On this day in 1981, Peter Sutcliffe (pictured with wife Sonia on their wedding day), known as the Yorkshire Ripper, was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Old Bailey. Sutcliffe, a lorry driver from Bradford, was found guilty of murdering at least 13 women over six years. Passing sentence the judge, Mr Justice Boreham, described Sutcliffe as 'an unusually dangerous man' and imposed a 30 year jail term, and recommend he serve his full term. The jury returned a majority verdict on 13 counts of murder and seven counts of attempted murder between 1976 and 1981. Sutcliffe's wife Sonia said "I couldn't believe it of him because he had behaved so normally at home. Most of the victims were prostitutes who were beaten about the head and their bodies mutilated.Sutcliffe remained impassive as he listened to the verdict - crowds outside the court cheered when they heard it. In reaching their verdict, the jury had rejected three psychiatrists' statements that he was a paranoid schizophrenic driven to kill by a 'divine message'.
Yorkshire police spent nearly six years trying to track down the killer and by the end of the investigation, the incident room in Leeds was crammed full of facts and information relating to the case. These included a quarter of a million names, individually filed on cards and more than 30,000 statements were taken. But none of it led to his arrest. The investigation was seriously hampered in 1978 and 1979 by a hoax tape, that sent the police to the North East of England, as the voice on the tape had a Geordie accent. Police registered millions of car number plates seen in the red light districts all over the north. Sutcliffe was seen over 60 times and was interviewed nine times before his final arrest.
The end finally came for Sutcliffe when police discovered he had put false number plates on his car and was carrying weapons in the boot. He soon admitted he was the Yorkshire Ripper and spent 15 hours giving the police graphic details of his crime.
In 1983 Sutcliffe was transferred from Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight to Broadmoor secure mental hospital, after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Whilst in jail Sutcliffe was attacked many times by other inmates. In 1998, he was stabbed in both eyes by convicted murderer Ian Kay and lost the sight of one eye. Apart from the hoax, detectives working on the Ripper case were hampered by not having information stored on a centralised system. Thousands of documents and information were stored at individual police stations. This led to a new computer system being installed called Holmes (Home Office Large Major Enquiry System), saving time and reducing the risk of human error.
In October 2005 police arrested a man called John Humble, from Sunderland, and charged him over the hoax letters and tapes. He pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice and was jailed for eight years in March 2006.
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