguishing between ‘innocent’ and other victims. Worth listening for the perspective of Christa Ackroyd who was a young journalist reporting at the time and still, quite rightly, outraged at this attitude.

Thanks for the recommendations. Will need to find a time when I feel strong, as last nights program had me in tears.

@MajorBumsore

The police officers dealing with the case, especially in the beginning, demonstrated all that was wrong in those days. Horrific behaviour, joking about when he was caught and completely disregarding how the families were feeling. The police were sexist, misogynistic, blinkered and incompetent. Lives could have been saved if they had done their job and listened to other victims.

I remember, when he killed a 16-year-old shop assistant (not a prostitute), a London newspaper ran the headline "This time an innocent victim". They were all bloody innocent! And men in a Leeds pub chanting "Ripper 8, police nil" as if it was a sport. A man I met from that area told me Sutcliffe was seen as a folk hero for outwitting the police.

As Germaine Greer said, women really have very little idea of how much men hate them.

I remember it all well, and it was exactly like that, @thinkingaboutLangCleg.

Jayne McDonald was the "innocent" victim. Some of the others were prostitutes, some reported as being prostitutes, and some not prostitutes at all. It mattered, because it affected how the investigation was carried out ie that Sutcliffe had a "hatred of prostitutes". It makes me so angry that they didn't listen to Jo Brown, who made a brilliant and accurate photo fit, and Marilyn Moore, who did the same. Other womens' evidence was also ignored (such as Marcella Claxton, who was deemed to have learning difficulties, and whose evidence was dismissed.).
By the time Josephine Whitaker was killed (another "innocent" victim walking through a "respectable" area Oldfield was already distracted by "Wearside Jack".

In the end, Sutcliffe was caught by everyday, mundane coppering. Nothing at all to do with Gregory and Oldfield. That smug press conference makes me so angry.

So much macho posturing, so many missed opportunities.

So many lives needlessly lost and so many children left motherless.

There may be other victims too, killed by Sutcliffe during his many trips as a lorry driver in other parts of the country (and abroad).

@absolutetelynotfabulous
The press conference was abhorrent.

Watch the kids program, interviews with the victims that were ignored. Like I said had me in tears.

Not kids!!!

From the Wikipedia article on Peter Sutcliffe:

Jim Hobson, a senior West Yorkshire detective, told a press conference in October 1979 the perpetrator:

"has made it clear that he hates prostitutes. Many people do. We, as a police force, will continue to arrest prostitutes. But the Ripper is now killing innocent girls. That indicates your mental state and that you are in urgent need of medical attention. You have made your point. Give yourself up before another innocent woman dies".

Shocking, isn't it, @Cattenberg?

(I think Jim Hobson is the other one who appears in that press conference).

Ah, I didn’t realise that.

Nasty isn't it. Like he wasn't mental when he was killing (women who the police categorised as) prostitutes. Like that's a rational thing to do. Really just awful.

Jim Hobson, a senior West Yorkshire detective, told a press conference in October 1979 the perpetrator: "has made it clear that he hates prostitutes. Many people do. We, as a police force, will continue to arrest prostitutes. But the Ripper is now killing innocent girls. That indicates your mental state and that you are in urgent need of medical attention. You have made your point. Give yourself up before another innocent woman dies".

Even worse than I remembered. I wish I could say things are better now. No one would now dare say what Hobson said to the press. But the attitudes are still there, as we see every day in the "Kill all TERFs" and "I'm going to fuck up a TERF" abuse aimed at women who dare to speak out for women's rights.

After the Ipswich murders Richard Littlejohn had this to say:

• in the scheme of things the deaths of these five women is no great loss.They weren't going to discover a cure for cancer or embark on missionary work in Darfur. The only kind of missionary position they undertook was in the back seat of a car. www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-423549/Littlejohn-Spare-Peoples-Prostitute-routine-.html

I don't think attitudes have changed that much since the 70s

@SadlyMissTaken that article is horrific.

How can people think it is ok to write such shit?

How can people pay money to read it?

My life is equal to the life of prostitutes. Anyone with an ounce of brain matter can understand that my life chances have led to the very privileged position that I’m in (education and financial), which does not necessitate me making those life choices. Or even being in a position of exploitation by men who would force me into prostitution.

My life is of no greater worth than theirs.

@OhDear2200 it's an appalling piece
Unfortunately there seem to be endless ways to deflect blame away from perpetrators of hideous crimes against women.
Looking at some comments about Sarah Everard's disappearance, people still seem to think that women who walk alone at night are partly responsible for criminal actions against them