The Yorkshire Ripper’s ’14th victim’: How top police chief portrayed by David Morrisey in ITV drama The Long Shadow suffered heart attack after notorious hoaxer ‘Wearside Jack’ tricked cops into believing they were hunting a killer from Sunderland
- Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield led West Yorkshire Police’s hunt
- He suffered a near-fatal heart attack in 1979 and was later taken off the case
- Oldfield retired a ‘broken man’ in 1983 and died aged just 61 in 1985
He was widely regarded as a ‘top notch copper’, an old school policeman with three decades experience.
Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield was the man who led West Yorkshire Police’s hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper.
But, after suffering a near-fatal heart attack in 1979 and being taken off the case, he went on to retire a ‘broken man’, having failed in his promise to catch serial killer Peter Sutcliffe.
Oldfield’s anguish was made worse by the fact that it was his huge blunder in believing the hoaxer who became known as ‘Wearside Jack’ that allowed Sutcliffe to murder a further three women before he was finally caught in 1981.
The policeman – who retired in the summer of 1983 – would go on to die aged just 61 in 1985 after suffering another heart attack.
The senior officer is portrayed by David Morrissey in upcoming drama The Long Shadow, whilst his replacement in charge of the Ripper inquiry – Detective Chief Superintendent Jim Hobson – is depicted by Lee Ingleby.
He was widely regarded as a ‘top notch copper’, an old school policeman with three decades experience. Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield was the man who led West Yorkshire Police ‘s hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper
The senior officer is portrayed by David Morrissey in upcoming drama The Long Shadow
The show’s trailer, which was released last week, sees Morrissey as Oldfield say: ‘I give you my word that I will catch this animal’.
Overall, Sutcliffe was convicted for the murder of 13 women and for attacking several more.
Oldfield worked 18-hour days and made a personal pledge to the parents of the sixth victim, Jayne MacDonald, that he would catch the killer.
His 200-strong ripper squad eventually carried out more than 130,000 interviews, visited more than 23,000 homes and checked 150,000 cars.
Oldfield had told of what the Ripper case meant to him in an interview shortly before he fell ill.
He said: ‘I could retire now but I don’t have to go until I’m 65. I am determined to get him before I go.
‘If I don’t get the Ripper before a court and get a conviction, then I’ll have failed.’
In the summer of 1979, Oldfield was infamously hoodwinked by a Sunderland-born man later identified as John Humble.
Overall, Sutcliffe was convicted for the murder of 13 women and for attacking several more
He sent three letters and a voice recording to officers, taunting them that they had had ‘no luck’ catching him and suggesting it was because they were not ‘much good’.
Despite experts’ misgivings about the veracity of the tape and letters, police chief George Oldfield insisted they were from the murderer.
As a result, officers ruled out real Ripper Peter Sutcliffe – who had been interviewed by officers five times by that point – because he was from Yorkshire and his handwriting was not a match.
The Mail’s report of Oldfield’s death
Oldfield organised a press conference and played the hoaxer’s recording to the media.
The tape lasted for three minutes and 14 seconds, beginning with the haunting words: ‘I’m Jack’.
In a gruff north east accent, he went on: ‘I see you are having no luck in catching me.
‘I have the greatest respect for you, George, but Lord you are no nearer catching me now than four years ago, when I started.
‘I reckon your boys are letting you down, George. Ya can’t be much good, can ya?’
Analysts linked the voice to the Castletown area of Sunderland – fatefully shifting the focus of the inquiry to a completely different part of northern England.
More than a million pounds was spent on advertising, while the recording was played on television and radio bulletins.
Oldfield is seen at the 1979 press conference where he played the tapes from a hoaxer posing as the Yorkshire Ripper
John Humble, the hoaxer known as ‘Wearside Jack’, convinced police with a recording that the Yorkshire Ripper was from Sunderland. The real Ripper was free to kill another three women
The now infamous tape (pictured) on which the hoaxer sent the detective leading the team hunting the Ripper a taunting message in June 1979 had been taken home by a scientist
Sutcliffe was pictured in public for the last time on September 26, 2015 when he was being taken from Broadmoor to Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey for eye treatment
In the meantime, Sutcliffe carried out his final three murders and attacked three more women who survived.
Two victims who had managed to get away alive told detectives their attacker had a Yorkshire accent – not the North Eastern voice of the person on the tape.
However they were discounted by Mr Oldfield, a move which would later heap shame on both him and his force.
