Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe `moved to Frankland prison`
One of Britain`s most notorious serial killers has been sent back to jail after more than 30 years at Broadmoor psychiatric hospital.
Aug 25, 2016
By Nick Hudson
One of Britain`s most notorious serial killers has been sent back to jail after more than 30 years at Broadmoor psychiatric hospital.
`Yorkshire Ripper` Peter Sutcliffe was reportedly moved to HMP Frankland in Durham on Wednesday (August 24).
Sutcliffe, 70, has spent 32 years inside the high-security institution in Berkshire after murdering 13 women and attempting to kill seven more between 1976 and 1981.
Plans for his transfer emerged earlier this month in a move that is expected to save the taxpayer more than £250,000 a year.
Having been in Broadmoor since 1984 after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia following his life sentence in 1981, he will continue to have his mental health assessed in prison and could be returned to a psychiatric hospital if there is a change in his condition.
Dr Ruth Tully, a consultant forensic psychologist at the University of Nottingham, said cost would not have been a factor in the ruling that the serial killer is sane enough to be transferred but that the cost difference was considerable.
Figures show that the Prison Service spends around £325,000 per year to keep a patient in Broadmoor, compared with around £45,000 in a category A prison.
Sutcliffe, a former lorry driver from Bradford, now calls himself Peter Coonan.
Most of his victims were prostitutes who were mutilated and beaten to death in West Yorkshire and Manchester.
He was given 20 life terms for the murders and was caught when South Yorkshire Police officers found him with a prostitute in his car.
They became suspicious and found he had a fake licence plate and weapons including a screwdriver and hammer in the boot.
Before he was moved to Broadmoor, the killer spent three years at HMP Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight.
A HM Prison Service spokesperson said: “We do not comment on individuals.” Earlier this month the Ministry of Justice said that Sutcliffe would “remain locked up and will never be released for his evil crimes”.
BROADMOOR TIMELINE
Sutcliffe is one of three high-profile killers whose sentences included long periods of time in Broadmoor.
Ronnie Kray, one half of the infamous Kray twins who was responsible for a catalogue of assaults and armed robberies in the 1950s and `60s, was also sent to Broadmoor.
Both Kray twins were charged with the murders of two men, including rival gang leader George Cornell. Ronnie was sent to Broadmoor after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and stayed there until his death in 1995.
John Straffen was committed to Broadmoor hospital after being found guilty of killing two young girls in the summer of 1951.
During a brief escape in 1952, Straffen killed again a five-year-old girl while she was out riding her bicycle. He died in the institution half a century later in 2007.