All language subtitles for BBC.The.Yorkshire.Ripper.Files.2of3.1080p.HDTV.x265.AAC.MVGroup.org

Police are investigating the
discovery of a woman's body

on a playing field in the
Chapeltown district of Leeds.

She'd been battered savagely
about the head with a blunt instrument

and stabbed many times...

She'd been attacked in similar
circumstances to the other victims.

And, like most of them,
she'd been a prostitute.

Between 1975 and 1981,

a series of horrific murders
in the north of England

would lead to the biggest
manhunt in British criminal history.

In every community this
horrendous killer had visited,

everybody felt the chill.

It destroyed all our lives,
because we were living in fear.

Over five years, the killer,
dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper,

murdered 13 women and brutally
attacked at least eight others.

I just remember all these
hammer blows laying on my head.

About five hammer blows.

Even with his voice
on tape, his handwriting

and the evidence of 12 murders,
they still don't know who he is.

SIREN WAILS

In the aftermath, it emerged
that the killer was questioned

by police nine times
over those five years.

But each time, they let him go,

leaving him free to
kill again and again.

As time went on and
he wasn't being caught,

everybody was concerned that
we could be missing something here.

ANGRY SHOUTS

My name is Liza Williams.

I'm a film-maker who
grew up in the North

and heard stories about
the Yorkshire Ripper.

Now I want to go back 40 years,

to look at this case
with fresh eyes

to find out what went so wrong,

and how the attitudes of 1970s
Yorkshire shaped the investigation.

Most of his victims have been
of somewhat doubtful character.

A bad man's a bad man, but a
bad woman's a bloody woman.

By 1979, nine women were dead

and the murderer was now
Britain's most prolific serial killer.

I hope that we can
draw this to a conclusion

without anyone
else having to die.

Because most of the previous
attacks had happened in red-light areas

and many of the
victims were sex workers,

the police had decided
the killer was motivated

by a hatred of prostitutes.

We're quite certain that
this man hates prostitution.

In this episode, I want to
look more closely at the police.

As the murders continued,

did their theory take them any
closer to catching the Ripper?

I just used to come out of
press conferences thinking,

"They haven't got a hope in hell.
They're not going to catch him."

Or did their instincts
lead them astray,

derailing the investigation,
with deadly consequences?

RECORDING: You are no
nearer to catching me now

than four years
ago, when I started.

At 6:30 this morning, the
body of a 19-year-old girl

was found on playing
fields in Halifax.

In April 1979, the body of the
Yorkshire Ripper's tenth victim

was found in a park in Halifax.

The latest Ripper murder differs
from the rest, in that the killer

struck within a quiet
middle-class housing area.

The body was found by
a woman in Savile Park,

one of Halifax's most
exclusive residential areas.

Josephine Whitaker was
a 19-year-old bank clerk

who lived with her parents
in a genteel suburb of Halifax.

So we're driving around Savile
Park in Halifax at the moment.

On the morning
Josephine's body was found,

forensic scientist Angela Gallop
was called to the scene to aid police.

I've come back to Halifax with
her to find out what she remembers.

I think there are some things that sort
of burn themselves into your memory.

One of the Ripper scenes
was the first crime scene,

the first murder scene
that I've ever been to,

and the first time
I'd seen a dead body.

And so, of course, things
like that, you don't forget.

Just like all the other victims,

Josephine had been hit
over the head with a hammer.

She had been stabbed
25 times with a screwdriver

in the chest, abdomen and leg.

Because of deep scrape
marks in the grass, police believe

she was attacked at the roadside

and dragged to where
her body was found.

We've got an open mind
on it, whether it's a victim

of our friend, the
so-called Ripper,

or whether it's something else.

It's incredibly open.

It is, and I think that was
the first thing that, um...

struck us when we came
here, just how open it was.

And just, you know, how much
of a nerve you'd have to have

to carry out an
absolutely appalling attack

on someone in an area like this.

I remember there were a
bank of press photographers.

They were a long way
away, but you could see

these massive, great lenses
you could just about make out.

I-I just remember that.

Was it Ivy Street? Yeah.
That's just down there.

So it's very close. Really
close to the park, isn't it?

So she must have
been very nearly home.

Josephine was within 200 yards
of her home when she was attacked

and dragged onto
a playing field.

Up until this point, every
murder had taken place in or near

the red-light
districts of Leeds,

Manchester, Bradford
and Huddersfield.

I want to know how
the death of Josephine

affected the police
and the public.

We're all...? Yeah,
all good, yeah. Great.

Ruth Bundey was
a lawyer in Leeds

who represented
sex workers in court.

Things got ramped up when
it wasn't a prostitute who died.

That was... that was
when things got ramped up.

The police, in common with
all levels of society at the time,

became extremely anxious
about the state of affairs

when somebody was
killed who was "respectable".

And the police felt that the
public would be looking at them

to move a little bit faster now.

Opening the inquest
on the latest victim,

19-year-old building society
clerk Josephine Whitaker,

the coroner gave permission
for the body to be buried.

And as he adjourned the inquest,
he said it was right he should say

she was not of the same character
as a number of the other victims.

And it wasn't just the coroner.

I found newspapers paid particular
attention to Josephine's background

and the fact that she
was deemed respectable.

Her murder prompted
outrage and widespread fear.

It feels very different
to the treatment

of many of the
previous murder victims.

