BACKGROUND TO THE
HUMBLE ARREST
It is a matter of record that I
have written a book entitled 'The Real Yorkshire Ripper' in 1982 and
it has as its central theme the alarming claim that the police offered
copycat killer Peter Sutcliffe no trial and ten years in a mental home
in exchange for his confessions to all the Yorkshire Ripper’s
murders. More alarmingly it also claims that they knew that Sutcliffe
was not responsible for most of the murders which he was convicted of
and that there is an elaborate police cover up of the facts to this
day.
My claims are based on a conviction that a former employee of mine,
an Irishman named Billy Tracey was responsible for most of the Ripper
murders and he also sent the police three letters and a taped message
mimicking a Geordie accent to divert the police hunt to Sunderland.
These claims are also based on evidence that the police knew that there
were two killers involved in the Ripper murders, namely the Ripper himself
and a copycat killer who had committed a few of the murders.
When Peter Sutcliffe, a man well known to them was arrested in Sheffield,
the police were under such intense media pressure that they wrapped
up the case with his confessions alone and let the real Ripper get away.
The police entered into a plea bargain deal with him which effectively
meant that he had no trial.
Sutcliffe was that copycat killer
and the real Ripper, Billy Tracey is still a free man. Sutcliffe had
been eliminated 12 times because he is O blood group and because his
wife convinced the police he was with her at crucial times of real Ripper
murders. She was certain he was not the Ripper for those reasons and
perhaps that explains why she stood by him..
Judge Boreham who presided over
his committal hearing in the Old Bailey refused to accept the plea that
Sutcliffe was mad without corroboration for the crimes and he ordered
a trial of his sanity. The subsequent jury trial of his sanity found
that Sutcliffe, who had confessed to being the Ripper was not mad and
he was immediately sentenced to 30 years on his confessions alone.
Before Sutcliffe’s arrest the police were certain that the author
of three letters and a tape recording sent to them from Sunderland by
a man signing himself ‘Jack the Ripper’ were in fact from
the Ripper and massive resources were deployed to unmask that man by
identifying the handwriting or the voice.
After Sutcliffe's conviction the police moved into a cover up mode and
the goal posts were changed. The letter writer dubbed ‘Wearside
Jack’ was declared to be a hoaxer and the copycat killer was never
mentioned again.
We are now witnessing an audacious stitch
up of a vulnerable man, John Humble, for a very serious crime with media
connivance to assist corrupt policemen to convict him through the courts.
Humble is an alcoholic living in a council house on very small means
with his brother and sister. He is to be the patsy for the West Yorkshire
police to cover up their own crimes and failings.
His local newspaper the Sunderland
Echo was the driving force behind this drama.
For several years news editor and also author of the book 'Wearside
Jack', Patrick Lavelle, has conducted
a campaign to unmask the alleged Yorkshire Ripper "hoaxer" naming several
persons both to the police and in his book and repeatedly asking his
readers to give him the names of any suspect they knew, all the while
promoting his book "Wearside Jack".
Over a period of 6 years it has been
nothing short of a witch hunt because there was no hoax and the
book was based on a police lie.
On 19th October 2005 Lavelle wrote
in the Echo " The information I gave police included the name of a
49-year-old man from Sunderland, and the allegations that were made
against him by two local women. The man arrested yesterday is 49 and
from Sunderland, but there is nothing to say it is the same
man. Whether it is the same man or not really doesn't matter. What does
matter is that one of the biggest criminal mysteries in Sunderland may
about to be resolved. If it is resolved it may have something to do
with advances in forensic science. But, in my view, is has more to do with
the people of Sunderland, who always laughed at the claims there was a
serial killer in our midst. It is these people who have never
forgotten, who provided the information that led to this new inquiry, and
this arrest. In the next few days many people, among them authors and
media professionals, will jump on the bandwagon, claiming they helped
police catch the prime suspect for the Ripper Hoax. Please don't doubt
for one minute, this renewed inquiry happened for one reason only - the
campaign by the Sunderland Echo on behalf of its readers. If it had not
been for Echo readers, the case of Wearside Jack would have been
unresolved. Now, however, there is a chance that the shadow of the
Ripper, which has hung over Sunderland for two-and-a-half decades, may
soon be lifted."
