'Wearside Jack' jailed for 8 years
'Wearside Jack' jailed for 8 years
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Tuesday, 21, Mar 2006 06:06
The infamous 'Wearside Jack' hoaxer, who was behind a series of letters and tapes sent to police in the late 1970s purporting to be from the Yorkshire Ripper, has today been jailed for eight years.
John Humble, a 50-year-old farm labourer from Sunderland, yesterday pleaded guilty to four counts of perverting the course of justice after earlier admitting to writing and recording letters and tapes and sending them to West Yorkshire police during the late 1970s.
Humble's lawyers had argued that his actions had no bearing on the failure of police to capture Peter Sutcliffe, the man behind the infamous Yorkshire Ripper murders of 13 women during the late 1970s and early 80s.
However, announcing the sentence at Leeds crown court today, judge Norman Jones QC rejected this claim, telling Humble that his actions had a direct detrimental impact on the Yorkshire Ripper investigations.
"One of the factors that allowed the Yorkshire Ripper to remain at large for so long was your behaviour," the judge said.
"Police were convinced you were the killer."
However, the judge revealed that Humble's late change to a guilty plea had been taken as a mitigating factor when sentencing. The hoaxer had previously denied perverting the course of justice.
The court heard how Humble had been driven to act in revenge for a previous run-in with the police and had made no attempt at any time to own up to his actions despite Sutcliffe continuing his killing spree.
Speaking after sentencing, Detective Chief Superintendent Chris Gregg of West Yorkshire police expressed his relief that the "the case has now been closed once and for all".
"John Humble misdirected police inquiries at the time, which were focused on Sunderland not Yorkshire. If he had not sent the letters and tapes, the focus of the police inquiry would not have been [wrongly] directed," DCI Gregg said.
He added that the series of false letters and recordings carried out by Humble was a "calculated campaign", branding it "one of the major hoaxes of the last century".
Before Humble's arrest last October, the identity of 'Wearside Jack' had remained a mystery, with a number of books and TV documentaries speculating as to his identity.
As a result of Mr Humble's letters and recordings, which he began to send out in March 1978, police diverted all their attention in the hunt for the serial killer to the Sunderland area, away from Sutcliffe, who was based in Yorkshire.
Sutcliffe was eventually arrested in January 1981 following a routine traffic inquiry. It was only then that 'Wearside Jack' was exposed as a hoaxer.
Theories as to the identity of the hoaxer included that he was Sutcliffe's accomplice, a disaffected police officer and the real perpetrator of a murder in Preston pinned on the Yorkshire Ripper, but which Sutcliffe has always denied.