YORKSHIRE RIPPER FACES POLICE QUIZ Cops tell victim: Monster could face new trial

The women who wait for justice

included L Leeds university studen student Jacqueline Hill, 20, and mum- offour Wilma McCann, 28. One p possible victim he was never charged over is Tina Browne, who survived being hit repeatedly withwit a hammer in 19 1975 and gave a descriptiond of a man resembling Sutcliffe. At his trial he pleaded not guilty to murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility and claimed God was giving him orders.

He was initially sent to Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight but after three years he was moved to Broadmoor in Berkshire where he has remained since being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

The former lorry driver from Bradford, who now calls himself Peter Coonan – his mother’s maiden name – was caught when police found him with a prostitute in his car in Sheffield. Today the cold-case investigation is believed to focus on censored files in a top-level 1982 government report which was not published until 2006.

Inspector of Constabulary Sir Lawrence Byford wrote: “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.”

This week a West Yorkshire Police spokesman said: “Officers visited a small number of people named as victims of then-unsolved assaults and other offences in cases submitted to West Yorkshire Police.

Scale

“Should any new l i nes of investigation regarding any potential suspects be identified during this cold case review, they will be pursued.”

Former police intelligence officer Chris Clark, who wrote a book on Sutcliffe, told the Sunday People: “I feel there has been sufficient evidence to put these crimes to Sutcliffe.”

But Mr Clark warned: “Things are still coming out of the woodwork. I doubt if we will ever know the true scale of this man’s offending.” ONE attacked woman who could be a Ripper victim is Tracy Browne. She was hit a number of times with a hammer in Silsden, West Yorks, in August 1975 when she was 14. In November 1974, Gloria Wood, 28, w as attacked on a school playing field in Bradford. She w as struck over the head with a hammer by a man looking like Sutcliffe. In J anuary 1976, shop assistant Rosemary Stead, 18, received serious head injuries in an assault which could be link ed to the Ripper. Maureen Hogan was attacked in Bradfordin August 1976 after a night out, suffering head injuries. In April 1977 Debra Schlesinger, 18, was murdered in Leeds , stabbed through the heart outside her home.