‘Yorkshire character’ T-shirt attacked for including the Ripper

T-shirts celebrating some of Yorkshire’s best-known characters have been attacked for featuring a cartoon of Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe.

The garments have been produced by London-based firm Totally Original T-shirts under the slogan T’Only Way Is Yorkshire.

Among the other well-known faces on the T-shirt, claimed by the makers to be a homage to all things that make Yorkshire great, are Huddersfield-born former Prime Minister Harold Wilson in a flat cap, actress Diana Rigg in a cat suit, Last of the Summer Wine character Nora Batty and England cricket legend Geoff Boycott.

They are shown perched on or behind a sofa and a drystone wall with pigeons and greyhounds.

Yesterday a senior Bradford councillor said he was “appalled” at the marketing of other people’s misery and grief.

Chris Greaves, (Ind, Wharfedale), said: “This is in incredibly bad taste. There are still relatives around of Peter Sutcliffe’s victims who will be upset by this. The question has to be asked is: ‘Why are they wanting to glorify a mass murderer?’”

Sutcliffe, of Bradford, was convicted in 1981 of the murders of 13 women and the attempted murders of seven others during a reign of terror which started in the mid-1970s.

The T-shirt is one of the “Grim Up North” range, according to the manufacturer’s website, described as “celebrating the best of Northern style and humour”. A spokesman for TOT-shirts said: “It’s just a bit of dark humour and if it’s offended anyone it wasn’t intentional.”