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Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe could be put back on trial as part of a major new police probe into at least THIRTEEN more suspected victims.

Detectives have already visited two women who survived unsolved brutal attacks during his five-year reign of terror .

They asked for statements and DNA samples.

A relative of one of the women told us: “Police knocked on the door and told her she was on a list of possible victims.

“They asked her to give a new statement and took a sample. They said science has evolved – and that they were looking at 13 other cases.

“They were asking a lot of questions and we’re glad about that. The police were telling her he could end up back in court.”

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A second possible victim, contacted by officers just two weeks ago, told us: “The police came to visit me, saying it was a review of Peter Sutcliffe’s cases. But they were very thorough.

“They wouldn’t tell me who the other victims they’re looking at, or how many there could be.” The Sunday Mirror is not naming the two victims.

The cold case investigation, confirmed by the West Yorkshire police, is believed to focus on censored files in a top-level 1982 government report which was not published until 2006.

Read more:Judge Rinder to probe fears Yorkshire Ripper was behind 'Bakewell Tart' murder

It concluded that Sutcliffe – jailed for life in 1981 for the murder of 13 women and attempted murder of seven others – was “probably responsible” for many more attacks he had not admitted.

Evil Sutcliffe, now 69, held the north of England in the grip of fear between 1975 and 1980.

The police operation to catch him was the most extensive and controversial investigation of the 20th century.

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Terrified women lived under a virtual curfew. Police told them: “Do not go out at night unless absolutely necessary and only accompanied by a man you know.”

Bradford lorry driver Sutcliffe even gave the warning to his own sister.

He used hammers, screwdrivers and a knife, which was part of a wedding gift from his wife Sonia, to kill and mutilate his victims.

Read more:Yorkshire ripper Peter Sutcliffe's ex-wife visits him at Broadmoor

He was arrested with a prostitute in January 1981 while in a car with a false number plate in the red light district of Sheffield.

Later suspicious police found a discarded hammer, screwdriver and rope at the scene.

Afterwards Sutcliffe admitted: “It got to the stage where I thought I was invisible because I never got caught.”

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Over the years, many unsolved cases have been linked to the Yorkshire Ripper – now it may be their chance for justice.

Maureen Lea, a 20-year-old Leeds University student, was attacked in October 1980 as she walked home following a night out.

She survived after being hit over the head with a hammer and stabbed in the base of her spine by screwdrivers.

Her skull and cheekbone were fractured and her jaw smashed. Her attacker is believed to have fled after being disturbed by a passer-by.

A month later another Leeds student, Jacqueline Hill, 20, was murdered just two miles from where Maureen had been attacked, but officers failed to connect the two cases.

Other potential victims include Tracy Browne, who was attacked in Silsden, West Yorks, in August 1975 when she was just 14.

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She was hit repeatedly with a hammer and gave a description of a man resembling Sutcliffe.

A year earlier, in November 1974, Gloria Wood, 28, was attacked on a school playing field in Bradford.

She was struck over the head with a claw hammer by a man who offered to carry her bags. She also described an attacker similar to Sutcliffe.

In January 1976, shop assistant Rosemary Stead, 18, received serious head injuries in an assault which could be linked to the Ripper.

And in April 1977 Debra Schlesinger, 18, was murdered in Leeds, stabbed through the heart outside her home following a night out with friends.

Maureen Hogan was attacked in Bradford, in August 1976, after a night out, suffering head injuries and stab wounds.

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She was found lying in a shop doorway by a milkman the following morning. She survived but her attacker was never brought to justice.

The relative of one of the two potential new victims visited said: “She was attacked around 40-odd years ago. When Sutcliffe was jailed we knew it was him.

“But back then the police didn’t call to ask any questions.

“She’s tried to stay strong this time, but she’s still traumatised by the attack all those years ago.”

In a guarded statement to the Sunday Mirror, West Yorkshire Police said: “We are continuing with an ongoing process to review non-recent undetected offences… in conjunction with the Home Office under the ­requirements of the Public Records Act.

“As part of this review, officers have begun to visit a small number of people named as victims of then unsolved assaults and other offences in cases submitted to West Yorkshire Police as part of reviews carried out in the early 1980s.

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“Officers also took the opportunity to review any statements held, ask for any further information and also took DNA samples.

"This is standard procedure in unsolved cases which predate the invention of DNA profiling.

"Should any new lines of enquiry be identified, they will be comprehensively pursued.”

The cold case review is believed to involve files contained in an unpublished section in the 1982 ­government report into the Ripper killings by former Inspector of Constabulary Sir Lawrence Byford.

The section is titled “Description of suspects, photofits and other assaults”.

Sir Lawrence concluded that “between 1969 and 1980, Sutcliffe was probably responsible for many attacks on unaccompanied women which he has not yet admitted, not only in the West Yorkshire and Manchester areas but also in other parts of the country.”

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He added: “We feel it is highly improbable that the crimes in respect of which Sutcliffe has been charged and convicted are the only ones attributable to him.”

The Byfield review said police failures had failed to connect vital clues which could have led to the Ripper being caught four years before his eventual arrest in January 1981.

At his trial, Sutcliffe pleaded not guilty to his crimes on the grounds of diminished responsibility and claimed God had told him to do it.

He has been in Broadmoor since 1984 after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, but he now faces the ­prospect of being sent to a normal prison after being declared sane.

Prostitutes first to die in Sutcliffe's reign of terror

Lorry driver Peter Sutcliffe earned his nickname by initially aiming his five-year reign of terror at prostitutes – like Jack the Ripper in the infamous Whitechapel murders in East London in 1888.

His first victim was mother of four and sex worker Wilma McCann, 28, who got into Sutcliffe’s car in Leeds in October 1975.

He killed her in a local playing field. Between then and November 17, 1980,

12 more women died across Yorkshire and Manchester.

But because his first four victims were prostitutes, the public seemed chillingly unconcerned at first.

That changed when 16-year-old shop assistant Jayne MacDonald was killed in a playground in Leeds in 1977.

A cop described her as the killer’s first “innocent victim”, in a startling example of the era’s callous attitude towards prostitutes.

It was then that all women in the North felt they could be victims. Sutcliffe did his best to fulfil their fears and, from 1979, none of his final four victims worked in the sex trade.

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As his murderous reign continued, another woman in his life, his wife Sonia, was enduring her own tragedies.

She is thought to have suffered up to four miscarriages and then, in the midst of her husband’s killing spree, doctors told her she would never be able to have children.

One detective later wondered: “When sexually diminished Sutcliffe was repeatedly stabbing victims, who was he really killing in his mind — the same woman over and over again?”

Meanwhile police appeals were growing more and more desperate and the information gathered was getting lost in acres of paperwork.

The investigation was also sent down a blind alley by hoax tapes and letters sent to West Yorkshire Police in 1979 that convinced them he was from Wearside.

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Amazingly, Sutcliffe had been spotted by police in red light districts and questioned on nine occasions.

On November 25, 1980, a few days after killing 20-year-old student Jacqueline Hill, a close pal reported him as a suspect.

But it was not until January 2, 1981, that his evil reign ended.

After a row with Sonia at their Bradford home, Sutcliffe drove to Sheffield where he was arrested.

Later the killer, now in Broadmoor, told his wife: “You know those women killed by the Ripper? That was me.”

She replied: “Oh Pete, how could you? Even a sparrow has a right to live.”