Exclusive audio recordings with Peter Sutcliffe, known as the Yorkshire Ripper, offer a remarkable insight into the notorious serial killer. Throughout the film, Mark Williams-Thomas listens to Sutcliffe speak openly about the heinous crimes he never formally confessed to, how he evaded the police for so long and the truth behind his controversial attempts to plead not guilty at his trial.
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TVTranscript
00:00:00Between 1975 and 1980, one man brought widespread fear to the people of the north of England.
00:00:09It was a violent, nasty, evil predator.
00:00:12The attacks were sadistic and violent and led to the largest manhunt the police have ever faced.
00:00:18The man behind the crimes became known as the Yorkshire Ripper.
00:00:22He hated women. They're not human to him.
00:00:25Police eventually put an end to the Yorkshire Ripper's reign of terror when he was arrested in 1981
00:00:31and finally identified as Peter Sutcliffe, a married lorry driver from West Yorkshire.
00:00:36Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, is guilty of murder on all charges.
00:00:41The story of the Yorkshire Ripper has been well trodden,
00:00:44but now, for the very first time, I have uncovered a treasure trove of information.
00:00:49I looked up and he was facing the bushes. Black beard, black hair, black eyes.
00:00:55I looked him straight in the eyes.
00:00:57With Sutcliffe admitting to attacks he was never convicted of...
00:01:01You said that they didn't know whether to believe her or not, so it was you?
00:01:05Yeah.
00:01:07..hearing from those closest to him...
00:01:09I said, hey, Pete, there's that bloke there walking past.
00:01:11I'm sure he's that bloody Ripper.
00:01:13Someone said, cut his balls off. I'm sure it's him.
00:01:15And I think he started crying.
00:01:18On the night you were arrested, were you going to attack the girl you were with?
00:01:22Of course I was. That was the whole point.
00:01:36Three years ago, I identified a source who was in regular contact with Sutcliffe
00:01:41whilst he was in prison, building his trust and giving him confidence to open up.
00:01:46I tasked her with getting information out of him about his life and his crimes.
00:02:08To gain access to a serial killer like Peter Sutcliffe is exceptional.
00:02:14He does not know that the questions that are being asked of him
00:02:17are specifically to try and give answers to his many victims.
00:02:22He's not prepared, he's at ease,
00:02:25and that is why the information that we're getting from Sutcliffe
00:02:29is as close to the truth as I believe you can get.
00:02:35I'm calling my source Brenda to protect her identity.
00:02:38It's the most unique access to a serial killer.
00:02:41But have we misunderstood him and got him all wrong?
00:02:46I want to have a chat about going right back to the beginning
00:02:49of what caused you to first make contact with Peter Sutcliffe.
00:02:56I grew up with it. I was probably 13 when he was committing crime
00:03:00and I followed the whole case.
00:03:02And then when I found out where he lived,
00:03:05my mum said my face was a picture because he lived just down the road from me.
00:03:09So I was straight down there for my picture taken outside the house.
00:03:13And it all started there and then as I got older,
00:03:17I just kept thinking, I wonder what he's really like.
00:03:21So one day I just decided to write to him and then I got a reply from Peter.
00:03:25What type of response did he get?
00:03:28He wrote back saying, thank you for your letter,
00:03:31I'm very interested in getting to know you.
00:03:33But the more I got to know him, the more he opened up.
00:03:37So you write to him quite a lot and there comes an occasion when you go and visit him.
00:03:41That was strange, I was quite nervous.
00:03:44But when I sat down and talked to him, he was very gently spoken and so normal.
00:04:06You know what they say, don't you, about March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.
00:04:11Yeah.
00:04:15People say, you know, he's got these dark eyes, looks like the devil.
00:04:19And then when you meet him, of course, it's nothing like that.
00:04:23And I found myself looking at his hands at first and thinking what he'd done, you know.
00:04:30But it put me at ease very quickly.
00:04:33I couldn't imagine him doing that sort of thing in his right mind.
00:04:38His character and his personality didn't fit the crimes at all.
00:04:43I got to know the man behind the Yorkshire Ripper.
00:04:48MUSIC FADES
00:04:59Earlier, the convoy of police cars and the green armoured van
00:05:02carrying Peter William Sutcliffe to the Old Bailey
00:05:05had swept out of the prison into the dank Brixton morning,
00:05:08the tiny blacked-out windows preventing even a glimpse of the man.
00:05:12Sutcliffe was put on trial for 13 murders and seven attempted murders.
00:05:17The attacks were sadistic and incredibly violent.
00:05:21His defence leaned heavily on the notion that he was schizophrenic
00:05:25and had been hearing voices in his head from guard.
00:05:28Sutcliffe was convinced that the voices were coming from a gravestone
00:05:31at Bingley Cemetery, where he used to work.
00:05:34He'd been digging in the Catholic end of the cemetery
00:05:37and he heard a strange echoing voice,
00:05:39apparently coming from a nearby headstone.
00:05:42He climbed out of the grave and walked towards the headstone.
00:05:45The inscription on the grave was in Polish.
00:05:48Sutcliffe said, of course, he couldn't read it,
00:05:50but it seemed to say, We Be Echo.
00:05:53At his trial, he claimed diminished responsibility,
00:05:56that God had sent him on a mission to rid the streets of prostitutes.
00:06:00Well, the state of mind of Peter Sutcliffe will continue
00:06:03as the trial continues next week.
00:06:33I find it hard to accept that Sutcliffe believes God was instructing him to kill
00:06:38and I struggle with the notion that he was suffering from schizophrenia.
00:06:42Could someone with a mental illness as extreme as Sutcliffe's claims
00:06:46carry out their daily life undetected?
00:06:50Dr Ho is a forensic psychiatrist who was at Broadmoor
00:06:53when Sutcliffe was a patient and has studied the behaviour of killers.
00:06:57I'm hoping he can explain some of Sutcliffe's actions.
00:07:04Yeah.
00:07:15Could I be suffering from schizophrenia but not know about it
00:07:18and my loved ones around me not know?
00:07:20That's highly unlikely.
00:07:22By the time schizophrenia grips the person, it's going to be obvious.
00:07:28So the behaviour often becomes erratic,
00:07:31perpetuated by whatever delusional beliefs.
00:07:34So it's unlikely that a person with severe schizophrenia
00:07:37will be able to work and conduct life as normal.
00:07:40David, I might be wrong here, but I'm trying to distinguish
00:07:43between psychopathy and schizophrenia
00:07:45and whether or not he was much more psychopath than schizophrenic.
