Ripper was never mad... just pure evil: Joy of victims' families as Sutcliffe is told to leave Broadmoor because he is legally sane

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Neil Jackson, 58, son of second victim Emily Jackson, who was killed in 1976, said: ‘I’m glad he is finally losing his cushy lifestyle'

The decision to end the Yorkshire Ripper’s cushy life in Broadmoor by moving him to a tough jail was welcomed as ‘better late than never’ by victims’ families yesterday.

Serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, 70, who has been officially declared sane, should have been moved out of the secure psychiatric hospital years ago and was always evil not mad, relatives of women he attacked insisted.

Neil Jackson, 58, the son of his second victim Emily Jackson, 42, who was killed in 1976, said: ‘I’m glad he is finally losing his cushy lifestyle, but it’s not a moment too soon. 

'He gets better fed in Broadmoor than I do and I work six days a week. Life has been far too easy for him up to now but he is in for a rude awakening.

‘Category A prisons are tough places and there will be no end of people lining up to deliver the ultimate justice that the evil monster deserves.’

The murderer, who butchered 13 women and tried to kill seven others, is expected to be moved within weeks after this week’s ruling by psychiatrists working for the Mental Health Tribunal.

Denise Long, 58, whose mother Maureen suffered devastating injuries when Sutcliffe attacked her with a hammer in 1977, said: ‘He should have been hanged.

‘I don’t believe he was ever ill – he was just pure evil. He knew exactly what he was doing.

‘He should never have been in Broadmoor and I am pleased and think it’s right he suffers in prison.

‘I try not to talk about it because it still upsets me. He left the scars on my mum and she couldn’t get over it. You never forget.

‘He shouldn’t have had the cushy life he has had in hospital all these years. It’s scandalous the taxpayer has been paying for this.’

It costs £300,000 a year to keep him in Broadmoor, with a TV in his room and other privileges, compared with £50,000 for a place in a high-security prison.

Pictured: Twelve of the 13 women Sutcliffe murdered during his time at large

The decision by the Mental Health Tribunal will save the taxpayer £250,000 a year. 

Julie Lowry, 56, whose mother Olive Smelt suffered serious head injuries when Sutcliffe attacked her in 1975, said: ‘He’s got what he deserves, being put where he should have been in the first place.’

The killer’s brother Carl Sutcliffe, 50, who used to speak to him on the phone regularly, said: ‘I don’t know why they’ve kept him at Broadmoor so long. He always seemed compos mentis to me on the phone.’

Sutcliffe got 20 life sentences in 1981 and was transferred to Broadmoor three years later after being diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. 

The 70-year-old will now live out his days with killers and other inmates who are fully aware of his monstrous crimes. 

He will die in jail because he is serving a whole-life tariff.

Sutcliffe will die in jail because he is serving a whole-life tariff

One source close to the case said: ‘For him, the cushy life he thinks he has in Broadmoor is finally over now.’

Sutcliffe has previously claimed that he would go on hunger strike if he was made to leave Broadmoor. 

As well as the 13 women he butchered in a six-year reign of terror, he tried to murder at least seven more.

For years the Ripper – who claimed he murdered the women after hearing God tell him to kill sex workers – has insisted he remains insane in order to stay in hospital.

But psychiatrists and other experts working for the government tribunal this week ruled he was sane and should be returned to jail.  

Work will now begin to move the killer to an as yet undecided category A prison.

He is expected to be regularly moved from jail to jail owing to his notoriety and the likelihood that other inmates may wish to harm or even kill him.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said that Sutcliffe – now known as Peter Coonan – will ‘remain locked up and will never be released for his evil crimes’.

She added: ‘Decisions over whether prisoners are to be sent back to prison from secure hospitals are based on clinical assessments made by independent medical staff.

It is thought Sutcliffe has cost the taxpayer £10million during his stay at Broadmoor

‘The High Court ordered in 2010 that Peter Coonan should never be released. This was upheld by the Court of Appeal. 

'Our thoughts are with Coonan’s victims and their families.’ 

Marcella Claxton, 59, was 20 when Sutcliffe attacked her with a hammer. 

She said: ‘He should be moved to a prison, he’s not sick is he? He wasn’t mentally ill when he attacked me. He should be treated like anyone else.’