A set of catastrophic coincidences had already helped convince him the letters – the first of which was sent in 1978 – were genuine.
At that time, detectives knew of seven murder victims.
This letter described an eighth, referred to as ‘Preston 1975’.
This alluded to the killing of 26-year-old Joan Harrison. Lancashire Police had discounted any links with the Yorkshire murders.
But scientists found that the person who licked the letter, a sample found at the scene of the crime and a third sample found from one of the confirmed Ripper murders all came from men with a rare blood group.
A composite of 12 of the 13 victims murdered by Sutcliffe. Victims are: (top row, left to right) Wilma McCann, Emily Jackson, Irene Richardson, Patricia Atkinson; (middle row, left to right) Jayne McDonald, Jean Jordan, Yvonne Pearson, Helen Rytka; (bottom row, left to right) Vera Millward, Josephine Whitaker, Barbara Leach, Jacqueline Hill
Humble taunted police detectives in the 1970s by claiming to be the Yorkshire Ripper in three letters and an audio tape. Pictured: An envelope Humble sent West Yorkshire police in 1979
In the days before DNA, Mr Oldfield concluded these were likely to be the same man.
The man who murdered Joan Harrison also left a bite mark which matched one inflicted by Sutcliffe when he killed Josephine Whitaker in Halifax in April 1979.
READ MORE: The Yorkshire Ripper hoaxer who convinced police they were hunting a killer from Sunderland: ITV drama on the hunt for Peter Sutcliffe retells how Wearside Jack derailed investigation and left serial killer free to murder three more victims
Sutcliffe was interviewed a total of nine times during the investigation, without being arrested.
Former Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Gregg was among more than 100 officers who had been ordered by Oldfield to gather at Halifax’s Old Court House to listen to the recording when it was first sent to police.
‘He said they’d received a tape which he was going to play for us and that they are satisfied that this was from the killer,’ he told the Behind the Crimes’ podcast in April this year.
‘And he was saying it in a tone that was very, very sombre and serious.’
He said that Oldfield told officers that he wanted them to try to recall ‘anyone you have questioned that has an accent or a voice like this.’
Mr Gregg told how the courtroom fell ‘deathly silent’, and the officers then heard the hoaxer’s words.
Apparently stricken with remorse, Humble later phoned police anonymously to reveal he was a hoaxer — but he was not believed.
He was finally caught when a sample of one of the envelopes from the letters he sent was found to contain his DNA. He was not convicted until 2005.
Oldfield was moved aside and replaced with Detective Chief Superintendent Hobson after his first heart attack.
He remained the Assistant Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police but had no further involvement in the Ripper case.
In June 1981 he was moved to take charge of operational support at West Yorkshire Police, a move put down to the fact he was in poor health.
He was moved again in February 1982 and put in charge of Bradford, where the Ripper had previously struck.
Oldfield had another heart attack in 1983 and was off work for several months.
He then retired at the end of August in 1983 and died from congestive heart failure two years later.
the worst blunder came in 1979, when Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield of West Yorkshire Police , who was in overall command of the hunt, was hoodwinked by a hoax tape and two letters sent from Sunderland, which purported to be from the Ripper.
There were warnings of a hoax from voice experts and other detectives, but Oldfield pressed on, convinced this was his man.
Because the voice on the tape had a North East accent, Sutcliffe, who was from Bradford, was not in the frame.
Oldfield’s mistake has been described as one of the biggest in British criminal history, but he was widely regarded as a ‘top notch copper’.
An ‘old school’ policeman with three decades experience, he was a hard drinking, dedicated man who developed a deep personal obsession with nailing the Ripper.
Three letters in which ‘Jack’ laid down a string of false ‘clues’ had been treated with chemicals in a bid to find fingerprints so many times they had turned black. Pictured: Page one of the first letter sent by John Humble
The back of an envelope sent to police which contained an audio tape made by John Humble, better known as ‘Wearside Jack’
He worked 18-hour days and made a personal pledge to the parents of the sixth victim, Jayne MacDonald, that he would catch the killer.
His 200-strong ripper squad eventually carried out more than 130,000 interviews, visited more than 23,000 homes and checked 150,000 cars.
When the tape arrived it was a personal message to Oldfield, which said: ‘Lord, you are no nearer catching me now than four years ago when I started.
‘I reckon your boys are letting you down George. You can’t be much good can ya?’
Later the same year Oldfield had a heart attack at the age of 57, and was subsequently moved off the case.
He has been described by friends as ‘the Ripper’s 14th victim’.
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