00:07:51Psychosis is often thought to be a symptom of schizophrenia.
00:07:55Schizophrenia is, of course, a severe and enduring mental illness.
00:08:00It's normally characterised by features of delusions
00:08:03and also, importantly, it often involves a breakdown in the person's functioning.
00:08:09I understand that some victims were injured and stabbed up to 50 times.
00:08:15So if one were to follow through the logic of him acting out
00:08:19in terms of being commanded by God,
00:08:22one might expect him to stop after death, after one or two fatal stabs.
00:08:27However, given the repetitive and continued nature of some of the wounds,
00:08:33that, to me, lends more to psychopathy.
00:08:39So, Peter Sutcliffe was not suffering from schizophrenia at all.
00:08:43He was, in fact, a psychopath.
00:08:45I want to know if there's anything from his childhood
00:08:48that might help explain how he developed into such a dangerous man.
00:08:52I've managed to arrange a call with someone who knew Peter better than most.
00:08:5679 Manor Road we lived at.
00:08:59That's where we lived till I was 13.
00:09:02And then when I was 14½, Carl was born.
00:09:06But I was the eldest, so when he was born, I more or less brought him up, you know?
00:09:13I've tracked down Sutcliffe's younger brother, Carl.
00:09:16He has stayed out of the media spotlight and was very reluctant to be interviewed.
00:09:21He's not spoken before in any detail about his relationship with his brother
00:09:25or his crimes, but he has agreed to talk to me on the phone.
00:09:31So, I just really want to have a chat in terms of Peter.
00:09:35So, his claim is that he heard voices
00:09:38and that he was told to go and kill prostitutes.
00:09:43What do you say of that?
00:09:46Utter rubbish.
00:09:48I mean, he talked to me about all sorts.
00:09:51I'm sure he mentioned a talking bloody gravestone.
00:09:54That gravestone never spoke to him.
00:09:57No.
00:09:58And if it had have done, he'd have told you.
00:10:00He made that up. He made that up.
00:10:02What he said was that if I played insane, I'll be out in ten years
00:10:06and he will put me in a nut house.
00:10:08Gosh, so he said to you, if I play insane, they'll let me out?
00:10:11Yeah.
00:10:12So, you were quite close to Peter?
00:10:18Oh, really? OK.
00:10:27Yeah, yeah.
00:10:30How long before...?
00:10:35Did he?
00:10:43Peter Sutcliffe appeared to have a relatively normal upbringing.
00:10:47I don't believe his voice of God story for one moment.
00:10:50So, what turned a seemingly normal family man
00:10:53into a monster capable of such sickening brutality
00:10:56and one of Britain's most vicious serial killers?
00:11:13Notorious British serial killer Peter Sutcliffe
00:11:16was convicted of killing 13 women between 1975 and 1980.
00:11:21Earlier, police witnesses said Sutcliffe had spoken
00:11:24of his hatred of prostitutes.
00:11:26He said,
00:11:27''It just grew and grew until I became a beast.
00:11:29''I blamed prostitutes for everything,'' he said.
00:11:32His crimes were barbaric.
00:11:34His killing spree had women in the north of England
00:11:37fearful for their lives for years.
00:11:39But to anyone that knew him,
00:11:41Sutcliffe seemed like an ordinary man, a gentleman even.
00:11:45So, what happened? What changed in him?
00:11:47It seems that Sutcliffe himself has his own theory.
00:12:12So, Sutcliffe believes that his motorbike accident in 1965
00:12:17left him unconscious for two days and caused injury to his brain,
00:12:21although there's no evidence to suggest
00:12:23that he had any hospital treatment for this incident.
00:12:27Narendra Kapoor is a neuropsychologist
00:12:29and I need him to help me understand
00:12:31what impact this bike accident may have had on Sutcliffe's behaviour.
00:12:36I want to play you an audio recording of Sutcliffe's death.
00:12:41So, this has never been heard before.
00:12:43This is Peter Sutcliffe talking from jail.
00:13:01So, he used that significantly at his trial, in his defence.
00:13:06What do you make of it?
00:13:08So, any significant brain injury is going to be associated
00:13:12over the following days and weeks with quite significant problems.
00:13:16You don't just have a brain injury and then wake up,
00:13:19as he seems to have done, wake up and you're perfectly fine.
00:13:22It doesn't work like that.
00:13:24And so, his account of that is really quite implausible.
00:13:27It's quite rare to get what we call schizophrenia or psychosis
00:13:31after a brain injury.
00:13:33And if we do see it, it's burned or severe brain injury
00:13:36with maybe a fractured skull, with focal lesions.
00:13:39He never had that.
00:13:40To claim you got psychosis, schizophrenia,
00:13:44as a result of a brain injury, you're saying is extremely rare.
00:13:48I personally have probably only seen one or two cases
00:13:51in 40 years of practice.
00:13:53So, I think, all in all, I think it would be quite atypical
00:13:57for that injury he had to be related to his subsequent behaviours.
00:14:07A few years after his motorbike accident,
00:14:09in which he claimed to have sustained a brain injury,
00:14:12Sutcliffe carried out his first known attack.
00:14:21I'm in London to meet with feminist writer Julie Bindel.
00:14:25Julie Bindel is a feminist.
00:14:27She's been writing for a number of years.
00:14:29She's been writing for a number of years.
00:14:31She's been writing for a number of years.
00:14:33I'm in London to meet with feminist writer Julie Bindel.
00:14:36She was a student in Leeds in 1979
00:14:39during the height of the Yorkshire ripper hunt.
00:14:42We found out from his best friend at the time, Trevor Birdsell,
00:14:47that a great fun night out for Sutcliffe
00:14:52was to be driven around by Birdsell,
00:14:55get out of his car with a sock with stones in the sock,
00:15:00chase down some of the women and hit them hard over the head,
00:15:06causing a lot of pain and injury.
00:15:08That was just a little kind of minor leisure activity,
00:15:13doubtless in the build-up to his more serious offending.
00:15:17I'm going to play you him talking about one of his soccer matches.
00:15:21OK.
00:15:30I wasn't injured, you know.
00:15:31The sock burst and all the pebbles went over some cars.
00:15:34Somebody saw it and took Trevor's number plate when I got into his car,
00:15:38you know.
00:15:39He didn't press charges, you see.
00:15:41Listening to his voice, just a bloke down the road.
00:15:46A bloke who runs the corner shop.
00:15:48A bloke that you take your car to be fixed.
00:15:53But that shows that it was just the first attack, very amateurish,
00:15:58and I had to be more careful and more specific after that.
