"It took over your life. You did not know when he was going to murder again" - five years as a photographer covering Yorkshire Ripper murders

Before the days of mobile phones and social media, they may be a phone call at home, or if you were down for the Yorkshire Evening Post's early photography shift you would get to the office for 7.30am and be out again for the next 15 hours if he had struck again.

Today's news that Peter Sutcliffe, 74, died in hospital after refusing treatment for coronavirus, has stirred memories from 40 years ago and beyond, but, will also have drawn a line under how for those five years it was, for women, like living in a permanent lockdown.

Steve Riding was one of the YEP's staff photographers and photographed many of the scenes across Leeds and West Yorkshire where Sutcliffe struck and left his victims to be discovered.

It was one of the biggest stories ever to come out of the city and the biggest he ever worked on.

He said: "I was once asked what the biggest story was and by far it was the Yorkshire Ripper. It took over everybody's life. You did not know when he was going to murder again. There are not many jobs that affect your life for so many years. Literally for five years you could not live a normal life. As a paper we got involved and covered every one.

"In those days we had eight or nine editions a day. Everything was for that day's paper. You needed to get out and get back. You would go and take the picture, drive back to the office, get the film processed, get the prints done and go back out again."

Mr Riding was also there the day Sutcliffe was caught. He recalled: "That was surreal, that is my picture of the coppers all laughing. They would not stop smiling, they were saying 'we have caught him, we have caught him'.

"They knew there and then that they had him but he had not had a trial or anything. You are talking 70s and early 80s when life was very different. There is no way they would say that to the media now but the atmosphere that night was relief. After five or six years - it was over. Just that person on his own had such an effect on Leeds and West Yorkshire."

And despite having a job to do and being professional about that, that effect was also not lost on Mr Riding himself either.

At least 20 times he was stopped in police road blocks while going to and from work and wouldn't let his mother or girlfriend go out alone.

He recalled: "Wilma McCann was found on Scot Hall playing fields and in those days I used to play football on the field opposite. I would pick my mum and girlfriend up from work and not let them go home on their own.

"The police said it did not change anything for them but for the public, their approach was that nobody was safe. My mum and auntie used to go to bingo but they stopped going. It was little things like that but it was for five years, it was the original lockdown before this.

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