Mr Oldfield, the fact that you're
involved has made people think

that possibly she's
the latest Ripper victim.

Well, until we've made
a lot more inquiries,

it's very early doors yet.

The Assistant Chief Constable of
West Yorkshire Police, George Oldfield,

had been heading up what became known
as the Ripper Squad for the past two years.

If there is a link, then it
would appear that once again,

he has made a
mistake, because...

..er... Miss Whitaker was a
very respectable young lady.

Er... whereas most
of his victims, er...

have been of somewhat
doubtful moral character.

Oldfield was firmly of the belief
that the Ripper was on a mission

to kill prostitutes.

And even after the
murder of Josephine,

it seems he wasn't
going to change his mind.

Instead, he said he thought

the Ripper had killed
Josephine by mistake.

Oldfield seemed so
certain about everything.

I want to know what
he was like to work for.

Superintendent Frank Morritt

reported directly
to George Oldfield.

What was George
like as a senior officer?

George was a blunt Yorkshireman.

If he wanted to tell
you it was X, it was X.

No argument with Mr Oldfield.

He'd make a decision
and that was it.

Did he listen enough?

I think he listened, yes, er...

and at the end of the day,
he came to his own opinion.

And having come to that
opinion, that was it, get on with it.

Chris Gregg was a
junior detective in 1979.

The Ripper inquiry
was his first major case.

What was it like back then?

This was a world where the
people who were in charge

as your supervisors, a lot of
them had seen service in the war,

and they expected things
to be done their way.

It was quite macho, the culture.

There was a high turnover.

Well, you'd sink or swim.

Some didn't make it,
for all sorts of reasons.

And, um... you know,
there was no hesitation.

You're out of the door.

About turn!

Along with a culture
of rigid hierarchies,

murder investigations
in the 1970s

had none of the forensic tools
that the police rely on today.

With no DNA
fingerprinting or CCTV,

all they could do was scour
each crime scene for evidence,

or search for eyewitnesses.

325, can you do
me a 1017, please?

And key pieces of evidence
had been discovered.

In 1977, in Roundhay
Park, Leeds,

the impression of a car tyre
track had been left in the mud

close to the body of the Ripper's
third victim, Irene Richardson.

Officers suspected it had
been left by the killer's car.

It would turn out three
years later they were right.

An inquiry was set up to identify
the vehicle and find the driver.

Can you follow in, please?

The tyre-tracking inquiry
teams did a great job

in narrowing down
as far as they could

the type of vehicle those
tyres could have come from.

It was a superb piece
of detective work.

And it was a brave line of inquiry
to start, because it was huge.

There were 51 different makes of car
that could have had the tyres in question,

which meant the police had 53,000
cars to check in West Yorkshire.

As well as all the follow-up work
of getting alibis from each driver

whose car had the right tyres.

Is there any other
way we can trace him?

In just four months, they'd managed
to examine and rule out 33,000 cars,

and had only
20,000 left to check,

but then Oldfield called
the investigation off.

He said resources were
too stretched to continue.

Why would he do that?

It had gone on for so long, for so
many deaths, for so many attacks

that the weight of
paperwork alone was so great

that we had to have the
floor of the room reinforced.

So evidence became a
burden, rather than an advantage.

But in June 1979, when Oldfield was
sent a package personally addressed to him,

he started a new line of inquiry

that would swallow up
more time and money

than anything the police
had pursued to date.

And this time, resources
didn't seem to matter.

We'd normally come back for a
debriefing about 9:00pm every night.

And we were
called in about 7:00,

and we were actually doing
the briefings at the courtroom.

I was one of 200
people in the courtroom

and we were in the
gallery at the top.

George Oldfield
was centre stage.

He was sitting on the
magistrate's bench,

and Dick Holland
was sat alongside him,

and they had a tape recorder.

RECORDING: I'm Jack.

I have the greatest
respect, for you, George,

but, Lord, you are no
nearer catching me now

than four years
ago, when I started.

I reckon your boys are
letting you down, George.

They can't be much
good, can they?

He explained that
he believed it was

from the person
responsible for the murders.

And we all had to
listen very carefully

to see if we recognised the voice
from someone we'd questioned.

You could have heard a pin drop.

RECORDING: I'm not quite
sure when I'll strike again,

but it will be definitely
some time this year.

Maybe September, October.

Even sooner, if
I get the chance.

Maybe Manchester.
I like it there.

There's plenty of
them knocking about.

When the soft Geordie
voice was being spoken,

that suddenly was
the voice of the killer.

And the whole emphasis
of the investigation

changed almost overnight.

In fact, it turned out that
over the previous year,

George Oldfield had also
received two letters from the man

calling himself Jack the Ripper.

Because the tape and letters all
had the same Sunderland postmark,

the local force, Northumbria
Police, were drafted in to help.

You'll want a voice test first,
will you? Yeah, we'll do that.

Detective Inspector David
Zackrisson was on the team.

We went down to Halifax
and saw Mr Oldfield

and Detective
Superintendent Dick Holland.

We didn't see the letters,

but he did open his
drawer and tapped inside

and said, "They're here.

"And from the contents of
the letter, I'm fairly certain

"he's the man who's been killing
women throughout West Yorkshire."

But he didn't let
you see the letters?

No, he certainly didn't.

It almost conjured up a
sort of aura about the letters,

that these things
really are dynamite.