00:16:17The more that Sutcliffe attacked, the more brutal his actions became,
00:16:21and six years after the sock attack,
00:16:23his violence towards women escalated
00:16:25when he committed his first recorded murder,
00:16:27that of 28-year-old Wilma McCann.
00:16:30In Leeds in October 1975, luck ran out for ripper victim number one.
00:16:35Body identified as that of 28-year-old divorcee Wilma McCann.
00:16:40Found 150 yards from the council house where she'd lived with her four children.
00:16:53Someone who has studied Sutcliffe's crimes extensively
00:16:56is true crime author Richard C. Cobb.
00:17:00Richard, set the scene.
00:17:01Wilma McCann's body is found.
00:17:03Where and who found her?
00:17:06Her body was discovered by the milkman.
00:17:08Her head up towards the grass and her feet out towards the car park.
00:17:13Her injuries were quite horrific.
00:17:15She'd been stabbed 15 times
00:17:17and she'd received two hammer blows to the top of the head.
00:17:20Both hammer blows had fractured her skull
00:17:23and her white trousers were pulled down to her knees.
00:17:26She'd been stabbed three times under the left breast,
00:17:29twice under the right breast,
00:17:31stabbed nine times around the umbilicus, the abdomen area,
00:17:35and of course the fractures on her head.
00:17:37A brutal murder.
00:17:38It was a very brutal murder indeed.
00:17:40And in terms of any other evidence left at the crime scene?
00:17:44Evidence at the crime scene,
00:17:45the pathologist who examined the body
00:17:48found semen traces on the back of her pants.
00:17:52So if that was him, it means he was here
00:17:54and he actually masturbated at the actual scene.
00:17:57So the view in relation to Wilma's case
00:18:00is that after the murder or in the course of the murder,
00:18:03he masturbated and ejaculated over Wilma McCann's body?
00:18:07He did, yes.
00:18:11Necrophilia, that's making love to dead people or something, you know?
00:18:16Yeah, it says the auctioneer was a necrophiliac
00:18:19who masturbated over corpses.
00:18:22And dropped sexual kicks from the bodies.
00:18:36There was clearly a sexual element to Sutcliffe's crimes.
00:18:40Look what he did to Wilma McCann.
00:18:43His claim that this is a voice from God caused him to do that.
00:18:47That's absolute rubbish because there's no way
00:18:49a voice from God would have told him
00:18:51to sexually assault his victims and mutilate them.
00:18:54Utter rubbish.
00:18:58I want to play Dr Ho a recording where Sutcliffe faces the question
00:19:02of whether his crimes were sexually motivated.
00:19:20That's all they're interested in. They don't care a damn about the truth.
00:19:23So I think, in terms of the sexual element,
00:19:25we know Peter Sutcliffe stabbed some of his victims in their genitalia.
00:19:30He masturbated over his victims.
00:19:32He sexually assaulted his victims.
00:19:34Is that what would you expect to see from someone
00:19:36who's hearing voices from God?
00:19:38No, I think it's highly unlikely
00:19:40because actions should be interpreted for what they are.
00:19:44And if there was sexual actions, as we know there were in this case,
00:19:48that holds into question the proportion of his motivation
00:19:52being driven by psychosis.
00:19:54And I think the simplest answer is
00:19:56he was driven by an element of sexual desire.
00:20:09I'm meeting retired West Yorkshire police detective Bob Bridgestock,
00:20:13who worked on the Ripper investigation
00:20:15and attended the scene of Sutcliffe's tenth murder victim,
00:20:18Josephine Whittaker.
00:20:21So, Bob, this is the scene of Josephine Whittaker's murder.
00:20:27Josephine, a bank clerk, 19 years of age, lovely girl,
00:20:31been to see her grandparents, walking home, cut across this moor.
00:20:35Right.
00:20:36And, sadly unknown to her,
00:20:39Peter Sutcliffe is driving round in his sunbeam rapier
00:20:43and he sees her.
00:20:44So he's looking for his next victim?
00:20:46He's looking for his next kill.
00:20:48She's attacked from behind, which was Sutcliffe's format anyway.
00:20:52Yeah.
00:20:53Hits her twice with the hammer.
00:20:55She's dragged back onto this area here,
00:20:57about 30 feet away from the road.
00:21:00It's not well lit, so it's feeling safe.
00:21:03It's really what people would call a blitz attack.
00:21:06Yeah.
00:21:07A really emotional, massive attack, which it does with all his victims.
00:21:13He stabbed her 21 times.
00:21:15He had a sharpened screwdriver, which he'd made into a Bradawl type,
00:21:19and he'd inserted that into her vagina.
00:21:21So this is sexually motivated and he gets his gratification
00:21:25from killing and attacking lone women.
00:21:29And that goes exactly against his view that this was a voice of God.
00:21:34Exactly.
00:21:35The sexuality would never come into it.
00:21:37It wouldn't come into it, would it?
00:21:38It wouldn't come into it.
00:21:39If you had a voice of God,
00:21:40you wouldn't have a sexual gratification over those murders.
00:21:43This is my personal feeling. That is just nonsense.
00:21:46That is just somebody coming out with an excuse for what he's done.
00:21:49And really, he was a violent, nasty, evil predator.
00:21:56The police had profiled Sutcliffe's earlier victims,
00:21:58labelling them prostitutes,
00:22:00leading the public to believe that sex workers were the women most at risk.
00:22:04But it was his fifth murder that really grabbed the attention of the nation
00:22:08and turned the investigation upside down.
00:22:10After another nine weeks came Ripper victim number five.
00:22:15This time it was 16-year-old shop assistant Jane MacDonald,
00:22:19mistaken for a prostitute when she took a shortcut home
00:22:22from a disco through the red-light area of Leeds.
00:22:26Did you have a lot of regrets when you killed Jane MacDonald, a 16-year-old?
00:22:31Yes, I did, yeah.
00:22:33She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
00:22:38Yes, I did, yeah.
00:22:40She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
00:22:42Sadly, you know.
00:22:44This time it was 16-year-old shop assistant Jane MacDonald,
00:22:47mistaken for a prostitute when she took a shortcut home
00:22:50from a disco through the red-light area of Leeds.
00:22:54I didn't believe that he had a gun.
00:22:56I didn't believe that he had a gun.
00:22:58I didn't believe that he had a gun.
00:23:01I didn't believe that he had a gun.
00:23:03So, I had a gun.
00:23:05I was on a bike.
00:23:07I didn't believe that she wasn't a prostitute.
