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Weird IHTM Tales From Reddit & Other Sites

There was a repeat of a two part documentary on the Yorkshire Ripper over Xmas - I wasn't concentrating as I'd started a jigsaw with the wrong picture on the box. The advice being given to women not to go out, or at least not without a male chaperone seemed very sensible to me then as a male teenager. I couldn't understand the objections of the "feminist" harrigans at the time, (as stated by @escargot in the YR thread post #100):
"There was a suggestion that women should stay in at night if they couldn't get a man to escort them, to which women responded 'Why not make the MEN stay in instead?"
Times have changed - or have they ? My 95 year old family friend likes to go for a daily walk, not far, just to keep the limbs working. She now sits on her stairs indoors because of the open hostility she encounters from passer-bys when venturing out of her house. 'How dare she go outside during lock-down - she's old and VUNERABLE and might catch the virus from me !!'
 
Bad Bungle said:
There was a repeat of a two part documentary on the Yorkshire Ripper over Xmas - I wasn't concentrating as I'd started a jigsaw with the wrong picture on the box. The advice being given to women not to go out, or at least not without a male chaperone seemed very sensible to me then as a male teenager. I couldn't understand the objections of the "feminist" harrigans at the time, (as stated by @escargot in the YR thread post #100):
"There was a suggestion that women should stay in at night if they couldn't get a man to escort them, to which women responded 'Why not make the MEN stay in instead?"
Times have changed - or have they ? My 95 year old family friend likes to go for a daily walk, not far, just to keep the limbs working. She now sits on her stairs indoors because of the open hostility she encounters from passer-bys when venturing out of her house. 'How dare she go outside during lock-down - she's old and VUNERABLE and might catch the virus from me !!'
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I haven't seen or heard any hostility when I've been out. People must be saving it for you lot.

As for the the 'stay at home' advice over the Yorkshire Ripper; he was terrorising women into staying home. They were being punished when they'd done nothing wrong. The person who WAS doing wrong was a man, not the entire female population of northern England.
 
Ghost In The Machine said:
Anyone in Leeds knew he was no longer trying to kill "prostitutes" by the time he was striking in Headingley. It was all pretty well student area round there. Is why I never believed the hearing voices defence for one minute.
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A colleague of mine was at Leeds University in the late 70s, and they were all thoroughly warned about walking alone at night because of the Ripper.
 
I must admit feeling a touch sorry for the Police since they did appear to throw endless resources at the investigation. At the time I lived and worked in the area and at that age I was out most nights all over the area. Despite taking different routes home every time I was stopped at every roadblock and interrogated. The police were all over the place, but largely an impossible task when there wasn't much joined up investigation.
 
PeteS said:
I must admit feeling a touch sorry for the Police since they did appear to throw endless resources at the investigation. At the time I lived and worked in the area and at that age I was out most nights all over the area. Despite taking different routes home every time I was stopped at every roadblock and interrogated. The police were all over the place, but largely an impossible task when there wasn't much joined up investigation.
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Spot-on. The beat police were doing their best while being directed by the upper echelons' mad and discriminatory ideas which held up the investigation.
 
Cochise said:
IIRC they got so many leads it overwhelmed the card filing system they used, it led to the the HOLMES system being developed.
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Yes, they had huge amounts of information from the public and couldn't deal with it all.
However, a lot was rejected that didn't fit with the set police ideas about the man they were looking for, such as the insistence that he only attacked sex workers and the 'Wearside Jack' image.

So there was too much intelligence of the wrong sort. Not helpful.
 
escargot said:
Yes, they had huge amounts of information from the public and couldn't deal with it all.
However, a lot was rejected that didn't fit with the set police ideas about the man they were looking for, such as the insistence that he only attacked sex workers and the 'Wearside Jack' image.

So there was too much intelligence of the wrong sort. Not helpful.
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I do understand how people can get fixated on an idea, though. Much less important, but its a problem with programmers - they will convince themselves of a particular solution, or a particular cause of a bug, and you can't get them to wind back.

I'm not a particularly good programmer (although my lovely wife used to call me a genius, bless her) but precisely because of that I set myself a limit - if I've spent several days on chasing down a bug and got no progress I start again from the beginning and use different assumptions.
 
