I’m a forgotten victim of the Yorkshire Ripper – I was left looking battered & bruised, but now I’ve got my justice
THE night she was horrifically attacked and left for dead on her way home from a night out with friends will be forever etched on Mo Lea’s mind.
Forty-three years might have passed since that fateful evening when Mo, 63, is adamant she fell into the hands of Peter Sutcliffe – the Yorkshire Ripper – but she still bears the scars today.
A crescent-shaped indentation sits on her forehead, she has a scar above her eye as well as inside her mouth.
Single Mo calls herself one of Sutcliffe’s ‘forgotten victims’, because he was never brought to justice for her brutal attack.
She says: “I suspected the Yorkshire Ripper was my attacker but I didn’t want to admit to it.
“I was scared that because he attacked prostitutes, people would think I was one.
“And the police didn’t seem to believe I’d been attacked by him, so who else was going to believe me?
“I was scared of being judged for being out by myself when there was a serial killer on the loose.”
Mo has always felt she had the capacity to escape from her suffering and vent when she needed to – all through her art.
She said: “Sutcliffe may have tried to beat me to death but he could never take away my happy soul.”
Since retiring as a senior lecturer in art and design she works part time in an art shop where she often sells and exhibits her work.
She loves to walk and spends hours in her art studio creating images that inspire her – her main focus being natural forms that she recreates as true to life as possible.
She also uses her work to create a social statement in relation to the injustices against female victims of crime.
She says: “I am a campaigner for women’s justice, especially for those who were attacked by Peter Sutcliffe but not acknowledged by West Yorkshire Police, like I wasn’t.
“I speak out as a forgotten victim to let others know they have a voice.”
Police failed to connect her case to the Ripper investigation despite her assault October 1980 being a carbon copy of all the others that went before it – and the fact he killed 20-year-old student Jacqueline Hill in the same area of Leeds just three weeks later.”
Mo was a third-year fine art student at Leeds Polytechnic when she walked home alone after a visit to a pub in Headingley, Leeds, with friends to discuss plans for her 21st birthday the following week.
Mo, who lives in Bedford, Beds., said fear of being alone after dark was widespread at the time, with women advised to stay indoors.
But she had felt invincible and thought if she stuck to the main roads she’d be safe.
Mo says: “We didn’t ever go out because we were scared for our lives with a killer on the loose, but that night we thought, sod it, we want to meet up and talk about what I want to do for my birthday.
“When it was time to go home, at around 9.45pm, my friends offered to walk me back, but I said no.
“I thought I was streetwise – I thought I would be safe. I was young and invincible. I wouldn’t go down any dark alleys or parks. I wasn’t stupid.”
But Mo was met by a man when she turned down a street.
He called out to her so she thought she knew him but when she realised he was a stranger, she walked ahead.
He began following her – and Mo ran – and the next thing she felt was a heavy blow to her head, before she fell to the ground.
Mo credits being alive today to a couple nearby who came to her aid. As they approached, Mo’s attacker fled.
She was rushed to the city’s St James’s Hospital and into surgery – her skull was fractured, her cheek and jaw broken.
She had puncture wounds in her neck from a screwdriver, narrowly missing her spinal cord.
The next thing Mo remembers is waking up in intensive care.
She said: “I was dazed and confused.
“I just wanted to get out of the hospital bed and go home but I couldn’t lift my head off the pillow.”
While Mo ought to have been celebrating her 21st birthday, she was having her jaw wired and spent ten days in hospital.
She says: “My injuries were so severe even my own parents didn’t recognise me.
“The surgeons had to wait for the swelling all around my head to go down before they could operate and reset my jaw. My hair was blood-stained for a week until I was well enough to climb into a bath.
“I was heavily sedated for the whole time I was there.”
Mo contacted police after doctors told her how her injuries were similar to those suffered by other victims they had treated.
But once detectives spoke to her, with Mo giving them a description of her dark-haired assailant, she says they didn’t take it further.
She adds: “They were being ridiculed by the public and the media. My case would have caused added embarrassment.
“Not only were women attacked, but they are also blamed for their attacks.
“I wasn’t treated well in hospital and the woman in the bed opposite me asked what I had done to deserve it.”
Mo hopes the ITV series, The Long Shadow, can correct some of the victim blaming as the drama focuses on the victims rather than Sutcliffe.
After Sutcliffe’s arrest in January 1981, Mo saw footage on the news and instantly recognised him. ‘I just fell to my knees,’ she says. ‘I thought: ‘My God. That’s him’.’
“I went for years without any acknowledgment that I was attacked by the Yorkshire Ripper.”
It wasn’t until 1993 when Mo was interviewed for a Yorkshire Television documentary about the forgotten victims that she started to receive some acknowledgement:
“We all knew who had done this to me, but the Ripper Squad at the time refused to admit it. They certainly weren’t looking for anyone else,” she says.
“Peter Sutcliffe never confessed to my attack, so I was left in limbo.”
A report in 1981 by Sir Lawrence Byford found Sutcliffe could have been responsible for 13 more offences and made a string of recommendations to West Yorkshire Police.
Mo was named as a probable victim in redacted parts of the Byford report but no charges were brought against Sutcliffe despite a reinvestigation.
She maintains art has been her saviour in overcoming the post-traumatic stress disorder she suffered.
Learning to manage her suffering means she is no longer plagued by nightmares.
She says: “I don’t have nightmares very often now. If I do, I wake up in the knowledge that I am safe in my beautiful home. I have a stable and happy outlook on life.”
Her art work is her outlet and has included a project called ‘Ripping Up The Ripper’ in which she was filmed drawing a portrait of Sutcliffe before tearing it up and stamping on the pieces.
She also projected an image of Lady Justice pouring out female gender symbols from the scales of justice onto the Houses of Parliament on the 40th anniversary of Peter Sutcliffe’s conviction.
At the time – in May 2021, Mo revealed: “The art projection raises the question, asking what progress has been made in the police and legal systems to support women who have been victims of violent attacks.
“This represents the negative imbalance of justice towards women.
“It’s a call to Parliament to improve legal proceedings for women who are victims of assault. The problems still persist, even now.”
To view Mo’s artwork visit: molea.art