In the 70s, the newspapers nicknamed Peter Sutcliffe the “Yorkshire Ripper”. It was a term that became synonymous with the serial killer’s murder of 13 women – and attempted murders of seven more – in the north of England from 1975 to 80. So notorious did it become that it stuck in the public imagination in a way that the names of many of those who lost their lives at Sutcliffe’s hands did not, and it is almost unheard of for there to be a discussion of these awful crimes that does not mention it.
ITV drama The Long Shadow is changing that. Despite giving seven episodes to the long police investigation into Sutcliffe’s crimes, it strikingly never uses the term once, instead putting the victims at its heart.
