dated back to 1975 when he was imprisoned for assaulting an off-duty police officer (for which he served three months in a young offenders institution), and an earlier conviction for burglary and theft in 1973. Humble's preoccupation with the Whitechapel murders influenced the writing of the hoax letters, some passages being paraphrased from the 19th century letters of the earlier serial killer. Before Sutcliffe was arrested, Humble twice phoned the police anonymously to indicate they had been hoaxed because he felt guilty for misleading the investigation, but they were discounted. One call to Northumbria Police on 14 September 1979, was 12 days after Barbara Leach was killed, the first of Sutcliffe's victims to be murdered after Humble's hoax influenced the police investigation. The call, which was brief, was recorded, but hundreds of hoax calls were received by the police. It also became known that his neighbours had been interviewed by police searching for Wearside Jack, but he had not. Humble was then living a mile from Castletown, where the Yorkshire Ripper was mistakenly thought to be living because of Humble's tape. Trial and conviction Humble was remanded on 20 October 2005. He was tried at Leeds Crown Court on 9 January 2006 and initially pleaded not guilty. He admitted to being Wearside Jack on 23 February 2006, and on 20 March 2006, changed his plea to guilty on four counts of perverting the course of justice. The prosecution said Humble did not contact the police to acknowledge his direct responsibility, even when it was obvious his tapes and letters were diverting police resources away from the real Ripper. His defence counsel said in court that Humble had attempted suicide in November 1979 by jumping off the bridge spanning the River Wear and on other occasions. Instead of dying, he landed on a boat and was rescued by the police, spending three months in hospital as a result of his injuries and undergoing psychiatric treatment. The defence said he had lived an "inadequate life", and had been driven by guilt to alcoholism. On 21 March 2006, Humble was sentenced to eight years in prison. In July 2006, he launched an appeal against his sentence, which was rejected in October of the same year. Release and death Humble was released in 2009 after serving four years of his sentence; he was given a new identity as John Samuel Anderson. On 20 August