Título: Peter Sutcliffe
Seção: Criticism of West Yorkshire Police
Background: Sutcliffe was born in Bingley in the West Riding of Yorkshire to a working-class family. He was given a Catholic upbringing by his parents, John William Sutcliffe and his wife Kathleen Frances (nee Coonan). Reportedly a loner, he left school aged fifteen and had a series of menial jobs, including two stints as a gravedigger in the 1960s. Between November 1971 and April 1973, Sutcliffe worked at the Baird Television factory on a packaging line.

Conteúdo: West Yorkshire Police were criticised for being inadequately prepared for an investigation on this scale. It was one of the largest investigations by a British police force and predated the use of computers. Information on suspects was stored on handwritten index cards. Aside from difficulties in storing and accessing the paperwork (the floor of the incident room was reinforced to cope with the weight of the paper), it was difficult for officers to overcome the information overload of such a large manual system. Sutcliffe was interviewed nine times, but all information the police had about the case was stored in paper form, making cross-referencing difficult, compounded by television appeals for information which generated thousands more documents.  Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield was criticised for being too focused on a hoax confessional tape that seemed to indicate a perpetrator with a Wearside background, and for ignoring advice from survivors of Sutcliffe's attacks, and several eminent specialists including the FBI, plus dialect analysts such as Stanley Ellis and Jack Windsor Lewis, whom he had also consulted throughout the manhunt, that "Wearside Jack" was a blatant hoaxer. The investigation used it as a point of elimination rather than a line of enquiry and allowed Sutcliffe to avoid scrutiny, as he did not fit the profile of the sender of the tape or letters. The "Wearside Jack" hoaxer was given unusual credibility when analysis of saliva on the envelopes he

user: What was wrong with the police

assistant: It was one of the largest investigations by a British police force and predated the use of computers.

user: What did this mean for the Police

assistant: Information on suspects was stored on handwritten index cards. Aside from difficulties in storing and accessing the paperwork

user: What had to happen to the floor

assistant: the floor of the incident room was reinforced to cope with the weight of the paper

user: What else did the Police struggle with

assistant: it was difficult for officers to overcome the information overload of such a large manual system.

user: Who did the big things

assistant: Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield was criticised for being too focused on a hoax confessional tape that seemed to indicate a perpetrator with a Wearside

user: What did that equal to

assistant: and for ignoring advice from survivors of Sutcliffe's attacks, and several eminent specialists including the FBI, plus dialect analysts such as Stanley Ellis and Jack Windsor Lewis,

user: Who did they bring in

assistant: Sutcliffe was interviewed nine times, but all information the police had about the case was stored in paper form,

user: What does this mean for the police

assistant: compounded by television appeals for information which generated thousands more documents.