The man who sent the ' Ripper Tape ' to the West Yorkshire Police about 20 -odd years ago is now in court . Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the case , shouldn't the following cause a pause for thought ?
Everything on the ' false ' tape could have been gleamed from the press reports up to that time .
The West Yorkshire Police had hundreds of men and [ at that time ] the most sophisticated computers working on the case , Millions of man-hours , I guess , were spent in the search for the elusive ' Ripper ' .
Peter Sutcliffe was approached about 9 times during the course of the investigation but was never considered to be a serious suspect .
Sutcliffe was eventually caught in Sheffield by " good old coppering " methods that had nothing to do with computers and all to do with normal , human police intelligence .
Does that tell us something about the amount of money that is spent on computers by various government and official bodies ? It seems that many of the tasks they've taken on have ended up in abject failure and chaos or at least have failed to do the job they were intended to do .
Criminal records ? Income tax ? Maintenance ? Immigration ? Passports ? Benefits ? Have computers ever proved their worth ?

Wernt there a new military computer system scrapped by Geoff Hoon not so long back that had already cost the tax payer £120+ million.
so in that instance no!

I think one of the reasons that Sutcliffe was missed so many times is that the system relied upon an antiquated paper card indexing system. The police computer system HOLMES was, I think, developed partly in response to the oversights made in this case.

As for whether he was caught by 'good old coppering', I think it was mostly down to luck. Sutcliffe was picked up because he was using false number plates, not because the police managed to track him down. They'd no idea who they'd got at first.

What the Yorkshire Ripper case says about computers is that it served to highlight the need for a computerised system to allow evidence and reports to be shared between constabularies, and allow the easy retrieval of data.

I am not aware that any computers were being used, perhaps you can explain what computer this was and what it was being used for? My recollection is that the Police had been to see Sutcliffe several times and had put the details of the visit onto cards which then didn't get cross referenced because they didn't have a computer and there were thousands of such cards. The good old police also ignored a woman who said she had also been attacked by the Ripper and who decsribed Sutcliffe exactly.

Not to ridicule his vile crimes but he'd have been caught in an hour if sunhill police station were on the case!

Not to ridicule his vile crimes but he'd have been caught in an hour if sunhill police station were on the case!

Not if there was a cliffhanger

Least likely to catch him would be phil and nige off early doors!
"crime doesn't crack itself"

I used to know one of the senior West Yorkshire CID coppers and I asked him about the use of computers in the Ripper case. He said that they would have caught Sutcliffe a lot earlier if they had used computers.

Unfortunately the investigation generated a vast amount of paperwork before the use of computers was a realistic proposition. (So much so that the floor of the room containing the files bowed appreciably under their weight).

It was decided that it would take years to transfer the information from a paper to a pc database and the police couldn't afford the time, expence and manpower.

As it was, he felt that the shear volume of paperwork severely hampered the progress of the investigation.

Wearside Jack has pleaded guilty to the hoaxing during the Ripper murders & denies perverting the course of justice,this bloke is nuttier than a fruitcake,3 other women died after he made the hoax statements & could have been saved if it wasn't for this dick.I hope he gets 20 yrs.

Apologies all round -----I didn't realise that computers had not been used on the Ripper case .
However , computers have proved to be too cumbersome in the other examples I quoted , which gives rise to the thought that with such a mass of information , the computer might well have been a blunt instrument , had it been used in the Ripper case .
The principle is the same too --------masses of people working on isolated aspects of the case . Computers and that type of policing , I think , lead to a sort of mechanical , " tick the box " type of investigation , which gets bogged down or over-complicated , computerised or not .
What I meant by Sutcliffe getting caught by " good old coppering " methods was that even though the police first approached him ' by accident ' , their general knowledge about the Ripper's activities led them on to put 2 and 2 together .The Black Panther [ another well-known character from Bradford ! ] was caught outside a fish and chip shop in Mansfield or somewhere .It'd be interesting to know which violent , major criminals HAVE been tracked down substantionally by computers and /or the ' mass information ' method and which were nabbed by accident , intuition or inspired detective work ?

I used to work with Bob Ring the copper that caught the Ripper here in Sheffield.
He once told me that computers played a small amount in the case and the filing system was so big evry male in the North were under suspision.
Sutcliffe would be unable to get away with it for so long today and probably would be caught within months.
Computers today play a vital part in solving crime.
Ask the perverts that have just been locked up having committed offences 20or 30 years ago.

By definition the prerequisite to catching a serial killer is the murder of several people. After the event the police investigation can be dissected and analised and most probably found wanting. The 'Ripper' case will undoubtably have brought up procedures that were worthy of improvement, were improved and are now common practice.

Luck and bad luck play parts in most events, modern day computers would have freed up hundreds of laborious police hours spent on cross checking paperwork and just might have put more police officers on the streets far earlier thus allowing them to be in the position to enjoy good luck.

Did computers play a part in the DNA testing that was used to convict Ian Huntley? They are with us to stay but will never take the place of a lucky police officer in the right place at the right time.

