A Yorkshire Ripper survivor who he dumped over a barbed wire fence when his attack was interrupted by an approaching car has spoken about what happened.
Tracy Browne, now 57, was just 14 when she survived the attack by Peter Sutcliffe, who murdered 13 women, in Silsden, West Yorkshire.
She talked about it for a book focusing on the attackers victims through interviews with survivors and the families of those he killed, called Somebody’s Mother, Somebody’s Daughter: Victims and Survivors of the Yorkshire Ripper by bestselling biographer Carol Ann Lee.
Tracy Browne was attacked by Peter Sutcliffe as she walked home in Silsden, West Yorkshire. He walked with her, talking, before reaching the turning to her road and then lunged at her. She lived up Bradley road on the outskirts of the town
Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, received 20 concurrent life sentences for his attacks and the murder of 13 women
On August 27 1975, her parents had let her stay out late.
As she was walking home Tracy noticed a man with ‘a beard, afro-style hair, and brown eyes’.
As she walked she came level with the man, who said he was called Tony Jennis, and they struck up a conversation.
‘He asked, ‘Have you got a boyfriend?’ and I told him I had and that he lived in Silsden,’ Tracy said. ‘I felt quite comfortable with him because he seemed such an unassuming, charming sort of guy.’
As they reached the turning that led up to Tracy’s home, she turned to thank the stranger for his company.
Tracy was saved by a passing motorist. As Peter heard the car approach he stopped beating her, picked her up, and threw her over a barbed wire fence before running off
Tracy has spoken out for a book which focuses on the survivors of Peter Sutcliffe and the families of his victims
He lunged at her.
‘The first blow sent me crashing down on my knees.’
‘I fell into the side of the road. I pleaded with him, ‘Please don’t, please don’t, and screamed for help.
‘But he hit me five times and with so much force and energy that each blow was accompanied by a brutal grunting noise’.
The sounds he made were like tennis player Jimmy Connors.
A passing motorist disturbed the attacker, saving her. He picked her up and dropped her over a barbed wire fence at the sound of an approaching vehicle and ran away.
Tracy, pictured after the attack, said that while she was being beaten the sounds Sutcliffe made reminded her of Jimmy Connors playing tennis
Tracy gave police this accurate photofit of her attacker the ordeal, which happened as she turned up the road that led to her home
‘My vision had gone because I was so stunned from the attack and my eyes had filled with blood,’ she said.
‘I fell several times but forced myself back up. I told myself I had to get home in case he came back to finish me off.
‘I staggered around for another hundred yards, I was covered from head to waist in blood.’
She stumbled into the caravan of Fred Hargreaves, who led her back home to her mother, Nora Browne.
Sutcliffe received 20 concurrent life sentences for all his crimes following the trial for all his attacks, six years after the attack on Tracy, in May 1981.
She is believed to be one of his earliest victims.
Just two months after the attack on Tracy he murdered 28-year-old Wilma McCann. Her body was found on Prince Philip Playing Fields, Leeds.
The Yorkshire Ripper had a cancer scan in HMP Frankland jail, County Durham, this month after allegedly telling other inmates one of his testicles was five times its normal size, writes The Sun.
In September last year he was rushed to hospital after getting a bladder infection at the same prison.