West Yorkshire police confirm ‘at this moment’ they have no intention of seeking new charges

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

There are no plans to charge Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, with any further offences, West Yorkshire police have confirmed.

Sutcliffe, who is serving 20 life terms for murdering 13 women and attempting to kill seven more, was reported to have been interviewed by detectives about widespread allegations that he may have been responsible for further attacks.

But on Monday DS Jim Dunkerley said: “West Yorkshire police continues to review and where possible reinvestigate all unresolved homicides and serious sexual assaults to bring offenders to justice and to bring much needed closure to the victims and their families.

“The undertaking of such work understandably creates interest within the media and wider public.

“At this moment in time, West Yorkshire police have no intention to seek a CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] decision to charge Peter Sutcliffe with any further matters.”



Two years ago the force confirmed it was continuing to review cases listed in a 1982 report written by Sir Lawrence Byford about the flawed Ripper investigation.

Byford died on Saturday at the age of 92.

The Byford report revealed that Sutcliffe could have been responsible for a further 13 offences.

Last year the Sun reported that he had been interviewed in prison about 17 unsolved cases.

But West Yorkshire police said they could not comment on who detectives had spoken to in the course of an ongoing investigation.

In 2016 the force did confirm that officers had visited a small number of people named in the Byford report, which was completed in 1982 but only made public in 2006.

It said there was an “unexplained lull” in Sutcliffe’s criminal activities between 1969, when he first came to the police’s attention, and the first officially recognised Ripper assault in 1975.

The report said: “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.

“This feeling is reinforced by examining the details of a number of assaults on women since 1969 which, in some ways, clearly fall into the established pattern of Sutcliffe’s overall modus operandi.”

Sutcliffe, 71, a former lorry driver from Bradford, was jailed for murdering and attacking women between 1976 and 1981.

Most of his victims were sex workers who were mutilated and beaten to death.