Presents stories of murder by women in all parts of Yorkshire - tales of marital tension and tragedy and sad accounts of infanticide while under mental duress. This work also explores the uneasy relationship between social change and the criminal law, so the courtrooms as well as the murder scenes have their absorbing and dramatic stories.

Historical accounts of Englishwomen who have killed, their varying motives, and their final fates. Yorkshire history has its share of nasty and brutal murders, and the majority of these killers have been men. Statistics show that most homicides are men. But the records over the centuries have tales of murderous women too. Stephen Wade has investigated records across England to find stories of women from the mid-eighteenth century to mid-twentieth century who have taken lives through jealousy, hatred, or sheer desperation. Some of the tales are sad, melancholy accounts of infanticide committed in hard times, often when women were under terrible stress and suffering from poor health and mental problems. Other stories are about murders that got rid of an unwanted partner or brought some easy money to the killer’s pockets. You’ll also find accounts of courtroom trials that went wrong and false accusations, along with verdicts that sent women to Van Diemen’s Land or to prison for life. Here are some of the most dramatic stories of women who killed—including Louie Calvert, serial killer; the Beverley case of extreme cruelty on a child; and the Hull wife who wanted her husband out of the way for good. Includes illustrations and photos

In 1981, Peter Sutcliffe, the 'Yorkshire Ripper', was convicted of thirteen murders and seven attempted murders. All his proven victims were women: most were prostitutes.Astonishingly, however, this is not the whole truth. There is a still-secret story of how Sutcliffe's terrible reign of terror claimed at least twenty-two more lives and left five other victims with terrible injuries. These crimes - attacks on men as well as women - took place all over England, not just in his known killing fields of Yorkshire and Lancashire.Police and prosecution authorities have long known that Sutcliffe's reign of terror was far longer and far more widespread than the public has been led to believe. But the evidence has been locked away in the files and archives, ensuring that these murders and attempted murders remain unsolved today.As a result, the families of at least twenty-two murdered women have been cheated of their right to know how and why their loved ones died: the pain of living with that may diminish over time, but it never fades away completely. Five other victims survived his attacks: their plight, too, has never been officially acknowledged.Worse still, police blunders and subsequent suppression of evidence ensured that three entirely innocent men were imprisoned for murders committed by the Yorkshire Ripper. They each lost the best parts of their adult lives, locked up and forgotten in stinking cells for more than two decades.This book, by a former police Intelligence Officer, is the story not just of those long-cold killings, of the forgotten families and of three terrible miscarriages of justice. It also uncovers Peter Sutcliffe's real motive for murder - and reveals how he manipulated police, prosecutors and psychiatrists to ensure that he serves his sentence in the comfort of a psychiatric hospital rather than a prison cell.

Misogynies is one of the most celebrated feminist texts by a British author. First published in 1989, it created shock waves with its analyses of history, literature and popular culture. Joan Smith drew on her own experience as one of the few women reporting the Yorkshire Ripper murders and looked at novels, slasher movies, Page Three and Princess Diana, teasing out the attitudes that brought them together.

Much has been written about the brutal crimes of Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, and - thirty-five years after he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of thirteen women - scarcely a week goes by without some mention of him in the media. In any story featuring Sutcliffe, however, his victims are incidental, often reduced to a tableau of nameless faces. But each woman was much more than the manner of her death, and in Somebody's Mother, Somebody's Daughter, Carol Ann Lee tells, for the first time, the stories of those women who came into Sutcliffe's murderous orbit, restoring their individuality to them and giving a voice to their families, including the twenty-three children whom he left motherless. Based on previously unpublished material and fresh, first-hand interviews the book examines the Yorkshire Ripper story from a new perspective: focusing on the women and putting the reader in a similar position to those who lived through that time. The killer, although we know his identity, remains a shadowy figure throughout, present only as the perpetrator of the attacks. By talking to survivors and their families, and to the families of the murdered women, Carol Ann Lee gets to the core truths of their lives and experiences, not only at the hands of Sutcliffe but also with the Yorkshire Police and their crass and ham-fisted handling of the case, where the women were put into two categories: prostitutes and non-prostitutes. In this book they are, simply, women, and all have moving backstories. The grim reality is that not enough has changed within society to make the angle this book takes on the Yorkshire Ripper case a purely historical one. Recent news stories have shown that women and girls who come forward to report serious crimes of a sexual nature are often judged as harshly - and often more so - than the men who have wronged them. The Rochdale sex abuse scandal, the allegations against Harvey Weinstein, and the US President's deplorable comments about women are vivid reminders that those in positions of power regard women as second class citizens. At the same time, the discussions arising from these recent stories, and much of the reporting, show that women are judged today as much on their preferences, habits and appearance as they were at the time of the Yorkshire Ripper attacks. The son of Wilma McCann, Sutcliffe's first known murder victim, told the author, 'We still have a very long way to go' and in that regard he is correct. Hard-hitting and wholly unique in approach, this timely book sheds new light on a case that still grips the nation.

Geoffrey Howse explores the darker and sinister side of South Yorkshire's past in this diverse collection of crimes and foul deeds, taken from Victorian to modern times. Read about a shooting and 'mob rule' in Doncaster, sensational murder in Darfield, Mexborough, and Attercliffe; trade outrages in Sheffield and Rotherham, highway robbery at Wentworth, embezzlement in Barnsley and arson at Thorne. Unusual cases include a Doncaster elopement and robbery, burglaries by girls in Rotherham, the shocking killing of a police constable at Swinton and 'coal' riots and lawlessness in Wath-upon-Dearne and Hoyland. A dramatic event in Thurnscoe, a Wombwell stabbing affray and a variety of long forgotten tragedies and crimes are also explored in some detail.

Geoffrey Howse delves into the his crime files covering 200 years of the area's darkest past. Events covered include long forgotten cases that made the headlines in their day as well as others more famous: Britain's first railway murder, the first criminal to be caught via wireless telegraphy and the anarchists who left a trail of murder and mayhem following a raid on a Tottenham factory. There are many other cases to appeal to anyone with an interest in the local and social history of North London.