LONDON – Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe has launched a bid to challenge a High Court judge’s order that he can never be released.
Mr Justice Mitting announced his decision in London on July 16th, ruling that the serial killer of 13 women must serve a “whole life” tariff.
A spokeswoman for the Judicial Communications Office said yesterday: “I can now confirm that an application for leave to appeal the whole life order by Mr Justice Mitting has been lodged with the Court of Appeal.”
Now known as Peter Coonan, the former lorry driver, now 64, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, was convicted at the Old Bailey in 1981.
Sutcliffe received 20 life terms for the murder of 13 women and the attempted murder of others in Yorkshire and Greater Manchester.
Mr Justice Mitting, when giving his ruling, said the murderer had caused “widespread and permanent harm to the living”.
He said: “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.”
The judge said he had statements by relatives of six murder victims: “They are each moving accounts of the great loss and widespread and permanent harm to the living caused by six of his crimes.”
Sutcliffe is being held in Broadmoor top security psychiatric hospital after being transferred from prison in 1984 suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.
Sutcliffe is said to have believed he was on a “mission from God” to kill prostitutes – although not all of his victims were sex workers – and was dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper because he mutilated their bodies using a hammer, a sharpened screwdriver and a knife.
Mr Justice Mitting said: “Only Rosemary West and Dennis Nilsen approach the number of victims murdered. Even they did not reach the total number of the respondent’s victims.” – (PA)