Original subtitles

- (dramatic music playing)

FRED: The savage slaying of two women in one night.

- (overlapping chatter)

- Jesus Christ!

Had the whole country hooked.

- Read all about it.

- My job, to report every lurid detail

of the killer's macabre crimes.

Heart, liver, intestines, all removed.

- Come see the body!

FRED: And keep the public royally entertained.

- Words have power, Fred, now more than ever.

- And our plan was working.

We've sold out.

- Then start another print job (laughs).

FRED: Circulation of The Star was increasing by the day.

O'CONNOR: To The Star! ALL: To The Star.

FRED: And my boss T P had no intention of letting the story die.

- Can you make him speak?

FRANK: Even if it meant falsifying evidence.

ABBERLINE: Yours truly, Jack the Ripper.

FRED: But how far would he take it?

- Let's keep the letter out of the public domain for now.

FRED: And at what cost to others?

- You can tell Fred he needs to write another letter.

(laughs)

- (thunder crashes)

- (theme music plays) - (keyboard keys clack)

- (street hum)

- (gentle music plays)

O'CONNOR: You can tell Fred he needs to write another letter.

- (pen scribbles)

FRED: I was not coddling dear old Boss

when I gave you the tip.

You'll hear about Saucy Jacky's work tomorrow.

- If this was a Hollywood movie...

isn't it genius that the crime reporter writes the letter

that fuels the story that guarantees him a next shift.

But it isn't.

FRED: Double event this time.

Number one squealed a bit, couldn't finish it off.

Had no time to get ear off for police.

Thanks for keeping the last letter back until I got to work again.

Jack the Ripper.

- I can't imagine what it would have been like

for Fred to be sitting there being put under that pressure.

How do you say no to that?

Because you know that just over the shoulder is another journalist

who will say, yes.

- It's quite an extraordinary thing for Fred to have done.

To try and get inside the mind of a crazed killer like this.

To try and imagine the kind of language he would have used.

But of course he would have had to do that to make it convincing

and to make it sensational enough to sell newspapers.

- You're back early.

- Yeah. Not stopping.

- What's all that?

- Nothing just notes.

- You know I heard he struck twice in one night. Is that true?

- Yeah, it's true. So, stay home tonight, will you?

- Where, where are you going?

FRED: Off to work.

- (door shuts)

- For God's sake!

- (tense music plays)

- The next communication received at the Central News Agency

purporting to be from Jack the Ripper,

became known as the Saucy Jack postcard.

And in there the alleged killer writes about

killing two victims.

So, this leads off from the double event murders

of Liz Stride and Catherine Eddowes.

- The Saucy Jack postcard is really interesting

because it follows the same language and terminology

of the Dear Boss letter.

They feel very similar;

they sound like they are by the same person.

FRED: Double event this time, number one squealed a bit,

couldn't finish it off.

- Because of how quickly the second letter arrives

at the Central News Agency and because it had such detailed

knowledge of the murders, people felt these letters

couldn't be written by anyone else other than the person responsible.

In recent history the handwriting was analysed,

and it found that not only did those letters match

and that they were by the same author.

That author was most likely Fred Best.

MAN: Yours truly, Jack the Ripper.

- (dramatic music plays)

- T P, I have just been having lunch with an old colleague

from The Daily News.

They are publishing the letters.

And we can get the story out too by fifth edition if we start now.

FRED: Yes. ERNEST: Come on, Fred.

- Wait!

What if we spike their guns?

- How? They are already going to print.

It will be out by tomorrow.

- Well, they think they have got the real thing already, don't they?

What about instead of trying to get it out ahead we make it

known that these letters are almost certainly a hoax.

- Undermine the exclusive. - (light thud of filing cabinets)

ERNEST: Genius! O'CONNOR: Get to it!

- I think this is very much an attempt

to kind of throw anyone else off the scent.

It's incredibly confusing if you think The Star

is responsible for these letters.

For this invention of Jack the Ripper.

- (typewriter keys clanging) - (laughs)

- And The Star was one of the first papers to break the news.

- (O'Connor continues laughing)

- (dramatic music playing)

- On October 1st the world learns the name Jack the Ripper.

