Ripper sanity trial

Press, 1 May 1981, Page 6

Ripper sanity trial

NZPA-Reuter London The woman-killer known as the Yorkshire Ripper, a 34-year-old lorry driver, Peter Sutcliffe, has admitted killing 13 women and a jury will decide if his mental state warrants conviction for murder.

Sutcliffe, arrested in January after a six-year manhunt, appeared before a judge yesterday at the historic Old Bailey, which was packed with journalists and spectators, some having queued all night for seats. He pleaded not guilty to each of 13 murder counts but entered pleas of manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility. Sutcliffe, bearded and dark-haired, pleaded guilty to the attempted murders of seven other women.

Immediately Sutcliffe had pleaded to the charges, the judge Mr Justice Boreham told the Attorney-General (Sir Michael Havers) he had “grave anxieties” about the pleas. He asked the AttorneyGeneral to explain in “greater detail than usual” any decision would make about accepting the pleas. After hearing legal arguments, the judge, ordered a jury empanelled, next Tuesday to decide whether Sutcliffe’s mental condition warrants findings of manslaughter or murder. The 12-strong jury will hear medical and other evidence in a trial expected to last one week. The judge adjourned the case, one of the most sensational in British criminal history, until next Tuesday. The Attorney-General in an unusual move is leading the prosecution. Exhibits arrayed in the courtroom included several ball-headed hammers, a claw

hammer, a hacksaw, a kitchen knife, several carving knives, eight screwdrivers, and a short rope. The atmosphere in and around the courtroom was charged with excitement. Some 800 international journalists had applied for the 80 press seats. Queues for the 34 public seats available began forming the previous night in rain and cold. Some people had travelled from Yorkshire, in the north. "I don’t want to miss this — it’s one for the history books,” one woman told reporters.

The killings, spread over six years, terrorised leeds, Bradford, and neighbouring industrial towns in Yorkshire, north-west England, and long baffled the police. As in the case of the original Jack the Ripper, who killed seven women in nineteenth-century London, most of the victims were prostitutes. Sutcliffe was arrested at night on January 2 in the red-light district of the steel town of Sheffield in a car with a prostitute. In court to hear Sutcliffe charged with the killings was

his 30-year-old wife, Sonia, and her mother, Mrs Maria Szurma. The Sutcliffes have no children.