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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Yorkshire Ripper
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The name given, by analogy with *Jack the Ripper, to a man who in the late 1970s killed a succession of women, most of them in Yorkshire. He had murdered 13 and attempted to kill another seven before he was caught, early in 1981, and was discovered to be a 34-year-old long-distance lorry driver, Peter Sutcliffe. He was jailed for life, with a recommendation of a minimum 30 years. The gruesome case was followed by an unusual sequence of legal actions.
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Some of the women who had survived his attacks and parents of some of his victims successfully sued Sutcliffe for damages. Meanwhile his wife, Sonia, won a succession of libel actions against the press. The extraordinary £600,000 awarded to her in 1989 against Private Eye was later reduced to £60,000. But she had also received more than £200,000 from other cases before losing in 1990 against the News of the World and having to meet their very heavy costs.
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