Yorkshire Ripper in bid to challenge sentence

YORKSHIRE Ripper Peter Sutcliffe has launched a bid to challenge a High Court judge's order that he can never be released.

Last month Mr Justice Mitting ruled the serial killer of 13 women must serve a "whole life" tariff.

But Sutcliffe has now begun an appeal in a move likely to add to taxpayers' expense.

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A spokeswoman for the Judicial Communications Office said: "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, was convicted at the Old Bailey in 1981.

No date has been fixed for a hearing.

Sutcliffe received 20 life terms for the murder of 13 women and the attempted murder of others in Yorkshire and Greater Manchester.

He is being held in Broadmoor top-security psychiatric hospital after being transferred from prison in 1984 suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

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Last night John Stainthorpe, a retired Huddersfield detective superintendent who worked on the Yorkshire Ripper investigation, said anyone with "any vestige of common sense" would never release Sutcliffe.

Speaking from his West Yorkshire home, Mr Stainthorpe said: "I think that any judge or judges are most unlikely to release him.

"Releasing Sutcliffe, bearing in mind the extent of the damage he did to society, I just can't see anyone at all with any vestige of common sense doing it."

Mr Stainthorpe said he was also said he was certain Sutcliffe would reoffend in the rare instance that he were allowed out of prison.