Peter Sutcliffe - The Yorkshire Ripper

Bernard commenced his correspondence with Peter Sutcliffe, first deciding to write to him as a meek and obedient woman who 'knew her place', and so, Kirsty Cannon was born.

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In 'her' first letter to Sutcliffe, she wrote that she'd wanted to write him for a while, and called him handsome, 'not the ogre the media regularly describe'.

A reply from Sutcliffe was received in just five days, and over the next year, more than 100 letters had been exchanged between the two men, with a female journalist posing as 'Kirsty' for phone calls.

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They began writing back and forth about general aspects of their lives, with Sutcliffe's appearing surprisingly normal. He wrote about his jobs at Broadmoor, coming across as an ordinary man - Bernard noting that Sutcliffe seemed the type to just sit and have a pint with. This unnerved Bernard slightly, realising that these murderers were mostly average people. 

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The correspondence went on, with the two growing closer and closer, before Bernard asked him about how he feels about the murders, how other inmates felt about his crimes, how he feels about prostitutes now, and the root of his anger towards them.

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Over a decade prior to this, Sutcliffe claimed that his murders were carried out by the will of God, but he appeared to change his tune slightly. He told Kirsty that his view of the world may have been 'warped' after he had got into a motorcycle accident which resulted in him being unconscious for a day and a half.

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There wasn't tonnes of 'juicy gossip' the News of the World were looking for, it was more of an insight into the mind of a serial killer and his days in prison. Because of this, Bernard ended up selling the letters to the People newspaper, where things took a turn for the worst.