Family feud as Ripper's wife weds

Yorkshire Ripper's wife Sonia Sutcliffe has married her hairdresser.

Police officers ringed the church in Bradford on Friday as Sonia, 47, and Michael Woodward were ushered in hidden under blankets and cloaks. The groom arrived at the church in a police car.

Only a dozen guests attended the 90-minute service after several members of the groom's family declared a hate campaign against his bride. But Sonia's mother Maria was among the guests.

A friend of the groom said yesterday: "A lot of his family won't have anything to do with Sonia. They have completely disowned her. It is very sad."

Sonia, who divorced Sutcliffe three years ago, still lives in the detached house in Heaton, Bradford, that she once shared with Britain's most infamous serial killer. Woodward, who works in a salon in Bradford city centre, lives in a bedsit a few miles away.

Sutcliffe, who was blinded in one eye two months ago after an attack by a fellow inmate at Broadmoor, has been told of the marriage.

He and Sonia were married at Clayton Baptist Chapel, Bradford, in August 1974. A few months later he attacked his first known victim.

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