Lavelle's book is a quest to identify
the Wearside "hoaxer" and this has been his passion for several years
during which time he has been in constant touch with the police and
wrote many prominent newspaper articles about various developments and
police enquiries into his allegations. A search of the archive of the
Sunderland
Echo will reveal the full extent of it.
There is a police cover up.
This story is largely about police
corruption or covering up their mistakes by further convictions to fool
the public.
Detective Chief Superintendant Dick Holland, the
corrupt cop who had earlier framed the innocent Stefan Kiszko for murder, brokered a deal with
Sutcliffe whereby they offered him no trial and ten years in
a mental hospital in exchange for his confessions to all the
murders of the Ripper as well as his own crimes. Sutcliffe accepted
the deal and he had no trial other than a test of madness. Sutcliffe's
solicitor Kerry MacGill, who was the other broker to this infamous deal
is now a crown court judge in Leeds.
. MacGill acted as solicitor for Dick
Holland when Holland later faced corruption charges for the
Kiszko stitch-up and the charges were dropped inexplicably. Kiszko
died shortly after his release from prison.
George Oldfield, the policeman in charge
of the Ripper hunt confirmed that there were two killers involved in
the Ripper frame to the Sunday Times in November 1980 shortly before
Sutcliffe's arrest.
Quote from Sunday Times
"Oldfield conceded to us that no
fewer than five of the attacks, 3 killings, 2 assaults, fell into a
'grey area' where the balance of probability that they were the Ripper's
work was 'much weaker.' If he put his hands up to these killings then
it would not surprise us', Oldfield said. 'But equally, if we were only
able to charge him with 10 murders and not the 13 we would not mind.'
Oldfield's sentiment, after almost 5 years on the Ripper trail, is understandable.
But it carries a sinister implication: if all the 17 attacks were not
by the same person then there is not one Ripper but at least two. Clearly
though, most of the attacks were committed by one person. "The Ripper".
"
Oldfield was certain that the Ripper had written him three letters and
sent him a taped cassette message for very good reasons. The letters
were posted in Sunderland. The Ripper spoke with a flat Geordie accent
and this put the finger of suspicion on every man who spoke with a Geordie
accent. From then on all men from the North East became Ripper suspects.
The police interviewed thousands of Geordies and the first thing they
did was examine their teeth to see if there was a prominent gap in the
top front row or dentures in that area. If a suspect had no gap or dentures
he was eliminated immediately. If he had any gap in the top row of teeth
he was asked to provide a blood sample. If his blood was anything other
than the rare B blood he was then eliminated.
This was because the Ripper had bitten two victims. Saliva recovered
on the bites showed the killer was the rare one in sixteen B secretor
blood group. The bites showed he had a large gap in the top front of
his teeth.
The Ripper was clearly taunting Oldfield.
Suspects were never told about the clues that the police had to the
Ripper's identity other than that he was a Geordie.
So it can be seen that it was not just being a Geordie that brought
suspicion on men from the North East. They were looking for a very distinctive
and rare Geordie. One with a large gap in his top front teeth
and B secretor blood group.
Evidence
that links the letter writer to the murders and
reasons why the Ripper letters and tape were
not a hoax.
These vital points of evidence
support the defense that John Humble could not be the author of the
letters and tape. Rather they support the police contention up to the
arrest of Peter Sutcliffe, that the author was the Ripper.
1. In 1975 Joan Mary Harrison was kicked to death in a Preston
garage three weeks after the murder of the first Ripper victim Wilma McCann
in Leeds. Both were robbed and sexually assaulted. Semen in Joan Harrison's
body and saliva on a bite on her breast showed that her killer was the
rare 1 in 16 "B secretor" blood group. The same rare semen was found on
prostitute Wilma McCann. Joan apparently had consensual sex with
him because semen was found in her vagina. After that sexual bout he turned
on her and killed her. He then removed one leg, first from her trousers,
then from her tights and pants and then buggered her leaving semen in
the anus. Then he replaced her leg in the trousers only and pushed her
boots tightly between her thighs before draping her coat over her lifeless
body.