So, it would have been a really explosive moment.

- What a name!

Horrific, brutal, torturous violence

of the worst kind.

I mean it sells itself, that's why tabloids love it.

NEWSPAPER BOY: Read all about it!

- (street hum)

- (gentle music plays)

- The decision to release the letters to the press

came from the commissioner of the police, Charles Warren

and lead investigator Frederick Abberline.

MAN: I keep on hearing the police have caught me.

I am down on whores, and I shan't quit.

- They now had two letters from a Jack the Ripper,

who seemed to have inside knowledge of the crimes.

Even if there was a 5% chance that these letters

were written by the killer, you still had to try and see

if there was anybody that could recognise this handwriting.

Anybody that could recognise the words that were being used.

Is there a pattern in speech that might spark someone

if they are close to you, your husband, your brother, your son.

MAN: You will soon hear of me with my funny little games.

- Even if they thought it was the longest shot in the world,

they had to take it, because let's be honest,

they didn't have an awful lot to go on.

- (office hum)

SGT THICK: Sir!

- Well, if this truly is the work of The Ripper

perhaps he's just made his first mistake.

- Well, how so?

- I had a school master who used to say,

he could tell us each apart by the curves of our written work.

He said handwriting was unique to every one of us.

We need to get these letters out there.

- Well, they are in all the papers already.

- That may be but these letters deserve a broader reach.

Have them made up as posters and put up all over London.

- Yes, sir.

- If someone recognises his handwriting,

then old Jack here might just have signed his own death warrant.

- (tense music plays)

- This was a potential line of enquiry

that could have led them to the person they were looking for.

But The Star was deliberately misleading the enquiry.

- The Star is the only paper to say,

"But this is all a hoax."

- And they accused all the other papers of being duped by it,

of being fools.

Only The Star is wise enough to see this for what it really is.

- Not only have they created this monster Jack the Ripper.

But they are now going to expose everyone else

as falling for hysteria and mob panic that they have created.

- (music drowns out speech)

- (dramatic theme music plays)

(dramatic theme music plays)

- (dramatic music playing)

- Hen, listen, please, let me, let me explain.

- What the hell have you done?

What! I know you are lying to me because I saw that you wrote it.

You signed it Jack the Ripper.

- Don't say Jack the Ripper out loud.

You know I am not a killer, you know I am not Jack.

- Well then why would you write it?

- It was only meant to be a bit of fun.

T P, you know, he said, hold the public's imagination.

Keep the story ticking over.

- Have you lost your mind?

- I don't know.

- You do realise if they find out it was you, you are a dead man.

They will hang you Fred, no questions asked.

FRED: Hen, wait!

- Fred's letters for the real killer were an absolute gift.

Because police started to focus resources, manpower,

into the details that are in those letters

while the killer is able to continue with impunity.

- (horse clip clopping)

- Exclusive! Jack the Ripper's bloody joke.

Read all about it.

Exclusive! Jack the Ripper's bloody joke. Read all about it.

- Mrs O'Connor.

- Oh, I recognise you.

- I am Henrietta Best.

My husband works for your husband here at The Star.

Well, all hours God sends.

- Yes. (laughs)

It's become an obsession. - Mmm.

It's funny, isn't it, that the more of these women die,

the more alive they all seem.

- The Ripper thirsts for blood and they thirst for what?

- Money?

- I think it's more than that.

They are captivated by the hunt. The clarion call for their quarry.

- Wow! It sounds like you should be the writer.

- I am. But sadly they are not interested in a woman's opinion.

I am consigned to the society pages for now.

- Oh, that's a shame.

- I think that there's a clear misogynistic element

to The Ripper murders.

And The Ripper himself.

As if he was some kind of entertaining anti-hero.

If Jack the Ripper had murdered vulnerable young men and boys,

would we have Jack the Ripper memorabilia on sale today?

I very much doubt that.

- (door opens)

- (footsteps approach) O'CONNOR: Elizabeth, I...

- (door closes) O'CONNOR: I wasn't sure that you

would be home this evening.

- Really?

