Yorkshire Ripper cop shares killer's disturbing method for selecting victims

23 October 2023 , 18:55

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Sergeant Meg Winterburn is played by actor Liz White in ITV's The Long Shadow (Image: ITV)

ITV's new drama The Long Shadow has the nation once again hooked on the tale of Peter Sutcliffe's terrifying five-year killing spree, but some viewers are far more invested than others. Former police sergeant Meg Winterburn worked as a consultant on the Yorkshire Ripper case in the late seventies, and is watching actor Liz White portray her in the series.

Meg, now 75, is 'delighted' to see the show concentrate more on the victims and staff than Sutcliffe himself. "There's no gratuitous violence, it's extremely well done. It was quite strange to see myself played on screen. But I got to speak to Liz and that made a huge difference. She did a really good job," Meg told the Mirror.

Meg believes Sutcliffe murdered sex workers because they were easy targets (Julian Hamilton/Sunday Mirror)

She said it was not the voices in his head driving him to kill, but a 'blood lust' (Unknown)

Meg, of Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, was one of only six female sergeants in West Yorkshire Police when the force was tasked with catching the Ripper, as the serial killer prowled the streets of the North brutally murdering 13 women and attacking at least seven more. Meg worked at the centre of the incident room at Millgarth police station from 1978, and was sent undercover for six weeks with surviving victim Maureen Long.

Maureen, 42, had been struck with a hammer and stabbed several times after she left a nightclub in Bradford in July 1977. Left for dead, the mum survived and bravely agreed to attend local nightspots with Meg in a bid to jog her memory. At the time, the police dismissed some of the Ripper's victims as "just another prostitute", allowing him to continue murdering innocent women on the streets. It was this belittling of sex workers that Meg believes is also the reason Sutcliffe killed them.

"I don't believe for one minute that he was just murdering prostitutes because little voices in his head were telling him to. It happened to be prostitutes initially, because there were easy targets. And then it became a blood lust," Meg explained. After Sutcliffe was finally caught on January 2, 1981, he confessed to being the Ripper and claimed he believed he was on a 'mission from God' to kill prostitutes.

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Recalling the moment she found out he was behind bars, Meg said: "My friend Sue rang me and said, 'We've caught him'. I didn't dare hope that it was him at first, because we'd had so many near-misses. I felt so much relief when I knew it was genuine, mainly for the parents and families of victims, and as nobody else would be murdered by him."

The killer, who was given 20 life sentences after his Old Bailey trial in 1981, died in November 2020, aged 74. Meg, who made Detective Inspector before retiring with an injury, in 1993, said: "I still remember the injuries, the victims, the statements from the family - it never leaves you." She added: "The world is a better place without him."

The Long Shadow is on ITV1 and ITVX tonight at 9pm

Frances Kindon