2. Joan Harrison's killer
tauntingly left his signature, a deep deliberate bite on her left breast.
Her killer had a large gap equivalent to two teeth missing between his top
front teeth. The police thus had unambiguous and impressive clues which
could be used as solid evidence in court if the killer was ever caught.
Rare blood and distinctive teeth marks.
3. With such impressive
clues, 6000 Preston suspects were asked to spit into small glass jars as a
ploy so that the police could observe their teeth as they spat. They were
told that saliva samples were wanted but the easily identifiable killer
was not found in this massive trawl.
4. After a gap of just over a year, Irene
Richardson, the third acknowledged Yorkshire Ripper victim had one
leg removed from her tights and pants. Her shoes were laid out along her
thighs and her coat draped over her body. Neither of these two victims
was a soliciting prostitute but rather they were poor and vulnerable.
The police didn't reveal if Irene had been sexually assaulted. Irene was
in the Ripper frame from the start and despite the similarities, the police
did not link the Preston murder to the Ripper enquiry until much later.
5. Misses McCann, Jackson, Richardson, Atkinson, McDonald and Rytka
were firmly linked as Ripper victims. After the McDonald murder in Leeds,
A.C.C. George Oldfield who lived in Huddersfield took overall command
of the Ripper investigation. The Ripper chose Oldfield's home town for
his next murder of prostitute Helen Rytka in January 1978 and Oldfield appealed for
information from the public in trying to trace him. The Ripper had a close
call when he found himself unable to get away from the timber yard in
which he had just sexually assaulted and murdered Helen Rytka and where
he had redressed and set up the victim but then had to change his plan,
hide the body and dump his tools.
6. In March 1978 the police
received two letters from a man who claimed to be the Ripper. According to
some newspaper reports there were suggestions that seven murders should be
attributed to the Ripper at that time. The informant, who claimed to be
the Ripper stated, "up to 8 now, you say 7 but remember Preston
'75". The West Yorkshire police had linked the above six murders as
definite Ripper victims at the time but some newspapers speculated wrongly
that prostitute Jean Jordan who was murdered in Manchester was a Ripper
victim, the seventh victim that the writer/Ripper referred to. The
writer/Ripper was including a copycat killer's murder in Manchester in his
toll of victims to divert the police to that copycat, and in order to
convince them that he did it he promised another murder 'in Manchester
again' this time of an 'older' victim. The contents of these
letters was not published for more than a year later and nobody knew about
them at that time only the police and the writer/ Ripper. He also stated
in the letter that he had a 'close call' in Huddersfield, something
that no hoaxer could possibly have known of. The reason for the
writer/Ripper to send the letters was simply to convince the police that
he had also killed Jean Jordan and thereby rope into the Ripper frame the
deranged copycat killer that the writer/Ripper alone knew existed and whom
we now know to be Peter Sutcliffe.
7. One month later the Ripper struck as promised in his letter
in Manchester and his victim was an older prostitute Vera
Millward, the oldest victim to date. Within two weeks of that the
West Yorkshire police included Jean Jordan as
a Ripper victim but unbeknown to them they had roped her killer, Peter Sutcliffe, into the Ripper frame and he
would be eliminated 12 times after this, because he was O blood group.
8. Three months later the police announced that the Preston murder
and the murder in Bradford of Yvonne Pearson, thought to be a copycat killing and
four assaults were added to the Ripper frame. The police never revealed
the exact injuries found on the Ripper's victims in Yorkshire but clearly
if his blood group had been other than B secretor the Preston murder would
not have been added to the frame.
9. Six months later the writer/Ripper sent a third letter to the
police. This letter bore saliva on the gummed label which enabled forensic
tests to confirm that the sender was the rare B secretor blood group.
This eureka discovery combined with the information the letters contained
made the police certain that the writer was indeed the Ripper. He chided
them saying 'I wasn't kidding last time I wrote saying that the whore
would be older this time and maybe I'd strike in Manchester for a change,
you should have took heed'. He also stated 'funny, the lady mentioned
something about being in the same hospital'.
