Here I am in Sheffield at the exact
location where Peter Sutcliffe was caught following a murder spree that left
blood in the streets of northern England from 1975 to 80. He butchered thirteen
women and tried to kill seven others. He was taken into police custody on a
Friday evening from the spot where I'm stood - on the drive of a imposing detached
company headquarters. Two policeman on an evening patrol found him in his car
with a prostitute (who he was going to murder) and they arrested him as his
car's registration plates were stolen.
I drove to the affluent Broomhill
area on a Sunday afternoon when nobody would be around. Melbourne Avenue is a
quiet narrow thoroughfare away from a main road. The fee-paying Sheffield High
School For Girls dominates the tree-lined avenue and there’re a some huge handsome
buildings. I was there for about twenty minutes and didn’t see another person.
It was quiet in 1981 at the time of the arrest, an ideal place for prostitutes
to bring their customers in the evening. I found number 3 and as it’s now a
company's offices I guessed the gates would be locked. When Sutcliffe was
arrested it was the headquarters of the local steel craftsmen’s federation but
now it’s LabLogic which provides software to various industries.
Quiet is good, I thought, nobody to see me except cameras as I climbed over the
fence, pushed myself through unforgiving bushes and walked up the drive.
I had a photograph of the side wall showing
exactly where Sutcliffe had got rid of his murder tools and spotted it instantly.
That Friday in 1981 he’d driven his Rover 3500 to a scrap yard and bought two registration
plates as his insurance had expired. He could returned home but pulled into a
service station at about 9pm and called his wife Sonia to say his car was
making worrying noises. He taped the registration plates over the existing ones
and, an hour later, was thirty miles from home cruising around a red-light area
of Sheffield. He tried to pick up a 19-year-old prostitute but she said his
eyes frightened her and she walked away from the car. He picked up 24-year-old
Olivia Reivers from Broomhall Street who agreed £10
for sex. They arrived here where I’m stood, Sutcliffe reversing the Rover up
the drive was a fast exit. His murder kit was under his seat. He turned out the
light, paid Olivia, told her he was called “Dave” and said he’d like to talk as
he’d argued with his wife. He put his coat on the back seat and Olivia slipped
off her knickers. Sutcliffe attempted sex for about ten minutes but wasn’t
excited. Suddenly the drive was illuminated by headlights of a police car which
parked nose-to-nose with the Rover.
Two policemen patrolling in a car knew the Light
Trades House building was closed so they were suspicious of the car on the
drive. Sutcliffe pretended he was there with his girlfriend but the other
policeman was on the radio checking the car’s registration number. Sutcliffe
asked Olivia if she could run off but she refused and she was put in the back
of the police car. He grabbed the hammer, knife and rope beneath his seat and,
without permission, walked a few feet up the drive saying he was “bursting for
a pee.” He went out of the police’s view and saw an oil storage tank along a
wall and dropped the tools behind it. There was a clinking sound but the police
didn’t notice.
He was put in the police car and taken to the
police station where - due to his physical appearance - he was questioned in
relation to the murders of young women. Perhaps he would have slipped through
the net again had the police failed to return to the building where I’m stood
in the photographs and found the discarded tools. This spurred a search of his
home in Heaton where tools sharpened for other purposes were found. He was
questioned the following day and, with evidence mounting against him, the seemingly
calm agreeable friendly truck driver confessed that he was The Yorkshire
Ripper. It had been 46 days since his last murder and it had been his last.
Olivia Reivers and the police had been lucky. It
could have been avoided. Sutcliffe could have continued his murder spree had he
not been caught drink-driving weeks earlier. He’d only bought the false number
plates as his car insurance had expired and he didn’t want to spend money
renewing it he'd be losing his licence soon.
I took a few photographs of the building and,
having probably triggered some security cameras, was surprised a police car
hadn’t turned up. This is where it ended for Sutcliffe. I can easily remember
the Ripper years (I was 8 to 13) but was too young to know he was only
murdering women. To reach the back of our home at night you had to run up the
back in darkness and I can remember sprinting in case a hand grabbed my should
and pulled me back.
Blimey, this was it where the reign of terror ended.
I stooped over to look at the ground near the black bin where he’d hidden his
ripping tools. He'd put them on some leaves and there were some leaves still
there from last autumn. I looked around the handsome building and garden. This
could have been a murder scene as Olivia Reivers was certainly
about to be butchered. When Sutcliffe was stripped at the police station they
were shocked to find he was wearing a V-neck sweater on his legs - but upside
down. The sleeves were up his legs and his genitals hung at the V-neck. The elbows of the jumper were padded. They
deduced this was to protect his knees as he knelt over his victims to rip them
up or masturbate.
I looked at the grand Victorian building again and
wondered if the employees of Lablogic knew of its
attachment to a historic murder story. Probably - but not the details. I looked
at the drive again. It was a little odd to think that when 35-year-old
Sutcliffe's feet stepped off the concrete and into the police car his freedom
had ended and he'd be incarcerated for the rest of this life. I climbed back
over the fence onto Melbourne Avenue to find it empty. No security van or
police car - just sparrows. I’ve printed my own business cards and carry them
with me should someone stop me. I can show them I’m just a feckless geek, type the
website printed on my card into my phone and show them I’m only a curious man
adding stuff to my website (I’ve had to do this twice so far - only security
men not police.) I did a wave to any security cameras watching me and left.
The arresting officers...
At Dewsbury Magistrate's Court...