Who was the Yorkshire Ripper?

The Yorkshire Ripper has died after contracting coronavirus in prison.

Peter Sutcliffe, 74, died at University Hospital of North Durham, three miles from the prison where he was serving a life sentence.

The convicted serial killer is said to have refused treatment and had other underlying health conditions.

Sutcliffe was one of the UK’s most notorious prisoners.

Sutcliffe grew up in West Yorkshire and worked a series of different low-skilled jobs after leaving school at 15. 

He got married in 1974, and lived with his wife in Bradford until the time of his arrest. 

The serial killer also developed an obsession with female sex workers.

He was dubbed the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’ by the press as his notoriety grew in the late 1970s, amid an atmosphere of terror in the north of England as police told women to stay at home at night.

Sutcliffe murdered at least 13 women across Yorkshire and the north of England in the late 1970s. Nearly all the murders took place in West Yorkshire – two happened in Manchester.

The first known murder happened in 1975 when he killed 28-year-old Wilma McCann, a mother of four from Leeds. 

The serial killer is known to have then murdered 42-year-old Emily Jackson in 1976, 28-year-old Irene Richardson in 1977, 32-year-old Patricia "Tina" Atkinson in 1977, 16-year-old Jayne MacDonald in 1977, 21-year-old Jean Jordan in 1977, 22-year-old Yvonne Pearson in 1978, 18-year-old Helen Rytka in 1978, 40-year-old Vera Millward in 1978, 19-year-old Josephine Whitaker in 1979, 20-year-old Barbara Leach in 1979, 47-year-old Marguerite Walls in 1980 and 20-year-old Jacqueline Hill in 1980.

He is also known to have attacked at least nine other girls and women between 1969 and 1980, leaving many of the survivors needing surgery, with life-changing injuries, and severely traumatised.

Sutcliffe began attacking women and girls in residential areas, but is said to have begun to increasingly target victims in red light districts because of the sex workers’ vulnerability. 

During the investigation, a senior West Yorkshire detective infamously made an appeal to the serial killer, saying he was now killing "innocent girls" and therefore "in urgent need of medical attention".

Sutcliffe was arrested in January 1981, after police stopped him in a car with a sex worker and found his car had false number plates. 

The day after his arrest, police discovered a knife, hammer and rope at the scene of the arrest Sutcliffe had managed to discard.

Following  two days of intensive questioning, he admitted he was the Ripper. 

At his trial, Sutcliffe pleaded not guilty to 13 charges of murder, but guilty to manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility. He claimed God had told him to murder his victims, and four psychiatrists diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia. 

He was found guilty of murder on all charges and was sentenced to 20 concurrent sentences of life imprisonment.

The West Yorkshire Police have been heavily criticised for being poorly prepared for the massive investigation. Over the years, Sutcliffe was interviewed nine times, but police failed to cross-reference information.

Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield was also criticised for ignoring evidence from survivors of Sutcliffe’s attacks, and becoming fixated with what turned out to be a hoax tape.

Feminists also condemned the police for blaming victims, especially after the force advised women to remain indoors at night. 

In response, a number of ‘Reclaim the Night’ marches were organised across the UK from 1977, driving home the point that women should not be blamed for male violence.