Opinion: Short-sighted to refuse Ripper drama filming in City of Film

It would appear not. Several high profile murder cases of recent years have barely gone to court before the inevitable three-part drama series is being written, cast and scheduled for prime time telly.

It is, however, five decades since the Yorkshire Ripper murders. I don’t think any film made today would glorify or sensationalise what happened, but any talk of a dramatisation is inevitably met by a knee jerk reaction of disgust.

This week the T&A reported that producers of The Long Shadow, a drama based on the hunt for Peter Sutcliffe, were keen to film in public areas of Bradford. But in emails obtained through an FOI request, Bradford Council’s senior leadership refused permission, fearing the series could “perpetuate the memory” of the killer.

The upcoming ITV drama, it is reported, will tell the story of the murders committed by Sutcliffe and the police investigation. The impressive cast includes David Morrissey, Katherine Kelly and Daniel Mays.

An email from production company New Pictures says that while it understands the subject “remains hugely sensitive”, the drama does not exploit the horror of the crimes. The production is working with families and others associated with the victims with the aim of providing a “compassionate and considered insight into the women whose lives were tragically cut short, whilst examining the lasting effects on their families, the communities in which they lived, along with wider society.”

I grew up in this city when Sutcliffe was killing women. I was a child when he started, and 13 when he was caught. I remember the chilling front page headlines in the T&A landing on the doormat at tea-time - another body found, the haunting faces, the gruesome roll call of the “battered and slashed”. Two of the murdered women were found close to my school, and I remember the feeling that he could be among us. It was a vague low-level fear that came if you walked across a quiet park, or stood alone at a bus stop. It was a fear that my mum, out in her old banger car prone to breaking down on lonely streets, might never come home.

Those murders left a huge scar in West Yorkshire, and had a lasting effect on the victims’ families. A former T&A colleague, who reported on the killings, once told me that what angered him most were the children left motherless by Sutcliffe’s crimes.

The Ripper years are a dark chapter of this country’s social and crime history. If treated in a sensitive and responsible way, why shouldn’t these crimes be dramatised, as other horrors from the past have been? If we sweep nasty elements of history under the carpet just because we prefer to ‘move on’, how can lessons ever be learned?

So I think it is short-sighted of the council not to co-operate with this production. It seems a knee jerk response to claim it would “perpetuate the memory” or glorify the events. The production company made it very clear, in their emails, that they appreciate the weight of responsibility of making such a drama, especially in Bradford, but it seems the matter wasn’t up for further discussion.

Bradford is the world’s first UNESCO City of Film. Our exceptional City of Film team has a globally renowned reputation for attracting major film and TV productions to the district, which benefit local businesses and the economy in many ways. It seems therefore jarring to have a filming request turned down for reasons that don’t seem particularly acceptable - especially when it’s for a major production that has the backing of the victims’ families.