PETER SUTCLIFFE, known as the Yorkshire Ripper, is to spend the rest of his life in detention, following a High Court ruling in London yesterday. He is currently being held at Broadmoor high-security psychiatric hospital in Berkshire, southern England, and his lawyers are expected to mount a bid to have him moved.
Sutcliffe, who has been known as Peter Coonan since he adopted his mother’s maiden name, was given 20 life sentences in 1981 for killing 13 women and attempting to murder another seven. He is now aged 64, almost blind and seriously overweight because of diabetes.
In a ruling delivered before the families of some of his victims, Mr Justice Mitting said Sutcliffe should never be eligible for parole because “the brutality and gravity of the offences speak for themselves”. He revealed that a special mental health tribunal recommended on July 7th that Sutcliffe be moved from Broadmoor to a lower-security detention centre because his treatment for schizophrenia had led to the “complete remission” of his symptoms.
The improvement in his mental state “now requires to be tested in conditions of less security”, said the tribunal. This would have to be in a lower-security psychiatric unit, rather than a prison, it said, to avoid further damage to his mental health.
Last night the ministry for justice said the tribunal had no statutory power to order Sutcliffe’s transfer, adding that secretary of state for justice Kenneth Clarke had the power to refuse such a request.
The former lorry driver from Bradford had applied to the court to have a minimum term set on his detention. Although his trial judge had recommended a 30-year sentence, this was never formally set down.
Reading statements from relatives of his victims, Mr Justice Mitting said: “They are each moving accounts of the great loss and widespread and permanent harm to the living caused by six of his crimes.
“This was a campaign of murder which terrorised the population of a large part of Yorkshire for several years. The only explanation for it, on the jury’s verdict, was anger, hatred and obsession.
“Apart from a terrorist outrage, it is difficult to conceive of circumstances in which one man could account for so many victims. Those circumstances alone make it appropriate to set a whole life term,” Mr Justice Mitting went on.
Sutcliffe was questioned 10 times by police during the inquiry because his car had been noticed near the scene of many of the brutal killings. However, the attacks did not cease until January 1981 when police stopped him as he drove a car with false number plates. His explanation failed to convince police and he was arrested. A few days later in police custody, Sutcliffe, who lived an apparently quiet and normal married life, admitted he was the Yorkshire Ripper.
Sutcliffe’s reign of terror in northern England meant women were afraid to go out unless accompanied by a man they knew and trusted. He was called the Yorkshire Ripper because he hit his victims on the head with a hammer and then mutilated their bodies with a knife and screwdriver.