Ripper must die in jail after his appeal to highest court blocked

Peter Sutcliffe yesterday was bidding to take his case to the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, to challenge his “whole life” tariff that states he can never be freed.

But judges sitting in the Court of Appeal rejected the notorious serial killer’s latest attempt to have his tariff overturned when they denied him the chance to present his case to the Supreme Court.

The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, announced the application had been rejected and said the Court of Appeal had refused to certify that a point of general public importance was involved in the appeal.

The ruling follows a series of attempts by Sutcliffe to challenge his “whole life tariff”, handed to him last year by a High Court judge who stated the serial killer of 13 women must never be released.

Sutcliffe, who is now known as Peter Coonan, had his appeal against that order rejected at the Court of Appeal in January this year.

Speaking in January, Lord Judge said there was “no reason to conclude that the appellant’s claim that he genuinely believed that he was acting under divine instruction to fulfil God’s will carries any greater conviction now than it did when it was rejected by the jury”.

The former lorry driver, from Bradford was initially 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. The trial judge at the Old Bailey recommended he serve a minimum of 30 years behind bars – a period that will expire next year, but no minimum tariff was formally laid down.

During his initial trial for the murders he claimed to be acting under orders from God to kill prostitutes but an Old Bailey jury found him guilty of murder rather than manslaughter.

Last year lawyers acting on behalf of Sutcliffe, now aged 64, told the High Court as part of his bid for a ruling on how much time he had to serve before he could be freed that psychiatrists considered his responsibility for the killings had been “substantially diminished” due to his “suffering from encapsulated paranoid schizophrenia”.

Mr Justice Mitting ruled, however, that Sutcliffe should never be eligible for parole.

Sutcliffe’s reign of terror began in July 1975 when he attacked Anna Rogulskyj in a Keighley street and fractured her skull. In the following month he attacked two more victims in Halifax and Silsden.

The former lorry driver would commit his first murder in October 1975, killing Wilma McCann in Leeds by fracturing her skull and stabbing her 15 times in the throat and body.

He carried out two more attacks in Leeds the next year, murdering Emily Jackson in January and injuring Marcella Claxton in May by striking her several blows from behind.

In 1977, Sutcliffe claimed four further victims, namely Irene Richardson, Patricia Atkinson, 16-year-old Jayne McDonald and Jean Jordan, as well as attempting to murder Maureen Long and Marilyn Moore.

Sutcliffe carried out two murders in January 1978, killing Yvonne Pearson in Bradford and Helen Rytka in Huddersfield. He would later confess to having sex with Ms Rytka as she lay dying.

In May that year Sutcliffe also killed Vera Millward in Manchester.

Sutcliffe waited almost a year before he struck again, murdering Josephine Whittaker in Halifax and student Barbara Leach in Leeds with a screwdriver.

In the first three months of 1980 he would carry out four attacks, including the murders of civil servant Marguerite Walls and student Jacqueline Hill in Leeds.

He was finally caught in January 1981 when officers stopped his car in Sheffield. He had a prostitute in his car whom he later admitted was his next intended victim.

Due to his fitting the description of the Ripper he was questioned by detectives and confessed after officers returned to the scene of his arrest and found a knife, hammer and rope he had discarded when he briefly slipped away.