The Crossbow Cannibal killed and ate his victims because he could

Peter Sutcliffe, Donald Neilson and Stephen Griffiths... what is it about Bradford that attracts serial killers? Ten years after the arrest of the Crossbow Cannibal, David Barnett talks to the lead detective about the man who had no reason for killing sex workers, apart from wanting the notoriety

Police carrying out a fingertip search outside Griffiths' home (Getty)

On the morning of Monday 24 May 2010, Peter Gee arrived as usual for his job as caretaker of Holmfield Court, a block of apartments at the top of Thornton Road, just a few minutes’ walk into Bradford city centre. Within an hour of clocking on he reviewed the weekend's footage from the security cameras installed in the lobby of the building. What he saw when he viewed the recordings from 2.30am on the Saturday morning made his blood run cold.

Thornton Road is one of the main roads into Bradford from the north and west of the city, most of it the former industrial quarter, where undeveloped wasteland or tall buildings, which once housed the mills that drove Bradford’s wealth in the 19th century, are now given over to office spaces, flats, or are derelict.

A decade ago, Thornton Road was enjoying one of its periodic incarnations as Bradford’s red light district, for which it seems eminently architecturally suited. It has a wide thoroughfare, easy for kerb crawlers to pull up; and although it's a busy road it doesn’t get a lot of footfall along much of its length. There are narrow side streets between the tall buildings, many of which are unoccupied after dark.