'The Yorkshire Ripper': ITV Announces New True Crime Drama On Infamous Serial Killer From Makers Of Des

ITV have announced a brand new true crime drama from the same production team behind recent hits White House Farm and Des.

The new series will focus on the infamous Yorkshire Ripper, one of the world's most notorious serial killers who sparked the biggest manhunt in British criminal history.

Written by acclaimed screenwriter George Kay, who is also behind the Netflix crime drama Criminal, the drama will follow the desperate cat and mouse hunt for Peter Sutcliffe, which took place between October 1975 and January 1981 and involved over a thousand police officers.

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Having initially murdered a number of sex workers in Leeds, Sutcliffe soon spread across the whole of the North of England, attempting to harm women of all backgrounds, living in all different neighbourhoods.

In total, Sutcliffe killed thirteen, and attempted to kill seven others. His reign of terror became a national obsession, with millions desperate to find out the killer's true idntity. He was finally caught in Sheffield in 1981 and was sentenced to 20 concurrent sentences of life imprisonment.

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The show will place particular emphasis upon the police investigation and the lives of the victims who fatally crossed his path, and will be based upon Michael Bilton's highly praised book, Wicked Beyond Belief: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper.

Currently titled The Yorkshire Ripper, the series will be the first definitive account of the case that has kept Britain both gripped and haunted over four decades later, and will look at the lives of the Sutcliffe's victims, the loved ones they left behind, and the everlasting toll the investigation took on the detectives who led the investigation.

Sutcliffe had 13 victims from across the North of England

Speaking about the upcoming series, ITV's head of drama Polly Hill said: "This promises to be a definitive look at this infamous case, and will be sensitively dramatised for ITV by this formidable team, who have a proven track record in bringing these true stories to screen."

The series coms hot on the heels of recent true-crime drama Des, with David Tennant starring as the so-called kindly killer.

It was a ratings smash for ITV, drawing in 10 million viewers.

Topics: Entertainment News, True Crime, TV News

Kimberley Bond

Kim is a journalist at Tyla, and has previously worked at the Evening Standard, Radio Times as well as several national newspapers. A showbiz obsessive and a television fanatic, Kim is particularly interested in celebrity gossip, A-list events and the latest releases on either the big or small screen. Contact her at [email protected]

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