The Yorkshire Ripper

I really thought this was a very interesting angle to review the Yorkshire ripper case. Very little about Sutcliffe (which I appreciated) but seen through the eyes of the victims and families and other women involved, and how stereotypes and prejudice in the late 70's and 80's afftected the police and media handling of the murders.

Very well made and difficult and distressing topics well handled.

I am austrian and didn't know that a Yorkshire Ripper even existed. But as I watched recently the Ted Bundy docu I also gave this a try and wasn't disappointed. I was only a bit astonished that women demonstrated for the right to go out on the streets in the night - knowing that there is a murderer waiting for his oppurtunity. Reminded me of the Anti-Corona-rules-demos nowadays...

The first episode was absolutely brilliant. It showed information in such a way that you were never bombarded, and could draw your own conclusions. I found myself quickly researching the story afterwards as I couldn't get it out of my head. Second and third episodes were an absolute let down. Where before the viewer was left to have their own opinions on the facts, we were now being hammered over the head repeatedly with feminist whining. Found myself fast forwarding whenever a certain journalist was interviewed as she did my head in with her opinions. Such a pity it went into subjective gutter journalism after hitting the ground running.

I had no high expectations from this docu-series but it proved to be a far more valuable and interesting story than I thought. I do not want to go into spoiler details, so I just want to highlight the values of the series.

The Yorkshire Ripper case has been probably one of the largest crime investigations ever in history, with a staggering amount of paperwork, working hour input and routine policing put against a serial killer in the late 1970s.

Forty years later, investigators, survivors, eyewitnesses reflect on this procedure with a very critical mindset. It is no spoiler to state that the investigation drew so much futile energy because the police leadership was blind to sexism and patriarchy. Having sad this, do not expect all so obvious forms of sexism, like rebuked policewomen and disrespect for eyewitnesses, but a far more comprehensive, structural form of patriarchal thinking that disallowed the participants of this gigantic case to actually see a pattern. Patterns are of course very important in serial crimes, and this makes the entire story more fascinating than a lot of over-dramatized fiction series about serial killers.

This is a real brittish crime ducumentary work, it plays the opponents off the line, and digs far deeper than i ever expected bbc to allow.

its made on archive materal, victims families and survivors interviews at present and in the past, along with the law enforcements officers and journalists, tellinjg the story about the black plague of the black and misty industrial areas of northern englad from 1975-1982, caused by the person called the yorkshire ripper.

i remember reading about the yorkshire ripper in my mums norwegian weekly women magazines, and got the creeps about the stories as a young boy. then it has vanished into history, and now returs as a documentary 40 or so years later, in a prime and insightfilled way.

the grumpy old man thinks this is some of the best of true crime docus ever made.