Learning on ScreenRipper Sutcliffe Shorts: a special programme
- Title
- Ripper Sutcliffe Shorts: a special programme
- Transmission details
- 20 May 1981
- Description
- See also AV769/671/S1. Track 1- Factory worker Carol Jones was Peter Sutcliffe’s first girlfriend. The couple went out for 4 years in their teens. Carol, who still lives in Bingley, remembers a very difference Peter Sutcliffe from the one now branded the Yorkshire ripper. Carol Jones talking to Paul Davies. Track 2- Ripper voice. Stanley Ellis and Jack Windsor-Lewis are two of Britain’s top voice experts and lectures at Leeds University. One of their students was the ripper’s last victim Jacqueline Hill. When the police received the cassette recording from the man claiming to be the ripper, they brought in the two men to analyse the tape. Both were immediately able to pinpoint the area from where the tape originated. But they had serious doubts about the way police publicity campaing was built around the recording. They explained their involvement in the enquiry to John Greenwood. Track 3- Ripper-brother [strictly embargoed to trial end]. Peter Sutcliffe’s brother Nick says he never suspected his eldest brother was the Yorkshire ripper and he can not understand why his brother became a killer. He told Paul Davies his brother had a good marriage and a happy childhood. Track 4- Peter Sutcliffe’s brother Nick says he will remember another side of the mass killer. Track 5- Ripper-Hobson [strictly embargoed]. Jim Hobson, West Yorkshire’s temporary assistant Chief Constable was brought in to head the hunt in its latter stages after severe public criticism over the lack of results in the five-year London ripper enquiry. Sutcliffe was interviewed 9 times by police hunting the mass killer, but each time he was able to convince them he was not involved in the case. Mr Hobson told ITN’s Ken Press he was able to evade arrest. Track 6- Ripper - Melissa [strictly embargoed to trial end]. One of Sutcliffe’s drinking friends, Trevor Birdsall wrote an anonymous note to the police and went along to see officers to tell them he suspected the ripper was his friend Sutcliffe. That was after the killing of his last victim, Jacqueline Hill. But, because of the massive size of the enquiry, Birdsall’s letter was still waiting to be processed when Sutcliffe was picked up by change in Sheffield. Birdsall’s former wife Melissa recalled to Andrew Simmons how Sutcliffe chased after prostitutes behind his wife’s back. Track 7-Ripper - Shaw [strictly embargoed to trial end]. Dr Stephen Shaw is a Yorkshire psychiatrists specialising in the criminal mind. He was brought into the ripper enquiry by the man in charge of the hunt, George Oldfield to try and give the police an idea of the mental state of the man they were seeking. But the psychiatrists were unable to give the hunt much help. One of the country’s top criminal psychiatrists examined Sutcliffe and gave evidence to the Court that they believed he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. Dr Shaw explained exactly what that means to John Greenwood. Track 8- Ripper - Robinson [strictly embargoed to trial end]. It was at Bingley Cemetery in Yorkshire that the ripper claimed he first heard voices from God that were to later guide him on a mission to kill. That was 15 years ago, when Peter Sutcliffe was working as a gravedigger. His workmates at the time did not suspect Sutcliffe of being disturbed but one of them Eric Robinson thought there was something unusual about Sutcliffe and recalls a particularly unpleasant incident. He told Andrew Simmons that he used to go out at night with Sutcliffe and at first thought there was nothing unusual about his friend, apart from the fact that he did not seem to approach girls very much. Track 9- Irene McDonald, mother of the ripper’s youngest victims, says she could never forgive the killer and wishes he was dead. Mrs McDonald has been on tranquillisers ever since her 16 years-old daughter Jayne fell victim to Peter Sutcliffe in 1977. Jayne, a pretty young shop assistant, had been at a disco with her boyfriend. He had been drinking and to avoid him driving, Jayne insisted on walking home herself. She took a short cut through a red light area. Sutcliffe mistook her for a prostitute. Mrs McDonald says that the ripper not only killed her daughter but her husband Wilf, as well. She said he died later through heart trouble, made worse by the tragedy of Jayne’s death. Mrs McDonald says she can not stop thinking about the day he came home after identifying Jayne’s body. Track 10- The ripper’s best friend when he was in his late teens and early 20s remembers Sutcliffe as a quiet, shy sort of person. Keith Sugden, who lives at Cottingley hear Bingley, says he could not believe the news that Sutcliffe was a mass killer. He remembers him as a young man who was not really interested in girls. Track 11- The ripper was working as a lorry driver at the time his trail of killings came to an end. He joined Clarks Engineering in 1976 and drove all over the country from the firm’s base at Bradford. It was while working there that he was interviewed 3 times by the police and his employers thought he had been cleared. In all Sutcliffe was ssen by the police on 9 occasions. The company’s managing director William Clark told Andrew Simmons he could not understand why the police did not catch him earlier. But he admits that he never had any suspicious about Sutcliffe. [Box 5]
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- Notes
- Tracks 1 and 9 start with cues from feed. Track 9 contains 3 interviews.
- Misc. notes
- Description:- 9 Tracks; 2:53, Track 8; 9:56 mins; Track 9
- Production company
- Radio 210
- Extent
- 1 tape
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