THE TIMES.
8th MAY , 1981
By Arthur Osman and Richard Ford
Ripper's last woman leaves in tears
Miss Olivia Reivers, the prostitute who might have been the Yorkshire Ripper's fourteenth victim, wept as she left the Central Criminal Court yesterday, after coming face to face with him for the first time since he was caught with her in Sheffield on January 2.
Miss. Reivers, aged 24, a mother of two, who has been a prostitute for four years had told the jury, in a low voice, that the Daily Star had paid her £1,000 of which £300 went to her solicitor, and she had been promised another £3,000.
Throughout the day's hearing each witness was asked by either Sir Michael Havers QC, the Attorney General, leading the prosecution of Peter Sutcliffe, or Mr. Harty Ognall QC, assisting him, of any financial arrangements they had made with newspapers or television companies.
For Fleet Street and elsewhere it became a fairly embarrassing recitation of sums of money paid to witnesses for pictures and stores about the defendant and his close family.
Mr. Trevor Birdsall, a friend for many years of Mr. Sutcliffe who had been the first to have to admit to a financial agreement with the Sunday People, left the crowded No 1 Court at the conclusion of his evidence to be taken again under 'the wing' of his three "minders", employees of that paper.
They waited nearly 15 minutes inside the building for an ordered taxi cab which drew up in Old Bailey. Then they dashed, with difficulty, through the revolving doors to brave the massed ranks of photographers and television cameras.
Mr. Birdsall was covered with his raincoat, but they encountered what Fleet Street knows as a "spoiling " operation. Reporters from other organizations blocked off their route to the cab and an un- seemly scuffle and jostling developed as they tried to enter the vehicle.
Unable to do so, to some jeers and catcalls, they retreated back inside the building to regroup and try again. They finally managed to depart again to heavy scuffling and derisive shouts. Mr. Birdsall had earlier told the jury that he had been with Mr. Sutcliffe on the nights that two women were attacked and after the second occasion, he told the court, it had crossed his mind that there might be a link with Mr. Sutcliffe.
However when he heard the tape recording of a Wearside voice which claimed to be that of the Ripper, "there was no chance at all that it could be Sutcliffe because the voice destroyed the link."
But Mr. Birdsall became so concerned after the death of Miss Jacqueline Hill in Leeds last November that he first sent an anonymous letter to police voicing his fears, and then "worried some more about it and in the end went to see the police ".
The hearing against Mr. Sutcliffe, aged 34, of Heaton, Bradford, who had denied murdering 13 women between 1975 and 1980 but admits their manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, will continue today. A dispute involving prison officers is not expected to disrupt the trial next Monday. Mr. Sutcliffe is being held in Brixton prison
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