It happens in all sorts of situations. Currently, I am dealing with a structural engineer who comes up with all sorts of expensive "well engineered" solutions, based on data and impeccable math, but which are ultimately based on frankly stupid assumptions. I can overbuild something all by myself, and often have to, but that's not the point of hiring an engineer. But what the hell, it's not his money we're wasting. Even allowing for a generous margin for ass covering, he is forcing us to do some comically absurd things. Structural engineers are not easy to find in these parts, and as far as the building inspectors are concerned, an engineer's stamp is golden. Of course the inspectors have to cover their asses too. Murricah is a pretty jacked up place these days.
 
Austin Popper said:
It happens in all sorts of situations. Currently, I am dealing with a structural engineer who comes up with all sorts of expensive "well engineered" solutions, based on data and impeccable math, but which are ultimately based on frankly stupid assumptions. I can overbuild something all by myself, and often have to, but that's not the point of hiring an engineer. But what the hell, it's not his money we're wasting. Even allowing for a generous margin for ass covering, he is forcing us to do some comically absurd things. Structural engineers are not easy to find in these parts, and as far as the building inspectors are concerned, an engineer's stamp is golden. Of course the inspectors have to cover their asses too. Murricah is a pretty jacked up place these days.
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Lawyers and insurance companies 'own' everything over there. Makes everything more expensive than it should be. It's almost like that (getting there) over here in Airstrip One.
 
escargot said:
Spot-on. The beat police were doing their best while being directed by the upper echelons' mad and discriminatory ideas which held up the investigation.
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I don’t think the bloke who actually caught him even got a promotion? But the high ups were there for their photo ops acting like they’d caught him, personally, IIRC.

Wasn’t Jimmy Savile interviewed in connection with the one on Soldiers’ Field? Not that they’d ever have arrested him.
 
Ghost In The Machine said:
I don’t think the bloke who actually caught him even got a promotion? But the high ups were there for their photo ops acting like they’d caught him, personally, IIRC.

Wasn’t Jimmy Savile interviewed in connection with the one on Soldiers’ Field? Not that they’d ever have arrested him.
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Savile is thought by some to be responsible for the 'Bible John' murders.
 
escargot said:
Yes, they had huge amounts of information from the public and couldn't deal with it all.
However, a lot was rejected that didn't fit with the set police ideas about the man they were looking for, such as the insistence that he only attacked sex workers and the 'Wearside Jack' image.

So there was too much intelligence of the wrong sort. Not helpful.
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It was obvious to anyone, police or not, that he wasn’t targeting prostitutes at all, by the end. I saw in one confession, Sutcliffe insisted that the final victim - the student in the studenty area - looked like a prostitute or rather her body language did - so it’s why he attacked her, but he knew damned well that was a student area.

I was on that very street at that time - it was a high street near campus and not a red light district. I felt safe there precisely because it was a student area.

The Wearside hoaxer had blood on his hands. Sutcliffe operated in those last years knowing the police were barking loudly up wrong trees.

Millgarth police station was right by my dad’s office. People called it a fortress - built to withstand civil unrest. I dunno if that was true but it shows the distrust of the police in some quarters.

I think George Oldfield was used as a fall guy when the police failed so badly. That they had Pete in their sights so repeatedly and yet failed to actually get him ...

I remember the palpable fear and Take Back The Night graffiti round town.
 
escargot said:
Savile is thought by some to be responsible for the 'Bible John' murders.
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Would not surprise me at all. Even as a teenager I thought he was a the most creepy individual. Used to see him regularly in his Roller - always had a weird smile on his face. Shudder.
 
PeteS said:
Would not surprise me at all. Even as a teenager I thought he was a the most creepy individual. Used to see him regularly in his Roller - always had a weird smile on his face. Shudder.
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I think everyone in Leeds had heard stories.

Down south at the BBC... they loved him. But we were always “WTF”.
 