They're that good, they
can't see the light of day.

At this point, Oldfield refused to
share the full content of the letters

with his fellow officers
from Northumbria,

but he did give them
to a handwriting analyst.

Parts of the letters contain
details police want kept secret,

but top graphologist Diane
Simpson has read all of them.

There's violence right the
way through in the pressures.

So, this is no hoax, this is a
genuine violent man, you think?

This man is a very
dangerous man.

In any case, this is
very much a violent man.

For Oldfield, all the
evidence pointed to the fact

that the letters and tape
really were from the killer.

So he decided to
go public with them.

There was a policy conference
between myself and my team,

George Overland and Jim Hobson.

We've got the tape,
we've got the letters,

if we release it, the public,
at least, can respond to it.

And the decision was made that
we're not justified in keeping it secret.

If we keep this quiet
and it's true it is him

and more people killed,
where will we stand then?

Jeremy Thompson had been
covering the case for local TV news

for the past four years

when he got a call to a
special press conference.

We had no idea what was
coming up in that press conference.

We were just greeted by a
much bigger show of detectives

on the platform in front of us,

so we thought
something must be up.

And then this very old-fashioned
tape recorder, as it was,

and Oldfield needed some help
to press the buttons to get it going.

And we heard this... this
north-eastern voice saying,

"I'm Jack".

RECORDING: I see you are
still having no luck catching me.

I have the greatest respect
for you, George, but, Lord,

at the rate I'm going, I should
be in the book of records.

I think it's 11 up
to now, isn't it?

Well, I'll keep on going
for quite a while yet.

It was such a strange accent, as
well. Such a strange accent, yeah.

Diana Muir and Dee Marshall
were both working as local journalists

in Leeds when the
tape was released.

Because everybody
assumed it was a local person,

you know, the Ripper
was from Yorkshire,

and then this tape turned up.

And the dialect expert
said he was from Wearside.

Not even just the Northeast,
they said he was from Wearside.

I think everybody thought for a
moment, "This could be the bloke.

"This could be the bloke daring
to taunt the detectives behind it."

RECORDING: They never
learn, do they, George?

When he called him
by his name... Yeah.

We were all, like,
"Whoa!" Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is... this is
now, this whole...

Personal... ..story
is taking a new twist

because it's becoming
very personal between

George and the Yorkshire
Ripper, which it did become.

I'm struck by Oldfield's total
faith in the tape and letters.

What does it say about him?

In 1979, Joan Smith was a
young Sunday Times reporter.

You know, the whole saga of the
tape tells you a lot about that case

because it appealed to the
vanity of George Oldfield.

He was absolutely convinced that
the murderer was trying to contact him

and that he's... The murderer
saw it as a battle of wits.

Let's not forget this, that
the chap who we're seeking

is a cool, intelligent,
cunning individual.

He's absolutely fearless.

Whether it is a personal
challenge, I don't know.

Certainly, we are looking
for an unusual character.

By calling himself
Jack the Ripper,

the man on the tape confirmed
the police's theory about the killer,

echoing their belief
that he was on a mission

to rid the streets
of prostitutes.

I want to know if
survivors of Ripper assaults

were consulted about the tape.

Olive Smelt had
been attacked in 1975.

Her daughter Julie
was 15 at the time,

and remembers her mum's
account of that night vividly.

She said, "Just from
nowhere, this person appeared".

She said, "And I thought,
where the hell's he come from?"

And he just said to her, "Well,
it looks like t'weather's broke".

Because we'd had an
amazing hot summer in '75.

It was the hottest we'd
had for years and years.

He says, "It looks like
t'weather's broke, don't it?"

So he actually spoke to my mum.

And she said, "Yes". And that's
the last thing she remembers.

And she always stood by
and said... "It's not a Geordie.

"That person that spoke to me
did not have a Geordie accent.

"He was a local
Yorkshireman with dark hair."

And did the police speak to her
about that? Did the police ask her?

Yeah.

So, the police had asked her and
she told them that it wasn't a Geordie?

Mm. Over and
over and over again.

"Well, I'm telling you, that's
not the person that spoke to me!"

And they didn't
listen to her? No.

I'm going to see
Tracy Browne again.

She was also attacked in
1975, when she was just 14.

Her attack had all the
characteristics of the Ripper,

but the police didn't
believe it was him.

As with Olive, her
attacker spoke to her

and she heard his voice clearly.

One day, George Oldfield came
up to the farm to play me that tape.

George Oldfield came to speak
to you about the tape? Yeah. Yes.

What did you think
when you heard it?

Well, to me, it was just
obvious it wasn't him.

And so the more that I
kept saying, no, it wasn't him,

the more incensed he was getting

because I wasn't telling
him what he wanted to hear.

You could see the frustration
on his face, and his mannerisms

and his body language
and everything.

He obviously really wanted
to believe that that was him.

Yeah. Yeah, he did.

But I was telling him
otherwise, that it wasn't.

And he didn't like that.

It just strikes me as weird that you
would come and speak to an eyewitness

with a preconceived idea of
what you wanted them to say. Yes.

He was trying to put
words into my mouth.

It does make you second-guess
yourself sometimes,

but it was definitely a
Yorkshire accent, not a Geordie.

No chance. No way.
Not in a million years.

So key witnesses told
police the voice on the tape

was not the voice of the killer.

But did anyone inside
the police have doubts?