Mrs Millward had been to that hospital and she had only one lung,
so they reasoned, how could a hoaxer know that? The writer also promised
to 'get back on the job'.
10. Less than two weeks later the Ripper fulfilled that promise
and struck this time in Halifax because Oldfield had just included Sutcliffe's
Halifax attack on Mrs Smelt as a Ripper attack. He murdered respectable
office clerk Josephine Whittaker and bit her deeply on the left
breast. The teeth marks were identical to those on Joan Harrison
in Preston and yielded the B blood group saliva. Her shoe was
stuffed between her thighs and her body covered with her jacket. In
common with other victims she had been stabbed repeatedly within the
vagina without leaving wounds on the surface of the body.
11. In desperation the police published extracts of his handwriting
in the hope of someone recognizing it, to no avail. Then on the 18th
June 1979 the police received a cassette tape posted in Sunderland from the same
author. On 26th June they held a press conference and released extracts
of the taped Geordie accent. They were by then certain that they came
from the Ripper. On the tape the flat Geordie accent taunted Oldfield
and promised another murder in September or October. It also confirmed
the count of 11 as correct. That included the Preston murder and two
copycat killings which Oldfield admitted were in a grey area. Peter
Sutcliffe's confessions corroborate with the facts on these killings
only. On 1st September the writer/Ripper fulfilled his promise on the
tape with the murder of Barbara Leach, a university
student who was murdered within a few hundred yards of Ripper HQ in
Bradford.
12. The police had the vital evidence of the Ripper's B blood
group but that was of limited use because they didnt have criminals
blood groups on record then.. They also knew he had a large gap in his
top front teeth but this was not known to the public until late1980.
It was their magic bullet clue and they kept it strictly confidential.
In fact they were very angry when it was revealed in a magazine the
New Statesman in 1980. The Sunderland connections could easily have
been faked but the teeth and blood evidence were immutable. The writer/Ripper
had convinced them that he had killed Joan Harrison and forced them
to include that murder in the Ripper count. They also gave him the benefit
of the doubt when he said he did the Jordan murder. They believed the
contents of his messages, because a hoaxer couldn't have known the sequence
of events, but their big mistake was in believing that he was a real
Geordie and concentrating the hunt in the North East without recognizing
that he may have been a cunning criminal trying to divert them and therein
lies the hoax if any.
13. The connection between
the Harrison murder and many of the Ripper murders is rock solid.
Sutcliffe is O blood group and doesn't have a large gap in the top front
of his teeth, and even though he would have confessed to it, he could not
have killed Joan Harrison, which is the reason why the Lancashire police
wouldn't charge him with it.
14. It must be emphasized that the police did not reveal the full
contents of the letters and tape. For example Michael Bilton's book Wicked Beyond Belief contained a photo of the third
letter and it revealed that the writer stated 'the same hospital'
when he was referring to Mrs Millward. This fact was never before published
and had been edited out of all releases by the police. The other two letters
and the Geordie tape were edited by police and never released in full.
Conclusions
If John Humble is not B secretor blood group he could not have done
it because it is acknowledged that the author of the letters had B blood
which was extracted from the saliva on the envelope label or stamps.
It must be presumed that Humble has
the rare B secretor blood group but I can find no evidence of the police
stating this clearly. If he is that rare blood group then he would be
getting much more attention from the Lancashire police who have an unsolved
murder on their books.
Because Gregg made so much hay out
ot the alleged and unrepeatable DNA connection between Humble and the
letters, it should be relatively easy to compare Humble's DNA with the
DNA on the semen and saliva left on the body of Joan Harrison who was
murdered in Preston. It has not been reported if the Lancashire constabulary
ever made that comparison but I suspect they did and eliminated Humble.
To clarify the meaning of unrepeatable
let me explain that the scientist in the TV documentary stated that
the DNA sample from the letter was so minute that the experiment to
compare the DNA on the letter with Humble's DNA couldn never be repeated
because the sample was all used up. I wouldnt call that reliable evidence
by any stretch of the imagination and it would almost certainly not
be acceptable to any court.
