24/05/89 - Yorkshire Ripper's wife wins record damages
BBC News On This Day

A jury at the High Court in London has awarded £600,000 damages to Sonia Sutcliffe, wife of the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, against the satirical magazine Private Eye. The award is £100,000 more than the previous record British libel sum.

Mrs Sutcliffe, who is legally separated from her husband, made no comment. She left the court shrouded in a blanket. She will get £25,000 of the award immediately and the rest pending the appeal which will be lodged straightaway by Private Eye.

Its editor, Ian Hislop, said the magazine may go out of business and will be appealing to the magazine's readers for financial assistance. He pointed out the award was 100 times larger than that awarded to three of Sutcliffe's victims.

On the steps of the court he said: "If that's justice, then I'm a banana." In 1981 Sutcliffe was jailed for life for killing 13 women. When he was first arrested and charged, Private Eye accused Mrs Sutcliffe of doing a deal with the Daily Mail worth £250,000.

They said there had been a squalid race to buy her story and claimed she had negotiated with the press to profit from her fame as the wife of a serial killer. Mrs Sutcliffe's defence lawyers said she had done no such deal because she did not want to capitalise on what her husband had done.

She had been plunged into a living nightmare of media attention but had rejected all financial offers even though they could have given her a new life. Famous libel lawyer Peter Carter-Ruck said the award was disproportionate and called for the libel laws to be changed.

He said juries should be guided by the judge on the sums they award. Two years ago the former Conservative MP Jeffrey Archer was awarded £500,000 from the Daily Star over allegations that he slept with a prostitute.