A FORMER taxi driver claims that the Yorkshire Ripper attacked him on the moors above Keighley eight years before committing his first murder.

John Tomey was battered over the head in 1967 by a passenger who lured him to Cockhill Moor, above Oxenhope.

He believes he was the Ripper's first victim and is now seeking money from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board.

Until now the first victim of the Ripper was thought to be Keighley woman Anna Rogulski, who was left battered and bleeding in North Queen Street, in July, 1975.

The next month came an attack on Silsden teenager Caroline Tracy Browne, who was attacked while walking.

The Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, committed his first murder the same year and went on to kill another dozen women before his arrest in 1981.

The Keighley News reported the attack on Mr Tomey, then aged 27, on its front page in March, 1967.

The taxi driver picked up his passenger in Leeds and was asked to drive him to Manchester, taking the route over Cockhill.

On the isolated Hebden Bridge Road, about three miles from Oxenhope, Mr Tomey was asked to stop because his passenger wanted to look at a map.

Mr Tomey was hit with a blunt instrument which he believes was a hammer, and suffered a fractured skull, fractured thumb and lacerations.

The attacker then smashed the car lamps and taxi sign, leaving Mr Tomey to flee to a house in Oxenhope.

Police examined the car and found evidence of a struggle inside the car and bloodstains on the seats.

Mr Tomey, now 56, from Leeds, has now enlisted the help of a doctor to pursue his compensation claim. "I have lost 90 per cent of my life and memory," he says.

"He hit me with a hammer. When I saw the pictures of Sutcliffe I had no doubt it was him who attacked me.

"If the Yorkshire police had found the man that hit me over the head he would not have been able to murder the 13 women."

Mr Tomey claims one senior detective referred details of his assault to the Ripper squad because of the similarities with the attacks on Sutcliffe's female victims.

The Ripper murdered 13 women across West Yorkshire over a six-year period, mostly prostitutes or students.

In his trial at the Old Bailey, he also admitted seven charges of attempted murder and was jailed for a minimum of 30 years.