00:23:10I thought she was in a red light area at that time of night,
00:23:13you know, walking slowly and that, you know.
00:23:15And there were two cars were flashing the lights
00:23:18at her as well, you know, so.
00:23:21Jane's murder was brutal.
00:23:22Sutcliffe struck her twice with a hammer,
00:23:25pulled up her clothes,
00:23:26and then stabbed her multiple times in the chest and back
00:23:29before inserting a broken bottle into her chest.
00:23:32Her murder was a turning point in the Ripper investigation.
00:23:37Her murder basically was the one
00:23:39that gained the most public interest
00:23:41because up until now,
00:23:44most of the victims were considered to be prostitutes.
00:23:48And there wasn't a great deal of public sympathy
00:23:51attached to the women of the night.
00:23:54Some felt, especially more in the religious communities,
00:23:56that the women, tragic as it was, their murder,
00:23:59that somehow it could be prevented
00:24:01because their lifestyle may have contributed
00:24:03to their murder.
00:24:05But now we have this young 16-year-old
00:24:08described in the press and by the police
00:24:10as an innocent victim.
00:24:35Until this attack,
00:24:36the police believed Sutcliffe solely targeted sex workers.
00:24:40So not only did Jane MacDonald's murder
00:24:41shift the course of the investigation,
00:24:44it also highlighted the shocking profiling of women
00:24:47in general in the 1970s.
00:24:50The narrative was that there is such a thing
00:24:54as an innocent victim.
00:24:58In other words, there are some women
00:25:00who this man was killing who were not innocent,
00:25:03which means they were somehow culpable,
00:25:06they were somehow to blame.
00:25:08This was misogyny.
00:25:10This was something about how women on the streets,
00:25:15women who'd had a history of abuse,
00:25:17women who were from poor families
00:25:20were definitely worth less
00:25:23than so-called respectable women.
00:25:27Representatives of the English Collective of Prostitutes
00:25:29and other feminist groups carried placards
00:25:31and shouted slogans.
00:25:33They also blamed the press for sometimes referring
00:25:36to these victims as being innocent.
00:25:39Some of those police officers spoke about women
00:25:41in prostitution as though they were the scum of the earth.
00:25:45But the way that the women were spoken about
00:25:48was either because they were in prostitution
00:25:50or because the police officers saw them as no better than.
00:25:53He was able to get away with it for so long
00:25:56because of police and press incompetency
00:25:59and the general culture of misogyny
00:26:02throughout the 70s in the UK and elsewhere.
00:26:08The reality is that the police attitude
00:26:10in labelling all the Ripper victims prostitutes
00:26:13meant that Sutcliffe was free to go on attacking women
00:26:16because resources were focused on areas
00:26:18frequented by working girls
00:26:20and significantly, many non-prostitute attacks
00:26:23were not linked or connected to the Ripper.
00:26:27And I just got a letter from Daniel Brown,
00:26:30my friend in Newcastle.
00:26:32HE COUGHS
00:26:34He sent 20 quid for breakfast.
00:26:37Oh, right.
00:26:38So that was good of him.
00:26:40These gestures, they mean a lot, you know.
00:26:46Sutcliffe communicates with people all around the world
00:26:49as pen pals, writing letters to them,
00:26:51having phone calls with them.
00:26:53But there is clearly someone else much closer to home
00:26:56other than Brenda, who is in regular contact with Sutcliffe.
00:27:01I've managed to track down Daniel Brown,
00:27:04who I would describe as a super fan.
00:27:06I've come to the north-east of England to see him.
00:27:09It's a strange place,
00:27:11but I'm just trying to go back home to see him.
00:27:14I've gone to the North West.
00:27:16It's the place where I met the Ripper.
00:27:18I've been there, I've been there.
00:27:20I've been to England, I've been to Brazil.
00:27:22There's a lot of people there.
00:27:23I've been to the UK, I've been to the UK.
00:27:26I've been to the UK, I've been to the UK.
00:27:28I've come to the north-east of England to see him.
00:27:31He's a lovely lad, he's Daniel, he's 37.
00:27:35He's a really quite good friend, you know, he's very reliable,
00:27:39he's very discreet, you know.
00:27:43We have here a wall which is, in essence,
00:27:47dedicated to Peter Sutcliffe.
00:27:49Just tell me about some of the items.
00:27:51Well, some of the things I've been collecting over the years,
00:27:54there's an original billboard poster from newsstands,
00:27:58and then we've got one of Peter's shirts that he wore in the Henley Ward,
00:28:03and there's a portion of one of his letters inside of it as well.
00:28:07At the top here we've got the street sign from where he lived, in Bradford,
00:28:12and at the bottom, the street sign, that's where he was arrested in Sheffield.
00:28:16And just behind you, on here, we've got a handprint, what is that?
00:28:20This is a hand tracing from Peter that I obtained directly from him.
00:28:23I just asked him, I says, can I have a hand tracing?
00:28:26Many collectors do collect hand tracings from serial killers, yes.
00:28:45And this shirt, whose is that?
00:28:47The blue shirt, that's another one of Peter's that he wore when he was in Broadmoor as well.
00:28:52One of the things that struck me as soon as I saw you
00:28:55was the similarity, visually, you have with Sutcliffe in terms of the beard, the hair.
00:29:03I mean, have you chosen to look like that because of him?
00:29:06No, I've actually had a, well, I've looked like this for many years actually, yeah.
00:29:11The beard I've had long before I started talking to Peter.
00:29:14Daniel, tell me, why did you become interested and write Peter Sutcliffe?
00:29:19It's because I am interested in true crime,
00:29:21and I do collect true crime memorabilia from many famous cases.
00:29:26When I first reached out to him, Peter, writing him,
00:29:29I just really wanted to add something to my collection from him personally,
00:29:34so like something personally obtained from him.
00:29:37It's much better than going out and buying it.
00:29:39Do you think there's a morbid kind of fascination with him that you have?
00:29:45I don't think a morbid one, no, I don't think it's a morbid thing.
00:29:49I collect crime history.
00:29:52I collect, I don't just collect things from Peter,
00:29:55I collect various other things from various serial killers.
00:29:58And what do you know about his crimes?
00:30:01I know quite a bit about the case actually.
00:30:04I've studied the case quite a bit over the years,
00:30:07so I just wanted to get to know the man behind it, really.
00:30:09And do you feel you have got to know the man behind it?
00:30:12Well, I got to know Peter as Peter.
00:30:14The Yorkshire Ripper was 40 years ago,
00:30:17so I only got to know Peter himself, you know.