One month after David Zackrisson was
first told by Oldfield about the letters,

his department insisted
on seeing them in full.

And I've often tried to recapture
that moment when I read them

and how would I describe it.

And it was a bit
of an anti-climax.

I expected him to say,

"Oh, did you see what I did
with such-and-such body?"

Something only the murderer would
know. Only the murderer would know.

But there was nothing there.

But is there anything
on the tape, Mr Oldfield...

What in particular convinces
you, from what is on the tape,

that this is the man who
has killed 11 women?

Er... well, when one
listens to the tape

and, er... compares that
with the letters that we've had,

then it leaves me in no doubt.

What was it the letters
said that convinced Oldfield

the author knew things that
weren't public knowledge?

Mr Oldfield, er...

he mentioned the writer had
said that one of the victims

who had been
murdered in Manchester

had, in fact, received
treatment at the hospital

where her body was found.

And we were assured that that
had never been made public.

But some of those covering
the case knew otherwise.

But that was in
the public domain.

It had been in, um... I think
it had been in the Daily Mail.

It was certainly
in the cuttings.

But, you know, me,
a very young reporter,

saying to the head of the
Ripper Squad in Manchester,

"I know this case, and
there is nothing on this tape

"that isn't already
in the public domain".

Wouldn't listen to that.

Wrong voice, wrong sex.

It was senior police officers
and crime correspondents

discussing a mythic figure that
they'd cooked up between them.

I think they were completely oblivious
to the kind of, um... biases they had.

Two people, Dick Holland
and George Oldfield,

had convinced themselves

that this was the killer
sending the communications.

But they were only
looking for positives.

Aspects of the letters and tape

that fitted their conceptions.

This correspondence
has been the Holy Grail

that had the answer.

That had the solution,
that had the means

to bring all this to the end.

Zackrisson told me he
submitted a formal report

outlining his concerns
about the tape and letters,

and the fact they held no information
that wasn't already publicly known.

But clearly, he was ignored.

Before, we know we've
been looking for a man.

We didn't know
where he came from.

But now that we
can localise the area,

the field has narrowed appreciably,
as I'm sure you must agree.

Even though no survivor remembered
hearing a Sunderland accent,

and Zackrisson
had raised concerns,

Oldfield insisted on
keeping the tape and letters

at the centre of
the investigation.

Leading the hunt turned into a
personal vendetta for George Oldfield.

He was working an 18-hour
day, and the strain took its toll.

RECORDING: Well, it's been
nice talking to you, George.

Yours, Jack the Ripper.

In August 1979,
Oldfield fell seriously ill.

He'd suffered a heart attack

and went on sick
leave for five months.

Barbara Leach left the Mannville
Arms on Great Horton Road

at 1:00 on Sunday morning.

She'd been friendly
with the landlord...

Four weeks later, 20-year-old
university student Barbara Leach

was murdered in the early hours on
her way home from a pub in Bradford.

She was hit over the head
with a hammer and stabbed.

Like Josephine Whitaker,
she had no link to prostitution

and was murdered nowhere
near a red-light district.

Her house in Ash Grove is
only 150 yards around the corner,

yet Barbara chose
to leave her friends

and walk on alone, in the dark.

Somewhere along the way, she met
the man they call the Yorkshire Ripper.

Um... I don't... like to
think of what I'm losing.

No, nothing can compensate
us for the loss of Barbara.

The Ripper, in the tape-recorded
message, had warned

that he would strike again,
possibly in September or October.

Were you prepared for this?

Well, of course, we can't
cater for the, er... killing

of the... odd
female at any time.

What's worrying the police is that
despite the Ripper's last warning,

he was still able
to strike again.

The truth is, they couldn't
do much to stop him.

For, even with his voice
on tape, his handwriting

and the evidence of 12 murders,
they still don't know who he is.

All that's left to them is
optimism and persistence.

After the murder of Barbara
Leach, the police acknowledged

that all women were at risk,

not just those
involved in prostitution.

But this didn't change the
direction of the investigation.

With Oldfield on sick leave,

his boss, Chief Constable
Ron Gregory, took charge

and launched a huge publicity
campaign to find the man

behind the letters and tape.

Exhibition spaces were
set up, with the tag line

"Flush Out The Ripper".

Samples of the handwriting
were widely circulated,

and there was even a free
phone number for the public to call

to see if they
recognised the voice.

MUSIC: Call Me by Blondie

West Yorkshire Police
yesterday launched

a massive advertising campaign

which is unprecedented, or
perceived to be, in criminal history,

as an attempt to catch Britain's most
wanted criminal, the Yorkshire Ripper,

where previously, more
conventional detective methods

seem so far to have failed.

In 1979, Andrew Sheldon
was a junior reporter

on the Yorkshire Evening Post.

West Yorkshire Police
said, "We're going to

put some money behind
an advertising campaign.

"We're going to bring together
the key clues we've got.

"We've got some handwriting,
we've got this voice taping.

"We're going to get it out to
as many people as possible."

That was quite innovative
thinking, I think, on their part.

The men on the Ripper campaign
have persuaded the media

to donate nearly �1
million worth of space.

We'd got lots of help, lots
of publicity, both media,

and lots and lots
of recordings of it

to go around pubs and
clubs and all the rest of it.

HUBBUB Could we
have some quiet, please?

