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Wearside Jack is the nickname given to John Samuel Humble (8 January 1956 – 30 July 2019), a British man who pretended to be the
Yorkshire Ripper Peter William Sutcliffe (2 June 1946 – 13 November 2020) was an English serial killer who was dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper (an allusion to Jack the Ripper) by the press. Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attempting t ...
in a
hoax A hoax is a widely publicized falsehood so fashioned as to invite reflexive, unthinking acceptance by the greatest number of people of the most varied social identities and of the highest possible social pretensions to gull its victims into pu ...
audio recording and several letters during the period 1978–1979. Humble sent a taped message spoken in a
Wearside Wearside () is a built-up area in both Tyne and Wear and County Durham, Northern England. It is named after the River Wear which flows through it and traditionally all in the County of Durham. In the 2011 census, its official name was the Sunder ...
accent and three letters, taunting the authorities for failing to catch him. The message, recorded on an audio cassette, caused the investigation to be moved away from the
West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...
area, home of the real killer,
Peter Sutcliffe Peter William Sutcliffe (2 June 1946 – 13 November 2020) was an English serial killer who was dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper (an allusion to Jack the Ripper) by the press. Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attempting t ...
, and thereby helped to prolong his attacks on women and hindered his potential arrest for eighteen months. More than 25 years after the event, a fragment from one of Humble's envelopes was traced to him through DNA, and in 2006 Humble was sentenced to eight years in prison for
perverting the course of justice Perverting the course of justice is an offence committed when a person prevents justice from being served on themselves or on another party. In England and Wales it is a common law offence, carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Statu ...
.


The hoax


The three letters

Between March 1978 and the end of June 1979, Humble sent three letters claiming to be the Yorkshire Ripper. Postmarked from
Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...
, two were addressed to Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield of the
West Yorkshire Police West Yorkshire Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing the metropolitan county of West Yorkshire, England. It is the fourth largest territorial police force in England and Wales by number of officers. History West Yor ...
who was heading the Ripper inquiry, and one to the ''
Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print ...
''. First letter: 8 March 1978 Written to Detective George Oldfield :Dear Sir :I am sorry I cannot give my name for obvious reasons. I am the Ripper. I've been dubbed a maniac by the Press but not by you, you call me clever and I am. You and your mates haven't a clue that photo in the paper gave me fits and that bit about killing myself, no chance. I've got things to do. My purpose to rid the streets of them sluts. My one regret is that young lassie McDonald, did not know cause changed routine that night. Up to number 8 now you say 7 but remember Preston '75. get about you know. You were right I travel a bit. You probably look for me in Sunderland, don't bother, I am not daft, just posted letter there on one of my trips. Not a bad place compared with Chapeltown and Manningham and other places. Warn whores to keep off streets cause I feel it coming on again. :Sorry about young lassie. :Yours respectfully :Jack the Ripper :Might write again later I not sure last one really deserved it. Whores getting younger each time. Old slut next time I hope. Huddersfield never again, too small close call last one. "Preston '75" was a reference to the murder of Joan Harrison. The Yorkshire Ripper was believed at the time to have killed her, but the supposed connection was wrongly thought not to be in the public domain leading the hoaxer's claim to gain undeserved credibility. Sutcliffe denied any knowledge and was not charged for this crime. It remained unsolved until 2011, when DNA evidence from the crime scene was matched to those of a deceased man named Christopher Smith (died 2008) who had been convicted of other offences, including attempted rape and manslaughter.