To conclude, it is abundantly clear
that the author of those three letters and the Geordie tape recording
had intimate knowledge of the Ripper murders and the evidence shows
that the police were absolutely correct in believing that they were
from the Ripper.
Lets look at it
from another point of view.
If Humble wrote the letters in March 1978, how could he have
known that there was an unsolved murder in Preston in 1975 which had
strong links with the current series of murders in Yorkshire which were
then national news? The blood group of the Preston killer was not revealed
by the police. The teeth marks also were a closely guarded secret of
the police. There were several other unsolved murders in Preston so
how could any hoaxer know the connecting evidence between the Harrison
murder and the Ripper murders that was to be revealed, unless he had
intimate knowledge of both, unless he was the killer?
How could John Humble have known that the Ripper had a close call in
the timber yard in Huddersfield? Only the police knew that and they
never admitted it to date, but the evidence shows it to be a fact.
How could John Humble have predicted that the next Ripper victim would
be an older person and in Manchester?
These events happened soon after the letters promised them.
How could Humble have known that Mrs Millward had been in that same
hospital?
How could Humble have predicted that the Ripper would murder and bite
his next victim Josephine Whittaker identically as he had done to Joan
Harrison in Preston and less than a fortnight after he sent his third
letter predicting it? Clearly had the teeth pattern not been identical
and the blood group not the same, the Preston murder would not have
remained in the Ripper frame after that confirming event. That is to
say, if they had wrongly included Harrison as a Ripper victim based
on the first two letters, then the bite on Josephine Whittaker's breast
absolutely confirmed that the letter writer was the Ripper and he was
also the killer of Joan Harrison as the police firmly held, until Sutcliffe's
arrest.
How could any hoaxer have manipulated the toll of victims as has happened?
How could a hoaxer, extracts of whose letters were published in the
belief that they were genuine, have upped the ante by sending a taped
voice message to those same police in the knowledge that the police
were now taking his letters very seriously indeed?
The murder of Barbara Leach on 1st September
was a direct result of the message sent by the Ripper who promised another
murder in 'September or October'
If Humble was the hoaxer how could this ordinary man summon up such
menace and taunting material that reeks of hatred and contempt for the
police and George Oldfield in particular. The letters and tape could
not be regarded as joking or misleading in any normal sense of the word
hoax. They were the words of a very evil and cunning criminal who was
controlling events. They were no hoax and the police knew it.
Finally how could the cream of the British police agree that the letters
came from the Ripper and they insisted they were not a hoax, despite
much criticism by people not in possession of the full facts, until
they were left with no option only to say they were a hoax, after they
accepted the confessions of Peter Sutcliffe because there was no way
they could pin it on Sutcliffe, whose voice and writing was distinctive
and whose work records in Clark's Transport recorded that he was elsewhere
at the times the letters were posted.
The police may now try to suggest that breakthroughs in DNA profiling
enabled them to prove it was Humble. This highly suspect evidence cannot
be challenged and we have to take their word for it. As any policeman
will tell you, DNA evidence can be very easily contaminated and cannot
be independently challenged because they hold the letters and tape recording from the Ripper/ hoaxer.
The letters, if they are still available, have been handled so much
and if any DNA evidence was to be credible, it should have been done
before Humble was interrogated. A bent cop can plant a rib of a suspect's
hair or even a flake of his skin or a speck of his handshake on anything
in order to incriminate him. After their stitch up of Sutcliffe, Kiszko
and Judith Ward, to name but a few, the West Yorkshire police dont have
the credibility for that.
Their word is not good enough. Their credibility has gone because Sutcliffe
himself is clearly not responsible for all the murders he has been convicted
of. In any case the police stated recently that they had lost the original letters and tape. Also the Lancashire police
reported some years back that they had lost the forensic evidence relating
to the Joan Harrison murder. This is just more evidence of police cover
up by hiding the evidence as they did with the underclothes Sutcliffe
was wearing at the time of his arrest and which has only recently been
revealed by book writer Michael Bilton, a friend and confidante of Dick Holland.
