I caught Sutcliffe, nevertheless it took FIVE calls earlier than squad questioned him

Trainee police officer Bob Hydes sat within the classroom with different probationers, keen to complete the course and get out to do the job.

It was May 1980. As the lecture drew to an in depth, the inspector on the entrance of the room turned immediately sombre. ‘The greatest manhunt we have now in our nation now could be for the Yorkshire Ripper,’ he stated, gazing intently on the rookie officers. ‘It could even be one in every of you in right here that lastly will get him.’

Just seven months later, PC 358 Bob Hydes was that man. On Friday January 2, 1981, he arrested the UK’s most wished prison, Peter Sutcliffe who, over six years of brutal violence between 1975 and 1981, murdered 13 girls and attacked seven extra.

Indeed, his final ‘sufferer’ was most likely minutes from her dying when Hydes, then 31, and veteran Sgt Bob Ring, 47, noticed Sutcliffe’s automotive parked in Sheffield’s crimson mild space.

The duo’s actions that night time ultimately led to his conviction and jailing for all times, and to the top of an episode that traumatised girls within the north of England and scarred the nationwide psyche for many years.

Today, Bob Hydes provides his first — and he says final — newspaper interview because the serial killer’s arrest greater than 42 years in the past.

In an hour-by-hour account of that chaotic night time, and with all of the precision of an ex-copper, he recollects Sutcliffe’s calm manner whereas openly mendacity to him, and the way he step by step got here to understand he and Sgt Ring had — unwittingly — caught probably the most feared and reviled man within the land.

But he’s brutally candid, too, about colleagues’ errors and divulges in additional element than ever earlier than the conflict between police on the coronary heart of the manhunt that just about let the Ripper escape into the night time to kill once more.

Grey-haired, circumspect, modest, the now retired officer, 74, was a late entry to the police, having spent his 20s working in engineering in his dwelling metropolis of Sheffield.

He determined to affix after a good friend did. ‘I assumed if he is intelligent sufficient to affix then I’m,’ he laughs.

Married to Kath for 52 years, the dad-of-two and grandad of 1 at the moment enjoys golf and a quiet drink at his native pub.

‘My mates know I hardly ever discuss concerning the Ripper, however I really feel it is the best time now to inform my account of the night time we acquired him. Over the years I’ve learn so many tales which have been inaccurate. Now I need to put the file straight,’ he says.

It was an icy, snowy night on January 2, 1981. After a briefing initially of the ten pm shift, Sgt Ring approached new officer Hydes and in his broad Yorkshire accent, declared: ‘Tha’s a automotive driver, I’ll come out with thee.’

They drove across the space for half an hour when Ring stated: ‘Has tha carried out a prostitute file?’ that means have you ever ever arrested a intercourse employee. Hydes stated he hadn’t. ‘I’ll present you the place they go,’ replied Ring as he directed him to Sheffield’s then crimson mild district.

At 10.50pm, they drove alongside Melbourne Avenue, stuffed with massive Victorian properties, many now workplaces.

‘Look there’s one — drive as much as it.’ Ring pointed to a brown Rover saloon parked in an unlit driveway subsequent to enterprise premises, which Hydes now blocked in. His headlights confirmed a person within the driver’s seat and a girl within the passenger seat: Peter Sutcliffe and native intercourse employee Olivia Reivers. ‘We walked to the automotive and Ring requested Sutcliffe what he was doing there,’ recollects Hydes. ‘Just speaking,’ the killer calmly replied.

‘Who is she?’ Ring requested, nodding in direction of Olivia. ‘My girlfriend,’ stated Sutcliffe.

‘What’s her title?’ quizzed the sergeant. ‘I do not know. We have not identified one another all that lengthy,’ stated Sutcliffe.

Ring retorted: ‘Who do you assume we’re — simply fallen off a Christmas tree?’

Sutcliffe held his nerve, even perhaps having fun with the trade. ‘I’m not suggesting you have got,’ he stated.

Hydes requested him his title and deal with, to which Sutcliffe replied: ‘John Williams, 65 Dorchester Road, Canklow, Rotherham.’

Ring returned to their automotive and radioed the Rover’s registration into the management room. It was a false plate, belonging to a Skoda.

Sutcliffe and Olivia have been now put underneath arrest on suspicion of theft.