Thank you, David. The
police inspector behind me

has come about
the Yorkshire Ripper.

Thank you. Thank you, ladies
and gentlemen, for your attention.

I've come here tonight to play you
a tape of the man who we believe

to be the so-called
Yorkshire Ripper.

RECORDING: I should
be in the book of records.

I think it's 11 now, isn't it?

Well, I'll keep on going
for quite a while yet.

I cant see myself
being nicked just yet.

Richard McCann's mother, Wilma,

was the first woman to
be murdered by the Ripper.

I've got a distinct memory of going
to visit the local working men's club,

and I remember hearing the
voice. I remember thinking,

"That's the man
that killed my mum".

RECORDING: Sorry
it wasn't Bradford.

I did promise you that,
but I couldn't get there.

I was scared. Not
of all men, just...

I was listening out, if I saw a man,
I'd listen out for this Geordie accent.

RECORDING: I'm not quite
sure when I'll strike again, but...

So you have the total
and utter conviction

the voice on the
tape is the killer.

So if you hear that,
you're in danger.

If you don't hear it,
maybe you're not in danger.

RECORDING: You are
no nearer catching me now

than four years
ago, when I started.

I reckon your boys are
letting you down, George...

Since the publicity campaign
started three weeks ago,

14,000 calls have flooded into
the seven Ripper incident rooms.

We had correspondence
coming in from Africa,

from Sweden, Denmark,
Norway, France, Germany,

Hong Kong, New Zealand, Canada.

You had to follow them up.

So, yes, the direction of
the inquiry was diverted,

in manpower terms, particularly.

West Yorkshire Police spent
�20,000 on publicity alone,

and two million people
called their free phone line.

All the interest created massive
amounts of follow-up work

for an investigation that
was already stretched.

And as he voice of Wearside
Jack was heard across the country,

the killer became a
figure of public fascination.

The failure of the police to find
him merely magnifies and expands

the myth surrounding the person.

Myth is created by
a lack of knowledge,

and so the myth that grew
up around the Yorkshire Ripper

magnified,
intensified, multiplied

by every day that
he wasn't caught.

By every crime
that he committed.

Meanwhile, at number 18,
they're a Killer On The Loose -

it's Thin Lizzy!

? There's a killer
on the loose again

? A killer on the loose

? There's a killer
on the loose again

? A lady-killer on the loose. ?

It's the worst series of
unsolved killings in the world,

and newsmen from five continents
have moved in in search of an angle.

Stop about here, you reckon?

What is the interest to Japanese
people of a story like this?

Um... I think why these
sort of awful affairs happen

in this peaceful country.

This crew have come
from Australia to Bradford.

The Ripper has obviously
had quite an enormous impact

on the towns in this region.

What surprised me, some people
talk about him with affection, almost.

? Don't unzip your zipper

? Cos you know I'm
Jack the Ripper. ?

I've read about
these football chants,

but it's shocking to
actually hear them.

They really happened.

In a dreadful kind of way,

the Ripper has almost
become part of Northern folklore.

I've come to meet Jalna Hanmer.

She was a social science
lecturer in the 1970s.

I want to find out more about
how fascination with the Ripper

worked its way
into everyday life.

Shortly after the attacks,
Jalna carried out research

into harassment of women
on the streets of Leeds.

She's still got
her original report.

READS: If you go
around arm in arm,

you get a lot of
obscene suggestions.

I was in the road and a
man said, "You need a fuck".

One evening recently, a man
yelled at me that I was a whore

for walking around at that
time of night on my own.

Men and cars driving
past would say things like,

"Are you looking
for Jack tonight?

"Why don't you come
with me instead?"

There was definitely a lot more
of it during the Ripper scare.

So, women suffered more harassment during
the Ripper scare, is that what you found?

Yes. There was
definitely more of it.

The Ripper gave them
an excuse to say things.

That they felt they
could get away with it.

Police know who the dead woman
is, but haven't yet named her.

She was found under grass
cuttings at the home of the local...

They think that the attacker
may have followed Miss Walls,

or he may have lain in wait.

Either way, a violent and probably
very noisy attack took place.

In August 1980, the body of
42-year-old social worker Marguerite Walls

was discovered in a small town
between Bradford and Leeds.

On her way home from
work at around 10:00pm,

the killer hit her over
the head with a hammer

and strangled her with a rope.

Marguerite was the
12th murder victim,

and the third in a row who
had no link to prostitution.

But the police investigation
continued down the same track

to find the author of
the tape and letters.

A man who called
himself Jack the Ripper.

KNOCK AT DOOR

Is your husband in
at the moment? Yes.

We're making inquiries
about Jack the Ripper.

I have a copy of
some handwriting here.

I wonder if you could just
have a look at it and see...

By this point, almost 40,000
people had been interviewed

in an attempt to identify
the voice on the tape.

And Northumbria Police alone
had spent more than �600,000

on the search for the man who
had written to George Oldfield.

No, it doesn't mean
nothing to me, that.

Mrs Fern, can you have a look?

Sections of the letters were shown
to people across the Northeast,

and all suspects were asked
to provide handwriting samples.

I think our best chance of
catching this man is for somebody

to recognise that handwriting.

I really can't understand

why some person hasn't
recognised that writing.

Because in all families, people
know each other's writing, don't they?

Yes, it was an
elimination criteria.

"Give me a sample
of your handwriting."

There's the handwriting,
nothing like it.

