The Red Riding Trilogy

British crime

Madman

R4 DVD

In the late 1970s Yorkshire in Britain was terrorised by a serial killer dubbed The Yorkshire Ripper. His killings continued for some years with the police apparently unable to close in on the killer. This failure led to all sorts of rumours and conspiracy theories and the three films are dramatised from these. The story is not so much about the Ripper as about the power that can be exerted by a corrupt police force.

Red Riding Trilogy 1974

Young reporter Eddie Dunford returns to Yorkshire after an unsuccessful attempt to make it with one of the big prestigious London newspapers. His editor gives him the job of revisiting the Yorkshire Ripper murders, something the police haven’t been able to solve. As he gets deeper into the case he finds great holes in the police investigations. Corruption seems to be endemic at the highest levels, tied to a property developer, John Darcy (Sean Bean) who would like a large slum area cleared so he can build a huge shopping mall. The “enforcing” is being done by a small group of police with nicknames like the Wolf, the Pig and the Rat. People are too scared of them to talk, even the parents of some of the victims.

When the police find out Eddie is investigating them the pressure is put on him. After he is savagely bashed and tortured by the police he realises there is only one way to get justice.

Red Riding Trilogy 1980

Six years later Manchester cop Peter Hunter has been assigned to a special squad by the Home Office to investigate the Ripper case. The local Yorkshire Constabulary has bungled the investigation murder after murder. Partly this has been due to incompetence, partly due to a lack of interest in the victims – “they’re all slags” as one officer so eloquently puts it. It is only when innocent women and children are killed that the Chief Constable must take the matter seriously. His reaction is to try to minimise the murders and bashings by his officers, but the public is now being panicked and demanding action.

Peter’s small squad begins by re-examining each murder. A local officer who is assigned to them as “liaison” is probably spying on them and details of the investigation are being leaked to the Press. He appears to be hiding information from the squad, but what? The Yorkshire police themselves are undecided about their position – should they close ranks against Hunter’s squad or should they cooperate? There are still some honest police but they seem to be a minority. The senior officers are in no doubt. To them, Hunter is a problem. He may interfere with their corrupt dealings with the property developer.

When potential informants turn up dead and Hunter’s house is burnt to the ground the matter becomes more personal. Someone high up is actively targeting him. He is accused of improprieties in his work and “invited” to take leave while he is being investigated. He is not just fighting to find the Ripper but must also fight to defend his name. The police propose to set up a new, more politically safe squad to take over the investigation. This will not help in the Ripper case but the Police regard it as a more important victory to get rid of Hunter before he shows up their inept performance and corruption. The Chief Constable boasts to the developer “We own the North”.

Then a young mentally challenged man, BJ, is arrested by the Yorkshire police and charged with the murders. He readily admits to some of the murders and to some they didn’t know about, but denies being the killer of some of the girls. His evidence sounds rehearsed and some of the details he gives are wrong. He also tells Hunter that he was a witness to a killing in a nightclub many years before in which the police “enforcers” were the killers. Hunter investigated that case but could not solve it and it has weighed on his mind ever since. How deep does the corruption go? His own life is now at risk.

Red Riding Trilogy 1983

Hunter is safely out of the way and we find the corruption goes right to the top of the police. BJ, another retarded man Michael and his friend Leonard are in prison for the killings, but now it has resumed. Chief Inspector Jobson, one of Hunter’s original team, is in charge of the investigation and is expected to come to a safe conclusion. Will he allow the corruption in the Yorkshire police to drag him down as well? At the same time a rather ineffective local solicitor, Piggot, is reinvestigating Michael’s conviction. He also runs foul of the corrupt police. Michael tells him he was threatened by the police and coached, forced to admit to the other killings that BJ says he didn’t do.

The film’s final resolution clears up a lot of loose ends but still leaves many questions, like how could such a runaway police force get away with it for so long?

Each film was made by a separate director and this and the long period over which the plot is spread is more than a little confusing. Flashbacks are far too common and they also serve to disjoint the story. The series is still a dark masterpiece and it’s worth following it to the end when a lot more is cleared up.

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