For the primary however not the final time that night time, the Ripper now very practically acquired away. As Hydes took Olivia, 24, to the police automotive, he heard Ring ask Sutcliffe what he was doing. ‘I would like a pee,’ stated the killer. Ring ordered him to do it by the workplace wall.

The darkness meant Ring couldn’t see Sutcliffe deposit his ball pein hammer and a kitchen knife right into a mound of grass and leaves.

It was ‘a lapse of focus’ says Hydes now — however for no matter motive, Sutcliffe didn’t take the chance to slide away as he would possibly simply have carried out.

Perhaps he acquired cocky, believing the police would as soon as extra fail to know who he actually was. It had already occurred — Sutcliffe was interviewed 9 instances between November 1977 and February 1980, and his Sunbeam Rapier automotive had been seen a stunning 39 instances in crimson mild areas within the North.

What saved him from better scrutiny was his accent. In June 1979, an alcoholic from Sunderland known as John Humble had despatched a now notorious cassette tape to the investigation’s main officer, Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield, claiming accountability for the Ripper murders. The haunting voice recording was performed repeatedly on tv and radios throughout Britain.

Oldfield was satisfied it had been despatched by the true killer. From then on, solely males with Geordie or Wearside accents have been thought-about severe suspects. Sutcliffe had neither and the Wearside tape proved to be probably the most pricey — and, for ladies who would possibly in any other case have escaped the Ripper, tragic — crimson herrings in prison historical past.

‘Both suspects have been now put behind the automotive and neither stated a phrase as we drove them to Hammerton Road Police Station,’ says Hydes.

Parking at 11.25pm, he took Olivia — whose life in impact he had saved — to the station’s custody sergeant, Sgt Bough. As Ring introduced Sutcliffe in, the Ripper stated he once more wanted to make use of the bathroom and disappeared, unescorted and out of police sight — the second main error of the night time. Returning from the station bogs, Sutcliffe now gave his actual title and deal with, and Sgt Bough ordered him to empty his pockets.

‘I watched as he pulled out a coiled piece of twine, about two foot lengthy,’ says Hydes. ‘In the center of it, we later noticed, have been two knots tied about an inch aside.

‘The custody sergeant later stated one of many Ripper victims had been murdered with a twine that had knots in it. I assume it was a part of his strangulation equipment.’

It was 11.40pm and the cells have been full, so Sutcliffe was taken to an workplace for plain-clothes detectives.

Hydes sat subsequent to him, and Duty Sgt Arthur Armitage, a blunt-speaking officer, got here in as he completed his shift. On the wall was a 2 ft excessive photo-fit of the Ripper.

‘[Armitage] checked out my suspect, then again on the poster. He turned to Sutcliffe and declared: “You’re the Yorkshire Ripper, you are.”

‘Sutcliffe stared at Arthur however by no means flinched or stated a phrase, staying as cool as a cucumber.

‘I seemed on the poster and my coronary heart began pounding. I totted up the clues — the prostitute, false automotive plates, the twine, false title and deal with and, after all, his likeness to the photo-fit.

‘I used to be informed to ring the Ripper incident room, which was in Leeds, to inform them to return and get this man, who was a robust contender for the killer.’ Yet now, absurdly, Hydes encountered resistance from his personal colleagues.

‘An officer in Leeds picked up the telephone and his first query was, “Has he got a Geordie accent?”

‘ “No, he hasn’t,’ I said. “Well we’re not bothered then and will not come for him,’ he replied earlier than hanging up.” In Sheffield there was frustration, and Hydes was told by a senior officer to call again.

The same Leeds officer took his second call, and this time said Sutcliffe came up twice in their records — in fact, he featured far more often than this — but still there was no offer to come and collect him for further questioning.

Convinced Sutcliffe was a major suspect and with rising anger at the officer’s refusal to take him seriously, Hydes made a third and fourth call, still to no avail. Bosses at Sheffield decided to get a more senior detective to pressure West Yorkshire to get him.

Meanwhile, at 2am, Hydes went back to Sutcliffe, who was still calmly sitting in the office. ‘I need to verify who you are. Is there anyone at your home address who will do that?’ he asked.

‘My wife Sonia,’ said Sutcliffe, and gave Hydes his home phone number. Now he watched calmly as the PC made the call . . . knowing that the number he had given was false. Indeed, Sutcliffe was sitting so close to Hydes, he could surely hear the phone answered by an Asian man, angry at being woken.