OK, put it down as
file and away it goes.

While the police were no
closer to catching the killer,

the tape and letters
were still driving

almost every aspect
of the investigation.

But there were other leads.

A newly-printed �5
note had been found

in the handbag of Jean Jordan,

the Ripper's sixth victim,
killed in Manchester.

Officers thought it could have
been given to Jean by the murderer

before he attacked her.

We have established
that that �5 note

was released into
circulation on 27th September,

which was only four days before
this young lady met her death.

And we have established that
it went to one of three banks

in the Bradford, Shipley
and Bingley area.

Once the police had narrowed
down the possible bank branches,

they were able to track
the local companies

that might have been
issued the new note

and draw up a
list of all the men

who could have received
it in their pay packet.

And in January 1980,
Manchester officers narrowed down

the possible suspects
to just 241 men.

Jack Ridgeway, the
senior investigating officer,

narrowed that down with the
limitations they had at the time,

working with the
banking serial numbers,

but they did a
brilliant job working out

the killer had been paid
that at Clarke's Haulage

as part of the payroll run.

Ridgeway's team
had him in their net,

you know, through
the work that they did.

Could it have caught him?

Yes. Did it?

No, but it should have done.

So that line of inquiry
could have got the killer?

Yeah. The information was there.

But the suspect's handwriting
was compared to the letters

as part of the
elimination process.

The tape and letters were
driving the investigation yet again,

even though there was no proof
they really came from the killer.

Dick Holland and George
Oldfield truly believed

that, um... the
author of the tape

and the letters was the killer.

So, very much a
decision made at the top?

Yes, a decision made at the top,

um... and I think, you know,

Dick Holland, George
Oldfield, would, um...

..in hindsight, concede that
was a catastrophic mistake.

Between September and November
1980, there were three more attacks.

Just a month after the
murder of Marguerite Walls,

34-year-old Dr Upadhya Bandara,
in the UK on a visit from Singapore,

was attacked in
Headingley, Leeds.

The next month, Maureen
Lea, a third-year art student,

was hit over the head with a hammer
in the grounds of Leeds University.

And then on Bonfire Night,

16-year-old Theresa Sykes
was attacked in Huddersfield.

In each case, the Ripper
was disturbed by passers-by

and all three women survived.

Just 12 days later,
the killer struck again.

Yorkshire Police say
they believe the killer,

known as the Yorkshire Ripper,
has claimed his 13th victim.

Now, what every police force in the
North feared would happen has happened.

The Yorkshire Ripper
has struck again.

Two days ago, the
body of a 20-year-old

third-year English
student, Jacqueline Hill,

was discovered behind the
Arndale Centre in Headingley.

Jacqueline Hill, a 20-year-old
student from the Middlesbrough area,

was killed in
Headingley yesterday.

Jacqueline Hill was killed on
her way home to her student halls.

Just could not believe it was
our daughter and she was dead.

I'm afraid I broke down and
had to be taken away from her.

I didn't want to leave.

I wanted to bring her home.

I keep... hoping

perhaps at the weekend,
she's coming back.

At the time, I was a volunteer
with the Probation Service,

and Jacqueline
Hill, as a student,

had applied to be a
probation volunteer

and she had come
to her first meeting.

And we would always go and
have a pint at the end of the meeting,

and Jacqueline was
invited to come with us.

She said, no, she needed to
go back to her student lodging.

"I'll get on the bus", which
took her to the end of her road.

When Jacqueline got off
the bus here in Headingley,

police believe it was
about 9:20 on Monday night.

A 300-yard walk, or more,
perhaps, to her halls of residence.

To our everlasting shame,
it never occurred to any of us

that this was a risky
thing for her to do.

Jacqueline would have been walking
up here, if she'd taken this route,

towards Lupton Flats,
which are just here.

But her body was discovered
on this stretch of wasteland here,

underneath the
dark tarpaulins there.

Only a matter of 100 yards
or so from Lupton Flats,

where she was a
third-year French student,

obviously working
hard for her final exams.

73!

What was the feeling in Leeds
after Jacqueline was killed?

Well, that this was... SHE SIGHS

This was just getting too much.

If somebody could...
could be killed

at 9:15 in the evening

in a reasonably busy area,

this just took it up a level.

This has got to stop.

INDISTINCT CHANTING

..to be concerned about
women being murdered!

Five years is too long.
It's been going on too long.

If they haven't caught him
yet, I don't think they ever will.

Pretty awful. Scared.
We're very scared.

We're not going to go
out again on our own.

From now on, you're not
going to be coming out at all?

No. Not if we can help it.

It's hard to describe
that atmosphere of fear,

that blanket of fear

that descended on
the north of England.

My wife and every
other woman I knew

was scared to go out at night.

I was working in a newsroom

and each time we heard that
another murder had been committed,

everybody was...
It was electrifying.

The men reacted, as, "Wow! Big
story! Big story! Let's get out there!"

But the difference was that the
women all looked pallid and shocked.

You know, living and working as a
woman in the north of England at that time,

it's really hard to convey
how frightening it was.

Will you not be
going out late at night?

I don't go out
now. I'm frightened.

Because of things like the
Yorkshire Ripper? Frightened to death.

It's terrible, honestly.

We're going to a disco.

Are you normally walking
through here? No. No!

A lot of girls who are walking in
the streets of Leeds in the night-time

are carrying small pocket
alarms, rather like this one.