With a maniac on the loose you thought

I might be out for an evening stroll, darling?

- (footsteps continue, liquid pours)

ELIZABETH: I saw Fred Best's wife today. She seemed worried

about her husband.

- Oh, Fred. Ha! Is he being scolded for being late out at play?

- (dramatic music plays)

- Is that what this is for you?

Play?

One big game of hide and seek?

- Well, at least we're trying to find him.

It's a lot more than can be said for The Met.

- I don't think anyone's really trying to find him.

Because I don't think anyone really cares.

O'CONNOR: Oh, come on. - If it was distinguished gentlemen

being slaughtered in the streets or politicians,

do you not think they would have found him by now?

- But it isn't. - (dramatic music intensifies)

- No.

No, it's just some unfortunate women and no one cares about them.

Not the police, not the politicians, no one.

It is women who are being slaughtered

and it's women who pay the price in constant fear

and curtailed freedoms.

- They will find him, Elizabeth.

And until they do, we will hold to account those responsible

for letting him get away with it.

That if nothing else, I promise you.

- By this point in the investigation there's a huge climate of distrust

of the police.

The press is targeting Charles Warren.

And the situation feels incredibly unstable.

NEWSPAPER BOY: Killer stalking the streets of London.

Get your copy of The Star!

- T P!

- What? - I have just been speaking to

a copper at Catherine Eddowes funeral.

He told me exactly why Warren was at the crime scene at 05:00AM.

- (street hum)

- A message had been written on the wall in chalk.

They think it is from the actual Ripper.

- That's extraordinary.

- What's more extraordinary is that Warren had them wash it off.

ERNEST: No!

FRED: He didn't want anyone to see it.

- What did it say?

- The Jews are the men that will not be blamed for nothing.

- What the hell is Warren thinking?

There has been so little genuine evidence to go on.

What would possess the man to get rid of the one real piece he finds?

- It makes no sense.

- When Charles Warren made the decision that this graffiti

should be washed down...

his motivations for doing so was that it had antisemitic connotations

in a predominantly Jewish area.

And that was made more difficult by some of the irresponsible reporting

that was going on in the press.

On the potential that our killer was of Jewish heritage,

Warren's motivations were one of public order.

When what there should have been, is one of evidence gathering.

- T P O'Connor definitely has a personal axe to grind

with Charles Warren.

This is the man who is the Head of The Met.

And he becomes the figurehead for a lot of people

as the only person left to blame.

- This is it.

This is the story we could take him down with.

Write it!

- (dramatic music plays)

- T P already had it in for Warren

long before The Ripper murders started.

The previous year, before The Star was launched in 1887,

there had been a great gathering of socialist demonstrators

in Trafalgar Square.

FERN: They were for people who desperately wanted to see a free

Ireland and the English out.

But the police presence had been very heavy handed,

and two people had died.

As a staunch supporter of home rule and a free Ireland,

T P is never going to forgive Charles Warren.

He is always going to want to make him pay.

- (dog barks)

STEVE: By October 1888, there had been dozens of reported instances...

- (knocking on door)

STEVE: ..where supposedly Jack the Ripper had contacted

members of the public.

- (door creaks open)

- But the most shocking arrived at the home

of the Chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee,

George Lusk.

- So, George Lusk is a local businessman

and he setup the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee

to among other things patrol the streets

and try and make them safer for women.

- (knife gently taps down on table)

- (tense music plays)

- (retches)

- People had received letters supposedly from the killer already.

But this time it was accompanied by what seemed to be a human kidney.

- (continues retching)

- It's very easy to write a letter to purport to be from a killer

claiming that you have knowledge of the crimes.

But where do you get a piece of human kidney from?

- From hell.

Mr Lusk, sir, I send you half the kidney I took from one woman.

I preserved it for you. The other piece I fried and ate.

- Who wrote that? Did you?

FRED: No. - Did you?

- No. - Where is the letter now?

- With the police.

It must be a prank, no?

If we convinced them our letters were real.

How do we know other papers aren't doing the same.

ERNEST: Catherine Eddowes was missing a kidney.

- Then print it.

If it turns out to be a joke, it is still a damn good story.

