Trying to gauge annual costs - complete with spreadsheet!

[Wanderer Vagabond]

4 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Afraid so, but not for much of it. I was at Castleford when he was caught, however EVERY one of us was on the case and some of the stuff we had to do because of the drunk in charge of the case beggars belief ( George Oldfield ) With hindsight of course he would have been caught earlier but as you and I know in those days bits of information and interviews were filed in different locations by different people. No computers, no cctv, no ANPR,  no DNA etc etc etc. It was moocho harder to Police in those days in my humble opinion without all the masses of paraphernalia now available to them. We did road blocks and stopped cars every sunday night without fail come rain or shine and unless it was a male, alone AND with a geordie accent we were to simply not record anything. I started in Leeds in 79 and went back there in 85 after time in Castleford and Pontefract just nicely for the miners strike ? having been across to Liverpool on standby and in the thick of the riots in Chapeltown in 81. I wish I had joined Devon and Cornwall lol!!

Yes, in fairness (if you watch the documentary) they do make the point that there was a massive amount of data that was collected (650,000 documents) to the extent that they had to strengthen the floor of the incident room. The plus that came out of the case was the HOLMES computer system that I worked on a number of times, at the click of a button it enabled you to see how many times a given individual has featured in an enquiry, I do have a lot of sympathy in how much work would be involved in trying to do the same with the card index system they used.

 

Your comments about Oldfield align with what was on the documentary (although they were more diplomatic and didn't call him a drunk but his photos did show a very flushed face which may tend to support your opinion). The problem seemed to be that he was a single minded character who wanted to follow his instinct rather than the evidence. If he had allowed the enquiry regarding the £5 note  and a separate enquiry relating to the tyre to run to their conclusion they may well have caught Sutcliffe a whole lot earlier (he was interviewed regarding the £5 note) but Oldfield became obsessed with 'Wearside Jack' and other lines were just not followed. Despite Sutcliffe's arrest having pretty much nothing to do with the enquiry, Oldfield was happy to accept the (unjustified) praise from the trial judge.

 

[mrsmelly]

3 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

Yes, in fairness (if you watch the documentary) they do make the point that there was a massive amount of data that was collected (650,000 documents) to the extent that they had to strengthen the floor of the incident room. The plus that came out of the case was the HOLMES computer system that I worked on a number of times, at the click of a button it enabled you to see how many times a given individual has featured in an enquiry, I do have a lot of sympathy in how much work would be involved in trying to do the same with the card index system they used.

 

Your comments about Oldfield align with what was on the documentary (although they were more diplomatic and didn't call him a drunk but his photos did show a very flushed face which may tend to support your opinion). The problem seemed to be that he was a single minded character who wanted to follow his instinct rather than the evidence. If he had allowed the enquiry regarding the £5 note  and a separate enquiry relating to the tyre to run to their conclusion they may well have caught Sutcliffe a whole lot earlier (he was interviewed regarding the £5 note) but Oldfield became obsessed with 'Wearside Jack' and other lines were just not followed. Despite Sutcliffe's arrest having pretty much nothing to do with the enquiry, Oldfield was happy to accept the (unjustified) praise from the trial judge.

 

In the force he was a well known drunk, indeed he used to turn up at various Police stations on many occasions at briefing time to give his two penneth and was quite simply drunk. Of course his rank protected him and gave him his personal driver so nothing ensued. In fairness the bloke had been a good bobby in his time but let the case get to him and took it all too personally which of course as you are aware doesnt work in that job. As for filing systems!! Yes!! The collator or LIO as they now call em in every police station had banks and banks of drawers with cards filed in them. God knows how many across the country and virtualy no way to cross reference them.

[WotEver]

And in one of those ‘three degrees of separation’ examples, one of my late father-in-law’s drinking buddies had bought Peter Sutcliffe a pint the day before he was arrested. As folk commonly say in these instances “He seemed such a nice chap”.