Yorkshire Ripper's facial feature obsession saw him stare into mirror for hours
The Yorkshire Ripper's chilling crimes have been retold in ITV drama - The Long Shadow - but families of victims, including the killer's brother, have slammed TV bosses for bringing up painful memories. As Carl Sutcliffe, whose notorious older sibling's wicked crimes forced him to change his own identity, said the drama starring Mark Stobbart is opening up old wounds, he revealed what it was like living with his monster brother, who would spend hours looking at his own reflection in a bid to upkeep his beauty regime.
Carl accused bosses of cashing in on other people's suffering and hoped it would be the last programme ever created about his twisted brother. Peter Sutcliffe, who murdered at least 13 women and attempted to kill seven more, died in hospital almost three years ago but The Long Shadow is retelling the horrors he inflicted. Featuring the likes of Toby Jones, David Morrissey, Katherine Kelly and Daniel Mays, the haunting seven-parter has left viewers gripped.
Peter Sutcliffe would spend an hour trimming his beard in the days between his killings (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
His brother Carl has spoken of the torment and spoke of living with shame and guilt (REX/Shutterstock)"It has been a thorn in my side, unless you have a notorious criminal in your family, you cannot understand what it is like," Carl told the MailOnline. "What is to be gained from this? I feel so sorry for the victims' families that they have to endure the retelling of losing their loved one. For the sake of the victims and their families - and my family - it needs to be left now."
Recalling when his brother had been kicked out as the murders were going on, the killer turned up at his flat. It is here that Carl revealed his brother would spend hours maintaining his facial hair. "He'd stay for about an hour, have a cuppa and seemed to spend most of it trimming his beard or staring at himself in the bathroom mirror," he went on. "He was obsessed with his beard."
Those relatives will take some comfort from the fact that for the serial killer, it was an unbearable ending. Nonstop coughing and suffering from diarrhoea and intense vomiting – it was not a peaceful passing in 2020. The Prisons & Probation Ombudsman, which investigates deaths in prisons, went into detail about the serial killer's dying days.
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A family photo from 1961 shows Top left: Grandma Charlotte Coonan (top left), Peter Sutcliffe, aged 14, (bottom left) mum Kathleen Sutcliffe holding baby Carl (middle) sister Anne Sumner, bottom right and brother Mick Sutcliffe, top right (Collect Unknown)Already suffering from diabetes, angina and paranoid schizophrenia, Sutcliffe was taken from a maximum security prison near Durham to hospital on October 28, 2020, to have a pacemaker fitted. The former lorry driver, who was locked up for a whole life term in 1981, may have contracted coronavirus in hospital, Sue McAllister wrote in the report. On November 6 2020 – a day after testing positive for the disease – the killer was observed by a prison nurse to be "coughing continuously and was unable to get out of bed".
Later that day Sutcliffe, who latterly used the name Peter Coonan, began vomiting. Two days later a prison nurse found Sutcliffe, 74, had been suffering diarrhoea and vomiting. His oxygen saturation level was found to be very low and he was taken to hospital. Suffering chest pain and coughing the following day, Sutcliffe, who had earlier declined to shield on a different prison wing, was taken back to hospital and again on November 10.
Sutcliffe's condition deteriorated and on November 12 his restraints were removed for "decency". The killer, who was kept in chains until shortly before his death, died just after 1am on November 13. Ms McAllister wrote: "The clinical reviewer concluded that the care Mr Coonan received at Frankland was equivalent to that which he could have expected to receive in the community.
The Long Shadow airs on ITV1 at 9pm tonight.
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