Caller reveals how she narrowly escaped being murdered by a serial killer

13 November 2020, 16:35 | Updated: 13 November 2020, 16:38

A caller has told LBC about how she narrowly escaped being murdered be a serial killer.

Julie from Camden told Shelagh Fogarty her story as Britons have been urged to keep the victims of the Yorkshire Ripper in their thoughts today after serial killer Peter Sutcliffe died with Covid-19 at the age of 74.

Recounting her experience, Julie told LBC: "We're going back to the 1980s and I was on holiday in Amsterdam, and I went out for the day with a friend and I met her at this place and I cycled back and she got the train. We were going to meet later that evening.

"Now I was cycling along the main road and I got stopped by a policeman...and he asked me where I was going."

She continued: "Anyway I cycled off [and] didn't think anymore about it...and then the next thing I knew this arm came around my throat and this man pulled me off the hind on my bicycle.

"And it was that man, and he wasn't a policeman. He was a man dressed a policeman.

"Anyway, he picked me up and carried me off into this wooded area and threw me on the ground and started ripping off my clothed [and his].

"He was very big, very strong and completely manic. And for some reason I just said 'my boyfriend is coming, he's just behind'.

"Now I didn't expect that to work. But he jumped up and he ran away and he ran to his car. And I ran out the woods, and he came at me in the car and tried to run me over. I had to run for my life.

"I jumped behind a tree and then he spun off and he nearly knocked someone else off a bicycle at the top of the road.."

Later on in the call, Julie said: "It turned out this man was a serial killer and he'd been on the news. I didn't know anything about it...I was the first person who survived."

She also noted that she would "never forget" how, in the aftermath of the incident, a Dutch police officer asked her if she had been "cycling provocatively".