‘I thought he was devious. I think he was possibly frightened at how deep we were looking into him.

‘He was a consummate liar, trying to get away from us to get his hammer and knife and get back to Bradford. I said to him: “You gave me a flawed quantity. What’s your actual one?” He refused to give it to me. “I do not need Sonia to know,” he muttered.’ Through the small hours, Hydes chatted to Sutcliffe, the 31-year-old trainee copper doing his best to draw hints of guilt from a man so evil he had, by then, murdered 13 women.

‘I asked him if he had been in trouble with the police before. He moaned that he had been caught for speeding and drink driving.

‘This was a man who knew how many women he had attacked yet all he was bothered about was being caught doing 50 mph in a 30 zone.’

Sutcliffe was eventually placed in a cell and Olivia was let go. Hydes wrote up his notes and, at last, West Yorkshire sent police to collect Sutcliffe and take him to Dewsbury station, so Ripper squad officers could question him.

Hydes finished work at 7am and went home to his family, but there was no sense of victory. Quite the opposite. ‘I was so frustrated by what had happened that night, with the delays from West Yorkshire. We knew he was a strong suspect and we also knew there was a risk he’d be set free,’ he recalls.

The next night, Saturday January 3, Hydes began his shift again at 10 pm, and was put on foot patrol. Not long after, however, he was told the inspector heading up the shift wanted him and Sgt Ring back at the scene of Sutcliffe’s arrest.

They searched the corner where Sutcliffe had disappeared apparently to relieve himself: a small brick walled square, three foot by two foot, filled with garden waste.

‘I looked down and saw a hammer laid on top,’ says Hydes. ‘ “Who does tha assume it belongs to — the handyman [who works at the business premises next door]?” Ring asked me. I shone my torch down closer and saw a silver blade glint. “Well, the hammer would possibly,” I said, “however who does the knife belong to that is underneath it?”

‘That was when we realised we’d found Sutcliffe’s killing kit. It was a spine-tingling moment. I knew we had got our man.’

Scenes-of-crime officers were called to the area, and Hydes was told to guard it. ‘We didn’t know at that point whether Sutcliffe was still in custody or not.

‘I was worried he might come back to get his equipment.’

But now the murderer’s identity was surely beyond question.

Sutcliffe was still at Dewsbury Police — and he knew the game was up.

On Sunday January 4, he admitted he was the Yorkshire Ripper.

For Bob Hydes, that Sunday was the strangest of his career. ‘Ring and I had been told not to tell anyone what had gone on in the night, not even our family,’ he says.

Too excited to sleep after his shift, he joined friends for their regular Sunday lunchtime drink. ‘People noticed I was quiet but I said nothing. I honestly told no one, not even Kath.’ Finally going to bed at 3.30pm, he rose at 9pm to see George Oldfield, West Yorkshire Chief Constable Ronald Gregory and other senior Ripper detectives on TV, ‘all smiles’, saying the hunt for the killer was over.

‘They looked so pleased with themselves, I thought,’ says Hydes now, despite the fact their own officer had spent hours pouring cold water on his suspicions.

At least Hydes’ work was recognised within his own force: ‘I was called by South Yorkshire’s chief constable congratulating me on a job well done.’ And it was only then that the enormity of the arrest hit home.

‘I thought thank God for all the women in the North that he had finally been caught. I saw and heard the relief of the women in my own family, and over the next few weeks, when I was back on patrol, women would come up to me in the street and fling their arms around me, thanking me for arresting him. Some had tears in their eyes as they spoke to me and shook my hand.’

There was one final discovery.

A week after his arrest, police thought to search the toilets Sutcliffe used at Hammerton Road station in Sheffield. A Stanley knife was found hidden in a cistern. The killing kit was complete.

After his trial at the Old Bailey in May 1981, Sutcliffe was jailed for life for the murders of 13 women and attacks on seven more.

Hydes moved to CID until 1999 and was then was promoted to uniform sergeant, retiring in January 2009 just days before his 60th birthday. Sutcliffe died in 2020, aged 74, in jail.

Does Hydes now think Sutcliffe was mad or simply evil? ‘Sutcliffe knew what he was doing. He lied repeatedly, and to the very final minutes of his being a free man. He was wicked and calculating.

‘I rarely talk publicly about it as I don’t want to upset the victims’ families, but this is my record of those historic few days.

‘As for me, I was simply doing the job I was required to do.’