The true crime drama, written by George Kay, will uncover the shocking cat and mouse hunt for Peter Sutcliffe, also known as The Yorkshire Ripper, which was one of the biggest manhunts in British history.

The hunt for the Sutcliffe took place between October 1975 and January 1981, involving thousands of police officers and forever changed the British police force.

The six-part series is based on the book Wicked Beyond Belief: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper by Michael Bilton and is produced by New Pictures.

Initially, Sutcliffe began murdering sex workers in Leeds, before moving across the whole of the North of England attacking and murdering women of all backgrounds and neighbourhoods.

Sutcliffe went on to kill thirteen women and attempted to kill seven others, creating an environment of terror that gripped Britain and led to a national obsession to discover the Ripper’s true identity.

The drama looks at the long-reaching burden and consequences of the investigation on the detectives and the victims' loved ones, as well as shining a light on the lives of the victims themselves.

Sutcliffe was finally caught in 1981 and sentenced to 20 concurrent life sentences.

George Kay commented: “In a story full with eye-watering statistics, one for me has always stood out: Peter Sutcliffe rendered 23 children motherless. That one fact in itself demands that any definitive drama about this case should encompass far more than just the story of a police investigation.

“We will focus not just on the police, therefore, but the victims, their families, those who were attacked but not believed, those who whose lives were permanently changed. This is not the story of a Ripper who hailed from Yorkshire, but the story of how Yorkshire was ripped apart.”

The casting details for The Yorkshire Ripper will be revealed at a later date.