00:30:20I didn't get to know his bad nature, really.
00:30:23I just got to know him in recent years.
00:30:26There's people that perhaps would say,
00:30:28how can you be a friend to a man who so brutally killed 13 women
00:30:34and many, many more that he attacked?
00:30:37Yeah.
00:30:38Yeah, I mean, you do have to take a step back.
00:30:40You do have to take a step back when, you know,
00:30:42you're talking to someone like that, you know,
00:30:44especially you're writing to someone,
00:30:46or you're receiving a phone call.
00:30:48You know, and I did, I did on many occasions,
00:30:51and think, I've just spoken to the Yorkshire Ripper.
00:30:54And did you ever talk to Sutcliffe about his crimes?
00:30:56No, I never talked about the crimes, no.
00:30:58I talked about the mental health side of it.
00:31:00We'll talk about the voice of God,
00:31:02so the voice that instructed him to go out and kill.
00:31:06So he was still telling you that the reason he committed those crimes
00:31:09was the voice of God?
00:31:11Yeah, yeah.
00:31:12And do you believe that?
00:31:13I do, in a way, yes, I do.
00:31:15I mean, I do believe that he was very poorly.
00:31:18To go out and kill 13 people, you know, that is an illness.
00:31:24So do you think if someone goes out and kills 13 people,
00:31:27that makes them ill rather than evil?
00:31:31I think both, really.
00:31:33I think if you can do that and get up the next day
00:31:36and just have a normal life,
00:31:38I think there's definitely something wrong with you, yeah.
00:31:45Sutcliffe's infamy continued to grow throughout his years behind bars
00:31:49as younger generations became fascinated with this psychotic serial killer.
00:31:58One of them's a... One of them cheerleaders, you know.
00:32:02She wrote... She's a cheerleader teacher.
00:32:05She said she'll send some photographs.
00:32:08He reveled in the attention,
00:32:10receiving letters from so-called superfans all over the world
00:32:14and liked to write back to them.
00:32:28Peter Sutcliffe had built up quite a network of friends, pen pals,
00:32:34whilst he was in prison.
00:32:36Just talk me through some of those people he communicated with.
00:32:39Oh, lords.
00:32:41Lots of women.
00:32:43One from America that wanted to marry him.
00:32:46Um, it's Peter Sutcliffe,
00:32:49and then there's a lot of other people that wanted to marry him.
00:32:53One from America that wanted to marry him.
00:32:56Um, her parents even wrote to him saying,
00:32:59will you marry our daughter?
00:33:10Yeah.
00:33:16Yeah.
00:33:24Yeah.
00:33:37I mean, I think he used to get 30 letters a week.
00:33:40Gosh.
00:33:41Do you think, and I might be unfair by asking you this,
00:33:44do you think you became slightly obsessed by the Yorkshire Ripper?
00:33:47Yeah, a little bit, but I always had an interest in, like,
00:33:51programmes about serial killers and things like that,
00:33:54and, you know, more true crime than not,
00:33:58but I always had an interest.
00:34:02It's clear from listening to these recordings
00:34:05that Sutcliffe had a real affection for Brenda,
00:34:08and I wonder to a point even an obsession with her.
00:34:16Yeah.
00:34:17Yeah.
00:34:26All right.
00:34:29All right.
00:34:32I know, yeah.
00:34:35Bye-bye.
00:34:37Bye.
00:34:39Sutcliffe was brazen, arrogant and not very clever,
00:34:42yet repeatedly luck fell on his side,
00:34:45and with the help of the police making fatal errors,
00:34:47he was able to evade justice for a long time.
00:34:50Thankfully now, for the first time,
00:34:52his tapes are finally providing some answers.
00:34:59At the Yorkshire incident rooms,
00:35:01there is also concern about two more prostitutes
00:35:04missing from their usual haunts in Leeds,
00:35:06two more people to keep tabs on
00:35:08in Britain's longest-running fully active murder inquiry.
00:35:11So far, police have interviewed no less than 50,000 people,
00:35:15taken 12,000 statements,
00:35:17and still the police can't get all the help they need
00:35:20from the people who inhabit the twilight world of prostitution.
00:35:23The Yorkshire Ripper manhunt was the biggest case
00:35:26West Yorkshire police had ever faced
00:35:28and remains one of the largest criminal investigations in history.
00:35:32Taking overall command of the inquiry
00:35:34was Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield,
00:35:37a gruff, unapproachable, heavy-drinking old-school copper.
00:35:41The scale of the operation was so big
00:35:43that the incident room floor had to be reinforced
00:35:46to handle the sheer weight of the paperwork.
00:35:50Mike Hamilton is a journalist who I've known for a long time
00:35:53and has extensively covered the Yorkshire Ripper case.
00:35:57I can't think of a case in modern day
00:36:01that reflects the Yorkshire Ripper.
00:36:04There isn't one, thankfully.
00:36:06If someone carried out offending like this in the modern day,
00:36:09they'd be caught quite quickly.
00:36:11He was able to get away with his attacks through fairly simple means,
00:36:15such as shifting where he attacked people,
00:36:17shifting his hunting grounds, if you like,
00:36:19away from Leeds to different areas,
00:36:21such as Bradford, then Manchester.
00:36:23And he was able to keep ahead of the police
00:36:25by things like changing his car.
00:36:27So it's fairly simple things that kept him one step ahead of the police,
00:36:31which, thankfully, I would hope would not happen these days.
00:36:34Nowadays, police have the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System,
00:36:38but this was the 1970s, so long before any computers.
00:36:41Everything was handwritten and filed using index cards.
00:36:45So the more leads that were generated,
00:36:47the more cards created, slowing the investigation down,
00:36:50allowing Sutcliffe to slip further away.
00:36:53The sheer scale of the investigation led it to be fatally flawed.
00:36:57Looking back, yeah, there were mistakes made,
00:37:00and we know there were mistakes made.
00:37:02It was massive, there was this inquiry.
00:37:05I've dealt with some major inquiries, some serial killers since,
00:37:09but nothing on this scale.
00:37:11It was prolific.
00:37:13It was going at a pace which caused problems.
00:37:16The information that was coming in was massive.
00:37:18I mean, it changed the face of policing.
00:37:20It showed how inadequate we were.
00:37:23In 1969, Sutcliffe started attacking women,
00:37:26some six years prior to his first known murder.
00:37:30Some luck, along with significant police failings and attitudes,
00:37:34allowed him to grow in confidence and attack women unfettered.
