Peter Sutcliffe...

I read on the Guardian website about the death of Peter Sutcliffe; just seeing it in print made me jump, as memories flooded back of living in Leeds in the 1970s. Sutcliffe’s first victims were prostitutes. It was obviously easier to target the women working the streets of northern towns, because they needed little persuading to get into his car. The police response was muted initially, with suggestions that the killer was doing the police’s job, by “cleaning up the streets”. Sex workers, it seemed, were dispensible. It wasn’t until Jayne MacDonald, a student at Leeds University, became his fifth victim, that the police investigation was stepped up. She was described by police as the first “innocent” victim, who “didn’t deserve to die”.

The investigation took a wrong turn when a cassette tape was sent to George Oldfield, Assistant Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police. “I’m Jack”, claimed a mocking voice in a Wearside accent. “I see you are still having no luck catching me”. That hoax tape, broadcast continuously to shoppers at the Merrion Centre, distracted the police for 18 months. While they looked for a man from Wearside, three more women were killed. Peter Sutcliffe was interviewed on nine separate occasions by police, and released each time because he had a Yorkshire accent (but if they had searched his garage, they would have found the tools of his grisly trade).

Joy and I were sitting in the Little Park pub in Burley - demolished years ago - when someone burst through the door shouting “They’ve got him!”... and no one needed to be told who “he” was. Peter Sutcliffe murdered 13 women, attacked many more and left 23 children without a mother…