Peter Sutcliffe was under suspicion many times, there were many leads that pointed to him and I believe he had been interviewed at least once in relation to the case, however he was eliminated as a suspect because he didn't have a weirside accent.

...Did computers play a part in the DNA testing that was used to convict Ian Huntley? ...
Yes, they probably did. Computer software can be used to analyse the pattern of bands produced by DNA testing. Computer records of DNA profiles are used too.

Apologies all round -----I didn't realise that computers had not been used on the Ripper case .
However , computers have proved to be too cumbersome in the other examples I quoted , which gives rise to the thought that with such a mass of information , the computer might well have been a blunt instrument , had it been used in the Ripper case ...
I would say that the use of computers in criminal investigations is the exact opposite of a blunt instrument approach. Masses of data can be fed into the computer and the salient features retrieved by judicious use of keywords etc.

Additionally, computers can be used for geographical profiling, for analysis of the products of DNA testing, for production of offender likenesses, for co-ordination of surveillance....

To make my point more specific to your idea, computers might be used to direct the attentions of the police 'on the beat' to a specific area, a group of individuals who share certain characteristics etc, allowing the police to take it from there.
...The principle is the same too --------masses of people working on isolated aspects of the case . Computers and that type of policing , I think , lead to a sort of mechanical , " tick the box " type of investigation , which gets bogged down or over-complicated , computerised or not .
I would disagree completely. The main reason why the Ripper case prompted the development of HOLMES was to enable forces in different parts of the country to share information easily, so that they would no longer be working in isolation.

I would say that computers allow those with the expertise to interpret their output to direct policing to the appropriate area, thus cutting down on time wasted on fruitless searches.

Peter Sutcliffe was under suspicion many times, there were many leads that pointed to him and I believe he had been interviewed at least once in relation to the case, however he was eliminated as a suspect because he didn't have a weirside accent.

He was interviewed many times. However, I don't believe he was ever actually eliminated because of the actions of the hoaxer. It was usually because his wife unknowingly backed up his alibis and at one point the police lost his file, resulting in the failure to realise the amount of evidence piling up against him.

The actions of the hoaxer sent police down different avenues of investigation and wasted many man hours chasing false leads, but I don't think what he did ever resulted in any elimination of Peter Sutcliffe. Peter Sutcliffe was actually a 'suspect' for most of the period of the investigation, but unfortunately so were several hundred other men.

whatever the ins and outs of it if it wasn't for this man 3 women might have lived. He deserves to have the key thrown away.

I wonder how many women had actually looked at there partners. friends and neighbours during the Rippers rein and thought I wonder if its him.
I bet every person actually thought at least once, I wonder.

I still find it strange that if computers are freeing up a lot of the officers who might well be doing mechanical paper-work , where are they all ? I don't live in the U.K. now but from what I can gather , people are always complaining that they never seem to actually see any police officers and a lot of time is spent gathering information to feed into computers , in order to save manpower !
Crime also seems to be on the up and up . Of course it might be that crime would be even higher if we didn't use computers .
One problem , I would have thought with gathering lots of information , analysing it all and eventually acting on that information , is that the criminal might well have moved on by the time action is taken .With ' Community -type ' policing , I would think the information and gossip that the man on the spot gets is more valuable than the ' Computer ' method .
Also , why would the police computer be intrinsically any more efficient than the other computers that have made such a mess of things ? I'm asking this in all sincerity as many people today seem to me to over-rely on computers vis-a vis human intelligence and deduction .

I still find it strange that if computers are freeing up a lot of the officers who might well be doing mechanical paper-work , where are they all ? I don't live in the U.K. now but from what I can gather , people are always complaining that they never seem to actually see any police officers and a lot of time is spent gathering information to feed into computers , in order to save manpower !
Crime also seems to be on the up and up . Of course it might be that crime would be even higher if we didn't use computers .
One problem , I would have thought with gathering lots of information , analysing it all and eventually acting on that information , is that the criminal might well have moved on by the time action is taken .With ' Community -type ' policing , I would think the information and gossip that the man on the spot gets is more valuable than the ' Computer ' method .
Also , why would the police computer be intrinsically any more efficient than the other computers that have made such a mess of things ? I'm asking this in all sincerity as many people today seem to me to over-rely on computers vis-a vis human intelligence and deduction .

A very good post, it's most probably a case of prioritisation. A friend recently had his business premises broken into and robbed three times in the same week. The police officer attending intimated that even though a witness had taken down the registration details of the truck used in the robbery that they would not spend many police hours on the case. He said that an investigation would cost money and that the current priority was to raise money by way of fines for trivial motoring offences.

My friend asked if it would be a good idea to pay some big strapping lad to stay in the building at night. The police officer said that if he didn't use a fully accredited and licenced security firm and an intruder was injured the police would almost certainly take action against him on the basis of him failing in his duty of care to the intruder. He is now paying £6000.00 per month to a security firm, the world has gone mad.