IT HAS come 20 years too late.

That was the reaction of a former detective who worked in the team hunting the Yorkshire Ripper to the release of the official report into the controversial investigation.

Lawrence Byford's probe into the police handling of the inquiry was released this week, in response to a request under the Freedom Of Information Act.

The report was completed in December 1981, after Peter Sutcliffe had been jailed for killing 13 women, and attempting to murder another seven between 1975 and 1980. But it had not made public until now.

Wally Norton, who worked on the investigation, and is now deputy leader of Selby District Council, said the public should not have had to wait so long to see the previously secret document.

He said: "I think it should have been released at the time, rather than having to wait for an FOI Act request 20 years later.

"There is less point now all it is now is for the benefit of people like me saying we could have told them that at the outset."

Coun Norton recently told The Press how he had been driven out of the police force by the "incompetence" of his senior officer, George Oldfield. He said Assistant Chief Constable Oldfield's "mishandling" of the case left him disgruntled, and led to him leaving the force in 1980, aged just 43.

Speaking to The Press again yesterday, Coun Norton said: "There is no doubt he Sutcliffe should have been caught a lot earlier.

"The evidence was there all the time and people were giving information.

"Look at how many times he was interviewed by police and how many times his vehicle was sighted.

"Whatever way you look at it, Oldfield was not a detective. He was an admin man.

"He was the wrong man in the wrong place, but he had that ability to convince people that he was right.

"People like the chief constable followed him into the abyss, and I do not know why.

"It was a shambles that's my view. The whole inquiry was just badly run because one man felt he could do it alone."

Coun Norton said he did not want to comment on the specifics of the Byford Report until he had read the 159-page document.