Here I am just a short uphill
walk from the centre of Bradford where the streets of Victorian terraces are
given over to university students. It was here that Peter Sutcliffe murdered
Barbara Leach, a 20-year-old student (he preferred to murder prostitutes who
were likely to be driven away to secluded places.) I’m shown here on Ashgrove where he struck Barbara and then round the back
where he dumped her.
Barbara was studying social psychology and was
about to start her final year when she joined friends for an evening drink at a
pub on Saturday 1st September 1979. It closed at 11pm but she and
her friends helped the landlord collect empty glasses in exchange for a free
drink. Even though it was raining lightly at 12:45 am when they left Barbara
decided to walk home to her shared accommodate at Grove Terrace. None of her
friends joined her but they didn’t feel bad; they knew she enjoyed taking late
night walks to think and take in the night air.
In his Rover 3.5 FHY 400K was Peter Sutcliffe who
had spotted her peel away from her friends. He’d be cruising around the area
and admitted later he was out of control and ready to kill (it had been 150
days since the last attack.) He was dressed to kill: back at home he’d replaced
his underpants with an upside down V-neck sweater. His legs went down the arms
and his penis swung freely.
He followed the lone student. He’d been tinkering
with this car earlier that day and wanted to test it. He was only three miles
from his home in Heaton. He watch Barbara who turned left into Ashgrove and parked up ahead of her. Alighting from the car
he allowed Barbara to pass him before smashing the back of her head with his
ball peen hammer. Barbara went down instantly and was moaning but a house party
at number 16 blared out music through open windows. Sutcliffe dragged her
groaning body up the side of number 13 and into the back yard. He did what he
normally did with his victims - pushed up her top and bra to expose her breasts
and pulled down her jeans - before stabbing away viciously. He used a sharpened
screwdriver - the one he’d killed Josephine Whitaker with. He placed the body
in a jack-knife position behind a low wall where the dustbins were usually kept,
covered her with an old piece of carpet and put some stones on top. On the way
home he threw the screwdriver away over the embankment near Hartshead
Service Station.
Barbara’s roommates were concerned when she
didn’t return on Sunday and before the day expired they called the police. A
police search ensued and the following day Barbara’s body was found. The wounds
were commiserate with previous Yorkshire Ripper butchery though it was unusual for
the victim to be a student.
I took a few photographs of 13 Ashgrove knowing this is where a young life ended. The gap
between numbers 13 and 15 is still present though a green fence has been
erected preventing access to the back yard. I walked around the back of the
terraces but met another green fence. I thought perhaps all the nearby alleys had
such fences but this was the only one. They'd obviously been erected by the
council to keep weirdos like me at bay. I did a
salute and left. Poor kid.
Police searched down the back of Ash
Grove...
The time from Barbara leaving to the
pub to her murder was about thirty minutes...
Barbara's mum...