Sensational unseen photographs of Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe - stolen from his former wife's car - have been found dumped on waste ground in Bradford.

The collection of about 400 photographs - including a colour wedding picture of Sutcliffe and his former wife, Sonia, taken at the altar, black and white snaps of the pair, and pictures of the couple on holiday - was delivered to the Telegraph & Argus offices yesterday.

The bundle also includes an original wedding invitation for their marriage at Clayton Baptist Chapel in August 1974. And there are dozens of negatives showing Sutcliffe celebrating Christmas with his wife and family.

The photographs were delivered to the T&A by Peter Wood, who says he discovered them on a piece of waste land off Soho Street, near to Bradford city centre, strewn among rubble in an area known to be used by prostitutes.

Alongside the photographs were some photo-processing envelopes from Cyprus marked with the name "S. Szurma" - Sutcliffe's former wife's maiden name.

Mr Wood, 31, said: "I saw the photos and, when I started leafing through them, recognised the Ripper straight away."

Today it was revealed the pictures belong to Sonia, who is now remarried as Mrs Szurma-Woodward and still lives in the district.

The theft came to light after the T&A contacted her mother, Mrs Maria Szurma, who said they were stolen when Sonia's car was broken into at the weekend.

Speaking from Sonia's former home in Bradford, Mrs Szurma, said: "The photographs had been in a bag in Sonia's car and were stolen during a break-in while it was parked in the city centre on Saturday."

She thanked the T&A for handing them over to the police and said her daughter had been very "distressed and upset," that such personal items had gone missing.

The theft had been reported to police at Toller Lane. She added that the family were in contact with the police.

Today the T&A passed on the photos to detectives from Bradford Central CID. They cannot be published for legal reasons.

After finding the pictures, Mr Wood told the T&A: "It's unbelievable. Why would someone want to dump a collection of personal photographs like that? Some of the Ripper's victims were prostitutes, so it's weird they were left in a place in Bradford known to be used by prostitutes."

The spot where the photographs were found is less than a mile away from the site of two of the Ripper's killings: prostitute Yvonne Pearson's body was found on waste land off Arthington Street in January 1978, and student Barbara Leach, 20, was found murdered in September 1979 at the back of Ash Grove, Great Horton.

The collection includes 10 photographs featuring the Ripper, including two black and white pictures of him and Sonia in their early days - sitting in the garden of a Council house.

And there are two holiday snaps of Sutcliffe in a fur-lined leather jacket and flares, against a backdrop of snow-peaked mountains.

Some of the holiday snap packets were dated - "Greece, May 98", "Sri Lanka, August 90", and "Corfu 94". Others show Sonia on holiday in Tenerife, on a beach in a swimsuit and sightseeing with her family.

With the collection of more than 400 prints and negatives are four sheets of A4 paper, cataloguing dozens of snaps of Sonia in Cyprus and Greece, which list in code form the dates they were taken and by whom.

Peter Sutcliffe married Sonia Szurma in August 1974, just months before he attacked his first known victim The couple divorced after 19 years of marriage, 13 years after the Ripper was jailed for life for the brutal murders of 13 women and the attempted murders of seven others in 1981.

His former wife, now aged 50, married hairdresser Michael Woodward in a secret ceremony in 1997 becoming Sonia Szurma-Woodward.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.