QUESTIONS have been reignited over whether an attack on a Silsden schoolgirl could – and should – have brought an early end to the Yorkshire Ripper’s reign of terror.

Tracy Browne, then 14 years old, was attacked as she walked home along Bradley Road at Silsden in August, 1975.

She was struck on the head with a hammer, but survived.

Peter Sutcliffe later admitted carrying out the attack, which occurred two months before his first murder.

He dumped the youngster over a fence, leaving her bleeding and barely conscious, after being disturbed by a passing motorist.

Tracy gave police an accurate description of her assailant – and the photo-fit bore an uncanny resemblance to Sutcliffe.

However, officers on the Ripper inquiry – focussing on sex workers as his targets – rejected any connection.

Victims are being remembered once again following the death last week of Sutcliffe, aged 74, in HMP Frankland, County Durham. He had Covid-19.

The lorry driver and former grave digger from Bingley was convicted in 1981 of murdering 13 women across Yorkshire and north-west England.

He was also found guilty of the attempted murder of seven women.

Sutcliffe’s first murder victim was Wilma McCann, who was killed in the Chapeltown area of Leeds on October 30, 1975.

As more murders followed, women across the north of England lived in fear.

His final victim was 20-year-old Jacqueline Hill, who was attacked in Headingley on November 17, 1980.

Sutcliffe was eventually caught in January, 1981, when he was found by police with a sex worker in his car in Sheffield. The vehicle was on false plates. After questioning and the discovery of a hammer and knife, he confessed to being the Yorkshire Ripper.

The Ripper investigation was one of the largest ever undertaken by a British police force, but the inquiry was widely criticised.

Thousands of men were interviewed in connection with the killings, including Sutcliffe several times.

Police struggled to cope with the sheer volume of information being submitted by the public and the backlog in processing it was hampering the investigation.

Inquiries were also derailed by letters and tapes received by police purporting to be from the Yorkshire Ripper – who became known as Wearside Jack – in 1979. The tapes mocked Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield, who was leading the investigation.

Despite no evidence the killer had a Wearside accent, for several months the tapes took over the investigation, with a phone line set-up for people to ring and hear the voice. It was also broadcast over television and played in public areas. Police, in particular George Oldfield, were criticised for being too focused on the hoax tapes, ignoring advice from victims and specialists and allowing Sutcliffe to evade capture.

In 2005 the Wearside Jack case was reopened and John Humble, from Sunderland, was found guilty of perverting the course of justice by sending the tapes and jailed for eight years.

Police were also heavily criticised for their attitudes towards women involved in the sex industry at the time, particularly among senior officers.

And when some women not involved in sex work were attacked early in the Ripper’s campaign of terror, their accounts were not considered as part of the investigation.

Tracy Browne’s account was among those ignored.

The current Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, John Robins, has issued an apology to the families of Sutcliffe’s victims and to those who were attacked and survived.

And he added that lessons had been learned from the mistakes made.

He said: “Peter Sutcliffe’s crimes created a climate of fear across the country.

“I’m sure the news of his death will bring back a range of mixed emotions and trauma for surviving victims and relatives of those whose lives he cruelly took away. They are at the forefront of our thoughts and our condolences.

“The investigation was, at the time, the largest ever conducted by a UK police force and was subject to two exhaustive reviews in the immediate aftermath.

“The 1981 report by Sir Lawrence Byford and a subsequent review identified the extensive efforts made by the enquiry team, as well as what clearly went wrong.

“Failings and mistakes that were made are fully acknowledged and documented. The lessons learned from the Peter Sutcliffe enquiry have proved formative in shaping the investigation of serious and complex crime within modern-day policing.

“West Yorkshire Police is committed to ensuring that those harmed by crime are at the heart of what we do.

“On behalf of West Yorkshire Police, I apologise for the additional distress and anxiety caused to all relatives by the language, tone and terminology used by senior officers at the time in relation to Peter Sutcliffe’s victims. Such language and attitudes may have reflected wider societal attitudes of the day, but it was as wrong then as it is now.

“A huge number of officers worked to identify and bring Peter Sutcliffe to justice and it is a shame that their hard work was overshadowed by the language of senior officers used at the time, the effect of which is still felt today by surviving relatives.

“Thankfully those attitudes are consigned to history and our approach today is wholly victim focused, putting them at the centre of everything we do.

“The reviews fully explored many issues.

“However, the reports did not fully address the issue of how victims were portrayed and described, which impacted on families, friends and wider public perception. I offer this heartfelt apology today as the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police.”