HIGH-PITCHED TONE

Leeds Police warn women who've
been going out armed with knives

and sharpened steel combs

that they do risk arrest for
carrying offensive weapons.

At this point, Superintendent
Frank Morritt took on a new role

as media relations
officer for the investigation.

What was it like?

Yes, there was more pressure. I
think it was merely a continuation

of the pressure that'd
already been growing.

The prostitutes were
very, very vulnerable.

But when you started picking
ordinary ladies off the street,

that was a different
kettle of fish altogether.

'Transit minibus is available to
take any girl home to her door.

'For your own safety,
do not walk home alone.

'I must stress, for your own
safety, do not walk home alone.'

There's hundreds of girls at
Bradford and Leeds universities,

so suddenly, two
university populations

were extremely vulnerable now.

And extremely concerned,
as were their parents.

Someone somewhere must
know who we're looking for.

The next victim
could be your wife,

your daughter, your
sister, or your niece.

As terror mounted, and no
nearer to catching the killer,

the police suggested a
curfew for lone women.

There's a lot of women very
worried now after all these murders.

What can you say that
would alleviate their worries?

I could only say to them that they
must not walk out at night alone.

They can't be shut
in or imprisoned,

but it is not safe for them to walk
about the streets in the early hours

of the morning, as
was illustrated here.

And as was illustrated at
Halifax a short time ago.

Men are confidently walking
the streets of Leeds alone,

but women can't. You know,
we are subject to a curfew.

Can you appreciate the point
that the police in West Yorkshire

are trying to make,
that women are at risk

and perhaps it's sensible to
stay off the streets at night?

Why should women be
asked to stay at home...?

Because a homicidal maniac's
roaming the streets, ready to kill them!

One homicidal maniac.

All women throughout the
country are being terrorised.

We have to have a curfew
on men, and not on women.

There was a huge tension.

I mean, the publicity
coming from the police

and those in authority
was curfew on women.

"You stay in at home,"
which was not acceptable.

So we didn't abide by that.

Some people think little girls
should be seen and not heard.

But I think... ? Oh,
bondage, up yours! ?

Men off the streets!
Men off the streets!

Men off the streets!

The women organised the
march through the city centre,

calling for a police
curfew on men instead,

and appealing for women to
be allowed to carry weapons

for self-protection.

On 22nd of November 1980,

500 women protested
the suggested curfew

by marching through the Leeds
streets with flaming torches.

Reclaim the Night marches
had begun in Yorkshire in 1977.

But the numbers joining
them had rocketed.

It's striking that the Ripper
killings proved to be a catalyst

for a growing feminist movement.

They were carrying placards,

"Men off the street", "The streets
are for women", blah blah blah.

In today's phraseology, you'd
say the feminists got hold of it.

We're protesting not
just about the Ripper,

but all forms of sexual
violence against women by men.

But clearly the Ripper murders
are just about as extreme

a demonstration of male
violence against women

as you could ever possibly see.

So is this the way
the march went?

This is where the march
went, we came up this way.

Al Garthwaite was part of a group
called Leeds Revolutionary Feminists

and a key organiser
of the march.

Why did you feel that
direct action was necessary?

Why had it come to that?

I know that after Jacqueline
Hill was killed, for example,

some female students
actually left Leeds.

They left their courses, they
were so scared. That's really sad.

There didn't seem to be any other
way of making our voices heard.

The way it was framed was there was
a contest between one group of men,

the police, on one hand,

and the Ripper
on the other hand,

whereas women were some
sort of pawns in the middle of it all.

Frank Morritt was involved
in the policing of the marches.

They weren't
being told to stay in.

They were told, when
you go out, be careful,

when you go out, be accompanied.

Don't go out on your own.

Part of that message was, of
course, addressed to the prostitutes,

who were still coming
out onto the street,

still making themselves
available as targets, as victims,

but for the other ladies, it got
translated in some newspapers

as "don't go out".

That's how women
felt they were being...

That's what they felt
they were being told.

Yeah, well, what they
were being told, actually,

and I was part of that message,
was "don't go out on your own".

Two units, one
unit will be the...

..escort squad.

They didn't understand at all

what we were doing,
or why we were doing it.

I think they thought
we were just mad,

a group of women who were
completely on the margins,

who were out of control.

They actually used those words.

These women
are "out of control".

Whose control we
were supposed to be in?

Men off the streets!
Men off the streets!

The investigation
was now officially

the biggest manhunt
in British history

and it cost in
excess of �5 million.

In West Yorkshire's
incident rooms,

there was now a nine
month backlog of work,

and over 36,000 unprocessed
documents in police files.

Did you go to a lot
of press conferences

throughout the investigation?

There seemed to be
one every other day.

We probably demanded them

as much as the police
felt they ought to hold them.

But those press conferences
became, in a way, a bit more depressing

as the years went on, as we
sat there and asked questions,

and the police appeared to
have fewer and fewer answers,

but more and more bodies.

Are you concerned in any
way about the way this inquiry

is being conducted? No.

Or about the public reaction,

which seems to be perhaps
getting a little more sceptical

and a little less sympathetic?

No.

I used to come out of
press conferences thinking,

they haven't got a hope in hell.
They're not going to catch him.

The lack of progress hadn't
escaped the notice of Prime Minister

Margaret Thatcher either.