If they had hard evidence against
humble, why did they have to hold this vulnerable alcoholic without
drink under interrogation for two days while they worked on him to get
a confession? Also why did none of his acquaintances recognize his accent
back in 1979 or 1980 when every man in that area was a serious suspect?
It is true that all who know him, relatives and acquaintances cant believe
it is his voice. Humble's confessions are worthless when held up to
the light.
A timetable was set down for the progress
of the case with a plea and directions hearing at Leeds Crown Court
scheduled for January 9 and a provisional trial dated for the week of
February 20.
Humble duly appeared in Leeds crown
court on the 9th January and pleaded not guilty to four charges of sending
the three letters and the tape from Sunderland. A trial date was set
for 20th March and the defence said they would need about three weeks
to make their defence. Humble's lawyers told the judge an application
for bail will be made in chambers soon and there was a complaint that
the police came to him in prison and did teeth inspections without his
consent. This was most likely the Lancashire police who would be obliged
to see him to ascertain if he was involved in the murder of Joan Harrison
in Preston in 1975.
It may be gathered from the fact that
they didnt charge him with the Preston murder that his teeth didnt match
the teeth of the killer of Joan Harrison.
The police rarely comment and the public are always left with the impression
that he was involved.
On 23rd February Humble's lawyer
admitted that he wrote the letters and sent the tape to the police but
he denies intent to pervert the course of justice.
The court hearing
on 20March
It was announced on 20th March that
Humble had confessed and there would be no expected trial.
I flew to Leeds the next day and entered the court at 11.0am.
I was stopped by two policemen and asked my name.
Then they whispered into their mics and soon three more arrived.
There was a bevy of cameras outside the court waiting to hear the
sentence imposed on Humble who had caved in, in the days before and
confessed.
They asked me what I had come for and I said I came to make sure that
Humble got a fair trial.
With that they ordered me out of the court house and I objected and
said this was Britain, not Saudi Arabia or Nigeria but I had to leave
or be forced out.
Outside the court the media were waiting to interview Chris Gregg.
I told them Humble was framed and the DNA was planted.
I displayed a placard outside the court door stating boldly
AN ALCOHOLIC BEING FRAMED
DNA PLANTED
CONFESSIONS EXTRACTED
Superintendant Chris Gregg began an interview and I stood behind him
showing the placard. I shouted "Chris Gregg You have framed an
innocent man."
Then the other police grabbed me and dragged me up the street away
from the press and held me there against my will until it was over.
They said the Birmingham 6 could never happen again.
Humble had no trial. There was no jury and no evidence.
There followed a barrage of publicity
orchestrated by Chris Gregg. They released a photo of Humble (above)
to the press. Significantly his mouth was firmly closed and his teeth
hidden. A stage managed tape recording of Humble reading the ‘I’m
Jack’ tape in his Geordie accent was released to TV stations.
Uncharacteristically for police a lot of other information about Humble
such as his criminal record and suicide attempt was released by them
to blacken his character further. They made much of the allegation that
he had an unusual interest in Jack the Ripper books.
It was all very convincing and the newspapers
had a field day with it but lets look behind the scenes for a moment.
If Humble really was the letter writer the police could
easily prove it beyond any doubt and if they really had DNA from the
letters they would most certainly have charged Humble in open court
and produced their evidence before a jury and they would seek the maximum
possible sentence for him. DNA evidence is a fairly new science and
has many weaknesses, but there are other more easily understood and
verifiable points of solid evidence that could have been brought to
bear. The one in a billion chance that they found Humble is a likely
story indeed after 30 years trying. It is simply a lie.
They were silent on his blood group presumably because Humble is
not B secretor blood, traces of which was found on the envelope
of the third letter.
They were silent about his teeth pattern or gaps in his teeth presumably
because his teeth don’t match the set that murdered Joan Harrison
in Preston.
Detective Superintendent Graham Gardner of Lancashire police stated
there was nothing to suggest he was involved.