00:37:38In the summer of 1975, there were at least three women
00:37:42who, despite receiving horrific head injuries,
00:37:45were forced to leave their homes.
00:37:48In the summer of 1975, there were at least three women
00:37:51who, despite receiving horrific head injuries,
00:37:54survived attacks from Sutcliffe.
00:37:56Tracey Brown is one of these surviving victims.
00:38:19So, Tracey Brown, she's been out to town with her sister and friends.
00:38:23She's walking up to her house up there, about a mile long here.
00:38:27Tell me what happens to her.
00:38:29Well, this is the Bradley Road,
00:38:31which runs directly down to Sills and Town Centre.
00:38:34And if you follow the road up, you would come to the farmhouse
00:38:37where Tracey and Mandy were staying with their family.
00:38:40And this is the actual area where the attack first took place
00:38:45on the 27th of August, 1975.
00:39:16So, she must have climbed over the wall and they took her home, you know.
00:39:21She can't have been seriously injured
00:39:23because she would have still been behind the wall, you know.
00:39:29Tracey's attack is part of a significant pattern
00:39:34that Sutcliffe was now developing
00:39:36before he committed his first murder of Wilbur McCann.
00:39:39That's right. If we look at the month before this attack,
00:39:43the July 1975, he's already attacked Anna Rogalski,
00:39:47not too far away in Keighley.
00:39:50Two weeks before this actual attack, he'd already attacked Olive Smelt.
00:39:55Both those attacks were by hammer.
00:39:57They're both to the back of the head.
00:39:59And luckily, those two people survived.
00:40:02Now, the interesting thing about this attack is
00:40:05Tracey Brown had walked for 30 minutes with Sutcliffe.
00:40:09So, she was able to give a fantastic description of her attacker
00:40:13and she got right down to the hair, the beard and the dark eyes.
00:40:17The fact he spoke with a soft Yorkshire accent.
00:40:20If they'd taken Tracey Brown's photo fit seriously,
00:40:23they would have had Sutcliffe.
00:40:27Another woman who was attacked by a man
00:40:29fitting the description of Sutcliffe was Marcella Claxton.
00:40:32She was attacked in 1976 in Leeds on her way home from a party.
00:40:37Her description of the attacker closely resembled Tracey Brown's photo fit,
00:40:41but police dismissed both of these attacks as being carried out by the Ripper
00:40:45because neither were prostitutes.
00:40:47Whilst Marcella was convinced she was attacked by Sutcliffe,
00:40:50this has never been formally accepted,
00:40:52but I've just uncovered something remarkable in the recordings.
00:41:07Well, did you attack that Marcella Claxton, a black girl?
00:41:12Yeah. Yeah.
00:41:13Cos they said that they didn't know whether to believe her or not.
00:41:16So, it was you? Yeah.
00:41:21This goes to the heart of why I tasked Brenda
00:41:23to ask specific questions of Sutcliffe.
00:41:26Sutcliffe has never publicly admitted to these attacks before,
00:41:29I believe because they don't fit his Mission From God narrative.
00:41:33But finally, we can definitively say that Sutcliffe was responsible
00:41:38for the attempted murders of Tracey Brown and Marcella Claxton.
00:41:45Policing was basic in the 70s and 80s compared to what it is now,
00:41:50and forensics now is king.
00:41:52But in those days, he clearly wasn't aware
00:41:55because he left so many forensic clues at his crime scenes.
00:41:59But what he was aware of was the parochial nature of the police forces,
00:42:04and when West Yorkshire police put loads of officers onto the street,
00:42:08he moved elsewhere.
00:42:19And the Ripper came at his next victim 60 miles away
00:42:22across the Pennines in Manchester.
00:42:24A post-mortem showed that days after the murder,
00:42:27the killer had returned to mutilate Jean Jordan's body still further
00:42:30and drag it to a more open position.
00:42:33Jean Jordan was a sex worker.
00:42:35On the night she was murdered, Sutcliffe had paid her £5 for her services
00:42:39before brutally attacking and killing her.
00:42:42Days later, after he'd realised that banknotes can be traced,
00:42:46he returned to the body in the hope of recovering the damning evidence.
00:42:50He did not find the £5 note, however, police would later find it
00:42:54and trace it back to Sutcliffe's employer.
00:42:57Within days of finding Jean Jordan's body,
00:42:59detectives descended on the killer's workplace
00:43:02and questioned everyone on the payroll.
00:43:06And did that worry you?
00:43:20Jean's body was found near an allotment in Chorlton, Greater Manchester.
00:43:24I've arranged to meet the man who found her body, Bruce Jones.
00:43:35We'd gone and got an allotment and we'd got a shed and we were...
00:43:40There was a place across from the old allotment,
00:43:42so I had a lot of bricks there and I was going over there
00:43:44getting them in a wheelbarrow and coming back
00:43:46and we were laying them down for a flatbed for a shed.
00:43:49Now, I'd gone five times with five loads of bricks in my wheelbarrow.
00:43:54But the person who was with the allotment on,
00:43:56he decided we needed one more barrel load.
00:43:59So a while later, I went back and on the way back,
00:44:03there was the body of Jean Jordan.
00:44:08And you're absolutely certain that when you saw her,
00:44:11there was no... that she hadn't been there previously?
00:44:14No, she'd not been there on the five times.
00:44:16And then when I was looking at Jean,
00:44:21I looked up and there was a face in the bushes.
00:44:24Black beard, black hair, black eyebrows, black eyes.
00:44:30So did you look at him?
00:44:32I did look at him, but I didn't take any notice.
00:44:35I was looking at this girl and, you know, your mind's all over the place.
00:44:41And I looked down again, he'd gone.
00:44:44Did he clock that you'd seen him?
00:44:46He must have been watching me.
00:44:48So he thought you'd gone.
00:44:51He then took Jean's body and placed it out in the open.
00:44:55Why he did that, I don't know. I don't understand why.
00:44:59I want to play you him talking about...
00:45:05Have you ever heard his voice? No.
00:45:07OK, I appreciate this is going to be hard.
00:45:13On the night you were arrested,
00:45:15were you going to attack the girl you was with?
00:45:17Of course I was, that was the whole point.
00:45:20Didn't pick him up for any other reason.
00:45:23So you were on a mission that night?
00:45:26Yeah.
00:45:29What do you think, listening to him now?
00:45:31That voice doesn't match the face I saw.
00:45:33That doesn't match the pictures I've seen of the Yorkshire Ripper.
00:45:38God, I'm not nice.
00:45:41He was proud of what he was doing. He wanted the stops.
