The Yorkshire Ripper: The night I took the call saying ‘we’ve got him!’

THE Yorkshire Ripper is dead.

He was 74 and had apparently refused treatment for coronavirus. His lungs had collapsed.

Peter Sutcliffe spent almost 40 years in Broadmoor and prison for murdering 13 women and attempting to kill seven others between 1975 and 1980.

John Apter, chairman of the Police Federation, said people should remember Sutcliffe’s victims.

He tweeted: “Lot’s of breaking news about the death of convicted murderer Peter Sutcliffe. I understand why this is news worthy, but my ask of the media is lets show the faces of those he killed, not him. The 13 women he murdered and the 7 who survived his brutal attacks are in my thoughts.”

Here I remember the night I took the call ‘covertly’ telling The Sun that Yorkshire Police had caught him.

I was in my twenties, one of the youngest on the Fleet Street of the North and it was the biggest story of my life at the time. It also brought an end to cheque book journalism…

Here is my part of the story as chronicled in my memoir:

My next big story though was for the Sun. Winter, 1981 and I was manning the Northern news desk for Ken Tucker. A lonely job at the best of times back then, just you, empty desks, a phone and a list of numbers to call if anything breaks.

The phone rings and, I snap: “Hello, Sun!”

A drunken rasping voice comes back at me: “Get yourself down to f*!kin’ Leeds now! We’ve got the f*!ker!”

“Who’s calling?” I demand.

“Who’dya think? Get yourselves down to Leeds nick now!”

The phone goes dead.

First thing to do is call Leeds nick, but I can’t waste any time in case they’ve called The Star and The Mirror. I whip through the desk contacts book and find Leeds Police Station … it rings and rings until a laconic voice answers: “Police.”

“Hi can you put me through to the incident room.”

“Which one?”

“How many incidents’ve you got going on?”

Wrong thing to say. There’s a dumb silence at the other end of the line.

“Hello?” I inquire down the dead line.

“How can I help you sir?” his voice comes back in.

“It’s Leigh Banks here from The Sun – we’ve had a call from somebody at your nick …”

“Wasn’t me, Sir, I read the Daily Mail.”

“No, but is somebody being brought in we should know about?”

“Why should you know about them?”

“Who?”

“Whoever you’re talking about.”

“I’m not talking about anybody.”

“Jesus … put me on to the press office,” I say.

“Nobody in the Press Office sir.”

“Are they out on a job? Or have they gone home – give me a home number.”

“If they wanted you to have a home number, you‘d already have it sir.”

“Put me on to CID then!”

“CID aren’t authorised to talk to the press sir, you should know that.”

Some coppers are good, some coppers are bad, some like the press and some hate us. But desk sergeants to a man are power-mad jerks.

I’ve got to make a decision. Is this a wind-up? Or is something going on? I hang up, I ain’t gonna get anywhere with him.

“Turn the radio to Radio Leeds,” I tell myself. I flick through the stations but all Radio Leeds is pumping out Elton John. I phone Brian Sayles at The Star: “Hiya Brian, it’s Leigh … listen mate, have you just had a bit of a mystery call?”

“From Leeds?”

“Could be?”

“Yeh?”

“What’dya think? Oh, come on Brian – are you taking it seriously?”

“Well, that’s what we news desk people are put on this earth to decide isn’t Leigh … we have to make a decision.”

I hang up.

I’ve got to phone Ken Tucker, the Northern News Editor … but I don‘t want to, I should be able to handle this myself.

His phone is against his ear before it has chance to ring: “Where are you ringing from?”

My heart turns turtle, I know I should be on the road: “The office.”

“Why aren’t you in Leeds?” It’s less than five minutes since I got the call.

“I’m calling to say I’m on my way.”

“Take your cheque book and buy up anything that moves.”

That’s it – I’m off like a burnt orange bullet in my 2ltr S Capri with just one stop at the off-license for a crate of special brew. It’s going to be a long night.

****

The pack are listless behind a wall of cameras. They got there just after nine and I’m late. The pack mentality is showing, they are closing ranks – they don’t know me, this is the regional pack and they think they’ve got one up on me. They can sense I don’t really know the score.

First rule of the pack, know why you‘re there and what you‘re going to do. Most of these guys are a decade older than me, they should cut me a little slack for. Boozy old school bastards … this is a big story, but these ain’t my mates, Harry Pugh ain’t here, Jim Price. Then I recognise Animal leaning on his aluminium ladder – he’s from Manchester, the rest’ll be here too, soon, then we’ll trounce these locals.

“Alright mate, what’s happening?”

“Quiet as the grave.”

Mitch, another lensman I know from The People sniggers: “The lad don’t know.”

I say:“It is him though, isn’t it?”

“Supposed to be.”

Why won’t anybody give me a name. I try a flanker: “I heard they caught him at it, hammer in hand so to speak.”

“All sorts flying around.”

The station is as quiet as a mouse but a crowd of seventy, a hundred people have gathered. It’s gotta be him. We go quiet.

Then Mitch asks: “You still got that Orange Capri?”

Animal jumps in: “Flash git!”

Then I see Mike Kiddey mooching around and make a beeline for him.

“Hiya Mike.” He’s obviously drunk but he’s got his head on: “You just got here?”

“No!” I know I sound defensive but …

“You’re lucky, the paddy wagon should be here any minute.”

“Is it him?”

Mike stops in his tracks like somebody punched him in the nose: “Jesus Christ, if I’m here and you’re here … who’s going to do the headlines for the Record tonight?”

I look at him, I’m helpless to answer I’d completely forgotten, it was my night … I

“Ah,” he says, “It don’t matter, it’ll all be Ripper anyway. One of us’ll give them a call later.”

As we talked a roar went up in the crowd, it sent a shiver through me, it was the baying of hyenas, a medieval court on the street, he was guilty before he’d even been charged and we were about to make it worse with the worst outbreak of cheque book journalism ever seen before or since.

Flash lights popped anywhere and everywhere as the black Mariah pushed its way through the crowd, people hammered on the flimsy metal and the driver wound up the siren, we were all over it like a rash, pressing cameras up against black-out windows, I went with the pack soaking in the incredible violent uncontrollable atmosphere.

No matter who was in that van he was forever destined to be The Yorkshire Ripper.

#Sun #newsdesk #fleetstreet #fleetstreetofnorth #yorkshireripper #petersutcliffe #leeds #chequebookjournalism #kentucker #harrypugh #jimprice #mikekiddey