The Theresa Sykes assault was not in the Ripper frame at the time of Peter Sutcliffe’s arrest. However after his arrest and admission to this assault the police charged him with it in their efforts to throw all they could at him and to close the case. Theresa was attacked by him in Huddersfield as she walked home. She screamed for help and Peter Sutcliffe ran away but she gave a good description of him to police. It matched the description given by Doctor Bandara who had been attacked by him about 6 weeks previously. Sutcliffe the desperate, mad, copy cat killer who thought he was the Ripper came to Huddersfield because the Ripper had previously claimed Helen Rytka as his victim here. Now Sutcliffe was associating his intended assault with the Ripper. Some police knew about the plan to trap Tracey, most didnt know and they were puzzled. Responsibility for the investigation seems tenuous. Hobson had the inside information and he wasnt sharing it with his junior colleagues. This was definitely not a Ripper attack, but it became one when Sutcliffe managed to stage his arrest in Sheffield some eight weeks later and the police wanted to close all the unsolved attacks they could, with his confessions.
