Yorkshire Ripper cremated in top secret ceremony

Peter Sutcliffe, aged 74, died earlier this month after contracting coronavirus.

The serial killer, whose murder spree came to an end when he was arrested in Sheffield, was serving a whole life sentence for 13 murders and seven attempted murders.

He spent much of his sentence locked up in Broadmoor high security psychiatric hospital before being transferred to HMP Frankland in County Durham in 2016.

The Ripper died in hospital in Durham in the early hours of Friday, November 13 after testing positive for Covid-19.

His ex-wife Sonia, with whom he is said to have maintained a relationship with while he was behind bars, is believed to have organised his secret funeral service.

She attended his trial at the Old Bailey in London and visited him when he was at Broadmoor.

The Mirror claims his relatives were not invited.

According to the paper, his brother Mick, 70, sent a eulogy to be read out, but does not know if it was.

It said: “Peter, all of your family love you as Peter Sutcliffe although you ruined all our lives when you became the Yorkshire Ripper.

“But over the years we have learned to forgive you but I don’t think the families of your victims will find it so easy.”

The Yorkshire Ripper’s reign of terror in the north of England lasted five years.

He was finally captured on January 2, 1981, when two police officers on patrol in Sheffield spotted a car with false number plates.

Sutcliffe was found in the vehicle with a prostitute in Broomhall and was taken in for initial questioning at Hammerton Road police station, Hillsborough, before being transferred to Dewsbury Police Station to be questioned about the Yorkshire Ripper case as he matched many of the killer’s known physical characteristics.

The following day an officer returned to the scene of the arrest and discovered a knife, hammer and rope that Sutcliffe had discarded in bushes when he told officers he was ‘bursting for a pee’.

A second knife was found hidden in a toilet cistern at Hammerton Road police station.