- And to hell with the fucking truth, is that it, T P?

You do realise the police are up to their necks in false confessions

and copycat letters ever since we sent ours.

- We?

There is only one of us here with red ink on their hands, Fred.

- (tense music plays)

- I think very often the reporter will carry the can.

If you have an editor telling you to do something

and you go ahead and do it, where does the responsibility lie?

- (tense music continues playing)

- The kidney that was sent to Mr Lusk

of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee

was certainly a significant moment.

The police would want to know is this real or is it someone hoaxing.

- So, it's clear this is half of a human kidney.

Left organ divided lengthways.

The kidney shows an advanced state of nephritis information...

- Which is? - It's a common ailment.

Ginny kidney they called it. It's a drinkers' disease.

- And you say, Catherine Eddowes suffered from Ginny kidney?

And it's the left one.

In which case we might suppose...

- Not conclusively, but it certainly increases the likelihood.

This could be the kidney that was removed from the victim.

- Thank you.

- When I reflect on all of the communications

received in this enquiry,

if there was one that was more likely to be from the killer,

for me it was this one.

We have a piece of human kidney, shortly after Catherine Eddowes

was murdered having had a piece of her kidney removed.

So, for Abberline this would be a lead

he would have to have taken seriously.

- (music drowns out speech)

- (dramatic theme music plays)

(dramatic theme music plays)

- (bells ring)

- Don't you knock? - (door shuts)

- You're drunk! - Chance would be a fine thing.

I have given you all my money.

- I am starving!

You are skint?

You expect me to do what, sing for my fucking supper?

- Mary Jane Kelly is in her mid-20s,

and we know that she told friends that she had been born in Ireland

and grown up in Cardiff in Wales.

We also know that of the people and the women involved in sex work

she had been managing to turn it to her advantage.

- By 1888 Mary Jane Kelly is really down on her luck.

And she is living in poverty with a man by the name of Joseph Barnett.

- Whose coat is this?

I said, who's fucking coat, is it?

I had a friend stay over.

She would have been out on the street otherwise.

- A whore in our house.

- It isn't your house.

And there is already one whore living here so why not two?

- Oh, shut it, just shut it, shut it. I told you to stop that.

- I never promised that.

You're the one that keeps hoping I will change. I do what I do.

Because I choose to, Joseph.

Because I need to, to survive since you clearly can't support me.

- Love is something that you can find in the most

unlikely of places.

But there are experiences in life that make love very, very hard.

And of course prostitution is going to be one of them

because it attacks relationships from all sides.

- How can you let those men stick their tongues

down your throat and push their filthy hands

and dirty cocks inside you.

- You just can't stand the fact that I don't need you to save me.

- You are disgusting! (scoffs)

- And you're pathetic. Get out!

Ahhh!

(gasps and sighs)

- I did seven straight years in the sex trade.

It's a really corrosive experience for human relationships.

I left once and I never went back.

But I do know instinctually I sense, that going back,

having thought that I had got out for good

would have been absolutely devastating.

- (pub hum)

- They've found another body. He's done it again! (door closes)

- Fred, get down there!

Go on!

- Yes, boss.

On my way.

- (door opens and shuts)

- What is the problem with him?

- Well, perhaps our news hound has lost his appetite.

- (tankard lightly thuds, dramatic music plays)

- Fred was working on the frontline;

he is seeing the worst that life can offer.

- (street screams)

SAMANTHA: The way these women were murdered.

There are no words that could accurately describe

what he was faced with.

- Come see the body!

- You can't unsee these things.

You just can't.

So, for someone like Fred this is horrific.

- (street hum)

- Hey.

- Hi.

ABBERLINE: Find out who lives here, alright.

Any news on this bloody landlord? OFFICER: No, sir.

- Well, keep working on it.

- When you look at the previous murders in the series,

they were murders carried out on the street.

And there was that ever present risk of being caught.

This was really the first time that he had killed inside.

- Mary Jane Kelly was now potentially the fifth victim

of this killer.

And I can't think of any crime I have ever investigated

that had got to this level of violence.

