Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper dead

[Daniel740]

Finally some good news in 2020...

Yorkshire Ripper dead at 74

The serial killer, who murdered at least 13 women in the 1970s and 1980s, has died at the University Hospital of North Durham.

www.dailymail.co.uk

The frail serial killer, who murdered at least 13 women in the 1970s and 1980s, died at the University Hospital of North Durham at 1.10am after his lungs failed overnight. No visitors were by his bedside due to covid rules.

Families of his victims today celebrated his death and said the serial killer will 'rot in hell'.

Marcella Claxton, who was left needing more than 50-stitches after being over the head with a hammer, told MailOnline: 'I'm happy he's gone. I've thought about what he did to me every day since and although the news that's he's died brings those horrible memories back at least now I may be able to get some closure.

 

[birchesgreen]

Covid finally did some good.

 

[Bayum]

Shame that he has died prematurely and that he was allowed to effectively dictate his own death. Should have kept him going and in prison for as long as possible.

 

[RichT54]

An ex-colleague of mine was a lay preacher who used to make pastoral visits to Broadmoor Hospital. I remember him saying that, of all the seriously disturbed patients in the hospital, Sutcliffe was one of the most scary and that when he looked at you he gave off the feeling of "pure evil".

 

[Crossover]

I wonder if this one could be excluded from the Covid stats for the day...

 

[C J Snarzell]

At least the monster is dead. I wonder how much tax payers money it has cost to keep Sutcliffe incarcerated for the last forty years?

I listened to Richard McCann (son of Sutcliffe's first murder victim) on the news this morning and he made a valid point that at least the Ripper will no longer be able to grab the headlines again - Richard, the surviving victims and the bereaved families can at least get some peace instead of the having salt rubbed in the wounds time and time again.

What I find just as interesting about the Ripper case is the fact West Yorkshire Police made a complete and utter shambles of the investigation and Sutcliffe was only caught thanks to a quick thinking beat cop in Sheffield. WYP was just awash with incompetence and corruption for many years, with bad decision making and blinkered attitudes allowing Sutcliffe to evade arrest for so long (and claim more victims).

Thankfully, the Byford enquiry saw many changes to police murder investigations and improved how they are handled.

CJ

 

[DarloRich]

At least the monster is dead. I wonder how much tax payers money it has cost to keep Sutcliffe incarcerated for the last forty years?

Far better just to ignore the event than come out with emotive nonsense. That wont happen of course and we will have a log list of people competing to express outrage. Why waste energy? The victims family deserve that energy.

 

[swt_passenger]

Finally some good news in 2020...

Yorkshire Ripper dead at 74

The serial killer, who murdered at least 13 women in the 1970s and 1980s, has died at the University Hospital of North Durham.

www.dailymail.co.uk

...and what a rambling web page? Looks like they’ve just dumped about a dozen stories one after the other down the page...

 

[Senex]

Fine that this particular prisoner is dead, and there's certainly no sympathy from me (especially after hearing the account of someone who survived his attack on R4 this morning). But it does raise the question in my mind of what if any is the obligation on the prison service to keep prisoners safe a times of health emergency. In other words, should this prisoner or any other be catching Covid-19 whilst in the custody of that service, or are the overcrowded prisons just a parallel to the care-homes disaster we have already seen during the epidemic?

 

[DarloRich]

or are the overcrowded prisons just a parallel to the care-homes disaster we have already seen during the epidemic?

They are. The staff are also suffering form what i have heard. I also read in Private Eye of big problems at one particular serco run prison. ( OTT of course)

 

[LOL The Irony]

Finally some good news in 2020...

Yorkshire Ripper dead at 74

The serial killer, who murdered at least 13 women in the 1970s and 1980s, has died at the University Hospital of North Durham.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Oh no, anyway

 

[birchesgreen]

...and what a rambling web page? Looks like they’ve just dumped about a dozen stories one after the other down the page...

Arn't all Daily Mail web pages like that?

