Bit of a grim subject- but was anyone living in Leeds / Bradford at the time of the Yorkshire ripper?

This was when I first began to get involved with the Women's Rights movement. The emphasis on curfews for women (but not men) stirred people's indignation and led to the 'Reclaim the Night' marches (which I went on) as women demanded that more emphasis was put on the perpetrator - and that his victims were ALL recognised as such, and not divided into those who were 'innocent' and those who 'deserved it'...☹️

I lived a few miles from Bradford. I was in my teens, went to school with one of the girls that were (allegedly) attacked by him.
We seemed 'safe' in our village but the thought of travelling to the towns and cities terrified me.
Left school in '79 and was supposed to travel to Bradford to study for my banking exams. Needless to say I didn't go, and even after he was caught it still made you wary of going out, so I never did sit my exams.
So, I suppose you could say, he cost me a career. Small potatoes, I know.

Yes I still live in the same house in Headingley ...a few minutes from the street where he committed his last murder. The same week he had bludgeoned but not killed a young woman doctor outside my friend’s house in neighbouring street leaving blood on the doorstep. It was horrendous. I was both a student and a young mother at the time.
I remember babysitting one night as part of the babysitting group I was in and the husband refusing to accompany me home because I was a feminist and obviously didn't believe in such things.
The reactionary thinking of the police was horrific, not bothering to really pull out the big guns until middle class women were attacked. I remember at Uni we had a top ranking police officer apologising to us. It was strange on campus to encourage us all to be accompanied by male students because we had no idea who the perpetrator was. Also I was involved in a community arts production at the Grand Theatre called Alma during which he killed his last victim on Alma Road.
I resented the lack of freedom of movement I had but expected people to respect it whilst not exploit it for their own reasons. There was so much ignorance and misinformation about. I still can't look at the KFC in Headingley Central (was the Arndale Centre) where Peter Sutcliffe after murdering Jaqueline Hill went in and ate. We don’t forget.

I was a student at Beckett Park. Part of Leeds Poly at the time 1977/78. I lived in York then and walked/bussed to the city centre to catch the train. Often in the dark through the winter months, of course. It was only a year or so later that I became fully aware of it all. I think I wasn’t reading papers, watching tv at the time. Also, I had moved up to the area from the south west to do a year of teacher training. I didn’t have the local awareness. In retrospect, I was shocked that the educational establishment I attended had not made sure that the female students were super aware. We were obviously going out to teaching practices at schools in areas most of us didn’t know at all etc etc. Also, at that time, being led to believe in northern friendliness and not being a city girl........could have misinterpreted or been polite to a ‘stranger’ approaching me. I think the last young women to be murdered was snatched from behind while sitting on a wall waiting for a bus. On the road I used to walk/bus along each weekday. Definitely think the students should have been told about it very very clearly.

Greyduster

Sutcliffe was arrested in Broomhill, Sheffield in January 1981 by South Yorkshire police, having been found in a car with a prostitute. The car had false number plates which is why he was arrested. He was then transferred into the jurisdiction of West Yorkshire police. I fancy the prostitute had a lucky escape.

I believe it was the Broomhall area of Sheffield where he was arrested. It was very close to the city’s women’s hospital where I was on night duty and he was taken into custody at Hammerton Rd police station-the road next to where I lived. Whilst he was on the loose most women in the north were on high alert

I’d moved to the frozen north (Sheffield) ?? for 3 years at that particular time. I recall all my new friends I’d made, being absolutely terrified to go out alone at night. We used to just go out in a crowd and wouldn’t even get in taxis on our own, so had sleepovers at each other’s houses.

Yes I was a teenager during his rein of terror. It had a massive impact on my life. I can vividly recall seeing the ever increasing black and white photographs of the poor victims staring out at the reader on the newspaper front pages. The police had a mobile unit which they parked up in city centres playing the “I’m Jack” tape out on loudspeakers. It was also available to listen into via a phone line - these were the days of dial a disc! I was 16 when he was finally arrested and was in the crowds at Dewsbury where he was being charged. A moment in history. The tv footage of the times paint a grim picture of life in West Yorkshire during those dark years.

I was also at Leeds Polytechnic and was very aware of these murders but as others have said, the message was the he targeted prostitutes. I never went anywhere on my own and we started to suspect one of the students who had a similar accent to the fake tape. It was alarming

Sparklefizz
Wearside Jack aka John Humble.
He went to prison for eight years for perverting the course of justice.
He died three years ago

Was the hoaxer who made those tapes ever caught? What a wicked thing to do!

A recent documentay told how The Met offered to transfer the records to computer but the offer was refused because it was too expensive. Believing the Wearside Jack tapes and letters left Sutcliffe free to murder more women. One young policeman had interviewed Sutcliffe at home and saw he fitted all the descriptions apart from the accent, he tried to tell this to his superior officer who banged on the table and shouted at him "PETER SUTCLIFFE IS NOT THE YORKSHIRE RIPPER." He was finally caught by two young police officers who have never received any recognition or reward for catching the most wanted man in the country. Instead the officers who had led the hunt held a disgracefull press conference where they laughted and joked as if they'd won the lottery showing no regard whatsover for the women brutally murdered.

