Doctor Bandara was a Chinese student in Leeds University
who became the next victim of Peter Sutcliffe, the disturbed maniac who
thought he was the Yorkshire Ripper. If he went into any police station in
West Yorkshire and declared himself the Ripper he would have been kicked
out.
The attack was played down like the Walls murder a month
earlier. She described Sutcliffe accurately (see Roger Cross account) It
strengthens the point I make, that they knew Sutcliffe was the copy cat
and didn't want to touch him. This description matched both Marilyn Moore's
attacker and Marcella Claxtons's attacker. These photofit images were high
on every West Yorkshire policeman's mind. This latest attack could not have
been lost on them.
The most important point I wish to make regarding this
attack is that it was in no way associated with the Ripper investigation
until after Peter Sutcliffe's arrest when the police wished to throw
everything they could at him to support and bolster the evidence against
him to make the public believe that he was indeed the Ripper.
Sutcliffe should have been detained shortly after my tip
off when his role as the copy cat killer was recognised but the police
obviously were much more interested in getting their hands on Billy Tracey
and didn't want to risk taking the copy cat out of the equation.
As a result of this short sighted policy decision, lives
were lost, others were blighted and the public were left in fear of the
Ripper for another year. Tracey was going about his business in Ireland
and he had a string of serious assaults notched up.
In June that year Tracey attacked his own nephew with a
hammer after inviting him into his house and putting his arms around him
first. Hammer assaults were unheard of then.
Here was a criminal making a serious unprovoked hammer
attack on a man in Ireland when the whole world media was directed towards
unmasking the Yorkshire ripper, known for his trade mark hammer attacks.
The police emphasis was all directed towards the expected spectacular
arrest of the Ripper, the commuting Irishman Billy Tracey who would be
apprehended with blood on his hands.
This was the big prize they coveted for five long years and
a few assaults by this copy cat madman wasn't going to take it from them.