When he was sentenced to 20 life sentences in 1981, the judge told him he would serve a minimum of 30 years – but this was never formally fixed at the time. 

In 2010, he used legal aid to try to secure his release by claiming he was no longer a threat to the public.

A judge rejected his pleas and instead handed him a whole life tariff – which means he is one of a small band of killers who will die in jail.  

Now he is taking advantage of a human rights court ruling which says that he must have a minimum tariff fixed by a court, rather than by a politician.

Two years ago Professor Tony Maden, the former head of the dangerous severe personality disorder unit at Broadmoor, said patients such as Sutcliffe should be returned to prison. 

The academic, a professor of forensic psychiatry at Imperial College London, said: ‘We are far too ready to keep mentally disordered prisoners in places like Broadmoor indefinitely, particularly if they are famous.’

Fiend who butchered 13 women in six-year killing spree

By Sam Greenhill, Chief Reporter for the Daily Mail

Sutcliffe, pictured, reportedly launched his killing spree after being swindled out of money by a prostitute

The Yorkshire Ripper butchered 13 women and tried to murder seven others, mutilating his victims with a hammer, screwdriver and knife.

Bradford lorry driver Peter Sutcliffe regularly used prostitutes and apparently launched his killing spree after being swindled out of money by one of them and her pimp.

For nearly six years from 1975 he terrorised the people of Yorkshire and Greater Manchester. 

Starting by killing prostitutes, he moved on to bludgeoning women at random in the streets.

His youngest victim, Jayne MacDonald, was 16, and the oldest, Marguerite Walls, was 47. 

The first woman he killed was mother of four Wilma McCann, whom he stabbed 15 times in the neck, chest and stomach. 

The last was Jacqueline Hill, a 20-year-old student murdered on waste ground in Leeds.

At least one of the women he murdered left a tormented child who took their own life as an adult.

Yorkshire Police hunting the murderer gathered a quarter of a million names, individually filed on cards, and more than 30,000 statements. But none of it led to his arrest. 

A former detective recently claimed police even suspected Jimmy Savile at one stage and brought him in for questioning. 

Years later Savile and Sutcliffe formed a disturbing friendship when the BBC star did volunteering work at Broadmoor.

Between 1978 and 1979 hoaxer John Humble, who was later jailed, sent police on a wild goose chase to the North East looking for someone with a Geordie accent. 

Sutcliffe was eventually snared by chance in 1980 in a red light area of Sheffield during a routine number-plate check of his car. 

His then wife Sonia Szurma, whom he married in 1974, told of her shock. 

At his Old Bailey trial in 1981 Sutcliffe claimed he had heard a voice while working as a gravedigger in 1967, and that God had instructed him to kill prostitutes. 

The jury did not believe him, and Sutcliffe was sentenced to 20 life terms.

The trial judge ruled he should serve at least 30 years and he was sent to Parkhurst, a regular prison, on the Isle of Wight. 

In 1983 an inmate plunged a broken coffee jar into his face, requiring 30 stitches.

In 1984, Sutcliffe was moved to Broadmoor secure mental hospital in Berkshire after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. 

Home Secretaries subsequently decided he should never be released. 

Sutcliffe appealed against this at the High Court in 2010 but Mr Justice Mitting turned him down, comparing his spree to a ‘terrorist outrage’. 

Police pictured holding back the crowds during Sutcliffe's trial at the Old Bailey in 1981

Yet the Ripper gets fan mail and has even been engaged.

He was attacked in Broadmoor too – stabbed in both eyes by a convicted murderer. He lost the sight in his left eye. 

In 2015, he was allowed out to visit an NHS clinic in Surrey for treatment to his right eye, mingling with shocked members of the public. 

His weight had ballooned to almost 20st and he has a range of ailments.

Sutcliffe has gone on hunger strike when he previously thought he would be moved to a jail. 

In 2005, he was on the verge of a coma after starving himself for 12 days.

In recent months, he has been on suicide watch after realising psychiatrists were sceptical of his mental health ruse and could have him transferred back to jail. 

Now, at last, it is happening.