If he were really the author they would also have produced several letters
sent by him in his handwriting to compare with the letters sent to the
police. They would have had handwriting expert witnesses to testify
against Humble as to his spelling and grammar. If he cooperated in order
to get mitigation he could have written the letters again in front of
the jury to prove it. Equally he could have replicated the ‘I’m
Jack’ voice before a jury but this wasn’t possible because
Humble was not the author. He may not even be able to write his name
for all we know, much less spell the words.
They would have had voice recognition experts to prove that the ‘I’m
Jack’ tape was Humble’s voice. With such telling evidence
readily available, a confession from a vulnerable drunk is counter productive
and questionable.
If he really were the hoaxer the police would be able to prove it beyond
a shadow of a doubt. As it was they had to coerce confessions out of
this patsy and offer him a lenient sentence in order to secure his cooperation
and get him to tell his family and the world through staged video taping
that he was the hoaxer.
Because of his confessions, his free legal aid team believed the police
about the DNA evidence without question and advised him to take the
3 year option and cooperate. But there was another reason that the public
were not told about.
He was offered the prospect of freedom after 3 years spent in a Jeffrey
Archer style open prison and he had already served six months. Early
parole would be recommended by the police because he was not violent
or dangerous and had cooperated with them. The sentence handed down
was effectively five years with remission taken into account. This was
more than he had bargained for but par for the course in police broken
promises. If John Humble was really responsible for such an elaborate
hoax leading to three murders he would have gotten a much sterner sentence
on conviction. Even his own family stated that he should get sixty years
or never be released because he told them he did it. This was part of
his deal with manipulator Chris Gregg and explains why the family were
upset that he would be coming back to them sooner than they expected.
Initially, family members are on record that they couldn’t believe
it was his voice and of course nobody recognized his voice back in 1979
when everyone was under suspicion. It was easy to believe he was the
hoaxer when they wanted to believe it to be rid of him.
Police also released details of two phone calls
that came into the incident room in both Bradford and Northumbria within
a week of the murder of Barbara Leach in Bradford. They claimed that
a man phoned in to both stations in a frenzy and claimed that the letters
were a hoax. The calls were recorded by police manning the phones. Now
Chris Gregg says that this was John Humble who was repentant and attempted
to warn police that the letters were a hoax.
However in the Independant newspaper the reporter had taken the trouble
to delve further into it and found that the police forensic laboratory
had eliminated this voice as being the ‘I’m Jack’
author shortly after it was made. This means that that person could
not have been John Humble and the police laboratory eliminated
him then.
This information in fact undermines the case against John Humble based
on police evidence that Chris Gregg appears to have overlooked
in fabricating the confession and conviction of Humble.
Chris Gregg
NEW EVIDENCE
ABOUT JOHN HUMBLE NOT MADE PUBLIC
It has since become clearer how
Chris Gregg managed to get the full cooperation of John Humble.
Detective Chief Superintendent
Chris Gregg has perverted policing methods, perverted the system of
justice, brought shame on the West Yorkshire police force and the police
in general and now has cast serious doubt over the credibility of DNA
evidence in any future criminal prosecution by his actions in framing
John Humble as the Ripper hoaxer.
I say this because Humble was knowingly framed by Gregg and much play
was made of alleged DNA both on a BBC TV documentary and in the media
but no evidence was produced in court, because Humble had cooperated
with Chris Gregg and was prepared to take the rap and be branded as
the hoaxer.
Humble had been blackmailed by Gregg into admitting he was the hoaxer
because Gregg agreed to overlook a potentially much more serious charge
of attempted murder of his brother, Harry.
Chris Gregg, the smooth talking career cop who had recently been installed
as high profile head of a new department in the police force known as
the Homicide and Major Enquiry Team, was a detective who longed to solve
the greatest mystery that had dogged the West Yorkshire police force
for more than two decades.
Humble fitted
Patrick Lavelle’s profile of the hoaxer, aged 49, a Geordie with
a history of being a police hater who had once kicked a policeman and
served time in prison. Now Lavelle was told that Humble had stabbed
his brother Harry in a violent rage with a kitchen knife three times
and the family were too afraid to report him to the police because he
was such an unpredictable nutter and he had become a raving alcoholic
prone to violent rages who should be locked up in a mental home.