The "Wearside Jack" tape

On 17 June 1979, Humble sent a cassette to Assistant Chief Constable Oldfield, where he introduced himself only under the name "
Jack Jack may refer to: Places * Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community * Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community * Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas, USA People and fictional characters * Jack (given name), a male given name, ...
" and claimed responsibility for the Ripper murders to that point. The recording on a cassette tape ended with a segment from the 1978 single "
Thank You for Being a Friend "Thank You for Being a Friend" is a song written by Andrew Gold. It was recorded for Gold's third album, ''All This and Heaven Too''. The song reached number 25 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart in 1978. Whitburn, Joel (2004). ''The Billboard ...
" by
Andrew Gold Andrew Maurice Gold (August 2, 1951 – June 3, 2011) was an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, and record producer who influenced much of the Los Angeles-dominated pop/soft rock sound in the 1970s. Gold played on scores of reco ...
. George Oldfield and other senior officers were informed by the
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
that the creator of the tape was a blatant hoaxer. The US profiling expert
Robert Ressler Robert Kenneth Ressler (February 21, 1937 – May 5, 2013) was an FBI agent and author. He played a significant role in the psychological profiling of violent offenders in the 1970s and is often credited with coining the term "serial killer", t ...
indicated, in his co-written book, ''Whoever Fights Monsters'', that he contacted them to inform them immediately after he heard the recording. Despite this, the police focused on Humble's
Wearside Wearside () is a built-up area in both Tyne and Wear and County Durham, Northern England. It is named after the River Wear which flows through it and traditionally all in the County of Durham. In the 2011 census, its official name was the Sunder ...
accent. Together with voice analysts, they decided (based on
dialectology Dialectology (from Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , ''-logia'') is the scientific study of linguistic dialect, a sub-field of sociolinguistics. It studies variations in language based primarily on geographic distribution and their assoc ...
) that the accent was distinctive to the Castletown area of
Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...
. This led to 40,000 men being investigated to no avail, as the killer, Sutcliffe, came from
Bradford Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...
. Police also commenced a substantial publicity campaign, including 'Dial-the-Ripper' hotlines, 5,000 billboards, and advertisements in 300 newspapers. Around £1 million was invested in the publicity campaign alone. A few weeks after being played the recording, the voice experts began to try to persuade the police that the tape was created by a hoaxer, but were not listened to. Interviewed by
Joan Smith Joan Alison Smith (born 27 August 1953) is an English journalist, novelist, and human rights activist, who is a former chair of the Writers in Prison committee in the English section of International PEN and was the Executive Director of Hack ...
for ''
The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...
'' in 1980, Olive Smelt, a victim of Sutcliffe who survived his 1975 attack in Halifax, was angry that the police had ignored her insistence that the perpetrator was a local man. Other survivors' evidence, photofits which were close to Sutcliffe's appearance, were also rejected. A confidential police document issued in September 1979 by the West Yorkshire Police murder incident room instructed detectives to disregard from their inquiries any suspect without a North-East accent. Peter Sutcliffe, who committed the murders, was interviewed and released nine times over five years. Four of these occasions followed the police decision to search for the man heard on the tape. Each time he was rejected as a suspect because he did not have a North-East accent. In July 1979, Sutcliffe was interviewed by two Detective Constables who became suspicious. One of the officers, Detective Constable Andrew Laptew, in his report wrote that there was good evidence he was the killer, but the document was downgraded because of Sutcliffe's Yorkshire accent and the lack of a match with the hoaxer's handwriting. A then unknown victim of Sutcliffe at the time of Humble's first letter was Yvonne Pearson, whose body lay undiscovered, hidden under a discarded sofa in Bradford. This detail raised the suspicion of a Northumbria Police Detective Inspector that the Wearside Jack evidence was a hoax (as the writer of the letter made no reference to this crime) and submitted a report to West Yorkshire police in September 1979, but the report was ignored. One coincidence between Harrison's (then falsely suspected) killer and Wearside Jack was the secretion of their B-group blood cells in their saliva and semen, retrieved from her murder scene and from the gum of one of the letters, a quality shared by only 6% of men. It was this which was taken as definitive proof the Yorkshire Ripper was the same man as had sent the letters and the tape.


Hoax confirmed

While the West Yorkshire Police were investigating the leads, Sutcliffe murdered three more women, and attacked two others. It was only after Sutcliffe's confession that Wearside Jack was demonstrated to be a hoax. ACC Oldfield took early retirement following what he considered to be a total humiliation; he died in 1985 aged 61. It emerged during Humble's own trial that Sutcliffe had told police after his arrest in 1981 that "While ever that was going on I felt safe. I'm not a Geordie. I was born at Shipley."


John Humble


Earlier life

The son of Sam and Violet Humble, Humble attended Hylton Road Junior School and Havelock Senior School on Fordfield Road in the Ford Estate in Sunderland. He had "above average" school results, and gained a few qualifications, before leaving school at 16. His limited periods of employment included a bricklaying apprenticeship (which he gave up after three years), six months in a hospital laundry and a short period as a security guard. In 1990, Humble married, after a six-week relationship with a woman. In the early years of the marriage, he was said to be a good step-father for her two children, but he became abusive to his wife and was eventually convicted of common assault, leading to the couple's separation around 1999. Humble returned to the Ford estate to live with his brother in 2002.


