board77

Those of you who are of a certain age will remember the Yorkshire Ripper - Peter Sutcliffe.

The man casued genuine fear and panic ovre the part of the world in which I lived in those days.

The fear was so tangible that when the Night clubs and disco's closed the police would offer lifts home to all the girls to ensure their safe arrival.

Sutcliffes story is pretty well known - he was eventually caught by accident - and a sharp eyed police man - this was some two years after he had been identified as a prime suspect by a junior officer - whose report was ignored.

At the time the head of the police investigation a monumentally stupid man was fixated by 4 letters and a cassette tape from a man claiming to be the Yorkshire ripper.

There were two problems with this - firstly the man had a pronounced wearside accent - and the letters came from that part of the world - and secondly he had an innacurate knowledge of Sutcliffes MO.

Recently the fellow was idenified by DNA, and as you might expect he is an inadequate loser- The plods were determined to get their man though, and this fellow has just been sentanced to 8 years for perverting the course of justice.

To his credit the judge in his summary indecated that no-one appeared to have died as a consequence of his deception - but I think he is now being punished in addition for the stupidity and incompetence of the West Yorkshire police

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... altop.html

kind of typical of the world in which we live - sending this man to jail for 8 years is not going to bring anyone back - he is not a danger to society - just one of the waifs and strays who are created by the world.

I am pissed at my taxes being spent on this

BBC News 24 suggested that three deaths subsequent to the deception could have been prevented had the invstigation not been lured away from the Yorkshire area.

*~Pips~*

I don't know about the facts that Pips suggests but people who "pervert the court system" should have to pay a steep price. Was 8 years too steep? I don't know. I know little about the case and the facts therein, however someone like that should be sentenced to at least a few years in a minimum or medium security jail.

Pippin4242 wrote:

BBC News 24 suggested that three deaths subsequent to the deception could have been prevented had the invstigation not been lured away from the Yorkshire area.

*~Pips~*

thats whole point of the thing - the police through the BBC want the public to come to that conclusion.

The truth of the matter is that virtually every major killer investigation is contacted by wannabee's who are determined to get their 15 minutes of fame. Most of the time the police are smart enough to recognise this and treat such contacts with caution.

The reality is very different, the investigating officer George Oldfield struck me as being a heroically stupid man. He was doubltess under severe politcal pressure to come up with something, hence the release of the tapes and the letters.

In fact if the folks in charge of the operation had paid greater attention to their files they would have caught Sutcliffe sooner.

He had been interviewed and he absolutely fitted the profile of the murderer. He was a lorry driver, he lived in the right area, was of the correct age group ect, ect.

The interviewing officer recommended that he was a strong suspect - the recommendation was ignored.