 

[swt_passenger]

Arn't all Daily Mail web pages like that?

Are they? I don’t often look...

 

[brad465]

There's a common joke I've seen circulating along the lines of "in lockdown for 40 years, but still got it".

 

[ainsworth74]

But it does raise the question in my mind of what if any is the obligation on the prison service to keep prisoners safe a times of health emergency. In other words, should this prisoner or any other be catching Covid-19 whilst in the custody of that service, or are the overcrowded prisons just a parallel to the care-homes disaster we have already seen during the epidemic?

Most certainly things are not going well in my view in prisons right now:

More prisoners in England and Wales had coronavirus in October than in the previous seven months of the pandemic combined, official figures have shown.

The surge highlighted the "vulnerability" of facilities to the pandemic, the Prison Reform Trust said.

Up to 31 October, 1,529 prisoners or children in custody had had coronavirus - roughly 2% of the jail population - with 883 of the cases during October.

The government said it was routinely testing frontline staff and offenders.

Peter Dawson, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said an increase of cases and deaths was "always a risk" once the spread of Covid-19 in the community started to rise.

He said managing the spread of the virus remained "especially challenging" in prisons and the government needed to "use all the tools available to keep people safe".

"That should include the currently discontinued option of conditional early release for low risk prisoners, and a brake on less serious offences resulting in a prison sentence in the first place," he added.

The government paused the early release of low risk offenders, which had been introduced in April to help stop the spread of the pandemic in prisons, at the end of August.

Covid: More prison cases in October than previous seven months

More prisoners in England and Wales had Covid-19 in October than the previous seven months combined.

www.bbc.co.uk

Whilst on the face of it not a terrible state of affairs that it hasn't burned it's way through prisons is down to the prisoners being kept locked up in the cells for 23 hours per day:

Prisoners being locked in their cells for 23 hours a day under Covid restrictions is dangerous, the chief inspector of prisons has warned.

Peter Clarke told BBC Newsnight that inmates were "losing hope" and warned of the impact on their mental health.

The Prison Officers' Association (POA) has said the practice - which aims to help reduce the spread of the virus - has reduced violence and self-harm.

It has led to a more stable environment, the POA said.

But Mr Clarke, who is due to step down from his position at the end of October, said he found that argument "shallow" and "to an extent self-serving".

In an in-depth interview with Newsnight, ahead of the publication of a report later on Tuesday, Mr Clarke said he had "good reason to believe" that self-harm was actually rising in women's prisons.

The inspectorate for England and Wales says it has visited more than 50 prisons since the beginning of the pandemic and found that prisoners spending 23 hours a day in their cells was "normal".

Sentenced inmates are allowed out of their cells to attend work or education, to exercise and to socialise for short periods. But since lockdown much of this activity has stopped.

"We cannot surely have a position where we say that the only way to run a safe and decent prison is to lock prisoners up in conditions that amount to solitary confinement," he said.

"That cannot be right. We as a nation surely cannot say that that is acceptable."

Prisoners locked up for 23 hours due to Covid rules is 'dangerous'

Restrictions mean inmates can be in their cells for 23 hours a day, says the chief inspector of prisons.

www.bbc.co.uk

Which, as Mr Clarke says, I don't think we can say that that is acceptable.

Still, I doubt much will change. We have a Government who wishes to appear tough on crime so keeps harping on about sentencing guidelines and how soft our justice system has become but are quite happy to keep courts closed and allow case backlogs to reach epic levels (you don't have to search to hard to find people being given hearing dates in 2022, yes 2022) meaning that "justice" is often served years after an alleged offence has taken place. So worrying about prisoners and their welfare just wouldn't sit right with the current mob in power. They just want to look like they're serious about crime without doing any actual work (or spending any money) about it.

 

[C J Snarzell]

Ainsworth74

Like everything else, Covid has affected the whole Criminal Justice system.

