Coronation Street fans were left stunned on Wednesday night when soap star Bruce Jones revealed his connection to the Yorkshire Ripper on a new ITV documentary.
The first episode of Yorkshire Ripper: The Secret Murders explored Peter Sutcliffe's early offending and posited that his murderous spree began at least six years earlier than previously believed.
Among the new evidence, the 69-year-old soap veteran appeared on the programme to detail how he became caught up in the devastating murders.
The Corrie legend, who played taxi driver Les Battersby, said he had found one of Sutcliffe's victims while working on an allotment in the late 1970s.
Bruce, who left the cobbles in 2007, told how he had been working with a friend on building the base of a shed in October 1977 when he found the murdered body of Jean Jordan.
On the ITV documentary Bruce recalled the harrowing discovery, saying: “I was like, ‘I'll go and get the bricks for the base.’ It was on the way there - five times I'd filled the barrow, come back - and the sixth time, there was this body. My mate came over, he couldn’t look at it, he was being ill.”
Jean was a young mother in her twenties who had recently moved from Scotland to Manchester and was the Ripper's first victim in the city.
The details of her death indicated to the Manchester force that the Yorkshire Ripper was responsible, with the post-mortem showing that days after the murder the killer had returned to mutilate Jean Jordan’s body further and position it in a more open location.
However, the West Yorkshire Police were not as convinced and Bruce recalled being questioned by officers on his own whereabouts at the time of the victim’s death.
He said: “They asked me if I'd been to Yorkshire. I couldn't remember if I'd been to Yorkshire or not.
“Why I had a hammer and big chisel in my wheelbarrow? That was to break the bricks up I needed for the base of the shed. Just question after question.
“Your mind does play tricks on you. It's like ‘Where was I? Had I been to Yorkshire? No, I've never been to Yorkshire.’
“Right from the minute you find that body your mind is going faster than you can think. And no, no, no I wasn't there. I wasn't there… Never been there. And in the end, they come in and tell you, ‘Get dressed,’ and we'll run you home and that was it.”
Bruce said the ordeal led to his marriage to his first wife breaking down in 1982.
Soap fans were shocked by his discovery, as one tweeted: “Bloody hell. The actor who played Les Battersby found one of the Yorkshire Ripper victims. Crazy!”
Another added: “The maddest cultural crossover that I will never get my head around is that Les Battersby discovered one of the victims of the Yorkshire Ripper.”
A third posted: “Sorry but is that Les from Corrie in the Yorkshire Ripper doc on ITV?!"
The second part of Yorkshire Ripper: The Secret Murders is on ITV at 9pm on Thursday.
