Wearside Jack - Re-visiting The Mystery

Re-visiting The Mystery

A major breakthrough came during 2005 when senior officers from West Yorkshire Police's Homicide and Major Inquiry Team (HMET), headed by Det Chief Supt Chris Gregg, decided to review the case. A small piece of the gummed seal from one of the envelopes was located in a forensic laboratory and following publicity about the cold case review the hoax tape was retrieved from a retired scientist who had worked on the original investigation.

As a result of this cold case review, DNA from envelopes sent by Humble as part of the hoax were matched in the United Kingdom National DNA Database with samples police had obtained from Humble in an unrelated incident in 2000, when he had been arrested and cautioned for being drunk and disorderly. By this time Humble had become an alcoholic loner.

Humble, of Ford Estate in Sunderland, was arrested on 20 October 2005, and charged with four counts of perverting the course of justice. Upon his arrest, Humble had been so drunk that police had to wait several hours before he was considered sober enough to be interviewed. Humble admitted responsibility for the letters and the cassette, but denied perverting the course of justice, and his legal team pushed in vain for a lesser charge of wasting police time.

At times during police interviews Humble appeared ashamed of what he had done, referring to the acts as evil although not being able to explain why they were evil. He revealed that the motive for his crime was a quest for notoriety, although a BBC documentary later suggested he had a hatred of the police dating back to 1975 when he was imprisoned for assaulting a police officer. Humble laughed at several points during the interview, including when asked about the tune played at the end of the tape. During the interviews he also claimed not to have told any other individual he was a hoaxer, and that he did not realise the impact his actions were having on the police investigation.

Humble also confirmed to police that he had used library books as a source of inspiration for his letters and tape. He confirmed he had attended school in the Castletown area of Sunderland, and that he had panicked as police interviewed men in that area. It was also revealed that his neighbours had been interviewed by police searching for Wearside Jack, but he had not.