This shocking Sheffield murder from 1961 was likened to the Jack the Ripper killings in London's East End

In early January, 1961, a 26-year-old woman was found strangled and mutilated in the grounds of the city’s St George’s Church, in Brook Hill.

A neighbour, crane driver George Sutton, who lived next door to the victim - mother-of-four Jean Mellor - in the Hawley Street flats.

According to newspaper reports from the time, Sutton appeared before the court the following month where he was charged with the murder - the prosecution stating that he had carried out the crime because Crane and his wife had gone out drinking and left the children home alone.

Mrs Mellor had reported the pair to the NSPCC and a “cruelty inspector” was expected round, the report states.

“The next morning Mrs Mellor’s body was found in the churchyard, naked and covered in a fawn coat. It appeared that her clothing had been cut or torn from her and she had bruising about the face, neck, arms and legs. There were two stab wounds in the neck, five in the chest and abdomen and other wounds. A pathologist found that she had been subject to manual strangulation,” the report states.

When he was arrested, Sutton admitted going to the churchyard with Mrs Mellor to have sex, and admitted they’d had intercourse twice before. He said they had argued and then produced the knife he had stabbed her with.

A report from February 1961, detailing Sutton’s trial, states: “Mr Justice Thesiger said of a murder case at Sheffield Assizes yesterday that it had some resemblance with the Jack the Ripper killings in the East End of London in the 1880s.”

The hearing also heard that Mrs Mellor, despite her seemingly high moral code, had worked as a prostitute.

Psychiatrists found no mental health issues with Sutton - despite an earlier diagnosis for schizophrenia - and his plea of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility was roundly rejected. Sutton was sentenced to life imprisonment following a guilty verdict.

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