- (tense music plays)

OFFICER: Sir, do you want us to kick the door in? Sir?

ABBERLINE: Break it.

- (dramatic music playing)

- If we think about those officers arriving at that scene,

what they would have been confronted with

would have been shocking for them.

- (retches)

- Sir, the photographer is here.

- Document everything.

Close the door.

- (camera shutter clicks)

- When you look at the photos

that are still in existence

they are appalling, and they leave you with a sense

of complete revoltion at what he's done.

He just removed tissues,

removed breasts.

Opened the abdomen.

Almost emptied out the abdomen.

On one particular thigh removed pretty much all the muscles.

He opened the chest.

Took the heart out.

And really just did the most horrendous mutilation to the face.

- If a woman is murdered,

statistically there is a 50% chance

that it is going to be at the hands of their partner or ex-partner.

It's something we know now, and I am sure they were aware of

back in 1888.

So, Mary Jane Kelly's partner Joseph would have been somebody

that everybody wanted to talk to, to get his version of events.

- That looks like him there. - Where?

- At the bar.

Be careful though, OK. I'll wait here.

- Yeah.

Joseph Barnett, is it? Is it?

- Yeah.

It is.

- I, um, I just wanted to ask you a few questions

for The Star newspaper.

- The Star newspaper.

You will be wanting to know all about my Marie Jeanette, I suppose.

I thought it was Mary Jane.

- You thought it was Mary Jane. No, sir, no.

Marie Jeanette.

And I can tell you all about her for The Star newspaper, I can.

- Um, how long were you together?

- Together, about a year and a half.

And we still would be if it wasn't for her...

...violent habits.

But what do you expect from a Limerick woman. (laughs)

Did you write that down?

- Yeah. JOSEPH: Yeah.

- Yeah.

- I have been with the police two hours

telling them that I saw...

whispers: the body by peeping through the window.

Oh!

(sighs) We were happy, we were.

Apart from when she let that fucking woman in the house!

(exhales)

I left them to it.

And then I gave her no money on Thursday.

And then I saw nothing more of her.

(sobbingly laughs)

Nothing.

- Thank you, Joseph. Bless.

- Thank you.

- There's no doubt that Joseph Barnett's relationship

with Mary Jane Kelly had been volatile.

The smashed window from an argument was evidence of this.

But Barnett provided an alibi which checked out.

- (sobbingly laughs)

- So, the police were happy to eliminate him from their enquiries.

The injuries to Mary Jane Kelly were so appalling

that it was difficult to understand who would be responsible

for something so grotesque.

- (clock chimes in distance)

- The poor woman lay on her back on the bed.

Her throat was cut from ear to ear right down to the spinal column.

The ears and the nose had been cut clean off.

The breasts had also been cleanly placed on a table.

The stomach and the abdomen had been ripped open.

The kidneys and the heart had also been removed.

The liver had likewise been removed. And laid on her right thigh.

The uterus had been cut out. And these appeared to be missing.

The face was slashed about, so that the features

of the poor creature were beyond all recognition.

The clothes of the woman were lying by the side of the bed,

as though they had been taken off and laid down in an ordinary manner.

Her name was Mary Jane Kelly.

She was 25 years old.

- Warren has this woman's blood on his hands.

- Then do not hold back.

And while you are at it,

add that we're the highest selling

evening paper in the country.

- Really?

It seems in poor taste.

- No. It's a direct message to Warren.

He should know our reach.

And he should fear our influence.

- (dramatic music plays)

- The Star had been putting pressure on Warren

in editorial after editorial.

He failed to catch the killer

and in the absence of a killer, the press needed a victory.

And in the end Warren was the fall guy.

- It's clear to me that Commissioner Charles Warren

didn't have the experience to lead such a complex case.

But The Star had been misdirecting the investigation

from the very start.

T P O'Connor was just interested in boosting sales of the newspaper.

And humiliating Charles Warren in the process.

- Oh, how I have longed to write this headline.

Warren Gone!

- (cheering, applause, laughter)

- But no one has caught him though, have they?

- Oh, it's only a matter of time, Fred.

- Mmm. More time to catch a killer

or more time to keep printing money, hey, T P. Hmmm?