DNA match leads to arrest

A breakthrough came in 2005 after senior officers from
West Yorkshire Police West Yorkshire Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing the metropolitan county of West Yorkshire, England. It is the fourth largest territorial police force in England and Wales by number of officers. History West Yor ...
’s Homicide and Major Enquiry Team (HMET), headed by Detective Chief Superintendent
Chris Gregg Chris Gregg is a former Detective Chief Superintendent and was head of West Yorkshire Police's Homicide and Major Enquiry Team (HMET). Gregg joined the force in 1974 and as a constable was put on front-line duties in the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry ...
, decided to review the case. A small piece of the gummed seal from one of the envelopes was located in a forensic laboratory in London, and, following publicity about the cold case review, the original hoax tape was retrieved from a retired scientist who had worked on the original investigation. As a result of this cold case review, DNA from envelopes sent by Humble as part of the hoax were matched in the
United Kingdom National DNA Database The United Kingdom National DNA Database (NDNAD; officially the ''UK National Criminal Intelligence DNA Database'') is a national DNA Database that was set up in 1995. In 2005 it had 3.1 million profiles and in 2020 it had 6.6 million profiles ...
with samples police had obtained from Humble in an unrelated incident in 2001, when he had been arrested and cautioned for being
drunk and disorderly Public intoxication, also known as "drunk and disorderly" and "drunk in public", is a summary offense in some countries rated to public cases or displays of drunkenness. Public intoxication laws vary widely by jurisdiction, but usually require an ...
. By this time, Humble had become a chronic alcoholic. The odds of a specific individual matching the DNA sample were one in a billion, very strongly indicating Humble was the culprit. Humble, who was living on the Ford Estate in Sunderland, was arrested on 18 October 2005. Described as an unemployed labourer at the time of his arrest at home, Humble and his brother were so inebriated that the police were required to wait almost a day before he could be interviewed; when he sobered up he needed to be told he was now in police custody. At times during police interviews, Humble appeared ashamed of what he had done, referring to the acts as "evil" and saying he deserved to be imprisoned. Humble admitted responsibility for the letters and the cassette, but denied perverting the course of justice, and his legal team pushed in vain for a lesser charge of wasting police time. He was charged on four counts of
perverting the course of justice Perverting the course of justice is an offence committed when a person prevents justice from being served on themselves or on another party. In England and Wales it is a common law offence, carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Statu ...
. Humble was motivated, according to Gregg after Humble's conviction, by a wish for notoriety, a hatred of the police and a fixation with the
Jack the Ripper Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in the autumn of 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer wa ...
Whitechapel murders in late-19th century London. The contempt for the police dated back to 1975 when he was imprisoned for assaulting an off-duty police officer (for which he served three months in a young offenders institution), and an earlier conviction for burglary and theft in 1973. Humble's preoccupation with the Whitechapel murders influenced the writing of the hoax letters, some passages being paraphrased from the 19th century letters of the earlier serial killer. Before Sutcliffe was arrested, Humble twice phoned the police anonymously to indicate they had been hoaxed because he felt guilty for misleading the investigation, but they were discounted. One call to
Northumbria Police Northumbria Police is a territorial police force in England. It is responsible for policing the metropolitan boroughs of Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside and the City of Sunderland, as well as the ceremonial c ...
on 14 September 1979, was 12 days after Barbara Leach was killed, the first of Sutcliffe's victims to be murdered after Humble's hoax influenced the police investigation. The call, which was brief, was recorded, but hundreds of hoax calls were received by the police. It also became known that his neighbours had been interviewed by police searching for Wearside Jack, but he had not. Humble was then living a mile from Castletown, where the Yorkshire Ripper was mistakenly thought to be living because of Humble's tape.


Trial and conviction

Humble was remanded on 20 October 2005. He was tried at
Leeds Crown Court Leeds Crown Court, more accurately the Crown Court at Leeds, is a venue of the Crown Court in West Yorkshire, England. The buildings are situated on Westgate in Leeds city centre, adjacent to Leeds magistrates courts. Notable cases As Leeds As ...
on 9 January 2006 and initially pleaded not guilty. He admitted to being Wearside Jack on 23 February 2006, and on 20 March 2006, changed his plea to guilty on four counts of perverting the course of justice. The prosecution said Humble did not contact the police to acknowledge his direct responsibility, even when it was obvious his tapes and letters were diverting police resources away from the real Ripper. His defence counsel said in court that Humble had attempted suicide in November 1979 by jumping off the bridge spanning the
River Wear The River Wear (, ) in North East England rises in the Pennines and flows eastwards, mostly through County Durham to the North Sea in the City of Sunderland. At long, it is one of the region's longest rivers, wends in a steep valley through th ...
and on other occasions. Instead of dying, he landed on a boat and was rescued by the police, spending three months in hospital as a result of his injuries and undergoing psychiatric treatment. The defence said he had lived an "inadequate life", and had been driven by guilt to alcoholism. On 21 March 2006, Humble was sentenced to eight years in prison. In July 2006, he launched an appeal against his sentence, which was rejected in October of the same year.


Release and death

Humble was released in 2009 after serving four years of his sentence; he was given a new identity as John Samuel Anderson. On 20 August 2019,
Northumbria Police Northumbria Police is a territorial police force in England. It is responsible for policing the metropolitan boroughs of Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside and the City of Sunderland, as well as the ceremonial c ...
said that Humble had died at his home in
South Shields South Shields () is a coastal town in South Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the south bank of the mouth of the River Tyne. Historically, it was known in Roman times as Arbeia, and as Caer Urfa by Early Middle Ages. According to the 20 ...
on 30 July; he died from heart failure and the effects of his alcoholism. ''I’m Jack'', a novel by Mark Blacklock, also from Sunderland, is a fictionalised account of Humble in his prison cell mocking the ghost of George Oldfield with further letters.


See also

* Colin Norris case – another case led by
Chris Gregg Chris Gregg is a former Detective Chief Superintendent and was head of West Yorkshire Police's Homicide and Major Enquiry Team (HMET). Gregg joined the force in 1974 and as a constable was put on front-line duties in the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry ...


References


External links


Transcripts and images of Humble's letters
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wearside Jack 1956 births 2019 deaths 1978 crimes in the United Kingdom 1978 hoaxes 1978 in England 20th-century criminals British people convicted of perverting the course of justice Crime in Tyne and Wear English criminals Hoaxes in England Impostors People from Sunderland Peter Sutcliffe