Armed with this information or intelligence
as the police refer to it, Gregg determined to solve the hoaxer mystery
once and for all. He studied Humble’s background and criminal
record and met the family to confirm the stabbing and violent rages.
He saw that the family would not support John and would be delighted
if he was locked up forevermore. This led him to progress the matter
and presented him with the oppertunity to solve the Ripper hoaxer case
in his way. His enquiries revealed that Humble had an interest in Jack
the Ripper and once had a library book about that case. They also revealed
that Humble had no support from his former wife and step child and had
attempted suicide in 1979. Here was a down and out living on state benefits,who
had no support in the world. A man who could be coerced into admitting
to the less serious charge offered to him as an option and keeping his
family from giving evidence against him.
In a media spotlight in a tent outside Humble’s council home,
Gregg interrogated the drunken Humble for two days until he signed a
confession to say he was the hoaxer and then he was arrested and held
in custody since. Gregg then procured his DNA evidence
referred to above and a scientist acting in good faith confirmed it
was Humble's. The publication of her findings although they could never
be replicated convinced everyone that Humble was the man. Gregg obviously
contaminated whatever he gave the science laboratory with Humble's DNA,
an act which is criminal in the extreme and was designed to coerce Humble
into confessing that he wrote the letters.
He had been vilified as the hoaxer by the Sunderland
Echo from the time of his arrest and then by the national media
and the public were convinced he was guilty before he even faced a court
to plead. Gregg was hailed as a true detective who was breaking new
grounds in detection, using new technology on old evidence but he had
resorted to the oldest bent cop trick in the book known as blackmail
to agree a plea bargain deal so that no trial would ensue, allegedly
to save court time and money not to mention his compassion in sparing
the victim the ordeal of the court.
Humble was advised by his lawyers, Shires Wainwright of Wakefield and
David Taylor his counsel that his best option was to cooperate and plead
to being the hoaxer and he would be out in three or four years as against
taking his chances of facing the extra charges of attempted murder of
his brother along with the charge of being the hoaxer supported by his
confessions and the procured DNA evidence that couldn’t be verified.
Their role was confined to pleas for mitigation after that.
He was led into Leeds court on 20th March 2024 in handcuffs and gave
a response to his name and pleaded guilty to all the charges.There was
no trial, judge Norman Jones failing miserably in his duty to all accused
men by rubber stamping the blackmailed deal and the sentence was pronounced
the next day.
He was sentenced to eight years in prison which means five with remission
and he was promised parole would come early and he would serve in a
Geoffrey Archer style open prison because he was convicted on the non
violent charge and his madness and violence would not be revealed by
the police.
For that he agreed that he wrote the letters and he cooperated with
a recording by repeating the words of the Ripper in his Geordie accent
for Chris Gregg’s camera. It was all very convincing but entirely
stage managed by Gregg who basked in the glory of capturing the infamous
hoaxer knowing he had framed a criminal for a crime he didnt commit.
Chris Gregg has now provided an additional shield
to the Real Yorkshire Ripper, Billy Tracey because he has put it on
record officially that the Ripper's letters were sent not by the Ripper
but by John Humble in his efforts to protect his former corrupt colleagues
who allowed the Real Ripper to get away.
Now the West Yorkshire police have framed a lunatic
copycat killer, Peter Sutcliffe who is locked up as the Ripper and a
down and out alcoholic nutter John Humble framed as the hoaxer while
the real Ripper Billy Tracey, the man who committed most of the murders
and sent the letters and tape to the police to divert them, is still
a free man and living in the UK right now.
The public have been well and truly misled and
manipulated by a small group of corrupt policemen supported by the established
media who only report the findings of the courts and whatever passes
through them.
On the 3rd May I received a letter from John
Humble. His handwriting betrays his lies and proves that he didnt write
the allegedly hoax letters.
It is abundantly apparent why Chris Gregg didnt
want Humble's letters to appear before a jury as nobody would believe
he wrote the three letters to George Oldfield if they looked at his
handwriting, the style of an uneducated person who can barely spell
and write.
I reproduce them here.
Humble's letter front and back.
The third letter to George Oldfield
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