Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe 'cremated in small secret funeral'

Mick Sutcliffe told the Daily Mirror his brother was cremated following a funeral at an unknown location early on Friday.

Mr Sutcliffe, 70, said he was told the funeral would take place this week, with family members able to attend online via Zoom.

However, he was told on Friday morning the funeral had taken place in private, thought to have been organised by the killer's ex-wife.

RELATED: The shocking letter Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe wrote to Wearside Jack hoaxer John Humble in prison

"Peter has caused so much pain. He also put our family through hell. So we needed to be at that funeral to get that closure. We wanted to say goodbye," he told the Mirror.

In a eulogy he had prepared for the service, shared with the newspaper, Mr Sutcliffe wrote: "Peter, all of your family love you as Peter Sutcliffe, although you ruined all our lives when you became the Yorkshire Ripper."

Last week an inquest heard Sutcliffe died aged 74 from a combination of Covid-19, diabetes and heart disease.

He was an inmate of the maximum-security Frankland jail and died at the nearby University Hospital of North Durham on November 13.

Sutcliffe had a number of underlying health conditions which left him almost blind and needing to use a wheelchair.

Detective Inspector Claire Lambert, from Durham Constabulary, told the inquest that police were told of Sutcliffe's admission to hospital on November 10.

She said he had been ill for weeks before being transferred to hospital.

Sutcliffe's killing spree across Yorkshire and Manchester from 1975 to 1980 terrified northern England and led to a huge manhunt and a botched police inquiry.

During the hunt for the killer, detectives were taunted by Sunderland hoaxer John Humble, who died in 2019. Dubbed Wearside Jack, he saw police resources diverted to the North East.

It is estimated that it allowed Peter Sutcliffe to go on to kill at least three more women.

Sutcliffe eventually confessed in 1981 after he was caught in Sheffield.

Sutcliffe was sentenced to 20 life terms for the murders of 13 women and the attempted murder of seven more.

West Yorkshire Chief Constable John Robins previously issued a "heartfelt" apology to the families of Sutcliffe's victims, saying the language used by senior officers at the time caused families "additional distress and anxiety".

This followed a plea from Richard McCann, whose mother Wilma was murdered by Sutcliffe in 1975.

Mr McCann said that when 16-year-old Jayne MacDonald was killed in 1977, officers referred to her as the first "innocent" victim.

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