(bangs table) My boy!

- It seems like a good time for you and me to have conversation, Fred.

What do you think?

- (percussive dramatic music plays)

- (music drowns out speech)

- (dramatic theme music plays)

(dramatic theme music plays)

- (groans)

It appears you haven't been in the best of spirits, Fred.

Fair comment?

- It's been the hardest story of my career, Mr O'Connor.

It's true.

- Which is why what may appear at first to be bad news,

you might in time become grateful for.

- Are you terminating my position?

- It has come to the attention of Colman and Brunner

that you were behind the forged letters.

- (scoffs) We all were. - I know.

But there is no sense in throwing us all in the fire though,

is there Fred? Huh?

Look, I'm sorry, but you will just have to take this one for the team.

- (sombre music plays)

- And I'll make sure that when you are leaving

that you get an excellent reference.

And of course, payment for your last article.

- Hah! Last article. - Yes. Thank you, Fred.

Thank you.

- (footsteps continue retreating)

- I fully understand the pressures that Fred was under.

But you have a decision to make as to whether or not

you cross that line.

Fred thought about this, and he crossed that line.

I don't think there is any justification for that.

So, I think Fred is just as complicit as T P.

- I think Fred Best knew he was good at his job and storytelling.

He contributed to this case in such a profound way.

And that was something that he will have to live with

for the rest of his life.

- So, gentlemen, I have big plans for this paper.

Ah!

So, have I unwittingly been served my last supper?

- Well, we've decided that you must send in your resignation.

- On what grounds?

For taking a blank piece of paper and turning it into a newssheet

with the reach of 300,000 people?

- But at what cost?

- We now know that the directors of The Star newspaper

found out that their journalists had been misleading

the police investigation.

Fred Best had already been dismissed.

But they now had to wash their hands of T P.

- T P instructed Fred to write the letters.

Then it is absolutely right that he should also be let go.

The buck shouldn't just stop with the reporter, right.

I think there is a real responsibility sitting

within those newspaper organisations who took the decision

to publish information that they knew not to be true.

- You have left us no option.

- Fucking nonsense.

It's the largest circulation of any evening paper in the country.

- We expect your resignation by tomorrow morning.

- I think T P and The Star's reporting

certainly heralded a new era in journalism

that didn't care about the facts.

That cared about chasing a sensational story.

WOMAN: See you tomorrow.

FERN: And not about the impact on the lives of the people

that it involved.

- 11 women were murdered in Whitechapel between 1888 and 1891.

But only five of the victims are generally agreed

to be by the same killer,

Jack the Ripper.

With Mary Jane Kelly thought to have been the last.

Speculation as to Jack the Ripper's identity has raged

for almost 140 years.

Notable suspects include Walter Sickert, a famed artist,

Dr Francis Tumblety, an American herb doctor,

and most recently Aaron Kosminski a Polish barber.

But the killer seemed to be able to get away with his crimes

in the middle of one of the most packed cities in the world.

The Star's handling of the story

helped it become the biggest selling newspaper in the country.

- Well, for all of our sins,

we shone a light on the destitute when they were left

by the establishment to suffer in the darkness.

And what's more,

we fucking entertained them as we did it.

- (laughter)

- But how much did the behaviour of the journalists

divert police resources, manpower,

attention, time, hours

away from looking for the killer?

Jack the Ripper.

And yet that's what still all these years later

stays in the public conscience.

I honestly, genuinely think it comes down to the name.

Such a simple thing, isn't it?

Giving a killer or a case a name.

People remember Jack the Ripper.

- The name Jack the Ripper is something that was given to us

by a group of men who were trying to make money.

And we lose sight of that, and we lose sight of the women themselves

because we want to be scared of the monster.

- I think the press of the day were entirely complicit

in turning the whole thing from a tragedy

into a highly entertaining fiasco.

- Let's go.

- They did that for their own ends. For their own careers.

And they did it entirely I would say without a wit of compassion

for the women involved.

And not only the women who had already been killed

but the women who were sure to be killed.

- (typewriter keys clacking)

- (choir ahhs)

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