Yorkshire Ripper 'Is No Longer Mentally Ill'

Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe should be returned to prison as he is no longer mentally ill, doctors have said.

Medics have recommended that Sutcliffe, 69, is taken out of the high-security psychiatric hospital Broadmoor and moved into a specialist prison.

The final decision on whether to move Sutcliffe, who was given 20 life sentences for murdering 13 women, would be made by Justice Secretary Michael Gove, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said.

The son of Wilma McCann - who was Sutcliffe's first victim in 1975 - told Sky News the 69-year-old should go back to prison.

Richard McCann said: "If he is deemed to be fit to be back on the wings within a prison I think that's where he should be.

"The extra cost to have him in Broadmoor is obviously something that we shouldn't be paying if he doesn't need to be there."

Sutcliffe was jailed in 1981 for killing 13 women and the attempted murder of seven more over a five-year period in the 1970s.

The former lorry driver from Bradford, West Yorkshire, claimed he was on a "mission from God" and was dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper because he mutilated his victims' bodies.

He told psychiatrists who examined him, and gave evidence at trial, that while working in a graveyard in 1967 he heard a voice, which he took to be a divine voice, which told him it was his mission to kill or eradicate prostitutes.

Sutcliffe started his sentence in Parkhurst, a prison on the Isle of Wight, but was moved to Broadmoor in 1984 after he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

He refused treatment for his condition until 1993 when the Mental Health Commission ruled it should be given forcibly.

Tony Madden, the former head of Broadmoor's Dangerous Severe Personality Disorder Unit, said he was surprised Sutcliffe had been there for so long.

He told Sky News: "I think there is a problem with the high security hospitals and special hospitals before them, in that they can get rather attached to notorious patients.

"They are drawn to, I hasten to use the word 'celebrity', but that is what it is, they are drawn into the notoriety of these cases. I doubt he would have stayed there so long if it was not for that.

"The NHS is short of money, mental health in particular is short of money, and I find it difficult to convince myself that this was a sensible use of NHS resources."

In 2010, Mr Justice Mitting ruled that "early release provisions" should not apply in Sutcliffe's case.

Sutcliffe is worried about moving from Broadmoor in Berkshire to a more strict prison regime where he would lose privileges such as freeview TV and a DVD player in his room, according to The Sun.