Anger as Ripper is seen out in public for f irst time in 34 years for visit to eye hospital
THERE was fury yesterday after the Yorkshire Ripper was seen out in public for the first time in 34 years.
Families of his victims expressed anger that Peter Sutcliffe was not even wearing handcuffs.
The 69-year- old serial killer was allowed out of Broadmoor Hospital to visit to an eye clinic, where doctors are trying to save his failing sight. Strolling through the sunshine at Frimley Park Hospital, Surrey, he mingled with unsuspecting NHS patients.
Grey- bearded Sutcliffe, whose weight has ballooned to almost 20 stone, was accompanied by five Broadmoor guards.
One witness said the murderer – serving 20 life sentences for slaughtering 13 women and trying to kill seven more – looked ‘calm and quite happy’, adding: ‘It was a beautiful sunny day and he looked like an old man strolling to his allotment.’
Beryl Leach, 84, whose 20-year-old daughter Barbara was murdered by Sutcliffe in 1979, said: ‘He shouldn’t be out wandering about, but I just hope it makes him realises what he is missing on the outside, and think about what he did.’
She added: ‘I think about Barbara
‘They should let
him go blind’
every single day. I don’t think about Peter Sutcliffe. I shouldn’t say this, but I just hope he dies before I do, if I’m quite honest.’
Neil Jackson, 57, whose mother Emily was another victim, said: ‘They should let him go blind.’
He told The Sun on Sunday: ‘ He murdered 13 women, including my mum, and destroyed our family.
‘Yet now he’s walking around without a care i n the world i n nice clothes, eating what he wants. It is disgusting.’
Sutcliffe, whose eyesight has been failing for months, spent about an hour with specialist doctors. Patients must wait an average of 11 weeks to get treatment at Frimley’s eye clinic.
His appearance sparked anger among MPs and justice campaigners. According to the newspaper, his treatment alone would cost £5,000 in the private sector but with the need for his security, the overall bill will be much higher.
And despite undergoing tests at one of Britain’s leading ophthalmology centres, Sutcliffe was reportedly unhappy at being given an 8am appointment time. He is said to have moaned to a friend that he was woken up by guards before 7am, saying: ‘I don’t like to get up at weekends until at least eight.’
Earlier this year the Daily Mail reported on Sutcliffe’s cushy lifestyle in Broadmoor, where he eats chocolate, watches television and listens to music. He is allowed visitors four days a week, each of whom can stay for up to four hours.
Sutcliffe is said to have money to spend in the psychiatric hospital’s shop, and attends a ceramics workshop and twice-weekly bible studies sessions.
Tory MP Alec Shelbrooke said: ‘To use the scarce resources of the NHS on a mass murderer is very difficult to comprehend.’
It is the first time Sutcliffe has been seen in public since his Old Bailey trial in 1981, although it is not the first time he has been out.
Ten years ago, he paid a secret visit to Arnside, Cumbria, where his father John’s ashes were scattered.
The serial killer was jailed for life in 1981 after admitting killing 13 women and attempting to murder seven more between 1975 and 1981 in Yorkshire and Greater Manchester.
Mr Justice Mitting likened Sutcliffe to a ‘terrorist’, saying the ‘brutality and gravity’ of his crimes meant he should never be released.
Sutcliffe has spent most of his life sen--- tence in Broadmoor after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1984.
He refused treatment until 1993, when the Mental Health Commission ruled that he should be forcibly given anti-psychotic medication.
He has been attacked at least three times, and lost the sight in his left eye in 1997 when he was stabbed with a pen by fellow patient Ian Kay. The sight in his right eye is failing due to a condition linked to diabetes.
I t costs t axpayers more t han £300,000 a year to detain him in Broadmoor, at least five times the cost of a prison cell.