Yorkshire Ripper will never go free – Straw

JUSTICE Secretary Jack Straw yesterday said there were "no circumstances" under which Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe would be released from prison.

He said there was nothing in the evidence he had seen that would lead the authorities to free the serial killer.

At justice questions in the Commons, Tory MP Julie Kirkbride (Bromsgrove) said a constituent's relative had been among Sutcliffe's victims and wanted reassurance "he will never be let out of prison for his heinous crimes".

Mr Straw said: "All the evidence that I have seen on this case, and it's a great deal, suggests to me that there are no circumstances in which this man will be released."

Sutcliffe was convicted at the Old Bailey in 1981 for the murder of 13 women and seven counts of attempted murder, in Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Lancashire. Now 63 and known as Peter Coonan, he has begun a legal process to try to have a limit set on the time he spends in custody.

He is being held in Broadmoor in Berkshire after being transferred from prison in 1984 suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.