00:45:49Over the course of the Ripper inquiry,
00:45:51Sutcliffe was questioned multiple times
00:45:54and because of the incompetency of the police investigation,
00:45:57they failed to identify him as a suspect.
00:46:08But police failings aside, Sutcliffe had a lot of luck go his way.
00:46:13In March 1979,
00:46:15he benefited from the biggest diversion in the Ripper investigation.
00:46:20I'm Jack.
00:46:21I see you are still having no luck catching me.
00:46:24I have the greatest respect for you, George.
00:46:27Good Lord.
00:46:29You are no nearer catching me now
00:46:32than four years ago when I started.
00:46:36Wearside Jack taunted police with letters and an audio recording
00:46:40and the officer in charge of the Ripper manhunt,
00:46:43Assistant Chief Constable Oldfield,
00:46:45was convinced that these were the work of the Yorkshire Ripper.
00:46:49When that Wearside Jack, as they call him,
00:46:52when he sent the tape, did you ever listen to it?
00:46:55Did you ever listen to it?
00:47:19All the eggs now are in one basket.
00:47:21You know, it's as though the inquiry is suddenly taking
00:47:24an increase in gear, if you like.
00:47:26Everything is focused on Wearside Jack.
00:47:29And on that, you know, looking back,
00:47:32not everybody agreed with it.
00:47:34Could you challenge Oldfield as an investigating officer?
00:47:38You can challenge senior officers,
00:47:41but there's a limit.
00:47:43One of my colleagues, he'd looked into Sutcliffe
00:47:47and he'd been told to shut it, basically.
00:47:50And if you want to stack shelves at the supermarket,
00:47:53then go do it.
00:47:55We are looking for a man that comes from Wearside,
00:47:59and that was it.
00:48:01No, I already believed it was being protected, you know,
00:48:06so it wasn't a slight distraction
00:48:11for the police to be going up the North East, you know.
00:48:15It wasn't all that important to me, really.
00:48:18It did slow things down a bit, you know.
00:48:21Sutcliffe evaded capture for over a decade,
00:48:24from 1969 to his arrest in 1981.
00:48:28But just how did his reign finally come to an end,
00:48:31and what did he make of it?
00:48:41Peter Sutcliffe held the nation in a grip of terror in the 1970s.
00:48:45He had a lot of luck fall his way on many occasions,
00:48:48and along with the police incompetency,
00:48:51it provided him with so many opportunities to evade capture.
00:48:55But Sutcliffe's luck finally ran out in January 1981.
00:49:00We were patrolling an area where prostitutes frequent.
00:49:05We saw a Rover car parked.
00:49:07As regards the vehicle, it came back that the vehicle
00:49:10was bearing false number plates.
00:49:13We then made other enquiries
00:49:17and ended up in arresting the two occupants.
00:49:2124-year-old prostitute Olivia Revers was in the car with him.
00:49:25He'd picked the girl up and they'd driven to a quiet spot.
00:49:29He told her his name was Dave. The couple didn't have sex.
00:49:34On the night you were arrested, were you going to attack the girl you was with?
00:49:48Sutcliffe was arrested and taken to Dewsbury Police Station.
00:49:52The arresting officers had no idea of the significance of their actions.
00:49:56They had caught the Yorkshire Ripper.
00:49:59After a series of questioning by Ripper squad detectives, Sutcliffe never cracked.
00:50:03Then one of the arresting officers had a hunch.
00:50:06He remembered that Sutcliffe had left the car to relieve himself while being questioned.
00:50:10He returned to the scene. It was now 24 hours later.
00:50:14And there, lying in the bushes, he found a hammer and a knife hidden.
00:50:30A knife.
00:50:50Why did you leave the car, said the detective.
00:50:53To relieve myself, said Sutcliffe.
00:50:55I think it was for another purpose, said the detective.
00:50:58I think you're leading up to the Yorkshire Ripper, said Sutcliffe.
00:51:02What about the Yorkshire Ripper, said the detective.
00:51:05Well, said Sutcliffe, it's me.
00:51:08He is being questioned in relation to the Yorkshire Ripper murders.
00:51:28Why did you confess?
00:51:39Yeah, did you think that because they found the stuff, the game was up?
00:51:56I wanted to have another chat with Carl Sutcliffe
00:51:59to see if his brother had ever said or done anything
00:52:02that in hindsight was suspicious or concerning.
00:52:06Did Peter say anything about the Yorkshire Ripper prior to him being caught?
00:52:11Did he ever discuss it with you?
00:52:36It didn't click to me that...
00:52:39Because now you're telling me that story, Carl,
00:52:42that suggests to me that you just caught him out.
00:52:54So you would be seeing Peter at his house
00:52:58during the course of him carrying out his attacks
00:53:02and any change in behaviour from him?
00:53:08And then what happens when you hear he's been charged
00:53:11with all the murders and the attempted murders?
00:53:33He said...
00:53:44How did you feel when you got arrested?
00:53:46Were you relieved, do you think?
00:53:53Yeah.
00:53:58Right.
00:54:02It was coming to an end, and I hoped it would, you know.
00:54:07As the armoured van disappeared beneath the heavy studded portcullis
00:54:11of Newgate Street down the ramp to the cells,
00:54:14the crowd was exceptionally silent.
00:54:17Minutes later, Peter William Sutcliffe was in the dock,
00:54:20pleading diminished responsibility.
00:54:24On 29th April 1981, four months after his arrest,
00:54:28Sutcliffe goes on trial at the Old Bailey in London.
00:54:31The trial lasted four weeks.
00:54:33Sutcliffe pleaded guilty of manslaughter
00:54:35on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
00:54:38Today, Dr Hugo Milne, the first of three psychiatrists
00:54:41who will be giving evidence, has been in the witness box all day,
00:54:44explaining why he's convinced that Peter Sutcliffe is mad.
00:54:48Throughout his defence, he claimed that he was on a mission from God.
00:54:52He believed that he was schizophrenic
00:54:54and that the voice he could hear in his head
00:54:57was God instructing him to kill prostitutes.
00:55:00He knew he must wipe out these people, these scum from society.
00:55:05Well, the Attorney General told the jury
00:55:07that the prosecution didn't accept this,
00:55:09that Sutcliffe first mentioned the voices
00:55:11at his eighth interview with the doctors and not before,
00:55:14and he'd never mentioned it to the police.
00:55:17But it only took the jury six hours to see through Sutcliffe's lies
00:55:21and find him sane and guilty on all counts.
00:55:24So, Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, is a mass murderer.
