Ripper inquiry set up

Press, 3 June 1981, Page 8

Ripper inquiry set up

NZPA London The British Home Secretary (Mr William Whitelaw) yesterday set up an indepdendent inquiry into the fiveyear police hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper, the man jailed last month for the murder of 13 women. Mr Whitelaw announced the inquiry to two members of Parliament who had criticised police investigations into the case. Peter Sutcliffe was sentenced to life imprisonment on May 22 for the 13 killings in northern England between 1975 and 1980. The police interviewed Sutcliffe nine times during the hunt for the Ripper but did not regard him as a top suspect. The two members of Parliament had demanded an independent inquiry after allegations of a sexual relationship between three Ripper case policemen and a woman television journalist, who denies them. The allegations are that the officers might have been persuaded to reveal information in exchange for sex and is said to have been made by Detective Sergeant Roy Dodsworth after he resigned from the West Yorkshire Police last year. He was/fined $1770 and ordered -ft pay $944 costs last week when he. admitted breaking the Official Secrets Act. ..' Mr Thomas Torney, the Labour member for Bradford South, said: “These are terrible allegations and very serious. I have called for an independent inquiry into the Ripper investigation and in view of these claims that is more urgent than ever." .