Court sentencing is giving defendants that little bit more leeway because Judges and Magistrates are only sending people to custody when they have no other alternative. Someone who is convicted of a violent crime now may be dealt with via way of a community order or curfew, whereas 12 months ago they may have been looking at a custodial sentence. I think that is the impact the virus has made.

Its the same with the police - two custody suites in Greater Manchester were closed recently when staff tested positive for Covid. Front line cops are again only arresting people as a last resort - if they can deal with them via summons or a fine then that is a more practical solution, but not necessarily the right one.

The knock on effect is that the Court system is getting clogged up - a person charged now with an offence may only be going to court next April, and even that may be just for a hearing - only to be bailed again for a few more months!

To be fair many problems with the justice system have been in existance pre-covid. Chris Grayling made a mess of the Prison & Probation service when he decided to private parts of it.

Then you have Theresa May who completely obliterated policing when she was Home Secretary. The current incumbent isn't doing a great job either - just providing lip service to create an illusion she is actually doing something.

CJ

 

[ainsworth74]

Like everything else, Covid has affected the whole Criminal Justice system.

The problems were significant pre-Covid particularly in terms of backlogged cases. Covid has just made it impossible ignore (despite the best efforts of Government to either ignore it or blame it on Covid).

 

[DarloRich]

Like everything else, Covid has affected the whole Criminal Justice system.

The situation with the criminal justice system absolutely predates Covid. Covid has exacerbated the issues caused almost entirely by government decisions to cut funding. Take a look at Secret Barrister. He sets out the position in a very clear fashion.

Also @ainsworth74 I am hearing form various people I know "in the system" that they don't even expect dates issued for 2022 to be honoured! It is shambolic. It is also doing both victims and perpetrators out of justice. Cases are collapsing because of the time it takes to get to court. But yeah - tough on crime.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

As long as we dont go the US route and just build more prisons. I prefer non violent crimes to all be in open prisons where they do not need to be locked in cells but can get out in the fresh air.

Sutcliffe however, can rot in hell as far as I am concerned.

 

[nlogax]

The situation with the criminal justice system absolutely predates Covid. Covid has exacerbated the issues caused almost entirely by government decisions to cut funding. Take a look at Secret Barrister. He sets out the position in a very clear fashion.

Absolutely this. I read his or her book from 2018 and I was doing double-takes on every other page. Having read that it's difficult to imagine how much worse a state the criminal justice system could be, but apparently now we've reached that stage.

 

[C J Snarzell]

I've never come across the Secret Barrister book. Is it a decent read?

On the subject of the Yorkshire Ripper & books - the 2015 book by Chris Clark & Tim Tate examines some unsolved crimes which are possibly linked to Sutcliffe. An interesting read.

I believe there were far more crimes committed by Sutcliffe which are sadly never likely to be solved.

CJ

 

[LOL The Irony]

I believe there were far more crimes committed by Sutcliffe which are sadly never likely to be solved.

Same as Shipman.

 

[C J Snarzell]

Same as Shipman.

Peter Tobin is another that springs to mind - horrible nasty piece of work who deserves no place in society.

CJ

 

[DarloRich]

Absolutely this. I read his or her book from 2018 and I was doing double-takes on every other page. Having read that it's difficult to imagine how much worse a state the criminal justice system could be, but apparently now we've reached that stage.

It is worse now. It is a complete scandal and yet people lap up this tough on crime/profligate legal aid/greedy lawyers nonsense

I've never come across the Secret Barrister book. Is it a decent read?

Yes - There are two:

Stories of the Law and How It's Broken
Fake Law: The Truth About Justice in an Age of Lies

Both are well worth a read. They might challenge widely held beliefs but the accounts sound worryingly similar to accounts from people I know at a similar level in the system.

For those who don't know the Secret Barrister is a junior barrister practicing criminal law in the UK. He/She has an informative blog, twitter account and has written columns for mainstream newspapers. He/she is a 30-something Comprehensive school-educated non-Oxbridge graduate who describes him/herself as a jobbing criminal barrister.