00:55:28By a majority of ten to two, guilty of murder on all charges.
00:55:32He was handed 13 life sentences and denied parole for at least 30 years.
00:55:59Sutcliffe was one of the country's highest-profile prisoners
00:56:02and, as such, he did get treated differently.
00:56:04The tapes reveal how much he enjoyed his status
00:56:07and what life was like for him alongside other notorious prisoners.
00:56:29They said...
00:56:421981, Sutcliffe is sent to Parkhurst Prison,
00:56:46a really tough jail, and I know, from being a police officer,
00:56:49inmates hated it there.
00:56:51Granted Category A status, very much for his own protection
00:56:54as much as anything else.
00:56:56And 18 months in, he found out just how tough Parkhurst Prison was.
00:57:16Sutcliffe appeared at Newport Crown Court
00:57:19in the case against his attacker, James Costello.
00:57:22Shortly after he'd given evidence,
00:57:24Sutcliffe was taken out of the court and out of the courthouse.
00:57:27He was bundled into a yellow prison van,
00:57:29escorted by two police cars,
00:57:31photographers struggling to take pictures.
00:57:34Sutcliffe proclaimed that he was schizophrenic
00:57:37and, as such, he should not be sent to a mainstream jail,
00:57:40but to Broadmoor, a high-security psychiatric hospital in Berkshire.
00:57:45He finally got his wish the day after the attack.
00:57:48Sutcliffe was sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
00:57:55When he got moved to Broadmoor, that was a massive thing.
00:57:59Even the home sector was directly involved in that decision.
00:58:03Yes, that was hugely controversial, to move him to Broadmoor.
00:58:07Life in Broadmoor is far more expensive to the taxpayer.
00:58:10It cost well over £11 million to keep him in Broadmoor all those years.
00:58:14It's £330,000 a year.
00:58:16It is a hospital, so he was deemed as a patient at Broadmoor,
00:58:20which must have jarred with victims and relatives of victims.
00:58:25In 2016, a health tribunal was held to determine
00:58:29whether Sutcliffe should remain a patient at Broadmoor
00:58:32or if he was considered well enough to be moved back to a Category A prison.
00:58:51Also tonight, the Yorkshire Ripper is no longer mentally ill
00:58:55and could be back in prison after 31 years in Broadmoor.
00:59:00Sutcliffe's transfer from Broadmoor to Franklin
00:59:03significantly reduced the cost of the public purse,
00:59:06from over £300,000 per year to around £63,000.
00:59:11He fought tooth and nail against the move to Franklin.
00:59:14He described it as a mental health crisis.
00:59:17He fought tooth and nail against the move to Franklin.
00:59:20He described it as a cesspit of despair.
00:59:22But when he got there, he then found he actually enjoyed it.
00:59:26He found he got along with lots of the other inmates.
00:59:29He was looked after quite well and he was able to continue
00:59:33with all the perks of his lifestyle as he had in Broadmoor.
00:59:48Oh, no, it's a lot better than Broadmoor.
00:59:52Sutcliffe clearly enjoyed mixing with other high-profile killers in jail.
00:59:56On the same wing was child killer Ian Huntley.
01:00:12Prison life for these brutal killers
01:00:14brings with it a mundane routine.
01:00:16Sutcliffe's recordings give a glimpse
01:00:18into other prisoners' personal lives too.
01:00:45You know...
01:00:54Such hypocrisy and homophobia, coming from a man who brutally
01:00:58slayed women, mutilated them and even masturbated over their bodies.
01:01:05So he goes from Broadmoor to Franklin on the basis
01:01:08that he is now rehabilitated, mentally wise.
01:01:12Yes.
01:01:13Did he accept that?
01:01:43But Sutcliffe's delusional thought was that his return
01:01:46to mainstream prison was a step closer to his bid for freedom.
01:02:06It was a bit delusional in that he thought he would get out.
01:02:09He was in the process of appealing his sentence.
01:02:12He was ringing his solicitor and doing work with that.
01:02:17But, yeah, he thought he'd get out.
01:02:27Yeah.
01:02:31Yeah.
01:02:33Oh, yeah.
01:02:39Yeah.
01:02:43No, no.
01:02:54Sutcliffe's fight for freedom was not the only battle he faced.
01:02:58His health had been in slow decline.
01:03:13Yeah.
01:03:31Oh, dear.
01:03:34He was weak and suffering and, I'm sure, in pain,
01:03:37but nothing like the pain suffered by all his many victims
01:03:40and their families.
01:03:41Although feeling pathetic and sorry for himself,
01:03:44he had a much bigger battle on his hands.
01:03:54Oh, did you say no, then?
01:03:58Yeah.
01:04:00Now weak and frail, he succumbed to Covid-19
01:04:03and his life was in the balance.
01:04:05Decades earlier, he had taken the lives of 13 women
01:04:09and destroyed countless more.
01:04:11And now the tables were turned.
01:04:13Finally, on 13th November 2020, the virus overwhelmed him.
01:04:18Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, dies aged 74.
01:04:26So, tell me what this is.
01:04:29Peter's ashes.
01:04:33How have you got them?
01:04:35They were sent to Mick, his brother,
01:04:37and Mick divided them up between himself,
01:04:40one of Peter's friends, and me.
01:04:43He always said, when I was going on holiday and things,
01:04:46that he loved to walk on the seafront and have fish and chips
01:04:49and do something normal.
01:04:51And he said, when I die, would you scatter my ashes
01:04:55to one of the places you go to on the seafront?
01:04:58So I said, yeah.
01:05:01Decades later, having spent hundreds of hours
01:05:04talking to him on the phone and in person,
01:05:06it is clear to see that she had become loyal
01:05:09and attached to Sutcliffe enough to carry out his final wishes.
01:05:17For all of Sutcliffe's luck and delusions,
01:05:20the reality of his death was humiliation, soaking in his own piss.
01:05:24He wanted love and adoration,
01:05:26and from some, he got it.
01:05:28But by the time he died,
01:05:30the stories of his victims dominated the papers.
01:05:33And rightfully so, he became a footnote in his own story.
01:05:37Within days of his death, he was already being forgotten.
01:05:41And I hope this is the last film that is ever made about him.
01:05:47With all episodes from the very beginning,
01:05:50meet the fierce ladies in the classic Aussie comedy,
01:05:53With all episodes from the very beginning,
01:05:55meet the fierce ladies in the classic Aussie soap,
01:05:58Prisoner Cell Block H is streaming now on My5.
01:06:01Next tonight, primes that shook Britain.