It was the hoax that fooled some of the country’s top detectives.
Now a film called I’m Jack – The Movie will tell the story of John Humble whose tape recording claiming to be the Yorkshire Ripper duped detectives and allowed Peter Sutcliffe to kill three more women.
The infamous Wearside Jack hoax that derailed the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry is to be made into a film.
The movie will be based on Mark Blacklock’s recent novel, I’m Jack.
Film rights have been bought by movie company Mad as Birds. Producers are set to visit Wearside as they research the film with Sunderland-born Mark.
As well as sending his tape in 1979 to the head of the Ripper team, West Yorkshire’s Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield, who lived in Grange Moor, Humble mailed a copy to the Daily Mirror’s office in Manchester.
Humble said in the two-minute recording: “I’m Jack... I have the greatest respect for you George, but Lord! You are no nearer catching me now than four years ago when I started.”
The message mesmerised the nation, gripped in fear by the killing spree which began in 1975. The tape was played in pubs, clubs and colleges across Huddersfield and the rest of West Yorkshire as well as the north east.
Oldfield’s team interviewed 40,000 men in the search for the man with Sunderland labourer Humble’s Wearside accent.
Humble was given eight years for perverting the course of justice
Sutcliffe, of Bradford, killed three more people. He was quizzed about the murders but eliminated due to his accent.
Sutcliffe was caught by chance in 1981 and found guilty of murdering 13 women, including Helen Rytka in Huddersfield, and attempting to murder seven others, including Theresa Sykes in Oakes. He remains behind bars.
Humble, 59, was unmasked as the hoaxer in 2005 because a cold case team matched DNA he gave when he was arrested in 1991 for being drunk and disorderly.
Chris Gregg, a former Huddersfield detective who heaed the hoax tape inquiry, , said: “Whilst the person responsible for sending the hoax - letters and tapes - remained unknown, it left a great many people with unanswered questions, in particular the families of the victims who lost their lives at the hands of Peter Sutcliffe.
“We were determined to do everything we could to find the answers to those questions and at least give some degree of comfort now that the case been closed once and for all.”
