The police investigation into the murders of 13 women opened my eyes to a vein of misogyny that remains just as lethal today
I am so angry, all these years later. When I heard that this insignificant little man had died, more than four decades after he ruined the lives of so many women, the anger and hurt came rushing back. I remember it as though it were yesterday: the fear we lived with in the north of England, the suspicion about neighbours and colleagues, the sense that we couldn’t rely on the police to protect us.
We couldn’t even rely on them to catch him, even though Peter Sutcliffe was hardly anyone’s idea of a criminal mastermind. He spoke to the women he targeted, letting them hear his Yorkshire accent and see his face. Detectives visited him at home on nine occasions but didn’t bother to search his garage, where he kept the weapons he used to kill at least 13 women.