Eight days after the
murder of Jacqueline Hill,

a letter was sent to
West Yorkshire Police

from the offices of
10 Downing Street.

Only recently made public,
it reports that she said...

"The local police had so far
failed totally in their inquiries

"into a series of murders which
constituted the most appalling

"kind of violence
against women."

The floundering case had now
become a matter of national interest,

and Thatcher asked Home Secretary
William Whitelaw to intervene.

The morale of the
police themselves,

already dented by five years of
failure in the hunt for the Ripper,

took another blow two
days ago with the news

that top policemen from
outside had been called in to help.

And a new supremo
had been appointed.

I don't think I've
been forced into it.

Obviously I have to take
notice of public opinion

and the feeling of elected
representatives, and so on.

The new supremo wasn't new all.

It was Jim Hopson,

who had been involved in
the case from the beginning.

Do you think a new
team and new advisers

could give you that break?

Well, it often does the trick,
doesn't it? It does it in football,

it does it in all walks of life.

It's like a jigsaw. If somebody is
making a jigsaw and they can't find

the piece, perhaps they'll bring
someone else in who could find it.

He's already been on it before,
and he couldn't do anything about it.

So to come back on it again, it's
not going to help any more, is it?

After five years, 13 murders,
and at least eight attacks,

many now saw the killer
as an almost mythical figure

who might never be caught.

But that was all
about to change,

and it would have nothing to
do with West Yorkshire Police.

'A man has been arrested

'in connection with the
Yorkshire Ripper murders...'

The moment that the
killer was picked up

was a rather curious moment

because it happened
almost by default

in the back
streets of Sheffield.

Late on Friday evening,

a uniformed sergeant and a uniformed
constable were on patrol duties

in the centre of Sheffield.

During the course
of those duties,

they had occasion to speak to a
man who was with a lady in a vehicle.

Two Sheffield officers
on routine patrol

had spotted a car in
the local red light area.

They checked, and it
had false number plates.

The vehicle was bearing
false number plates.

We then made other inquiries

and ended up in arresting
the two occupants.

The officers who picked the man
up were from South Yorkshire Police.

They weren't even part
of the Ripper investigation.

But because the man was
arrested in a red light area,

he was transferred to the Ripper
squad in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.

Finally, West Yorkshire
police started to interview him

and the penny
dropped quite quickly

that they might
well have their man.

This may finally be
the Yorkshire Ripper.

The West Yorkshire
officers were contacted.

Some of our men went down
there and had a word with this man.

The man is now in West Yorkshire,
helping us with our inquiries.

Later that day, the Sheffield
sergeant returned to the scene,

as he remembered allowing the
man to go behind a building to urinate,

just after the arrest.

Without telling
anyone, he got in his car

and drove the three miles
back to Melbourne Avenue.

Around the back of the building
and near a domestic oil tank,

he discovered an
engineer's ball-peen hammer,

and a four-inch
bladed vegetable knife.

What happened next

would send shock waves
around the whole country.

Confronted with the
weapons he had hidden,

the suspect admitted to
being the Yorkshire Ripper.

After a five-year investigation,
the Ripper had finally been caught

by another force
on routine patrol.

And in your view, it was good
police work that enabled you

to assist the Ripper
Squad in this particular way?

Just straightforward coppering.

The men leading the
inquiry can take little credit.

Yet, before the suspect had
even confessed to all the murders,

they called a press conference
to announce the arrest.

It was so hastily arranged,

Frank Morritt, their media
relations officer, told me

they didn't even inform him.

I got a telephone call from
one of the newspaper reporters,

who said, "Frank, I'm looking
for you. Where are you?"

"I'm at home. Why?"

"Why aren't you at
the press conference?"

"What press conference?"

When I got there, the press
conference was in session,

and George had come
off sick leave to be there.

So yes, the atmosphere
was electric, to say the least.

I can tell you he's
being questioned

in relation to the
Yorkshire Ripper murders.

Can you tell us whether
he has a Geordie accent?

I cannot tell you that because
I've not heard him speak.

I got a telephone call.

There's this Detective
Chief Superintendent.

He said, "They've
got the Ripper."

He said, "Is there
something you want to ask?"

I said, "Yes. Where
does he come from?"

He said, "Well not bloody
Sunderland, I can tell you!"

He said he was Yorkshire.

And, you know, I
could have cried.

I could have cried
at that moment.

Is it fair then to say

that the general hunt for
the so-called Yorkshire Ripper

is now being wound down? Right.

Yes, absolutely delighted.

The arrest of a Yorkshire man
made it clear once and for all

that the tape and
letters were a hoax.

For almost two years, the police
had put all their efforts and resources

into chasing a false lead.

And there were worse
revelations to come.

Within West Yorkshire
Police's incident room,

and its bursting trays of
paper, lay the killer's identity.

He'd been interviewed
for the �5 note inquiry,

did indeed work at
Clarke's Haulage,

and had received the
note in his pay packet.

During the course
of the investigation

he had been questioned
by police nine times,

the first time on
2nd November 1977.

If he had been arrested then,

seven women
might still be alive.

Absolutely delighted!

'The volume of abuse from the
crowd rose to a deafening pitch...'

When it came out that
he had been arrested,

I just thought,
"About bloody time!"

The atmosphere was electric.

It was super charged.

I think she realised
after the court case

how lucky she was to be alive.