I live in Sunderland and all our menfolk were interviewed, had their voice recorded and had to give a sample of handwriting. This fiasco was caused by the person who created the "my name's Jack" tape and sent letters with the Sunderland postmark.
A great waste of police time and diverted attention away from the relevant crime area.

He got away with it for so long for a few reasons.
The police decided very early on that he hated prostitutes, so any attack on an ‘innocent’ woman was ignored ( innocent being their words )
No sophisticated computer systems to cross reference information, plus the general public didn’t seem to care that he was killing prostitutes - certainly not in the beginning anyway ( again their words )

And how no one recognised the man behind the hoax tape god only knows?
But no one came forward.

My auntie lived on Alma Road for many years and was living there when that pig was murdering women. How he got away with it so long leaves me totally amazed.

I can vividly remember the hunt for The Yorkshire Ripper, it was only after he was caught that the public became aware of all the mistakes made by the local police. They wouldn't allow other police forces to help, computer systems were available but they said it was too expensive and their fatal insistence he had a Wearside accent. After he was jailed film companies were rushing to make a movie about the case but the mother of one of his last victims wrote to the Queen saying she was disgusted her daughter's murder would be made into a film, the Queen replied agreeing with her and let her reply be made public (very unusual) to this day there has never been a film made for the cinema.

I worked with a woman who told me that when she was a teenager she used to wash Peter Sutcliffe's car for him at the weekend. She was very shocked some years later when he was arrested.

When I was a student I was in the area where the Chiswick Strangler was active. I wasn't particularly worried at the time, but when I watched a TV programme about him recently I was horrified to see how close some of the murders had been.

I was a student at Leeds Polytechnic and remember posters about his first victim plastered in shop windows I passed through Headingly on the way to and from the Poly. As the murders escalated students would ensure they were always in groups on nights out. He supposedly had a target group but sadly, after I left a student was murdered behind the shops in Headingly.

It’s worth remembering that the police didn’t have the benefit of modern computer systems and DNA evidence. Police station floors were strengthened to bear the weight of the paper evidence collected and it would have been nigh on impossible with the resources they had for results to be cross-checked and properly analysed. Yes, huge mistakes were made, particularly the credence given to the Wearside Jack tape, which led directly to the evidence of some survivors being discounted as their attacker had a local accent. But many dedicated officers gave their all to this investigation, often to the detriment of their personal lives. Thousands of people were interviewed because of their frequenting certain areas, because of the cars they drove, the jobs they did, their physical descriptions. Many were picked up several times, including my DSIL. I was interviewed myself as I lived in the area and originated from Durham, so had relatives visiting who had what they thought was the accent they were looking for.

With the confidence of the young I never stopped living my life to the full, though we’d all be on the alert. We’d to crack on - I had a mile walk home from my bus stop after work and this was often in the dark, but the only time I ran from anyone was when I heard clanking behind me and turned to see a man following me wearing a workman’s belt with tools hanging from it. Then one of the victims was found in a back alley just a street away from where I’d lived a few years earlier as a student, in a ground floor bed sit with no window lock, also looking out onto a back alley.

No doubt about it, they were scary times.

Thanks for replies, really interesting.

I can’t believe he was interviewed 7 or 8 times but just kept getting away?
Plus the police ignoring the women giving descriptions of their attacker ( him! ) just because they weren’t prostitutes.

I lived in West Yorkshire at the time and taught at a school in Bradford. I rarely had the use of a car so it was two buses. At the height of the concern, a colleague went out of her way to give me a lift home.
I also recall driving the car just a short trip to post a letter one teatime, that’s how scary it was.

Baggs we also lived near Hillsborough at the time. My children were at nursery very close to where he was eventually caught. I worked in the evenings and made sure I walked to the bus stop with other people. It was worrying.

I lived between Bradford and Bingley at the start , then moved and worked at Sheffield university near where he was caught. It was a very frightening time. My bother was interviewed as he used a bank that some of the money came from.

Yes Framilode I did the walking in the middle of the road routine in Bradford at night coming home alone.

I was living in Leeds at the time and working in a large city cenre estate agents. One night a week I had to stay late until 8pm and was the only one in the office. I wasn't worried about that but hated the walk to the multi storey car park. After a time the police must have noticed and every week a kind officer used to escort me to my car.
Towards the end I can remember it getting quite scary. If I needed to go to the off licence at night (this was the only shop open) I used to walk in the middle of the road.
A neighbour was interrogated quite heavily by the police. His car had been clocked in the red light district and when the police came round to speak to him about it they noticed he had a north eastern accent.
Also my husband used to slow his walking pace right down if he was walking behind a woman at night. He started to do this after a woman in front of him became panicked and started to run away.
I think by the time it was over a lot of people had become very scared.

Interesting thread, thanks for starting it. I remember the arrest and drama around this case, and it can be interesting to see programmes about these very high profile cases. Good investigative journalism can highlight inadequacies in and mistakes made by the police, but also give the victims a name. At the time of the Yorkshire Ripper and cases such as Denis Nielsen, the victims were lumped together as 'prostitutes' or 'rent boys' and their sometimes chaotic lifestyles given almost as a reason for their murder, as if it something which would not happen to 'decent people'. It is all a valid re-education without completely re-writing history