The Ripper Speaks: Bruce Jones' experience with Peter Sutcliffe

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Peter Sutcliffe was the British serial killer who became known as the Yorkshire Ripper after carrying out a string of murders in the North of England. His attacks took place from the mid-Seventies to the early Eighties, his spree only coming to an end after he was caught with a woman in his car which had false number plates. Bringing him in for questioning about the murders — he matched many of the descriptions given by survivors of previous attacks — the police slowly pieced together Sutcliffe’s history, finding weapons and rope at the scene where they first stopped him.

He was eventually arrested and trialled, during which he said: “It was just a miracle they did not apprehend me earlier — they had all the facts.”

Tomorrow night, exclusive audio recordings with Sutcliffe offer a remarkable insight into the notorious serial killer, as journalist Mark Williams-Thomas listens to him speak openly about crimes he never formally confessed to, how he evaded the police for so long, and the truth behind his controversial attempts to plead not guilty at his trial.

In one segment of the programme entitled ‘The Ripper Speaks: The Lost Tapes’, Mr Williams-Thomas speaks to former Coronation Street star Bruce Jones, who played Les Battersby in the soap.

Mr Jones happened to discover the body of 20-year-old Jean Jordan in 1977.

The mother-of-two had been left in a wasteland in Manchester where Mr Jones, who was with a local allotment owner, alerted the police.

On that morning, Mr Jones believes he saw Sutcliffe staring at him from behind some bushes just as he stumbled across the body.

Speaking during the programme, he said: “I looked up and there was a face in the bushes: black beard, black hair, black eyebrows, black eyes.”

Asked whether Sutcliffe looked at him, he replied: “I looked him straight in the eyes but I didn’t take any notice, I was looking at this girl and your minds all over the place.

“I looked round again and he’d gone.”

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When Mr Williams-Thomas asked if Sutcliffe had “clocked” that he’d been seen, Mr Jones said: “He must’ve been watching me.”

Mr Jones previously said that he believes Sutcliffe may have been getting “a kick” out of watching Ms Jordan being found.

After this, the soap star was treated as a suspect in the case, which caused the eventual breakdown of his marriage.

At the time, he told The Daily Mirror: “I lost my first marriage, my children.

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“I lost everything because of that.

“It actually destroyed me to learn that people can do that to a human being.

“I had nightmares like you wouldn’t believe.”

In a wide-reaching 2008 interview with Piers Morgan, Mr Jones recalled his “pure panic” after being linked to the Yorkshire Ripper case.

He said the police probed him about his whereabouts when Ms Jordan had died, saying: “You start thinking, ‘Where was I? What have I done wrong?’ Your mind starts racing. It’s pure panic.”

Sutcliffe died at University Hospital of North Durham aged 74 in 2020, having been sent there with COVID-19.

An inquest in 2021 heard that he refused to be shielded in prison in the months before he died, despite being warned that he was vulnerable to the virus by authorities at Frankland Prison near Durham.

He was serving a life sentence at Frankland for the murders of 13 women in the Seventies and was in poor health

The coroner concluded that Sutcliffe had died a natural death with no suspicious circumstances, and addressed the victims’ families as he delivered his findings.

He said: “I hope you have some sense of closure at this point and that your loved ones, the victims, may better rest in peace now that Peter Sutcliffe is dead.”

When Sutcliffe was initially sentenced in May 1981, the trial judge said he was beyond redemption and recommended a minimum term of thirty years to be served before parole could be considered.

In 2010, however, the High Court issued Sutcliffe with a whole life tariff, meaning he was never to be released.

‘The Ripper Speaks: The Lost Tapes’ airs at 10pm on Channel 5.

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