PeteS said:
Would not surprise me at all. Even as a teenager I thought he was a the most creepy individual. Used to see him regularly in his Roller - always had a weird smile on his face. Shudder.
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Savile's interest in children and especially teenage girls was a national open secret. Everyone knew a joke or story about him, which didn't apply to other BBC DJs. He even wrote books about his 'adventures' featuring accounts of scantily-clad underage or very young girls spending time alone with him.

Back then though, as I've often mentioned, older men who victimised teenage girls were seen by many as lucky dogs with the gift of the gab, or skilled conquerers of unnecessarily frigid prudes who were doing them a favour by divesting them of the burden of their tiresome virginity, or whatever complicated mental construction was necessary to justify admiring someone who goes round doing this to silly girls.

Who actually throw themselves at him and are tarts who don't need much pushing, know what I mean!
Not MY daughters though, thank you very much...

Nobody seemed to know what to do about him. It's all on the thread about him!
 
I once sold Savile a set of fairy lights, he was going to give them to a local kids hospital. At the time I just thought he was an egotistical A-hole.:puke2::puke2::puke2:
 
escargot said:
Savile's interest in children and especially teenage girls was a national open secret. Everyone knew a joke or story about him, which didn't apply to other BBC DJs. He even wrote books about his 'adventures' featuring accounts of scantily-clad underage or very young girls spending time alone with him.

Back then though, as I've often mentioned, older men who victimised teenage girls were seen by many as lucky dogs with the gift of the gab, or skilled conquerers of unnecessarily frigid prudes who were doing them a favour by divesting them of the burden of their tiresome virginity, or whatever complicated mental construction was necessary to justify admiring someone who goes round doing this to silly girls.

Who actually throw themselves at him and are tarts who don't need much pushing, know what I mean!
Not MY daughters though, thank you very much...

Nobody seemed to know what to do about him. It's all on the thread about him!
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It was a pretty open secret about him, nearly everyone knew it I remember people saying it to me as a kid in the 80s,
 
My wife was in the TOTP audience when she was quite young - 14 or 15. Someone (she never said who, but I would guess a technician or similar - warned her not to accept any invitations from him or be alone with him. This would be around 73-4. She told me when we were watching the Theroux documentary on him.

You'd say why did't I ask more, but she'd had some unfortunate experiences before meeting me, that she would't discuss beyond the barest details. I used to not ask questions.
 
Cochise said:
My wife was in the TOTP audience when she was quite young - 14 or 15. Someone (she never said who, but I would guess a technician or similar - warned her not to accept any invitations from him or be alone with him. This would be around 73-4. She told me when we were watching the Theroux documentary on him.

You'd say why did't I ask more, but she'd had some unfortunate experiences before meeting me, that she would't discuss beyond the barest details. I used to not ask questions.
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The person who warned the teenage Mrs Cochise was a good person. It's nice to know that someone was looking out for youngsters in that situation.
 
escargot said:
The person who warned the teenage Mrs Cochise was a good person. It's nice to know that someone was looking out for youngsters in that situation.
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He probably knew that if s/he took what he knew to management s/he'd at best be ignored or at worst sacked. So s/he was doing the best s/he could. Good person (I don't even know if it was a male or a female I'd guess a female)
 
escargot said:
Yes, they had huge amounts of information from the public and couldn't deal with it all.
However, a lot was rejected that didn't fit with the set police ideas about the man they were looking for, such as the insistence that he only attacked sex workers and the 'Wearside Jack' image.

So there was too much intelligence of the wrong sort. Not helpful.
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Of course you have also to remember that the Police were also having to deal with The Black Panther murders ( Neilson) who was operating at the same time as Sutcliffe. They both lived in Bradford strangely.
 
PeteS said:
Of course you have also to remember that the Police were also having to deal with The Black Panther murders ( Neilson) who was operating at the same time as Sutcliffe. They both lived in Bradford strangely.
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Oh I remember him very well indeed. In fact his horrendous murder of Lesley Whittle happened within cycling distance of my house. Do we have a thread on him?
 
escargot said:
Oh I remember him very well indeed. In fact his horrendous murder of Lesley Whittle happened within cycling distance of my house. Do we have a thread on him?
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Donald Neilson is mentioned in multiple threads, but there's not a thread dedicated to him and the Black Panther murders.
 
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