THE YORKSHIRE RIPPER'S REIGN OF TERROR: A TIMELINE OF HIS MURDERS

Sutcliffe, who lived in Bradford, West Yorkshire, believed he was on a 'mission from God' to kill prostitutes, although not all his victims were.

His other victims, aged between 16 and 47, included two university students, a civil servant, a bank clerk and a supermarket worker.

Sutcliffe was dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper because he mutilated his victims using a screw driver, hammer and knife.

He was also convicted of seven counts of attempted murder in and around Yorkshire, Lancashire and Greater Manchester.

Emily Jackson, left, was Sutcliffe's second victim, while Irene Richardson, right, was his third victim 

Timeline:

Summer 1975: Peter Sutcliffe begins attacking women, two in Keighley and one in Halifax. All three survive and police do not link the attacks.

30 October 1975: Sutcliffe carries out his first fatal attack on Wilma McCann, a 28-year-old prostitute from the Chapeltown district of Leeds.

20 January 1976: He murders Emily Jackson, 42, from Leeds, battering her with a hammer and stabbing her with a screwdriver.

5 February 1977: He kills Irene Richardson, 28, another prostitute from Leeds.

23 April 1977: Sutcliffe strikes for the first time in his home town of Bradford, murdering 32-year-old Patricia Atkinson.

26 June 1977: The case comes to the attention of the national press after Sutcliffe murders Jayne MacDonald, a 16-year-old shop assistant. The murder, and the realisation that a serial killer is on the loose in Yorkshire, shocks the country.

The attacker is dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper by the press, and West Yorkshire Chief Constable Ronald Gregory appoints his most senior detective, Assistant Chief Constable George Oldfield, to investigate the murders.

1 October 1977: Sutcliffe chooses Manchester for his next attack - on Jean Jordan, 20. He dumps her body on an allotment and throws her bag, containing a brand new £5 note he gave her, into nearby shrubs.

Police find the bag and trace the serial number on the note back to the payroll of Yorkshire hauliers T and W H Clark, who employ Peter Sutcliffe.

Sutcliffe is interviewed by police but provides an alibi placing him at a party.

21 January to 16 May 1978: Sutcliffe murders three prostitutes - Yvonne Pearson, 21, from Bradford; Helen Rytka, 18, from Huddersfield, and 40-year-old Vera Millward from Manchester.

4 April 1979: Sutcliffe kills Halifax Building Society clerk Josephine Whitaker, 19.

June 1979: A tape is sent to police by a man calling himself Jack the Ripper, who has already sent a series of hand-written letters from Sunderland. Assistant Chief Constable Oldfield mistakenly decides that these are the work of the Ripper. Wearside Jack, as he becomes known, is pinpointed to the Castletown district of Sunderland by voice experts. Detectives are told they can discount suspects who do not have a Wearside accent.

July 1979: Police interview Sutcliffe for the fifth time. Detective Constables Andrew Laptew and Graham Greenwood are suspicious but their report is filed because his voice and handwriting do not fit the letters and tape.

2 September 1979: Sutcliffe murders Barbara Leach, 20, in Bradford.

2 October 1979: A £1million campaign is launched to catch the Yorkshire Ripper.

Police, pictured at the murder scene of Ms Richardson, spent years trying to solve the case

20 August 1980: The Ripper claims another victim, Marguerite Walls, 47, from Leeds, followed by Jacqueline Hill, 20, a Leeds University student, on November 17.

November 1980: Detective Chief Superintendent James Hobson replaces Oldfield. Hobson downgrades the importance of the Wearside Jack tape and letters.

3 January 1981: Sutcliffe admits he is the Yorkshire Ripper after police arrest him with a prostitute. Police admit the killer does not have a Wearside accent. 

22 May 1981: Sutcliffe is jailed for life at the Old Bailey. The judge recommends a minimum sentence of 30 years. He is transferred to Broadmoor secure hospital in Berkshire in 1984.

24 May 1989: Wife of Sutcliffe wins damages.

21 March 2006: John Humble, a former builder, is sentenced to eight years in prison after he admits to being the Yorkshire Ripper hoaxer known as Wearside Jack.

1 June 2006: A report which has been kept secret for nearly 25 years reveals that Sutcliffe probably committed more crimes than the 13 murders and seven attempted murders for which he was convicted.